Events

Fall fairs and fests

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Listings are compiled by Guardian staff.

 

Aug. 30

Pilgrim Soul Forge Harvest Fair Pilgrim Soul Forge, 101 West Tower, Alameda; www.grantsforge.com. Noon-6pm, free. Possibly the only fall fair in the Bay Area to offer blacksmithing demonstrations alongside the usual suspects: food trucks, craft vendors, and live music.

Savor Filipino Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero at Market, SF; www.savorfilipino.com. 10am-6pm, free (most workshops $15). Try the best in Filipino cuisine at this gathering of chefs and authors, with a huge menu of tasty eats (check it out online) and workshops on vegan Filipino cooking, modern Filipino desserts, and other tasty topics. Plus: live music and traditional dance performances, and a “Dance That Lumpia Off” audience-participation activity.

 

Aug. 30-31

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival 400 Broadway, Millbrae; www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. Downtown Millbrae’s annual Mardi Gras-style celebration, with live music, a juried art show, a classic car show, carnival-style rides, and tons of specialty food and drink vendors.

San Francisco Zine Fest SF County Fair Building, 1199 Ninth Ave, SF; www.sfzinefest.org. Aug 30, 11am-5pm; Aug 31, 11am-4pm. Free. Support indie writers, artists, and creators at this annual event, with exhibitions, workshops, book signings, and more. Special guests include Ryan Sands (publishing company Youth in Decline), Tomas Moniz (RAD DAD zine), and illustrator and cartoonist Hellen Jo.

 

Aug. 30-31

SF Bay Brazilian Day and Lavagem Festival Casa de Cultura, 1901 San Pablo, Berk; www.brasarte.com. 11am-7pm, free. Celebrate Brazilian Independence Day with a lavagem (blessing) calling for world peace, plus Brazilian music, food, a “Caipirinha lounge,” and more.

 

Aug. 31

Oakland Pride Uptown Oakl; www.oaklandpride.org. Parade starts at 10:30am, Broadway and 14th St; festival, 11am-7pm, Broadway at 20th Sts. Parade free; festival $5-10. It’s the very first year for the Oakland Pride Parade, while Sheila E headlines the fifth annual festival, billed as the second-largest pride event in NorCal.

 

Sept. 6

SF Mountain Bike Festival McLaren Park, Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, 20 John F. Shelley, SF; sfurbanriders.org/wordpress/sf-mtb-festival. 9am-5pm, free. Register in advance to compete — or just show up to spectate or test your skills in any of the non-competitive categories. Events include a short-track challenge, a 10-mile urban adventure ride, a cargo bike hill climb, a bike skills challenge for youth and families, and more, plus a box jump demo and a bike raffle.

 

Sept. 6-7

Autumn Moon Festival Chinatown, SF; www.moonfestival.org. Grand opening ceremony and parade, Sept 6, 11am; festival, 11am-5pm (dog costume contest, Sept 7, 2:30pm). Free. Cultural performances, an open-air street bazaar, lion dancing, and (new this year!) a dog costume contest highlight this 24th annual celebration of the Asian holiday.

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn, Mtn View; www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. With works by over 600 professional craftspeople and artists, plus live music, home and garden exhibits, a young-performers stage, a climbing wall, food and wine, and more.

 

Sept. 7

Haight Street Music and Merchants Street Festival Haight between Masonic and Stanyan, SF; hsmmsf@gmail.com. Noon-6pm, free. Yep, it’s another street fair on Haight — but this brand-new event has a highly local focus, since it’s sponsored by local merchants. Expect three stages of music, kids’ activities, a skate ramp, and more.

 

Sept. 13

Sea Music Festival San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, SF; www.nps.gov/safr/planyourvisit/seamusicfestival2014.htm. 9am-5pm; evening chantey sing, 7:30-9:30pm. Outdoor performances free; admission to historic ships $5 (15 and under with adult supervision, free). Learn about maritime history through music at this all-day fest of traditional and contemporary songs, instrumentals, and dances. The Sea Music Concert Series continues aboard the Balclutha Sept 20, Oct 25, and Nov 25 ($12-14 or a season ticket, $36).

 

Sept. 13-14

Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 North Point, SF; ghirardelli.com/chocolatefestival. Noon-5pm, $20-40. Help raise money for Project Open Hand and satisfy your sweet tooth at this 19th annual dessert and wine fiesta. In addition to offering samples of gourmet goodies from over 50 vendors , Ghirardelli hosts chef demos, a silent auction, a “Chocolate School” (learn about the chocolate-making process!), and the ever-popular hands-free sundae-eating contest.

 

Sept. 14

Comedy Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.comedyday.com. Noon-5pm, free. This year’s incarnation of the free, all-day comedy festival is dedicated to the memory of supporter (and frequent unannounced performer) Robin Williams.

Sunday Streets: Western Addition Fillmore between Geary and Fulton; Fulton between Fillmore and Baker, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. What traffic? Explore the neighborhood (including Alamo Square) on foot or bike.

 

Sept. 19-21

Eat Real Festival Jack London Square, Oakl; www.eatrealfest.com. Sept 19, 1-9pm; Sept 20, 10:30am-9pm; Sept 21, 10:30am-5pm. Free. Billed as a combo “state fair, street-food festival, and block party,” this fest offers sustainable, regionally-sourced eats (BBQ, ice cream, curry, and more) costing eight bucks or less.

Oktoberfest by the Bay Pier 48, SF; www.oktoberfestbythebay.com. Sept 19, 5pm-midnight; Sept 20, 11am-5pm and 6pm-midnight; Sept 21, 11am-6pm. $25-75 (Sept 20-21 day session, kids 13-18, $5; must be accompanied by parent). The Chico Bavarian Band returns to add oompah to your eating and, more importantly, drinking experience. Prost!

 

Sept. 20-21

Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival #58 Old Mill Park, 325 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.mvfaf.org. 10am-5pm, $5-10. Over 140 fine artists participate in this fair, which is held in a can’t-be-beat location (hi, majestic redwoods) and also features live music and children’s entertainment.

 

Sept. 21

Folsom Street Fair Folsom between Eighth and 13th Sts, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $10 donation requested (donation sticker entitles wearer to $2 off drinks). The leather and fetish fantasia returns with over 200 exhibitor booths, two giant dance floors, public play stations, erotic art, and more.

 

Sept. 27

Bay Area Record Fair Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St, SF; www.theeparkside.com. 11am, $5 early entry (free after noon). Vinyl junkies, take note: over 30 Bay Area indie labels participate at this semi-regular event, which also boasts live music, DJs, raffles, and more.

San Mateo Bacon and Brew Festival Central Park, Fifth Ave and El Camino Real, San Mateo; www.sanmateochamber.org/bbf. 11am-5pm, $15. This fest breaks it down to the essentials. Admission gets you a free beer (or soft drink), while food vendors favor you-know-which crispy pork product.

SuperHero Street Fair 1700 Indiana, SF; www.superherosf.com. 1-11pm, $10. Seven stages and 13 “sound camps” provide the beats for this fifth annual festival celebrating heroes, villains, sidekicks, and everything in between. It goes without saying that costumes are highly encouraged.

 

Sept. 28

“A Day on the Water 2” Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker, Berk; (510) 677-9425. Noon-7pm, free. Outdoor fair and music festival with Manzo Rally, Afrofunk Experience, Crosscut, and more.

Sunday Streets: Excelsior Mission between Theresa/Avalon and Geneva, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. Hit the street at this edition of Sunday Streets, which coincides with the sixth annual Tricycle Music Fest at the Excelsior Branch Library (sfpl.org/tricycle for more info).

 

Oct. 4

“Oaktoberfest” Fruitvale at MacArthur, Oakl; www.oaktoberfest.org. 11am-6pm, free. Family-friendly craft beer festival, with over 30 participating local breweries, a Bavarian big band and dancers, German food vendors, and more.

 

Oct. 4-5

Alternative Press Expo Fort Mason Center, Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina, SF; comic-con.org/ape. Check website for updates regarding times and badge prices. APE is back to celebrate alternative and small-press comics in a new venue, with a guest list that includes Bob Fingerman, Faith Erin Hicks, Ed Piskor, Paul Pope, Jason Shiga, and many more.

 

Oct. 5

Castro Street Fair, Castro at Market, SF; www.castrostreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free (donate at the gate to get $1 off at fair beverage booths). Five different entertainment areas (including a main stage, a “legends” stage, and “Barnaby’s World of Wonderment”) highlight this annual event, which was founded by Harvey Milk in 1974. Performers were TBD at press time, so check the website closer to the event for updates.

 

Oct. 9

Union Street Wine Walk Union between Gough and Steiner, SF; www.sresproductions.com. 4-8pm, free (sampling tickets, $25). Restaurants and merchants offer wine tasting and small bites at this fifth annual neighborhood event.

 

Oct. 10-18

Litquake Various venues, SF; www.litquake.org. San Francisco’s annual literary festival turns 15 this year, with a week full of live readings, performances, panels, and multimedia events, including tributes to Octavio Paz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Barbary Coast Award will be presented to Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida and their many projects, including 826 Valencia and McSweeney’s.

 

Oct. 11

Woodside Day of the Horse Woodside Town Hall, 2955 Woodside, Woodside; www.whoa94062.org. 10am-2:30pm, free (progressive trail ride, $40). The Woodside-area Horse Owners Association (WHOA) celebrates Year of the Horse with stagecoach rides, live music, a petting zoo, and more, plus an organized trail ride for experienced riders and their horses to raise money for the organization’s charitable community projects.

 

Oct. 11-12

World Vegetarian Festival SF County Fair Building, 1199 Ninth Ave, SF; www.worldvegfestival.com. 10:30am-8:45pm, free. The SF Vegetarian Society’s annual event features cooking demos, exhibitors, speakers, an eco-fashion show, entertainment, and samples galore.

 

Oct. 12

Italian Heritage Parade Begins at Jefferson and Stockton, proceeds on Columbus, and ends in Washington Square, SF; www.sfcolumbusday.org. 12:30pm, free. Established in 1868, this North Beach tradition features handmade floats, a costumed Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella, Italian music, a Ferrari display, and more.

 

Oct. 13

World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off IDES Grounds, 735 Main Street, Half Moon Bay; weighoff.miramarevents.com. 7-11am, free. Who will reign supreme at this 41st annual battle of the bulge, dubbed the “Superbowl of Weigh-Offs”? Last year’s champ tipped the scales at 1,985 pounds — that’s a lotta pie!

 

Oct. 18

Noe Valley Harvest Festival 24th St between Sanchez and Church, SF; www.noevalleyharvestfestival.com. 10am-5pm, free. This 10th annual shindig aims to help you get a jump on holiday shopping, with over 50 local artisans showing their creations. Also: two stages of music, costume contests for dogs and kids, a dunk tank, a pumpkin patch, and more.

Potrero Hill Festival 20th St between Wisconsin and Missouri, SF; www.potrerofestival.com. 11am-4pm, free. Now in its 25th year, this neighborhood block party features local food and entertainment — including a kick-off Cajun-style brunch ($5-12) with Dixieland jazz — plus pony rides and a bouncy house for kids.

 

Oct. 18-19

Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival Main between Mill and Spruce, Half Moon Bay; www.miramarevents.com. 9am-5pm, free. They don’t call Half Moon Bay the World Pumpkin Capital for nothing — the coastal town represents at its 44th annual gourd-tastic throwdown with three stages of music, the Great Pumpkin Parade (Oct 18 at noon), a haunted house attraction, expert Jack O’ Lantern carving, and food and drinks galore (pumpkin beer, anyone?)

 

Oct. 19

Sunday Streets: Mission 18th St between Guerrero and Harrison and Valencia between 25th and Duboce, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. Sunday Streets returns to the Mission! Check the website after Oct. 3 for updates on planned activities.

 

Oct. 25

San Francisco’s Wharf Fest Fisherman’s Wharf, SF; www.sresproductions.com. 11am-6pm, free. Celebrate SF’s waterfront history at this event, with a chowder competition, chef demos, ship tours, street performers, fireworks, and more.

 

Nov. 2

San Francisco Day of the Dead Procession and Festival of Altars Festival, Garfield Park, 26th St and Harrison, SF; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 6-11pm, free. Procession begins at 22nd St and Bryant, SF; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 7pm, free. Add a personal altar for a loved one who has passed away to the display at Garfield Park (candles must be in glass containers; no open flames allowed), and bring canned food to donate to St. Anthony’s Foundation, in honor of the altar memorializing the deaths of homeless people in SF. The procession, led by Rescue Culture Collective, circles the Mission accompanied by traditional Aztec dancers.

 

Nov. 14-16

Green Festival Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, SF; www.greenfestivals.org/sf. Nov 14, noon-6pm; Nov 15-16, 10am-6pm. $15-30. Learn how to “work green, play green, and live green” at this expo, an ode to health and sustainability. Featured events include vegan and vegetarian cooking demos, inspirational speakers, and a marketplace with more than 250 eco-friendly businesses. *

 

Waiting for answers

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rebecca@sfbg.com

As word spread to San Francisco that police in Ferguson, Mo., were taking reporters into custody and firing tear gas at demonstrators outraged by the death of Mike Brown, a small group of writers and organizers with ties to the Mission District was gearing up to hold street demonstrations of its own.

On Aug. 21 and 22, they staged vigils and a march and rally in memory of a different shooting victim: Alejandro (“Alex”) Nieto, who died suddenly in Bernal Heights Park on March 21 after being struck by a volley of police bullets.

Despite palpable anger expressed during the events held to mark five months since Nieto’s death, it was a far cry from the angry demonstrations unleashed on the streets of Ferguson, where it was like something stretched too far and snapped.

People who knew Nieto gathered for a sunset vigil in Bernal Heights Park at the place where he was killed. They returned the following morning for a sunrise vigil, incorporating a spiritual element with Buddhist chanting. Hours later, in a march preceded by dancers who spun in the streets, donning long feathered headdresses and ankle rattles made out of hollowed tree nuts, they progressed from Bernal Hill to the San Francisco Federal Building.

Despite a visible police mobilization, the protests remained peaceful, with little interaction between officers and demonstrators. Instead, the focus remained on the contents of a civil rights complaint filed Aug. 22 by attorney John Burris, famous for his track record of representing victims of police violence.

Burris, who is representing Nieto’s parents, said he rejected the SFPD’s explanation of why officers were justified in discharging their weapons and killing Nieto. “What we will seek to do is to vindicate his interests, his good name, and to show through the evidence that the narrative put forth by the police was just flat-out wrong,” Burris said at the rally.

Nieto’s encounter with police arose because a 911 caller erroneously reported that he had a black handgun, leading police to enter the park in search of a gunman. In reality, Nieto possessed a Taser, not a firearm. On the night he was killed, he’d gone to the park to eat a burrito just before starting his shift as a part-time security guard at a nightclub, where all the guards carry Tasers. In addition to working at that job, Nieto, who was 28, had been studying administration of justice at City College of San Francisco in hopes of becoming a youth probation officer.

Days after the shooting, police said Nieto had pointed his Taser at officers when they approached. At a March 26 town hall meeting convened shortly after the incident, Police Chief Greg Suhr told attendees that Nieto had “tracked” officers with his Taser, emitting a red laser.

“When the officers asked him to show his hands, he drew the Taser from the holster. And these particular Tasers, as soon as they’re drawn, they emit a dot. A red dot,” Suhr said, adding that Nieto had verbally challenged officers when they asked him to drop his weapon. “When the officers saw the laser sight on them, tracking, they believed it to be a firearm, and they fired at Mr. Nieto.”

Yet attorney Adante Pointer, of Burris’s law office, told the Bay Guardian that a person claiming to be an eyewitness to the shooting has come forward with a different account. The witness, whose identity Pointer did not disclose, said he never saw Nieto draw his Taser and did not hear any verbal exchange prior to bullets being fired.

“To suggest that he’d engaged in the most ridiculous outrageous conduct, of pointing a … Taser at the police when they had guns drawn, is insulting,” Burris said at the rally.

The version of events included in the complaint, which Pointer said was based in part on witness accounts, differs greatly from the SFPD account.

“An SFPD patrol car entered the park and drove up a fire trail before stopping approximately 75 to 100 feet away from Mr. Nieto who at that time was casually walking down the jogging trail to the park’s entrance,” Burris’ complaint states. “Two officers emerged from the patrol car and immediately took cover using their car for protection. Several other officers had also gathered on the jogging path, appeared to be carrying rifle-type guns and were positioned behind Mr. Nieto. One of the officers behind the patrol car called out and ordered Mr. Nieto to ‘stop.’ Within seconds a quick volley of bullets were fired at Mr. Nieto. No additional orders or any other verbal communication was heard between the first officer yelling ‘stop’ and the initial volley of gunfire that rang out.”

SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza told us the department was unable comment on the matter because “anytime there’s a lawsuit, we cease to speak to anybody about that.”

Adriana Camarena, an author and Mission District resident who helped organize the rally, decried the lack of transparency surrounding the Nieto case in comments delivered outside the Federal Building.

“For five months, city officials have kept sealed all records that could explain what happened on March 21 2014,” Camarena charged. “For five months, SFPD, the Police Commission, the District Attorney’s Office, the Medical Examiner’s Office, and the mayor have maintained in secrecy the names of the four officers who killed Alex Nieto, the original 911 calls, eyewitness reports, the number of bullets fired, and the autopsy report. For five months, the Nieto family has been kept in the dark about the facts that could ease some of their trauma about what happened the day that police killed their son.”

Mike Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson on Aug. 9. On Aug. 11, following angry demonstrations, police said they would release the name of the officer who shot Brown — but declined to do so Aug. 12, citing fears over the officer’s safety and threats communicated via social media. Yet on Aug. 15, Officer Darren Wilson was identified by officials as the person who shot Brown.

In San Francisco, the names of the four officers who shot Nieto have not been released. Esparza told the Guardian that this was because “there’s specified credible threats against the officers’ lives,” citing a Supreme Court ruling determining that law enforcement agencies can withhold this information under such circumstances.

In addition to the federal civil complaint, friends and supporters of Nieto delivered a petition with almost 1,000 signatures to the U.S. Department of Justice, calling for a federal investigation into the shooting.

Multiple investigations are underway at the local level, but have been stalled due to one missing piece: an autopsy report to be issued by the San Francisco Medical Examiner. Despite the delay in releasing the formal autopsy results, “We did see the body and we did take photographs of it,” Burris noted, referring to his office’s review of the body after it was released to Nieto’s family for burial. Based on that review, Burris said attorneys determined that Nieto had been shot by police more than 10 times.

We placed multiple phone calls to the offices of the Medical Examiner and the District Attorney seeking details about the status of the investigation and to ask about the delay, but received no response.

However Bill Barnes, a spokesperson for the City Administrator’s Office, which the Medical Examiner’s Office reports to, told us the timing of the report is consistent with that of other complex homicide investigations. Barnes added that the Medical Examiner’s Office is waiting on the results of a second toxicology report. The initial results were inconclusive, he said, so another round of testing was initiated.

But that explanation does little to quell the anger of activists who say the SFPD is merely seeking to cover up an unjustified shooting. Pointer said he could see no reason for information being withheld for five months.

“There’s no reason as to why the information that this family deserves as to how their son — our brother, our friend, our leader, our organizer — met his death,” he said at the rally. “There’s just no reason why that story hasn’t been told. If you, the police department, had been justified, why not be transparent? Why not open up your files and let us inspect it so that we can see that what you’re saying is the truth?”

Burning Man shark jump creates media pile-on

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We seem to have tapped into the meme of the moment with last week’s cover story, “Burning Man jumps the shark,” which took issue with how this high-minded experiment has been sullied by the money-driven values and practices of mainstream America, with the complicity of the company that stages the event.   

The SF Weekly also had a Burning Man cover story that same day, a more uncritical piece written by an event insider Ben Wachs that nonetheless slammed the organization’s deceptive transition to nonprofit status. He wrote that “not one person contacted for this article said they understood what The Burning Man Project does, or how it’s supposed to advance the culture.”

The same day that those two papers hit the streets, The New York Times published “A Line is Drawn in the Desert,” a revealing and scathing indictment of how rich, clueless tech titans are undermining the event’s stated “Participation” and “Radical Self-Reliance” principles with exclusive, walled-off, servant-staffed camps built with dues of as much as $25,000 per person.  

“Over the last two years, Burning Man, which this year runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 1, has been the annual getaway for a new crop of millionaire and billionaire technology moguls, many of whom are one-upping one another in a secret game of I-can-spend-more-money-than-you-can and, some say, ruining it for everyone else,” writes reporter Nick Bilton, a Burning Man veteran.

And the on-playa publication BRC Weekly threw several great articles onto last week’s pile-on, including the searing satire “Ten Principles of Earning Man,” which it lists as: Radical Seclusion, Grifting, Project Branding, Radical Staff Compliance, Radical Self-Indulgence, Corporate Support, Plausible Deniability, Petroleum Powered Space, Appropriation, and Expediency.

The paper’s regular “Lingo” and “Out/In” lists also includes a few gems. “Broner: Derogatory tern for male burners who can’t seem to leave their obnoxious and entitled douchbag behavior back in the Default World.” And it concludes that “whining” about Burning Man is out and “staying home” is in.

It is true that many longtime burners are indeed staying home this year (including yours truly), but it’ll be interesting to see what impact this chorus of current criticism has on future events and the company that stages them.   

 

PS Even God/Mother Nature is being hard on Burning Man this year, with huge rainstorms early this morning making the playa impassible and currently shutting down access to the event until the surface dries out, probably tomorrow at the earliest. 

Researcher explores police and protester violence in the Occupy movement

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As the nation’s eyes watch police officers in Ferguson firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds of protesters, one UC Berkeley sociologist is exploring how and why such violent conflicts erupt in the first place.

Nicholas Adams and his team call themselves Deciding Force. Its goal? To prevent violence between police and protesters at peaceful demonstrations through deep data analysis of the Occupy movement.

“There’s a misconception that police have a single style or repertoire to approaching protests,” Adams told the Guardian. “They have a range, and they should know better how to use these tools.”

Adams hopes to facilitate free speech by demonstrating best practices in nationwide police tactics, to allow peaceful protesters to trumpet their message without the threat of violence. The study, he said, is made possible by the variety of geographic locations the Occupy movement took place in. The different municipalities and varying levels of police use of force provided a buffet of data for Adams and his fellow researchers to compile and parse.

A video about the project.

They started with news reports of various Occupy movements nationwide, which were then compared to other local and national news articles for accuracy and to help identify bias. Even that process revealed interesting data, he said.

“Media bias is most often a bias of omission,” he told us. “You go to protest events and what happens most often is a news outlet won’t report on it. Fox News outlets across the country reported on the Occupy movement at drastically low rates. If an ABC affiliate reported on an Occupy (encampment) 100 times, Fox News affiliates reported it three times.”

The researchers then handpick relevant data from those news articles and broadcasts. The next step is even trickier (and wonderfully geeky).

Adams and the researchers trained computer programs to pick similar data from the over 8,000 news reports, automating the process. Articles from Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and more than 200 cities with Occupy movements are parsed for patterns. Did the police wear riot gear? What formations did they use? Were horses present? Assault vehicles? Was the crowd mostly Latino, black, white, Asian, or a mix? Were the Occupiers sitting or standing? These are the few of the hundreds of variables crunched by Adams’ team. 

After the variable compiling, the computer’s usefulness ends and the human element picks up again, as Adams and his sociologists then sift through the patterns to see what elevates conflict between police and protesters. In the end, he hopes to be able to show police departments what specific actions can de-escalate violent situations.

The team has been at it for two years, and already the data is yielding some results. Police skirmish lines, for instance, are a heavy indicator that violence will occur.

“You’re facing off against protesters,” he said. “It’s called a skirmish line for a reason. You’re setting up skirmishes.”

But Adams’ research isn’t just about aiding police forces, it’s about holding them legally accountable for escating violence, he said.

“You can start to, from a legal standpoint, establish liability with research like ours,” he told us. “If we reach out to police departments later on attorneys can hold them accountable for their actions.”

And with that information in hand, maybe future incidents like the clashes in Ferguson may be prevented. At the very least, there may be a stronger legal mechanism with which to hold police accountable for clashes with citizens.

You can read more about Deciding Force’s research here, and support them through their IndieGoGo campaign

Events: Fall fairs and festivals

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Click here for our guide to fall fairs and festivals as part of this week’s Fall Arts Preview issue 

Alerts: August 20 – 26, 2014

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THURSDAY 21

 

Forum on Keystone XL Pipeline

The Commonwealth Club of California, 595 Market, SF. 6pm, $20 non-members, $12 members, $7 students (with valid ID). Join David Baker, energy reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, and John Cushman, author of Keystone & Beyond and former New York Times reporter in this discussion on a controversial national pipeline project that’s given rise to one of the biggest political fights over energy in decades. With American oil production increasing and domestic demand in decline, does it make sense to build the Keystone XL pipeline?

 

 

Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism Party

Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem, 2323 Mission, SF. tinyurl.com/globalhappyhour. 5:30-10:30pm, free. Ten percent of bar sales will be donated to Global Exchange. “Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism” might sound like a strange name for a party, but hey, that’s just what happens when you’re partying with international human rights organization Global Exchange.

 

FRIDAY 22

 

March against police violence

Alex Nieto Memorial, Bernal Heights Park, north side, SF. justice4alexnieto.org. Noon, free. Family and supporters of Alex Nieto, a Latino youth killed by the San Francisco Police Department earlier this year after his Taser was mistaken for a firearm, will march in his memory on the five-month anniversary of his death. In the wake of the Mike Brown shootings, the ongoing events in Nieto’s memory seek to inspire a new civil rights movement in the Bay Area against police violence. The march will proceed to the San Francisco Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate, where activists will hold a rally at 3pm.

 

SATURDAY 23

 

El Tecolote’s 44th Anniversary

Cesar’s Latin Palace, 926 26th St., SF. eltecolate.org. 8pm, $20. Celebrate 44 years of coverage with the San Francisco community newspaper El Tecolote. Featuring food, a raffle, and music from John Santos, Roger Glenn, Tito Gonzalez and Anthony Blea. All proceeds to benefit El Tecolote and community journalism.

SUNDAY 24 350 East Bay celebration and picnic Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Lake Merritt Blvd., Oakl. 350bayarea.org. Noon-3pm, free. Concerned about global warming but unsure how to make a difference? Drop in for 350 East Bay’s Climate Connection Celebration and get involved with a volunteer organization that’s dedicated to reducing carbon pollution in the Bay Area and beyond.

Burning Man jumps the shark

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steve@sfbg.com

The question of when Burning Man jumped the shark is a matter of perspective, or perhaps it’s a philosophical question, but these are waters worth wading into as burners pack up this week for their annual pilgrimage to the playa.

The meme that Burning Man has jumped the shark — that is, that it’s gotten ridiculous or strayed from its original ethos — circulated more strongly this year than most after conservative firebrand Grover Norquist last month tweeted that he was “off to ‘Burning Man’ this year. Scratch one off the bucket list.”

But burners and media commentators have been saying it for years, sparked by developments ranging from the increasingly top-down control over a temporary city built with volunteer labor from the bottom-up to the sheer scale and inertia of an event that is now pushing 70,000 participants.

John Law, who co-founded the artsy Nevada desert bacchanal, walked away from Burning Man after the deadly and chaotic 1996 event, believing that the commercial and regulatory structure that followed was antithetical to the countercultural, DIY values on which burner culture was based.

The population of Black Rock City then doubled in size within two years, and doubled again within four more, prompting some burners to say 30,000 people — including a growing number of straight-laced newbies drawn by mainstream media coverage — was just too many.

At the end of 2004, dozens of the event’s marquee artists and performers launched a high-profile revolt against how Black Rock City LLC was running the event (see “State of the art,” 12/20/04). “The fix must address many issues, but the core issue for the fix is the art,” they wrote in a petition that ran as a full-page ad in the Guardian. “Art, art, art: that is what this is all about.”

But little changed. Burning Man had caught fire and the LLC was more interested in stoking the flames than controlling the conflagration. It promoted more regional burns around the world, created new offshoot organizations to spread the burner art and ethos, consolidated control of the brand and trademarks, and spelled out the “Ten Principles” that all Burning Man events would live by.

The burner backlash against that trend took many forms, but the most fiery dissent came on Monday night during the 2007 Burning Man when Paul Addis torched the eponymous Man to bring the chaos back to an event that he felt had grown too staid and scripted.

Burner officialdom responded by simply building a new Man and helping secure a four-year federal prison sentence for Addis — both decisions made without soliciting any input from the larger burner community. Coming after some corporate-style chicanery earlier that year involving control of the event’s trademark and logo (see “Burning brand,” 1/16/07), that’s when Burning Man seemed to peak, like the ramp that launched Fonzie over the sharks.

At the time, I was deeply involved with covering Burning Man culture for the Bay Guardian, reporting that would later go into my 2011 book, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture.

But if jumping the shark is an idiom based on when things get really ridiculous, a point at which self-awareness withers and something becomes a caricature of what it once was, then the events of 2007 were just warm-up laps for the spectacle to come.

 

COMMUNITY VS. THE COMPANY

At this point, let me be clear that Burning Man is still one of the greatest parties on the planet. The Black Rock Desert is a spectacular setting, much of the art created for Burning Man each year is innovative and mind-blowing, and the experience of spending a week in a commerce-free, open-minded temporary city can truly be transformative, especially for those doing it for the first time.

I also have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the community members who give so much of themselves to creating Black Rock City’s art and infrastructure. And I give credit to founder Larry Harvey and other event leaders for creating such a wondrous vehicle for creative expression and community-building and keeping it running for nearly three decades.

But when an organization asserts a set of high-minded utopian values, it’s only fair to judge it by those standards. And when it claims the economic value of the labors of tens of thousands of voluntary participants as its own company assets, questions of accountability and commodification naturally arise.

For example, Burning Man has always asserted the value of “Decommodification,” which is one of its Ten Principles: “In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation.”

Yet the LLC has closely guarded its control over the Burning Man name, logo, images, and associated brands, resisting efforts to place them in the public domain and even waging legal battles against longtime burners who try to use them, including a current conflict with Canadian burners over how much the company can control a culture there that it didn’t actually create.

Licensing of the Burning Man brand and images has been a secret source of income for the company, which doesn’t publicly disclose its revenues, only its expenditures. In recent years, those brands and commodities have been transferred to a new entity controlled by the original six LLC board members, ironically named Decommodification LLC.

Some of the other Burning Man principles can seem just a farcical, including Radical Inclusion (“No prerequisites exist for participation in our community,” except the $380 ticket), Communal Effort (but “cooperation and collaboration” apparently don’t apply to decisions about how the event is managed or how large it gets), and Civic Responsibility (“We value civil society,” says the organization that eschews democratic debate about its direction and governance structure).

Meanwhile, Harvey and company have promised greater transparency and accountability at some future point, through The Burning Man Project, a nonprofit organization formed a few years ago ostensibly to take over running the event from BRC LLC (see “The future of Burning Man,” 8/2/11) .

But it hasn’t exactly rolled out that way. As I’ve reported (see “Burning questions,” 6/4/13), the original six board members have maintained tight control over all aspects of the event, appointing new nonprofit board members mostly for their fundraising ability and willingness to toe the company line, rather than seeking representation from the various constituent burner communities.

Even then, with a board hand-picked for its loyalty (which apparently goes both ways, given how the LLC has supported hagiographic Burning Man film and book projects by two of its new nonprofit board members), Harvey still remains wary of “undue meddling” by the new board, as he put it to me.

On top of that sundae, add the cherry that is Harvey’s public admission that all six board members have, as part of this transition, awarded themselves large financial settlements in amounts that will never be disclosed, and one might expect burners to revolt.

But they haven’t. Most just don’t care about these internal company dynamics (except for a few brave souls at the excellent Burners.me blog), no matter how questionable, as long as their beloved Burning Man still happens on schedule. And that’s why I think Burning Man has truly jumped the shark, launching from the ramp of a high-minded experiment and splashing down into the tepid waters of mass-consumed hedonism.

 

BUCKET LIST

Today, almost every bucket list on the Internet — those things that everyone is advised to do before they die — includes Burning Man. It has become the ultimate commodity, a product that everyone, from all walks of life, is encouraged to consume. Doing so is easier than ever these days.

After tickets sold out for the first time ever in 2011 — and a flawed new ticketing system unilaterally created by the LLC in 2012 triggered widespread criticism and anxiety — the company opted to just increase the population of Black Rock City by more than 20 percent, peaking at 69,613 last year.

Everyone felt the difference. Popular spots like the dance parties at Distrikt on Friday afternoon or Robot Heart at dawn on Saturday reached shit show proportions, with just way too many people. And this year will be more of the same.

In the old days, going to Burning Man was difficult, requiring months of preparation with one’s chosen campmates to create internal infrastructure (shade, showers, kitchen, etc.) and something to gift the community (an art car, a bar, a stage and performances to fill it, etc.).

But with the rise of plug-and-play camps in recent years, those with money can fly into Black Rock City and buy their way into camps that set up their RVs, cook their meals, stock their costumes and intoxicants, decorate their bikes, and clean it all up at the end. Such camps have become a source of employment for entrepreneurial veteran burners, but they cut against the stated principles of Participation and Radial Self-Reliance.

While LLC board member Marian Goodell told me that “we’re big into listening mode at the moment” as they decide what’s next for Burning Man, she also claims to have heard no concerns from burners about the event’s current size or direction, and she denies the nonprofit transition was ever about loosening their grip on the event.

“We’ve never talked about turning Burning Man back to the community,” Goodell told me last week, accusing me of misinterpreting comments by Harvey when he announced the transition, such as, “We want to get out of running Burning Man. We want to move on.”

This is the world that Grover Norquist will enter next week, after being personally encouraged to attend Burning Man by Harvey, as Norquist told the National Review last month. Norquist was drawn to the event’s libertarian image rather than its stated communitarian values, a dichotomy that its leaders have never sought to resolve. Norquist even compared Burning Man to his right-wing Americans for Tax Reform, which has pressured most Republican politicians to sign pledges never to raise taxes.

“There’s no government that organizes this,” Norquist said of Burning Man, an event held on federal land, accessed by public roads, and actively regulated by local, state, and federal agencies. “That’s what happens when nobody tells you what to do. You just figure it out. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature.”

Yes, kiddies, the shark has been jumped. But I hope all my burner friends still have a great week in the desert.

Paul McCartney bids Candlestick a fiery goodbye

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My earliest memories of Candlestick are formative ones. Like any Bay Area kid who cut her baseball teeth on Giants games at the notoriously frigid stadium, I thought every family prepared for sporting events by piling on 17 strategic layers and stuffing their car full of sleeping bags and other accoutrements that could double as equipment for scaling Mount Kilimanjaro.  

This has been, of course, most of the park’s (limited) charm: By default, it’s for die-hards only — very few folks want to deal with that traffic and that wind and that fog and that everything else just to sit at the bar and not pay attention to a game — because the place ain’t easy to love. Like so many ex-boyfriends throughout history, it’s been cold, distant, difficult to reach. And, like all great exes, Candlestick needed one last night. 

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Paul McCartney, who bound around the stadium’s stage for nearly three straight hours last night [Aug. 14], clad in black dad jeans, a white collared shirt, and red-and-black-striped suspenders, making silly faces, reading from the signs in the front row, punctuating the ends of songs with a double thumbs-up, and giving the people what they wanted by way of Beatles anecdotes as stage banter, filled that sentimental need in a way it’s difficult to imagine anyone else pulling off.

“I don’t know if you know this, but the Beatles played our last gig at Candlestick,” Sir Paul said casually, about an hour into the set, after an energetic, check-your-pulse-if-you-don’t-find-this-uplifting rendition of “We Can Work It Out,” to a roaring crowd of people from all over the world who definitely did know that. “We got so pissed off we never did it again.”

“No, there are some great memories here,” he continued, “and it’s sad to see the old place closing down. But we’re gonna close it down in style.”

And then he led the entire stadium in a sing-along of “And I Love Her,” turning his back to the crowd and shaking his butt during the sweet, brief guitar solo.

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If you were among the 44,000 people lucky enough to actually make it inside the park (in a timely illustration of one reason the Niners are departing for greener pastures, as many as 6000 frustrated ticket-holders reportedly either turned around and went home after being stuck in traffic for four hours or didn’t get in until nearly 11pm, as the stadium’s one remaining parking lot took on Lord of the Flies undertones), you were treated to what you’d been promised: a 72-year-old living legend — a cliche, but it applies in this instance — reminding you exactly why he’s a legend, and also kind of making you wonder what he’s on that he has this much energy at 72. Vegetarianism?

With a backing band of four — a lead electric guitarist, a bassist, a keyboard player who took care of strings, horns, and all other instrumentation with the somewhat disorienting press of a key, and the super-animated Abe Loboriel Jr. on the drums (who by all appearances was snatched from a Sublime cover band but has in fact toured with McCartney for 13 years) — each of them singing their asses off, as you can only imagine you would do if given the responsibility of filling in for John Lennon and George Harrison on harmonies that used to make girls literally pass out — Sir Paul led a dialed-in, bombastic rock ‘n’ roll show last night.

And it was a rock ‘n’ roll show, from the show-opener of “Eight Days a Week” to the show-ender (rather, second encore-ender) medley of “Carry That Weight,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and “The End,” aka a condensed version of the ending suite from side two of Abbey Road. In between, there was “Paperback Writer,” with McCartney playing the same guitar he used on the original record (one of at least a dozen he played over the course of the night). There was “All My Lovin’,” there was “Lady Madonna.” There was a story about Jimi Hendrix learning Sgt. Pepper’s within two days after it was released in 1967, but using so much whammy bar on it when he played in London that his guitar was then miserably out of tune, and he had to ask Eric Clapton, who was in the crowd, to come tune it for him. 

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There was “Eleanor Rigby” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “Yesterday,” and “Back In the USSR,” and a stadium full of gleeful adults who pay their taxes and run large companies and get the senior discount at the movies singing their faces off to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and the Look at meeeee part of “All Together Now.” (“One of my most serious compositions,” McCartney allowed at that one’s conclusion). There was a ukulele-led “Something” as a tribute to George Harrison. There were unreleased black-and-white photos of the Beatles at Candlestick in 1966 projected behind him as McCartney jumped into the last song they performed that night nearly 50 years ago, “Long Tall Sally.”

He did a handful of Wings songs, prefacing each one with a smirking, self-indulgent “Wings” hand signal. Were they fine? Sure, they were fine. Are they Beatles songs? They are not Beatles songs. They are not “Blackbird,” which he played solo in a spotlight, on top of an elevated portion of the stage (after an introduction that stopped disappointingly short of getting political when he mentioned being inspired by the Civil Rights movement, and terrible things happening “in the Southern part of the United States”). Nor were they “Maybe I’m Amazed,” off his 1970 solo album, which would have sent chills down spines even without the standard “I wrote this for Linda” opening. Songs off the new record (New) played well, with McCartney perched behind a psychedelic rainbow-colored piano: the title track, the jumpy keys-driven “Queenie Eye,” and “Everybody Out There,” from which the “Out There” tour draws its name. Huge-screen videos of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp signing the lyrics during “My Valentine” were, well, huge-screen videos of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp. No complaints. 

The highlights, though? You could point to the the fireworks that shot out of the stadium and the five-foot flames that burst forth from the front of the stage on the first chorus of a super-heavy “Live and Let Die” — though I couldn’t help but think it all would have been cooler if they actually began demolition on the park during that song, maybe letting Paul take the first swing of the sledgehammer?

fireworks
Instagram // alexaikochan

But no. The highlight was — look, this was a pretty awful week to be a person who reads the news. There are awful things happening in Ferguson, Missouri; there are awful images still pouring out of the Middle East; and one of the world’s most reliably uplifting, warm-hearted class clowns decided he didn’t want the job anymore. We want comfort food at times like these. We want things that we know and love to keep on being the way we know and love them.

You know what’s more reassuring than tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich? Paul McCartney singing “Hey Jude” to an entire stadium as a campfire lullaby. Couples in their 70s and 80s with their arms around each other, remembering, looking like they don’t mind the cold one bit. The knowledge that the sight and sound of 44,000 humans of all ages all holding their stupid iPhone lights and singing along to a Beatles song nearly involuntarily, because the melodies are in their bodies, because of the way Beatles songs have transcended the pop canon and are now seemingly passed down to children through DNA or the public water supply, apparently has the power to make you feel like maybe humanity isn’t doomed after all.

We needed that this week. And for Candlestick, it was one hell of a one last time.

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Notes:

— Tailgaters: Well-off middle-aged people in heels and/or NorthFace jackets drinking white wine and microbrews outside of their luxury SUVs in the nearby business park parking lots.

— His set list was not all that different from the one he played exactly a year ago at Outside Lands, several people have noted. None of these people have seemed especially upset by that.

— Shout-out to the people “looting” on their way out (trying to tear a “wine bar” sign off a second-story concrete wall).

— Paul McCartney is starting to look a little like a grandma, yes. But his skin is eerily smooth and there was no denying his energy last night. I do wish he would ditch the hair dye.  

Gaza protests this week and next

Activists with Arab Youth Organization and a number of other entities staged a protest Aug. 6 outside the San Francisco Federal Building, where Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco office is located, calling on U.S. government to end aid to Israel.

“We’re here because humans are dying,” said Linda Ereikat, a 17-year-old Palestinian American who was born and raised in the Bay Area and recently spent a month visiting her grandparents in the West Bank.

“We’re not here because we’re part of a political party. We don’t care about Hamas. We care that our people are dying, and our people are under siege. And it’s just crazy. Regardless of politics, regardless of how you feel, humans are dying. And that’s what really gets me.”

Arab youth organizers and other supporters also planned to hold an Aug. 7 candlelight vigil at 7:30pm in San Francisco’s Union Square, in memory of Palestinians who had been killed during the conflict.

And next week, on Aug. 16, a coalition of organizers is planning to move ahead with a protest against violence in Gaza at the Port of Oakland – which could involve blockading a ship.

According to a flier announcing the Aug. 16 event:

“In 2010, after a Turkish flotilla was attacked by Israel for attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, we built on ILWU’s history [from the movement against apartheid in South Africa] and successfully blocked the Israeli Zim ship from being unloaded at the Port of Oakland – the first time in US history an Israeli ship was blocked. We will be continuing this legacy by organizing to block the Israeli ship once again.”

It seems the exact plans are still under discussion. Asked about it, AYO organizer Samha Ayesh told the Bay Guardian, “We’re trying to work with the port workers to make it successful.”

These events aren’t the only examples of Bay Area street demonstrations held in response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict. A group of demonstrators staged a pro-Israel march in San Francisco last weekend.