Events

Fear the beard

Maria Poblet
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12
Fear the beard

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Christopher Hanson, a 38-year-old single father who lives in Albany, doesn’t have one of those scraggly, runaway beards that one might associate with jam bands or train hopping. He keeps his goatee neat and trimmed, sometimes using scissors to clip back the mustache. Yet Hanson says he got fired last month because his facial hair was deemed a violation of his company’s employee appearance policy. Now, he’s fighting back.

Hanson worked as an audio-video technician for Swank Audio Visuals, a company that does conferences and events at major hotels throughout the Bay Area, including the Westin St. Francis, the Claremont, and the Four Seasons. On the day he was fired, he was on his hands and knees taping down a power cord for an event that was about to start at the Claremont when his supervisor asked to have a word with him. Having spoken with his boss about the beard situation before, he got a funny feeling.

“I just knew what he was going to say,” Hanson recalled. “I thought: are these guys really going to push this, this far?”

For Hanson, having a beard is not a matter of personal expression; nor is it related to religious reasons. He has psoriasis, which prevents him from being able to shave. About a week before he was let go, his dermatologist sent a note to Swank’s human resources department explaining that although he was undergoing treatment, she had counseled him never to shave his beard. It could exacerbate the disease, she explained. Shaving the affected area could cause pain, redness, and irritation on a daily basis, as well as unsightly rash. The doctor urged Swank to grant a medical exception for Hanson.

Hanson says he reminded his boss, Ken Reinaas, and Reinaas’ boss, Todd Liedahl, about that letter when he was approached for their final conversation about the beard. “I said, ‘I have a medical condition,” Hanson recalled. But he says the response he got was, “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.” Hanson says he didn’t yell or let himself become agitated. “I just kind of stood there and tried to keep a calm and humble mannerism,” he said.

About a week later, Swank’s human resources department issued a letter at Hanson’s request explaining why he’d been fired. It stated: “The reason for [sic] end of your employment is due to the fact that we are unable to accommodate your medical request not to shave because this is a standard of our company appearance policy.” Swank did not return multiple Guardian requests for comment.

The job, which had a strict dress code requiring AV techs to wear ties and shirts with collars, paid around $15 an hour. With a teenage daughter to support, Hanson needed every cent to make ends meet. He also had taken on substantial debt to finance an education at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts — a for-profit school in Emeryville with a tuition rate of $11,200 per semester for full-time students — and he needed to be able to pay back the student loans.

Hanson began to suspect that his former employer might have broken the law, so he sought legal representation. According to a complaint filed May 12 on Hanson’s behalf by attorney Albert G. Stoll Jr., the Claremont Hotel — which houses the Swank office where Hanson was based — has no employee restrictions against facial hair. “The manager of hotel banquets had a goatee; one of the hotel banquet employees had a goatee; another hotel banquet employee had a mustache; and at least two other employees had facial hair,” the lawsuit points out.

However, Swank employees were barred from having facial hair because company policy was pegged to the most conservative hotel employee appearance policy in the region, Hanson said.

In the case of the Bay Area, that hotel is the Four Seasons. Before being hired as a full-time AV tech based in Berkeley, Hanson took on part-time gigs for Swank to set up for hotel events as far north as Sausalito and as far south as San Jose. He says that when he was first hired, nobody informed him of the no-beard policy — and he had sported the goatee at the time he was offered the job.

The first time he learned there was a problem was when he was called on to do a job at the Four Seasons in San Francisco. He completed the first job without incident, yet when he was asked to go back a second time, Reinaas told him he would have to shave. He said it was impossible to do that, so the job went to someone else.

When the Guardian phoned the San Francisco Four Seasons to find out just what its employee appearance policy was — and to ask whether exceptions are granted for individuals who cannot shave due to medical or religious reasons — assistant director of human resources Jason Brown said he could not comment.

Months later, after Hanson had been hired as a full-time staff member based at the Claremont, Hanson says he was informed that Swank was ramping up enforcement of its no facial hair policy. He was told he’d have to comply even though he was willing to opt out of work at the Four Seasons. He asked his dermatologist to send the letter urging the company to grant an exception, and shortly after, he was fired.

The lawsuit charges that it was illegal for Swank to fire Hanson because the Fair Employment and Housing Act forbids employers from discharging an employee for designated reasons, including disability. Since Hanson’s psoriasis is a disability, the argument goes, his termination constitutes a form of illegal discrimination.

However, not all medical conditions are considered disabilities in the court of law. Under state law, a disability is considered a serious medical condition that limits a major life activity. If Hanson is successful in proving that psoriasis constitutes a disability, Swank could be ordered to make a reasonable accommodation — such as retaining him as an AV tech while allowing him to opt out of work at the Four Seasons. Hanson’s lawyer Tim Phillips describes this case as being “on the cutting edge of discrimination law.”

There have been similar face-offs over appearance policies in the past, but none that fit Hanson’s circumstance exactly — and, ironically, it seems that he might have an easier time arguing his case in court if he is unable to shave for religious reasons, or if he belongs to a racial minority that is disproportionately affected by a particular medical condition.

Not all cases brought against employers with similar policies in the past have been successful. In 1984, a Sikh machinist working for Chevron refused to shave his beard, in violation of a company policy, and wound up getting demoted to a lower-paid job as a janitor. Chevron’s no-beard rule was created to ensure that employees had a gas-tight seal on respirators worn to protect against exposure to toxic gases, but the machinist could not shave for religious reasons. The Sikh man sued Chevron and lost.

In 1999, Sunni Muslim police officers in Newark sued when they were required to shave their beards to comply with an officer appearance policy, and the court ordered the police department to create an exception for those who couldn’t shave for religious reasons.

Meanwhile, a spate of cases have been brought against no-beard policies at fire departments around the country by African American men suffering from a common skin condition called pseudofolliculitis barbae. The condition, which disproportionately affects African Americans, leaves pimply bumps on the beard area after shaving and can cause scarring over time — and the 100 percent effective cure is to refrain from shaving. No-beard policies in fire departments are borne out of the need for firefighters to wear respirators when battling infernos. While the results of those cases varied from city to city, some plaintiffs were able to show that the policies were a form of racial discrimination because they had a disparate impact on African Americans.

Meanwhile, staff attorney Linda Lye of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California was willing to weigh in. There are no laws banning no-beard policies on the state or federal level, Lye said, yet courts have ordered employers to make exceptions for religious reasons and to prevent racial discrimination in the case of the black firefighters. She added that certain municipalities such as Santa Cruz have enacted employment laws that prevent discrimination in appearance policies. In general, Lye noted, the ACLU is “troubled whenever employees are penalized because of medical conditions, race, sexual orientation, or other similar factors.” 

Why Diablo Canyon is unsafe

Zelda Bronstein
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6
Why Diablo Canyon is unsafe

Bad industrial accidents have a common thread: They happen when more than one thing goes wrong. At the Fukushima nuclear plant, an earthquake damaged the reactors and a tsunami knocked out the backup generators. At Three Mile Island, a series of small mistakes cascaded into a much larger disaster.


And now a new report shows that PG&E’s Diablo Canyon plant has the same problem: Lots of smaller things are messed up, and they could lead to problems in, say, the inevitable earthquake. A fence could block a fire hose from reaching a burning or overheated reactor. The building that houses fire equipment could collapse. And, according to the Bay Citizen:


The plant’s back-up generators might not be usable during a disaster, because PG&E had not considered how to turn them on under adverse conditions. The generators are all stored in the same spot, which could make them “susceptible to a common made failure because of the similarities in design and location.”


These, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission insists, are just minor problems that can be easily fixed. Maybe so, now that they’ve been identified. But there will be other “minor” problems that haven’t shown up yet (just as the minor problem of blueprints being read backward didn’t show up until the last minute in the plant’s construction), because PG&E has never been serious about plant safety. (If the company was serious, the plant would never have been built on an active earthquake fault.)


That’s the problem with this plant (and with nukes in general). The outcome of an accident is so potentially catastrophic that normal safety measures won’t do. Even extraordinary safety measures won’t do. And Diablo is in a bad place where a predictable event — a strong quake on the Hosgri Fault — could trigger a series of unpredictable events (the fire trucks can’t get out of the shed, the backup generators won’t start, etc.) that could lead to an unimaginable disaster.


Time to shut this thing down.

City officials pedal and praise on Bike to Work Day

Sasha Cuttler
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6

photos by Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal

Almost every top city official pedaled up to City Hall this morning for the 17th annual Bike to Work Day, all pledging their support for expanding safe cycling opportunities in San Francisco and declaring the bike to be a vital part of the city’s transportation infrastructure that will only grow in importance in the coming years.

“We should all feel proud that we have more to celebrate than ever in the history of Bike to Work Day,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which sponsored the event and facilitated the rides by city officials, including riding Sups. Jane Kim and Carmen Chu to work on tandem bikes. Shahum praised the city for rapidly expanding the network of bike lanes and facilities over the last year.

Shahum accompanied Mayor Ed Lee on a ride along JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park (which Lee announced will soon get the city’s next separated green bikeway), along car-clogged Fell and Oak streets, through the Wiggle, and along Market Street toward City Hall.

Lee told us, “I feel good, exhilarated,” as he neared City Hall, where he and officials gave speeches praising bikes and calling for improvements to the system. “I want to experiment with ways to have detached bike lanes on Fell and Oak,” Lee said to the applause of cyclists familiar with competing with cars on those fast-moving streets.

Lee also declared his support for the goals of SFBC’s Connecting the City initiative, which calls for a system of safe, crosstown bikeways, connecting the bay to the ocean and the northern waterfront to the south side of the city. He also called for continuing the green bike lanes on Market Street all the way to the Ferry Building and said, “I’m dedicated to it.”

Board President David Chiu, who sponsored the legislation that set the goal of achieving 20 percent of all vehicle trips by bicycle by the year 2020, said he was proud to see so many bikes on the streets today. “Thank you for showing the world how we roll,” he told the crowd, also voicing his support for the crosstown bike route plan. “We have to imagine safe enough conditions for 8- and 80-year-olds to bike.”

“It makes us a healthier, happier, and more vibrant city when we bike together,” Sup. Eric Mar told the gathering.

Sup. Sean Elsbernd was the only member of the board not to bike today, but his fellow fiscal conservative Sup. Mark Farrell biked in from District 2 and told the gathering that improving the city’s bicycling infrastructure “is critical to our future.”

Chu doesn’t ride a bike, but she hoped on a tandem bike with SFBC board member Amandeep Jawa and told him, “Thanks for helping me see San Francisco in a new way,” noting her new appreciation for the sights, smells, and small details that opened up along a route to work that she usually drives.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi called his District 5 the “epicenter” for cycling in the city and declared, “It’s time that we take back Masonic Boulevard…to make sure it’s safe for bicyclists and pedestrians.”

Sup. Jane Kim told the crowd, “I grew up a city girl and I never learned how to ride a bike,” but said that former SFBC director Dave Snyder and others have been trying to teach her recently. In her ride in on the back of a tandem bike, “I got to feel how unsafe it is to have cars and buses jostle around you.”

Sup. Scott Wiener told the gathering, “This was my first Bike to Work Day and it’s not going to be my last.”

Sup. David Campos told us he really enjoyed his ride up Valencia Street, where the stoplights are timed to the pace of bicyclists. “It’s the best ride in the city. If we can make more streets like Valencia we’d be in better shape,” Campos told us.

In his speech, Campos said, “We have so much happening around bicycling, bu we also have a long way to go.”

Sup. Malia Cohen said she biked the longest way in to City Hall, all the way from 3rd Street and Thomas, and that she was happy about both the bike infrastructure improvements and carfree events like Sunday Streets. “I want to encourage you all to come out to the Bayview for Sunday Streets [on June 12],” she said.

For all the celebration and improvements to the system, Sup. John Avalos said it’s important to continue establishing respect on the roads for bicyclists. “We have to change many minds about biking in San Francisco,” he said.

To illustrate the increasingly important role that bicycling is playing in San Francisco, SFMTA Commissioner Cheryl Brinkman cited city studies showing a 58 percent increasing in the number of cyclists on the streets of San Francisco over the last four years, noting a comparable increase in Muni ridership or in motorists on the roads would have resulted in gridlock in those systems.

“It’s a good lesson for us,” Brinkman said, voicing support for the goal to creating 100 miles of dedicated bikeways throughout the city in order to promote safe cycling.

Ghosts of sit-lie past

Zelda Bronstein
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5
Ghosts of sit-lie past

Is sit-lie a case of not learning from our mistakes?

An interesting bit of history that for the most part failed to enter the debate over the ordinance is that San Francisco enacted a similar ban on sitting and lying  in public spaces in the late 1960’s (PDF).

Inspired 40 years later by the same neighborhood, the current sit-lie law is a legislative throwback. Back then, Haight Street was a center of controversy as hippies began to arrive in droves – hanging out, singing, dancing and generally occupying the sidewalks. Some business and property owners were apprehensive over the rapid changes to the neighborhood.

The Board of Supervisor enacted the ordinance, which made it a crime to “willfully sit, lie or sleep in or upon any street, sidewalk or other public place,” with a unanimous vote in 1968. Violation carried a fine of up to $500 and a maximum jail sentence of six months.

Then-Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, who signed the ban into law, told the San Francisco Chronicle the ordinance “will not be used to discriminate against any group or person.” His promise echoes the claims of contemporary proponents of sit-lie.

But police used the law to target not only hippies but also gay men in the Castro. The predictable reality of selective enforcement galvanized popular resistance.

Over the next decade, the ACLU sued and managed to overturn parts of the law. “[The original laws] were being used unjustly by the police against people who were considered undesirable,” said Alan Schlosser, legal director of the ACLU, who has been working for the organization since 1976. They were used against Hippies in the Haight, they were used in the Castro and the Tenderloin against the prostitutes.”

Political pressure from a wide coalition, which included Harvey Milk, convinced the board to rescind the ordinance in 1979. In fact, one of Milk’s signature campaign issues was stopping police harassment of gay people.

The current law does avoid some of the pitfalls of the old one. The ban only applies to sitting and lying down; the sixties-era law referred to the obstruction of public space. Police are now required to issue a warning, and the punishment for violation is significantly lower. Neither distinction, however, alters the fundamental problem of sit-lie.

The ordinance criminalizes an extremely common behavior, which is in itself harmless. The most vulnerable members of our society depend on public space and are inevitably the most susceptible to getting in trouble into the crosshairs sit-lie enforcement.

Queer activists are once again leading the effort against unfair and unwise regulation of public space. We reported April 11th that self-proclaimed “angry queers” installed handmade benches on city streets as a form of protest art. Likewise, this upcoming May 22nd, which is Milk’s birthday, Queers for Economic Equality Now (QUEEN) will be coordinating sidewalk events against sit-lie in San Francisco and Berkeley.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca who organizes with QUEEN, said “for me it is so thrilling to see two cities doing something against sit-lie and invoking Harvey’s name.”

 

Hot sexy events: May 11-17

Andrew Lam
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2
Hot sexy events: May 11-17

On the website for Kink Studios – Kink.com‘s foray into the world of arthouse porn cinema – one scrolls down a quote from, of all people, that strapping hunk of man meat Roger Ebert. It’s about The Last Tango in Paris: 

The movie frightened off imitators, and instead of being the first of many X-rated films dealing honestly with sexuality, it became almost the last. Hollywood made a quick U-turn into movies about teenagers, technology, action heroes and special effects. And with the exception of a few isolated films like The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and In the Realm of the Senses (1976), the serious use of graphic sexuality all but disappeared from the screen.

But being the innovators, perverts, and getting-things-done Type A’s that they are, the minds behind Kink.com decided to do something about this dearth of sexy, smart art. To wit, they made a film, Indietro, that combines all the flogging and excited screams that you’ve come to expect from the website’s more conventional BDSM flicks, with haunting piano trills and – gasp! – character development. They stocked the film with acting turns by Madison Young, Aurora Snow, and William Van Toland, and is written and directed by Vivian Darkbloom. 

It’s playing at Mission Control (via Femina Potens‘ programming) on Thurs/12, along with a Q&A with cast and crew. See it to believe it – and bring Mr. Ebert, won’t you?

 

Virgie Tovar presents “Burlesque Basics for the Shy and Awkward”

Amazing alert: the fantabulously fat burlesque star Dulce de Lecherous (Miss Tovar if you’re nasty) is doing this course on Burly Q gratis for the wonky and discombobulated set. I bet you never thought you’d be able to shimmy in stilettos, or twirl tassels with tact – but this here Virgie is ready to ease all comers – boys, girls, bois, “girls” – into stageside sexiness. Or, at least get you on the right path. We’re only talking about an hour-long class here, people. 

Thurs/12 6:30-7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


First Full of Kink: Indietro

Watch Kink Studios’ first foray into art porn, ask all your perverted wonderings of its cast and crew, then enjoy black and white porn and live burlesque performances. Afterwards, you can stay for the play party – if you’re a member of Femina Potens. Keep it classy, art freaks. 

Thurs/12 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $15

Mission Control

www.feminapotens.org


“Saburau: The Warrior’s Path of Service”

A educational run-down of positive power exchange practices in the Japanese samauri tradition. Sure, it’s not your run-of-the-mill Exiles class (they tend to focus on more explicitly S&M teachings), but that’s why this course sounds so cool. Ground your play time in a background of service-oriented community. 

Fri/13 8-10 p.m., $4 members/$10 non-members

The Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

www.theexiles.org


Dungeon monitor training

This training is not about loving control – or maybe it is, but don’t walk into it whip in hand. Being a dungeon monitor is a big deal, a crucial role in the pursuit of a healthy S&M scene. This orientation is open to everyone, and features interactive scenes showing problematic dungeon happenings in which you’re asked to practice your better judgement to mediate. Not into becoming a monitor, per se? You’re still welcome to learn and hone your skills as a member of a smart and safe community. 

Sat/14 4:30-7:30 p.m., $5-10 suggested donation

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org 


Naked Girls Reading: Burlesque legends

SF’s regularily-occurring lit night is famous for letting it all hang out. Really — the women on stage are naked as jaybirds. And though once again local luminaries like Lili St. Cyr, Lady Monster, and Cherry Galette will be orating from honored texts, this time around at least part of the show will be occuring offstage. Burlesque legends from Holiday O’Hara to Satan’s Angel will be in attendance – and you can sit next to one of the lovelies, if you’re down to shell out another five bucks. Deal! 

Sun/15 8:30-10 p.m., $15-20

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

 

 

Appetite: Our picks from Dry Creek

Andrew Lam
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1
Appetite: Our picks from Dry Creek

Last year’s Passport to Dry Creek festival (April 30-May 1) was quite the weekend of hops between wineries in Dry Creek Valley. How was it different than any of the dozens of events in wine country at any given time, you might ask?

Unlike barrel tasting weekends mobbed with drunken carousers and not-yet-mature wines, or smaller events where you gain merely a handful of tastes, Passport includes the majority of wineries in the Dry Creek valley and keeps the crowds regulated enough to be enjoyable. Each winery serves unlimited food and wine, often with live music and engrossing themes.

With a Passport ticket in hand, it’s like you’re invited to a private party at each winery. Some of the wines triumphed over the others, but then, many of the vineyard settings bested the rest during the weekend’s typically brilliant weather. After visiting 24 wineries, here’s my take on this year’s Passport highlights in the categories of ambiance, food, and of course, wine.

 

AMBIANCE

Bella Vineyards: 

Just like last year, Bella‘s African safari theme and moody, cool caves were a highlight of the entire weekend. Lingering here with a crisp rose is a joy every time.

Truett Hurst Vineyards:

Your drinking buddies at Truett Hurst

Another top spot from last year, Truett Hurst has a memorable zinfandel rose ($15) best enjoyed in the spot’s red Adirondack chairs alongside the river running through its property – after you’ve visited the goats and sheep on the back of the property. A dreamy respite, I always leave this winery relaxed.

Family Wineries: 

I don’t go to Family for the wine, nor for the cluster of non-descript tasting rooms situated off the parking lot, but I stop in annually here to spend a happy hour watching the California Cowboys play. A truly an awesome country band that keeps it real with tunes any classic country fan will love (from Waylon Jennings to Roger Miller), plus a few newer favorites. Vocals, musicianship, the Cowboys are top-notch.

Seghesio Family Vineyards:

A bowlful of steamin’ zydeco at Seghesio

With a raucous New Orleans theme based on the winery family’s NoLa roots, Seghesio boasted one of the top bands of the weekend: Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic. Grilling Cajun ribs and spooning up bowlfuls of seafood gumbo, the spirit was festive and familial here, like one big backyard party.

 

FOOD

Frick Winery: 

I’m impressed every year by Frick‘s complicated bite-sized snacks offered by chef John Mitzewich and Michele Manfredi, a husband and wife dynamic duo. Chef John is known for his site Food Wishes (last year’s Saveur winner for best food video blog, nominated again this year).

Manfredi created SFQ sauce, our fair city’s first native BBQ sauce (try it if you haven’t!). Its East-meets-West flair appeared at this year’s Passport in their duck a la SFQ: duck confit in SFQ sauce on a cocoa corn chip, garnished with duck crackling remolata. Yum. 

My two favorites? Main line Philly cheesesteak: mini-baguettes topped with Snake River Farms Kobe-style steak over truffled “cheese whiz” (you read right — chef John is on the money with this one. I’ll take a jar?) Dotted with peppadew peppers and jalapeños, its perfection.

One of the ‘simplest’ bites was the best: the sausage luxe, Boccalone‘s sweet Italian sausage dusted with fennel pollen and skewered with a Luxardo maraschino cherry. Seductive and lush.

 

WINE

Quivara Vineyards: 

Quivara‘s high quality relies on hand-picked grapes and biodynamic farming methods. Its wines reflect care and attention, whether you’re sipping its 2008 grenache ($26) or 2008 mourvedre ($32).

Frick Winery: 

Frick is a Dry Creek favorite – from grenache blanc to C3 and C2 (Rhone blends), Bill Frick produces sophisticated wines that maintain Old World balance. This year, I’m really taking to his cinsaut and grenache.

Seghesio Family Vineyards: 

Seghesio‘s home ranch zinfandel has been an at-home go-to for a balanced zin, reflecting dark berries and the clay soil it’s grown in. At Passport, we tasted pre-releases of 2009 Home Ranch Zin ($38), a highlight of the 10 Seghesio wines sampled.

Unti Vineyards:

I’ve enjoyed Unti‘s wines the last couple years, and was reminded again last weekend that its 2007 grenache is a standout with blackberry, pepper, and even licorice notes.

Stephen & Walker: 

Besides appreciating their female winemaker, Nancy Walker, who I had the pleasure of meeting during Passport, there was a number of drinkable wines from Stephen & Walker‘s line-up of 10. The most celebrated is Walker’s 2006 Howell Mountain cabernet sauvignon ($65). Winner of multiple awards and the vineyard’s benchmark wine, it’s a fine showcase of the region’s cabs.

— Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

 

The fun side of bikes

Maria Poblet
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3
The fun side of bikes

steve@sfbg.com

Paul Freedman, a.k.a. the Fossil Fool, is a singer-songwriter and builder of elaborate art bikes who lives in San Francisco’s Mission District. Since 2001, when he decided to apply his Harvard University education to building custom bikes, accessories, pedal-powered products, and mobile sound systems, Freedman created Fossil Fool and Rock the Bike to sell his creations and provide a platform for his performances and alternative transportation advocacy work.

But anyone who’s watched Freedman build and ride his creations — such as his latest, El Arbol, a 14-foot fiberglass tree built around a double-decker tall bike with elaborate generator, sound, and lighting systems and innovative landing gears — knows this is a serious labor of love by an individual at the forefront of Bay Area bike culture. We caught up with him recently to discuss his work and vision.

SFBG How did Rock the Bike start?

FOSSIL FUEL I was working at a shop in Berkeley and I decided to make my first bike music system, which I called Soul Cycles. So I had that other job at a bicycle nonprofit, which is cool, and that was the first impetus. I did two innovative things with my first bike music system: I put the controls on the handlebars, which I’d never seen anyone do, and I put speaker back-lighting to make the speakers look nice at night. I used a really nice CFL fluorescent lamp, and I started playing around with those and it looked great, so that was our first product for those first three or four years.

SFBG What was going on in the larger culture at the time that led you to believe your interest in bikes and technology was going to be fruitful or make an interesting statement?

FF I care deeply about biking and a lot of the people I was with did too, but I felt like the bicycle advocacy scene was not very effective when it came to actual outreach. I felt like the thing that had been really formative for me was this person-to-person interaction, in my case by hanging out with the guys who started Xtracycle, and going on quests to get ingredients for dinner and riding late at night with the music systems on the tour. I felt like those experiences were what made bicycling appealing, but the bike advocacy scene was using guilt trips and telling people you should ride a bike because you’re too fat and you should ride a bike because there’s too much traffic. And I felt like we needed to shift that mindset and really start focusing on the fun aspects of biking and the social aspects to grow the scene.

SFBG Do you feel like it has, and what effect do you think it had on those who weren’t already riding bikes?

FF I think it’s moving that direction. Even within traditional bike advocacy groups, those people are starting to really focus on their events and creating community, in a good way, and challenging themselves with doing so. And I think that’s really positive.

SFBG Your timing also dovetailed with heightened green awareness — with a push for renewable energy, concerns over peak oil, and things like that.

FF Yeah, I feel that transportation choices are the main thing people need to examine about their lives with respect to their impact on global warming. And that’s not just a feeling, that’s the consensus of the Union of Concerned Scientists. They say that if you want to have an impact on the planet, positive or negative, the first thing you should consider is your transportation habits. So that means flying, it means driving, and everything else. I don’t think it’s really beneficial to focus on what people need to do with a car, like they need to drop their kids off. It’s more important how people do the optional things with cars like the trips to Tahoe, and the flights to Mexico. It’s those optional things I want to focus on, which is why I’m so interested in Sunday Streets, which is like the antidote. It’s this thing you can do here, that you can walk and bike to, that’s as fun as driving to Tahoe.

SFBG Through your technology and design work, it also seems like you’re showing a broad range of what people can do on a bike, with lots of cargo or a whole performance stage setup. Do you think design is convincing people that bikes are more versatile that they thought they were?

FF Oh yeah, I think that would be a really beneficial outcome of this work. By riding through town with our music gear, of course people are going to look at that and think, oh yeah, I could probably go to Rainbow Grocery and buy a bunch of food for my household on a bike. So it would be a great outcome if people would make that connection.

SFBG Is there anything about San Francisco that makes people here more receptive to your message?

FF San Francisco is a very tight city geographically. It’s not like Phoenix. The blocks are pretty short here and the distances are pretty short here, and you can ride year-round here, which is not true in Boston where I grew up.

SFBG The focus on technology and design here also probably helps, right?

FF Oh, for sure. This is an awesome place to be prototyping and doing funky mechanical, electrical art. There’s a lot of support for it. There are places like Tap Plastics for learning about fiberglass. There are lots of electronics stores that serve the Silicon Valley tech developer communities. You can buy stuff there that’s helpful. You can learn about Arduino [an open source microprocessor] at Noisebridge. There are a lot of resources for doing interactive art here or for doing bicycle-related projects. There are a lot of welders here.

SFBG Where do you think we are on the arch with this stuff — the beginning, the middle? — in terms of gaining wider acceptance of biking as an imperative and an option for anyone?

FF I think there’s an important generational shift underway, and I don’t know whether it’s my focus on bikes that leads me to meet all these kinds of people, but it feels like I’m meeting more people these days that are going to pick their next city or their next neighborhood based on how it is to bike there. They’re bringing it up in conversation, it’s not me. So it seems like people are really considering what their daily life is going to be like and how the community feels, and biking is one of the symbols of a whole swath of other beneficial things. They know that if they see a bunch of bikes when they visit a place, then there’s probably a lot of other cool stuff like music, arts, farmers markets. Those kinds of things are sort of linked together, and the bike is the key indicator. So there’s been this generational change of thought. The idea that having a bigger, faster car is better, I just don’t think that’s popular with these people. They no longer believe it.

SFBG It’s having cooler bike.

FF It’s having cooler bike and being able to use it and not have to step into the stress of car culture if you can avoid it.

SFBG What’s your next step?

FF One of the really positive things for me has been the Rock the Bike community, with its roadies, performers, musicians — all types of people who are on our e-mail list. So I can just say, I need three roadies for a three-hour performance slot and there’s going to be a jam at the end, so bring your instruments. That’s an awesome thing and it’s just going to improve, so I think the community will grow as we continue do gigs where we have fun and the people have fun.

In terms of my own art, this tree [gesturing to his El Arbol bike] has been my focus for the last year or two, and it’s not done yet. It has to look undeniably like a tree. It looks like a tree, but with a light green bark that you really don’t see in nature, so that has to change. I want it to have brown bark, but I still want it to do beautiful things at night with translucency. And I want it to have a true canopy of leaves, so that when you’re far away from it at Sunday Streets and you’re wondering whether to go over there, you’ll see a tree. Not just a representation of a tree, but I want them to be like, how the hell did he ride a tree over here?

SFBG Why a tree?

FF I don’t know. You get these ideas, and you start drawing them and can’t shake them. There are all sorts of reasons why trees are interesting. They are gathering points.

SFBG And you’re doing some very innovative design work on this bike, such as the landing gear.  

FF The roots. Yeah, that’s never been done before. Through the course of doing the project, people would send me tips and interesting things, and one guy sent me a link to a photo of tall bikes being used in Chicago in the early 1900s as gas lamp lighting tools, and they were very tall. I’d say 10 to 12 feet tall, and they were tandems, so there was a guy on top and a stoker on the bottom providing extra power, and they didn’t have landing gears. So they would ride from one lamp to another and hold the lamp as they refilled it. And I just love that story because if you were growing up in Chicago, and you saw these gas lamp people coming by in the early evening to turn the lights on, and if you were a little kid trying to fall asleep or whatever, that would have an indelible mark on your childhood, and that whimsical quality is what I’m going for. That should be part of what it’s like to grow up in the Mission District in 2011.

SFBG How does that fit into the other cultural stuff that you’re also bringing to the bike movement, the music you’re writing, design work, the style, and the events that you’re creating?

FF Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so multipronged. I would clearly be a better performer and musician if it was the only thing I did, so I apologize to all my fans for not putting 100 percent into the music. But I put 100 percent into the whole thing, including creating bikes and running Rock the Bike, which is a business.

SFBG But are you doing all these things because you find a synergy among them?

FF It’s the fullest expression of who I am.

SFBG Where do you see this headed? What will Rock the Bike be like five years from now?

FF I would like to see the quality of our entertainment offerings steadily improve to the point where people genuinely look forward to it, and not just to the gee-whiz aspect of look what they’re doing, but just for the feeling of being there. So I’d like to challenge ourselves with the quality of the music, how it is to be engaged in the setup process — because I think the setup is cool, with biking to the event and engaging in the transition to a spectacle, where every step along the way is part of the show. I like that idea. I’d like to challenge ourselves to be a carbon-free Cirque du Soleil, a show that is slamming entertainment and they bike there and pedal-power everything: the lighting, the sound, the transportation. And I want the performers to be just as good.

SFBG Are there people in other cities doing similar things?

FF The Bicycle Music Festival is spreading to other cities, which is cool. I think there are going to be over a dozen bicycle music festivals this summer. In terms of people doing really inspiring work with bike culture or this kind of mobile art, you definitely see some amazing things at Burning Man. That’s probably one of the best venues for this type of art. But I can’t think of another city where people are doing all of this. I’m part of a group on Flickr called Bicycle and Skater Sound Systems, and there’s nothing on that whole group that I see as being on this level. I don’t know why.

SFBG When you ride a cool custom bike down the street, the reactions it elicits from passersby is just so strong and happy. What is that about?

FF It’s a reaction to an expression of personal freedom. People light up when they see you expressing yourself, and a part of them thinks, oh yeah, that would be fun, I’d like to express myself. And there are just so many ways to express yourself and be human — and that’s something that we need to remind ourselves because, in many ways, our personal freedoms are declining and there’s more surveillance.

SFBG And people might take that spark and do any number of things with it.

FF One of the very cool things about bicycle art is that it’s mobile. So you ride your bike and you might turn heads a couple dozen times a day. I ride this tree, and if it’s in the full mode where it’s 14-feet tall and there’s music on, and I’m going from here to Golden Gate Park, I’d estimate that 500 people see it. There’s probably no other art form you can do that with. I can’t think of any other that’s like that. So it’s a really cool art form. Those people aren’t paying you, but you shared art with them, and it’s a good way to get exposure. It’s a great way for a lot of people to see your art.

SFBG With your mobile, pedal-powered stages, you’re also demonstrating green ways of powering even stationary art.

FF It is an interesting time for pedal power. I feel like there’s a turning point that’s maybe beginning in the field of events with how they’re powered. I think there are going to be a lot more people who are going to festivals in the coming years who are looking at the diesel generators and saying, ‘My summertime festival experience is being powered by diesel.’ And I think there are going to be a lot of people seeing that and wanting to do something else.

SFBG Have the technologies for how much juice you’re able to get out of pedal power been advancing since you’ve been working on it?

FF Yes, it’s truly impressive right now, particularly if you’re putting that juice into music because we have very efficient generators where there’s no friction interface anymore, nothing rolling on the tire, it’s all just ball bearings rolling on the hub. Then we put that power into these new modified amps, and they have a DC power supply now, as opposed to an AC power supply, so we don’t have to put the power into an inverter. So the net sum of that is one person can pedal-power dance music for 200 people, which is pretty amazing and inspiring.

SFBG And the battery technology is also improving, right?

FF Yeah, the batteries are what you use for the mobile rides, and that’s getting better. If you’ve been to a bike party, it’s just incredible how many good, loud sound systems there are right now. It’s a very kinetic art form, although I wish people would focus more on the visual aspects of their system, because I feel like there’s a trend to get big and loud fast. But I wish there were more people doing the work that Jay Brummel is doing, where he doesn’t just want to ride on a bicycle, so he turned his bike into a deer and he steers by holding the antlers.

SFBG But there has been some push-back from the police. Have you gotten many tickets?

FF Well, I got tickets for riding up high on this quadracycle. There is a law against riding tall bikes in California. It says you shouldn’t ride a bicycle in such as manner as to not be able to stop safely and put your foot down. Obviously you can’t put your foot down on a tall bike.

SFBG The fact that you have landing gears on your bike didn’t make a difference?

FF Well the officer didn’t take it seriously, but the court sided in my favor. The judge was flipping through photos of the landing gear the entire trial — he couldn’t stop flipping through them. And he asked, ‘How do you get on? Where do you step?’ So I was like, ‘Well, you step here, you step there, and you swing.’ It was pretty fun. 

BICYCLE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Saturday, June 18

11 a.m.–10 p.m., free

Various locations, SF

www.rockthebike.com

www.fossilfool.com


 

The rise of bike culture

Maria Poblet
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6
The rise of bike culture

steve@sfbg.com

San Francisco has quickly peddled back into the front of the pack among bicycle-friendly U.S. cities, regaining the ground it lost during a four-year court injunction against new bike projects that was partially lifted in November 2009 and completely ended last June.

Since then, the streets of San Francisco have been transformed as the city completed 19 long overdue bike projects, including 11 miles of new bike lanes, 40 miles of “sharrow” shared lane markings, and hundreds of new bike racks. The city’s first physically separated green bike lanes on Market Street are now being extended, and new ones are being added on Alemany and Laguna Honda boulevards.

“The crews are out on Market Street right now filling in the new green bikeway,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Director Leah Shahum told us on May 6. “Far and away the No. 1 encouragement to getting people to bike is to make sure they feel safe.”

But it isn’t just bike lanes and other infrastructure that are causing bicycling to blossom in San Francisco. Bike culture is also exploding in myriad ways, including events such as the San Francisco Bike Party and Rock the Bike shows we profile in this issue, as well as the popularity of the monthly neighborhood street closures of Sunday Streets.

At the most recent Sunday Streets in the Mission District on May 8, Valencia and 24th streets were packed with thousands of people riding bikes, skating, and walking, or engaged with activities — in streets usually dominated by cars — such as yoga, art projects, shopping, and dancing.

“It’s a celebration. It’s not about confrontation anymore, it’s about bringing people along with a more expanded idea of how we can use public space,” Sunday Streets Coordinator Susan King told us at the event.

She said Sunday Streets has helped bridge the gap between families and the bicycling and skating communities, as well as cutting across classes, cultures, and communities. The response to the event has been phenomenal, she noted, and she hopes to see a similar momentum leading up to the next Sunday Streets event on June 12 in the Bayview.

“The Bayview event is really important to us because we have extraordinary support from the Bayview merchants and they want to get more involved with the bicycling community,” King said.

The earnest work of SFBC, SFMTA, and other entities that have helped expand the bicycling infrastructure in San Francisco, bringing safe cycling opportunities into every neighborhood, has in turn allowed organic expressions of bike culture to flourish.

From hipsters on their colorful fixies to anarchists riding tall bikes, from old-school Schwinns to cargo-laden Xtracycles, from elaborate art bikes to simple bike trailers with amazing sounds systems, from old white guys in Spandex to the young black kids on custom scraper bikes, from the hardcore bike messengers to the tourists on rental bikes, from Critical Mass defiance to Bike Party celebration, the streets of San Francisco are brimming with bike culture diversity. And the only commonality, the only one that’s really needed, is a simple appreciation for pedal power.

“We need to get the message out that biking is fun — and that’s happening,” Smith said. “We need a paradigm shift, and I think we’re really on the cusp of that.”

BIKE TO WORK DAY

Energizer commute stations open:

Thurs/12 7:30–9:30 a.m. and 5–7 p.m., free

Check map on page 28 for locations

Bike From Work party and fashion show

Thurs/12 6–10 p.m., $5 SFBC members/$10 nonmembers (or join at the door and get in free)

DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF

www.sfbike.org

Kids on bikes

Maria Poblet
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0
Kids on bikes

news@sfbg.com

To meet San Francisco’s policy goal of having 20 percent of all vehicle trips made by bicycle by the year 2020, advocates and officials say the city will need to make cycling more attractive to the young and old, from age 8 to 80. But there are some built-in challenges to getting more school children on bikes, even if there has been some recent progress, as demonstrated during the Bike to School Day in April.

“I see more and more middle and high school teams out there,” Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said of the group rides to and from school that parents have been organizing.

According to a 2009 David Binder poll, seven out of 10 residents in San Francisco use a bicycle (this includes regular commuters and once-a-year riders) and last year’s city count of bike ridership from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s annual report saw a 58 percent increase in the number of cyclists on the road. At any given time during regular business weekday hours, some 9,210 riders pedal through the streets, according to last year’s results.

Children account for some of that increase, as demonstrated by the Bike to School Day event and its 3,000 riders — the most ever. Shahum attributes some of the increase to the new separated bikeways on Market Street, Alemany Boulevard, and Laguna Honda Boulevard, which allow children and their parents to feel safer. “When the bikeway was introduced, the numbers increased — there is growing demand.”

Programs like the Department of Public Health’s Safe Routes to School and SF Unified School District’s Student Support Services Department are helping to raise awareness of the improvements to encourage more cycling by young people.

Safe Routes to School Project Coordinator Ana Validzic said cycling is often more convenient than driving to school, particularly given the difficult parking situations at schools. Martha Adriasola, a committee member for the program, said parents and students also are attracted by the increased physical activity from cycling.

But a large portion of San Francisco’s grade school-bound population has yet to join the pedal revolution. Adriasola mentioned several reasons that prevent children from biking, including getting to schools on hills or far from home as well as the lack of bike storage at schools.

“There used to be a lot of concern about where to keep the bicycles,” Adriasola told the Guardian. But that’s changing thanks to a recent grant from the Department of Sustainability will provide bike racks for students at all schools in the district.

“That was one of the missing pieces,” Shahum said of the bike racks. “The district understands that it is good for the city for folks to ride their bikes.”

With new racks lining the campuses, the question remains whether there will be enough riders to fill them. Efforts to improve diversity in the school system and parent preferences for certain schools mean many kids travel across town to school.

Gentle Blythe, SFUSD’s executive director of public outreach and communications, said that last year the school board modified its school selection system to encourage more students to attend their local schools by resolving ties between applicants based on whether the applicant lives in the school’s attendance area. Currently, Blythe said, three out of every four applicants list a school that is not the one closest to their home as their first choice.

According to SFUSD’s 2010 fall enrollment maps, which show all the district’s elementary schools and compares them to the students’ residences, most of the 72 schools have as many students traveling from across the district as those living within a mile of the campus. Parker Elementary in North Beach is such an example, with an almost equal number living inside and outside the neighborhood, including some who live as far away as Visitacion Valley.

With such a long way to ride, it’s difficult for parents and those concerned with safety to feel comfortable allowing children to ride. But Shahum believes it’s still possible. SFBC’s Connecting the City project advocates for safe, cross-town bikeways throughout the city, which could draw more children onto the streets.

Shahum noted that bicycling increased dramatically even when there was a court injunction barring new bike projects. “Imagine the change we can expect when the changes do come,” she said.

She also said that events such as Sunday Streets, the monthly carfree streets events, are attracting families and encouraging them to start cycling together. So the answer to encouraging more youth cycling may be to make the streets safer and more inviting for everyone.

“We hope, through the Connecting the City vision, to see people riding on cross-town bikeways — for everyone from 8 to 80.” she said. 

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet
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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. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. 

THEATER

OPENING

Candide of California 1620 Gough; www.custommade.org. $10-28. Previews Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. Opens Tues/17, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 4. Custom Made Theatre presents this modernized version of the Voltaire tale, which was a hit at the SF Fringe Festival.

Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival EXIT on Taylor, 227 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $20-50. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 25. Cutting Ball Theater closes its 11th season with a festival of experimental plays, including works by Eugenie Chan, Rob Melrose, and Annie Elias.

BAY AREA

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Avenue, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Previews Fri/13, 8pm. Opens Sat/14, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 20. Pear Avenue Theatre presents an adaptation of Mark Twain’s novella.

OPEN. Central Stage, 5221 Central, Richmond; (800) 838-3006, www.raggedwing.org. $15-35. Previews Thurs/12, 8pm. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 11. Ragged Wing Ensemble presents a new Bluebeard-inspired play written and directed by Amy Sass.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason; 992-8168, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $32-50. Check for dates and times. Open-ended. Not Quite Opera Productions presents a musical.

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Ricardo Salinas, cofounder of famed Mission-born radical Latino comedy trio Culture Clash, penetrates the velvet enclave of Teatro ZinZanni, taking the helm for its latest Euro-style dinner-cirque cabaret show. Under Salinas’ inspired direction, the evening plays as a revolt by brown-hued kitchen and wait staff against a ruthless takeover by, what else, a Chinese conglomerate. Multiculti clashes ensue, with the underdogs led by a brother-sister team played charmingly by ZinZanni regulars Christine Deaver and Robert Lopez, and with much expert repartee and physical humor neatly enveloping characteristically stunning feats of acrobatics and circus arts that leave forkfuls of grub hovering before slack-jawed mouths. I don’t know how many actual kitchen staffers out there can afford the ticket price (though it does come with a tasty five-course meal in addition to a first-class show), but the blend of Salinas and company’s shrewd if subdued social commentary and big-heated Latin-fueled humor—not to mention the exquisite musical numbers featuring guest star Rebekah Del Rio—lead to something altogether harmonious. (Avila)

Cancer Cells The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.975howard.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 22. Performers Under Stress and directors Geoff Bangs and Scott Baker offer this well-conceived program of late Pinter works, a total of nine plays and poems intelligently arranged and unevenly but in some cases vibrantly performed (especially in the case of One for the Road) in a fleet 90-minute evening. With the titular poem, written as the esteemed playwright was undergoing chemo (and recited here with somewhat unnecessary emotion by Valerie Fachman), a telling definition of cancer cells arises: “They have forgotten how to die/ And so extend their killing life.” Given the unbridled political nature of the work that follows—including the devastatingly stark (yet ever articulate to the point of being unexpected) dramatic vocabulary of Mountain Language, a compact depiction and rumination on state-sponsored genocide—those cancer cells grow out of their literal referent into a literary metaphor for the warping, perverting, and devastating consequences of supreme, unchecked power and its Olympian delusions. Pinter’s late works, written with a pronounced urgency in the face of ever-widening war and genocide, advance his shrewd and potent ability for exposing the obscenity beneath the shell games of language as deployed by power in pursuit of its imperial and totalitarian aims. (Avila)

Devil/Fish 2781 24th St; www.cirquenoveau.com. $26. Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 6pm. Through May 22. Cirque Noveau presents a story involving aerial performance, acrobatics, and more.

Eleanor EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 28. Though it seems fitting that a two-and-a-half-hour long epic about historical diva and queen Eleanor of Aquitane should debut at EXIT Theatre’s DIVAfest, Dark Porch Theatre’s production of Eleanor lacks the charisma of its muse. A confused tangle of unnecessary subplots and under-developed characters, Eleanor tries to fit in an 800-year-old grudge match, a thwarted celestial ascension, political chicanery, assassination, adultery, an existential chess game, a crusade, medieval grrrl power, and the quest for the holy grail into a single show, with decidedly mixed results. On the one hand, Alice Moore as the titular queen is a delicious blend of regal and calculating, and Nathan Tucker as her equally conniving consort, Henry II, makes a surprisingly vital and robust king. The design elements are strong, and Dark Porch Theatre’s trademark live music and physical-movement interludes are cleverly arranged. But on the downside, Eleanor also displays what is gradually becoming another one of DPT’s trademarks, an overly convoluted script in need of major tightening in focus. Playwright/director Margery Fairchild needs to sacrifice a good chunk of bit-player intrigue, and rely more on the strength of her iconic queen, to move the action to an endgame more rewarding than this version’s anti-climactic exile to eternal oblivion. (Gluckstern)

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 10. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

Hugh Jackman, in Performance at the Curran Theatre Curran Theatre, 445 Geary; (888) 746-1799, www.shnsf.com. $40-150. Tues-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 15.The shout that went up the moment he came onstage was enough to let you know this entertainer could do no wrong with this audience. But perhaps just to be on the safe side, Hugh Jackman immediately began courting the 1700 people packed into the Curran from the front rows to the balcony, speaking to many individually, embracing one or two, bringing some onstage, or just flashing them his leading-man smile. Jackman’s limited and exclusive San Francisco engagement, courtesy of producer Carole Shorenstein Hays, wasn’t my cup of tea, or whatever they drink Down Under, but devotees of the Aussie star from Hollywood (X-Men) and Broadway (The Boy from Oz) got the love-fest they wanted. And the multifaceted actor is all pro, likeable and impressive even amid the cheesier aspects of a throwback form: a song-and-dance varietal in an old-school showbiz vein, featuring much personal and professional reminiscing, joking around (including tussles with his personal trainer [Steve Lord] over a dancing prohibition in the buff-up period before his next Wolverine pic), musical routines, and somewhat incongruous medleys backed by an 18-piece band (under direction of Patrick Vaccariello) and flanked by Broadway talents Merle Dandridge (Rent, Spamalot, Aida) and Angel Reda (Wicked). (Avila)

Loveland The Marsh, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through June 4. Ann Randolph’s popular one-woman show about a misfit returning to Ohio from L.A. extends its run.

*Lucky Girl EXIT Studio, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 28. Honey (Cheryl Smith) talks about “the shoes” first, the shoes repeatedly, against even her analyst’s power to retain a common interest in the footwear of her attacker. Why should she so concern herself with this detail of the man who assaulted her, wounding her in ways too subtle and deep to measure—unless through the wayward precision of the poetical imagination some measure might actually be taken. That is the force and beauty of Lucky Girl, a notable new stage adaptation by Tom Juarez of poet Frances Driscoll’s 1997 collection, The Rape Poems, which premieres as part of Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest 2011. Juarez crafts an engagingly dynamic and delicate narrative arc from Driscoll’s thematically joined but otherwise disparate poems, gorgeously formulated verses that delve into a devastating subject with an unexpected range of humor, insight, and compassion. This supple range is acutely grasped and exquisitely interpreted by Smith, whose gripping performance (keenly directed by Kathryn Wood) eschews anything remotely sentimental for a complex and moving portrait of the enduring aftermath of terror. (Avila)

A Most Notorious Woman EXIT Stage Left, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 28. The axiom “well-behaved women seldom make history” comes to mind when watching a reenactment of the strange but true tale of the meeting between renegade pirate “queen” Grace O’Malley and Queen Elizabeth I. Both exceptionally powerful women in their day, they must surely have found some novel comfort in the presence of the other. Christina Augello plays both divas for DIVAfest with swashbuckling verve in Maggie Cronin’s historical drama, A Most Notorious Woman. Also inhabiting several bit characters along the way, Augello infuses Grace with a matter-of-fact, workaday groundedness, while her Elizabeth is all fuss and neuroses, chattering away to “Leicester” on a thoroughly modern cell-phone while plotting political intrigues. Watching Augello shift between the two strong-willed characters is the production’s greatest pleasure, along with some clever set and costuming flourishes courtesy of John Mayne and Laura Hazlett. There are some awkwardly-paced attempts at shadowplay which interrupt the overall flow, and the presence of an omniscient narrator, a sea-queen wrapped in kelp, is a puzzling distraction, but as staged history lessons of ill-behaved women go, Notorious is both informative and entertaining. (Gluckstern)

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

The Real Americans The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm (also July 10, 17, and 24, 2pm). Through July 24. Dan Hoyle’s popular show about city and small-town life, directed by Charlie Varon, continues its run.

Secret Identity Crisis SF Playhouse, Stage 2, 533 Sutter; 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/14. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents a story about unmasked heroes.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

Silk Stockings Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $24-44. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 22. 42nd Street Moon presents a Cole Porter production.

A Streetcar Named Desire Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 4. Actors Theatre of San Francisco presents the Tennessee Williams tale.

Talking With Angels Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $21-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 21. A play by Shelley Mitchell set in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

*Vice Palace: The Last Cockettes Musical Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 10th St; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 31. Hot on the high heels of a 22-month run of Pearls Over Shanghai, the Thrillpeddlers are continuing their Theatre of the Ridiculous revival with a tits-up, balls-out production of The Cockettes’ last musical, Vice Palace. Loosely based on the terrifyingly grim “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, part of the thrill of Palace is the way that it weds the campy drag-glamour of Pearls Over Shanghai with the Thrillpeddlers’ signature Grand Guignol aesthetic. From an opening number set on a plague-stricken street (“There’s Blood on Your Face”) to a charming little cabaret about Caligula, staged with live assassinations, an undercurrent of darkness runs like blood beneath the shameless slapstick of the thinly-plotted revue. As plague-obsessed hostess Divina (Leigh Crow) and her right-hand “gal” Bella (Eric Tyson Wertz) try to distract a group of stir-crazy socialites from the dangers outside the villa walls, the entertainments range from silly to salacious: a suggestively-sung song about camel’s humps, the wistful ballad “Just a Lonely Little Turd,” a truly unexpected Rite of Spring-style dance number entitled “Flesh Ballet.” Sumptuously costumed by Kara Emry, cleverly lit by Nicholas Torre, accompanied by songwriter/lyricist (and original Cockette) Scrumbly Koldewyn, and anchored by a core of Thrillpeddler regulars, Palace is one nice vice. (Gluckstern)

BAY AREA

Cripple of Inishmaan Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley Campus, Berk; (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org. $68. Wed/11-Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 2 and 8pm. The Irish theater company Druid presents a send-up of rural Irish life, written by Martin McDonagh.

Disassembly La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (through June 11). Impact Theatre presents the world premiere of a dark comedy by Steve Yockey.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (except Sat/14, 8pm). Through June 18. Don Reed’s one-man solo show extends its run.

Lady With All the Answers Center REPertory Company, Lesher Center for the Arts, Knight Stage 3 Theatre, 1601 Civic Center, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW, www.centerrep.org. $45. Thurs-Sat, 8:15pm; Sun, 2:15pm. Through Sun/15. Center REPpresents Kerri Shawn’s one-woman play about Ann Landers.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through June 16. Brian Copeland’s solo show about Bay Area history continues its successful run.

Passion Play Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-5999, www.aeofberkeley.org. $10-15. Fri-Sat, 7pm (also Sun/15, 2pm). Through May 21. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents the West Coast premiere of a time-travel play by Sarah Ruhl.

Three Sisters Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Check for dates and times. Through May 22. Berkeley Rep presents a new version of Chekhov’s 1901 play by Sarah Ruhl (In the Next Room, Eurydice), directed by Les Waters. The language sounds generally and pleasingly modern in the mouths of the titular Prozorov sisters—Olga (Wendy Rich Stetson), Masha (Natalia Payne), and Irina (Heather Wood)—although the production is rather traditional in staging (period set by Annie Smart, and corresponding costumes by Ilona Somogyi). We follow the restless siblings and their flock of soldier-admirers through a handful of years in their provincial town, where their late father was an elite military officer. In this period, the dashing officer Vershinin (Bruce McKenzie) brings a spark of new life—especially to the unhappily married Masha—and stokes the sisters’ ultimately unanswered desire to return to their beloved Moscow. The production breathes a good deal of life into the play, whose half-foolish and heartbreakingly funny characters so palpably exude a complex set of longings and misplaced desires, but it labors under an initial stiffness and a somewhat jagged set of performances. (Payne’s twitchy Masha, for instance, whose features maintain throughout a look of unwelcome surprise, feels incongruent at times). Some of the more moving turns concentrate here in the supporting characters, including James Carpenter as Chebutykin, the fawning old doctor who has forgotten all he used to know; Thomas Jay Ryan as Tuzenbach, the self-conscious Russian of German descent desperately smitten with Irina; and Alex Moggridge as the sisters’ much put-upon, feckless, alternately gentle and petulant brother, Andrei. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, Cabaret, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Through July 10. The Amazing Bubble Man performs.

PERFORMANCE

Bay Area Black Comedy Competition Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.blackcomedycompetition.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $25-45. Don “D.C.” Curry hosts the finals of the competition

Boars Head Cafe Royale, 800 Post; 641-6033. Mon/16, 7:30pm. Free. SF Theater Pub revisits Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays.

Cabaret Lunatique Pier 29 on the Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. Sat/14, 11:15pm. $25-25. Teatro ZinZanni’s cabaret presents “Celebrate the Mission,” the third of nine performances focusing on specific neighborhoods.

The Devil-Ettes Present…Go Go Mania! Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.devilettes.com. Fri/13, 9pm. $10. A night of burlesque and rock.

DIVAfest EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.theexit.org. Through May 28. Check for times and prices. Plays and performances by women artists, including Maggie Cronin, Christina Augello, Margery Fairchild, and Diane DiPrima.

Gods of San Francisco Shotwell Studios, 3252 19th St; Fri-Sat, 8pm (through May 21). $15-20. Ko Labs presents a one-act musical about a mother and daughter in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.

Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock Show Park Library,1950 Page; 355-5656, www.sfpl.org. Thurs/12, 11am. (Also Bernal Heights Library, 500 Cortland; 355-5663, www.sfpl.org. Thurs/12, 3:30pm.) Free. A free performance that is part of a two-week residency.

Katya Takes You Home Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; www.russianoperadiva.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Tues/17, 8pm; Sun/22, 4pm). Through May 22. $20-30. Katya Smirnoff-Skyy presents an original cabaret.

SF Merionettes Synchronized Swimming Show Balboa Pool, 51 Havelock; (206) 240-0488, www.sf-merionettes.org. Sun/15, 5pm. $10 (suggested donation). The team of swimmers from eight to 17 holds an exhibition of 2011 routines.

Theatresports and Improvised Noir Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center; 474-6776, www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm (through May 28). $17-20. BATS Improv Theatre presents competition and noir performances.

Lilias White Fairmont Hotel, Venetian Room, 950 Mason; 392-4400, www.bayareacabaret.org. $45. The singer pays tribute to Cy Coleman with “My Guy Cy.”

Words and Voices: Litquake Tribute to Gertrude Stein Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and 3rd; 543-1718, www.ybca.org. Tues/17, 12:30pm. Free. One of 90 events at this year’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

Yale Glee Club Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter; 771-6900, www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $75-125. The club is joined by Darren Criss and the SFGC Alumnae Chorus for a performance benefiting No Bully and YouthAware.

BAY AREA

Alameda Children’s Musical Theatre Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High, Alameda; (510) 521-6965, www.acmtkids.org. Fri/13, 7:30pm; Sat/14, 2 and 7:30pm. $7-13. A production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Sara Kraft.

DANCE

CubaCaribe Festival Dance Mission, 3316 24th; 273-4633, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. $10-24. A program including performances by Colette Eloi’s El Wah Movement and Danys Pérez’s Oyu Oro.

Copious Dance Theater Z Space, 450 Florida; www.copiousdance.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 5pm. $18. The company brings four works to the stage, including Portals of Grace, Little Voices, and Secret’s Lament.

Luminous Connections Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon; 695-5720, www.sfsota.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. $14-24. San Francisco School of the Arts Pre-Professional Dance Program presents a dance concert, under the direction of Elvia Marta.

Moveable Feast The Garage SF, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/11, 8pm. $10-20. Tanya Bello’s Project. B. presents a full-evening show.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Wed/11-Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 2 and 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $20-62. Smuin Ballet presents a spring program, including choreography by Choo-San Goh, Amy Seiwert, and Michael Smuin.

BAY AREA

Company C Contemporary Ballet Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW, www.lesherartscenter.org. Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 2 and 8pm. $15-40. The company presents three world premieres.

Savage Jazz Dance and Napoles Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts Theatre, 1428 Alice, Oakl; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs/12-Sat/14, 8pm. $5-25. The companies present “Gonzo,” which includes three world premieres by Savage Jazz Dance Company. 

The Performant: Herrre’s Johnny!

Andrew Lam
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Entering The Room

Harley-Davidson. Twinkies. Michael Jackson. Some things are so uniquely American they practically ooze stars and stripes, no matter how far across the borders they stray.

Another all-American tradition – right up there with Miller-in-a-can and Wheel of Fortune – has got to be Bad Movie Night: the deliberate screening of movies so awful they make the viewer scream tears of laughter, or sit in horrified silence, too traumatized by dubious production values or script incoherence to muster the strength to tear their eyes away.

The compulsion to celebrate these cinematic misfits holds a singular place in our national consciousness. They even feed our civic pride: what may be California’s best-loved cult flick of the decade The Room is set right here in San Francisco, with plenty of slo-motion shots of the Golden Gate Bridge to prove it

“I’ve seen this movie 25 times now,” confessed Red Vic employee-owner Sam Sharkey during his introduction, a slightly desperate gleam in his eye. As the opening credits rolled over some stock-style footage of the sun sparkling on the bay, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the California Street cable car, the oddience immediately set phasers to “heckle”. When the credit for director of photography, Todd Barron, flashed on the screen they shouted as one “Fuck you, Todd!” When the door to a non-descript, upscale apartment swings open and “Johnny” (Tommy Wiseau) walked into his living room, the theater erupted into an ecstatic cheer.

“Hi babe,” he responded as if on cue, though of course he was really speaking to his co-star Juliette Danielle, cast in the unenviable role of Tommy’s whiny girlfriend, Lisa.

None of the characters are particularly sympathetic, which perversely is part of what makes the flick such a guilty pleasure. It’s simply impossible to feel bad for these jerks, even if they are trapped in a movie world they didn’t create. Besides Tommy, who appears perpetually zonked on airplane glue and speaks with an outrageous accent of indeterminable origin, and Lisa, who appears to be about 30 years younger and only living with him because, as her acerbic mother (Carolyn Minnott) points out, she can’t support herself, there’s his best friend Mark (Greg Sistero), a preternaturally handsome youth who allows Lisa to seduce him, Denny (Philip Haldiman), a socially-inept teenager who manages to almost get shot in a nefarious drug deal gone awry, and random friends who drop by to have sex on Tommy’s Ikea-issue living room sofa.

For aficionados of cult films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and events such as Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ, a screening of The Room will seem familiar. Scripted cat-calls, impromptu sound effects, the tossing of footballs and, more importantly, spoons don’t deviate overmuch from the generally accepted cult movie experience.

But for San Franciscans, The Room provides more than just an outlet for poking fun at a film, it’s a way for us to poke fun at ourselves. Though filmed mostly in LA, the random shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marina, and Alcatraz conspire to remind the viewer that the movie is partly a love letter, albeit sloppily written, to San Francisco. A city which embraces even its most incongruous misfits.

“If a lot of people loved each other,” Tommy as Johnny perseveres, despite all evidence to the contrary, “the world would be a better place to live.” We are all Tommy Wiseau now.

 

The Room screens monthly at The Red Vic Movie House

 

Nick Waterhouse and the Tarots: New music for old souls

Maria Poblet
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Nick Waterhouse knows what he likes, and as the old adage goes: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Recording entirely in analog on vintage equipment — including an original Muscle Shoals mixer — and performing with beautiful tube amps and old guitars, his attention to detail and historical accuracy pays off. The result is a classic R&B sound that at times is gritty and raw and at others smooth and viscous as warm molasses.

He is a sharp-dressed man, that Waterhouse, adorned in suits and ties, with an angel face framed by horn-rimmed glasses. I imagine he gets constant cliché comparisons to Buddy Holly, but when he and his new group, the Tarots, stepped out on stage for a sold-out show at the Knockout last Saturday, April 30, my first impression of him was of one of those characters in a Daniel Clowes Eightball comic who collects old jazz and soul records — on vinyl. He probably listens to NPR on a Bakelite radio, I thought, albeit a bit snarkily in retrospect. My apologies, Nick.

The vinyl-collecting part is not far from the truth, it turns out. A DJ and regular at any of the many soul parties in San Francisco, like The Make-Out Room’s Lost and Found or the O.G. 1964 at the Edinbugh Castle, Waterhouse clearly knows his stuff, and it should come as no surprise that his uber-knowlege and ear for sound should translate so nicely to his live sets — the music sounds authentic, yet somehow fresh and not dated — backed by a horn-driven band and three beautiful “divas” (that a little bit of Googling identified as The Naturelles) who belt it better than any cheeseball of the same self-declaration ever could.

His debut release, the 45 rpm “Some Place”  — performed and recorded with the Turn-Keys, which includes the legendary Ira Raibon on sax — is currently available from Waterhouse’s own Pres Records. You can catch him tonight, Wed/5, performing with his new lineup for live sets, the Tarots, at the Asterisk Magazine anniversary party (see events listings).

Nick Waterhouse, “Some Place”:

Hot sexy events: May 4-10

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: May 4-10

I’ve been informed that there is an art installation being installed at the English bohemian seaside town of Brighton that will change my life – “the lives of all women, forever”! It’s a wall of 400 plaster cast lady’s genitals, entitled “The Great Wall of Vagina.”

Included in the nine meter wall installation (which will debut at the Brighton Fringe Festival, according to Juxtapoz) are the pussies of transgendered folks, recent mothers, family members, before and after shots of a woman who underwent labiaplasty. It seeks to represent the genitalia gamut, defy the cult of normalcy that’s been drummed into us by the perfect pussies of mainstream pornography. 

It is a phenomenal work — it took five years to cast the participants and then cast their body parts – and I applaud anything that brings feminine sexuality into the public mindframe. I want to like this project, I do! And yet, and yet… 

A one Jamie McCartney was the brave soul to undertake the project, which explains but does not excuse his lack of anatomical knowledge (the casts rarely show their subjects’ vaginas, but rather their labias, “vaginal vestibule,” and clitoris).

Anatomy lesson, for those inclined.

And change the lives of women? That’s what his website says about the piece, and though I think the “Wall” is a neat idea, if we’re digressing with the over-Barbification of women’s sexuality, we need to think about who exactly that message needs to be addressed to. If nothing else, every woman has her own vagina to look at – the same cannot be said of men. 

And before I escort you onto the weekly sex events, let me beat my fist once more against the Wall. 400 vaginas, all makes and models, all bald as a cueball. In the interest of education, can Mr. McCartney please post a plaque next to his pussies that says “not pictured: pubic hair”?

 

“100 Ways to Play: A Catalog of Kink”

“A plethora of perversity.” “It still seems scary, but now in a good way.” “Like drinking from a fire hose. I attended, twice.” God bless participant surveys at sex events. The Citadel hosts this buffet of BDSM every once in awhile so that newbies can sample a taste of all sorts of sex play (fetish, impact, medical, and psychological are all represented) and old hands can get out of that metal-studded rut they may have found their dungeon-time stuck in. 

Thurs/5 7-10:30 p.m., $15-25

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


Lube Wrestling Party

We’re taking “bump and grind” to the next level here. Because not only will the lovelies from Red Hots Burlesque be shimmy-shaking all over El Rio’s stage – getting down on the floor will be some sweaty, shiny girls hammerlocking and elbow dropping (maybe?) all over the damn place. Well, hopefully in the designated lube wrestling area, unless you like a little slick in your seven and seven. 

Thurs/5 9 p.m., $10-15 sliding scale

El Rio 

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.elrio.com


Essence: On Fire

Calling all Sagittari, Leos, and Aries(es?): Mission Control’s sacred sexuality party turns the dial to fire for this month’s celebration of the life force-giving powers of Eros. New Age? In fact, Essence features a temple of innocence, temple of deep Eros, and chamber of dark arts. So leave your cynical friend at home – this is not their sex party. 

Sat/7 10 p.m.-3 a.m., $25-35 members only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Get your master’s in the filthy arts

Do you faun behind your drink at our city’s dirty storytelling nights, yearning to be among the foul-mouthed floozies onstage? Bawdy Storytelling’s grande dame Dixie De La Tour recognizes your needs, and to help out her less filthily verbose community members, is offering this three week course in staged dirty storytelling. Participants receive a diploma, a coursebook, and a video of themselves regailing classmates to study and share (perhaps with some special someones?)

Sun/8, May 15, and May 22 2-6 p.m., $250 for three class series

The Jellyfish Gallery

1286 Folsom, SF

www.dirtystorytellingworkshop.eventbrite.com


The San Francisco Men’s Spanking Party

Now don’t get this party wrong, this isn’t a play party for the hardcore leathermen. No no, this is more for the frisky fella interested in a little “fraternity hazing” or a scene where daddy spanks his bad boy into submission (um, leathermen: don a polo and flip-flops or maybe a tie?). Traipse on down to this safe environment to explore your yen for a little punishment (given or received) in your life. 

Sun/8 1-6 p.m., $20

Power Exchange

220 Jones, SF

www.voy.com/201188


“Give Spanks: Spanking for Sexual Pleasure”

So our story on Mistress Minax’s toy box piqued your pleasure points – but now you’re not quite sure how to make that first step down the BDSM dungeon stairs? Your wish is Good Vibes’ command – Minax will be lending a strong, swift hand to the sex toy company’s spanking workshop. A clothed demo will accompany this class, as well as tips on how to coax an unsure partner into the pleasure of pain. 

Tues/10 6-8 p.m., $20-25

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

Bleak frames and guilt

Andrew Lam
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Bleak frames and guilt

arts@sfbg.com

LIT From the first page, an anonymous manifesto denouncing the pharmaceutical industry, to a bronze sculpture of a suppressed anti-Nazi headline from the Lippische Tages-Zeitung weighted down by a giant hammer and nails on the last, David Lester’s graphic novel The Listener (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 304 pages, $19.95) explores how words often fail their intended purpose, precipitating actions with unforeseen consequences.

The unintended consequence of the manifesto: an amateur activist falls to his death while hanging a banner from a radio tower. The unintended consequence of the unpublished article: the rise of the Third Reich and the fall of a nation’s conscience. In Lester’s book, both events become entangled within the scope of Louise Shearing, a Canadian sculptor wracked with guilt over the death of the activist, who took the phrase “action speaks louder than words” to heart.

Although The Listener eventually makes reference to the fallen activist, Vann, being influenced by Louise’s sculpture of French anarchist Louis Michel, it’s not immediately clear to the reader why Louise, as opposed to the scribes behind the manifesto, must bear the brunt of the guilt over his death. Like many young people in a state of flux, Louise winds up backpacking across Europe, hanging out in art museums and hooking up with cute but pedantic European men. In one of those almost-magical chance encounters so common to the open road, she has a conversation with an elderly couple in a café, which culminates in an unexpected history lesson.

Rudolph and Marie are from the former German state of Lippe (now part of North Rhine-Westphalia), site of the last free election in Germany before Hitler took the chancellorship. As journalists and members of a smaller right-wing party (the DVNP), which balks at towing the Nazi Party line, they nonetheless go along with the suppression of an article exposing corrupt Nazi campaign tactics. The headline pulled at the last minute is preserved for posterity on a secret plate that Rudolph smuggles home. “Our failure to defeat the Nazis in Lippe is a regret we live with every day,” Marie says.

It’s tempting to draw a parallel between Lester’s The Listener and Jason Lutes’ Berlin, but to compare the two does The Listener a disservice. Where Berlin is a meticulously-rendered serial drama characterized by painstakingly clear lines and weighted text, The Listener is a shadowy morality play cloaked in the mantle of German Expressionism. The black guilt that weighs heavily within Louise and the German couple seeps across each page like a Rorschach blot. Each bleak frame is a single painting, rendered in messily urgent layers of gray, interspersed with replications of newspaper headlines trumpeting the rise of the Third Reich. Also unlike Berlin, most of the book’s action actually takes place in the present day, where the reverberations of the dead can be, and are, remarked on by the living.

The Listener flags during Louise’s unstructured attempts to ascertain what art means to her by discussing it at length. She swoons over Cézanne and deconstructs Picasso, but is so rarely shown in the act of creation that it’s easy to forget that her art has served as a catalyst for action. It’s possible to imagine Lester — painter, musician, activist — having these very conversations with himself, but they don’t have the same impact as the sculpture Louise finally creates in the last frame, a picture truly worth a thousand words. 

 

TV eye

Andrew Lam
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TV eye

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL In 1976 artist Clive Robertson reflected on a performance he gave that same year, in which he dressed up as and restaged pieces by the famous postwar German performance artist Joseph Beuys. “We have to adapt legends so that they become portable and can fit into our pockets,” he wrote. “Unfortunately for the artist, that is the fight we label history.”

Robertson was addressing his own anxiety of influence in the face of Beuys’ then-ascendant status within the art world, but his comments also provide a gloss on the struggle that curators and art historians face in their own practice. In the case of “God Only Knows Who the Audience Is,” a parting gift from the graduating students of California College of the Arts’ Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, currently on view in the galleries of the school’s Wattis Institute, it is a struggle undertaken with great intelligence and economy.

Smartly conceived and staged, “God Only Knows” is a dialogic tale of two histories. One is a survey of the nonprofit artist-run organization and gallery space La Mamelle (which became ART COM in the 1980s) that existed in various incarnations from 1975 through 1995 and forms an important, if under-recognized, chapter of Bay Area art history. The other traces a concurrent shift in performance art, largely made possible by the advent of video technology, away from the artist’s body and toward the disembodied artist.

La Mamelle was, appropriate to its name, a nurturing organ for the local art scene. In addition to hosting events and organizing exhibits, the organization released videos, audio-zines, and microfiches, and published anthologies as well as the regular magazine in which pieces such as Robertson’s “The Sculptured Politics of Joseph Beuys,” quoted above, first appeared.

The constant proliferation of publications and media put local artists such as Chip Lord, the video collective Ant Farm, Lynn Hershman, and Bonnie Sherk — who all have pieces or documentation of early performances on display here — in touch with other artists around the world and vice versa. The aforementioned artists had wandered to the end of the conceptual inroads that had been laid down by the likes of Andy Warhol and Beuys, and were now operating in a new media wilderness, with only their VHS cameras to guide them.

“God Only Knows” successfully locates these artists and their work within a continuum of practices that stretches into the present. Others have followed Robertson in treating Beuys and his practice as source material (“identity transfer” in his words), as evinced by nearby pieces in the first floor’s survey of performance art that de-centers the artist’s body as both a performance’s agent and its living trace, such as Whitney Lynn’s 2010 re-do of another Beuys performance, or Luis Felipe Ortega and Daniel Guzmán’s 1994 video Remake, in which the duo stages “improved upon” versions of canonical performance art pieces.

The exhibit’s second floor takes us into the ’80s and ’90s, where the message is clear: television opened up the potential for art to reach new audiences. Greeted by the ponderous, mustachioed visage of Douglas Davis in his The Last Nine Minutes, a live-to-video performance realized in 1977 for Documenta 6, we immediately see how video dissolved the time lag between action and its documentation. Bill Viola’s 44 portraits of television viewers (1983-84) staring silently into their TV sets, made for WGBH in Boston, screens on the other side of the entrance.

In the middle of the gallery, playing across what the accompanying brochure calls an “archipelago” of viewing stations, are various video pieces by La Mamelle and ART COM artists, as well as those by artists such as the Borat-like Olaf Breuning, whose work plays off of the spectacle of TV shows. Meanwhile, at the back of the room, Mario Garcia Torres’ jarring 2008 nine-channel compilation of artists’ TV cameos from the past four decades (Dali doing a car commercial; Warhol appearing as himself on The Love Boat) tabulates the increasing banality of art’s intersection with television.

Yet despite the histories laid out in “God Only Knows Who the Audience Is,” Bravo’s Work of Art, YouTube, and the continual meddling presence of James Franco, video has yet to kill the performance art star — or at least the demand for the star’s body, as demonstrated by Marina Abramovic’s recent MOMA retrospective, in which the real attraction was not the controversial restagings of her greatest hits, but her daily physical presence.

The irony, of course, is that exhibit’s online half-life, which continues today. The Flickr and Tumblr are still there. The artist is still present to those who navigate to those pages, even though Abramovic left the building long ago. God only knows who’s still watching.

 

DISAPPEARING ACTS

The title of German painter Christoph Roßner’s current solo show at Romer Young, “The Hat, That Never Existed,” is a tip-off. Roßner’s smudged, over-painted, and half-erased depictions of things and people — trees, candles, top hats, houses, old men — scan as disappearing acts rather than fixed portraits (the way the canvases have been hung even suggests that a few have gone missing from the gallery). “Ghoulish” is the operative word here. Not much separates the faceless specter of Ghost from the skeletal visage in Grinser; and Roßner can make even a rock look like an Expressionist coffin. That’s not lazy journalistic shorthand, either: Roßner’s rough-hewn bleakness is of a piece with the Old World aesthetics of, say, George Grosz. The séance lasts only one more week, though, so act fast.

GOD ONLY KNOWS WHO THE AUDIENCE IS

Through July 2

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art

1111 Eighth St.

(415) 551-9210

www.wattis.org

THE HAT, THAT NEVER EXISTED

Through May 14

Romer Young Gallery

1240 22nd St., SF

(415) 550-7483

www.romeryounggallery.com

 

Nothing’s fixed

Andrew Lam
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Nothing’s fixed

CYCLING The SF Bike Coalition’s valet parking was strangely empty for a blazingly sunny Saturday event by the Ferry Building. “They’ve just been leaving their bikes around,” a bored attendant told me of the crowd assembled for the Red Bull Ride + Style fixed-gear competition. But that wasn’t out of apathy to their rides — these attendees wanted to keep their bikes close.

Candy-colored fixies were turned upside-down on their handlebars, stacked in piles with the steeds of their owners’ friends. Young men (there were a lot of young men) kept their hands firmly locked in riding position, rolling their bikes back and forth as they spoke, some times gesticulating with them for added effect. Those slim, messenger-style backpacks were much in evidence.

In the competition arena, no one strayed far from their bikes either, except for the spectacular falls that sporadically broke up the action. Strap-on fixed-gear pedals make for epic wipe-outs; one soldier was taken off the field on a stretcher.

Save for the lone female who rolled about during the event’s interminable “practice times,” all riders were male. This was about bros on bikes. Indeed, as the final race around the hazardous, hairpin track was announced between Bay Area childhood friends Jason Clary and Kell McKenzie (Clary won), the announcer took a moment to salute their relationship. “You guys have known each other since you were 14? It’s bro versus bro! Fixed-gear nation!”

Competitive fixed-gear racing is, relatively speaking, a nascent addition to the legion of bone-cracking thrill fests enjoyed by extreme sports fans. The sport’s lexicon is borrowed from the death-defying ride tactics of gonzo bike messengers, a profession that has to sprint to keep up with e-mail and 3-D projection technology to stay salient for corporate America.

San Francisco is one of the messenger bike meccas. The city has given birth to some epically fly-terrifying fixie films — guys slaloming down from Twin Peaks, diving into traffic, holding onto buses for acceleration, basically using the ridiculous speed you can achieve on a fixed- gear bike for pure chaos (in the eyes of the pedestrian, surely).

But street stunts do not a competitive sport make. On Saturday, it was apparent that everyone was trying to figure out just what Ride + Style meant. The week before the event, the Guardian interviewed Austin Horse, one of New York City’s best-known bike messengers, by e-mail.

“Nobody knows what to expect about Ride N Style,” he wrote. “It’s very mysterious, but the riders know it’s going to be a challenging and compelling event because it’s coming from Red Bull. [Editor’s note: Apparently Red Bull’s sponsorship is a big deal. Red Bull also sponsored a downhill bike race through a Brazilian favela, the aerodynamic inanity of Flutag, and your most jittery friend in college who had a dorm room full of Red Bull crates. Remember that guy?] The result is that all the riders are a little more anxious about this race than other events. What we do know is that it’s gonna be a sprint with features some guys aren’t going to be comfortable with. It’s a little scary.”

The second half of the day was given over to what was billed as the most cutting edge part of the competition: the freestyle contest. Covered in sherbet colors, spiders, geometric whorls, and playing card designs, they looked every bit the background for an extreme sports tournament.

“Only rarely have events invested in features tailored to the constraints and potential of this type of riding,” Horse says. When the cameras are off “people practice wherever they can — skate parks and street spots.”

In San Francisco, one of the most reliable spots to watch good fixed-gear freestyling is in the Harry Bridges Plaza, the strip of asphalt between the Ferry Building and where Ride + Style was erected in the more ample Justin Herman Plaza. You can go out to Harry Bridges at dusk most days and see people hopping their bikes off the ground, spinning in the air, twerking their handlebars, riding backward in tight figure eights, and stopping on dimes.

But the ramps took it up a notch — so up that spectators began to compare the competition to those of BMX bikes, which can catch a lot more air than fixed gears. It wasn’t a coincidental connection: some of the competitors announced on the microphone that they were usually on a BMX, and Jeremy Witek, the lead designer of the ramps, told me during the construction phase that this was the first time he’d been asked to make structures like these for a fixed-gear competition.

There were some hands-down highlights of the freestyle portion — Kohei “Kozo” Fuji flew in from Osaka to bust the first fixed-gear back flip in international competition. But many of the routines seemed strangely suited for their setting. The beauty of the fixed-gear lies in its simplicity — one pump of the legs, one rotation of the wheels, the easy mathematics of human body and machine.

But the novelty of seeing these lifestyle bikes thrust into the bright lights and loud announcers of the X Games variety wasn’t lost on those least jaded of San Franciscans — the Embarcadero tourists. Washing my hands in the Embarcadero Center bathroom, I heard a young woman essentially ask her mom what the hell this crazy city of bikes is up to. “Does San Francisco always have this?”

Girl, it does now. 

 

Dick Meister: The Real May Day

Maria Poblet
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Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.

May Day. A day to herald the coming of Spring with song and dance, a day for children with flowers in their hair to skip around beribboned maypoles, a time to crown May Day queens.

But it also is a day for demonstrations heralding the causes of working people and their unions such as are being held on Sunday that were crucial in winning important rights for working people. The first May Day demonstrations, in 1886,  won the  most important of tthe rights rever won by working people – the right demanded above all others by the labor activists of a century ago:

“Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!”

Winning the eight-hour workday took years of hard struggle, beginning in the mid-1800s. By 1867, the federal government, six states and several cities had passed laws limiting their employees’ hours to eight per day. The laws were not effectively enforced and in some cases were overturned by courts, but they set an important precedent that finally led to a powerful popular movement.

The movement was launched in 1886 by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, then one of the country’s major labor organizations. The federation called for workers to negotiate with their employers for an eight-hour workday and, if that failed, to strike on May 1 in support of the demand.

Some negotiated, some marched and otherwise demonstrated.  More than 300,000 struck. And all won strong support, in dozens of cities – Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Denver, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Washington, Newark, Brooklyn, St. Paul and others.

More than 30,000 workers had won the eight-hour day by April. On May Day, another 350,000 workers walked off their jobs at nearly 12,000 establishments, more than 185,000 of them eventually winning their demand. Most of the others won at least some reduction in working hours that had ranged up to 16 a day.

Additionally, many employers cut Saturday operations to a half-day, and the practice of working on Sundays, also relatively common, was all but abandoned by major industries.

“Hurray for Shorter Time,” declared a headline in the New York Sun over a story describing a torchlight procession of 25,000 workers that highlighted the eight-hour-day activities in New York. Never before had the city experienced so large a demonstration.

Not all newspapers were as supportive, however. The strikes and demonstrations, one paper complained, amounted to “communism, lurid and rampant.” The eight-hour day, another said, would encourage “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery, and drunkenness.”

The greatest opposition came in response to the demonstrations led by anarchist and socialist groups in Chicago, the heart of the eight-hour day movement. Four demonstrators were killed and more than 200 wounded by police who waded into their ranks, but what the demonstrators’ opponents seized on were the events two days later at a protest rally in Haymarket Square. A bomb was thrown into the ranks of the police who had surrounded the square, killing seven and wounding 59.

The bomb thrower was never discovered, but eight labor, socialist and anarchist leaders – branded as violent, dangerous radicals by press and police alike – were arrested on the clearly trumped up charge that they had conspired to commit murder.  Four of them were hanged, one committed suicide while in jail, and three were pardoned six years later by Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld.

Employers responded to the so-called Haymarket Riot by mounting a counter-offensive that seriously eroded the eight-hour day movement’s gains. But the movement was an extremely effective organizing tool for the country’s unions, and in 1890 President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor was able to call for “an International Labor Day” in favor of the eight-hour workday. Similar proclamations were made by socialist and union leaders in other nations where, to this day, May Day is celebrated as Labor Day.

Workers in the United States and 13 other countries demonstrated on that May Day of 1890 – including 30,000 of them in Chicago. The New York World hailed it as “Labor’s Emancipation Day.” It was. For it marked the start of an irreversible drive that finally established the eight-hour day as the standard for millions of working people.


Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 300 of his columns.

Hot sexy events: April 27-May 3

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: April 27-May 3

Hey there sexy, how’s life on the other side of the Intertubes? I wanna get real with some real questions in this week’s sexy events column. Don’t worry, it’s about you. Namely, we here at the SF of BG would like to know just what you feel is missing from sex coverage in this age of Aquarius (ha!) in which we live. Are you feeling like you have pressing sex ed questions that need answering? Are you wishing that there was more event coverage of the parties and perv-a-thons in our fair Sodom By the Bay?

See, we’re going through an evolution with our sex coverage, and though we’ve got some pretty hot and wild ideas up in our noggins, youse the readers are just that, and maybe you’re thinking something we missed. So how bout it – new voices, dildo reviews, heavy breathing monolouges? The Guardian’s mission is to be a voice for the community of San Francisco, so have at us. Um, our safe word is spelt. 

 

Erotic Reading Circle

Share your thoughts, air out those tired old insecurities – get real pervy with, whatever. The monthly Erotic Reading Circle at the Center for Sex and Culture provides a safe space for writers to share their bedroom-related materials. Carol Queen and Jen Cross of Writing Ourselves Whole facilitate the gathering, pretty much a must-do for any aspiring sex scribe. 

Weds/27 7:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Center for Sex and Culture 

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org


Hot Draw

Unleash your wild, artistic side at these live drawing sessions – one need only peep the galleries on Mark I. Chester’s website to see that he doesn’t play when it comes to drawing dirty players. Kinky leathermen strut about for a crowd of strictly sketchy, strictly gay male artist scribblers.

Thurs/28 6:30-9:30 p.m., free

Mark I. Chester Studio

1229 Folsom, SF

(415) 621-6294

www.markichester.com


Art of Restraint

How would you like to be situated right in the center of a high-art, surround sound bondage performance? It’s all within your grasp, baby – this week’s Femina Potens event at Mission Control will string up local lovelies Fivestar and Madison Young, while adult film performers and submissives offering up chocolate-covered strawberries romp about. Does it sound too good to be true? Believe, child, believe. 

Sat/30 8 p.m.-3 a.m., $50-75

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


How Weird Street Faire

While not sexy per se, this fair sure is freaky: How Weird takes over a good portion of SoMa for stage upon stage of electronic ass-shaking, and community bonding. What community, you say? Bonding how, you ask? Well maybe just maybe that’s up to you, sailor. Head over in whatever state of disarray you like and get funky. 

Sun/1 noon- 8 p.m., $10 suggested donation

Howard and Second St., SF

www.howweird.org 


Kentucky Fried Woman’s Guilty Pleasures

You need this bucket of crispy, greasy, lip-smackin’ queers stripping down to their burlesque bundles like you need to watch your cholesterol intake. For reals, put down the trans fat. Instead, pop on over to Oakland’s Bench and Bar bar, and feast your eyes on the talents of Alotta Boutté, Scotty the Blue Bunny, and oh! So much more. Heart-stopping, in a good way. 

Sun/1 7:30-10:30 p.m., $10

Bench and Bar

510 17th St., Oakl.

(415) 374-1924

Facebook: Kentucky Fried Woman’s Guilty Pleasures 


“Finding and Maintaining a Happily Ever After: A Relationship Workshop for Lesbian Couples”

How do you make relationships last past the original courting period? Davina and Molly have married each other countless times in protest of unequal civil rights, and so they’re uniquely qualified (maybe) to talk about how to make matrimony mutually awesome (in and out of the bedroom).

Tues/3 6:30-8:30 p.m. $20-25 for singles $35-45 for pairs

Center for Sex and Culture 

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

 

Earth Day in City Hall … on Wells Fargo’s dime

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Who was lucky enough to get treated to Mayor Ed Lee’s Earth Day Breakfast in City Hall, with the city’s top politicos and a smattering of high-profile San Franciscans? After noticing that the Board of Supervisors had approved a grant of $12,000 from Wells Fargo a few weeks ago to sponsor the event, the Guardian contacted the Mayor’s Office to ask for the guest list. The response came from the city’s Department of the Environment, which accepted the donation and organized the affair.

The 472-person invite list (we don’t know how many actually attended) included prominent figures such as Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, billionaire investor Warren Hellman, and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. All 11 members of the Board of Supervisors were invited, too, as were mayoral hopefuls City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, and state Sen. Leland Yee.
 
Invitations were extended to some truly green organizations, too, such as Green for All, Save the Bay, Rainforest Action Network, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Sierra Club, the Apollo Alliance, Greenaction, and others.

And many seats were reserved for the corporate sector. A total of nine representatives of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. were on the list. There were seven from Cisco, several from consulting and design firm CH2MHill, and a couple representatives from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — the firm that’s doing the Parkmerced overhaul and which was tapped to envision waterfront venues for the America’s Cup. 

Seven representatives — including the CEO — were invited from Recology, which is in the midst of a debate over its high-stakes, $275 million no-bid garbage contract with the city.

According to Mark Westlund of the Department of the Environment, only half of the Wells Fargo grant went toward the mayor’s Earth Day Breakfast, “the remainder to a series of community events held in the Department’s EcoCenter lobby.” The other sponsors included Blue Shield of California ($2,000); CH2MHill; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; United Airlines; Environmental Science Associates ($4,000); Levi Strauss & Co.; Cisco ($6,000) and Starbucks — which provided BPA-free travel mugs (double green points!).

It’s nice that San Francisco taxpayers didn’t have to shell out the $18,000 for all these people to celebrate Earth Day together. But at an event such as this, with so many millions of dollars in city contracts and major development projects flying around (not to mention the half a dozen or so people in need of campaign contributions), you can bet they weren’t all talking to one another about saving the planet.

La vida vegan

Andrew Lam
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La vida vegan

caitlin@sfbg.com

DINE It’s a wild, woolly world when you won’t eat its cheeseburgers. Or so I discovered last autumn when I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals and found that my inner logician could no longer justify consuming products from the loins (and udders, and uteri) of animals that spent their lives experiencing the systematic abuse of factory farms.

But the most shocking tiding from Foer? A University of Chicago study, he writes, found that omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gas of vegans. My bicycle eyed me from its perch on the storage hook in our apartment’s foyer. Environmentalists, are we?

So we traipse along the hippie-liberal continuum — just one more step to independence from fossil fuels, I suppose. But though I’ve been riding the pescatarian train for years, going animal product-free was harder than a piquant wedge of manchego (Jesus, even my metaphors have dairy products in them).

I was surprised how many places I would go — even here, in the befigged plate of the Bay Area! — where wearing my vegan hat meant going underfed and, by extension, becoming a whiny envelope-full of social anthrax addressed to my dining companions. Some restaurants even ghettoize our kind with separate menus, as if vegan food holds no interest for the general dining public.

Surely, though, this is nothing compared to the brave, ice cream-rejecting, pizza cheese-peeling pioneers of the vegan world! Even if it’s still hard to break society’s “five food groups” programming, as a whole our country is well out of the “what’s a vegan?” stage of cultural development.

It was high time for a pulse check. So one rainy spring day, I met with some of the Bay’s best and brightest vegans for a potluck and chat on where living animal-free is at these days. Food activists, chefs, moms, a boyfriend, a blogger. We ate like kings and bitched about steaks. We called it the Summit of the Vegans. I’ll tell you more — but first, a word on our vegans …

 

TAMEARRA DYSON

Vegan cred: Owner of Souley Vegan and self-taught chef

Comes natural: “When someone asks me what I use instead of milk or butter, I don’t even know how to answer that. What do you use? You just don’t use it!”

 

MARK BENEDETTO AND CARMEN VAZQUEZ

Vegan cred: Chefs. Started the now-defunct vegan Brassica Supperclub. Now the manager of Frog Hollow Farm’s Ferry Building store and kitchen supervisor at Gracias Madre, with a restaurant of their own on the horizon.

Vegans on the lam: The couple’s underground supper club was shut down by the fuzz in 2009 for lacking required permits.

A love that knows no animal products: “There are a ton of factions, splinter cells,” Benedetto says, “but all vegans secretly, quietly love other vegans.”

 

NANCY LOEWEN

Vegan cred: Nurse and vice president of the SF Vegetarian Society

Don’t even try to win that argument: “The Vegetarian Society has been around for 40 years. We continue to be a small group, but the number of vegetarians continue to grow. I love animals; I don’t like to go to the doctor; there are the environmental reasons; and I love the food. You just can’t win that argument!”

 

BILL EVANS

Vegan cred: Guardian production manager. Has been animal product-free for years. Our Joe Vegan.

Breaking down the meat lines: “The things that crack me up and annoy me at the same time: my girlfriend is the opposite of vegan and she’ll order a steak and invariably the waiter will come back and give me the steak and her my salad. There are some societal expectations about what’s a manly food.”

 

LAURA BECK

Vegan cred: Founding blogger of vegansaurus.com

Loves her job because: “The vast majority of my commenter are so rad. They’re smart, awesome activists, not preachy dicks, which is what a lot of people think vegans are.”

When’s she’s not blogging: Beck’s favorite Bay Area vegan eats include Encuentro, Golden Era, the flan at Gracias Madre, schwarmas from Herbivore, Saha, Jay’s Cheesesteaks, and Souley Vegan.

Note: Beck was sick for our summit but I hollered at her afterward so she could still join the conversation.

Elbow-deep as we were in the toothsome culinary contributions my summit attendees had whipped up for the occasion, it was perhaps no surprise to learn that food cravings were the least of the challenges to their vegan lifestyles. Indeed, to a (wo)man, our panel participants — many of whom had been vegans for the better part of a decade — found their eats superior to more omnivorous spreads.

“There are only five or six animals that people eat for meat,” said Loewen, who works at a senior citizen center by day and spends her free time organizing events like the Vegetarian Society’s annual Meat Out. “But we’ve got so many options in terms of grains and vegetables.”

One of the upsides to being vegan — in addition to the animal treatment and health and well-being issues that panelists cited as their salient motivations to make their lifestyle switch — is that it compels a certain amount of creativity in the kitchen. When you’re operating largely outside the parameters of what your family considers a standard meal, you tend to think outside the prepackaged box.

Dyson runs my favorite reason to cross the Bay Bridge — Souley Vegan’s crispy tofu burger and mac ‘n’ cheese have magical properties. She came to veganism when she had a visceral reaction as a teenager to a chicken bone, and now can’t imagine life any other way. She started her cooking career at a farmers market booth and now brings Souley Vegan’s cuisine to African American expos and public schools, where it teaches people about life, post-pork flavoring.

We talked about living vegan in the Bay Area, where my panelists agreed the vegan community had yet to come together the way in has in places like Austin. They pinned this lack of cohesion on the dearth of a central cultural hub, and Beck affirmed that a need for just such a meeting space was one of her motivations behind Vegansaurus.

Evans bemoaned the “ideological chasm” that separates omnivores and vegans and makes it difficult to share information and understanding between the two. The group debated over whether the “vegan movement” could truly be said to exist — and yeah, we talked shit too.

“I think it’s bullshit!” Loewen opined suddenly when I asked the group how they felt about Michael Pollan’s assertion that eating sustainably is more important than eating animal-product-free. “[That view] takes out the ethical aspect. That animal is going to die — free range animals want to live even more than other animals.”

Benedetto and Vazquez attended the California Culinary Academy (where they met and Vazquez became vegan) and were the summit’s official “vegans on the front lines” because of it. The school, they said, accommodated their desire not to work with meat — to a point. They still had to cook a steak for a final exam and take a two-week butchery course. “It smelled like death,” grimaced Benedetto. “Postgrad, I decided I would rather work retail than have to cook meat.”

Bottom line? There are challenges to being a Bay Area vegan. But there are victories as well: feeling “lighter,” minimizing your impact on the environment, being your own person, and delicious meals, to name a few. After hearing everyone’s stories, I realized that becoming a vegan in the Bay is a lot like being a human in the Bay: endlessly frustrating, completely crazy, but also a chance to be a part of an earnest try for a more sustainable world.

 

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