food Archives — Page 37 of 139 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Cheap basics, side of rainbow magic: Uniqlo’s full-size store opens this week

Andrew Lam

October 3, 2012

“We’re trying to impress you with the amount of colors we have for socks,” says Aldo Liguori, Uniqlo global director of corporate PR as he guides us through his Japanese clothing brand’s soon-to-be-open San Francisco store. There are indeed, a lot of sock colors. The three-story Union Square space is home to many wonders, however. Walls of affordably-priced cashmere sweaters, a magic mirror, color-shifting staircases, heat-generating clothing, and — perhaps most compelling to your reporter — a $9.90 special on “Japanese engineered denim.”

They have eggplant, dark gold, forest-colored jeans. An autumn palette rainbow. Grab them while they last. “They are manufactured in ChIina,” said Liguori in a reserved cadence befitting a person whose office is in the Minato ward of Tokyo. “But to Uniqlo Japanese standards.”

Not even $10. Elbows out on Friday, shoppers.

Sure, I spent the morning touring a chain clothing store. But Uniqlo is an exciting chain clothing store, way more exciting than Target, although maybe not as exciting as Top Shop. Te Powell Street location is the fifth full-fledged US location, although a San Francisco pop-up shop has been open since August a few blocks away. Would you believe New Jersey got a full-sized Uniqlo before the Bay Area? It did 🙁

Nonetheless, Uniqlo’s been busy at the hype game here in SF — promotional gambits have included online games involving Japanese cult cat Maru, and panel discussions held in the pop-up with Goapele and Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowein.

Those $9.90 jeans are one of a few opening days sales — you can also get their heavily-promoted, weirdly-lightweight down jackets for $49.90, and no less than six pairs of socks for $9.90. Uniqlo’s big on basics, but a lot of the basics come with twists, like aforementioned Heatech line of heat-producing long underwear, tank tops, etc. I swooned at the SF store over the wool cocoon coats and Double Standard by Masahisa Takino line of solid, Helmut Lang-like pieces. Slouchy sweatshirt shrugs, futuristic-looking rain trenches, etc.

But maybe you’re in it for the majick. You’ll find it here — like I said the staircases breathe rainbow. There are rotating army of fedora-wearing rainbow-clad mannequins, LOOK:

… and a mirror that, with the touch of a button, will change the color of the reflection of the fleece or down jacket you are wearing, so that you can see whether you’re more of a rose or a silver.

DISCLAIMER: By popular demand, we’d like to remind you that clothes produced in China are not subject to the same labor laws as clothes produced here in the United States (love you, Guardianistas.) Please note, Uniqlo has a mediocre history when it comes to these issues.

Uniqlo San Francisco store opening

Fri/5

Store hours: Mon.-Sat., 10am-9pm; Sun., 10am-8pm

111 Powell, SF

www.uniqlo.com

Aim for these

October 3, 2012

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE Most memorable restaurants boasts an overarching standard of quality to their menus. Other times, one dreams of specific items from certain spots. Here are a few places worth trekking out to for unique dream dishes.

LASAGNA BOLOGNESE AT MARCELLA’S

Lasagna… there are few foods as evocative of my childhood. Until now, Gaspare’s in the Outer Richmond was typically where I’d get my old school lasagna fix. Since May, though, Dogpatch now has a lasagneria, of all fantastic things. Marcella’s Lasagneria and Cucina is a humble corner shop selling Chef Massimo’s aioli spreads (like black truffle or spicy Chardonnay) and other housemade food products, paninis, soups, and pizzas for eating in or taking out. Best of all, six kinds of lasagna to choose from.

Jovial Massimo hails from Italy’s Abruzzo region (I’m charmed by the 1980s-looking photo of him above the counter in chef’s hat with a glass of wine), who regales with tales of early kitchen work and family. The shop is named after his daughter, while his friendly son sometimes works the counter. On a typical visit (open weekdays, 11:30am-7pm), lasagna options are butternut squash, bolognese, wild mushroom, spicy eggplant, spicy sausage, and pesto zucchini. I buy a whole lasagna for a family birthday — yes, it’s celebratory-good — and bring home three slices for dinner (8.50 each), reveling in savory-sweet red sauce and ultra-thin pasta sheets redolent with but not overcome by ricotta and mozzarella.

Butternut squash lasagna is typically white, so that the squash shines. Here it still does, while benefiting from a bit of red sauce. Earthy wild mushroom, spicy eggplant or pesto ricotta are winning. I like classic Bolognese best, the version my mother used to make. Massimo corners lassagna balance: there’s never too much of any one ingredient. The entirety melts in your mouth, as heartwarming as your Italian mama’s cookinge.

1099 Tennessee, SF. (415) 920-2225, www.marcellaslasagneria.com

MILLIONAIRE’S BACON AT BLACKWOOD

There are not many Thai joints in the Marina (Yukol Place has been keeping it real for years), and certainly not one like Blackwood. High ceilings and shades of black and grey set a chic tone, while non-traditional dishes like mushroom egg rolls and unfortunately named Marina Strips — Wagyu beef strips wrapped in baby hearts of palm — fill the menu. Many dishes are larger, more artfully arranged, versions of typical Thai dishes, like papaya salad or Pad See Ew (spelled Pad See You). Thai fusion is apparent in a Thai Wagyu burger ($12) on brioche loaded with a Thai salad of cucumber, carrot, cilantro, sesame. Or in generous, sizzling stone pots ($14-16), akin to Koran bibimbap filled with rice, veggies, meat of choice (I like crispy red snapper in plum dressing), topped with a fried egg.

However, the one destination item is merely a $5 add-on to a breakfast platter (served daily, 8am-4pm). And what an add-on! Blackwood’s only been open since June, but the millionaire’s bacon has already been named on the Discovery Channel Destination America’s United States of Food. Two hefty strips of bacon are dense, shimmery, chewy beauties, caramelized and slightly sweet and smoky. Despite bacon burn-out over the past decade, with bacon gracing every dessert and dish possible, these juicy strips renew and refresh the love, reminiscent of Southern ham in gourmet jerky-like form.

2150 Chestnut, SF. (415) 931-9663, www.blackwoodsf.com

CALABRIAN CHILE SPAGHETTINI AT BLUESTEM

Bluestem Brasserie is no run-of-the-mill downtown shopping break. In fact, it has improved since opening in summer 2011, honing in on its menu, house charcuterie, and whole-animal butchery practices (no part goes to waste). With new executive chef Francis Hogan, there is fresh life in the space frequented by tourists, shoppers, and the Moscone Center crowd. While wine on tap, grass-fed beef, and whole-animal practices are common in SF at large, being centrally situated downtown between SoMa and Union Square, Bluestem is exposing a new range of clientele to the delicious taste of sustainability.

Besides satisfying house pâté (on the charcuterie platter) of pork, pistachio, and the like, a whole roasted branzino ($29) is flaky, perked up with roasted summer chilis or your choice of side, while grass-fed six-ounce filet ($31) or 12-ounce ribeye ($34) steaks are appropriately tender, medium rare, with choice of sauce ($3.75), like bourbon espresso or horseradish-roasted garlic cream. The dish I found myself trekking back for whether at lunch or dinner is Calabrian chile spaghettini ($19). Though I would prefer some heat from Calabrian chiles (I detected none), the heaping bowl of pasta is topped with Early Girl tomatoes, arugula, and basil — the pièce de résistance being melted burrata flowing over the pasta in lush waves. A gentle zesting of lemon rind perfects it. Dessert ($9.50) is no afterthought. The Peaches and Herb “Reunited” sundae was a layered summer treat, but the jar filled with mini-cookies baked in-house, including lemon sugar and peanut butter, made me feel like a kid again. There were so many cookies, I finished the rest for breakfast the next day with coffee.

One Yerba Buena Lane, SF. (415) 547-1111, www.bluestembrasserie.com

Endorsements 2012: State ballot measures

Andrew Lam

October 3, 2012

State ballot measures

PROPOSITION 30

TEMPORARY TAX INCREASE

YES

Why are we voting on — and watching the various interests spend about $30 million on — a simple tax increase that in most sane places would be vetted and approved by the state Legislature? Two reasons: California has an archaic and insane rule mandating a two-thirds vote of both houses for a tax hike, which is impossible as long as a few Republicans are still in Sacramento — and our crabby old oddball of a governor, Jerry Brown, insisted in his last campaign that he’d never raise taxes without a vote of the people.

Prop. 30 is an amalgam, a mixture of what Brown first wanted and what the more liberal supporters of a tax on millionaires were proposing. The guv had to come the table when it looked like the millionaire tax might have enough support to compete with his plan; he made a few concessions, and everyone signed off on this plan. It raises taxes on people with incomes of more than $250,000 (good) and hikes the sales tax by a quarter-cent (not so good) and would bring in $6 billion a year until it expires in 2019.

A bit of perspective: When former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger whacked the vehicle license fee his first day in office, he cost the state about $4 billion a year, with the stroke of a pen.

And in a state with more billionaires than any other place in America, a fabulously rich place with the world’s eighth-largest economy, the notion that we have to argue about raising $6 billion in taxes is farcical.

Nevertheless, it’s crucial to pass Prop. 30. The money will prevent catastrophic cuts to education and social services. Prop. 30 won’t move California a single step forward — but it will keep us all a few inches away from the abyss.

Brown has gambled his governorship on this — and if he loses, he’ll take a good part of the state’s future with him. We live in strange and unpleasant times; vote Yes on 30.

PROPOSITION 31

STATE BUDGET AND LEGISLATIVE REFORMS

NO

There are no easy solutions to the fiscal and political mess that is California, 2012, and voters should beware of self-proclaimed reformers claiming to wield silver-bullet fixes. Just the fact that this Prop. 31 tries to enshrine so many complex legislative reforms into one measure should give us pause. And it’s almost always a bad idea to use the initiative process to micromanage complex relationships between state and local governments and between the legislative and executive branches of state government.

Some of what this measure would do is good, such as requiring the state to do two-year budgets, a reform that San Francisco recently adopted. The idea of giving local governments more money and authority also has merit, although that’s a tricky proposition that could undermine environmental and worker safety protections.

We’re also disturbed by the idea of giving governors unilateral authority to make cuts during years with big budget deficits, and with a requirement that new state programs must be tied to specific funding sources. Again, many of these ideas sound good at first glance, but placing new restrictions on Legislators will only hinder their ability to respond to problems and popular will. And giving the governor that much power is just dangerous. Vote no on 31.

PROPOSITION 32

BANNING SOME POLITICAL SPENDING

NO, NO, NO

This is by far the most dangerous and deceptive measure on the ballot, one that threatens to cripple the ability of labor unions to engage meaningfully in the political process, giving big corporations and wealthy individuals even more control over our lives. Yet this insidious measure disingenuously purports to do just opposite, tapping into widespread concerns over corporate power and trying to fool people into voting against their best interests.

The measure presents itself as an even-handed effort to reduce political spending by both unions and corporations. “Prohibits unions from using payroll-deducted funds for political purposes. Applies same use prohibition to payroll deductions, if any, by corporations or government contractors,” reads the official ballot summary.

But while payroll deductions are the main source of funding for labor unions — which use that money to advocate for the interests of their members and the broader working class — few corporations deduct money from their employee paychecks for political purposes. They tap the many other sources of funding at their disposal.

Similarly, the measure claims to ban “union and corporate contributions to candidates and their committees,” yet it exempts many of the largest corporations from that restriction, allows even the corporations it does cover to bypass the restriction by forming super PACs, and it still allows corporate officers to funnel contributions to their favored candidates, making the corporate controls almost completely meaningless.

This measure is simply the latest effort by powerful corporations, wealthy individuals, and the conservative movement to hammer the final nail into the coffin of labor unions — which at this point are often the only force with the money to go up against terrible big-business candidates and measures. This needs to be a rallying cry for everyone who cares about fair elections: Vote no on 32.

PROPOSITION 33

NEW CAR INSURANCE RATING FACTOR

NO

This measure was created and funded by Mercury Insurance founder George Joseph, who tried to do the same thing two years ago with Prop. 17, which was soundly rejected by voters (see “Buying power,” 3/16/10). So this time around, he created a few narrow exemptions meant to defuse the criticism from that campaign, bought support from an influential nonprofit (see “The latest insurance scam,” 9/4/12)), and he’s banking on the outcome being different this time.

But Prop. 33 does the same thing as Prop. 17: it allows insurance companies to give discounts to drivers who have maintained continuous insurance coverage and pay for those discounts by increasing insurance rates for everyone else. In an era of global warming and increasingly congested roadways, the measure would punish those who opt to give up their car for awhile and use public transit, bicycles, or walking. Recent immigrants, and those who spend some time abroad or who quit their job to start a small business, would pay higher rates when they return to driving.

Last time, the measure was defeated by arguments that it punished soldiers and the unemployed, so Joseph tried to defuse those arguments with exceptions for those on “active duty service” or for people who have been unemployed for up to 18 months, but only if it’s the result of a “layoff or furlough.” Consumer Watchdog — the group that created California’s car insurance regulatory system with 1988’s Prop. 103 and has been battling Joseph’s various efforts to undermine it ever since — is strongly against the measure and dismissive of its narrow exemptions, citing studies showing rates will rise for those least able to afford it.

The bottom line is this is about Joseph’s bottom line, and he isn’t spending tens of millions of dollars in order to save you money.

PROPOSITION 34

YES YES YES

You want to know about the effectiveness of the death penalty in California? Try this: the number one cause of death among condemned inmates on death row is old age.

Then try this: The cost of implementing the death penalty since it was restored in California in 1978 exceeds $4 billion — about $308 million for each of the 13 people the state has killed.

So: California could hire 5,000 more teachers for every inmate strapped into a gurney and pumped full of lethal drugs. Sound like a bargain?

It gets better: Even if the state doesn’t kill anyone, it spends $184 million a year keeping people on death row who could instead be getting life without parole — which is, in the vast majority of cases, exactly the same sentence.

Prop. 34 would end 34 years of insanity in the golden state. It would remove California from the unholy roster of states that allow executions and would restore some justice to the legal system.

The flaws in the death penalty are legendary. More than half of the people on death row in America are black or Latino. An ACLU study found that 12 white people were executed for killing blacks, while 178 black people died for killing whites. Nobody who has the money for private counsel gets a death sentence; in nearly every single case, the condemned were impoverished, brain-damaged, or facing serious mental-health issues — and went to trial with inexperienced, overwhelmed public defenders who lacked the resources for a capital trial.

Oh, and then there are the people who turned out to be innocent. In recent years, 17 people who were scheduled to die were exonerated by DNA evidence that didn’t exist when they went to trial. There are hundreds more around the country who never got a fair shot in the courtroom. As long as they’re alive, there’s still a chance to correct a mistake. After the lethal injection, that option goes away.

California, for all its liberal image, has long been among the more bloodthirsty states, approving the death penalty by large majorities. But that’s changing — as the evidence increasingly shows how wrong and ineffective the death penalty is, the margin of voters in favor of repeal is growing. And this year, it’s entirely possible that this barbaric practice, outlawed in most of the civilized world, will come to an end in the nation’s most populous state.

This is a big deal; it’s a reason to go to the polls even if you’re disenchanted by Obama and unhappy with your local candidates. If California rolls back the death penalty, the rest of the country may start to follow.

If you still believe the death penalty deters crime, never mind: Go ahead and defy all of the evidence and vote against Prop. 34. If you’re a member of the reality-based community, please: Round up your friends, your family, your neighbors and vote yes on 34.

PROPOSITION 35

SEX TRAFFICKING

NO

Human trafficking is an egregious and horrible act. California law, as well as federal law, prohibits it, and the penalties are appropriately harsh.

But Prop. 35 — like so much else on the state ballot, the spawn of one rich person with a cause — wouldn’t just crack down on the worst people in the sex industry. It would expand the ability of state and local authorities to harass and arrest consensual sex workers and would lead to more people serving more time in prison for victimless crimes.

Former Facebook executive Chris Kelly, mad that the state Legislature wouldn’t pass a trafficking law to his liking and looking for an issue to run for office on, put up the money to place this mess on the ballot. It would rewrite the section in California’s Penal Code that defines human trafficking, and impose harsher sentences on those found guilty. It requires that all those convicted of human trafficking — under an expanded definition that includes such non-sexual crimes as extortion — register on the sex offender registry, and that all registered sex offenders turn over their Internet usernames and passwords to the government.

Prop. 35 is a parade of horribles that could be used to make someone who peed in public turn over his Internet information and to threaten friends and relatives of sex workers. Under this law, the adult child of a sex worker who was living in her house with her financial support could be tagged a trafficker — and could face a long prison term and a lifetime of being tagged as a sex offender.

We agree with sex workers advocates that human trafficking is a vile crime. But we also agree that decriminalization of prostitution should be the first step towards solving it, making sex workers unafraid to come forward and report abuse in their industry and making it easier to distinguish between forced and consensual labor. In the meantime, state Sen. Mark Leno is working on legislation that will address trafficking without the problems in Prop. 35.

We’ll wait for Leno’s alternative. Vote No on 35.

PROPOSITION 36

THREE STRIKES MODIFICATION

YES

On Nov. 4, 1995, a small-time criminal named Leando Andrada stole $150 worth of videotapes from K-Mart. The father of three was charged with felony theft — and since he’d had prior convictions for burglary and marijuana transportation, his conviction led to a sentence of 25 years to life.

That’s nuts — but it’s the result of a very bad 1994 law that has made California one of the harshest states in the nation for repeat offenders — and has overcrowded the state prisons and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

The law states than anyone convicted of three “strike” felonies, no matter how nonviolent, must serve a minimum of 25 years behind bars. Even the people who sponsored the three-strikes law now agree that it’s gone too far.

Consider: Nearly 8,900 three-strikers are in prison in California, with 3,500 of them serving life sentences. A disproportionate 46 percent of three-strikers are African American.

Incarcerating all of these prisoners is expensive. Reforming three strikes could save the state of California $70 million to $90 million annually if it passes. And some of that money would be directed towards solving more murders and rapes — instead of paying so Californians can languish in prison for stealing video tapes.

Prop. 36 wouldn’t repeal three strikes. It would simply require that the third strike offense be considered violent or serious. And it would provide a means for people currently serving ridiculously long sentences for relatively minor crimes to appeal and seek relief.

This is long overdue. Vote yes on 36.

PROPOSITION 37

GMO LABELING

YES

A huge amount of the food on supermarket shelves in California contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs.) A lot of people, particularly in the chemical and agribusiness industry, think that’s just fine. They say that GMOs have no negative health impacts and improve the ability of producers to bring low-cost fresh food to customers.

We freely admit: The scientific evidence on GMOs is pretty sparse. There are some studies done on rodents that show organ failure and cancerous tumors related to some GMOs, but there are no human studies at all and the Food and Drug Administration says there’s no need to regulate GMOs.

Prop. 37 doesn’t seek regulations or limits in any way. It just mandates that GMO food be labeled — the way it is in at least 50 countries worldwide, including all of the European Union, China, Japan and Russia. Hardly a radical proposition, but it’s got Big Ag in a furor.

The No on 37 campaign is funded by Monsanto, Dupont, Pepsico, and other chemical, seed and food companies that make their money from genetically engineered foods. Those outfits say engineered food is perfectly healthy, and that food labeling would unnecessarily scare consumers.

We’ll be glad if they’re right, and GMOs are just fine and dandy. But consumers deserve a choice — and labeling would force the industry to support further studies on consumer safety. Vote yes.

PROPOSITION 38

TAX FOR EDUCATION

YES

There’s so much wrong with Prop. 38, starting with its origin. It’s another billionaire plaything, the work of the wealthy Molly Munger, who decided, on her own, that the state should raise income taxes to pay for better schools.

Yes, the state should raise income taxes on the wealthy. Yes, some of that money should go to education. But this is not the optimal way to go about it.

Because nobody but Munger and her pals vetted the measure, it’s got problems. For starters, it’s not a tax increase on the rich — it’s a tax increase for just about everybody. If you make more than $7,300 a year, your state income tax would go up. Granted, not by much: The sliding scale starts at 0.4 percent (about $30 a year for the very low end of the scale, and the wealthiest will pay much more) but still: the tax burden in this state (with its high sales-tax rates) falls disproportionately on the poor and middle class, and Munger’s measure should have exempted all but the top earners. And it’s got a popular, but troubling distribution scheme — between 60 and 85 percent of the estimated $10 billion a year in new revenue will go to K-12 education. The schools need the money — but so do cities and counties who pay for public health, affordably housing, public safety and a lot of other priorities.

But the question facing the voters isn’t whether Munger is a self-serving brat who went her own way on this, or whether there are flaws in the measure. It’s whether the state ought to raise taxes to pay for education. With all the duly noted reservations, the answer to that question has to be yes.

PROPOSITION 39

TAX TREATMENT FOR MULTISTATE BUSINESSES

YES

Again, an imperfect law, sponsored by an imperfect billionaire that seeks to solve a problem better addressed in the state Legislature. In this case, though, the Legislature’s tried to address it, but the recalcitrant Republicans haven’t let it happen.

Prop. 39 would change a loophole in the state’s tax code that helps multistate businesses to avoid state taxes. In essence, the current law lets companies choose whether to base their state tax liability on in-state sales or a combination of sales, employment, and property. Companies with a lot of out-of-state employees are able to reap huge tax breaks — if anything the current law encourages outsourcing.

Prop. 39, sponsored and bankrolled by hedge-fund billionaire Thomas Steyer, would mandate that all companies use the single in-state sales factor. The new revenue to California: $1 billion a year. It’s more fair, it creates the right incentives to keep jobs and equipment in the state, and it cuts a hole in the deficit.

VOTE YES ON 39.

PROPOSITION 40

REDISTRICTING REFERENDUM

YES

This referendum challenged the California Senate districts that were created early this year by the Citizen Redistricting Commission, an independent body that voters created as an alternative to the previous practice of letting politicians draw their own legislative districts after the decennial census. Those new districts aren’t perfect — indeed, San Francisco was placed in a single Senate district instead of the pair we had — but the process that created them was widely lauded as “open, transparent, and nonpartisan,” as the California Supreme Court ruled in rejecting a challenge to the districts. That ruling has caused the proponents of this measure — the side urging a “no” vote, which would invalidate the districts and let a judicial panel redraw them, whereas a “yes” vote upholds the existing districts — to drop their campaign and accept the commission’s results. Vote yes.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

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

The Fifth Element: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Opens Fri/5. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Comedic adaptation of the 1997 Luc Besson sci-fi epic.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

Of Thee I Sing Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/3, 7pm; Thu/4-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Oct 13, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 21. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s classic political satire.

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thu/4, 8pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Opens Wed/3, 8pm. Runs Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this “wild and exotic evening of song.”

33 Variations TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/3-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 28. TheatreWorks performs Moisés Kaufman’s drama about a contemporary musicologist struggling to solve one of Beethoven’s greatest mysteries, and a connecting story about the composer himself.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/7, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

ONGOING

Elect to Laugh Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 2pm); Sun/7, 2pm. Three decades after the onset of the AIDS epidemic — today affecting and killing millions across the globe — playwright and ACT UP founder Larry Kramer’s 1985 autobiographical docudrama of the first years and victims of the crisis in New York City proves still relevant and powerful in this spirited 2011 Tony Award–winning Broadway revival, under direction by George C. Wolfe, now up at American Conservatory Theater in an ACT-Arena Stage co-presentation. Centering on the grassroots response to official inaction amid the homophobic status quo — in particular, the founding of a small but determined HIV advocacy group by Ned Weeks (Kramer’s stand-in, played brilliantly by Patrick Breen) and others — The Normal Heart also roots itself in a set of characters and fraught personal relationships as Weeks’s brash, confrontational style progressively alienates him from his brethren and more accommodating (or closeted) allies. It’s a play that really shouldn’t work so well, given its message-driven and inevitably self-serving structure, but it nevertheless does — in part because the urgency behind it remains, and the eerie confusion and unforgivable official neglect of those early years carry even more weight with tragedy-laden hindsight. Kramer also crafts some affecting scenes and some rousingly fiery monologues (not just for Weeks, and all expertly delivered by the sharp cast) that underscore a time when history, as it is wont to do, put forward fervent loudmouths and nonconformists as the necessary agents of resistance and change. (Avila)

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Wed/3, 2:30pm); Sun/7, 7pm. A middle-aged scientist named Juliana (Henny Russell) finds herself marooned inside her own rapidly unraveling mind in the West Coast premiere of this occasionally intriguing but finally unconvincing psychological drama of madness and grief by Sharr White (Annapurna). Describing an “episode” she suffered while presenting a major new dementia treatment to an audience of doctors and sales reps in the Bahamas, Juliana soon proves an unreliable narrator, as estranged husband Ian (Donald Sage Mackay) challenges her on some basic facts — including her claim to be in phone contact with their long-lost daughter (Carrie Paff) and Juliana’s disgraced former post-doc (Patrick Russell). The mystery here has to do with another “episode” altogether, one that took place at the couple’s Cape Cod summer home years before, which has left Juliana and Ian bereft and now on the verge of divorce. As Juliana slides back and away to “the other place,” we understand the mistakes this supposedly brilliant but also flawed woman has made, and the emotional logic of her mind’s drift. Not a bad premise, but it also feels contrived, with dialogue straining after tension and wit that are too often not there. Helmed by artistic director Loretta Greco, the action unfolds at almost too regular a clip, leaving little room for rumination — no doubt a stylistic choice but one which undercuts what modest force there is in the play’s dynamics, which anyway serve a rather sentimental storyline about loss and forgiveness. (Avila)

The Real Americans Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Oct 27. Dan Hoyle’s hit show, inspired by the people and places he encountered during his 100-day road trip across America in 2009, continues.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun/7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri/5-Sun/7 and Oct 13, 5:30pm. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, “scaled-back” still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Oct 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/3-Thu/4, 7pm. Opens Fri/5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Wed/3 and Sun/7, 7pm (also Sun/7, 2pm); Thu/4 and Sat/6, 2 and 8pm. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. Liesl Tommy directs this season closer for Cal Shakes, a decidedly uneven and overall surprisingly bland production of one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating, affecting, and endlessly rich works. The best part of Tommy’s less-than-inspired hodgepodge production (summed up by the dry and cluttered swimming-pool set, albeit very nicely designed by Clint Ramos) is lead Leroy McClain, whose Hamlet is a vibrantly intelligent and charismatic force most of the time. He gets some fine support from Dan Hiatt as a comically pedantic but still sympathetically paternal Polonius, but there is precious little chemistry with either Ophelia (a nonetheless striking Zainab Jah) or faithless queen mother Gertrude (Julie Eccles). The rest of the cast is rarely more than dutiful. Meanwhile, the staging comes laden with some awkward and/or tired conceits: a small fish tank-like landscape inset into the back wall for an unraveling Ophelia; a gore-covered zombie-esque ghost (a flat Adrian Roberts, who also plays Claudius); or guards sporting submachine guns, which always looks ridiculous. Moreover, the language comes awkwardly modernized in places —substituting “dagger” for “bodkin” in a rather famous soliloquy, for example, seems unnecessary and is definitely distracting. Why not “submachine gun”? (Avila)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/6 and Oct 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comedy Bodega” Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). Stand-up comedy.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/8, 8pm. $7-20. With Maureen Langan, Sammy Obeid, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Bobby Golden, and guest host Nick Leonard.

Dance Elixir Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.danceelixirlive.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8:30pm. $10. Performing Destroy// with Tiberius and Ava Mendoza.

“Hot Mess 3: Third Time, No Charm” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8pm. $15. San Francisco’s newest sketch comedy group performs.

Shazia Mirza Punchline, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed/3, 8pm. $15. The British comedian performs, with opening acts Kevin Camia and Samson Koletkar.

Smuin Ballet Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/5-Sat/6 and Oct 11-13, 8pm (also Oct 13, 2pm); Oct 14, 2pm. $25-65. The company performs its fall program, including West Coast premiere Cold Virtues.

“Spaceholder Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm; Sun/7, 7pm. $25-45. Choreographer Morgan Thorson spearheads this evening-length performance that transforms the stage into “an archeological dig, an auction block, and a museum.”

“The Spooky Cabaret” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. Sun/7, 5:30pm; Oct 8-10, 7:30pm. $10. ‘Tis the season for this fest of three full-length and five one-act plays with horror themes.

“Theatecture on UN Plaza” Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the “24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival.”

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Assemblage 23, Espermachine, Demodulate DNA Lounge. 9pm, $18.

Battlehooch, Paranoids, Chaka Knockout. 9pm, $5.

“Communion in San Francisco” Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $8-$10. With Tarnation, Prairiedog, Quinn DeVeaux.

Guido vs Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm, free.

Jezabels, Yukon Blinde Independent. 8pm, $16.

Keith Crossan Blues Showcase: Big Jo Manfra Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Laura Marling Swedish American Hall. 8pm, $25.

Nightwish, Kamelot Warfield. 8pm, $40-$65.

Helen Reddy Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $45.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

“SF Acoustic Collective” Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $7. With Laura Weinbach, Ben Flanagan, Adam Dishart, and more.

Spring Standards Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Strung Out, Swellers, Such Gold, Sheds Slim’s. 7:30pm, $18-$20.

Tokyo Raid, Spiral Electric, Elektrik Sunset Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

Wax Tailor, Shana Halligan, DJ Tom Thump Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15.

Z-Man, Dregs One, Toast, Rey Resurrection Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cha-Ching Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall.

Obey the Kitty: Justin Milla Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $5.

THURSDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP.

Alma Desnuda, Achii Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Big Tree, DRMS, Guy Fox Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7:30pm, $5-$8.

Bisi and the Moonwalker, Black Dream, Greater Sirens 50 Mason Social House. 8pm, $13.

Dead Western, Exquisite Corpse, Blue Oaks Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

Helio Sequence, Slowdance Independent. 8pm, $18.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Stephen Marley Fillmore. 8pm, $29.50.

Mount Eerie, Bouquet, Tortured Genius Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Niki and the Dove, Wolf Gang, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $13-$15.

Sheri Puorto Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Helen Reddy Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $45.

Sleeping Giants Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 10pm, $5-$8.

Street Justice, Lord Nasty and the Seekers of Perversion, Fuck You Cop, You Fucking Cop Knockout. 10pm, $7.

Rags Tuttle vs Guido Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Home of Easy Credit Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $5.

“Jazz Beyond Genre” Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $12-$15. With Andrea Wolper, Hafez Modirzadeh, and more.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ned Boyton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Delhi 2 Dublin, Non Stop Bhangra Slim’s. 9pm, $17

Septeto Nacional JCCSF, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. 7:30pm, $27-$45.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ-host Pleasuremaker.

All 80s Thursday Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of ’80s mainstream and underground.

Base: Tim Green Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $5-$10.

Supersonic Lookout, 3600 16th St., SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Global beats paired with food from around the world.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more.

FRIDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Adios Amigo, Solwave, Dogcatcher Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8.

Adoration 50 Mason Social House. 8pm, $5.

Bernadette, Shawn Virago, Castles in Spain, Lydia Popovich, DJ Salex Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Brother Tyrone Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

ConFunkShun Yoshi’s SF. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Dead Kennedys, Fang, Guantanamo Dogpile, 13 Scars Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $27.

Dead Winter Carpenters, Hackensaw Boys Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $15-$20.

Dry the River, Ferocious Few, Houndmouth Independent. 9pm, $15.

Roger Knox, Jon Langford and Sally Timms, Walter Salas-Humara Swedish American Hall. 7:30pm, $16.

Nick Lowe, Jesse Winchester Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $30.

Mono, Chris Brokaw, Jon Porras Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12-14.

Reckless Kelly, Chuck Mead and His Grassy Knoll Boys, Trishas, Tiny Television Slim’s. 9pm, $17

Rebel Ship Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Laetitia Sadier, Orca Team, Pageants, DJ Dominique Leone Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $14.

Sadies, John Langford and His Sadies, Misisipi Rider Cafe Du Nord. 7:30pm, $16.

Shpongle, Phutureprimitive Warfield. 10pm, $35-$40.

Sole Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Tell River, Gunsafe, Clay Hawkins Plough and the Stars. 9pm, $6.

Nathan Temby, Greg Zema, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm, free.

Toys That Kill, Pins of Light, Elephant Rifle Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Janam, Lila Sklar Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-$15.

DANCE CLUBS

Braza! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Sabo, Kento, Elan spin Brazilian, and samba.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm.

Kenny Loi, Steele vs Whitlock Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $20-$30.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music.

Strangelove: Undead Wedding Cat Club. 9:30pm, $3-$10. With DJs Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Daniel Skellington, and Donimo.

Womp SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. With Dyloot, Liam Shy, and more.

SATURDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Apogee Sound Club, Generacion Suicida, Permanent Ruin, Die Time, Cold Circuits Knockout. 4pm, $6.

Rome Balestrieri, Nathan Temby, Randy Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm, free.

Michael Beach, Native Cats, Buttons Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Big Gigantic, GriZ Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $20.

Burning Monk, Die! Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

ConFunkShun Yoshi’s SF. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Dead Winter Carpenters, Hackensaw Boys Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $12-$15.

Glen Hansard Fillmore. 9pm, $30.

Paula Harris and the Beasts of Blues, Big Ass Brass Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10:30pm, $20.

Inciters, Impalers, Wicked Mercies Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

John Wayne Bro Band Riptide. 9:30pm, free.

Jenny Lewis Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Maccabees, Mwahaha Independent. 9pm, $20.

Mantles, Swiftumz, Cocktails El Rio. 10pm, $8.

Soul Rebels, Rebel Ship Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $20.

Tall Shadows Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Wave Array, She Beards, Warbler Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

BronwChicken BrownChicken, Renegade Stringband, Mountain Men, Dull Richards Plough and Stars. 9pm, $10-$15.

Kafana Balkan, Brass Menazeri, Jill Parker and Foglove Sweethearts, DJ Zeljko Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $13.

DANCE CLUBS

“Beats for Boobs” Mezzanine. 7pm, $25-$40. With shOOey, Carol C, Emily Fox, and more.

Bootie SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$15.

Martin Buttrich Public Works. 9:30pm, $20.

Cockfight Underground SF, 424 Haight, SF; (415) 864-7386. 9pm, $7. Dance night for gay boys.

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. Hip-hop, dancehall,funk, and salsa.

Haceteria Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 9pm, free before 11pm, $3 after.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music.

Pheeko Dubfunk, Vahid, Frenchy Le Freak, G StavVessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $20-$30.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Lucky, Paul Paul, and Phengren Oswald spinning 60s soul 45s.

SUNDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Admiral Fallow, Young Buffalo Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $12-$14.

Gregors, Piranha Party, Crazy Eyes Sub-Mission. 8pm.

Ewert and the Two Dragons, Lighthouse and the Whaler, Family Crest Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $10.

Jason King Band Biscuits and Blues. 7 and 9pm, $15.

Michael Kiwanaka, Nathaniel Rateliff, Foy Vance Independent. 8pm, $20.

Wayne Krantz Yoshi’s SF. 7pm, $20.

Aaron Leese and the Panhandlers, Jenny and the Jerks Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Li XI, Rubedo, Mosshead, Oiler Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $7.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

She Wants Revenge, Pyyramids Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

Soulit 50 Mason Social House. 8pm.

Stepdad, Rich Aucoin, Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazzkwest Trio Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Jinx Jones and the King Tones.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $13. With Brother Culture, DJ Sep, and Dubsmashers.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2.

Love and Light Public Works. 9pm, $15.

Remember the Party: We Are Family City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF; www.remembertheparty.com. 6pm-3am, $30. Disco with DJ Jerry Bonham.

MONDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Star Anna and Kasey Anderson Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

Blank Tapes, Lawlands, Cafe Cabana Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Gangstagrass, BPos Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Patti Smith Fillmore. 8pm, $39.50.

Richie Spice Independent. 9pm, $25.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-$5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Crazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Soul Cafe John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from the ’60s-’90s.

TUESDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Books, Drowning Men, Harrison Hudson Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $19.

“Benefit Show for Subversion Vol. 1” Knockout. 9:30pm, $6. With Secret People, No Mistake, Stares, Total Fucker.

Ben Howard Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

IO Echo, Gliss, Cruel Summer Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-$12.

Saint Vitus, Weedeater, Sourvein Independent. 8pm, $22.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Steve Vai, Beverly McClellan Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $40-$49.50.

Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby, John Murry Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bombshell Betty and Her Burlesqueteers, Fromagique Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 3

Humpday Happy Hour! Good Vibrations Lakeshore Store, 3219 Lakeshore, Oakl. (510) 788-2389, www.goodvibes.com. 6:30-7:30pm, free. We’ve all faced the post-work dilemma: gym or happy hour? Stress no more because the good folks at Good Vibrations would like to invite you to come and work out those PC muscles by doing Kegel exercises. Remember, strong PC muscles are very beneficial regardless of age, gender and, sexuality.

Venus and Mars reading J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 121, 1600 Holloway, SF. (415) 338-2408, www.library.sfsu.edu. 4pm, free. SFSU professor of cinema Jan Millsapps reads from her new novel Venus and Mars, a story about the discoveries of a 20th century astronomer.

THURSDAY 4

“The Art of Conservation” The Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-5252, www.boneroom.com. 7-9pm, free. Artist Jane Kim’s passion for the environment is her raison d’etre. Her environmental consciousness will be on display at this upcoming event hosted by Berkeley’s Bone Room. Featured will be life size murals of the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, meant by Kim as a reminder of our own fragile ecosystem.

Hendrix on Hendrix Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 649-1320, www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. Jimi Hendrix historian and author Steven Roby will be a giving an audiovisual presentation on the storied and tragic career of one of rock’s most talented guitarists. This unique presentation will feature interviews with reporters in which Hendrix discusses his fraught childhood and his legacy. A cannot-miss for Hendrix enthusiasts.

“Circular Motion: Subverting Circumscription” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF. (415) 398-7229, www.merdiangallery.org. Through Nov.24. Opening reception: 5:30-8:30pm, free. Seven video installations from contemporary Cuban female artists will be display at the Meridian Gallery. The pieces of art each with its own distinct circular aspects form together to symbolize the much-troubled relationship between Cuba and United States.

FRIDAY 5

Pancakes and Booze Pop-Up Art Show Gallery 4n5, 863 Mission, SF. (415) 522-2440, www.galiara.com. Also Sat/6. 8pm-1am, free. If the name of this art show doesn’t convince you to show up then nothing will. But then again, don’t be that person and show up just for the food and beer — in addition to art from over 75 local and emerging artists, there will be a zombie fashion show, live music, and body painting.

SATURDAY 6

Frank Moore; Risk For Deep Love Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St., Oakl. (510) 526-7858, www.temescalartcenter.org. 8pm, free. Lauded and controversial shaman performance artist Frank Moore’s event at the Temescal Art Center will be sure to baffle your mind. Moore will attempt to reimagine human emotion through the use of musicians, actors, dancers, and members of the audience. It’s experimental performance art at its most experimental.

Garden Party White Walls, 835 Larkin, SF. (415) 931-1500, www.whitewallssf.com. Through Nov.5. Opening reception: 7-11pm, free. Artist Casey Gray will debut new works in his third exhibition with White Walls. This time around, the focus will be on paintings of 17th century Flemish life.

Cheeses of France Pop-Up Café Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 10am-5pm, free. Calling all cheeseheads! Famed chef Jason Fox of Commonwealth will be putting on a cheese dish clinic courtesy of the SOMA Pop-up Café. Five different French cheese producers will also be on hand to let you sample their delectable goods. Oh and there’ll be cheese art too.

SUNDAY 7

Japan Center Anime Fair: Sailor Moon’s 20th Anniversary Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan, SF. www.japancentersf.com. 12:30-4:30pm, free. Bust out that Sailor Mercury ‘fit and head on over to Japantown to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sailor Moon anime classic series. There will be a performance that consists of a battle between Super Sentai and Kamen Rider and singing and dancing by Mari Watanabe, Yukie Dong, Ti@Mi, and Angel Hearts.

UCSF Taste for the Cure: A Taste of Science Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF. (415) 353-7672, www.jccsf.org. 11am-4pm, free. It’s nutrition meets education in UCSF’s popular event on how diet can have a significant effect on breast health. Breast cancer doctors from the university will be conducting presentations numerous breast cancer-related topics. Unique to this year’s event will be a demonstration of DNA extraction — after the strands have been extricated you’ll be able to view them via microscope on the spot.

MONDAY 8

Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off IDES Grounds, 735 Main, Half Moon Bay. www.miramarevents.com/weighoff. 7-11am, free. Cartoonishly fat pumpkins will be battling it out for the heavyweight title (no pun intended) at this year’s Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Defending champion Leonardo Urena of Napa will have to bring his A game if he’s going to break the state record that he set at last year’s competition. For the first time in the history of outlandish contest there will be a mega-prize of $25,000 offered to the pumpkin grower that can grow the world’s first one-ton pumpkin.

Indie indeed

October 2, 2012

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival is a star-studded affair, with tributes to Dustin Hoffman and 1977’s Star Wars and celebrity guests (Ben Affleck! Ang Lee! Stevie Nicks!), but indie cinema fans won’t want to miss Strutter. It doesn’t have any movie stars, but it comes courtesy of indie heroes Allison Anders (1992’s Gas Food Lodging, 1993’s Mi vida loca) and Kurt Voss, Anders’ co-director and co-writer on 1987’s Border Radio and 1999’s Sugar Town.

Anders says she views Strutter — the tale of Brett, a rock’n’roller working through heartbreak and post-college angst — as a continuation of her other films with Voss, all of which are music-themed and set in Los Angeles.

“When Kurt and I did Sugar Town, we kind of realized it was a companion piece to Border Radio. I think it was Michael Des Barres who said Border Radio‘s musicians were trying to pay their rent, and Sugar Town‘s musicians were trying to meet their mortgage. They were on a different level, but their desperation was the same,” she says. “In Strutter, the characters are even more desperate; nobody has any real roots except the streets of Los Angeles and the desert. In all three, there’s the music angle — but it’s also the desperation of trying to keep a band going, and what that means to people, particularly in LA.”

Though they tell separate stories, the three films share certain actors — but most of Strutter‘s leads are making their feature debuts. “I teach one quarter a year at UC Santa Barbara, which is where I met Flannery Lunsford, [who plays Brett],” she says. “I introduced Flannery to Kurt and they started doing some projects together. Then, Kurt and I started talking to Flannery about doing that last piece of the Border Radio trilogy, because Flannery also had a band.”

The love triangle between Brett, fellow musician Damon (Dante Ailano White), and femme fatale Justine (much-discussed, but never seen onscreen), was inspired by a famous rock’n’roll rivalry.

“Both Kurt and I were very enamored with the Britpop triangle of Brett [Anderson] from Suede, Damon [Albarn] from Blur, and Justine [Frischmann] from Elastica,” she says. “While we didn’t want to do that story, it was a kind of muse for the film, and we named all the characters after them.”

Anders may be a film-biz veteran, but she’s embraced the 21st century idea of online fundraising: both Strutter and its score (by Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis) were funded via Kickstarter.

“Kurt still has a sheet of paper where I wrote down names of people who, if each of them just gave us a little bit of money, we could finish making Border Radio. Back then you didn’t have any kind of mechanism for making that happen, but that’s essentially what crowdfunding is,” she says. “The great thing is, now you get your friends and people you don’t know to contribute to your project. Then, nobody [else] owns your movie, or record, or whatever it is. You’re doing your work on your own terms. If you’ve got a movie like Strutter, and you don’t have stars, and you’re shooting in black and white — we were doing everything the way we wanted to do it. For me, it was the better way to do things.”

www.mvff.com

Endorsements 2012: San Francisco races

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

San Francisco races

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

DISTRICT ONE

ERIC MAR

In the fall of 2011, Supervisor Eric Mar introduced legislation banning the sale of toys as part of a fast-food meal promotion — and instantly, Mar and his colleagues became the target of national jokes. Right-wing radio went nuts. The Chronicle lampooned him. Even the Daily Show did a segment teasing him and suggesting that parents could control their kids’ nutritional intake just fine.

Lost in the media furor was the fact that a lot of parents — and much of the activists fighting the epidemic of childhood obesity — loved the law. And McDonald’s responded by ending free toys in its San Francisco happy meals. Also lost was the fact that Mar was, generally, a hard-working, serious-minded supervisor who has pushed for tenant and senior protections, better transit, and help for small independent businesses. He’s been a leader in the fight against chain stores and the malling of San Francisco.

His race for re-election is also one of the defining contests in San Francisco this fall.

We endorsed Mar with enthusiasm four years ago, and for most of his term, he’s done a fine job. But in the past few months he’s started to waver on key issues. He voted the wrong way on 8 Washington (condos for millionaires on the waterfront), and it was a struggle to get him to support Mike Hennessey over Ed Lee for mayor. He went completely south on the Sept. 25 vote giving the mayor complete control of the successor to the Redevelopment Agency. He voted in favor of a ban on recreation vehicles parking on city streets — a direct attack on homeless people. He’s been less-than dynamic on promoting new revenue sources. He’s siding more and more with the mayor and is no longer the reliable progressive vote he once was. And guess what? All of those pro-development, pro-mayor votes are now paying off for him — we hear Rose Pak, a key supporter of 8 Washington, is now out raising money for Mar. Ick.

But so far, Mar’s still rock solid on tenant issues — he helped create owner-move-in eviction protections for families with kids. He’s a strong support of bus rapid transit on the Geary corridor. He supports Clean Power SF (and eventual municipal ownership of the power grid). He has the support of every progressive elected official and organization and, for all his occasional bad votes, his re-election in a district that is not by any means the most left-leaning in the city is a high priority.

Mar’s opponent, David Lee, is the candidate of downtown, the landlords, and the cops. He has the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein, former Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Police Officers Association, Plan C, and just about everyone else in town who has sought to undermine progressive politics and legislation.

As executive director of the Chinese-American Voter Education Project, Lee has taken millions of dollars (including huge contributions from downtown interests, while refusing to provide a full breakdown) and used about a third of it on his $90,000 annual salary and that of his wife, Jing, according to federal disclosure records. While he claims to have registered 100,000 voters — claiming to highly value voting while sometimes failing to do so himself, according to election records — Lee’s more public role has been to repeatedly and deceptively go after the ranked-choice voting system and take other moderate stands in media interviews.

Lee served as a member of the Recreation and Park Commission since 2005, presiding over the controversial privatization schemes that have alienated so many San Franciscans that there is an unprecedented level of opposition to this year’s proposed parks bond.

Lee refused to come into the Guardian for an endorsement interview, or even to respond to our repeated calls with questions about his background and the false charges he’s been leveling at Mar.

They include the accusation that Mar is being backed by well-funded “special interests” because he has the support of labor.

With David Campos and John Avalos unopposed, and District 5 a fractious mess, much progressive energy is focused on Mar’s re-election. If Lee wins, it will be a huge setback to the progressive movement. We’re nervous about Mar, given his recent votes—but we’ll endorse him for another term.

DISTRICT 3

1. DAVID CHIU

We haven’t always been happy with David Chiu. After being elected as a progressive — and getting elevated his first week in office to board president — he started slipping into the moderate, sometimes squishy center. He supported the Twitter tax break (approving it before the company even presented a community benefits plan). He helped put Ed Lee in the Mayor’s Office, and was the swing vote approving the Parkmerced overhaul that drew strong opposition from tenant groups. He’s tried to water down efforts by Sup. David Campos to close loopholes in the city’s health-care law. He allowed the mayor to escape the real debate that was part of the voter-approved “question time.”

In his second term as president, he appointed some of the more conservative supervisors as committee chairs. In our endorsement interview, Chiu said he doesn’t believe those appointments have effected legislation — but Sups. Mark Farrell and Elsbernd have been actively sabotaging progressive appointments and initiatives on the Rules Committee, and Chu chairs the powerful Budget and finance Committee.

But on some issues, he’s been not only a good vote but a leader. He played a key role in trying to stop the 8 Washington project. He’s raised concerns about other waterfront development. He’s also in the forefront of the fight to make sure that neighborhoods get their fair share in the CPMC deal and that St. Luke’s remains a viable health-care option in the southeast part of the city.

Chiu has passed good environmental legislation, including streamlining the process to start urban agriculture projects and saving paper by limiting distribution of telephone books. He fought for the language access ordinance and the rights of immigrant parents in school board elections.

We wish Chiu weren’t so quick to compromise, particularly with the mayor. But none of his competition, including opera singer and perennial candidate Wilma Pang, have presented a stronger alternative. Chiu’s not perfect, but we support him for District 3 supervisor.

DISTRICT 5

1. JULIAN DAVIS

2. JOHN RIZZO

3. THEA SELBY

WE HAVE WITHDRAWN OUR ENDORSEMENT OF JULIAN DAVIS. MORE INFO HERE.

We hold this truth to be self-evident: District 5 is the heart of progressive San Francisco, the most left-leaning district in the city. The supervisor who represents the Haight, Western Addition, and Inner Sunset has to be a reliable part of the progressive community, someone who can be counted on to vote the right way pretty much 100 percent of the time.

That’s what we’ve had since the return of district elections in 2000. Matt Gonzalez was a Green Party member who (other than one unfortunate vote on school funding) held down the board’s left flank. Ross Mirkarimi, who on occasion clashed with his progressive colleagues, never went south on a single issue. We’re looking for a strong, progressive leader here, someone who can break new ground and launched dramatic new programs and ideas. But just as important, we’re looking for someone the left doesn’t have to worry about, someone who, when John Avalos or David Campos proposes a good piece of legislation, will always be in the yes column, and who, when the conservative supervisors propose something awful, will always be voting no. This isn’t a swing district; when the tenants and labor and the environmentalists and the people who support taxes on the rich and the housing advocates and the human-services community and the rest of the often-fractious but generally together progressive coalition are trying to count to six votes, they shouldn’t have to worry about where the D5 supervisor falls.

The supervisor from this district needs to be ready to defy the mayor when he’s wrong (which, sadly, is a lot of the time).

We wanted that person to be Christina Olague. A longtime community activist appointed by Gonzalez to the Planning Commission, Olague was for years part of the coalition that fought against the brutal displacement and economic cleansing that was the administration of Mayor Willie Brown. She was one of the most reliable voices on the commission, a rare vote for sanity in a time of madness.

We were pleased Mayor Ed Lee appointed her for Mirkarimi’s seat. And then she quickly let us down.

Olague voted in favor of the 8 Washington project. She worked with Sup. Mark Farrell, probably the most right-wing member of the board, to undermine ranked-choice voting. She voted to reappoint Mike Antonini, a Republican who is downtown’s best friend, to the Planning Commission. You can argue any of those votes, but the fact is, the two strongest progressive on the board — Avalos and Campos — were on the other side every time.

She’s also aligned herself with Brown, Lee, and Rose Pak, who have raised more than $50,000 for her re-election. She seems not to recognize that, as the next tech boom rolls in, city politics will be defined by a profound class struggle — and Brown, Lee, and Pak will be on the wrong side. It’s sad to say this after all of her history, but Olague isn’t the person to represent District 5 for the next four years.

There are a wide range of strong challengers — and while none of them are perfect, they present credible alternatives to Olague. Our choices are Julian Davis, John Rizzo and Thea Selby.

John Rizzo, as a leader in the local Sierra Club, has been part of the progressive coalition for years. As the president of the Community College Board, he’s been one of the reformers trying to keep that institution alive after more than a decade of corruption and mismanagement. He’s particularly strong on environmental issues, and would be a worthy successor to Mirkarimi, who engineered bills like the ban on plastic bags that put San Francisco in the forefront of the urban green movement.

Rizzo has to deal with the fact that he was at the helm when City College faced the greatest crisis in at least half a century. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that even the reformers didn’t realize how much trouble was at hand and didn’t take greater steps to head off the crisis.

But Rizzo’s got the seasoning and the agenda to be a solid supervisor.

Thea Selby’s not as much of a lefty as Rizzo, but she’s a neighborhood and small-business advocate who got involved in politics organizing the Lower Haight after a spate of shootings outside her doorstep. She’s good on land-use issues and, while she unlikely to win, could have a political future if she stays active.

The other strong candidate in the race is London Breed, director of the African American Art and Culture Complex. She’s the only major candidate born in the district; she grew up in a housing project, living with her grandmother while many of those around her wound up in prison or dead. She’s a smart, compelling candidate with a tremendous amount of personal charm. She served on the Redevelopment Commission, voting the wrong way on the Lennar project, and is now on the Fire Commission.

The problem with Breed is that she’s too conservative for the district. She supported the ridiculous sit-lie law (and still defends it). She has the support of the Police Officers Association. She’s raised a ton of money, in part because the landlords like her. We do, too — but not as the D 5 supervisor.

The mayor has made the re-election of his appointee a high priority, and the outcome of this race will be in part a referendum on the power structure at City Hall. We’re going with Rizzo, and Selby.

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 7

1. NORMAN YEE

2. F.X.CROWLEY

3. JOEL ENGARDIO

You don’t expect to get a left-leaning supervisor from D.7, which is almost certainly the most traditionally conservative part of the city. For eight years, it’s been represented by Sean Elsbernd, a smart, effective, and honest advocate for homeowners and businesses who was wrong on most of the issues but trustworthy and accessible.

This time around, there’s a chance that D7 could move into the swing column; two candidates who would vote with the progressives at least some of the time are in strong contention.

Our first choice is Norman Yee, president of the school board and executive director of Wu Yee Children’s Services. Yee already has eight years experience in local government, and — while he, like all the D7 candidates, talks about public safety and quality-of-life issues, he also told us he’s “not opposed to taxes.” He’s supporting the City College parcel tax, Prop. A, and is open to looking at other revenue measures, including possible parking-lot taxes to pay for Muni.

He’s a little shaky on housing. While he called for an audit of all vacant city land to seek sites for new affordable housing, he supports tenancies in common and has no idea how the city can meet its General Plan housing goals. He’s working with campaign consultant Enrique Pearce, who is part of the more sleazy side of the mayor’s operation, and that gives us cause for serious concern. But on balance, he’s our first choice.

Crowley, who just stepped down as the head of the Theatrical Stage Employees Union, is an old-San Francisco kind of guy, a graduate of St. Ignatius who’s lived his entire life on the West side of town. He served on the Public Utilities Commission, where he was never much of a supporter of public power, is still dubious on Clean Power SF, doesn’t want to support much in the way of increased density west of 19th Avenue (except at ParkMerced) and is hardly going to be a progressive leader on the board.

He has a strong labor background, which cuts both ways: He’s likely to be horrible on development issues and will listen to the building trades people, but will also listen to SEIU on the city budget. Not our first choice — but he’s far better than Mike Garcia, who was a bad vote on the Ethics Commission and the Board of Appeals and is much more of a traditional pro-business, cut-taxes-and-regulations candidate. Garcia’s got the support of Elsbernd and will have plenty of downtown money, so we’re willing to go with Crowley as an alternative.

Engardio, a former writer for SF Weekly who once worked for the ACLU, is surprisingly conservative — he’s a low-tax, high-police-presence candidate whose positions, on paper, are as far to the right as almost anyone in the race. But he’s independent, is unlikely to win, and listing him as number three might help one of the other candidates edge out Garcia.

DISTRICT 9

DAVID CAMPOS

We could easily argue that Campos is the best member of the Board of Supervisors. He’s hard-working, pays attention to details, understands policy and politics and is one of the two most reliable progressives on the board. (It’s interesting that Campos and John Avalos, the two supes who refused to moderate their stands or compromise with the likes of Rose Pak, are now running unopposed; their constituents seem to like consistency and honesty.)

Campos is respected by his political opponents and trusted by his allies. He’s shown considerable legislative skill, managing to guide Clean Power SF through the board with a veto-proof majority. He’s been a strong advocate for Healthy SF and is trying to close the loophole some businesses use to exploit it. He’s been an outspoken voice for immigrants. We see a bright future of Sup. Campos, and we’re happy to endorse him for another term.

DISTRICT 11

JOHN AVALOS

At a time when the progressive movement of San Francisco has been hobbled by self-inflicted wounds and downtown’s divide-and-conquer strategy, John Avalos has stepped into an important leadership role. When we needed a mayoral candidate last year to represent progressive values in a large field of political moderates, Avalos was there, leading a strong second-place finish that showed the San Francisco Left is still a force to be reckoned with.

Earlier this year, it appeared that Avalos might have to endure a tough challenge by moderate union rep Leon Chow, who ended up dropping out of the race after media reports showed that he didn’t really live in the district. With a walk to reelection, Avalos was freed up to represent progressive San Francisco interests at the bargaining table opposite the Mayor’s Office and business community on two of this year’s highest profile struggles: reforming the city’s business tax and creating an Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

In both cases, Avalos needed to play political hardball and practice some risky brinksmanship, threatening to place competing measures on the ballot right up until the end. The resulting compromises that he helped forge, Propositions C and E, include tens of millions of dollars in new revenue that Mayor Ed Lee opposed, which will help save city programs and keep working class San Franciscans from being forced out of the city.

Avalos is a classic district politician, focusing much of his energy on advocating for the needs of Excelsior and other District 11 residents. But he has also become an important citywide leader, and he has our full support.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD

CHRIS JACKSON

RAFAEL MANDELMAN

STEVEN NGO

AMY BACHARACH

Every one of the 11 people running for Community College Board trustee — incumbents and challengers alike — agrees that the system is a godawful mess. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges has warned San Francisco’s largest educational institution that it will withdraw accreditation in 2013 if City College doesn’t make dramatic changes in its financial and governance structures. A school that serves 90,000 people and is critical to the city’s immigrants, job-seekers, and business community is facing the worst crisis in its history, with the unthinkable prospect of shutting down looming on the horizon.

That said, we need to add a bit of perspective here: City College is going to survive. The board has already hired an outside trustee to monitor its compliance with WASC’s recommendations, and by next spring, WASC is going to approve the school’s accreditation.

But along the way, the district is going to have to make some major changes that could shift its essential mission and alter the role City College has played in the community. Put simply, WASC and the state agency that oversees community colleges want City College to become more of a traditional junior college, designed to prepare students for transfers to four-year institutions, at the expense of adult education, English as a second language, and job training. The people who will decide the district’s fate want fewer teachers, fewer campuses, more administrators, and higher financial reserves — even if that means serving a smaller number of students.

It’s going to be tricky: School officials will have to thread a sharp political needle to emerge without lasting damage. And the question for the voters is simple: Who is best qualified to make sure that the school meets the WASC requirements — without gutting everything that’s important about the San Francisco Community College system?

We approach this with a couple of observations. The problems at City College aren’t new — they’re the result of many years of incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, secrecy, and lack of accountability that was driven by the elected board and infected every aspect of college operations, culminating in a scandal that resulted in felony charges against the chancellor. For more than a decade, a board majority that at best ignored and at worst empowered bad administrators and worse decisions ruled the college like a private fiefdom. Natalie Berg, who is running for re-election, was neck-deep in the sleaze. Milton Marks, who died in August, was often the only voice for honesty and sanity.

In the past few years, Marks found some allies as John Rizzo, Chris Jackson, and Steven Ngo joined the board, and since 2009, the reformers have had a clear majority. They haven’t been perfect, by any means — and it’s hard to deny that they were at the helm when the crisis hit, and could and should have move earlier to avert it. But they’ve at least made a credible effort to dig the school out of its mire.

Along the way, they’ve had to cut the budget by 20 percent — and made conscious decisions to preserve a professional teaching force and a broad mission, even if that meant laying off administrators and accepting lower-than-normal levels of reserves. Right or wrong, those were honest policy moves — ones that happen to conflict with what the state and WASC currently want.

It’s tempting (particularly when WASC complains about board dysfunction, which actually means that the members sharply disagreed, for very good reasons, on a lot of issues) to call for throwing out all the incumbents. But that’s a mistake; two incumbents are on the right side of the reform battles and have a vision for the school’s future. We’re also endorsing two challengers who offer a valuable fresh perspective.

Chris Jackson, a researcher with the San Francisco Labor Council, is running for his second term. He’s the only board member who voted against hiring a special trustee to oversee the districts WASC compliance — and he raised valid points about the trustees role and authority. He’s been a strong supporter of the reform agenda, and while he needs to understand that resisting the WASC demands entirely is a recipe for disaster, and that the board needs to accept greater fiscal discipline even if it means cutting programs he supports, Jackson’s voice is needed as the board moves forward.

Rafael Mandelman is a lawyer who’s been involved in progressive politics in the city for years. He’s an honest, principled activist respected by people across the political spectrum. He told us he has no illusions about the challenges ahead — or about challenging everyone, including his allies on the board, if that’s what it takes to save City College. “Short term,” he told us, “it’s all bad” — and he has the clear eyes and integrity to make the painful decisions. In a bitterly divided board, he may be something of a peacemaker, since nobody on any side doubts his intentions.

Steven Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, has been an exceptional board member, someone who respects and supports the district’s broad mission but has no illusions about the financial problems. He’s been complaining for years about the lack of centralized accounting systems, about the district’s lack of control over employee health spending — and about absenteeism among some board members, which has been a serious problem. He’s talking about fixing the basic problems first, including a system of internal governance that is so diffuse it often seems nobody knows who’s in charge.

Amy Bacharach, a policy researcher for the state court system, knows the value of education — she went from high school dropout to Ph.D. in 20 years. She agrees that the district shouldn’t abandon its commitment to adult education, ESL, and non-credit classes, but also agrees with WASC that the governance system is far too loose and that the board needs to centralize decision-making. She has progressive values and a clear head for what needs to be done, and would be a strong ally for Jackson, Mandelman and Ngo.

We also liked William Walker, the current student trustee, who has lots of great ideas and knows more about the district than almost anyone but as a student with a job and a role on the board, he isn’t running much of an effective campaign; he has a future in local politics, and ought to run again in two years when he has less on his table. Hanna Leung offered some solid ideas and was also a strong candidate.

But right now, in this race, at this time, we’re backing Jackson, Ngo, Mandelman, and Bacharach.

BOARD OF EDUCATION

SANDRA FEWER

JILL WYNNS

SHAMANN WALTON

MATT HANEY

It’s safe to say that nobody else in town is endorsing this particular slate of candidates. But it reflects our complicated and nuanced perspective on the state of the San Francisco public schools.

It’s important — critically important — to recognize that the local schools have improved dramatically over the past few years. When you see the actual data, it’s almost a miracle — at a time when the district has lost almost 20 percent of its state funding, when schools are begging parents to donate pencils and paper because there aren’t enough basic supplies to make it through the year, student achievement is up by almost metric. SFUSD is the best performing large urban district in California. There are more good schools and fewer failures. Test scores continue to creep upward. The racial achievement gap, while still unacceptable, is narrowing. Enrollment at the elementary level, once in sharp decline, is growing as faith in the schools improves.

The administration of outgoing Superintendent Carlos Garcia was refreshingly open; the gag orders and repressive programs of his predecessor, Arlene Ackerman, are gone. Garcia’s anointed successor, Richard Carranza, is following the same track. And the often fractious board is working together remarkably well.

That said, there are serious issues facing the district. The bitter fight over layoffs this spring has left the board, the administration, and the teachers union on terrible terms. The student assignment process, the budget, school transportation, the meal programs, the future of honors tracking, and immersion programs all present massive challenges. And in the middle of all of this are 55,000 students and their families, who can’t afford to wait around while the elected officials and administrators figure out what to do.

That’s why we’re endorsing a mix of veterans and newcomers, people who aren’t always on the same page politically but who share a commitment to public education and who offer both institutional memory and new ideas.

For the record: We have immense respect for the teacher’s union, the United Educators of San Francisco, and we (properly) take what the union says very seriously. It’s rare that we disagree. But the union has taken one issue — the vote to skip seniority and preserve the jobs of 70 lower-seniority teachers in a handful of underperforming schools — as the single litmus test for this election. That’s meant opposing all the incumbents — even if it means endorsing candidates who have opposed much of what the union stands for and who are otherwise unqualified for the job. We recognize the importance of seniority and the problems with that vote, but it’s only one of the many factors we considered in our decisions.

There’s nobody in this race we consider a flawless advocate for progressive school policies and reform. But four people are going to win, and we’re going with the best four.

Sandra Fewer was elected four years ago as the consensus candidate of the entire San Francisco left, and in some ways, she’s lived up to her promises. She’s been a leading advocate for restorative justice in the school disciplinary system, got ethnic studies added into the high school curriculum, and has made LGBT issues a priority (including training for gym teachers on trans youth). She was on the right side of the JROTC vote and is a strong advocate for students of color. She’s well informed and does her homework.

She also led an embarrassing and unproductive effort to keep Margaret Brodkin, an eminently qualified candidate, off the board two years ago, hurting her credibility in a lot of circles. She infuriated the teacher’s union by joining the majority on the skipping vote. Still, Fewer’s been a valuable voice on the board and deserves another term.

Jill Wynns is often at odds with Fewer and other progressives. She was utterly wrong on JROTC, pushing to preserve a military recruitment program in the public schools. She supported the horrible superintendent Arlene Ackerman all the way to the bitter end, damaging the district’s reputation (and her own). She’s been on the board for 20 years and there are a lot of people, many of them our friends and allies, who say it’s time for her to retire and make room for new blood.

If this were a one-person job, we wouldn’t be supporting her.

But Wynns has immense institutional memory, she cares deeply about the district and its students, and she represents a PTA-parent constituency that deserves a voice on the board. She’s serving as the president of the California School Boards Association, and has moved that conservative organization a few millimeters to the left. We don’t always agree with Wynns, but we’re supporting her re-election.

There are a number of credible challengers this year. Shamann Walton and Matt Haney are our favorites.

Walton, who runs a workforce-development agency in Bayview Hunters Point, is a product of the public schools in San Francisco and Vallejo, a former public school teacher in Vallejo, and a parent of kids who went through public schools. He told us he wants to see if the district can leverage state and federal job-training money to expand educational opportunities. He supports restorative justice and would be a voice for African American kids. He would need to learn more about the district budget and district operations, but he’s a bright, engaging person who can quickly come up to speed. He has the support of the Coleman Action Fund, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Sups. Eric Mar, David Chiu and John Avalos.

Haney, the executive director of the UC Students Association, has a Masters Degree in education and a strong background in educational policy issues. He’s focused on bringing more resources into the district, talking about new parcel taxes and fees on big private developers to fund the schools. He’s familiar with a wide range of district issues, from the core curriculum requirements to the honors-track debate as well as transportation and school food and would have a short learning curve.

We also liked Sam Rodriquez, Gladys Soto and Kim Garcia-Meza, who offer creative ideas and would probably make fine board members. And we recognize that incumbent Rachel Norton has been a powerful and effective advocate for special-needs kids and a proponent of healthier school food.

But our four choices reflect the balance we see as the best hope for continuing the progress the district has made while making the dramatic improvements the students and teachers still badly need.

San Francisco ballot measures

Downtown development

October 2, 2012

LIT/VISUAL ARTS The term “Mission School” was coined in these pages by Glen Helfand in 2002 to describe a loose-knit group of artists based around the Mission District who were then just beginning to break through into international art world success. These artists — including Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Alicia McCarthy, Rigo 23 and others — made use of found materials and shared an informal aesthetic that was influenced as much by the low rent streets of the city around them as a relaxed, collective Bay Area vibe.

A decade later, it seems safe to say that the Mission School was probably the last major art movement of its kind in this country, and itself the end of an era. For over three decades, significant art and music breakthroughs in this country were linked to specific urban neighborhoods (hip-hop to the South Bronx; Warhol’s Factory to downtown Manhattan, riot grrrl to Olympia, Wash.; grunge to Seattle; Fort Thunder in Providence, RI, etc.) Today, with the rise of the importance of MFA programs as a means to enter the art world, and the lack of locality fostered by the internet, the era of geographic specificity as arts incubator has perhaps passed us for good.

Two new books take us back to those freer, more experimental days at the inception of the SoHo and East Village arts scenes of New York in the 1970s and 80s. 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970-1974) (Radius Books, 192 pp., $50) is a brief, but invigorating oral history from the early years of what we now know as SoHo. This just-released catalog to last year’s exhibition at Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea brings to life the sense of discovery and improvisation of the nascent neighborhood scene that centered around the legendary pioneering alternative arts space and its north star, the late Gordon Matta-Clark.

In October 1970, when Jeffrey Lew and Matta-Clark opened 112 Greene Street in the storefront of a “rundown former rag picking factory,” the area south of Houston Street was a wasteland of abandoned former textile factories known as Hell’s Hundred Acres. The space, with its lack of heat, and its raw walls, uneven floors, and poor artificial lighting resembled the city then falling apart all around it. The ruins of the city not only influenced the work; sometimes they literally became work.

Alan Saret remembers walking near Canal Street with Matta-Clark one night when a cornice simply fell off a building right in front of them. Saret found some other cornices on the ground nearby and paid the crew of a passing city garbage truck to haul them back to 112 Greene where they became part of a sculpture piece he called Cornices.

Far from the uptown galleries where Manhattan art world power then was consolidated, 112 Greene’s isolation and state of decay fostered a certain kind of “anything goes” artistic freedom and collaborative spirit. For the first opening at 112 Greene, Matta-Clark jackhammered a hole in the basement floor and filled the area with dirt, where he planted a cherry tree that he kept alive all winter with grow lamps. For a later exhibition, George Trakas wanted to do a two-story sculpture, so he simply cut a hole in the floor so his piece could rise up out of the basement into the main floor. The only rule seemed to be that work had to be created on site and could not be made for sale.

Perhaps predictably, with this last rule, the space could barely keep its doors open. Yet, there is a timeless lesson here for those running arts spaces today: the downfall of 112 Greene came ironically only after it finally achieved financial stability. When Lew landed a big NEA grant in 1973, pure art experimentation and spontaneity gradually gave way to formal scheduling and programming guidelines from the funders in DC, who demanded more and more say in the operation of the space. “The excitement that anything could happen waned as paperwork and schedules were enforced,” remembers Lew. The core group of artists slowly drifted away from 112 Greene, just as the original SoHo, too, was beginning to change all around them into the high-end shopping district it is today.

The SoHo model has become a cynical real estate gentrification strategy, as developers create prefab arts — and shopping — neighborhoods in empty warehouse districts across the country from Miami to Portland, Ore. to Brooklyn. But if, say, Bushwick’s art scene feels less like a real place than the shores of a desert island where hundreds of young artists have been randomly washed up by the storms of the global economy, 112 Greene Street reminds us that the first art neighborhoods were formed organically around genuine community. In 1971, Matta-Clark and artist Carol Goodden started an artist-run collective restaurant in SoHo called Food. By all accounts, Food was not some relational aesthetic stunt; it was a well loved and sincere attempt to provide cheap meals, a gathering place, and jobs to artists in the scene.

112 Greene Street ends before Matta-Clark’s untimely death from pancreatic cancer at age 35 in 1978, and before the artist would famously take the work he developed in the ruins of 112 Greene out into the ruins of the city with a practice he dubbed “Anarchitecture.” He took the city as his canvas, transforming raw space by sawing dramatic cuts in the floors and facades of abandoned buildings in the South Bronx and industrial parts of New Jersey. But the charm and dreamy freedom of the era 112 Greene Street depicts comes through in Matta-Clark’s film, Day’s End. In it, Matta-Clark works calmly with a blowtorch, cutting holes in the steel ceiling of an abandoned city pier on the Hudson River (with no apparent fear of getting caught) as the space slowly fills with radiant light.

A decade later, another artist who would die too young, David Wojnarowicz, would also find a wide-open playground in the rotting piers along the river. Wojnarowicz would spend hours at the piers, writing about what he saw there, having sex with strangers, and drawing murals or writing poetry on the crumbling walls. Wojnarowicz delighted in the ruins and saw the piers as a sign that America’s empire was fading away before his eyes. That today we know it was actually only Wojnarowicz’s world that was about to disappear is just one of the many poignant aspects of Cynthia Carr’s beautiful new book, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz (Bloomsbury USA, 624 pp., $35), the first comprehensive biography to date of the artist, writer, and activist who died of AIDS at the age of 39 in 1992.

On the run from an abusive father, Wojnarowicz started sleeping with older men for money while living on the streets in his teens. Drawn to other criminals and outlaws, his first published writings were based on interviews he did with street hustlers, travelers, and homeless people he met in skid row waterfront diners and on hitchhiking trips. In the works of Jean Genet, he found a literary moral universe that helped him make sense of his own worldview. One of his earliest surviving works, a collage entitled St. Genet, depicts the French writer wearing a halo in the foreground while in the background, Jesus is tying off to shoot up. While Wojnarowicz would continue to use such blunt religious imagery in his work, the collage resonates in other ways. Carr reports that it was Kathy Acker who first called Wojnarowicz “a saint” when she appeared with him at his final public reading in 1991. The identification of Wojnarowicz’s life and work with the tragic loss of so many daring, outlaw artists to AIDS is so complete that Wojnarowicz has become a patron saint to young queer and activist artists today, his life story surrounded by an aura of myth.

Carr, a former arts reporter for the Village Voice, carefully picks apart myth from fact: Wojnarowicz didn’t actually start selling his body for money at age nine as he often claimed and he also wasn’t a founding member of ACT UP as many people suppose (though he did participate in some ACT UP protests). Yet, the complex and more human Wojnarowicz that Carr leaves us with is no less inspiring a figure — a self-taught artist whose lifelong struggle to make meaningful art out of his own experience, sexuality, and ultimate diagnosis with an incurable disease would almost by chance place him front and center in the story of the AIDS crisis and the great culture wars of the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Carr, a resident of the East Village now for four decades, became friends with Wojnarowicz late in his life, and she refreshingly breaks journalistic “objectivity” to insert her own eyewitness perspective into the narrative at many key junctures. One senses Fire in the Belly is so good precisely because it is a story only Carr could personally tell. Built on years of observation, Fire in the Belly has the ambitious scope and rich detail of a novel, and, more than a biography, is the story of a fabled East Village scene now irrevocably lost.

Wojnarowicz arrived in a gritty East Village where whole blocks had been abandoned to heroin dealers and bricked up tenements. A nihilistic neighborhood arts scene embraced the decay of the streets as an aesthetic, and galleries like Civilian Warfare Studios presented a giddy cocktail of downtown punk and queer culture mixed with the freshly born graffiti and hip-hop scenes of the South Bronx. Carr relates now-famous events like Gracie Mansion’s “Loo Division” show (mounted in the bathroom of her E. Ninth Street walkup), Keith Haring painting on the snow on the street in front of his show at Fun Gallery, and the exploits of the Wrecking Crew — a team including Wojnarowicz and other artists who would binge on acid and stay awake for days, filling galleries with creepy and crazed collaborative installations.

The artists’ isolation would not protect them from the art world for long. Soon, limos were disgorging passengers at openings on the heroin and rat-filled terra incognita east of First Avenue. East Village stalwarts like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Haring became rich and internationally famous, and even Wojnarowicz became a fairly established up-and-coming art star. The rags-to-riches story of the East Village scene might be the same kind of innocent tale of lost Bohemia as that of 112 Greene, were it not for the AIDS crisis shadowing it the whole time. Carr skillfully juxtaposes the narrative of openings and parties with chronological news reports of the then-unknown new disease. Carr describes a party on Fire Island in July 1981: writer Cookie Mueller read a story from the New York Times out loud to the room about a strange, new “gay cancer”. Photographer Nan Goldin, who was present, remembers today, “We all just kind of laughed.”

Carr’s tale picks up suspense after Wojnarowicz himself is diagnosed with AIDS. Over a breathtaking two-year period, Wojanrowicz embarks on an urgent mission to complete every single art project he’d ever hoped to accomplish in the time left to him in life. In the process he almost reluctantly becomes the fiery AIDS activist we remember today. While working on his career retrospective, he also battles the harassment of his landlord who is determined to evict Wojnarowicz and convert his loft in the gentrifying East Village into a cinema multiplex. He struggles to complete his memoir, even as his work becomes the focus of battles over government funding of art. Soon, Republicans denounce the dying man’s work as obscene and anti-Christian on the floors of Congress, and Wojnarowicz becomes a target of conservative Mississippi preacher Reverand Donald Wildmon’s public attacks. Wojnarowicz absorbed these attacks and the era’s stunning homophobia and turned them into what became the most powerful work of his career, the myth of his own life.

Carr’s book stands along with recent work like Sarah Schulman’s Gentrification of The Mind as a corrective to the uncritical nostalgia for the lost New York City of the 1970s and 80s that seems to have flowed like a river from Patti Smith’s 2009 memoir, Just Kids. These works unromantically detail what has been lost and then lovingly describe exactly how painfully it was all lost. Yet, perhaps all is not lost. While arts neighborhoods like the ones described in 112 Greene Street and Fire in the Belly seem like a thing of the past, the towering myths left behind by figures like Matta-Clark and Wojanrowicz still bring young artists against all odds to the rehabbed neighborhoods of San Francisco and New York today. Everytime Sara Thustra serves a meal at an opening at Adobe Books on 16th Street or Homonomixxx shuts down a Wells Fargo bank, we walk, if just for a short time, the streets of our old familiar city.

David Wojnarowicz: Cynthia Carr and Amy Scholder in Conversation
Wed/3, 7:30pm, free
Lecture Hall
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu/event/CynthiaCarr

Roll with it

September 26, 2012

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS They said it would smell like a hamster cage. And it did, but we persevered. Our instructions were to go all the way to the back of the restaurant — past the cash register and past the kitchen, where there was another, much pleasanter room that did not smell like a hamster cage. And it didn’t.

It was a whole, secret, new favorite restaurant back there. With couches, plants, and wooden chairs with heart cutouts in the back. The floor was concreted river stones; small, pretty, shiny ones that I thoroughly enjoyed both walking on and looking at.

Hedgehog said it felt like a former Home and Garden Center, which was probably a pretty good guess. We sat at the table closest to the bookshelves, and she picked something out to read while we waited for our vermicelli.

My Milk Toof, by someone with a good sense of humor and a lot of time on her hands. She poses and photographs two kinda cute “baby teeth” named Ickle and Lardee into a comic strip. Now, I’m not a book reviewer, but Hedgehog was still reading their little tiny adventures, often out loud, even after our vermicelli bowls were served. So . . .

CHEAP SPORTS

By Hedgehog

Since I was going to be watching Chicken Farmer third-string quarterbacking Sunday morning and be at Candlestick for the 49ers home opener Sunday afternoon, I really wanted to write about baseball.

Unfortunately, none of the baseball players I tweeted questions to got back to me. Which is a shame, because I really did want to know Brandon McCarthy’s favorite restaurant and Omar Vizquel’s views on same-sex marriage.

Even though I wasn’t going to say anything about football, I will say this: Chicken Farmer’s team was short a player and had no subs the entire game and they still won by one point! Of course, I didn’t know what the score was until we were walking back to the car, but even when I thought they had lost, I could tell it was a real good game.

Also: there are more assholes per square foot attending professional football games than there are at professional baseball games. Even at the $2 A’s games. But watching football live is enjoyable (excepting for all the other people doing it, too) and it was only partially humiliating to walk around the parking lot for three hours beforehand, stumping for donations for the Children’s Book Project with a Dr. Seuss hat on.

Moving on to more important matters: I am pleased to report that the Mission Playground reopened last weekend, all but the pool (which they say will be ready in December — perfect timing, since it’s an outdoor jobbie). I am not pleased to report that the food trucks promised to be in attendance in the adverts were gone by 2pm, when Earl Butter and I finally made our collective way over there. In addition to the kiddie areas, there is an artificial turf soccer field, two tennis courts, and a basketball court. So now you know where to find us.

There, or the Mission Rec Center, which has free racquetball and ping pong, and where there is a women’s boxing class I wish I could take being taught by an Olympic lady boxer. Boxerette? Boxer ladyperson.

Cheap Eats, cont.

Pugilista, I believe, is the word she was looking for.

Our vermicelli bowls, lemongrass chicken for her and grilled pork for me, were top-notch ‘uns, with plenty of crisp lettuce, carrots, red onion, basil, cilantro, and peanuts drenched in a red-peppery fish sauce dressing. Oh, and one sliver of not-hot jalapeno.

Oh, and the meat was delicious. Juicy and just perfect.

Mysteriously, we had also ordered an order of spring rolls. Maybe because we were too hungry when we first came in. But the thing is, the spring rolls are essentially the contents of the vermicelli bowls, only wrapped in rice paper. Equally excellent, but redundant.

They also have banh mi and noodle soups. Awesome food, nice people, and a really cool place, once you get past the hamster cage.

KIM’S CAFE AND SANDWICHES

Mon. 9am-7pm; Tue.-Wed. 10am-7pm; Thu.-Sat. 9am-8pm; Sun. 9am-6pm

1309 Solano, Albany

(510) 525-7899

MC,V

No alcohol

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

September 25, 2012

THEATER

OPENING

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29 and Oct 5, 8pm. Opens Oct 6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Wed/26, 7 and 9pm. Rns Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Opens Thu/27, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

"The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz" Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Oct 7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/26-Thu/27 and Oct 3-4, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. Opens Oct 5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Previews Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. Opens Tue/2, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 6 and 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

ONGOING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Interstellar comedy "based very, very loosely on the arcade game."

Fuck My Life (FML)/Homo File CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. $20-30. Thu/27-Sun/30, 8pm. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a bottle of Tapatío salsa is just a bottle of Tapatío salsa. But definitely not this time. This time it’s a fornicating phallus of foodie fetishism with a Latina edge — and a Latina target, which writer-performer Xandra Ibarra (a.k.a. La Chica Boom) sets about to both embody and deconstruct, and somehow rescue. On a smart-looking bathroom set, with its loving altar to Mexican movie star Lupe Vélez (designed by Richie Israel) rising ominously and significantly over the commode, Ibarra’s sharp and raunchy political burlesque channels rage and despair, dejection and defiance, from within concentric circles of representation, both social and aesthetic. With astute direction by Evan Johnson, Fuck My Life (FML), the culmination of Ibarra’s CounterPULSE residency, unfolds some lovely set pieces and magic moments, made highly persuasive by Ibarra’s sure and formidable skill and presence as a performer. A scene in which she shovels earth into a bathtub, for instance, proves an evocative, eerily beautiful and potent image. But there’s a lot here to unpack, thematically and politically, and in truth the short arc of the show only goes so far, and in ways that remain solidly within established traditions of Latino/a performance from Culture Clash to Guillermo Gomez-Peña. The exceptional charisma of La Chica Boom herself, however, remains a force and focus in its own right, and from there it’s easy to imagine much more to come. On the bill with FML is a work-in-progress performance of Homo File, writer-designer-director Seth Eisen’s multi-media and cross-disciplinary show. It already sports a formidable narrative arc and aesthetic vision as it explores the life of Samuel Steward (1909–1993), an amazingly well, um, connected English professor, writer of homoerotic fiction, famous tattoo artist, and sexual rebel. The 30-odd minutes of material on display delivers a strong sense of this fascinating figure (played by Ned Brauer, with occasional and evocative recourse to some aerial straps), who kept elaborate record of his astounding range of sexual conquests and liaisons in what he called his "stud files," a concatenation that forms a backbone to the story of a life told from the vantage of final days. Meanwhile, Eisen and his winning cast place Steward in a mise-en-scène equally as promiscuous, ranging over dramatic scenes, aerial acrobatics, shadow puppetry, and even a hilariously lewd application of the old teacher’s standby, the overhead projector. (Avila)

Invasion! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com. $20-35. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Crowded Fire mounts the West Coast premiere of Swedish-born playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s postmodern dark comedy, a deconstruction of language and power in an American culture of perpetual war, which made a well-received New York debut last year. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and directed by Evren Odcikin, the play immediately subverts the usual multi-culti narrative of otherness and tolerance with a po-faced feint (featuring ensemble members Lawrence Radecker and Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt) that ends with a boisterous disruption of the proceedings from unexpected quarters (courtesy of ensemble members George Psarras and Wiley Naman Strasser). From there, we get a series of interrelated largely comical scenes, wherein — in shades of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life — a certain figure by the name of Abulkasem dissolves into the ultimate cipher, tied to everything from terror to pick-up lines in bars, and meaning absolutely anything and nothing. Nevertheless, in the interstices of language lurks real power — as the play implies most overly in a scene of intentional mistranslation, which twists a hapless and bemused immigrant’s tale into line with the war-on-terror mythos. In the end, the complexity the play adds does not completely dissolve that liberal narrative skewered at the outset, and its efforts remain only half-convincing. The problem may lie partly in the production’s inconsistent, often sluggish pace, as well as a tendency toward didacticism in director Odcikin’s staging. The material of this sardonic play doesn’t support too literal or even empathetic a reading, but rather seems best translated as a raucous premonition, dream, or intimation of our own guilty seduction by the sadistic, totalizing power of such stories. (Avila)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

Lorraine Olsen Is Figuratively Speaking SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.theatrevalentine.com. $25. Thu-27-Sat/29, 8pm. The artist model speaks in writer-performer Lorraine Olsen’s new solo show, in which the Bay Area actress recounts her experience as a longtime dues-paying member of the Bay Area Model’s Guild, founded in 1946 by model par excellence, as well as civil rights and labor activist and columnist, Flo Allen (who appears as a character and inspiration here throughout). Audience members are invited to pick up a drawing book and a pencil before taking their seats, as Olsen, her exposed back to the audience, poses pre-show on a tall stool. The narrative opens with a peep inside the thoughts of the model before the classroom (banal ruminations, perhaps unsurprisingly, from the work-a-day world of the professional muse), before moving more substantively into Olsen’s own careening career through art, family trauma, and alcoholism — not all as grim as it sounds, but charged with real emotion just the same. All the while, Olsen, a frank and sympathetic presence, moves in and out of her robe and various poses as she describes a sometimes-chaotic life in which her career as a model provides an unexpected anchor and education. The show, directed by Val Hendrickson, could use further shaping. Several possible framing devices — including one in which the audience comprises a room full of new models — compete here in a way that undermines the coherence of the piece, although the subject in general offers an undeniably interesting perspective on the artistic process. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 3pm). SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sun, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 7. Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking 1985 drama about the AIDS epidemic — winner of a 2011 Tony for Best Revival of a Play — has a limited run at ACT.

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 3, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30 (Oct 7 show at 7pm instead). Through Oct 7. Sharr White’s plot-twisty thriller has its West Coast premiere at Magic Theatre.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 8:30pm. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

Rigoletto War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $10-340. Sun/30, 2pm. "Fidelity is for weaklings!" Despite this rousing cry from its philandering villain, SF Opera opens its 90th season with a faithful and winsome double-cast production of Giuseppe Verdi’s immortal Rigoletto. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the story concerns the titular court jester and hunchback (played opening night by the imposing Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic, who alternates nights with Italian Marco Vratogna) whose attempt to revenge himself on the goatish Duke of Mantua (Sardinian tenor Francesco Demuro, alternating with Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz) for seducing his beautiful daughter, Gilda (the thoroughly enchanting Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, alternating with Russian coloratura soprano Albina Shagimuratova), backfires with tragic consequences. The production includes free simulcast presentations at AT&T Ballpark on consecutive weekends for those more inclined to recline, especially in the fresh free air, but either way the show’s a little staid but charming and the music, under SF Opera’s Nicola Luisotti, utterly transporting. (Avila)

Strange Travel Suggestions MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/29, 8:30pm. Author and Ethical Traveler founder Jeff Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas, Snake Lake) has done his solo show Strange Travel Suggestions dozens if not hundreds of times and still has no idea where it’s going. No wonder he and his audience keep coming back for more. The unknown, an aphrodisiac to the traveler, also makes great catnip for the storyteller. Still, there are consistent elements. There is no need to reinvent the wheel — or the impressive Wheel of Fortune that sits just off center stage, painted with a map of the globe and ringed with symbols abstract and evocative enough to conjure up myriad adventures, peak experiences, and humbling encounters from the vivid grab-bag memory of an accomplished travel writer and inveterate globetrotter. There’s also a real grab bag, just in case, and an oversize tarot card, a sort of visual aid cum talisman sporting a classic image of the Fool, patron saint of the traveler’s heedless leaps of faith. Greenwald’s stories possess a fine sense of humor and a knack for the shrewd detail and telling observation. They also contain a Zen-inflected homespun wisdom no doubt born of leaving home on a regular basis. If slightly self-conscious at times, these tales are always genuine and appealing. In the end, Greenwald’s show, as reliable as it is unpredictable, mimics a genie-from-a-bottle experience: What you get is three spins, three stories, and a lot of unexpected truth. Note: capsule condensed from 2008 feature review of this production. (Avila)

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; no performances Sun/29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, "scaled-back" still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 5pm. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; additional 2pm show Oct 4; no show Oct 5); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a "wrestling 101" primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio "The Mace" Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as "The Fundamentalist," but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman "EKO" and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. California Shakespeare Theater performs a modernized version of the Bard’s classic drama.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Thu/27 and Sun/30, 7pm; Fri/28, 8pm. $30-125. With ¡Fiesta Jerez! Flamenco All-Stars (Thu/27); José Mercé (Fri/28); and Farruco Family (Sun/30). Visit website for information on workshops and related flamenco events.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $15-25. The company performs Turbulence (a dance about the economy).

"Naked Girls Reading: Banned Books!" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.nakedgirlsreading.com. Tue/2, 8pm. $20. The name doesn’t lie: this is a reading series featuring naked ladies (Kristine Wilson, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Carol Queen, and Twilight Vixen Revue performers).

"Niagara Falling" West wall of the Renoir Hotel, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.flyawayproductions.com. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8:30 and 9:30pm. Free. Flyaway Productions and Dancers’ Group/Onsite present the world premiere of choreographer Jo Kreiter and video artists David and Hi-Jin Hodge’s aerial dance, set on the outside of the Renoir Hotel.

"Picklewater Clown Cabaret Benefit for Paoli Lacy" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; picklewaterclowncabaret.bpt.me. Mon/1, 7 and 9pm. $15. Circus extravaganza to help performer and cancer patient Paoli Lacy with her medical bills.

Sandy Perez y Su Lade Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/29, 8pm. $20. Afro-Cuban music and dance.

"Squeeze Box" Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Sun/30, 5pm. $50-500. Benefit performance of Ann Randolph’s solo Off-Broadway hit.

"Theatecture on UN Plaza" Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the "24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival."

"Tiara Sensation Pageant" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Sat/29, 9pm. $20. The Club Something Team (Vivvyanne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-e) present "SF’s only non-gender-specific drag performance."

Zhukov Dance Theatre Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zhukovdance.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $30-50. The company performs its fifth annual season, "Product 05," with a preogram that includes the world premiere of Yuri Zhukov’s Coin/C/Dance.

BAY AREA

"Access to Oddities" Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave. A-1, Richmond; www.brianscottproductions.com. Sat/29, 2 and 7:30pm. $12-20. Magic and comedy show presented in a family-friendly matinee and a later show not recommended for children under 8.

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakl; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Wed/26, 8pm. $30. Gypsy flamenco guitar with Diego Del Morao.

"Empower: Master of the Three Rings" Chabot College Theater, 25555 Hesperian, Hayward; www.soulciety.org. Sat/29, 1 and 6pm. $20. Also Oct 27, 6pm, Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF. Soulciety performs a theatrical production that combines spoken word, urban acrobatics, and more.

"Fall Free for All" Various locations, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Sun/30, 11am. Free. Cal Performances’ annual free open house features performances across campus from Kronos Quartet, Shogun Players, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and many more.

"Flamenco Passion!" Bankhead Theater, 2400 First St, Livermore; ww.mylvpac.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $15-48. Caminos Flamencos Dance Company performs.

Rhinocéros Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 2pm. $30-90. Théâtre de la Ville of Paris performs Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece.

Critical Mass at 20

Andrew Lam

September 25, 2012

steve@sfbg.com

I was in Zeitgeist on a Friday summer evening, at a planning meeting for the 20th anniversary of Critical Mass, when I first heard about the idea of kicking off the celebration week with a renegade bicycle ride over the Bay Bridge.

The people who first shook up the city’s commute two decades ago were going to take the idea of seizing space from cars a step further — and fulfill a longtime cyclist fantasy. They were going to take the bridge.

Chris Carlsson, the author/activist who helped found Critical Mass and has evangelized the concept around the world, reminded me of this super-secret ride last Wednesday when I finally got around to starting my reporting for this story. I was surprised that I’d forgotten about it — but yes, I told him, I still wanted to be there.

>>JOIN IN ON THE FESTIVITIES WITH OUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK’S CRITICAL MASS EVENTS

“This will galvanize our sense of the week,” Carlsson told me, explaining that Critical Mass has always been about “opening up a space for a conversation,” whether it’s about how urban space is used or who gets to make that decision.

“There is a real necessity to have a place for people to start thinking creatively. That’s Critical Mass’s enduring contribution, 20 years ago and today.”

What started in September 1992 with 48 cyclists pedaling together through San Francisco has become an enduring worldwide phenomenon. On the last Friday of every month, without leaders or direction, this group bike ride simply meanders through the streets, riders smiling and waving at motorists often perplexed at the temporary alteration of traffic laws by a crowd too big to stop or ignore. While views of Critical Mass may differ, the conversation about urban cycling that it started has had an undeniable impact on how people see cities and their power to shape them, placing it high on the list of San Francisco’s proudest cultural exports.

Last Friday evening — a week before thousands of people are expected to show up for the 20th anniversary ride Sept. 28 — I rode over to a meeting in the back of the art gallery at 518 Valencia, the welcome center for the week. The first international arrivals were there: four Europeans who flew to Mexico City, where most of them built tall bikes to cycle up to San Francisco for the anniversary ride, arriving last week after a four-month trek.

They were veterans of Critical Mass events all over Europe, which borrowed the concept from the Bay Area, and they were happy to be going back to its core.

Andrea Maccarone is a 31-year-old Italian who lives in Paris when he isn’t bike touring, which he does quite a bit, last year riding to consecutive Critical Mass events in Paris, Toulouse, Rome, and Madrid. “It began here and spread everywhere,” he said. “A lot of my lifestyle — I’ve been a bike messenger and worked in bike kitchens — is based on what started here.”

His French girlfriend, Marie Huijbregts, described a cultural happening that began when she was 8 years old. “It’s a political movement of cyclists to release the streets from the cars,” the 28-year-old told me. “It’s environmental, do-it-yourself, and a great way to meet people.”

She said she wanted to be here “because it’s supposed to be the biggest one and all the world was invited. It’s symbolic and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Carlsson has watched the event he helped popularize spread to hundreds of cities around the world, from the Biciletada in Sao Paulo to the Cyklojizda in Prague. He loves to see young people who have been energized by Critical Mass and the larger renegade cyclist movement that grew up around it — from DIY bicycle kitchens and art bikes to creative political actions that seize public spaces — “who dream of San Francisco with stars in their eyes.”

But he often feels like we’re the “hole in the donut” of this international urban cycling movement, unable to retain the same intention and energy that it had when Carlsson, Jim Swanson, and a group of their bike messenger and anarchist cyclist friends conceived of the idea (originally called Commute Clot) in the Market Street office of a zine called Processed World.

Carlsson still hears the stories from people whose lives were changed by Critical Mass. But it was only in the last year or so, as the 20th anniversary approached, that he started regularly riding Critical Mass again, with a new generation of participants often drawn by confrontational yahooism, riding well-trod routes and rejecting efforts to suggest destinations as counter to its leaderless ethos.

“It’s extremely predictable now and I’m sick of it,” Carlsson admitted to me, a less diplomatic version of what he wrote in the introduction to the newly released book of essays he edited, Shift Happens: Critical Mass at 20, writing that the “euphoria of cooperative, joyful reinhabitation of urban space is hard to sustain after a awhile.”

Yet that powerful central idea is still there, and it remains as relevant as ever in cities dominated by fast-moving cars. People working together to create “an organized coincidence” can still change the rules of the road, opening up all kinds of new possibilities.

“It is an unpredictable space and you never know what’s going to happen,” Carlsson told me. That’s true of the history of Critical Mass around the world — with its storied clashes with cops and motorists, and its glorious convergences and joyful infectiousness — and it was true of our quest to take the Bay Bridge the next day.

TO THE BRIDGE

We weren’t just being daredevils. The idea of fighting for a freeway lane against six lanes of fast-moving cars, drivers distracted by that epic view of San Francisco, was conceived by Carlsson as a political statement protesting current plans to rebuild the Bay Bridge with a bike lane going only from Oakland to Treasure Island, leaving out that final 2.5-mile stretch into The City.

And for years, the Bay Bridge had been out there as a symbol of where bikes couldn’t go — and in dozens of demonstrations, riders have sought to make it up those ramps, particularly during the Bikes Not Bombs rides protesting the US invasion of Iraq, only to be blocked by police.

Carlsson handed out flyers headlined “A Bay Bridge for Everyone,” harking back to the early pre-Internet “xerocracy” that used flyers to promote Critical Mass ideas or suggest routes. A local historian, Carlsson included photos and descriptions of the Bay Bridge with three lanes of cars in each direction on the top deck, back when the lower deck had trains.

Why couldn’t we have one lane back for bikes? Well, it’s actually under consideration — sort of.

The idea of creating a bicycle/pedestrian lane on the western span is the subject of an ongoing $1.6 million study by Caltrans and the Bay Area Toll Authority, which are looking at attaching paths to the sides of the bridge. That would likely require replacing the decks on the bridge with a lighter new surface to compensate for the added weight, all at a cost of up to $1 billion.

Carlsson thinks that’s ridiculous overkill, and probably intended to scuttle the idea (or else put the blame on bicyclists for the cost of resurfacing the bridge). “For five grand, in three hours it could be done,” he said, arguing that all cyclists need is a lane, a protective barrier, perhaps a lowering of the speed limit — oh, and the political will to recognize that we have as much right to this roadway as motorists.

“It is a sad commentary on the nature of our government that the only way the state transit agency will take bicycling seriously as everyday transportation is when pressured by demonstrations and organized public demands,” Carlsson wrote on the flyer. “Why don’t they take the lead in opening space for cycling instead of doing everything to obstruct, deny, and prevent cycling?”

Even getting to Treasure Island for a bike ride isn’t easy for the car-free. Muni only allows two bikes at a time on its 108 bus, so Carlsson borrowed a van to shuttle almost 20 of us out there in multiple trips. Among the crew were the group that rode up from Mexico City, a Peruvian, and many regular local Critical Mass riders, including Bike Cavalry founder Paul Jordan and LisaRuth Elliott, a 10-year Critical Mass rider who helped edit Shift Happens and coordinate volunteers for the anniversary week, along with a couple of its very early adherents: Hugh D’Andrade and Glenn Bachmann.

“Nobody knew what we were doing,” Bachmann said of that first ride. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. But displacing cars left us this intense euphoria.

Elliott said she was drawn to Critical Mass shortly after she got into urban cycling, attracted by the sense of community that had developed around her transportation choice. She was later inspired to visit Paris and Marseille and other cities that adopted Critical Mass rides.

“They have taken charge and are leading their movements to better bicyclable cities. It’s an adaptable idea,” she told me as we prepared to load our bikes on the van bound for Treasure Island.

Once we were out there, we gathered for a picnic on the beach in Cooper Cove, where we got some sobering news from David Wedding Dress, who talked us through the ride and was going to be trailing our crew in his Mercedes as a safety measure.

“Prepare to be in jail until Monday morning,” he told us. There were also the high winds and dangerous gaps to contend with, offering a bleak prognosis.

A veteran radical activist and bicyclist, Dress has ridden the bridge before and been arrested most times, and he didn’t share Carlsson’s view that we were most likely to get away with it. When Carlsson arrived, he tried to shore up our spirits, saying we’d probably be okay if we maintained the element of surprise.

“We have a right to do this and make that point,” Carlsson said.

Elliott, who was already a wobbler going in, decided not to ride, but 16 of us decided to do it anyway, feeling nervous but excited. When a CHP patrol pulled over a car near our spot and it turned into an hour-long arrest and towing ordeal, which we were forced to wait out, we had plenty of time to think about what we were doing.

As D’Andrade told me as we waited to ride up to the bridge entrance, “What feels to me like the early days of Critical Mass is how scary this is.”

THE EARLY DAYS

In the beginning, the Critical Mass activists say their battle for space was a safety issue infused with a political message, delivered with a smile derived from the joyous new discovery that riding with friends made it much easier. San Francisco streets were designed for automobiles, and to a lesser extent public transit, with cycling relegated to the bike messengers and a few renegades seen by most as simply refusing to grow up.

Even the nascent San Francisco Bicycle Coalition of that era — which grew in numbers and power on a similar trajectory as Critical Mass, despite its policy of maintaining a defensible distance from that outlaw event — was initially dominated by the philosophy that urban cyclists should ride quickly with car traffic and didn’t need separate lanes.

“That’s what I like to remind people is how scary bicycling was in San Francisco in the early ’90s,” D’Andrade said.

I first encountered Critical Mass in 2001 when I was the news editor for the Sacramento News & Review, and Berkeley resident Jason Meggs brought the movement into automobile-centric Sacramento. My reporters and I covered those early rides, which were met with a harsh crackdown by police, who often cited every minor traffic violation.

But Meggs was committed to the concept, as he wrote in his Shift Happens! essay entitled, “The Johnny Appleseed of Critical Mass,” a role he has played over the last 19 years. “Critical Mass made me a video activist and filmmaker; it sent me to jail and then to law school, and again to graduate school for healthy cities. It provided us the space to build a vibrant bicycle culture, and to feel free and alive in cities that otherwise felt hostile, caustic, and alien,” he wrote.

Meggs calculates that he’s been arrested more than 20 times and received more than 100 traffic tickets during Critical Mass events, beginning with the Berkeley Critical Mass that he started in March of 1993, in part to protest plans to widen I-80.

“Those early rides were legendary — moment to moment ecstatic joy and street theater,” he remembered. “The combination of bike activists and freeway fighters with anarcho-environmentalists on wheels was a combination that couldn’t be beat. Like a newscaster once said of Critical Mass, back then we were drunk with power.”

Yet in almost city where it’s sprouted, Critical Mass has had to battle through crackdowns by police, which are often met with greater determination by the cycling community. San Francisco fought through a showdown with Mayor Willie Brown in 1997, when his threats to shut Critical Mass down turned out thousands of cyclists for the next ride.

In 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle sensationalized a conflict between a motorist and Critical Mass, beginning a media campaign that led Mayor Gavin Newsom to order a heavy police presence on subsequent rides — a show of force, but one without any apparent plan or directive — again increasing number of cyclists.

Each time, San Francisco city officials were forced to accept the inevitability of Critical Mass, opting to avoid the route of the harsh, sustained, and costly crackdowns employed in New York City, whose police and city officials essentially went to war with Critical Mass in 2004 and have all-but destroyed it. Portland has also had a tumultuous relationship with its Critical Mass, with police there essentially shutting it down.

Yet Carlsson noted in his Shift Happens essay that the bicycle activism that formed along with those rides still prevailed: “Both cities — not coincidentally I think — have implemented extensive and intensive street-level redesigns to accommodate the enormous increase in daily cycling that followed the rapid growth and ultimate repression of their Critical Mass rides.”

San Francisco has seen an even greater explosion in the number of cyclists on the roadways, so many that spontaneous “mini-Masses” of cyclists form up during the daily commutes on Market Street and elsewhere. But despite the near-universal City Hall support for cycling here, and the SFBC’s status as one of the city’s largest grassroots political advocacy organizations, Carlsson said San Francisco’s cyclists still lack the infrastructure and policies needed to safely get around the city.

That’s one reason why the challenge of Critical Mass is still relevant, he said, and one reason why we were determined to ride our bikes into San Francisco on the Bay Bridge.

ANOTHER DAY

The cops left a little before 6pm, so we massed up and headed for the Bay Bridge, pedaling single-file up a long hill. Soon, the long western span of the bridge came into view, stretching to the downtown destination that we all hoped to reach without incident or arrest, as we passed a sign reading “Pedestrians and Bicycles Prohibited.”

As we crested the hill and dropped down toward the freeway entrance, our pathway seemed clear, with the only real variable being coordinating with Dress in the Mercedes trail car, but Carlsson was on the phone with him and we all assumed that we were about to ride our bikes onto the Bay Bridge.

We were in a fairly tight pack, Maccarone smiling atop the tall bike that had traveled so far to this point, as we rounded the swooping right turn to the point where even cars make a dangerously quick entrance onto the bridge from a complete stop, merging into loud and dense traffic moving at freeway speeds.

We stopped, looked back for Dress, and he wasn’t there. A minute crept by, then another, as cars drove cautiously past us to get onto the freeway, their drivers giving us the same quizzical, confused looks that we’d seen on Critical Mass so many times. Another minute passed, then another, as Carlsson lit one of the road flares that we planned to use as a secondary safety measure to the Mercedes.

Then, a CHP patrol car rounded the bend, the officer sternly telling us over his PA system, “Don’t even think you’re getting on this bridge with those bikes.”

So we turned around and began to head back when Dress finally arrived in his Mercedes, presenting a moment of truth. Did we proceed anyway, even though we had been warned and knew the officer had probably radioed in our presence, taking away the element of surprise and increasing our chances of arrest?

There was dissension in ranks and a clear division among those urging opposite courses of action, but Carlsson and others continued to ride away after talking the Dress, who proceeded onto the freeway. Later, Carlsson said he was still game to go at that moment, but tried to be responsive to the collective: “I was not comfortable imposing going on the bridge on everyone.”

D’Andrade advocated for going anyway, but most felt it was too risky at that point, siding with Carlsson’s argument that is wasn’t about getting arrested: “I like to do something and get away.”

And so it was decided that we would choose a strategic retreat, some pledging to take the bridge some other day, hopefully with greater numbers. Besides, we all had a big week ahead of us, starting the next day with the first official event of Critical Mass’s anniversary week: the Art Bike/Freak Bike Ride and BBQ.

We gathered the next afternoon on the waterfront under sunny blue skies, our aborted bike crew increased in size 10-fold, joined by underground DIY bike crews from San Francisco’s own Cyclecide to the Black Label crews from Minneapolis, Oakland, and Los Angeles, infusing the ride with a countercultural edge.

Urban bike culture is now vast and varied — from the eco-warriors and urban thinkers to wage slaves and renegade tinkerers — and they’ve all found a regular home in Critical Mass. “Twenty years on, people are kinda nostalgic about it, even if they don’t ride in it or think it’s a good idea,” an activist name rRez told me during that beautiful Sunday ride, the one we were able to take because we weren’t in jail.

Carlsson told me on the ride that he was at peace with our failed mission of the day before, a sign that being radical isn’t the same thing as being reckless. “That was a good strategic retreat moment. It’s very adult,” he said. “It was a good experience for all of us, and nothing bad happened and nobody is in jail.”

In a way, that’s the essence of Critical Mass. It isn’t pure anarchy, and it’s not about fighting with the cops or the motorists, something Carlsson sees as straying from its original intent. It’s a joyful gathering, an exercise in the power of people who are willing to challenge the status quo and take well-considered risks to create a society of their choosing.

“In a modern capitalist society, the roads are the lifeblood,” Carlsson said, “and if you block them, you’re a threat.”

CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF CRITICAL MASS

Wednesday 26

East Bay Ride, meet at West Oakland BART station, 11:45am. Ride along the east shore of the bay to the Rosie the Riveter monument in Richmond.

NOIZ Ride, McKinley statue on the Panhandle at Baker Street, noon. Bring food, drink, and layers for a several hour, non-strenuous ride featuring three live bands.

Shift Happens book release party and discussion, Main SF Library, Latino-Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin St, 5:45 p.m. Discuss Critical Mass and this new book with its writers.

Book release concert, Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF, $15, 8pm. Featuring Seaweed Sway, Aaron Glass and Friends, and Kelly McFarling

Thursday 27

Mosquito Abatement Ride, Meeting place TBA near 16th & Valencia, SF, 11am. One-hour rides with a cycling city contractor.

NYC Critical Mass discussion and video, 518 Valencia, SF, 2pm. Hosted by Times Up New York City.

Bike Polo, Jose Coronado Playground, 21st and Shotwell, SF, 7-9pm. Play with locals and visitors, share a beer.

Bikes, Bands, and Brew: CM’s 20th Bday party, CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, 7pm, $10-20. Bike cultural offerings and music by Grass Widow, Apogee Sound Club, The Rabbles, and Future Twin.

Friday 28

20th Anniversary Critical Mass Ride, Justin “Pee Wee” Herman Plaza, Market and Embarcadero, SF, 6pm

Vintage Bicycle Film Festival, Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF, $10. Saturday 29 International Critical Mass Symposium, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission, Rooms 303/304, 5-8pm. Event will include an open mic and CM20 Anniversary Week photo contest at 7pm Sunday 30 Farewell Bike Ride and Party, 1pm departure from 518 Valencia, 2pm at Ocean Beach. Bring food and drink to share with your new friends and listen to bands on Rock the Bike’s pedal-powered stage. For more events and details, visit www.sfcriticalmass.org

Celebrate Mass

Andrew Lam

September 25, 2012

Check out this week’s cover story on the 20th anniversary of Critical Mass, then proceed directly to the festivities below

WEDNESDAY 26

East Bay Ride, meet at West Oakland BART station, 11:45am. Ride along the east shore of the bay to the Rosie the Riveter monument in Richmond.

NOIZ Ride, McKinley statue on the Panhandle at Baker Street, noon. Bring food, drink, and layers for a several hour, non-strenuous ride featuring three live bands.

Shift Happens book release party and discussion, Main SF Library, Latino-Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin St, 5:45 p.m. Discuss Critical Mass and this new book with its writers.

Book release concert, Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF, $15, 8pm. Featuring Seaweed Sway, Aaron Glass and Friends, and Kelly McFarling

THURSDAY 27

Mosquito Abatement Ride, Meeting place TBA near 16th & Valencia, SF. One-hour rides with a cycling city contractor.

NYC Critical Mass discussion and video, 518 Valencia, SF, 2pm. Hosted by Times Up New York City.

Bike Polo, Jose Coronado Playground, 21st and Shotwell, SF, 7-9pm. Play with locals and visitors, share a beer.

Bikes, Bands, and Brew: CM’s 20th Bday party, CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, 7pm, $10-20. Bike cultural offerings and music by Grass Widow, Apogee Sound Club, The Rabbles, and Future Twin.

FRIDAY 28

20th Anniversary Critical Mass Ride, Justin “Pee Wee” Herman Plaza, Market and Embarcadero, SF, 6pm

Vintage Bicycle Film Festival, Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF, $10.

SATURDAY 29

International Critical Mass Symposium, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission, Rooms 303/304, 5-8pm. Event will include an open mic and CM20 Anniversary Week photo contest at 7pm

SUNDAY 30

Farewell Bike Ride and Party, 1pm departure from 518 Valencia, 2pm at Ocean Beach. Bring food and drink to share with your new friends and listen to bands on Rock the Bike’s pedal-powered stage.

For more events and details, visit www.sfcriticalmass.org

Alerts

Andrew Lam

September 25, 2012

WEDNESDAY 26

Berkeley mayoral candidate forum North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst, Berk; berkeleygraypanthers.mysite.com. 1:30pm, free. It may be the Peoples Republic of Berkeley, but it still needs a mayor. Come hear this season’s mayoral hopefuls lay out their visions at this candidate forum. Candidates Kriss Worthington, Zachary RunningWolf, Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Jacquelyn McCormick, Bernt Wahl, and incumbent mayor Tom Bates are all expected.

THURSDAY 27

The political future of medical marijuana Oaksterdam University, 1600 Broadway, Oakl; www.blockreportradio.com. 6:30-8:30pm, $20 suggested donation. A panel discussion featuring some seriously high-profile pro-pot political people. Speakers include medical marijuana patient and former Black Panther Elder Freeman, Peace and Freedom Party candidates for Assembly Gene Ruyle and Mary Mcllroy, Peace and Freedom presidential nominee Roseanne Barr, former vice presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney, relentless marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal, and KPFA reporter Jose Alacran Gutierrez, who was arrested and now facing federal prison after covering the January raid on Oaksterdam.

The FDA’s great GMO scam The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar, Berk; www.hillsideclub.org. 7:30pm, $10. Attorney Steven Druker, author of Altered Genes, Twisted Truths and a loud voice decrying the risks of genetically engineered food, will speak on what he believes was FDA corruption that pushed GMOs to market despite safety concerns. Dr. Myrto Ashe will also speak on “the medical perspective: why physicians are telling patients to avoid GMOs.” This event is a fundraiser for the Yes of Prop. 37 campaign, which would require that food containing genetically engineered ingredients is labeled in California.

SATURDAY 29

International student solidarity forum Student Union, City College of San Francisco, Ocean Campus, 50 Phelan Ave, SF; www.norcalsocialism.org. 11am-5pm, $5-20 suggested donation. As City College faces crisis, along with the rest of California’s education system, this forum will bring together students from around the world who have helped lead mass movements that fought back against austerity. Speakers at the forum include a representative of the CLASSE student union in Quebec, the Yo Soy 132 student movement in Mexico, the spring 2010 strike at the University of Puerto Rico, and a spokesperson from the University of Chile student federation. Food will be provided.

A night for the buffalo Women’s Building Auditorium, 3543 18th St., SF; www.buffalofieldcampaign.org. 7-10pm, $10-20 suggested donation. The Buffalo Field Campaign works day and night to protect buffalo in their winter habitat in Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo, once abundant in the western United States, are now rare after a mass slaughter that went hand-in-hand with the genocide of Native Americans that underpinned the westward migration in the 19th century. Join Mike Mease, co-founder of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a presentation and stories on the campaign to protect the buffalo, and John Trudell, former chair of the American Indian Movement, poet and musician, for music.

MONDAY 1

Celebration of the life of Robyn Few City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Dr, SF; Facebook: Celebration of the life of Robyn Few. 2pm, free. Robyn Few, tireless activist for sex workers rights and medical marijuana, passed away Sept. 13 after a four-year battle with cancer. Her life’s work includes founding the Sex Workers Outreach Project, which now has chapters worldwide. All are welcome to celebrate Few’s life with a speak-out and open-mic on the steps of City Hall, a procession through the streets complete with red umbrellas, feather boas and other symbols of Few’s “audacious spirit of activism,” followed by storytelling at Buck Tavern (1655 Market) at 4pm.

TUESDAY 2

District 5 POOR peoples candidate forum 1300 Buchanan, SF; Facebook: District 5 POOR peoples candidate forum. 6pm, free. The candidates for District 5 have been through a tough race. But they haven’t yet faced the group that proclaims “Change won’t come from a savior, a pimp, or an institution/ Change will only come/ from our own poor peoples led revolution.” Which D5 candidate has what it takes to support the poor peoples led revolution? Find out Tuesday.

SFBG TV: Pageant tidings from planet Faux Queen

Andrew Lam

September 24, 2012

In this city, you can’t walk, saunter, or sashay 50 feet without running into a drag queen. We are a queen-heavy city, and we love it. But ask the average Joe who their favorite faux queen is, and all you might get is a glazed look or a raised eyebrow.

Faux queens are drag queens stuck inside a woman’s body — women pretending to be men pretending to be women. A simple enough idea that got its due in 1995 when Diet Popstitute and Rooby Tuesday started the now-legendary Faux Queen Pageant. After a seven year hiatus, the tradition continued on September 16, bringing lashed lovelies from the deepest reaches of space who would give veteran drag queens a run for their money.

I got a chance to interview Bea Dazzler as she was briefly visiting earth from planet Faux Queen. I’ll be honest, I never met a extra-terrestrial who loved women and animals so much.

>>CHECK OUT ERIC CUADRA’S LAST EPISODE OF SFBG TV: BAKLAVA BONDING AT THE ARMENIAN FOOD FESTIVAL

Live Shots: Rock Make Festival

September 20, 2012

Crafting DIY-style is already pretty punk rock — but combine it with actual live tunes, and you’ve got yourself the Rock Make Street Festival, a street celebration of music and art.

This past Saturday, 9/15, the Indian Summer sunshine rays beamed down on Capp and 18th street in the Mission, as festival par-tay goers munched on Indian burritos from the Kasa Indian food truck, ogled handmade wood ties by Wood Thumb and of course, listened to music by local bands like Permanent Collection, a punk pop band that took the stage and added some seriously rocking moments to the festival. Rock Make: a true indie celebration of what makes the Bay Area so downright beautiful.

SFBG TV: Baklava bonding at the Armenian Food Festival

Andrew Lam

September 20, 2012

No lines? Space to move and breathe? This can’t be a San Francisco street festival, can it?

But it was. I made a dramatic entrance at last weekend when I was shooting the 55-year old Armenian Food Festival. I floated in like a cartoon character, led by the nose. Yes indeed, I defied all laws of gravity and let my senses guide me to the sizzling kebab meats and free-flowing draft beer, not to mention the whirling dancers and, of course, Armenian eye candy.

My foodie senses were tingling, and I wasn’t the only one. The event began as a get-together for the Armenian community, but more and more people come every year to visit the festival, which is tucked away in Ingleside Heights. And bonus: the event is a benefit St. Gregory’s Church and the KZV Armenian School.

While I did most of my socializing with the kebab stand and beer truck, I did get festival board members VJ Darakjian and Zareh Sarkissian on-camera for an interview. They were big on the fact that “first and foremost, we have something for everyone.” I think they’re right — the night was pretty much summed up when I ran into an old co-worker.

“Hey, Dom! What are you doing here?”

“Duh, dude. Baklava.”

Where is Occupy SF now?

September 20, 2012

On the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Francisco also celebrated its birthday.

Demonstrations throughout the day Sept. 17, focusing on a variety of topics, converged at 5pm at 555 California, Bank of America’s west coast headquarters. A lively march of about 600 became a street festival down the block. There, protesters stopped for a circus of birthday activities. In one corner, people saddled by debt wrote their debt information on pieces of paper, explained their situations to the crowd, and dropped the papers into a trash can for a symbolic burning. One person also burned cash. “Hell no, we won’t pay,” the crowd chanted.

A few feet over, protesters painted the street with a bright yellow sun declaring “democracy not debt.” Volunteers then fed a free meal to the hundreds in attendance and wheeled in a video screen to watch some recaps of the year’s best moments. Around 8pm, the group left as peacefully as they had come.

In the darkness, a few hundred headed east on Market. When they arrived in Justin Herman Plaza– or Bradley Manning Plaza, as Occupy SF has christened it, in honor of the whistle blowing soldier- a few police stood guard around the perimeter. Undeterred, protesters walked in, and shouts of “happy birthday” gave way to “welcome home.”

The birthday party continued with a night of music. Five tents were pitched, sleeping bags were brought out. Police vehicles carrying truckloads of barricades drove by, but police told protesters they would have to leave the park by 6am, the hour the park opens.

30 or 40 spent the night. In the morning police came back. As ukelele and drums continued to play, tents were dutifully broken down. A few went back to sleep.

Video by Eric Louie

Last fall, Occupy SF could basically be found here. The camp was at Justin Herman Plaza. The ever-expanding list of working groups sometimes met somewhere else, but Occupy was at camp. But after a series of police raids, from Oct. 5 to the raid that finally brought the camp down in December, this camp was no more.

Now, Occupy SF is found all over the place.

As longtime Occupy SF activist Vi Huynh said while celebrating the anniversary: “I think it’s good to honor these milestones because, unlike the mainstream media would have us believe, we haven’t gone away. We’re not dying either. They’re writing our obituaries, but we’re very much alive. And we’re doing things every day.”

Here’s an uncomprehensive list of active groups from Occupy in San Francisco.

101 Market. This is the old camp of Occupy, “re-occupied” in February in response to a national call. At least 30 sleep there every night, and the camp is a veritable fortress of furniture and belongings. They’re mere existence is a refusal to humor the concept of private property. General Assembly meetings occur at 101 Market Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm.

Action Council. Action Council is a forum meant to connect Occupy with unions, non-profits, and community groups. They played a big role in planning demonstrations like the Jan. 20 shutdown of the financial district and the May Day solidarity demonstrations. Action Council meets weekly, Sundays at 2pm at Unite Here headquarters, 215 Golden Gate Ave.

All Streets Yoga. Since last winter, All Streets Yoga, formerly known as Decolonize Yoga, has been transforming part of the sidewalk at the 16th and Mission BART station into a yoga studio free for all. Volunteer yoga teachers lay out rugs and lead personalized yoga sessions for anyone who chooses to join. They transform space and creating calm in the busy city landscape. Join them Fridays 5-7pm.

Community Not Commodity. Also known as Bay Occupride, this group formed to protest commercialization of the Pride Parade. On the Sept. 17 anniversary they did a march on the Castro banks and a sit-in to protest sit-lie at Harvey Milk Plaza. CNC describes itself as “a collective assembly of queer/trans-focused community groups with established reputations in the Bay Area that have come together to strengthen and unify our diverse communities. We have come together to confront the 1% within our movement. We work for complete liberation of queer and trans people!” They meet Sundays at noon at Muddy Waters Café, 521 Valencia. See more at www.bayoccupride.com.

Direct Action working group. Direct action is a central tenant of Occupy. It means taking action to prevent something bad or create something good without permission or help of those with political power. In a 1912 essay titled Direct Action, Voltairine de Cleyre cited the Boston Tea Party as an example and wrote that “Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct action.” The direct action working group meets Wednesdays, 6pm, at the Redstone Building at 2940 16th Street.

Environmental Justice working group. The environmental justice working group keeps the pressure on the corporations that exploit the planet. They’ve protested hydraulic fracturing and the nuclear industry. They meet Tuesdays at 4pm at 101 Market.

Food bank of America. Occupy SF set up the first Food Bank of America to feed thousands of hungry protesters and passers-by on Jan. 20. A Market Street Bank of America branch locked its doors when volunteers set up a food table and passed out hot meals. Now, Food Bank of America continues in front of the mega-bank’s 23rd and Mission branch, where volunteers pass out produce, mostly donated from farmers’ markets, along with literature on switching to credit unions. They’re usually there Thursdays 5-6pm.

Ideological Liberation working group. This working group has produced pamphlets explaining Occupy, trading cards of especially greedy bankers, and postcards summarizing issues like the foreclosure crisis and the National Defense Authorization Act. They also created the Occupy SF Declaration. Brainstorm and write with them on Tuesdays, 7:30-9pm, at the decidedly ideologically un-liberated meeting spot of the Starbucks at 27 Drumm.

Occupy Bay Area United. Occupy Bay Area United spent the night outside 555 California on the eve of the Occupy SF anniversary, an occupation complete with tents and signs. They are “committed to non-violent direct action.” They meet on Sundays, 5-7pm, and post meeting locations on their website, www.obau.org.

Occupy Bernal. This neighborhood-based group is largely considered one of the most effective and desperately needed parts of the Occupy movement in San Francisco. Occupy Bernal is in the business of stopping foreclosures and evictions. “Since January no one we worked with has had an auction. People we work with who already had auctions, we’re stopping their evictions. We’ve stopped six of them so far. So we’re almost done with all the evictions, and we can go back to just stopping the auctions. We have 60 people in line to get loan modifications from Wells,” said Occupy Bernal organizer Buck Bagot. On the anniversary, Occupy Bernal hosted a rally highlighting the disproportionate effects of the foreclosure crisis and veterans and elderly and disabled people. “There were about 100 of us at the protest and five people, all over 80, veterans who are all at risk of losing their homes because they don’t have very much income,” said Bagot. Occupy Bernal meets 7-9pm on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center at 515 Cortland Ave. See www.occupybernal.org for more information.

Occupy Forum. Occupy Forum started up in early June in the Women’s Building, and has since moved to Justin Herman Plaza. The well-attended forums, usually around 70 people, are a time to discuss issues that concern people in Occupy. From the beginning Occupy has been said to have “no focus”– maybe that’s because those involved saw that everything from greedy banks to income inequality to homelessness to discrimination in loans to healthcare to racism to wars were all connected. The forum is a chance to focus in on a different topic every week. Check them out Mondays at 6pm at Justin Herman Plaza, at Market and Embarcadero.

Occupy the Richmond. A philosophical Occupy. If you’ve ever gotten sick of decrying problems in society and yearned to discuss creative solutions, Occupy the Richmond may be your cup of tea. A philosophical Occupy. Saturdays at 4pm, Occupy the Richmond gets together at 11th Ave. in Mountain Lake Park “to talk about what kind of society we want to organize together,” according to Occupy the Richmond participant Alex Zane. “Occupy opens up the possibility for talking about that. Otherwise, people would be stuck behind their screens freaking out about what kind of society we should organize. We should get together and talk with real, living people about how we’re supposed to reorganize our society,” said Zane.

Outreach working group. A group that spreads the word about Occupy and speaks with people and community organizations about working together. They meet Wednesdays at 7pm at One Rincon Center, also known as 121 Spear.

This article has been corrected. Bradley Manning served as a soldier in the Army, not a marine

Cocktail harvest

September 19, 2012

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE Judging a cocktail contest in Calistoga and sampling Wine Country cocktails early in 2011, I witnessed a rise in quality congruent with the cocktail renaissance exploding across the nation, beyond longtime torchbearers like SF and NYC. This is especially notable in tourist-heavy Wine Country, where shaking off the all-consuming culture of the grape is an uphill battle (so local bartenders tell me). Although you won’t see many cocktail bars opening up, restaurants continue to refine their cocktails and spirits selections. You’ll now find a few city-quality drinks among the vineyards. Here are two intriguing spots in Napa, perfect for harvest-time exploration.

GOOSE AND GANDER

Scott Beattie has long been considered the number one talent in Wine Country — he crafted exquisite cocktails in sleepy, chic Healdsburg at Cyrus long before many of the country’s big cities had clued in, leading the way in farm-fresh, artisanal cocktails (see his book, Artisanal Cocktails, www.scottbeattiecocktails.com), torching kumquats and crisping apple slivers from his backyard as garnishes.

When Beattie left Spoonbar to take over the bar at St. Helena’s Goose and Gander, which opened in April, Sonoma’s loss was Napa’s gain. Goose and Gander is in the former Martini House in a 90-year-old craftsman bungalow with idyllic yard and patio. Red walls, bookshelves, brown leather booths, fireplaces, wood ceilings and floors impart a charming hunting lodge feel. Beattie works alongside talent like Michael Jack Pazdon, who previously supervised the bar program at SolBar and has won numerous cocktail contests. Beattie, Pazdon, and crew serve fantastic drinks from a handful of cocktails (all $11) on the regular menu. Ask for “the book” for a more extensive selection — and peruse an impressive spirits collection lining the bar.

The Mellivora Capensis (a.k.a. honey badger) is a prime example of Beattie-style cocktails: Eagle Rare 10 year bourbon, honey, and lemon sound like a classic base, but it gets interesting with a touch of peat from Ardbeg Scotch, pineapple, black cardamom, and chili, with coconut foam contributing texture, and edible flowers the crowning touch. A Cucumber Collins (Square One cucumber vodka, yuzu, lemon, fresh and pickled cucumber, huckleberries, seltzer) is classic Beattie: striking visuals, artfully refreshing.

Executive Chef Kelly McCown’s food is notable. Spicy whole blue prawns ($16) are large and juicy, skillet-roasted brown, swimming in shallot garlic butter, rosemary, and chilis over polenta. A bright crudo of Hawaiian lemon snapper ($17) is lined up next to heirloom tomatoes dotted with shaved tomatillos and sea beans. As a twist on the ever-gratifying wedge salad, a Berkshire pork belly “wedge” ($15) is an understandable hit: a disc of iceberg topped with a hefty chunk of pork belly and Shaft’s blue cheese dressing. Jersey cow’s milk ricotta gnocchi ($18) melt joyously in the mouth, intermingling with cherry tomatoes, basil, and tomato coulis, crowned by a light Parmesan crisp. Goose and Gander is the whole package and works both as a romantic date locale or relaxed stop for bite and drink.

1245 Spring, St. Helena. (707) 967-8779, www.goosegander.com

THE THOMAS

Follow the vintage neon signage of the former Fagiani’s, where The Thomas opened just last month in a 1909 building restored by New York’s AvroKO Hospitality Group. First visiting during opening week, I dined on the partially covered third floor terrace (although housing a second bar, this floor is for diners only) gazing out over downtown Napa. As the sun set over the river below, rooftops and hills peeking above the the deck, I was transported to Europe, a timeless moment on a summer night.

I was immediately hooked, but I’m waiting to see how the place evolves, particularly with just-launched brunch and recently named bar manager Jim Wrigley of London’s Albannach and the Lonsdale. During my visit, AvroKO cocktail director Naren Young was in town serving drinks from the menu he co-created with Linden Pride, with whom he runs Saxon+Parole in NY. Drinks are classic, simple, playful with the ubiquitous (though not so much in Napa) Negroni on tap ($12), and a generous White Manhattan on tap ($15), utilizing Death’s Door white whiskey, white vermouth, kirschwasser, jasmine bitters. An ideal aperitif is Jasmine ($14), made of Campari, Beefeater Gin, Combier triple sec and lemon juice. Dessert was a winning round of a Grasshopper and an elegant whiskey cocktail with biscotti, ideal alongside dreamy dark chocolate pot de creme with cookies or decadent monkey bread.

Though it’s a bit too early to call, there’s plenty to enjoy on Executive Chef Brad Farmerie’s casual, comfortable American food menu. (he’s formerly of The Public in NYC.) On a warm night with an icy-cool White Manhattan, a raw bar seafood tower (mini $22, medium $67, large $125) suited perfectly with a sampling of East and West Coast oysters, smoked mussels, Dungeness crab, and plump shrimp. Grilled chorizo sausage ($13.50) was lively, with txiki cheese, black bean chocolate puree, and padron peppers.

The three-story space has a big city energy, with much of the staff from NY, imparting a welcome cosmopolitan vibe atypical of the area. The bottom floor boasts a vintage oak bar and pressed-tin ceiling, which looks like it’s been there for 100 years, in keeping with the historicity of the building, freshly incarnated.

813 Main, Napa, 707-226-7821, www.thethomas-napa.com

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

September 18, 2012

Schedules are for Wed/19-Tue/25 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-12. "Periwinkle Cinema:" The Treatment (Aluvalot and Thustra, 2010), Wed, 8. Cine+Mas presents: Dirty Hearts (Amorim, 2011), Thu, 7:30; Under My Nails (Cruz, 2011), Fri, 7:30. More info on these events, www.sflatinofilmfestival.com. "Other Cinema:" Pig Death Machine (Moritsugu), Sat, 8:30. More info on this event, www.othercinema.com.

CALIFORNIA 2113 Kittredge St, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $8-10.50. "Studio Ghibli Animation Retrospective:" Only Yesterday (Takahata, 1991), Japanese with English subtitles, Wed, 1:50, 4:25, 7, 9:35; Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001), Japanese with English subtitles, Thu-Fri, 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:40; Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997), Japanese with English subtitles, Sat, 1:20, 4:10, 7, 9:50; My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki, 1988), Japanese with English subtitles, Sun-Mon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:20; Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994), Japanese with English subtitles, Tue, 1:50, 7; Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004), English language version, Tue, 4:25, 9:35; Whisper of the Heart (Kondo, 1995), Japanese with English subtitles, Sept 26, 2:15, 7; Ponyo (Miyazaki, 2008), English language version, Sept 26, 4:45, 9:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Risky Business (Brickman, 1983), Wed, 7, and Election (Payne, 1999), Wed, 8:55. •Office Space (Judge, 1999), Thu, 7, and Secretary (Shainberg, 2002), Thu, 8:45. About Cherry (Elliott, 2012), Fri, 7, 9:30. Director Stephen Elliott in person. 3rd I’s San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Sat. Complete schedule at www.thirdi.org. •There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007), Sat, 2:30, 8:15, and Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009), Sat, 5:30. •Pina (Wenders, 2011), Sept 25-26, 7 (also Sept 26, 2:15), and Crazy Horse (Wiseman, 2011), Sept 25-26, 9 (also Sept 26, 4:15).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Arbitrage (Jarecki, 2012), call for dates and times. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012), call for dates and times. Cane Toads: The Conquest 3D (Lewis, 2012), call for dates and times. This event, $10-12. 2 Days in New York (Delpy, 2012), call for dates and times.

"CINE+MAS SAN FRANCISCO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL" Various Bay Area locations; www.sflatinofilmfestival.com. Most shows $12. Forty features, documentaries, and shorts from Latin America, Spain, and the United States. Through Sept 28.

COPPOLA THEATRE SFSU, 1600 Holloway, SF; www.asifa-sf.org. Free. Experimental animation screening hosted by Ben Ridgway, featuring works by Zeitguised, Max Hattler, and others, Fri, 7:30.

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, SF; www.bayareaflamenco.org. $12. "Flamenco on Film:" Flamenco, Flamenco (Saura, 2010), Sept 24-26, 7; Morao: Good Flamenco Singing Hurts (Van Beenan and Van De Noort), Sept 24-26, 9. Presented in conjunction with the Bay Area Flamenco Festival.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011), Fri, 8; Hugo (Scorsese, 2011), Sat, 8.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SAN FRANCISCO 530 Bush, SF; (415) 263-8760. $5 suggested donation. "Homage to Romy Schneider:" Cesar and Rosalie (Sautet, 1972), Wed, 7:30.

JACK LONDON SQUARE First Street at Broadway, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. The Devil Wears Prada (Frankel, 2006), Thu, sundown.

MANDELA VILLAGE ARTS CENTER 1357 Fifth St, Oakl; www.ticketweb.com. $10. Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival, Fri-Sat, 9. Outdoor screenings with live music and food trucks.

NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-25. "Hong Kong Cinema:" Love Me Not (Leung, 2012), Fri, 4:30 and Sat, 9; Love in the Buff (Pang, 2012), Fri, 7 and Sun, 4; Nightfall (Yeung, 2012), Fri, 9:45; Made in Hong Kong (Chan, 1997), Sat, 1:30; Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Chan, 1996), Sat, 3:45; The Great Magician (Yee, 2011), Sat, 6:15; A Simple Life (Hui, 2011), Sun, 1:30; Romancing in Thin Air (To, 2011), Sun, 6:30; The Longest Nite (Yau, 1998), Sun, 8:45.

ODC THEATER 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. $15-35. How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? (Lemon, 2010), Wed, 7. Tie It Into My Hand (Festa, 2012), Fri-Sat, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Alternative Visions:" As Above, So Below (Clark, 1973), plus short films, Wed, 7. "LA Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema:" Emma Mae (Fanaka, 1976), Thu, 7; Your Children Come Back to You (Larkin, 1979), plus short films, Tue, 7. "Grand Illusions: French Cinema Classics, 1928-1960:" La ronde (Ophuls, 1950), Fri, 7; Le plaisir (Ophuls, 1952), Fri, 8:55; The Earrings of Madame de … (Ophuls, 1953), Sun, 7. "Life is Short: Nikkatsu Studios at 100:" Singing Lovebirds (Makino, 1939), Sat, 6:30; Rusty Knife (Masuda, 1958), Sat, 8; Made to Order Cloth (Ito, 1931), Sun, 5.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Beauty is Embarrassing (Berkeley, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. Kumaré (Gandhi, 2011), Thu, 6:45, 8:45. Red Hook Summer (Lee, 2012), Thu, 2, 4:15, 6:45, 9. 3rd I’s San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival, Wed-Fri and Sun. Complete schedule at www.thirdi.org. "Other Minds Film Festival: John Cage and Friends," Sat, 2-midnight. Marathon film fest marking the 100th birthday of maverick composer-artist John Cage; more info at www.otherminds.org. Child of Giants: My Journey with Maynard Dixon and Dorothea Lange (Ropelewski) with "Pirkle Jones: Seven Decades Photographed" (Reed), Mon, 7:30. The Rise and Fall of the Clash (Garcia), Tue, 7:30, 9:30.

SPUR URBAN CENTER 654 Mission, SF; www.slowfoodsanfrancisco.com. $5. Cafeteria Man (Chisolm, 2011), Thu, 6. With film subject Tony Geraci in person.

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; cinemasf.com/vogue. $15. "City Scenes, Installment Six:" It Came from Beneath the Sea (Gordon, 1955), Thu, 9. With a live performance by the Brothers Comatose at 8.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; Facebook: The Vortex Room. $7. "Storytelling Night at the Vortex Room Hosted by Jack Stevenson," Fri, 9.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974), Thu-Sat, 7 (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm.

Our Weekly Picks: September 19-25

Andrew Lam

September 18, 2012

WEDNESDAY 9/19

The Birds

As part of a series of ongoing celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures, Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies are presenting a special one day only screening of The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1963 horror flick about rampaging flocks of fearsome feathered fiends that invade a sleepy coastal community and wreak havoc on its citizens. Filmed in San Francisco and just to the north in Bodega Bay, the film has been newly restored, and will be preceded by an introduction from TCM host Robert Osborne, along with revealing interviews that he conducted with star Tippi Hedren earlier this year. See website for participating theaters. (Sean McCourt)

2 and 7pm, $10.50–$12.50

Various Bay Area Theaters

www.fathomevents.com

THURSDAY 9/20

Azure Ray

Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor are Alabama natives, childhood friends, and progenitors of dream pop duo Azure Ray. Throughout most of their Azure work, the pair grounded their tracks in vocal harmonization and added in some folksy acoustic guitar and/or piano melodies, such as in 2010’s Drawing Down the Moon. But in the latest LP released this month, As Above So Below, Fink and Taylor immerse their warm vocals in electronic atmospherics, vocal delay effects, and a smattering of bass. Azure have said for As Above that they drew on the minimalist and electronic aspects of artists such as James Blake, Nicholas Jaar and Apparat. As Above’s tight and intricate feel can be partially credited to co-producer and Orenda’s husband, Todd Fink of The Faint. (Kevin Lee)

With Soko, Haroula Rose 8pm, $15 Swedish American Music Hall 2174 Market, SF (415) 431-7578 www.cafedunord.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Eat Real Festival

Sure, the snacks and sips for sale at Eat Real are superlative, but not all of Oakland’s three-day fest dedicated to fresh, local edibles revolves around pure functionality. Take for example, the Thai fruit carving demonstration manned by staff from mobile Bay Area catering outfit House of Siam. You can learn how to turn a watermelon into a rose, petals fading from pink meat to white rind. It’s just one of a passel of tutorials that will be taking place throughout the fest, which will also feature a beer garden of local brews curated by Eat Real neighbor, Linden Street Brewery, live music, and vendors hawking treats, all for under $5. (Caitlin Donohue) Fri/21 1-9pm; Sat/22 10:30am-9pm; 10:30am-5pm Jack London Square, Oakl. www.eatrealfest.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Pacific Pinball Expo

"Free play!" For lifelong pinball wizards in training — and those, like me, who just enjoy playing Addams Family for hours at the local gay bar — there are few better phrases in the English language. To show off its extensive (and quite historically fascinating) collection of games with balls, and to help promote its intended move to the Palace of Fine Arts from Alameda, the great Pacific Pinball Museum is hosting the supposedly largest pinball expo in the world at the Marin Civic Center. 400 games set on free play! X-Men! Ms. Pacman! Vintage Bally games like Starjet! "Woodrails" from the 1950s! Sorry, there will be no splints provided for those who, in their excitement of such flashing and dinging riches, suffer a case of "flipper wrist." (Marke B.)

Through Sun/16, 10am-midnight, $15–$60

Marin Civic Center Exhibition Hall

10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael

(510) 205-6959

www.pacificpinball.org

FRIDAY 9/21

Wilco

As recent sold-out performances at the Fox attest, Chicago’s Wilco is an easy sell. Eight albums in with 2011’s The Whole Love, Jeff Tweedy continues to catalog tender hearts at the edge of maddening fights, backgrounded arguably the most expansive band in rock. (While other groups may struggle to create a sound big enough for the Greek, drummer Glenn Kotche could do it on his own.) But the added draw this time are the openers; Friday is a second chance for anyone who missed Cibo Matto’s reunion show at Bimbo’s last year, while Saturday features beloved raconteur Jonathan Richman, with extra of room for him to let loose his signature dance moves. (Ryan Prendiville)

Fri/21 with Cibo Matto; Sat/22 with Jonathan Richman 7:30pm, $49.50 Greek Theatre 2001 Gayley Road, Berk. (510) 548-3010 www.apeconcerts.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Yob

Eugene, Oreg.’s Yob has been producing sprawling doom metal landscapes since 1996, but it’s taken until 2012 for it to get noticed. Though the mainstream press has finally picked up on the band — Spin Magazine placed its sixth album, Atma, in its top 50 records of 2011 — Yob’s masterful songwriting and awesomely sinister energy hasn’t lost any of its edge. Atma is a megalith of slow, chugging riffs and discordant melodies, the shortest song clocking in at seven minutes and 33 seconds. Vocalist (and Krav Maga instructor) Mike Scheidt shrieks and growls over the sludge like a demon that has finally been unleashed. (Haley Zaremba)

With Acid King, Norska

9pm, $12

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

SATURDAY 9/22

California Wines Road Trip

Love a variety of California wines, but don’t have the time to travel all over the state to visit all the wineries? Then head over the "California Wines Road Trip" event, where more than 90 wines from 14 different regions of the state will be available to sample, along with artisanal cheeses and other scrumptious food offerings. The party is part of California Wine Month, which will be hosting other events all throughout the state, so drink up for a good cause — part of the proceeds from the event will go to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. (McCourt)

2-5pm, $35.

Ferry Building, Grand Hall

One Ferry Building, SF

discovercaliforniawines.com/roadtrip

SATURDAY 9/22

7 Seconds

They say that Reno is so close to hell you can see sparks. It makes sense that this environment would create one of the most enduring hardcore punk bands in music history. 7 Seconds have been active for three decades. In this time span they’ve gone through lineup changes, genre changes, into the straight edge movement and back out of it. Since its inception in 1980, the Marvelli brothers Kevin Seconds and Steve Youth have remained the backbone of the band, tirelessly touring and releasing 15 albums and numerous EPs and compilations. You’ve seen the logo for years, on T-shirts and patched onto jean jackets, but 7 Seconds have endured based on a lot more than great branding. They’re living, breathing, shredding pioneers of American punk. (Zaremba)

With Heartsounds, Bastards of Young, City of Vain

7pm, $12

924 Gilman, Berkeley

(510) 524-8180

www.924gilman.org

SATURDAY 9/22

Cut Hands

Like an enrapturing free-jazz gig, or a moshtastic punk show, Cut Hands’ brand of crushing experimentalism must be seen live to be fully appreciated. The one-man project, commanded by British fringe-artist and Whitehouse bandleader William Bennett, fuses traditional Central African percussion with synthetic drums, laying them atop ambient drones and shrill electronics, with an industrial production sound worthy of Throbbing Gristle at their most unforgiving. Pushing his singular vision to new extremes, Bennett’s forthcoming LP, Black Mamba (the follow-up to his Wire-approved Afro Noise series) is the project’s most relentlessly pulverizing statement to date. Gluttons for avant-punishment shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience Bennett’s viscerally draining, yet transcendent, explorations in sound. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Burmese, Bestial Mouths, DJ Crackwhore 9:30pm, $12

Elbo Room 647 Valencia, SF (415) 552-7788 www.elbo.com

MONDAY 9/24

Wyclef Jean

Member of a supernatural hip-hop crew, singer of "Gone ‘Til November" — maybe you even got a bead on his brief, but glorious run at being the president of Haiti, in the face of Sean Penn’s wet-blanket naysaying. But unless you have read his new book Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story (if you have, back pat, the thing was released on Tuesday) you probably did not know that Jean’s pastor father relocated his family into a fire-damaged funeral home in Newark when the sensitive rapper was wee. Face it, many things about this ex-Fugee remain a mystery. Attend tonight’s event and let them be revealed, with insightful prodding by MTV2’s Hip Hop Squares host Peter Rosenberg. (Donohue)

7:30, $25–$30 Palace of Fine Arts 3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 567-6642 www.palaceoffinearts.org

MONDAY 9/24

Serj Tankian

Serj Tankian started writing his third solo album when he read about the mass disappearance of different species of animals around the world. The result is Harakiri, a self-produced record named for the Japanese idea of ritual suicide. As the frontman for System of a Down, Armenian-born Tankian has a long history of activism and influence in the music community, and now he’s taking on the uncomfortable future of environmental (un)sustainability. In response, Tankian has kicked into overdrive, touring with System, publishing his third book of poetry, collaborating with nonprofits, collaborating with other musicians, and releasing a rock opera all within the last year. With this momentum, Tankian may just take over the world. I don’t know about you, but I trust him with it. (Zaremba)

With Viza

8pm, $35

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

TUESDAY 9/25

Django Django

"Spins the phrases together ’til something starts to make sense" is generally a pretty apt description of what frequently parades as "psychedelic" songwriting, a veil of random weirdness that often obscures an underlying mediocrity and lack of musical talent. On its self-titled, Mercury Prize-nominated debut — which includes those lyrics on the track "Hail Bop" — Britain’s Django Django takes a different approach, combining the the straightforward structure of ’60s vocal pop with a nearly cribbed catalog of inward looking psych imagery, layered over surprisingly shiny production that includes influences from tribal rhythms and metronomic, driving electronica. The result is an album that’s paradoxically bold as it is bare. (Prendiville)

With Vinyl Williams 8pm, $15 Independent 628 Divisadero, SF (415) 771-1421 www.theindependentsf.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Endorsement interviews: Rachel Norton for School Board

Zelda Bronstein

September 17, 2012

Endorsement interviews: Rachel Norton for School Board

Rachel Norton, one of three incumbents seeking re-election to the San Francisco School Board, sees herself as an advocate for parents, particularly parents of special-ed kids. She told us she was proud of the dramatic gains the district has made in some of the lowest-achieving schools and said that in her time on the board, the district has done a remarkable job of managing its budget. She wants to make school food a major priority in the next four years and will be pushing the idea of building a central kitchen so food can be prepared locally instead of shipped in from the midwest.

She also explained her vote to defy the teachers union and protect junior teachers at 14 schools from layoffs.

You can hear the entire interview after the jump.

Avant-garde chaos to deep musical connections

Tony Robles

September 17, 2012

Avant-garde chaos to deep musical connections

“How the hell did this happen?” asks Anthony (Ant) Anderson, sitting in Willard Park, Berkeley, on a sunny afternoon. Ant lives in a house not far from here known as Church, which is where his story – and his weekly jam sessions – began. The “this” in question is his role in both the evolution of Church, and the weekly People’s Jam night, which pal Dustin Smurthwaite created at a club in Oakland.

Ant was invited to live at Church by his friend Erico Cisneros, who he met at a show in San Francisco. At the house, Ant met Michael Shaun and Emma James – beginning in May 2011, the trio began to celebrate the end of each weekend with Sunday night jam sessions. John Burke moved into the house later and became a central part of the Church house.

A variety of local East Bay musicians began dropping by and providing instruments, expanding the group jams. “We have friends who have given us speakers and a PA system, people donate phones, professional soundproof phone pads to keep the sound in, and people bring food and drinks,” Ant says. “Once, our friend even set up a whole bar. People have just been so giving.”

Well-known musicians began stopping in as well, including David Satori from Beats Antique.

Enter partner in music, Smurthwaite: one night Ant was playing with local folk rock band Whiskerman (led by Graham Patzner, brother of Anton and Lewis, who perform string metal in Judgement Day), and Smurthwaite was in the audience. “Before I knew it he just hopped onstage and grabbed a spare trombone…while I played trumpet,” Ant says with a chuckle, his characteristic grin spreading wide across his face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQvIt4kfk0

“I just saw the opportunity,” Smurthwaite says from his practice space in an Oakland warehouse. “Most people didn’t even know I played trombone.” Smurthwaite is a multi-instrumentalist, who was more known for playing bass and keys back then. “All I had time for was basically giving Anthony a pat on the back before I began playing, and then we exchanged phone numbers afterward.”

In addition to the Church jams, Smurthwaite had been playing every Wednesday with Steve Taylor’s band at the Layover in Oakland. At the Layover, Taylor was playing improvised music – not quite a jam session – and when he got too busy, he asked Smurthwaite if he wanted to take over the event.

Smurthwaite ran the club night for a month or so, then called up Ant to join him and come on as the official host. It now takes place weekly in downtown Oakland at the Layover.

So what kind of music should you expect to find on your average night at People’s Jam? “The Jam is centered around funk, neo soul, hip-hop, jazz, and a crew of Balkan musicians who have also started coming through. We have numerous instruments regularly in the horn section, [we] often see a clarinet or two, and string players like cello or violin, when we can amp them. There is a strong Latin sound as well,” adds Ant.

The house band (known collectively as Bay Funk) consists of Ant, Smurthwaite, Cisneros on bass, Jesse Scheehan on tenor sax, Dan Schwartz and Patrick Aguirre on drums, Kevin Rierson on bass, Derek Yellin on piano. Vocalists Sarah Aboulafia, Sally Green and Povi Chidester also frequent the event, as well as Michael Shawn Olivera Cuevas, from the Church house, who is a poet, artist, and MC.

“It is all about communication with the band,” Smurthwaite says. “It’s best to be as direct as possible.”

Smurthwaite points out that People’s Jam has also been a great opportunity for people to express themselves during the Occupy Movement and economic crisis. “Your voice is amplified – people can here you. That’s a powerful thing,” he says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3Z8Or-ACo

“It’s great because both [Church and People’s Jam] are free,” Ant says. “Although Sunday and Wednesday are unconventional nights for such parties, it benefits musicians because they can also play shows on busier concert nights.” He adds, “Also Sundays can be bleak, the end of the weekend, so it works out great because after Church, you have this extremely festive and positive feeling makes you feel stoked going into Monday.”

Both events – Sunday’s Church jam sessions and Wednesday’s People’s Jam at the Layover – maintain a grassroots mentality.

“I used to send out literally 300 texts to everyone I know every Wednesday inviting them to the Layover. It was really slow at first, as we started invited people from Church to come and they became the main core of people who began to attend. Church and the People’s Jam, side by side, began creating a community of people – that is how we came up with a core group of musicians.”

I have never been at an event quite like the People’s Jam. There are open mic nights and there are concerts – but the Jam finds the perfect in-between. The majority of performers are confident and relaxed. You can dance uninhibited and never worry about being judged, but you can just as easily sit at the bar and watch the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB9_bU8qiKg

It’s a safe environment for self-expression, and Ant and Smurthwaite work hard to keep it that way. Smurthwaite explained to me how they make a point to incorporate the diverse array of people that come through the Layover.

“At first we had nights where the music was just unintentional avant-garde chaos, it was like, barely hobbling along on one leg, trying to make it happen with barely any musicians and no audience. The audience has transformed over the past year from no one in the bar to an absolute army of musicians, getting so into it,” Ant says.

“I have heard at least five different people tell me ‘This is the best party I have ever been to in my life’, which I find mind blowing. A lot of people I know have met their significant other at Church or Layover, they have made friends there, formed bands. It is a constant thing I hear of, these new relationships and connections.”

People’s Jam
Every Wed/10pm, free
Layover
1517 Franklin, Oakl.
(510) 834-1517
www.oaklandlayover.com

Happy Birthday Occupy

September 16, 2012

Occupy celebrates its one-year anniversary Monday, and many of the groups who have gotten involved over the past year will be going all out. These groups’ goals– including ending unjust foreclosures, fighting displacement of queer people and homeless people, and taking back power from banks and the one percent– are a lot to achieve in one year. But they’ve made great stride. They’ll celebrate, and commit to another year of action, on Monday.

Occupy Bernal, Occupy Noe and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment will put the pressure on banks that continue to foreclose on San Franciscans despite widespread evidence of fraud and a city resolution calling for a moratorium on foreclosures. At noon, they will hold a rally highlighting the ways that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately affects seniors, veterans and disabled people- find them at 401 Van Ness. At 3pm they will rally One Market Plaza, the officers of Fortress Investment Group board co-chair Peter Briger, infamous amongst the “foreclosure fighters” for his role in selling off distressed home mortgage debt.

In the Castro, Community Not Commodity, the coalition that formed around an Occupride march protesting the corporate takeover of the Gay Pride Parade and continues to fight “increased rent, foreclosures and evictions, and the displacement of queer and homeless youth.” They will meet up at 2pm at 18th and Castro for a speak-out, followed by a march on the banks at 3 and a sit-in protesting sit-lie at Harvey Milk Plaza.

Also at 2pm, Occupy Oakland is throwing a street party. They’ll converge at Embarcadero and Market at Justin Herman Plaza (renamed Bradley Manning Plaza by the people from Occupy San Francisco, whose encampment stood there for three months last fall.) Organizers advise: stay tuned for Oct. 10, the one-year anniversary of Occupy Oakland.

But Occupy San Francisco didn’t start at Justin Herman Plaza. It started Sept. 17, 2011 at 555 California, outside the building that houses the Bank of America west coast headquarters along with Goldman Sachs offices. It’s there that everyone will converge at 5pm for a raucous casserole-style march with the Brass Liberation Orchestra, followed by guerilla movie screenings, food to share, and a debt burning: “bring dept papers (BYOD) to burn symbolically,” say organizers.

Can’t wait for tomorrow? Occupy SF hosts a day of poetry and speakers at Justin Herman Plaza today. The Human Be In, the unpermitted music and skillshare festival that brought hundreds to play music, teach workshops, and “transform space” in a dusty spot near Ocean Beach yesterday continues through tonight. Occupy Bay Area United is also throwing a rally and teach–in focused on corporate greed starting outside 555 California at 7pm.

Occupy is dead! Long live Occupy!

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