food Archives — Page 4 of 139 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Wanted: more huddled masses

Michael Redmond

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August 12, 2014

joe@sfbg.com

Schools of suit-clad professionals stream up city sidewalks in San Francisco’s Financial District during the typical morning migration to the office. Near the intersection of Sutter and Montgomery streets, one line of immigrant workers stands still as they wait to submit paperwork in hopes of permanently joining the commuting throngs.

Cox & Kings Global Services, where documents of the Bay Area’s new wave of workers are processed and filed, has a queue stretching down the block to a nearby coffee shop most mornings. Workers from India go here to submit their visas, and their numbers have exploded lately.

As the greater Bay Area’s technology sector has boomed, so has its Indian population. This influx is linked to tech’s practice of employing foreign-born workers, mostly from India and China, using H-1B work visas that are usually valid for six years with the possibility of extensions and eventually citizenship.

“You’re seeing this across the US as tech aggressively pursues immigrants to work here,” Todd Schulte, executive director of FWD.us, told the Bay Guardian. “You even see this in the Bay Area.”

FWD.us advocates for immigration reform on behalf of the tech industry to make it easier for employers to bring foreign workers into the US. It was created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as his first foray into political lobbying. The move has led skeptics to ask an age-old question with a new spin: Are low-cost foreign workers depressing American workers’ wages? Are they occupying jobs an American labor force could have instead?

Although immigration reform is high on the list of priorities for tech companies, they’re spearheading ways to widen the temporary worker visa program without addressing the complicated issues raised by importing more tech-trained workers from lower-wage countries.

A foreign worker in the tech industry certainly does not suffer the same instability as a low-wage immigrant employee who lacks higher education and technical training. But studies show that the pathway to citizenship created by the specialized H-1B workers’ visa program isn’t guaranteed, presenting challenges for all involved.

Click map for a larger version.

H-1B visas are technically known as “nonimmigrant visas,” indicating the workers aren’t expected to remain here permanently. So while American citizens are made to compete for jobs with those foreign workers who usually earn less, nonimmigrant workers encounter high barriers to obtaining the security of citizenship.

For now, the tech companies gaining low-cost workers seem to be the main beneficiaries of this skewed system.

GOLDEN HANDCUFFS

First came the boom. Tech jobs were less than 1 percent of San Francisco private sector employment in 1990, but now make up nearly 8 percent of the city’s private sector jobs, according to research by urban development nonprofit SPUR. The tech boom coincided with a population boom of Indian and Chinese workers, temporary visa holders who may or may not seek permanent US citizenship.

San Francisco saw more than 8,000 nonimmigrant visa applications in the 2012-13 filing year, according to MyVisaJobs.com, which assembles reports on nonimmigrant visas. Employers in the Bay Area as a whole, including San Francisco and Silicon Valley, filed over 29,000 applications for H-1B visa holders. The majority of those workers are from India, and to a lesser extent, China, according to data from the US Department of Consular Affairs.

The H-1B is the golden ticket for foreign workers to work in the US, and the center of much of the controversy. An employer sponsors the worker under an H-1B, tying that workers’ ability to live in the US to the employer. More importantly, the workers’ permanent residence process — and becoming a US citizen — is also tied to that employer.

So not only is nonimmigrant workers’ presence in the US in the hands of the people signing their paychecks, but so is their potential citizenship, creating an imbalance of power.

“[Workers] have the legal right to leave the employer, but don’t dare do so because they would have to start the very lengthy green card process all over again,” Norm Matloff, a UC Davis professor and researcher with the Economic Policy Institute, told the Guardian. “Note that we’re talking about the mainstream American companies and startups.”

Standing in line back at Cox & Kings on Sutter, the Guardian spent a few days speaking to various Indian technology workers as they finished filing their paperwork. None were willing to speak on the record due to their tenuous citizenship status, fearing employer reprisal. But these workers did confirm to the Guardian that their employers effectively hold a huge hammer over their heads: deportation.

What do employers have to gain with this sizable leverage? A paper by Ron Hira, “Bridge to Immigration or Cheap Temporary Labor?” catalogued systemic underpayment of foreign workers, sometimes by as much as 25 percent less than their US counterparts. Of course, the pay is handsome in Silicon Valley, even when taking a hit compared to US citizen peers. The average salary of an H-1B visa worker is $99,000, according to MyVisaJobs.com.

“H-1B rules place most of the power in the hands of the employer at the expense of the guest worker,” Hira wrote, “creating sizeable opportunities for exploitation … many have described this employment relationship as indentured servitude.”

This is done legally, the study found, because of substantial loopholes in federal labor and guest worker laws.

We asked Matloff if it was possible to measure the impact of depressed nonimmigrant Silicon Valley workers’ wages on the overall wages of the Bay Area, and we were told this would be “very hard to quantify.” But his research leads him to believe tech worker wages in the Bay Area are depressed as a result of nonimmigrant visas.

The nonimmigrant visa workers wear what Matloff calls golden handcuffs: under the thumb of their employers, but perhaps comfortably so. And all of this would be worth it for them, if the visa-holders could stay in the United States.

Uncritically, the tech industry is going to great lengths to defend its ability to hire nonimmigrant workers, who are cheaper than their citizen counterparts.

QUESTIONABLE ADVOCACY

Rishi Misra came to the US for college, and pushed his way through startups and biotechnology companies. Now he works at Archimedes Clinical Analytics, located in the South of Market area. He still is not, as of yet, a US citizen.

“My wait to become a US permanent resident continues, more than 16 years after I first came to this country as an undergraduate student,” Misra wrote in a FWD.us testimonial, “more than 10 years after I started working, paying taxes, and more recently, helping build start-ups that are making a positive impact on the US economy and society.”

Misra’s struggle for citizenship mirrors Hira’s study on H-1B visa holders. “A nonimmigrant visa can be an important first step toward permanent residence for many skilled foreign workers,” Hira wrote. “But most never make it.”

The federal government doesn’t keep explicit conversion numbers of temporary work visas to permanent residency, we learned after contacting the Department of Labor and the USCIS. But Hira’s study estimates that only 1-5 percent of H-1B visa holding temporary workers gain citizenship status.

To be sure, there are some exceptions in the tech community. Google and Microsoft historically have sought to assist most of their immigrant employees in gaining full residency, while Cisco and others have only converted about a quarter.

But many tech companies outsource work to offshore firms, often based in India, and federal data shows they employ the most H-1B visa holders, and offer citizenship the least often. Still, as they also fight for permanent residency, advocacy groups focus on bringing in H-1B workers in greater numbers.

According to the government transparency group Open Secrets, FWD.us put as much as $900,000 to the cause of trying to open the door for high-talent tech workers like Misra, here in San Francisco, but not necessarily towards reforming workplace rights.

The tech companies claim there’s a technology employee shortage, but Matloff and the Economic Policy Institute strongly disagree, saying no study that wasn’t sponsored by the tech industry has ever demonstrated a US tech worker shortage. But what can’t be argued is the swelling number of nonimmigrant workers vying for a spot in the US. The cap for new nonimmigrant visas is currently set at 65,000 by the federal government. In only the past two years, applications for those slots filled up in less than five days from the filing date.

It is on behalf of tech companies that want to hire those nonimmigrant workers that FWD.us brought thousands of dollars to bear against key progressive causes.

FWD.us, led by Zuckerberg and a cadre of tech cohorts, has come under fire for much of its advocacy. Notably, the group supported national Republicans’ efforts to build the Keystone XL pipeline, supplying them with ample support for TV ads.

The backlash from environmental groups, many of whom hail from the Bay Area, had the tech community and other supporters of FWD.us running for the hills.

“As a startup founder, former Senatorial intern, and director of an amateur documentary about racial inequality in public schools, I cannot tell you how excited I was to hear about Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us,” wrote Branch co-founder and CEO Josh Miller, in an editorial on Buzzfeed. “In service of noble causes, FWD.us is employing questionable lobbying techniques, misleading supporters, and not being transparent about the underlying values and long-term intentions of the organization.”

If ever there was a cause to unite tech workers and other progressive San Franciscans, it would be decrying Zuckerberg and FWD.us’ backing of massive oil pipelines on US soil. Many liberal political groups pulled their ads from Facebook after the Keystone XL ads aired.

Moving forward, Todd Schulte said FWD.us would need to change its strategies, after being handed decisive losses in Congress by Republicans blocking immigration reform. “We’re going to keep pushing,” Schulte told us. “One thing that we’ll do better is to make a broader coalition.”

But rules pertaining to depressing nonimmigrant worker wages aren’t on their agenda, and Schulte said this was not a problem in the tech industry. He claimed the cost would be too great to bring workers in from overseas and train them, simply to save a few dollars.

The workers we talked to told a different story.

IN LIMBO

The Guardian went back to the line at Cox & Kings, intent to check out Schulte’s stories of the glamour of nonimmigrant visa holders working in the tech industry. We asked a few folks in line what working for US tech companies under a nonimmigrant visa was like.

One man, clad in a lime green shirt with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, had much to say. Not wanting to be named, again due to tenuous citizenship status, he wagged his finger in our face strongly with each point. Firstly, coming to the Bay Area for some Indians is a no-brainer, he said.

“The typical guy loves his vegetarian food and loves his [Hindu] temple,” the man told us. “They realize the Bay Area is not so different than home.”

But the man, who described himself as more affluent than the average nonimmigrant worker here (“My family owns temples in Bombay, plural!”), said he was often treated like a second class citizen in the US. He worked for tech companies in the past, and his brother works for a prominent and long-standing Bay Area tech company. His nephew works for a prominent Seattle-based tech company.

“There and [in India] it’s like a fucking sweatshop,” he said. “Some come here and they’re cheated!”

He was referring to the wage-fixing some US companies engage in. Matloff told us those most vulnerable to this practice were those seeking US citizenship. “The handcuffing is clearest in the case of those H-1Bs who are simultaneously being sponsored by their employers for green cards,” he said.

Those who did speak on the record about wage fixing were those who already achieved the dream: former H-1B workers who are now US citizens.

For ten years Manish Champsee was on the Board of Directors at WalkSF, a pedestrian advocacy group in the city. In his day job, he owns a web development company, after a long stint as an H-1B visa nonimmigrant tech worker.

A Canadian citizen, Champsee first flirted with computers in the fourth grade. The young Champsee taught himself programming in BASIC, a coding language. In college he strayed a bit, learning to be an actuary, but soon realized technology was his passion.

Ten years ago, he came to San Francisco on an H-1B as a systems programmer analyst, and experienced the golden handcuffs firsthand. At first, he didn’t realize the precarious position he was in, until he unwittingly angered one of his bosses.

“I started off thinking about it once in awhile. At a certain point I started thinking about it a lot more,” Champsee said. “I pissed off the wrong person in the company. It was a game of chicken.”

All of a sudden, the threat of restarting the citizenship process, or even deportation, entered his workday thoughts. His employers’ power over his future was suddenly very real.

“They can hold it over your head,” he said.

But he stuck it out. The day Champsee realized he wanted to be a US citizen, he was sitting in the natural beauty of Yosemite.

“I was camping a few days and did some hikes with a friend,” he said, and started thinking about all San Francisco had to offer. The walkability, the natural beauty, the charming local mom and pop stores, the food, and the people. “It all came together there.”

Champsee made it, and gained his citizenship in 2012. But despite all the tradeoffs the US has made in hiring swelling numbers of temporary workers, fewer are able to follow his path into citizenship.

Public hospitals are too Lean

Michael Redmond

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August 12, 2014

5

OPINION

The San Francisco Department of Public Health is paying Rona Consulting Group, an out-of-state consulting firm, $1.3 million of taxpayer dollars to implement a program called “Lean,” allegedly to improve patient services. The “Lean” program is based on the Japanese Toyota automobile production model.

Hospital quality improvement schemes such as the Lean promise decreased waiting times, improved communication, more satisfied patients, and safer care. Quality care should also decrease the incidence of hospital-acquired conditions so that patients leave the hospital without getting new infections, falling, or getting pressure ulcers such as “bed sores.”

Hospital administrators are telling health care workers and patients that Lean will achieve these widely shared goals. Yet despite years of efforts, there is no evidence that it works, and growing concern that resources must be increased rather than prescribing the Lean diet to an already starving public health infrastructure.

Health care should be based on the best available science — not corporate sales. The Lean program encourages the hospital staff to consider its workplace as a factory shop floor, and to consider their patients and work as a product. The competition for well-insured patients and improved satisfaction for reimbursement has caused hospital administrators and Lean consultants to propose surgical clinics that resemble Nordstrom or the Hyatt Regency.

Lean’s management methodology, based on Toyota’s selected Japanese words, is used to mystify and dazzle. Instead of the pharmacy window, we are told that all staff must go to the “gemba,” which the consultants (not the dictionary) say is Japanese for “where the work happens.” Many highly paid hospital administrators and even clinical staff have been re-named as “kaizen promotion office” leaders. Those who have completed advanced training are awarded a “black belt.” The use of Japanese terms is clearly meant to add a sense of authority.

Evidence-based medicine and nursing have been examining high-quality studies of the effectiveness of improvement schemes such as Lean. According to “Guiding Inpatient Quality Improvement: A Systematic Review of Lean” (The Joint Commission, 2012), “the true impact of these approaches is difficult to judge, given that the lack of rigorous evaluation or clearly sustained improvements provides little evidence supporting broad adoption.” This leads to very expensive, wishful thinking. When consultants are paid from $4,700 to $25,000 a day from public funds intended to construct a seismically sound hospital (see “Toyota work methods applied at General Hospital” San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 7, 2014) it seems important to consider what randomized controlled trials tell us. The taxpayers have a right to know what to expect from this scheme, but there are no controlled scientific studies to tell us.

Despite more than 10 years of multiple published studies, very few consulting firms even report statistics. Those that do show weak evidence of effectiveness, and none show sustained improvement. If Lean were a medication, it would never receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration, as we don’t know if it helps or hurts the care of patients. As it is, hospitals are performing a single-group intervention study without ethical approval or consent from the workers and the patients.

Hospitals should be providing their patients with the best care, not the cheapest. Even if Lean didn’t come with a price tag to taxpayers ranging in millions of dollars for consultants to do the work that administrators should be doing, the underlying notion of speed is dangerous in health care. Public health patients are even more vulnerable with increased prevalence of poverty-related co-morbidities, from diabetes to tuberculosis. If there were a way to more quickly cure our population of its many ills, we would embrace Lean.

Nobody likes to wait around, but the human connection between caregiver and patient takes time. Efficiency should not be valued over safety. Furthermore, many patients would be unhappy to learn that they are being viewed as inanimate products on an assembly line. Nor does it please health workers to think of themselves as robots.

Hospital safety under Lean is being modeled after the same automobile corporation that was just forced to pay $1.2 billion for concealing safety defects (“Toyota Is Fined $1.2 Billion for Concealing Safety Defects” New York Times, March 19, 2014). The safety defects were implicated in unintended acceleration of some Toyota vehicles that led to injury and death. Speed was certainly not helpful in that situation. Perhaps DPH should critically examine Lean before prescribing a diet to our vulnerable safety-net patients. Maybe we need more, not faster, health care workers.

Ed Kinchley has worked for DPH for 30 years, after spending nine years in Japan.

Chinese youth rally for a brighter future

Michael Redmond

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August 12, 2014

1

Chinese youth rally for a brighter future

High school students with Youth Movement of Justice Organizing (Youth MOJO), a teen leadership program affiliated with the Chinese Progressive Association, rallied at San Francisco City Hall Aug. 7 in a show of support for two citywide measures slated to appear on the November ballot.

The first would raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. The second, known as the anti-speculation tax, would impose a steep financial penalty on real estate investors who sell apartment buildings within five years of purchase, an effort to reverse the rising trend of Ellis Act evictions and limit skyrocketing rental prices.

High school student Alice Kuang, who has been active with Youth MOJO since last year, said she felt the effort to preserve affordability was critical for Chinese families who typically earn low wages. “I lived in an SRO in Chinatown for 13 years,” she explained, referring to a single-room occupancy hotel, a dormitory-style housing complex. Throughout the city, thousands of low-income tenants rely on SROs for affordable housing, but these units have been subjected to price increases and have started to become lost as affordable housing stock when they’re listed as short-term rentals on Airbnb.

“In the SRO, it was like one big community,” Kuang said. “Everyone supported each other. Like my mom knew exactly who was boiling water and then, to make sure the water didn’t spill over, she would run up to knock on people’s doors and be like, hey, your food’s done. It was a really strong community. I remember living there since I was born. It was a very small room. The four of us lived in it — we had a bunk bed, and another bunk bed, basically.”

Jessica Ng, a recent high school graduate and Youth MOJO member, said she was focused on advocating for the minimum wage proposal. “One of my parents became unemployed last year so it really took a toll on me, and made me realize that I have to also help,” she said, “like paying my part of the bill, or paying for groceries even.”

She said an internship with Young Asian Women Against Violence helped her earn some supplementary household income. “When I started getting a paycheck every three weeks or so, I started to pay my part of the bill,” she said. “With an increase in the minimum wage, it would really help with people who are my age who are going to college and want to help their families.”

Outside Lands 2014: It’s Yeezy season

Steven T. Jones

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August 11, 2014

0

Were you there? Were you among the approximately 200,000 human bodies smashed together for warmth at Golden Gate Park this past weekend, because you somehow couldn’t stand the idea of wearing anything but your midriff-baring tube top with your whimsical animal hat and/or flower crown?

Whether you’re recuperating today from 72 hours of partying at Outside Lands or patting yourself on the back from steering clear of the whole thing — here’s our critic’s take on the weekend’s best five sets…and the rest. Check this week’s paper (on stands Wednesday) for more live shots.

5. Mikal Cronin

Local boy Mikal Cronin. Photo by Brittany Powell.

If 28-year-old Mikal Cronin had signed a recording contract three decades ago, his breakthrough LP, MCII, just might have coexisted peacefully with Kiss’ Alive in “Freaks & Geeks”-y record crates across America. Arguably the greatest contributor to California’s recent wave of late-’70s power-pop revivalism, Cronin assuredly challenges 2014’s largely tongue-in-cheek fascination with the “me decade,” recalling arena bombast and dank basement charm with great conviction. Lead guitarist Chad Ubovich’s high-flying, joyously unironic guitar theatrics sealed the deal at the Panhandle stage on Friday afternoon, as Cronin and his three-piece backing band delivered the festival’s most wholesome slice of straightforward rock.

4. Jonathan Wilson

Saddled with the unenviable noon opening slot at the Sutro stage on Sunday, LA’s Jonathan Wilson treated a criminally small audience to another set of California rock revivalism with great strength of purpose. Evoking something in between late-’60s acid idealism and early-’70s comedown disillusionment, Wilson and his four-piece backing ensemble delivered a quietly confident, elegantly restrained set of swirly, jam-based rock headiness, devoid of the excessive noodling and uptight baroqueness that plagues so much of the competition. It takes serious talent to make such complex musical interplay sound so natural and relaxed. My favorite new discovery of 2014’s Outside Lands.

3. Haim

Two of three sisters Haim. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

If there’s one complaint to level at Haim’s live show, it’s that the Phoenix-y Botox-pop production of last year’s Days Are Gone is so immaculate and superhuman that replicating those songs onstage, in their recorded form, is damn near impossible. However, the sisterly trio has come a long way after a year of touring, and as Saturday’s main stage appearance triumphantly showed, Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim’s live approach is closer than ever to reproducing these Fleetwood Mac-indebted pop gems with the glossy sheen intact. From “The Wire,” to “If I Could Change Your Mind,” to ” My Song 5,” Haim delivered an hour-long hit parade, and a masterclass in guitar rock via R&B viscosity. Bonus points to Este’s rabble-rousing stage banter and uninhibited rubber-face while plucking the strings, and the generous thump supplied by Alana’s freestanding bass drum.

2. Jagwar Ma

Given the sheer amount of music-circa-2014 that exists in the gaps between genres, and electric/acoustic/electronic approaches, one might expect a zeitgeist-y festival like Outside Lands to reflect this sense of fusion onstage. For the most part, though, we were given the same old binary of traditionally outfitted rock bands on one hand, and laptop-driven hip-hop and electronica on the other. Australia’s Jagwar Ma, however, bucked that trend by supplying the biggest patch of middle-ground at the entire festival. Indebted to the Ecstacy-addled dance-rock hybridization of Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, and other mainstays of the UK’s Madchester scene, the three-piece’s Saturday afternoon set at the Twin Peaks stage perfectly combined guitars, synths, and other gadgets to reflect the sugary hookiness of ’60s psychedelia and the four-on-the-floor thump of acid house, without the slightest hint of awkwardness or contrivance. Performing sequencer-based music onstage, that’s also tactile and involving, is arguably the great challenge of modern live music, and Jagwar Ma effortlessly rose to the occasion.

1. Kanye West

kanye
Kanye, who wouldn’t let photographers shoot from anywhere but the sound booth, and who performed as a silhouette for a good chunk of the set, because he is Kanye. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

Whether you think of him as a mad-truth-speaking shepherd of pop culture, a vapid, window-dressing egomaniac, a bizarro performance artist, or a world-class troll, no one in the Grammy/VMA tier of the music world thrives on the ambiguity of their persona like Kanye West. In a landscape of major-label artists with carefully maintained PR images, delivering live shows akin to a federally regulated product, there’s a sense of uncertainty and precariousness about a Kanye performance that makes every moment captivating. Whether he was instructing the audience to “make circles!” and mosh during one of three playthroughs of “Blood on the Leaves,” freestyle-autotuning for 10 minutes over a bare piano track with video of a waterfall in the background, slipping his Robocop helmet/mirrorball mask on and off, or stopping midway through “Clique” for an impromptu rant aimed at the media that scrutinizes his every move, one couldn’t shake the palpable feeling that this train just might derail at any moment. Both tightly curated, and seemingly hanging by a thread, Friday night’s headlining set was bewildering and exhilarating in equal measure. In other words: pure, unfiltered Kanye.

“This ain’t no radio shit. This ain’t no shit made to please motherfuckers. This ain’t no concierge, maitre d’ music and shit trying to sound smooth as possible,” West declared during one of numerous manifesto-ish rants between songs, presumably referring to the lean, grating electro-thrash of last year’s hugely divisive Yeezus. That record made its mark with renditions of “Black Skinhead,” “New Slaves,” and “Bound 2,” and largely defined the show’s aesthetic, to the chagrin of many a festival-bro pining for “that 2007 shit” circa Graduation. Crowd-pleasers like “Good Life,” “Jesus Walks,” and “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” acted as a welcome counterweight to Yeezus’ radical aggression while putting that album’s adventurousness in perspective. As suggested by the solid, monumental blocks of color on the projection screens, Kanye’s presence was commanding and singular when the fragility of his ego didn’t get the best of him.

Explaining the reasoning behind his continued use of autotune, Kanye declared, “Same thing as Andy Warhol said: it’s easier.” Much like Warhol, or punk rock, the cultural import of Kanye’s current output lies more in the values and attitudes it represents, and the debate it generates, than its actual content. His set certainly wasn’t the festival’s most competent, nor its strongest on purely musical terms. But as pure spectacle, and as a launching pad for contemplation and discussion about the value of “art” and where it’s going, Kanye’s set reigned supreme. “It’s Yeezy season,” whether you like it or not.

*****

Honorable mentions

Flaming Lips. Photo by Brittany Powell.

Despite recent rumors of intra-member infighting, and allegations of Wayne Coyne being a racist asshole in the midst of a druggy midlife crisis, the Flaming Lips put on a stellar, perfectly charming show. Their signature, jerry-rigged stage theatrics were as gloriously gimmicky as ever, and their musicianship onstage has rarely been tighter. Their closing cover of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” brought out SF’s fearlessly freaky vibes like nothing else at the festival.

petty
Petty, bein’ Petty. Photo by Brittany Powell.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers delivered two hours of faithful takes on 40-ish years worth of rock anthems. So faithful, in fact, that the whole set seemed weirdly copied and pasted from an FM station at some dad’s backyard barbecue. A solid set, nothing more or less; lthough, the high standard set in years past by headliners like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder left a bit of star-power to be desired in the headlining slot.

Disclosure. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

Disclosure, the UK house revivalists whose hugely successful debut, Settle, can be heard over intercoms in Apple stores and Uniqlo franchises across America, drew an uncommonly huge crowd to the main stage for a Friday afternoon. Despite the undeniable quality of anthems like “When a Fire Starts to Burn” and “Help Me Lose My Mind,” the lack of live vocals and the inherent dullness of watching two dudes mess with laptops made for a slightly underwhelming set.

freedia
The Queen of Bounce herself, Big Freedia. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

Big Freedia lent her party-rap talents to the GastroMagic stage, while Brenda’s French Soul Food made beignets for a handful of hungry, twerking audience members. A low-key but surreal collaboration that resembled a wacko “happening” more than a standard festival show, hinting at the new food-centric stage’s full potential.

Stray observations:

Described as a “gourmet” festival like no other, Outside Lands had some shockingly tasty food options to offer this year. Wise Sons’ Deli’s “Pastrami Cheese Fries” and Michelin-starred AQ’s “Highbrow Spaghetti Sloppy Joes” were prime examples of smartly, expertly crafted dishes that still felt unpretentious and festival-ready.

Beer, beer, and more beer! Given the Bay Area’s distinction as one of the world’s epicenters of quality and invention in craft beer, the polo field’s Beer Lands station rose to the occasion admirably. A good selection of highly drinkable, floral “session IPAs” (from Sierra Nevada, Firestone Walker, and Stone), robust porters and stouts (most notably High Water’s s’mores-flavored Campfire Stout), and even barrel-aged brews (Fort Point’s Westfalia, a complexly funky take on an amber ale) presented just a few of many options.

after
Outside Lands detritus, after the storm. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

Too bad Ireland’s CHVRCHES had to C@NC€L after getting stuck at customs in Vancouver. I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.

One of Kanye’s many rants touched on the poison of negative criticism, and the press’ fixation on identifying the flaws in well-intentioned art. Going into Outside Lands, I promised myself to focus on the positive, to give each and every band the benefit of the doubt. However, the Killers gave me no choice but to break that rule.

What is this, 2004? What business do the Killers (a band that’s spent over a decade coasting on the fumes of its debut LP) have headlining a festival that prides itself on the relevancy of its lineup? We don’t see the Pitchfork Festival giving its premier slot to the likes of Interpol anymore. Also, how has this band (surely Las Vegas’ least hedonistic export) earned headlining power with its brand of aggressively “inspirational” secular Christian rock with no undertow of mischief, adventure, or much of anything? They couldn’t even cover Creedence’s “Bad Moon Rising” without giving off a big whiff of American Idol sterility. Sure, the synthesizers in the background make for some nicely textured rock music, but U2, even Coldplay, deliver the same goods far more substantially.

If the Killers were the “best choice” for Sunday night’s headliner, either 100 more worthy bands were busy, or the Outside Lands booking department could use some fresh blood. It’s 2014. There are bigger, fresher fish to fry.

crowd
Photo by Matthew Reamer.

Disagree? Have at us in the comments. We didn’t mean to insult your whimsical animal hat.

Locals Only: Tom Rhodes

Steven T. Jones

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August 11, 2014

1

There are artists who are known for being shy and reclusive — for producing their best work while holed up in their room, or in a cabin in the woods, or on a solo bender.

And then there are those who feed off the energy of an audience. The magic of a live performance is in the interaction, right? In the knowing that, though you’re just a face in a crowd at a venue like thousands of others across the country, the experience you’re having with a musician live on stage is unique to that evening; whether it’s a drum coming in a millisecond later than it did the previous night or banter that changes based on what the band drank backstage.

With Or Without, the fourth self-released album from East Bay singer-songwriter Tom Rhodes, has taken the concept of a live album — the attempt to capture that specific face-to-face, performer-audience magic — and distilled it like a fine whiskey. Created over the course of four separate live performances in November in front of intimate studio audiences at San Francisco’s own Coast Recorders, the resulting music sounds like you’ve been snuck into something secret and awesome: There’s a particularly liberated-sounding husk in Rhodes’ voice (one could guess he falls into the latter camp of artists), an excitingly un-tucked feeling behind pedal steel man Tim Marcus’ guitar, and the overall feeling of the band playing directly to you; this album would be particularly welcome on a solo road trip.

Perhaps relatedly, Rhodes has traveled extensively, and also swerved between genres a good deal. Ahead of his show with fellow local alt-country/folk heavyweights The Lady Crooners (who also appear on his album) and Kelly McFarling this Wednesday, Aug. 13 at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, we caught up with Rhodes to hear about the inspirations for this album and, of course, his favorite foods.

SF Bay Guardian How and when did you first start playing music? Who are the songwriters you look to for inspiration? What’s the first record you really remember loving?

Tom Rhodes I have been playing music for as long as I can remember. As a very young child I remember my mother teaching me piano, singing at home and at church; instruments were all over the house and I was never told that I was too young or clumsy to experiment with them. My mother is a classically trained singer and multi-instrumentalist (she played the oboe, clarinet, piano, and guitar) and my father is an incredibly passionate music collector. So I wound up in this perfect environment for creating a child who would grow up to be a musician: A kid in a house filled to the brim with instruments and parents who were constantly listening to music on top of the line stereos, and discussing that music with parents who really dove into it themselves. My dad’s record collection numbered in the thousands, we had a room that was filled with shelves of records and I would play them all the time. Then it was tapes, then CDs.

The music that I came of age to was so diverse that I can’t begin to list even my favorites…it’s everything…they all had pretty equal weight, but the first “songwriter” that I remember falling in love with lyrically and musically was (and still is) Paul Simon. It’s really a toss-up between him and the older Jackson Browne stuff for me when it comes to a benchmark that I have always tried to get close to. The first record that opened up huge doors in my head as far as songwriting goes was Paul Simon’s Graceland. It has this scope, and tenderness, and insight that continues to this day to have new and deeper meanings to me, and it was like nothing I had ever heard.

SFBG From your bio, it sounds like you’ve lived all over. Do you think your style has changed with geographic location? How are you influenced by the place you live? What led to the fuller band sound on this album?

TR Living in lots of places has definitely affected my style. Everywhere I go I try to find the music that makes that spot special and dig into it. In the Bahamas I would follow around the musicians in the Calypso bands trying to figure out how their crazy rhythms worked. In New Orleans I fell in love with Zydeco and Second Line…I played with local cats and tried to catch their vibe. I’ve busked everywhere I have lived, and I always check out the local buskers…they will tell you where the heart of the city is quicker than any overpriced bar. San Francisco is a bit different on its influence on me. It has been less musical and much more intellectual. For the first time in a long time I have had the social freedom to explore some concepts about humanity and myself by being surrounded by other people on a similar quest. San Francisco has such a diverse and transplanted population that it’s style seems to be more about what you’re saying than how you are saying it. That has rubbed off on me a bit.

As far as the fuller sound on the album, that has come from the amazing musicians that I am surrounded by. The musicianship in the Bay Area is top notch right now, and some very special stuff is going to start emerging from it very soon. I look at SF as a town on the brink of being a center of music in the next 5-10 years.

SFBG Can you tell me a bit about how the way this album was recorded, using live sessions? How do you think it affects the overall sound/feel of a record?

TR This album was a concept before the first note was recorded. The concept was to create a record that would be the most real and honest piece of art I had ever made.

The record is self-financed, and even the crowd funding was done in a way that didn’t ask for donations but rather I asked people to hire me to do work with the knowledge that the money I made was going into making this album. I wanted to walk away from the process with a piece of art that I would pay $15,000 for, and I have it.

To create that we had to do everything the hard way (i.e. the right way). I brought in Charlie Wilson (SonicZen Records) to help me build a band around these songs that I had labored over for almost three years and record them live in a top shelf studio. We rented out Coast Recorders for four days, invited in a small audience each night, and played the album for them live. We took the best takes and that’s the record that you hear.

Recording live is very hard and very risky, so it is very rare to see artists attempting it these days, unless they are trying to make a record on the cheap. There are so many variables that can go wrong (you can lose your voice, there can be technical issues that take up recording time, the band can make mistakes, some small thing can be out of tune) and if any of them happen, you wind up with a bad sounding album and no back-up plan. Most records are tracked separately these days to avoid that, but to me it takes all of the real life out of it, and it tells me almost nothing about the person who recorded it.

Another thing is doing it in front of an audience. I am a live performer by trade really, I spend 90 percent of my time in music with a guitar strapped to my chest and singing to real, live, human beings (and sometimes my dog). Performing is what I do best, so why go into a studio and do anything other than that? I find tracking vocals in a booth takes all of the emotion out of it for me, and I have to put it back into the music in some fake kind of way. Why not just do it the right way and record it? (The answer most producers and engineers would tell you is that most people can’t do that. They make too many mistakes, don’t know their songs, it’s hard to isolate the voice and guitar from each other to edit them later.) One of the amazing things that Charlie Wilson did in this whole process was to not back down from those challenges.

So in the end we have this album. It is exactly what I wanted. It is a collection of songs that say exactly what I want them to say, and it doesn’t just sound like what we sound like when we play as a band… it IS us playing as a band. Performing these songs with our hearts wide open. But when someone hears the record I hope that they don’t hear that it’s live, I hope that they FEEL that it’s real.

SFBG How do you describe your genre, when forced to? (Sorry.) There have been some pretty real shifts from album to album — is that conscious/intentional/inspired by anything in particular?

TR I’m ok with this [question] now…This album is Americana. It’s a weird term, but it’s where this record sits, probably the last one too. The stylistic shifts aren’t just from album to album, they are from song to song inside of those albums. Those shifts aren’t actually purposeful (other than being strongly guided to have more of a rock record for “No Apologies”) as much as they are a byproduct of the way that I write. I don’t write music to fit a genre, I just write the songs that come to my mind in the most effective way that I can to get the idea across. Sometimes that requires a completely different feel than other songs that I write. Each song needs to be served to the best of my abilities, regardless of what sort of music is expected of me. I grew up listening to and learning such a diverse collection of music that I have a pretty broad pallet in my head to choose from. It’s actually pretty coincidental that this album has such a singular vibe that way. Even on this album there are some genre swings; “Dying is Easy” is what I would call an R&B tune, “Nobody’s Listening” is pretty poppy, but the band and the circumstances gave this record a much more specific vibe, and we recorded it live so we couldn’t go back later and alter that feel. Not that I would do that in a million years.

SFBG Plans for the coming year?

TR This year is all about trying to spread the word about this record. That is the absolute hardest part about being an independent musician, just getting in front of new eyes and ears. There are some big shows lined up, some tours in the works, music videos to be released…hopefully I can find people who can help me with that. That is my goal for this year, find a team of people who can help to spread this music around. I think that this album has what it takes, now I just need to show it to the world.

SFBG Where in the Bay do you live? What’s the one Bay Area meal/food item you couldn’t live without?

TR I live in the East Bay, in the Emeryville/Oakland area. There is a Mexican place out here that has the best burritos in the area, called Chili Jalapeño. It’s a hole in the wall, but I honestly daydream about their food.

SFBG Other Bay Area bands you love?

TR I love The Lady Crooners (not just because they are on my album!). They have some of the best harmonies in the business, and they make me smile every time I see them. Con Brio is an absolute must-see if you like to dance. Quiles and Cloud destroy me with their tight two-part harmonies and dark beautiful songs. When it comes to local songwriters, Lia Rose, Andrew Blair, Kelly McFarling…there is an awesome scene in this city right now, it’s bubbling under the surface, and someone smart is going to come along and figure that out. When the top blows off of the kettle I just hope to be around to see it.

Tom Rhodes, Kelly McFarling and the Lady Crooners

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 8pm, $17

Freight & Salvage Coffehouse

2020 Addison, Berk.

www.thefreight.org

Locals Only is our shout-out to the musicians who call the Bay Area home — a chance to spotlight an artist/band/music-maker with an upcoming show, album release, or general good news to share. To be considered, drop me a line at esilvers@sfbg.com.

Here are some shows that have nothing to do with Outside Lands

Steven T. Jones

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August 8, 2014

0

Here are some shows that have nothing to do with Outside Lands

What’s that you say? VIP wristbands for $600, special-issue high-end ice cream, and tiny cups of organic sulfite-free wine aren’t exactly your thing?

We’re headed to the park momentarily to support some of our favorite local bands who are doing their thing at OSL this year, but if you have a strong desire to stay far, far away from it all — well, let’s just say we understand that too.

For you live music lovers looking for something a little more low-key this weekend, here are your best bets. Most of them pair well with Tecate in a can.

FRI/8

Crocodiles and the Tweens: One of the key figures in the noisy San Diego rock scene, Crocodiles have come a long way from their Jesus and Mary Chain-aping early days, with four albums and a feud with notorious Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio under their belt. The band has released an album every year since 2009 (except 2011, but they put out an extra EP in 2010 to make up for it) and are showing no signs of slowing down, gigging relentlessly with a variety of bands. A live Crocodiles show tends to sound like a sockhop in a sheet-metal factory, with rock ‘n’ roll riffs and yelps bouncing around a nightmarish industrial landscape. This is their second time at the Chapel. — Daniel Bromfield. $15, 9pm, The Chapel, www.thechapelsf.com

Freestyle Fellowship with Aceyalone, Myka 9, more: Independent West Coast hip-hop at its finest. $15, 9pm, The New Parish, www.thenewparish.com

Those Darlins and Diarrhea Planet: This Nashville rock ‘n’ roll two-fer pairs a couple of bands that will almost certainly be playing much bigger stages next time they’re in town. Diarrhea Planet, in particular, is known for a pretty explosive (sorry) live show. $12, 8pm, Leo’s Music Club, www.clubleos.com

SAT/9

Woods: Mix Best Coast with mid-’70s Eno and you’re left with Woods, the lo-fi Brooklyn outfit that has released a prolific seven albums over seven years. The band’s most recent, With Light and With Love, is their most melodic work yet — generally known for their rampant experimentation and unpredictability, the group isn’t entirely eschewing their eccentricity, but are making their work more accessible. Lead singer Jeremy Earl, whose nasal vocals don’t exactly scream pop, is surprisingly adept at more smooth and singable melodies. The group will likely still be high from their annual Woodsist Festival in Big Sur, which features their friends and occasional collaborators Foxygen and Real Estate. Steve Gunn, the former guitarist in Kurt Vile’s The Violators, will open with cuts off of his acoustic and meditative 2013 release Time Off — David Kurlander. 10pm, $15, Brick & Mortar Music Hall, www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Gold Panda: Gold Panda hit post-Dilla paydirt five years ago with “Quitter’s Raga,” a brief, volatile single that remains one of the most fascinating works of 21st-century producer music. Since then, he’s established himself as one of the most singular and intriguing producers in the electronic world, merging pristine minimal techno with loping hip-hop rhythms and influences from South and East Asian music. His debut, Lucky Shiner, remains a high-water mark of the last half-decade of electronic music, featuring the absolutely devastating lead single “You” and a host of other speaker-ready songs. Though last year’s Half Of Where You Live found him taking a more Spartan approach to his craft, it’s still comfort-food music, accessible across a wide spectrum of genres, demographics, and consumed substances. — Daniel Bromfield 10pm, $20, www.mezzaninesf.com

Forrest Day: A little bit funk, a little bit punk, a little bit hip-hop, a little bit all over the place — the East Bay native (and singer/sax player) for which this band is named is known for a rather captivating stage show that keeps you guessing and, most likely, dancing. 9pm, $12, Bottom of the Hill, www.bottomofthehill.com

SUN/10

Darlene Love: Just in case you weren’t already in love with the unsung ’60s girl group singer — who repeatedly got the shaft from producer Phil Spector when she tried to launch a solo career as opposed to singing backup for very little money and even less glory (Spector actually released her work under a different girl group’s name) — last year’s award-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom likely did the trick. Her voice sounds strong and joyful as ever, and the warmth and effusiveness that pour from her live performances are undeniable. If the masses at Outside Lands aren’t quite your thing, this free show should bring out a different kind of mass, indeed. 2pm, free, Stern Grove, www.sterngrove.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x78Et7Cv24

Apogee Sound Club: Pure punk ethos with just enough pop in their hooks to keep your head bobbing. These local kids are gearing up for big things with a brnad-new LP in the second half of the year — catch ’em on home turf and you can say you knew them when. Violence Creeps will make for a nice, noisy appetizer. 8:30pm, $6, Hemlock Tavern, www.hemlocktavern.com

Talking Gaza, sharing falafel

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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August 7, 2014

49

By Roni Krouzman

Twenty years ago, I walked into a Palestinian restaurant in occupied East Jerusalem with my Israeli cousin. He was one year into his military service, clad in IDF military fatigues and carrying an M-16. Uncomfortable, to say the least.

This week, 10,000 or so miles away and just before the cease-fire in the latest round of war was announced, I walked into my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area. As I approached the counter, I noticed I was having trouble looking the owner in the eyes. He is Palestinian, and I am a Jewish American with Israeli roots. Not exactly an amicable time for our people, yet again.

But I summoned the courage to look up, and I ordered the food I love and enjoyed so much on those summer trips to Israel (and on a few occasions, to Jordan and the Israeli occupied West Bank): falafel, tomato cucumber salad, humus, fried eggplant and pita.

I asked the man, who appeared to be my mother’s age (she lives in Tel Aviv), “Do you have any family in the Middle East?”

“Yes,” he said, looking down. “I have a sister in Gaza.”

‘Shit,’ I thought.

“Oh wow,” I said.

“This morning I called her and suddenly I heard a loud boom in the background,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “She told me that the house next door had just been hit by an Israeli shell.” I exhaled. His voice rose, and grew tighter. “Then she told me she had to go, and hung up the phone.”

He was visibly upset, of course, this kind man in his late 60s, my mother’s age. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“This is a massacre. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m Israeli and I agree with you.”

We commiserated on how sad and stupid it all was. He came around the counter and stood next to me.

“We want to live in peace,” he said earnestly. “Let’s sit around the table and work it out. We’ll have to give some land, the Israelis will have to give some settlements. We’ll work it out.”

I know that. If only I had the power. But unfortunately, the way I see it, Israel, the dominant force, hasn’t been keeping its end of the bargain. It didn’t when I was 17 and it isn’t 20 years later.

I sat at a table outside and ate my falafel, tomato cucumber salad, humus, fried eggplant and pita. I thought of this man and his sister, and her neighbor’s home. And my heart felt heavy.

Had her neighbors survived? Had she? One story of so many thousands. But now, after weeks of seeing unconscionable images of grieving parents, terrified children, bloodied bodies and neighborhoods in rubble, the war suddenly had a very personal face.

But my heart also remembers that food we love, Arabs and Jews. My heart remembers how this Palestinian restaurant owner in Marin always greets me with a smile when I ask in my Israeli accent, “Kif h’alek?” (How are you?) My heart remembers how those young Palestinian guys who sold my cousin and I our falafel 20 years ago asked if we were Israeli, and when we said we were, they said, “Peace my friends,” and smiled.

“How can they not hate us after what we’ve done to them?” I thought back then. I wonder that less today. I know some do, and I honestly can’t blame them.

But the vast majority don’t. Because the vast majority see past the governments and the extremists, and past even majorities when they go astray, and know we are all human and hold a vision of peace. They tell me we are cousins. Maybe, if enough people hold this vision, we’ll all sit down to falafel some day and live like cousins again.

Roni Krouzman is an American Jew born to Israeli parents. His articles on Israel and Palestine have been published by the Middle East Report and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. His mother, cousins, aunts and uncles live in Israel.

Alternative event to National Night Out shifts focus away from surveillance

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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August 5, 2014

8

Alternative event to National Night Out shifts focus away from surveillance

Aug. 5 marks National Night Out, an annual event promoted by local governments and law enforcement agencies geared toward ending neighborhood violence and promoting public safety.

In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee is scheduled to join Police Chief Greg Suhr and District Attorney George Gascon at a Visitacion Valley playground for a National Night Out gathering. A host of other neighborhood block parties are scheduled throughout San Francisco and Oakland as well.

National Night Out gatherings, which are sponsored by the National Association of Neighborhood Watch, are scheduled to take place nationwide. Block party attendees are encouraged to come out and meet their neighbors as a way of banding together against crime. Yet some have questioned the heavy emphasis this event places on suspicion and surveillance as tools for promoting neighborhood safety.

To offer a different perspective, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has organized a community gathering Aug. 5 at the Lake Merritt amphitheater, billed as the Second Annual Night Out for Safety and Democracy.

“We still want to have a celebration of the community – but we really want to reframe the message that it’s not all about setting up a neighborhood watch program,” said Maria Dominguez, a community organizer with the Ella Baker Center. She added that a mass effort to encourage suspicion and neighborhood surveillance can lead to unintended consequences, such as actions that are unnecessarily based in fear, or racial profiling.

Instead, the Ella Baker Center hopes to emphasize restorative justice practices, youth job training programs, and reentry services as tools for promoting community safety. The group is also highlighting the need for more resources to be dedicated toward these programs as state funding becomes available.

“Safety really goes hand in hand with the lack of economic opportunity in our communities,” Dominguez said. This coming fall, she noted, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will begin discussing allocation of some $30 million in state realignment funding. Historically, only about a fourth of this has gone toward community-based organizations focused on efforts such as reentry services, with the rest being devoted mainly to law enforcement agencies.

“We want to make sure there’s more funding allocated for community based organizations providing restorative justice initiatives, and other organizations that focus on employment and workforce development opportunities,” Dominguez said.

“With the recent rise in local surveillance initiatives and private patrols, it’s more important than ever to encourage neighbors to build connections with one another so that they can see each other,” said Ella Baker Center executive director Zachary Norris, “rather than watch each other.”

The evening’s event will feature talks by practitioners in restorative justice practitioners and representatives from organizations working around reentry programs. There will also be food, art, voter information, and a performance by Turf Feinz. They’re turf dance performers whose moves – consisting of “elaborate footwork, gliding, gigging, contortion and acrobat,” according to the event description – have been known to liven up BART commutes.

“Rain,” Turf Feinz’ video from 2009 created in memory of a friend, got more than six million YouTube hits.

Starred, Striped

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

4

culture@sfbg.com

THE WEEKNIGHTER Dave’s bar is America. I don’t mean that in the sense that you walk in the door and get the hairy eyeball, with a chaser of, “What the kind of hippie-communist-homo are you?” (Spoken in a drawl, of course). I mean it in the most basic sense — the mythic melting pot of equality and freedom. When you enter Dave’s (29 Third St, SF) you are entering a new world. It doesn’t matter how much you make (or don’t make), what you drive, or whether you work on construction sites or the human brain. All of that is left at the door. The only thing that matters is if you like to drink.

There are no mustachioed bartenders in suspenders playing with tinctures distilled from random Amazonian berries you’ve never heard of. Instead, you’re often greeted by an Irish lady who you can tell won’t take any shit, but who will also chat with you all day long. This is a fucking bar, man. Some days you show up and there’s free food put out. Other days you sit on a stool and somebody you’ve never met buys a round for the entire bar. It’s almost like Dave’s has some supernatural ability to give you whatever it is that you need on that particular day.

You sit at that bar long enough you’ll hear every kind of story imaginable, from every kind of person. You’ll walk in just to have a quick shot and a beer — and leave four hours later, having met, dunk, and talked shit with a car salesman from Oklahoma, a recently off-work janitor, a tech millionaire, and someone whose family has had 49ers season tickets since they played at Kezar Stadium. You will never see any of these people again in your life, unless you go back to Dave’s.

I’ve actually taken a few girls on first dates to Dave’s. I mean, we didn’t spend the entire time there, but used it more as a meeting place from which to embark on the rest of our activities. You’re probably saying, “Hey Stu, why would you take girl you’re trying to impress, and with whom you’re hoping to touch special places, to a dive bar like Dave’s?” Besides the fact that I’m broke and can actually afford the awesomely cheap drinks, Dave’s, in its own way, makes everyone feel comfortable. It was voted least pretentious bar in SF for this reason. Dave’s is the bar that everyone has had a good time at, even if they’ve never been there before.

These days I worry about places like Dave’s. Sure it’s been there for like 30 years or something, but it doesn’t have the shine and sheen that so many recently opened bars in SF have. For those of us who know better, this is exactly why it’s attractive. I just worry that the Robert Moseses of the world, the people who would plow a giant freeway through quaint Greenwich Village, have too much steam behind them right now. These are the people who don’t realize that having reclaimed wood and Edison bulbs and $13 cocktails doesn’t make a place special. In fact, it makes a place just like everywhere else. I’ll take a shot and a beer at Dave’s over all that fluff any day of the week. Hell, I’ll probably see you there.

Stuart Schuffman aka Broke-Ass Stuart is a travel writer, poet, and TV host. You can find his online shenanigans at www.brokeassstuart.com

Look here instead

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

0

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART So far, 2014 has been a pretty depressing and demoralizing year for Bay Area artists and the organizations and institutions that support them. Increasingly, the only options seem to be “fight or flight,” with “flight” too often becoming the default.

Against the economic and cultural ascendancy of the tech industry, commercial and residential rents have skyrocketed as funding sources have become more restrictive and competitive. Longstanding commercial galleries and noncommercial spaces alike have been forced to relocate, downsize, or face eviction. The past few months, my Facebook feed has reliably been filled with mournful think pieces on tech’s perceived indifference to local arts and culture, news of another gallery closure, or someone else posting about his or her imminent departure to Los Angeles or Chicago. For many, community stalwart Intersection for the Arts’ announcement last month that it was drastically reducing its operations and staff felt like the last straw.

This climate of mounting precariousness and frustration invariably forms the backdrop against which one takes in Bay Area Now 7, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ triennial survey of local art. It also spills over into some of the art on view. For this reason alone the stakes feel higher — perhaps unfairly so — especially when compared to past iterations of the exhibition, which have sometimes struggled with articulating a coherent or relevant point of view.

Curators Betti-Sue Hertz and Ceci Moss’s decision to “decentralize” the curatorial process this year and, instead, issue an open call to small- to mid-size regional visual arts organizations to select and commission work, turned out to be a smart one. For starters, putting YBCA’s institutional resources and clout behind much smaller organizations as opposed to individuals proposes an alternate function for large-scale, regional surveys such as Bay Area Now, beyond the early-to-mid-career professional stopover-launching pad they serve as for many artists (the Whitney Biennial continues to be a best- and worst-case example of this).

More importantly, the 15 jury-selected partner organizations in BAN7 present an alternative map of the Bay Area’s arts ecosystem, one that intersects with but also sometimes falls outside of the more familiar circuits between higher educational institutions such as California College of Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute, and larger local galleries and museums. Partner organizations include residence-based exhibition spaces (2nd Floor Projects, Important Projects, n/a) and established arts education programs (Creativity Explored, San Quentin Prison Arts Project), as well as further-afield institutions (the Napa-based di Rosa and the Saratoga-based Montalvo Arts Center) and nimbler project- or action-based collectives (Publication Studio, Stairwell’s, the Bay Area Arts Workers Alliance).

The art is as varied as the organizations presenting it although many of the mediums and subjects feel indigenous. This sense of familiarity can cut both ways. Daniel Case’s gorgeous landscape photographs of empty California cruising grounds, in 2nd Floor Project’s space, seem to be having a sympathetic kiki with Tammy Rae Carland’s earlier photo series of similarly depopulated off-the-grid, lesbian feminist encampments. Kristin Faar and Jeff Meadows’ New Age-y paint and slat construction in Adobe Books Backroom Gallery’s space, on the other hand, presents a cheerful if derivative homage to the Mission School and the beloved bookstore’s place within its history.

There are also some sui generis standouts. Creativity Explored artist Christina Marie Fong’s hand-drawn, cardboard installation of her dream bedroom — complete with R&B LPs, cult horror movie posters, and spilled junk food — is a hypnotizing explosion of pop cultural references rendered in filigree-like lines. Floris Schönfeld’s video Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa — filmed on location at the estate in collaboration with a Sonoma County vampire-themed LARP group — falls somewhere between Dark Shadows and Mike Kelley’s ensemble-filled video opuses.

True to its name, BAN7 is topical, and the pieces that channel the current climate of economically-fueled dissatisfaction in which so many feel priced out, kicked out, silenced, or foreclosed upon is what gives the exhibition its teeth. Taking up almost a quarter of the main gallery space, the Bay Area Art Workers Alliance’s strategically messy installation Invisible Labor attempts to stage the opposite of its title, rendering visible (as well as audible; you hear the installation before you see it) the physical labor and construction materials used to install the very art on display throughout YBCA. The names of Alliance members, many of whom are artists who also created and contributed to the installation, are pointedly writ large on the gallery’s floor-to-ceiling east-facing window.

Invisible Labor can be taken as a response to the same question asked by How Do We Make More Public the Other Work that We Do?, Edgar Mojica’s in-process collaborative mural that’s part of Important Projects’ section. Once completed, the mural — which depicts San Francisco as a sprawling technopolis — will then be re-covered by the same hands that created it, making it an “invisible monument” to the labor of all involved.

Mojica’s question has been asked a lot lately in the local arts community. One answer was proposed this past June when adjunct professors at the San Francisco Art Institute voted to form a union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, following a similar vote by adjuncts at Mills College earlier in the same month.

BAN7, much like Invisible Labor, insists that organization and visibility can take other forms as well. This might not make this year’s triennial into an avenging David to the tech boom’s Goliath, as poet Kevin Killian casts Publication Studio in a colorfully illuminated manuscript that hangs in front of its in-house printing press. But it can provide a stage for alternate realities, such as Fong’s bedroom. And it can confront us — as it does by having pieces from the San Quentin Prison Arts Project be some of the first artworks one encounters — with other sites of struggle and resistance. As Lori Gordon exclaims in one of her newsprint Snippets, a participatory variation on Jenny Holzer’s Truisms series: “divert your eyes from the traffic accident of culture and look here instead.” *

BAY AREA NOW 7

Through Oct. 5

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

A party in your mouth

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

2

culture@sfbg.com

SHUCK IT ALL

Coming up in August is not one but two big oyster events, and both are on the same weekend. Double play! First is the third annual Oyster Bash at B Restaurant & Bar (720 Howard, SF. www.bsanfrancisco.com) in Yerba Buena Gardens on Saturday, Aug. 23, 1pm–4pm. It’s an all-you-can-eat event, and considering 12,000 oysters will be served, you have your work cut out for you: There will be a raw bar, grilled and steamed oysters, fried oyster po’boy sliders, and oyster shooters. There’s also an oyster shucking contest at 2:30pm (the first 20 people to sign up upon arrival are enrolled) and the winner will score “all you can eat” oysters at B Restaurant for an entire year. Tickets are $45 presale at bbaroysterbash2014.eventbrite.com and they will sell out! $65 at the door.

Then on Sunday, Aug. 24, you can head to Waterbar (399 Embarcadero, SF. www.waterbarsf.com) for the sixth annual OysterFest on its bayside patio. Known for having the largest selection of oysters in SF, Waterbar is keeping the quality top-notch and will only feature sustainable oysters at the event. There will also be plenty of bites from Waterbar and sister restaurant EPIC Roasthouse, plus Farmer Brown, Farallon, Fish, and Blue Island Oyster Farm; your ticket also includes some Napa Valley wines and craft beers too. Oysterfest runs 12pm–3pm. Tickets are $70 and available on Waterbar’s homepage.

BLOCK PARTY

It looks like it may be the last year for La Cocina’s mega Street Food Festival (Folsom from 20th St to 26th St, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com) — well, unless they can find a new location. In the meantime, plan to show up hungry on Saturday Aug. 16, when there will be a staggering selection of food vendors serving food from around the globe, plus cocktails, and craft beer, all from 11am–7pm. Get your posse together, and check out the website for some ticketing and passport options. (Oh, and the night before is the Friday Night Fried Chicken Family Meal at SoMa Streat Food Park, a must for fried chicken lovers.)

On Saturday, Aug. 23, comes Noise Pop’s 20th Street Block Party (20th St between Bryant and Harrison, and Florida and Alabama between 19th and 20th streets, SF. www.20thstreetblockparty.com/2014), noon–6pm. And it’s free! There will be two stages, featuring national acts and emerging local musicians, including Rogue Wave, Cayucas, Myron & E, 1955, and 8th Grader. Also in the mix will be drinks and bites from neighborhood establishments flour + water, Trick Dog, Central Kitchen, Sightglass Coffee, Rhea’s Deli & Cafe, El Metate, and more. You can dance, eat, hang out, and check out some things like the Ne Timeas workshop tent (with culinary workshops throughout the day), a Southern Exposure interactive installation, and more. There’s also a VIP experience for $95 (line-jumping privileges at the food vendors and private restrooms).

ZIG FOR SISIG

And for those of you who aren’t heading to the playa for Burning Man, check out the Savor Filipino (www.savorfilipino.com) event at Justin Herman Plaza on Saturday, Aug. 30. It’s a free event, and there will be a bunch of different pavilions with options ranging from lechon baboy (roasted pig) and lumpia to chicken adobo and kare-kare. Oh yeah, and balut, in case you have wanted to cross that one off your “yeah, I tried it” list. There will also be some vegan and vegetarian options in the Garden Pavilion, so everyone wins. Bonus: All food served will feature humanely raised proteins, sustainable seafood, and organic, local produce. In between sessions of over-eating, you can check out some music and chef and author demos, and hang out in the beer garden. 10am–6pm.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

This Week’s Picks: August 6 – 12, 2014

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

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sockhop in a sheet-metal factory

THURSDAY 7

Post:Ballet’s Five High

Most choreographers start small, slowly developing skills — and an audience for their work. In 2010 Robert Dekkers’ Post:Ballet burst onto the local scene like a comet. Dekkers hasn’t stopped since. His choreography can flow like warmed honey; he works with excellent collaborators and, above all, being a very fine dancer himself, he choreographs with the ballet trained body in mind. He doesn’t — yet — have a permanent ensemble, but he gets exceptional dancers who seem to thrive in his contemporary choreography. This year they include four from Smuin Ballet, and two LINES Ballet alumni. The new ourevolution (with a score by Matthew Pierce) will be joined by field the present shifts (2013) — with Robert Gilson and Catherine Caldwell’s spectacular set — and the 2012 quartet Mine is Yours. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/9, 8pm, $30+

YBCA Theater

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-ARTS (2787)

www.tickets.ybca.org

Mikal Cronin

Mikal Cronin is one of the San Francisco garage-rock scene’s most omnipresent figures. Though he was once best-known for his frequent collaborations with Ty Segall (they played together in Epsilons and Ty Segall Band, and they’ve got a collab album awesomely titled Reverse Shark Attack), he’s got two very good solo albums of muscular yet shamelessly catchy power pop that have established him as a formidable presence on the scene in his own right. Unlike most of the scene he’s associated with, Cronin actually moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles, and as such, he’s showing no signs of abandoning his hometown fans. If you can’t catch him at Outside Lands this year, this night show at The Independent might be slightly more intimate. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

“Mythological Bird”

Birds in San Francisco are usually nothing special. Pigeons? Please. But when it comes to the parrots of Telegraph Hill, you admittedly revere them. Extinct birds, for the most part, are cast in the same mould. Under the careful eye of some local artists, they’ve majestically flown back to life. The exhibition is a multimedia experience characterized by digital projection — which creates an alternate world for the birds that viewers can step into and thoroughly engage with the art — and more conventional art mediums. The last time the birds were alive may’ve been in the distant past, but the exhibition is a proper modern tribute to their beauty, spirit, and memory. (Amy Char)

Through Sept. 7

6pm, free

Incline Gallery

766 Valencia, SF

(415) 879-6118

www.inclinegallerysf.com

Beardyman

Beardyman isn’t just a beatboxer. While the London-based performer can lay down rhythmically astonishing beats and juxtapose his lines with melodic or bizarre vocal elements, his ability to use live loops is what makes him such an exhilarating live act. Often, Beardyman will start with a simple pattern that, after some fooling with his one-of-a-kind live rig, the Beardytron 5000 mkll, will grow into a layered and almost impossibly complex musical collage. He still is working on transferring his live chops to recording — uploads of his performances have garnered far more attention than his one album to date — but his new project, the long-awaited Directions, may very well change that. After being forced to cancel his last Mezzanine show because of illness, Beardyman looks to pull out all the stops this time; don’t be surprised if costumes, political invective, and incisive cultural commentary make their way into the act. (David Kurlander)

8pm, $18

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

FRIDAY 8

Crocodiles

One of the key figures in the noisy San Diego rock scene, Crocodiles have come a long way from their Jesus and Mary Chain-aping early days, with four albums and a feud with notorious Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio under their belt. The band has released an album every year since 2009 (except 2011, but they put out an extra EP in 2010 to make up for it) and are showing no signs of slowing down, gigging relentlessly with a variety of bands. A live Crocodiles show tends to sound like a sockhop in a sheet-metal factory, with rock ‘n’ roll riffs and yelps bouncing around a nightmarish industrial landscape. Their upcoming show on August 8 with Tweens is their second time at the Chapel. (Bromfield)

$15, 9pm

The Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

Youth for Asian Theater’s Perfect Pairs

Following what must be an age-old tradition, adults often don’t take teens seriously. However, this theater company, completely comprised of local youth from a range of ethnic backgrounds, explores different cultures and the experience of growing up Asian-American through writing, directing, and performing original plays — these youth have already accomplished so much more than some adults have! In the midst of a productive summer, the company’s 14th annual production includes promising plays, such as one described as “Austen-tatious” that follows “prideful, sometimes prejudiced” characters. The theater scene is in good hands with these talented — and well-read — teens. (Amy Char)

6:30pm, free

San Francisco LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

(415) 865-5555

www.yfat.org

SATURDAY 9

Woods

Mix Best Coast with mid-’70s Eno and you’re left with Woods, the lo-fi Brooklyn outfit that has released a prolific seven albums over seven years. The band’s most recent, With Light and With Love, is their most melodic work yet — generally known for their rampant experimentation and unpredictability, the group isn’t entirely eschewing their eccentricity, but are making their work more accessible. Lead singer Jeremy Earl, whose nasal vocals don’t exactly scream pop, is surprisingly adept at more smooth and singable melodies. The group will likely still be high from their annual Woodsist Festival in Big Sur, which features their friends and occasional collaborators Foxygen and Real Estate. Steve Gunn, the former guitarist in Kurt Vile’s The Violators, will open with cuts off of his acoustic and meditative 2013 release Time Off. (Kurlander)

10pm, $15

Brick & Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Gold Panda

Gold Panda hit post-Dilla paydirt five years ago with “Quitter’s Raga,” a brief, volatile single that remains one of the most fascinating works of 21st-century producer music. Since then, he’s established himself as one of the most singular and intriguing producers in the electronic world, merging pristine minimal techno with loping hip-hop rhythms and influences from South and East Asian music. His debut, Lucky Shiner, remains a high-water mark of the last half-decade of electronic music, featuring the absolutely devastating lead single “You” and a host of other speaker-ready songs. Though last year’s Half Of Where You Live found him taking a more Spartan approach to his craft, it’s still comfort-food music, accessible across a wide spectrum of genres, demographics, and consumed substances. (Daniel Bromfield)

10pm, $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

SUNDAY 10

Darlene Love

Just in case you weren’t already in love with the unsung ’60s girl group singer — who repeatedly got the shaft from producer Phil Spector when she tried to launch a solo career as opposed to singing backup for very little money and even less glory (Spector actually released her work under a different girl group’s name) — last year’s award-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom likely did the trick. Her voice sounds strong and joyful as ever, and the warmth and effusiveness that pour from her live performances are undeniable. If the masses at Outside Lands aren’t quite your thing, this free show should bring out a different kind of mass, indeed. (Emma Silvers)

With the Monophonics

2pm, free

Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

MONDAY 11

The NBA’s Jason Collins

At the end of the 2013 basketball season, after becoming a free agent, with one of the most-discussed Sports Illustrated cover stories of all time (that wasn’t a swimsuit issue), 35-year-old NBA center Jason Collins became the first publicly gay pro athlete in any of the four major American sports leagues. Lauded for his honesty and bravery, Collins signed with the Nets in February, but we’re guessing that little in his life has returned to “normal.” This event, hosted by the Commonwealth Club as part of the 2014 Platforum series The LGBT Journey, will see Collins in conversation with Jose Antonio Vargas, producer-director of the documentary Documented, who has been open about his status as a gay, undocumented Filipino American, for a discussion of American identity that doesn’t fit neatly into any one box. (Silvers)

6:30pm, $10-$20

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6350

www.castrotheatre.com

TUESDAY 12

The Coathangers

Joking ideas can be surprisingly fruitful. Rather than forming a band to appeal to their musical dreams, these four Atlanta-based women just wanted to have a good time while playing shows (conveniently ignoring how none of them knew how to play a musical instrument), which helps explain why their live energy is just as raw eight years later. The Coathangers eventually warmed up to the musical intricacies behind writing songs. Their efforts culminated in Suck My Shirt, the band’s fourth album, which reflects the newfound, thoughtful spirit while retaining their well-honed DIY garage-punk sound. They’re still as flippant as ever with their song titles: “Love Em and Leave Em.” (Amy Char)

With White Fang, Twin Steps

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

Theater Listings:August 6 – 12, 2014

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

From Red to Black ACT Costume Shop, 1119 Market, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $7.50-20. Previews Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. San Francisco Playhouse performs Rhett Rossi’s detective drama as part of its Sandbox Series.

Millicent Scowlworthy Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $20. Previews Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. 99 Stock Productions presents Rob Handel’s spooky tale that cautions against burying tragic events in the past.

Pleiades Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; http://pleiadessf.wordpress.com. $20-25. Previews Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. Marissa Skudlarek’s world premiere re-imagines the Greek myth of the seven Pleiades sisters as a story about Baby Boomers in their youth.

BAY AREA

Catch Me If You Can Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $18-59. Previews Thu/7, 8pm. Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Sun/10 and Aug 14-17, 8pm. Through Aug 17. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the musical based on the film about notorious con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr.

Cops and Robbers Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Previews Fri/8-Sat/9 and Aug 15, 8pm. Opens Sat/16, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 13. Hip-hop artist and law enforcement officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira performs his 17-character solo show.

“TheatreWorks New Works Festival” Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Sun/10, Aug 12-17, 8pm (also Sun/10, 2pm; Aug 15, 10:30pm; Aug 16-17, noon and 4pm) . Through Aug 17. TheatreWorks presents this festival of staged readings of in-development plays and musicals.

ONGOING

Each and Every Thing Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. The latest solo show from celebrated writer-performer Dan Hoyle (Tings Dey Happen, The Real Americans) winds a more random course than usual across the country and abroad but then that’s the idea — or at least Hoyle warns us, right after an opening encounter with a touchy young white supremacist, that the trip he’s taking us on is a subtle one. Displaying again his exceptional gifts as a writer and protean performer, Hoyle deftly embodies a set of real-life encounters as a means of exploring the primacy and predicament of face-to-face communication in the age of Facebook. With the help of director Charlie Varon (who co-developed the piece with Hoyle and Maureen Towey), this comes across in an entertaining and swift-flowing 75-minute act that includes a witty rap about “phone zombies” and a Dylan-esque screed at a digital detox center. But the purported subject of connection, or lack there of, in our gadget-bound and atomized society is neither very original nor very deeply explored — nor is it necessarily very provocative in a theater, before an audience already primed for the live encounter. Far more interesting and central here is Hoyle’s relationship with his old college buddy Pratim, an Indian American in post-9/11 America whose words are filled with laid-back wisdom and wry humor. Also intriguing is the passing glimpse of early family life in the Hoyle household with Dan’s celebrated artist father, and working-class socialist, Geoff Hoyle. These relationships, rather than the sketches of strangers (albeit very graceful ones), seem the worthier subjects to mine for truth and meaning. Indeed, there’s a line spoken by Pratim that could sum up the essence of Hoyle’s particular art: “It’s so much better,” he says, “when you find yourself in other people than when you just find yourself.” Hoyle’s real frontier could end up being much more personal terrain, much closer to home. (Avila)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God Fights the Plague Marsh San Francisco Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-100. Sat/9, 8:30pm; Sun/10, 7pm. The Marsh presents a solo show written by and starring 18-year-old theater phenom Dezi Gallegos.

The Habit of Art Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Aug 23. Theatre Rhinoceros presents the return engagement of Alan Bennett’s “very British comedy” about a meeting between Benjamin Britten, W.H. Auden, and other figures from throughout time, including their future biographer.

Into the Woods San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-120. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 6. SF Playhouse performs Stephen Sondheim’s fractured fairy-tale musical.

Noises Off! Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 25. Shelton Theater performs Michael Frayn’s outrageous backstage comedy.

Patterns Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion (in the French American International High School), 66 Page, SF; www.thenewstage.com. $30. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 16. The New Stage’s premiere of company founder Amy Munz’s solo work is one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts (by both a new company and a young artist) in recent memory. It’s an ambitious and notably subtle, serious, unsentimental exploration of love, in which a dynamic Munz — on a wide bare stage bounded on three sides by her own wonderfully evocative three-channel video-scape — plays several characters, and three in particular: Amot, Abigail, and Ava, whose stories are slyly interwoven. Amot, the principal focus across two discrete acts, is a young woman raised by her widowed father in his butcher shop, who later falls in love with a young man. But her story, like that of the other young women, comes to us in a form more like the stream of consciousness, fractured and expansive in the disjuncture and interplay between Munz’s ardently committed performance and the shrewd audio and visual environment surrounding the audience — a manufactured landscape of memory, desire, and role-playing in which to some extent the audience is free to find its own way and discover its own truths. Part two further integrates the voices of the other young women, Abigail and Ava, forming a mesh of narratives and associations stimulating in their intellectual, visual, and aural juxtapositions. This is a work that demands a kind of letting go, but also invites full participation of the viewer’s imagination, as the rich mise-en-scène and Munz’s intense, unflinching performance unfold with unexpected abundance. (Avila)

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org.$30-100. Sat, 5pm. Through Aug 23. Brian Copeland’s hit solo show, “a tale of privilege, murder, and sausage,” returns to the Marsh.

Sex and the City: Live!! Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; sexandthecitylive.eventbrite.com. $30. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 7pm. Velvet Rage Productions presents two new live episodes of the hit HBO show, with an all-star drag cast (Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and RuPaul’s Drag Race runner-up Alaska).

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

Show Down! Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 16. Thunderbird Theatre performs an original comedy, set amid a war against technology at the last all-live TV station left in the United States.

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.sfneofuturists.com. $11-16. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Ongoing. The Neo-Futurists perform Greg Allen’s spontaneous, ever-changing show that crams 30 plays into 60 minutes.

BAY AREA

As You Like It Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. Donations accepted. Fri/8-Sun/10, 8pm. Marin Shakespeare kicks off its 25th season with a classic production of the Bard’s gender-bending comedy.

Dracula Inquest Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ mystery inspired by the Bram Stoker vampire classic.

Monsieur Chopin Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Shattuck; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-87. Wed/6 and Sun/10, 7pm (also Wed/6, 2pm); Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm (also Sat/9, 2pm). Hershey Felder stars in his musical biography of legendary composer Chopin.

Old Money Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 17. Ross Valley Players performs Wendy Wasserstein’s New York City-set comedy.

The Ripple Effect This week: Lakeside Park, Edoff Memorial Band Stand, 468 Perkins, Oakl; www.sfmt.org. Wed/6-Thu/7, 7pm. Free (donations accepted). Also Sat/9-Sun/10, 3pm, San Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz. Through Sept 1 at various NorCal venues. The veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe stays current by skewering San Francisco’s ever-dividing economy; think rising rents, tech-bus protests, and (natch) Glassholes.

Romeo and Juliet Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $12-35. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for specific performance dates and times. Marin Shakespeare continues its 25th season with the Bard’s timeless tragedy.

Semi-Famous: Hollywood Hell Tales from the Middle Marsh Berkeley Main Stage, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sept 7. Don Reed’s new solo show shares tales from his career in entertainment.

“Splathouse Double Feature” La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; http://impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs The Sadist and Eegah!, film and live performance blends inspired by the classic exploitation movies.

The Taming of the Shrew Sequoia High School grounds, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 4pm. This location and schedule through Aug 24. Continues through Sept 21 at various Bay Area venues. Free Shakespeare in the Park presents this take on the Bard’s barb-filled romance.

12th Night Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Shotgun Players take a fresh approach to the Shakespeare classic, using folk music and other twists.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“BATS Summer Improv Festival” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Through Sept 20. $20. This week: “Improvised Shakespeare: 25th Anniversary Edition!,” Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm.

“Bay Area Now 7 Performance Festival” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8-10pm. $25-30. A multidisciplinary fest of boundary-pushing artists, including Antique Naked Soul, Katie Faulkner/little seismic dance company, Lenora Lee Dance, Eddie Madril/Sewam American Indian Dance, sfSound, and many more.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/9, Aug 24, 30, Sept 6, 13, 21, 28, Oct 4, 11, 18, 26, 6:30pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dash: Improv in a Flash” Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. Sat, 10pm. Through Aug 30. $15. A late-night, free-form improv show with Un-Scripted Theater Company.

“Deaf Louder: The Second Bay Area Deaf Dance Festival” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 4pm. $15-25. Celebrating the talents of hearing-impaired performing artists, as well as collaborations between hearing and deaf artists. Participants include Antoine Hunter (the fest’s artistic director), Def Motion, Michelle Banks, Fred Beam, Half N Half, and more.

Emote Dance and Marlena E. Zahm Garage SF, 715 Bryant, SF; www.ticketfly.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm. $10-20. New dance works exploring individuality and vulnerability.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: “Operation Opera,” Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm; Sat/9-Sun/10, 7pm, $35-50.

“Flying Five High” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.postballet.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. $30-65. Post: Ballet, under the director of choreographer Robert Dekkers, launches its fifth season with an evening-length program containing world premiere ourevolution.

“The Glass Menagerie” Beverly Hills Playhouse of SF, 414 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.overcasttheatre.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 5pm. $14-16. Overcast Theatre performs the Tennessee Williams drama.

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

“Music Moves Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Through Aug 24, most performances at 8pm. $25-45. Diverse performances celebrating the relationship between music and dance, with Bandelion, Kate Weare Company, San Jose Taiko, and more.

Jim Norton Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm (also Fri/8, 10:15pm); Sat/9, 7:30 and 9:45pm. $27. The comedian and talk show host performs.

“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. Ongoing. $12. A new, completely improvised show every week.

“People in Plazas” Various locations, SF; www.peopleinplazas.org. Through Oct 3. Free. Lunchtime concerts in various downtown locations showcasing jazz, world, funk, and other styles of music.

“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Ongoing. $5-15. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7; “Purple Onion All-Stars,” Wed-Thu, 8:15; “The Later Show,” Wed-Thu, 10. Check website for Fri-Sat shows and schedule updates.

“Summer Camp!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/8, 9:30pm. $15-30. Hubba Hubba Revue performs burlesque with a campers-and-counselors theme.

“Terminator Too: Judgment Play” and “Point Break LIVE!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7, and Dec 5, Terminator at 7:30pm; Break at 11pm. $20-50. The raucous, interactive staged recreations of two of 1991’s greatest action films return to the DNA Lounge.

“Tough” Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. $20-25. Bay Area choreographer-dancer Chris Black comes out swinging, rolling, singing and more in this beautifully tailored solo take on the concepts of strength, couched in the biographical particulars of legendary bare-knuckle (and gloved) boxing champ John L. Sullivan (1858–1918). Black (natty in a three-piece period-style men’s suit) presents herself in friendly but decidedly composed fashion to her arriving audience, distributing some simple instructions to a few willing participants who together relate the rules of the game — namely, old-school 19th-century boxing. But Black is also, in a sense, relating the terms of the piece, which unfolds as something of a conversation between the audience and herself/Sullivan on the nature of the transitory. Black’s precision and control throughout echo the storied power of her purported subject, and the double identity she assumes as herself and Sullivan casts a particular light on the life of a dancer even as she is enveloped in the aura and atmosphere of the Boston-born Irish American and his times. The smooth evocation of those life and times — brought about with the help of some pungent, chiseled dialogue (carved from historical sources as well as an original text by Courtney Moreno) as well as delicately crafted sound and lighting designs from Hannah Birch Carl and Heather Basarab, respectively — can seem at times too cool and well-ordered a world for the kind of fragility and uncertainty also being explored here. But it casts its own spell, and there’s no denying either its poise or the power to which that can speak. (Avila)

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 26. Free. This week: Tiffany Austin Quintet, Thu/7, 12:30pm; Pi Clowns, Fri/8, 11am and 12:15pm; Pistahan Festival celebrating Filipino and Filipino American arts and culture (more info at www.pistahan.net), Sat/9-Sun/10, 11am-5pm.

BAY AREA

“Free Comedy Night” Bayfair Center, Center Court, 15555 E. 14th St, San Leandro; www.shopbayfair.com. Sat/9, 7pm. Free. Stand-up comedy with local performers and host Mark Pitta (of FOX’s Totally Hidden Video).

Nick Griffin Rooster T. Feathers, 157 W. El Camino Real, Sunnyvale; www.roostertfeathers.com. Thu/7-Sun/10, 8pm (also Sat/9, 10:30pm). $13-19. The veteran comedian performs.

“Knights of Revery” Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakl; www.eventbrite.com/e/knights-of-revery-laughter-dreams-august-8-9-10-15-16-tickets-12259096287. Fri/8-Sun/10 and Aug 15-16, 8pm. $20. Variety show starring Sir Psycho and Sir Pomp, who “travel with you between the realms of the conscious and unconscious, between fact and fiction, between here and now, between our creamy peanut butter and your smooth jelly.”

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

“National Poetry Slam” Various venues, Oakl; www.nationalpoetryslam.com. Through Sat/9. $15-125. The National Poetry Slam celebrates its 25th anniversary with a full schedule of events, with 500 poets representing 72 slam teams from across the US and Canada (and including seven from the Bay Area).

“The Pirates of Penzance” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.lamplighters.org. Sat/9-Sun/10, 2pm (also Sat/9, 8pm). $20-59. Also Aug 14-16, 8pm (also Aug 16, 2pm); Aug 17, 2pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. Also Aug 23-24, 2pm (also Aug 23, 8pm), Bankhead Theatre, 2400 First St, Livermore. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs the Gilbert & Sullivan classic. *

Film Listings: August 6 – 12, 2014

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Alive Inside See “Rise Up Singing.” (1:13) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Calvary See “Ye Of Little Faith.” (1:45) California.

A Five Star Life Does the world need a Euro-femme counterpart to 2009’s Up in the Air? This warm look at a so-called “mystery guest”-cum-hotel inspector, who spends more time working in transit than in her own home (where she’d be in danger of allowing her personal life to unfold), doesn’t have quite the same torn-from-the-headlines, corporate-hatchet-man edge. Nevertheless, A Five Star Life‘s subject — centered on a 40-ish single career-woman, still such a demographic rarity these days for films — is subtly subversive, in a molto well-heeled way, while offering guilty pleasure peeps at posh concierge services and scented beige corridors. Irene (Margherita Buy) is a workaholic, but can you blame her when her job is critiquing luxe lodgings around the world? The downside of such a passion for order and perfection is that she has no one to otherwise share her high-thread-count linens. A chance encounter turns this professional traveler around and leads her question everything, though mercifully director Maria Sole Tognazzi doesn’t end up reaching for easy, Eat, Pray, Love-style responses. Self-love or acceptance, it seems, is the answer. (1:25) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Heli Spanish-born Mexican writer-director Amat Escalante’s latest feature is a striking drama that’s harshly minimalist in terms of explication, and harrowingly cruel in upfront content. Schoolgirl Estela (Andrea Vergara), who looks all of eight years old, lives with her father, her 17-year-old factory-worker brother Heli (Armando Espita), his wife, and their baby. But she already dreams of escaping their bleak economic circumstances by running off with police cadet boyfriend Beto (Juan Eduardo Palacios), who’s Heli’s age. It’s the latter’s idea that they steal a cache of drugs seized and hidden by corrupt cops. Needless to say, this plan goes south in the worst ways, as soon as possible. A controversial winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes last year, this portrait of pervasive corruption is as superbly crafted as it is undeniably unpleasant. But there’s nothing gratuitous here. If you’re looking for feel-good pabulum with an art house gloss, go see The Hundred-Foot Journey. This movie is art, and that ain’t always pretty — Lorenzo Hagerman’s very handsome cinematography notwithstanding. (1:45) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Hundred-Foot Journey Yep, it’s another chef-centric flick. This one stars Helen Mirren as a snooty French restaurateur who clashes with the Indian family who sets up shop across the street. (2:02) Marina.

Into the Storm A small town battles a day of epically dangerous weather in this CG-laden thriller, which stars Richard Armitage (Thorin in The Hobbit series) and several angry-looking tornadoes. (1:29)

Step Up All In Dancers from various films in the Step Up series join forces for this Vegas-set tale, which promises little in the way of a coherent plot, but plenty of fancy footwork. (1:52) Shattuck.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Years from now, film scholars will look back at these creatively bankrupt (if box office-rich) times and blame Michael Bay for many evils, including a garish Transformers series that won’t die. He also produces this theatrical reboot of a kiddie action series (currently enjoying a TV cartoon renaissance on Nickelodeon) that probably should’ve been left in the sewer after 2007’s TMNT — star Chris Evans thanks you for forgetting that even existed — or, even better, after revealing the secret of the ooze in the 1990s. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is here to stomp all over nostalgic goodwill, not to mention take advantage of CG advancements that render its heroes as “real” as pumped-up reptiles with weapons can be, with a 3D coating that does allegedly human but suspiciously plastic co-star Megan Fox no favors. If you can get past that eeriness, you won’t be rewarded for your efforts; the jokes are either unfunny or pointless (are we really still referencing the Lost finale?), and the plot is so insultingly predictable William Fichtner’s character might as well be named “Sinister Rich Guy.” May also contain: fart jokes, butt jokes, pizza. (2:00) Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck. (Eddy)

What If A med-school dropout (Daniel Radcliffe) meets his dream girl (Zoe Kazan), and must struggle with the fact that she has a long-term boyfriend. (1:45)

ONGOING

And So It Goes It’s not hard to scope out what the draw might be here for gray foxes like Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas when it comes to this Rob Reiner effort. The woman who so winningly wrapped her vocal cords around “Seems Like Old Times” in Annie Hall (1977) was obviously diverted from her Pinterest duties by the opportunity to sing her heart out on screen again (accompanied on piano by Reiner, a sad comic side dish). Meanwhile, Douglas gets to play a self-absorbed boomer who’s making up for neglecting the next generation — namely his son, an incarcerated addict — in a role that gives off a strong whiff of autobiography. Douglas’s Oren is doing his half-assed penance by caring for his stranger of a granddaughter Sarah (Sterling Jerins), a chore that he not-so-nicely foists onto the Keaton’s Leah. His character and turnaround of sorts, burnished by the triumph of a successful real estate transaction, is as mundane and unconvincing as a half-hour sitcom pivot. The colorless characterization and lame dialogue can probably be primarily attributed to As Good as It Gets (1997) writer Mark Andrus, who seems to be recycling bits of the latter’s title as well as stale chunks from sundry romantic comedies — though considering the missed opportunities and overall weak soup of And So It Goes, Reiner also appears to be chipping away at whatever reputation he has acquired. Is this really the same Reiner who made This Is Spinal Tap back in 1984? (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Begin Again Begin Again does indeed resemble writer-director John Carney’s Once (2007): It’s another musical tale of a romantically-challenged artist whose life is changed by a chance encounter. One miserable night, very recent dump-ee Greta (Keira Knightley) takes the stage at an open mic night, crooning a song she’s just written about jumping in front of a subway train. (Knightley does her own singing, but careful camerawork ensures we never get a good look at her guitar skills.) Dan (Mark Ruffalo), a down-on-his-luck music-biz professional whose career status is nearly as dismal as his personal life, is drunkenly enthralled by her performance. Clearly, there’s nothing for these two depressed souls to do but record an album together on the streets of NYC; for her, it’s a way to get even with her cheatin’ ex (Adam Levine, playing a rock star not unlike … Adam Levine); for him, it offers hope for creative rebirth. Carney’s point of view is abundantly clear: tailoring one’s music to please the basic-bitch demographic is bad; while penning personally meaningful tunes and recording them on one’s own terms is good … even if those tunes happen to be forgettable folk-pop. Fortunately, Begin Again fares better with its explorations of complicated relationships. Nobody does rumpled and wounded better than Ruffalo, and Knightley is surprisingly likable as a hipster scorned, determined to figure out her next move even as her world crumbles around her. (1:45) Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Vogue. (Eddy)

Boyhood Believe the hype: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is one of the best films of the year. It’d be a towering cinematic accomplishment in any year. By now, you’ve heard the set-up, which borrows elements from Linklater’s Before films, as well as his coming-of-age dramas (1993’s Dazed and Confused in particular). He filmed his cast — including titular youth Ellar Coltrane, Lorelai Linklater as his older sister, and Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as his divorced parents, on and off over 12 years — with scenes touching on moments both monumental (high-tension moments with ugly stepfathers) and microscopic (the creation of a perfect campfire s’more). The years flow by, signaled not by any obvious gestures like on-screen text, but by changing hairstyles, pop culture references, and evolving video-game consoles. Watching Coltrane’s Mason grow from arrowhead-obsessed tyke to thoughtful college freshman is a rare and remarkable pleasure; among the more experienced actors, Arquette is particularly moving as a fiercely loving single mom determined to advance in her career despite continual, mountain-sized roadblocks in her personal life. (2:40) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Chef Not to take anything away from the superhero crew, but Chef feels like the closest thing to a labor of love from writer, director, and star Jon Favreau in many a day. As a director, he may have been making doughnuts — fun-filled and teeming with CGI eye candy, but doughnuts nevertheless — when it came to effects-driven blockbusters like 2008’s Iron Man, but this well-meaning play for the heart, by way of the stomach, shows you where Favreau’s head is really at. Chef revolves around Carl Casper (Favreau), a onetime food star, now reduced to serving up predictable crowd-pleasers at the behest of his restaurant’s overbearing owner (Dustin Huffman). It takes the barbs of an influential critic (Oliver Platt) — and an ensuing Twitter war — to set Carl off and send him away on his own, at the coaxing of his glam ex Inez (Sofia Vergara). Hooked up with a dilapidated food truck and former kitchen staffer Martin (John Leguizamo), and aided by ably Tweeting son Percy (Emjay Anthony), Carl ties his dreams — and lost passion — to the classic Cuban sandwich. The ensuing road trip from Miami to LA, and Carl’s journey toward self and a renewed relationship with his son, is a fun (if, in the end, a bit too speedily sketched) vault through the joys of eating your way through America’s new culinary heartland. Amid the volley of sign-of-the-times social-media swinging and cameos by the uncostumed Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and the like, Favreau’s main dish is that a family that eats, cooks, and runs a business together, stays together — child labor laws or no. (1:55) SF Centre, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Chun)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes As usual, a heady hybrid of anticipation and dread accompanies all Planet of Apes installments: you brace yourself for the abused, righteously rebellious apes; the apocalyptic mise-en-scène laden with symbolism; and more overt messaging concerning animal testing, civil rights, and gun control. But why worry? In line with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the PG-13 high-fives go to new Apes director Matt Reeves (2008’s Cloverfield) for sparing us animal kills, gore, and graphic violence, despite its Dawn of the Dead-evoking title. Really, this Dawn is all about the bitterly fought beginnings of a civilization among the primates north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Muir Woods, complete with community building, social structure, and alas, a burgeoning war with the humanoids amid vaguely familiar SF ruins, setting off an epic showdown that challenges not only the oft-repeated commandment “ape shall not kill ape” but takes advantage of our anthropomorphized pals’ ability to swing with the C4 explosions. The viral drug ALZ 113 that led to super-intelligent primates like chimp hero Caesar (motion-captured Andy Serkis) has decimated the human population, leaving the field wide open for enterprising and vengeful creatures like scarred lab survivor Koba (motion-captured Toby Kebbell). Neither quite trusts the band of desperate human survivors — including friendly Jason Clarke, nurturing Keri Russell, and token asshole Kirk Acevedo — that ventures into the apes’ woods to harness the power of nature, namely a dam, to electrify their SF compound. You know what side of the evolutionary span we’re on when the humans seem much more interchangeable than the chimps, and the movie can barely wait to end on its contemporary version of a Touch of Evil (1958) crane shot, as it zooms to an extreme close-up of a certain chimp’s carefully crafted eyes. (2:10) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Edge of Tomorrow Is it OK to root for Tom Cruise again? (The Oprah thing was almost a decade ago, after all.) The entertaining Edge of Tomorrow, crisply directed by Bourne series vet Doug Liman, takes what’s most irritating about Cruise’s persona (he’s so goddamn earnest) and uses it to great advantage, casting him as military PR guru Cage — repping our armed forces on talk shows amid battles with alien invaders dubbed “Mimics” — whose oiliness masks the fact that he’s terrified of actual combat. When he’s forced to fight by a no-nonsense superior (Brendan Gleeson), he’s gruesomely killed, along with nearly every other human soldier. But wait! Thanks to a particularly close encounter with outer-space pixie dust, he awakens, unharmed, to re-live the day, over and over again (yep, shades of a certain Bill Murray comedy classic). Each “reset” offers Cage a chance to work his way closer to changing the course of the war in humanity’s favor, with key help from a badass (Emily Blunt) whose heroics on the battlefield have earned her the nickname “Full Metal Bitch.” Nothing groundbreaking here — but Edge of Tomorrow manages to make its satisfying plot as important as its 3D explosions, which means it automatically rises above what passes for popcorn fun these days. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Fluffy Movie (1:41) Metreon.

Get On Up Say it loud: you want to get on up on this biopic about the rich, complicated life of James Brown, a musical innovator who straddled the worlds of R&B, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, funk, hip-hop, and beyond. At first glance it seems well furnished, with a cast that includes Chadwick Boseman (last year’s 42), True Blood‘s Nelsan Ellis, The Walking Dead‘s Lennie James, Dan Aykroyd, and turns by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer (last united in director Tate Taylor’s 2011 The Help). There’s also a slew of musician cameos (Jill Scott, Aloe Blacc), and even some personally invested oversight by co-producer Mick Jagger — not to mention the music and some vividly recreated live performances that impart some of the Godfather of Soul’s undeniable power and influence. Taylor strives to get it all in, including Brown’s childhood years of poverty and hustle; his meeting with longtime friend and collaborator Bobby Byrd (Ellis); his struggles with the law as well as disgruntled Famous Flames and band members like Maceo Parker (Craig Robinson); and his political statements, wife beating, gun toting, coke smoking, and generally exploding ego. If fitting all that into a little over two hours sounds like a task that would make a ex-Flame break a sweat, it is. And it feels even more effortful when Taylor mixes in scrambled chronology and erratic instances when Boseman’s Brown breaks the fourth wall (engaging moments that contrast with the lead’s at times glazed-eye, ungrounded readings). After taking in this flow-killing editing mishmash, you wish Taylor had settled into the groove of a straightforward narrative, à la 2004’s Ray, rather than leaping around as if directing a nouvelle vague effort on PCP. Lord knows the man’s life — not to mention the tempestuous bromance between Brown and Byrd — was fascinating enough to carry us through. Instead, we’re reduced to contemplating the blank looks and bad wigs that turn the “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” performer into a kind of Golden Girl of Funk. (2:18) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Guardians of the Galaxy The trailer that nearly broke the internet didn’t lie: Guardians of the Galaxy is cheeky, hilarious, eye-popping fun. Its plot may be a predictable anti-hero’s journey, but the saga of Peter “Star-Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt), half-Earthling, half maybe-alien, as he transforms from scavenging scoundrel to rescuer-of-the-universe is so enjoyable nobody seeking a good time at the movies will care. Helping Quill in his battle against baddie Ronan (Lee Pace) are slinky, green-skinned Gamora (Zoe Saldana); rascally raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper); muscle-bound dim bulb Drax (former pro wrestler Dave Bautista); and a tree-like creature named Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel — his best performance in years, if ever, despite the fact that the only words the character ever utters are “I am Groot.”) Director and co-writer James Gunn (2010’s Super), working from a cult comic from the prolific house of Marvel, does a stellar job balancing action and goofiness, with plenty of unexpected touches along the way, including the best use of 1970s soft-rock since Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Cherish (2002). (2:02) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Happy Christmas After 2013’s Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas is the second half-step toward the mainstream for indie filmmaker-actor Joe Swanberg. The reason for that classification is the high-profile cast — with Buddies‘ Anna Kendrick supported by Lena Dunham, Melanie Lynskey, and Mark Webber — as well as studio rather than DIY distribution. However, Happy Christmas is unlikely to widen Swanberg’s appeal; it’s a dreary tale that focuses on a poisonous main character (Kendrick’s Jenny) and offers precious few laughs (except whenever gifted improviser Dunham is onscreen, which isn’t often enough). Recently single Jenny is pushing 30 but still doesn’t have life figured out, so she heaves her drama into the Chicago basement generously offered up by her brother and his wife (Swanberg and Lynskey), parents to a sassy toddler played by Swanberg’s own son. Jenny is breathlessly self-centered and irresponsible, getting blackout drunk, bulldozing her harried sister-in-law’s precious private time, toying with the affections of a family friend (Webber), and learning zip from the consequences of her bad behavior. Re-watch the more dynamic Drinking Buddies instead — or just wait for the highly prolific Swanberg’s next flick. Whatever it is, it’ll be more agreeable than Christmas. (1:22) Roxie. (Eddy)

Hercules Dwayne Johnson is imposingly large indeed as the demigod of fabled strength. Going the Lone Ranger (2013) route of being winky-wink cynical about “the legend” while eventually buying into it anyway, here Herc is really just a 4th-century BC mercenary probably fathered by some random dude (as opposed to god-of-gods Zeus), and who with his merry band of sidekicks goes around fighting against pirates, pillagers, and such. These gigs are taken “for the gold,” but you know this Hercules wouldn’t be down fighting good people on behalf of bad people. When he’s hired to lead the citizens of Lord Cotys (John Hurt) against marauding hordes of alleged centaurs and extreme-wrestling-type beardos with green makeup led by Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann), the plot advances toward the expected training montages and battle sequences. But the plot thickens only when our don’t-call-us-heroes heroes begin to suspect they might have been misled into playing for the wrong team. Relegating a mythology-based tale’s magical aspects to dream sequences and trickery (spoiler: those aren’t real centaurs!), this adaptation of Steve Moore’s graphic novel is way less Clash of the Titans (1981/2010) and much more in the straightforward action realm of Troy (2004) and 300 (2006). It’s big and handsome, like its star, though not so debonair — the pedestrian screenplay doesn’t let him have much fun, while the supporting players allowed to smirk and deliver generally lame quips aren’t much compensation. Directed by Brett Ratner, Hercules is not the campfest of unintentional hilarity some may have hoped for. Neither does it have the content originality or stylistic personality to be memorable. Instead, it’s just pretty decent late-summer entertainment: Probably worth it if you’re craving 98 painless air-conditioned minutes, possibly not if you could really use those 12 bucks or so elsewhere in your life. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Harvey)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (1:42) Metreon.

Land Ho! “Ex-brothers-in-law set off on a road trip through Iceland, hoping to reclaim their youth” — that’s the studio-supplied elevator description that does accurately describe Land Ho!, but the film is about so much more than that. Jocular Mitch (Earl Lynn Nelson) is fond of inappropriate jokes, smoking weed, and pushing boundaries, while more reserved Colin (Paul Eenhoorn of 2013’s This is Martin Bonner) is dealing with a recent divorce after enduring the death of his first wife. A spontaneous trip to Iceland, funded by Mitch (who’s going through a senior-life crisis of sorts), takes the pair to Reykjavik dance clubs, spectacular geysers, hot springs, and lonely rolling moors, all the while bantering about life and love (and getting into more than one stupid argument, as old friends do). Without really innovating on the road-movie genre, writer-directors Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz manage to avoid any cute-geezer clichés (for those interested, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2 comes out next year) in this low-key, personality-driven tale, which aims to please with vintage American-indie charm. (1:35) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Life Itself Paying back the critic who championed his Hoop Dreams 20 years ago, and then some, Steve James’s documentary about the late Roger Ebert is the kind of tribute that sometimes feels like an authorized biographical video played at a testimonial dinner. If he were alive, and it were about someone else, I suspect Ebert himself would be more polite than enthused. It traces his love of newspaperdom from an early age (he started writing for one at age 15); his semi-accidental falling into being the Chicago Sun-Times’ film reviewer in 1967 (a post he’d hold for 46 years); his Pulitzer win; the huge impact of TV’s Sneak Previews, aka At the Movies; his very rocky relationship with co-host Gene Siskel; and his happy first/last marriage at age 50. Ebert was prolific, gregarious, a friend to rising filmmakers (so long as he liked their work, of course), and someone who saw no conflict in being friends with established ones (like Scorsese and Herzog, both interviewed here). But Life Itself — “the only thing he loved more than the movies,” a statement that might strike you as profound or kinda “duh” — assesses his cultural impact as the most popular-movie-critic-probably-ever without really addressing his taste or style. As a result, it has the slightly pat quality of a movie content to admire its subject without digging very deep into the work that defined him. (Nor do the blown-up-video-quality clips from films do justice to his love of that medium.) Instead, the primary focus is on his later struggles with cancer, which took his lower jaw and speech before claiming his life. That stuff is tough to watch. Most entertaining are insights into his long-running ego war with Siskel, who brought out (often on camera) irritable, petty, competitive, and bullying sides to Ebert the public otherwise seldom saw. (1:58) Roxie. (Harvey)

Lucy Eurotrash auteur Luc Besson’s latest is a mostly fun action fantasy about a party girl (Scarlett Johansson) who runs afoul of gangsters in Taipei and ends up with a leaking packet of futuristic drugs sewn into her shapely stomach. Side effects include super strength and supernatural intelligence — insert pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo about tapping into 100 percent of one’s woefully underused brainpower, etc. etc. — which leads to some satisfying scenes in which Johansson’s Lucy flattens a hallway of cops with a single gesture, or filters through every phone conversation in the Paris metro area to find the one guy she needs to eavesdrop on. She’s also able to beam herself into electronic devices, a nifty trick that convinces kindly scientist Morgan Freeman to help download her magnificently advanced intelligence into a kind of living computer (shades of 2013’s Her and Under the Skin, except this time ScarJo’s wearing a really great dress). South Korean weirdo/superstar Choi Min-sik (2003’s Oldboy; 2010’s I Saw the Devil) is an inspired choice to play the vengeful kingpin intent on tracking down his runaway mule, and Besson adds some arty flair via nature-show footage and Cosmos-esque clips from beyond the infinite — though the film’s Big Ideas wobble precariously amid its other, mostly silly elements. (1:29) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Magic in the Moonlight Woody Allen’s latest — after last year’s vodka-drenched Cate Blanchett showcase Blue Jasmine — offers a return to period romance á la 2011 smash Midnight in Paris. Instead of Owen Wilson time-traveling through the artsy 1920s, we get winsome 1920s clairvoyant Sophie (Emma Stone, 25 years old) falling for the skeptic who’s sent to debunk her, played by Colin Firth (who’s 53). Firth’s performance is easily the best part of Magic in the Moonlight; his Stanley Crawford is a theatrical conjurer famed for his yellowface act, in which he solemnly makes elephants disappear. Off-stage, he’s a self-proclaimed genius regarded by most who meet him as a pompous jerkface. When he’s summoned to the South of France to help a longtime friend and fellow magician (Simon McBurney) prove that Sophie — from humble origins, she’s grown fond of high-society living — is hoodwinking the fancy American family that’s taken her in, nothing unfolds as he expects. The whole exercise is lighter than meringue; it’d be passable as lesser Allen except for that obvious, comically huge age gap between the leads. He knows we disapprove, and he does not care. Are you trolling us, Woody? (1:40) Albany, Clay, Piedmont, SF Centre. (Eddy)

Maleficent Fairytale revisionism is all the rage these days, what with the unending power of Disney princesses to latch into little girls everywhere and bring parental units (and their wallets) to their knees. Yet princesses almost seem beside the point in this villain’s-side-of-the-story tale — Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), the queen of the fairies in the magical moors, wronged by Stefan (Sharlto Copley), who saws off her wings in order to win a crown. Accompanied by her shape-shifting minion, crow Diaval (Sam Riley), Maleficent attends the christening of King Stefan’s first-born daughter, Aurora, hot on the heels of three clownish good fairies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple), and delivers a curse that will have this future Sleeping Beauty (Elle Fanning) prick her finger on a spindle and sink into a deathlike coma until her true love’s kiss. Will that critical smooch be delivered by Prince Bieber, er, Phillip (Brenton Thwaites)? Considering the potential for Disney’s trademark, heart-tugging enchantment to get magically tangled up in girl power, it’s tough to suck up the disappointment in the ooey-gooey, gummy-faced troll-doll aesthetics of the art direction and animation, as well as first-time director Robert Stromberg’s choppy, dashed-through storytelling. Part of the problem is that there’s almost zero threat here, despite its antihero’s devilish presence — is there ever any doubt that a healthy resolution will win out, even at the expense of blood ties? Best to find dangerous pleasures where one can — namely in the vivid Jolie, cheekbones honed to a razor edge, who spits biting remarks at her accursed charge, beneath Joan Crawford-esque eyebrows and horns crying out for club-kid Halloween treatments. (1:37) Shattuck. (Chun)

A Most Wanted Man Director Anton Corbijn’s film may not be the greatest John le Carré adaptation in recent years (see: 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), but it’s still a solid thriller, anchored by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s turn as Günther Bachmann, the once-bitten-but-not-yet-shy head of an top-secret branch of Germany’s FBI/CIA equivalent. Its task: spying on Hamburg’s Islamic groups, where the 9/11 attacks were planned, though the enemies that Bachmann faces come mostly from within the greater intelligence community, including his superiors. Never before has the phrase “the Americans have taken an interest” been so chilling, especially to a guy who is just trying to do his job, if only everyone else (including Robin Wright as one of those meddling Americans) would keep their sticky mitts off his delicately planned surveillance operations. There’s a forward-moving plot, of course, about a Chechen-Russian illegal immigrant with a huge inheritance who might be a terrorist (Rachel McAdams plays his human-rights lawyer), but could also serve a greater purpose by helping bring down an even bigger target. And while A Most Wanted Man‘s twists and turns, involving Willem Dafoe as a banker who becomes a reluctant player in Bachmann’s scheme, are suspenseful, Hoffman’s portrayal of a man trapped in a constant maze of frustration — good intentions cut off at every turn, dumping booze into his morning coffee, breaking up a bar fight, ruefully admitting “I am a cave dweller,” visibly haunted by past errors — is the total package, a worthy final entry in a career that ended way too early. (2:02) Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Obvious Child We first encounter the protagonist of writer-director Gillian Robespierre’s funny, original film — a Brooklyn-dwelling twentysomething named Donna (Jenny Slate), who works at a lefty secondhand bookstore and makes regular (if unpaid) appearances at a local comedy night — onstage mining such underdiscussed topics as the effects of vaginal discharge on your garden-variety pair of underwear. This proves a natural segue to other hefty nuggets of embarrassment gold concerning her love life, to the dismay of boyfriend Ryan (Paul Briganti), auditing from the back of the club. He pretty much deserves it, however, for what he’s about to do, which is break up with her in a nasty, well-populated unisex bathroom, taking time to repeatedly glance at the texts coming through on his phone from Donna’s good friend, with whom he’s sleeping. So when Donna, mid-drowning of sorrows, meets a nice-looking fellow named Max (Jake Lacy) at the bar, his post-fraternity-presidency aesthetic seems unlikely to deter her from a one-night stand. The ensuing trashed make-out dance-off in Max’s apartment to the Paul Simon song of the title is both comic and adorable. The fractured recap of the evening’s condom-free horizontal events that occurs inside Donna’s brain three weeks later, as she hunkers down with her best friend, Nellie (Gaby Hoffmann), in the bookstore’s bathroom after peeing on a stick, is equally hilarious — and unwanted-pregnancy jokes aren’t that easy to pull off. Robespierre’s treatment of this extended windup and of Donna’s decision to have an abortion is a witty, warmhearted retort to 2007’s Knocked Up, a couple generations’ worth of Hollywood rom-com writers, and an entertainment industry that continues to perform its sweaty contortions of storytelling in the gutless cause of avoiding the A-word. (1:15) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

Planes: Fire & Rescue What is it about machines with wheels and boys of a certain age? Disney obviously has its peepers on a very specific demographic with this sequel spin-off to Pixar’s Cars franchise — this time with a more heroic, less individualistic fire-fighting twist. The irony of fossil-fuel-guzzling vehicles saving trees is lost on nearly everyone, which tells you about where this entry is pitched: easy, not-too-clever good times with plenty of good-looking, technically on-point, 3D fire-fighting flight scenes. Dusty (voiced by Dane Cook) — the trusty crop duster who achieved his dream of becoming a champion racing aircraft — is back, but this time he must overcome not only a faulty, impossible-to-replace, life-threatening gear box but also train as a fire-fighting aircraft in order to save his hometown airstrip. Dusty’s teacher is gruff fire-and-rescue copter Blade Ranger (Ed Harris), but he also has to dodge the advances of swoony cohort Lil’ Dipper (Julie Bowen) and try to penetrate the mystery yarns intoned by American Indian-styled helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi). And that’s exactly when Fire & Rescue starts to fall apart for me: the multiple facile jabs poked at Windlifter’s mysterious native ruminations reads as borderline offensive, especially for a global conglomerate like Disney that purports to reach out to a “small world,” while the fact that the film’s most prominent female character is portrayed as threateningly stalker-esque keeps everything at a prepubescent girls-are-icky level. Is it too much to ask Planes to grow up a little — or at the very least, match its 21st century computer animation (one prominent exception: the vehicles’ distractingly static massive white windshield-eyes, inert like windows to dead souls) with equally up-to-date values? (1:24) 1000 Van Ness, SF Centre. (Chun)

The Purge: Anarchy You gotta appreciate the foregrounded anti-NRA-and-gun-violence politics of the Purge movies, but Anarchy? Ah, that’s a big promise to deliver on. While the first Purge (2013), a surprise hit, focused on one privileged family and their security system, its sequel tries to broaden and diversify the scope of its urban paranoia, juggling then clumsily dropping multiple characters and story threads. Waitress Eva (Carmen Ejogo) can’t get a break, especially on Purge night, when lawless violence rules the streets in the name of population control. Her father (John Beasley) is dying, and her daughter (Zoe Soul) is enthralled by an online Black Panther-esque prophet (Boardwalk Empire‘s Michael K. Williams), who speaks out against the way an armed poor population is getting killed off during the annual government-sanctioned Purge. Meanwhile a couple on the verge of breaking up, Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez), is caught on the street, their car sabotaged during the deadliest night of the year. When a SWAT-like band of soldiers snatch Eva and Cali from their fortified apartment, they’re fortunate to cross paths with a well-armed mystery man (Frank Grillo), apparently out on a personal purge of his own. Still, in spite of the red herrings, the baddies are clear here — they’re the rich, who can afford to purchase victims to murder in the safety of their own homes — and it doesn’t take long before the narrative breaks down, under the demands of its ambition and a stretched-looking production. Director-cowriter James DeMonaco has courage in his concept — if only his storytelling chops were honed to machete sharpness. (1:44) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Sex Tape Belonging in the category of Hangover-style comedies that supposedly dare to “go there,” while also providing date-night fodder for mom and dad, Sex Tape might have been all about how a cute married couple (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segal) parlays sex tape infamy into reality TV stardom and social-media-drenched branding success of Kim Kardashian proportions. Alas, it’s just about as dim, dated, and unimaginative as a How I Met Your Mother rip-off — meaning that despite the charm of its leads and particularly their married friends, played by Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper, Segal’s sitcom is reliably wittier than this much-ado-about-nothing blowout. Blogger Annie (Diaz) and DJ Jay (Segal) had been falling into a rut as parents who aren’t quite sure they even like the little jerks they are killing themselves to raise, so when they get a rare celebratory night in, they grab the chance to refresh their sex life by drunkenly attempting to document their tries at all the positions in The Joy of Sex. A “Franken-app” sync leads to an inadvertent sex video upload to the cloud and out to every iPad Jay has ever owned and given away — as well as a mildly wild night down the rabbit hole as they attempt to stop the spread of the video. That proves as easy as doing a bump with Annie’s boss (Rob Lowe) and tracking down the server of an online porn peddler (Jack Black), both of which set off Sex Tape‘s few funny moments. Too bad you can’t fast-forward through the rest. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Centre. (Chun)

Snowpiercer Eighteen years after an attempt to reverse global warming has gone wildly awry — freezing all life into extinction — the only known survivors are on a one-of-a-kind perpetual-motion train that circles the Earth annually, has its own self-contained ecosystem, and can smash through whatever ice buildup has blocked its tracks since the last go-round. It’s also a microcosm of civilization’s worst class-economic-racial patterns over history, with the much-abused “tail” passengers living in squalor under the thumb of brutal military police. Unseen at the train’s front is its mysterious inventor, Wilford, whose minions enforce “Eternal Order Prescribed by the Sacred Engine.” Curtis (Chris Evans) is default leader of the proletariat’s latest revolt, in which they attempt to force their way forward though the prison section (where they free Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung as the train’s original lock designer and his psychic daughter) on to the wonders of the first class compartments, and beyond. This first (mostly) English-language feature by South Korean Bong Joon-ho (2006’s The Host, 2009’s Mother), based on a 1982 French graphic novel, starts out as a sort of locomotive, claustrophobic Mad Max (1979) variation. But it gets wilder and more satirical as it goes along, goosed by Tilda Swinton’s grotesquely comic Minister Mason, and Alison Pill as a teacher propagandist in a particularly hilarious set piece. In case the metaphor hasn’t already hit you on the head, one character explains “The train is the world, we the humanity.” But Snowpiercer‘s sociopolitical critique is as effective as it is blunt, because Bong handles everything here — visceral action, absurdist humor, narrative left-turns, neatly etched character archetypes, et al. — with style, confidence, and wit. Some of the FX may not be quite as seamless as it would have been in a $200 million Hollywood studio production, and fanboys will no doubt nitpick like nitwits at various “credibility gaps.” (As if this movie ever asks to be taken literally.) But by current, or any, sci-fi action blockbuster standards, this is a giddily unpredictable, risk-taking joy. (2:07) Metreon. (Harvey)

Transformers: Age of Extinction In Michael Bay’s fourth Transformers installment a villainous Black Ops leader (Kelsey Grammer) allies with a snarky Steve-Jobs-alike (Stanley Tucci) to build Transformers de coeur: designer impostor robot-cars they hope will reinvent the face of war. In IMAX 3D, “TransFOURmers” is packed with relentless rock-’em-sock-’em action, spectacular property destruction, and about as much sense as a bucket of worms. After 60 minutes, you think you’re getting more than your money’s worth. At 90 minutes, you’re tired. At two hours, confusion sets in: If Autobots get stronger together how could Optimus be in so much trouble? Who is the bounty hunting Terminator look-alike? HOW MUCH MORE COULD THERE BE? And then … the action shifts to China, Optimus rides a Dinobot, and chaos reigns. I’ve always liked the working-class poetry of the Transformers themselves — the leader is a trucker and the cast is stacked with ambulances, tanks, and the metal workforce that preserves American lives. If that’s not traditional hero worship, I don’t know what is. But Age of Extinction is the soulless designer imposter it lampoons — the whole sequel-snarking ordeal makes you long for Buzz Lightyear, who saw a thousand Buzz Lightyears on a store shelf and survived that existential crisis heroically — while also riding a dinosaur and fighting Frasier. This Transformers movie (sadly, it won’t be the final one) starts with a thesis: Mark Wahlberg walks through an abandoned movie theater and a Wilford Brimley twin (Ron Shedd) bellows: “Movies today! Sequels! Remakes! Crap!” Age of Extinction follows that moment with nearly three hours of evidence that the cause of extinction is redundancy. (2:30) Metreon. (Vizcarrondo)

22 Jump Street In this TV-inspired sequel, “Previously on 21 Jump Street…” is all the backstory we get. 22 wastes no time sending Officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) back to school to solve another case. A few details have changed (they’re in college now, where the drug of choice is “Why Phy”), but the situation is self-consciously boilerplate, which lets the filmmakers cast (ironic) judgment on sequels — and imply the TV show was redundant. College proves hilarious, from the rundown of dorm room essentials to Schmidt’s walk of shame, and the touchstones are sharp and embarrassing. An extended fight between Schmidt and a girl (Jillian Bell, fabulous) twists gender issues and sexual assault into gloriously absurd politics. Best of all is a fairly understated joke in front of the Benjamin Hill School of Film Studies. I laughed as much at 22 as I did at 21, but 22 spends so much time calling out its number-two status that it almost becomes performance art. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, SF Centre, Shattuck. (Vizcarrondo)

Wish I Was Here More power to the crowd for funding director-cowriter Zach Braff’s follow-up of-sorts to Garden State (2004). His flailing actor and family man Aidan is a slightly older, only slightly wiser, more pretentious, and way more spiritually minded variation on Garden State‘s Andrew, and as with his previous film, Wish I Was Here feels personal, shaggily shambolic, and somewhat oddly shaped for sometimes the right reasons — as when Braff turns the camera on Aidan’s almost impossibly MILF-y wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) and father Saul (Mandy Patinkin) and lets ’em rip like performance thoroughbreds. Aidan himself is a bit misshapen and stunted: he’s been relying on his father to finance the private Hebrew school education of his daughter (Joey King) and son (Pierce Gagnon), until dad breaks the news that he’ll have to stop payments and start funneling his funds toward experimental cancer treatment. Aidan has to give up his somewhat foundering dream of acting and home school the kids, while trying to make peace with his ailing, cantankerous dad and card-carrying-geek brother Noah (Josh Gad). Deep waters, especially for a Peter Pan character like Aidan, and despite a cast of lifesavers à la Kickstarter and Braff’s adept cast, Wish I Was Here never gets to where it wishes to go, beyond its talky attempts to grapple with fatherhood, identity, spirituality, and its hopes to teach one’s children well. Maybe think on it for another decade. (1:46) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun) *

San Francisco’s shame and triumph: remembering the I-Hotel

Erica Hanna

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August 5, 2014

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San Francisco’s shame and triumph: remembering the I-Hotel

San Franciscans today may be tempted to feel we’re unique in our struggles with evictions and displacement, but one need not look far back to see rental struggles woven into our history. Yesterday the Manilatown Heritage Foundation celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the International Hotel, a mass eviction etched in the psyche of San Francisco.

The International Hotel, on Kearny street, was home to Filipino and some Chinese seniors, the last vestige of the Filipino community known as Manilatown. In 1968, the I-Hotel’s 196 tenants were served an eviction notice: the hotel was to come down, and a parking garage to come up. Much like today, the tenants fought back and resisted eviction, a years-long battle that lasted until August 4, 1977. After the sun went down, the police stormed the I-Hotel.

“That night was like electricity,” Peter Yamamoto told us, shortly after the anniversary’s celebration at the heritage foundation. Yamamoto was 23 when he was evicted along with the seniors of the I-Hotel. He stood in the third floor of the hallway, and watched the then-head of the local YMCA “get manhandled by cops,” he said. Outside, nearly 3,000 protesters linked arms to form a barricade, hoping to stop the police. In an era before Facebook events, Twitter, and cell phones, these protesters were called to action by a “phone tree” and simple word of mouth.

“We were out there to fight there for the old men,” Yamamoto said. “It was a simple thing.”

The fear of retatliation from police was real, he told us. “We stayed in the rooms with the old men to make sure they weren’t harmed,” he said. “The adrenaline level was incredible, but the old men were cool as ice. There were thousands of people outside ringing the block. The cops charged and charged.”

Even Mayor Ed Lee was on hand at the time. He was then an attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, and in his recent state-of-the-city speech he recalled the night everything ended.

“As Reverend Norman Fong, Gordon Chin, Jeff and Sandy Mori and so many others will remember, we stood together to stop the wrongful eviction of hundreds of our seniors and immigrants from the International Hotel,” he said. “One summer night, while the rest of the City slept, an army of riot police, many on horseback, marched on the I-Hotel. In defiance, some 3,000 of us banded together and surrounded the building, singing ‘We Shall Overcome.'”

The tenants were ousted. Yamamoto said some of the evicted seniors died shortly after, “of broken hearts.” The I-Hotel struggle lost, temporarily.

I-Hotel

A sign at the Manila Heritage Foundation ties the I-Hotel’s tenant struggle to today’s eviction crisis. Examiner photo by Jessica Christian

But that’s not the end of the story. Three decades later the Manila Heritage Foundation and 100 or so affordable housing units were constructed, and the I-Hotel was born anew. It owes its existence to Bill Sorro, a San Francisco native and activist in the Filipino community who fought against the closure of the I-Hotel, and then to later revive it. Sorro died in 2007, survived by his wife Giuliana Milanese and his six adult children.

After the anniversary celebration, Milanese recalled happier times at the I-Hotel.

“Let me tell you one story that brings joy to me,” she said. “We had a community kitchen and we had one guy from Albania and one guy from Italy cooking. All the Italians and the Filipinos held their nose because it was so bad from the smell of the food!” she recalled, laughing as she thought of the seniors that were her and Sroro’s chosen family.

The couple loved the place so much, they even married there. “We had two big cakes,” Milanese said, “one said Makibaka, ‘power of the people,’ and mine was Italian. I’m a lefty Italian!”

While speaking to the Guardian, Milanese was modest, but she is a political force in San Francisco in her own right. She’s on the board of directors of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, which just had a major victory in calling for the San Francisco Unified School District to curb suspensions, which they contest harms academic achievement. She also works with Jobs with Justice, who fought for the California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.

A shrine to Sorro now stands at the Manila Heritage Foundation, which Milanese said brings her “tremendous joy.”

And much as Milanese fights for working class and vulnerable San Franciscans, the struggle for the tenants of the I-Hotel spawned many of the rental protections San Franciscans enjoy now, including rent control. But as Supervisor Eric Mar pointed out just after the anniversary, many of those tenant struggles still carry on.

Mar told the Guardian: “As we organize our communities to pass Proposition G – our Stop the Flip Anti-Speculator Tax – commemorations like the 37th Anniversary of the fall of the I-Hotel help us remember that we stand on the shoulders of those that came and struggled before us. The spirit of the manongs, of the I-Hotel and Supervisor Harvey Milk… guides us in our struggle against greed and the speculators who are threatening to destroy the characters of our communities.”

The uncle of San Francisco activist and poet Tony Robles, Al Robles, who has since died, penned a poem called The Wandering Manong, in the book Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark:

I made it to Manilatown

the people here can name every fish back home

they sang songs all night

waiting so long for the International Hotel

I dreamt of a place to gather with them

surrounded with trees and rivers

who could have caused the manongs so much pain?

I remember the rains running down their faces

writing down all their stories.

Locals only: Outside Lands edition

Steven T. Jones

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August 5, 2014

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esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL Can you smell it in the air? It’s that late-summer, chilled pinot grigio-tipsy, organic ice cream-sticky scent of Outside Lands, just around the corner.

Yes, it’s that time in our fair city’s annual trip around the sun when we get the chance to show Austin and Indio and those warm summer New York nights exactly what we here in San Francisco are made of when it comes to music festivals: Namely, expensive, gourmet food, wine, and beer stands, a commitment to slapping the word “green” in front of everything; and a beautiful, natural outdoor venue in which, should you forget to bring three extra layers in an oversized bag, you will absolutely freeze your ass off by nightfall.

All snark aside, one thing I’ve always appreciated about OSL in its six short summers is that, nestled amongst the sometimes overwhelmingly corporate feel of the thing — something that was maybe inevitable, as Another Planet Entertainment grew from little-promoter-offshoot-that-could into perhaps the most influential promotions company in the Bay Area music biz — is a commitment to bringing local bands along for the ride whenever possible.

Sure, everyone’s excited to see Kanye. I’m excited to see Kanye. Anyone who’s going to see Kanye and tries to say anything more intellectual about it than “I’m really fucking amused in advance and very excited to see Kanye” is lying. But nothing fills me with more hometown pride than watching a band I’ve been rooting for since they were playing living rooms or parklets take the stage in Golden Gate Park in front of thousands of paying, attentive potential new fans.

With that in mind, here’s your guide to a few of our favorite local folks representing the Bay Area at this year’s fest. Show up for ’em. In most cases, they’ve been working toward this for a long time. And if you don’t have the funds to make it to this year’s OSL? Lucky for us — unlike Kanye — these kids play around the Bay all year round.

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers

The unofficial queen of Bay Area alt-folk has had a good year since August 2013, when her band’s debut LP took to the airwaves and then to the national stage, with Bluhm’s killer vocals and long, tall mishmash of Stevie/Janis appeal at the helm. Fri/8 at 4pm, Sutro Stage

Tycho

SF’s own Scott Hansen has also been riding high this year, since the release of Awake in March propelled him from bedroom artist to something else entirely with its lush, ambitious landscapes of color and sound. We still think we prefer him in headphones to outdoor festival-style, but we’ll take it. Sat/9 at 3:40pm, Twin Peaks Stage

Mikal Cronin

If you don’t know his solo stuff (and you should; last year’s MCII was one of the best local records of the year), you probably know him as Ty Segall’s right-hand man. Either way, Cronin is one of the most authentic voices in the Bay Area’s indie scene right now, with just enough power-pop sweetness and strings coloring even his scratchiest garage-punk anthems. Fri/8 at 4:30pm, Panhandle Stage

Christopher Owens

Did you love Girls (the SF indie powerhouse, RIP, not the HBO show)? Of course you did. Did you love Christopher Owens’ solo debut, Lysandre? We did too. He’s giving us another one in September; now’s your chance for a sneak preview of some likely highly emotional and lushly orchestrated songs. Sat/9 at 2:30, Sutro Stage

Watsky

This 27-year-old rapper and SF University High School graduate has been gaining attention with his whiplash-inducing flow, which he honed in his teens as a slam poetry champion. His most recent album, June’s All You Can Do, is poised to take him from Internet and Ellen-famous to just famous-famous. Sun/10, 2pm, Twin Peaks Stage

Trails & Ways

Bossa nova dream pop, Brazilian shoegaze, whatever you call it: This Oakland quartet (and Bay Guardian Band on the Rise from 2012) draws inspiration from all over the globe for its undeniably catchy, never predictable, harmony-drenched melodies. Sat/9 at 12:40pm, Twin Peaks Stage

Beso Negro

“This is not your father’s gypsy jazz,” warns Beso Negro’s bio, which — while we’re pretty sure our dad doesn’t have a kind of gypsy jazz — does a pretty good job of explaining the modern sounds infused into this Fairfax five-piece’s musical vocabulary. Hell Brew Revue Stage, all three days, check the website for details

Tumbleweed Wanderers

As if we didn’t have a big enough soft spot for this East Bay alt-soul-folk outfit already, there’s the fact that they got their start busking outside of festivals for their first few years — including Outside Lands. Seeing them on the inside will be sweet. Sat/9 at noon, Sutro Stage

El Radio Fantastique

With horns, theremin, and just about every kind of percussion you can think of, this Point Reyes-based eight-piece is a mish-mash of everything dark and dancey and nerdy and weird, describing themselves as “part rumba band in purgatory, part cinematic chamber group, part shipwrecked serenade.” Serious cult following here. Hell Brew Revue Stage, all three days

Slim Jenkins

Sultry, jazzy, rootsy — we’re excited to see what this mainstay of “voodoo blues” nights at small rooms like Amnesia can do on a bigger stage. Hell Brew Revue Stage, all three days

Marty O’Reilly & the Old Soul Orchestra

O’Reilly, a singer-songwriter who’s clearly done his Delta roots, gospel, and traditional folk homework, played OSL last year — well before putting out a debut studio album, the aptly titled Pray For Rain, in March of this year. This is a three-piece with arrangements that make the band seem much bigger. Hell Brew Revue Stage, all three days

Get read

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

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marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO My unholy trinity of nightlife bibles: Deck Hebdige’s essential Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Zeshu Takamura’s gorgeously illustrated Roots of Street Style, and — along with anything by Brit crit Simon Reynolds — the surprisingly poetic history of disc jockeying, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton.

2007’s Last Night just got a nice paperback reissue (revised and updated to fit our re-edit times) from Grove Press, the discovery of which occasioned a skip through some other recent, great-looking books on music and nightlife. For vinyl-lovers, scrumptious coffee table tome Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting by Elion Paz offers portraits of flat plastic obsessives, while Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records by Amanda Petrusich gets really deep (as in, she goes scuba-diving looking for 78s) about antiquated slabs.

For those on the button-pushing side, Playing with Something That Runs: Technology, Improvisation, and Composition in DJ and Laptop Performance by Mark J. Butler goes full bore into analyzing what really goes on up there behind the glowing apple. Another nightlife bible, 1994’s Street Style — anthropologist-photographer Ted Polhemus’s survey of 40 years of subcultural expression — recently got a nice reissue. And, timely with all the Bay Area peeps still heading there, editor Geoff Stahl’s Poor But Sexy: Reflections on Berlin Scenes looks at everything from that burg’s burgeoning Turkish gay underground to its kooky, folky Russendisko movement. The more you know!

BENEFIT FOR IAVA

Celebrated local dirtybirdie basshead Justin Martin headlines, Thievery Corporation’s Rob Garza joins in (with Shiny Objects and Disco Knights) for this benefit for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America advocacy group. Healing through music, friends.

Thu/7, 9pm-3am, $15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St, SF. www.monarchsf.com

BEATS. BALLS. BOYS.

Gay-friendly rugby champions SF Fog are raising funds to go to the big Bingham Cup in Australia. How? Sexily, of course! With DJs Jason Kendig and Robert Jeffrey, photos by Shot in the City, and a bunch of hulking, sweaty mens.

Fri/8, 10pm, $10-$15. Beatbox, 314 11th St, SF. Facebook invite

BEATS FOR PEACE

This benefit, drawing together a huge number of young Bay rave players, is raising money to help out techno DJ Trevor Mills, who suffered a spinal stroke in May — and it’s dedicated to the memory of bass DJ Foobz, who passed away in his sleep last month.

Fri/8, 9pm-4am, $15–$20. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com

BREACH

Far-too-catchy single “Jack” propelled this producer onto the British charts: He’ll be propelling Mezzanine into a frenzy — with Irish techno ace Shit Robot — at the Lights Down Low crew’s Outside Lands afterparty.

Fri/8, 9pm-3am, $10–$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

The cute gay techno label finally steps out, with a sparkly showcase sure to draw not just the homo fellas but the curious as well. DJs Jeno of Wicked, wonderfully obsessive record collector Carlos Souffront, and disco–edit darling Gay Marvine (newly relocated from Detroit) provide the payoff.

Sat/9, 10pm-4am, $10–$12. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com

GREEN VELVET

The lineup for this one is whackadoodle: longtime rave-fave Scumfrog, breakbeat hero DJ Icey, hipster duo Gorgon City — all leading up to Chicago’s biggest techno freak, Green Velvet. (Certainly a harbinger of Burning Man’s return.) Cameras ready, prepare to flash.

Sat/9, 10pm-4am, $20–$25. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

RED HOT RHYTHM REVUE

Swing, swing, swing! An energetic night of old-timey dancing, with music from the Hot Baked Goods (har), dancing girls from the Sweet Sixteen, swing lessons, cabaret performances, more.

Sat/9,7:30pm-1:30am, $10–$15. Balancoire, 2565 Mission, SF. www.redhotrhythmrevue.com

CAJMERE

A double-dose of Green Velvet, as his actually legendary house alter-ego Cajmere takes to the decks. Still freaky, still deaky, but now with “Brighter Days.”

Sun/10, 9:30pm, $20–$25. Audio, 316 11th St, SF. www.audiosf.com

MOM ON MARS

A weekly sunny Sunday patio bunch with full bar, food from Soul Groove, and tunes from the incredible Motown on Mondays crew at Mars Bar. What more do you need?

Sundays, 11:30am-3:30pm. Mars Bar, 798 Brannan, SF. www.facebook.com/marsbarsf

Time for change

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

10

news@sfbg.com

Christy Price doesn’t want to work forever. At 60, the security guard has worked in formula retail stores for 25 years. She says she has trouble making a living due to cuts in her work schedule, a setback that could prevent her from retiring for the foreseeable future.

Price, who has been with her current company for a decade, works at various retailers her company contracts with. Her shift from full- to part-time work is typical for employees of formula retailers in the city, many of whom are half Price’s age and attempting to support families or make their way through college.

“I’m more or less in the same predicament as [the retail workers], in terms of hours,” Price said. “It’s scary, and it’s awful sad. You’ve got people who want to work and contribute, but they aren’t given the opportunity.”

Sup. Eric Mar’s recently proposed Retail Workers Bill of Rights aims to change that. Unveiled at a July 29 press conference at San Francisco City Hall, the legislation seeks to boost prospects for retail workers “held hostage by on-call scheduling, diminished hours and discriminatory treatment by employers,” according to a statement issued by Mar’s office. There are also plans to expand the legislation to include employees of formula retail contractors, like Price.

“We’re here today because raising the minimum wage isn’t enough,” Jobs with Justice Retail Campaign Organizer Michelle Lim said at the press conference. That same day, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to place a measure on the November ballot to raise the San Francisco minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.

The current trend is for retail employers to hire part-time workers, spreading the hours thin and requiring employees to be on call for many more hours of work than they actually receive. That creates unpredictable schedules, making it difficult for workers to pay the bills.

Having stable work hours makes it possible for formula retail employees to plan for other parts of their lives, like earning college degrees, spending time with family or working other jobs — which is often a necessity for lower wage workers. Plus, as Price notes, companies with too many part-time employees aren’t getting the most out of their workers.

“If you keep undercutting them and cutting their hours, you’re not going to get the customer service that you’re looking for,” Price said. “You’re going to get what you pay for. You do need that skill; some people can do it, some people can’t.”

At the press conference, Mar was joined by fellow lead sponsor Board President David Chiu and co-sponsor Sup. John Avalos, along with speakers from local labor advocacy groups and a host of current and former formula retail workers.

As Lim explained, the proposed Bill of Rights package has four provisions. The first calls for “promoting full-time work and access to hours.” It would require formula retail employers to offer additional hours of work to current part-time employees, before hiring additional part-timers.

That would help prevent situations like those mentioned by retail employees speaking at the press conference. One Gap employee noted that part-time workers are often expected to commit to up to 30 hours of availability a week, yet would only be offered as little as 10 hours, despite being required to remain on call.

Another formula retail employee, Brian Quick, had a particularly rough experience while working for Old Navy at the clothing retailer’s flagship store. Having worked in retail for four years, he said his schedule for the upcoming week would come out on Thursday night, and the hours constantly fluctuated.

“It’s hard to plan anything such as doctor appointments when you aren’t even sure when you work,” Quick said. “Some weeks I would work 35 hours, and the next I’d get 15 hours. How am I supposed to pay bills?”

Last-minute notices became routine for Quick, who sometimes received calls informing him he didn’t have a shift anymore the night before he was scheduled to work.

“One day I came into work and they cut my hours right then and there,” Quick said. “Seems like everything is based on sales and not the well-being of the people who make the sales happen.”

Quick had other troubling experiences while working for Old Navy, including when he was denied Christmas vacation despite applying for it three months in advance. He eventually got the time off, but only through persistence and “the last-minute intervention of a sympathetic manager.”

“We know that consistent and reliable scheduling is important to our employees,” said Laura Wilkinson, a spokesperson for Gap Inc. “We are exploring ways to increase scheduling stability and flexibility across our fleet of stores. For example, last month we announced a pilot project with Professor Joan Williams of [University of California] Hastings College of Law to examine workplace scheduling and productivity.”

Gap Inc., the corporation that owns Old Navy, could be at the forefront of improving conditions, but the legislation’s supporters aren’t counting on retailers to make the necessary changes.

Instances like Quick’s are common in formula retail all over the country. Many retail employees, including some of Quick’s co-workers, must support families despite the unpredictable hours and low wages.

The second provision of the Retail Workers Bill of Rights attempts to fix that. It calls for “discouraging abusive on call practices” and aims to “encourage fair, predictable schedules.” Specifically, that would entail employers posting core schedules in advance with reasonable notice and providing premium pay “when an employer requires an employee to be ‘on-call’ for a specific shift, or cancels a shift with less than 24 hours notice.”

The third provision looks to improve conditions for part-time workers, calling for “equal treatment.” That means prohibiting employers from discriminating against employees “with respect to their rate of pay,” among other things like promotion opportunities and paid or unpaid time off.

It also addresses a chief concern for many part-time workers: ensuring that employees unable to maintain “open availability,” or being available at any time for a shift, are not denied employment. That’s especially significant for students and parents who have to balance their lives outside the retail industry with its demanding work hours.

“These policies, I feel, will have a huge impact on the lives of tens of thousands of our services workers, many of them low-wage workers who live with uncertainty and fear about their schedules and their other responsibilities in life,” Mar said as he introduced the legislation.

“Many of my family members and close friends are in that category, [along with] single moms, students in college and others that really deserve fair scheduling and a fair chance at economic justice.”

The final provision seeks to protect workers’ job security when their companies are bought or sold, requiring a 90-day trial period for existing employees if a formula retail business is acquired. This is meant to prevent companies from simply forcing out previous employees, allowing the workers a grace period to search for new work.

The legislation would impact an estimated 100,000 workers at approximately 1,250 stores across San Francisco. Those that qualify as formula retail businesses under city law include fast food businesses, restaurants, hotels and banks, and they must meet requirements in Section 703.3 of the San Francisco Planning Code.

In short, the law will apply to businesses considered to be chain stores, such as Target, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wells Fargo and other major companies doing business throughout the city.

But the Retail Workers Bill of Rights’ supporters believe its impact will be felt beyond San Francisco, citing the city’s history of starting nationwide movements.

“San Francisco has always led the way when it comes to policies that protect working people,” Lim said. “The Retail Workers Bill of Rights is a commonsense proposal to bring stability to some of our city’s most marginalized workers.”

The supervisors sponsoring the ordinance have received plenty of help from Lim and Jobs with Justice San Francisco, a worker’s rights organization that has played an integral role in the city’s fight to improve labor conditions.

In 2013, Jobs with Justice mobilized labor support for the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, legislation not unlike Mar’s proposed legislation. In September 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Domestic Workers Bill into law, making California the nation’s first state to mandate overtime pay for domestic employees, specifically designating time-and-a-half pay for those working more than 45 hours a week or nine hours a day.

Even more support has come from the San Francisco Labor Council, Service Employees International Union Local 87 and Young Workers United, among many others, all of which have endorsed the legislation.

The proposal will come back into play in September, when the board returns from its summer recess. The process will start with public hearings, at which Mar said he looks forward to “really lively public conversation.”

That will give workers like Julissa Hernandez, a Safeway employee for 13 years and a veteran of the retail system, a chance to have their voices heard.

Speaking at the City Hall press conference, Hernandez said, “We should let retail workers know that they are not alone in this fight.”

Guardian Intelligence: August 6 – 12, 2014

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

0

GOOD VIBES

Jerry Day, when deadheads spanning generations congregate around the Bay Area to celebrate the legacy of SF native Jerry Garcia, should maybe start going by Jerry Week: Friday, Aug. 1 saw sold-out crowds at Berkeley’s Greek Theater and San Rafael’s Terrapin Crossroads for performances led by Warren Haynes and Stu Allen, respectively, while the official 12th annual Jerry Day celebration on Aug. 3 brought the masses to the city for Melvin Seals & the JGB and tons more at McLaren Park. Missed ’em? Don’t worry: Aug. 12 is Jerry Garcia Tribute Night at AT&T Park.

AIRBNB’S GAFFE-STROTURF?

Last week, Airbnb sent out an email blast proclaiming: “Big News: Launching Fair to Share San Fransisco!” [sic]. Misspellings happen, and hey, we all make mistakes. But what is Fair to Share? It’s “working for fair rules for home sharing,” according to the blast, linking to an online petition “urging the Board of Supervisors and San Francisco leaders to enact rules that let people share the home in which they live.” More to the point, this “coalition” seems focused on weakening enforcement provisions in legislation moving forward to regulate short-term rentals. So there you have it, SF’s newest grassroots movement — backed by a company valued at $10 billion.

SENIORS VERSUS SHUTTLES

Octogenarians unite! On the first day of the tech shuttle pilot program, last Friday a group of 25 or so seniors and people with disabilities blocked two Mission tech shuttles from making their morning tech sojourn to Silicon Valley. “Stop the senior evictions!” they shouted, alleging that 70 percent of no-fault evictions since 2011 were within four blocks of the shuttle stops, and two thirds of those evictions were of seniors. The 30-something tech workers looked ignored their elders, smartphones in hand, safely ensconced in their corporate buses.

REMEMBERING THE I-HOTEL

Nearly four decades ago, thousands of San Franciscans blockaded sheriffs from evicting seniors from the International Hotel, the last vestige of the Filipino community known as Manilatown. Eventually the sheriffs were successful, but the shameful displacement helped spur many San Francisco rental protections we enjoy today. Last week, the International Hotel Manilatown Center honored the anniversary of this dark mark on the city’s history. “We fought as long as we could,” Peter Yamamoto told us, who was 23 when he fought the evictions so long ago. “That night was like electricity.”

ON A HIGH NOTE

The San Francisco Opera kicks off its 92nd season Sept. 4 with a new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, starring soprano Sondra Radvonovsky, pictured, as the Druid priestess who falls in love a Roman soldier (spoiler: it doesn’t end well). The fall season — which also includes the work that started it all for SF Opera back in 1923, Puccini’s La Bohème, in November — continues Sept. 6 with the opening of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, with another stellar soprano, Patricia Pacette, playing the falsely accused Appalachian heroine. Opening weekend also includes the ever-popular “Opera in the Park” Sept. 7 in Sharon Meadow, for those who prefer their arias free and open-air. www.sfopera.com. PHOTO BY MARTY SOHL

WEINER TAKES ALL

Did you hear the pitter-patter of little feet over the weekend? If it wasn’t your child (or your pesky biological clock playing tricks on you), it was most likely the Wienerschnitzel Wiener Dog Race Nationals — the Bay Area regionals portion of which drew hundreds to the Santa Clara County Fair. They scampered! They leapt! The totally got distracted and lost interest in that cute little wiener dog way! Who put the most “dash” in “dachshund”? Why, Wally the Wiener of Gilroy, who took home $250 and a trip to San Diego for the national races.

HEY, SUGAR DADDY

We’re normally weirded out by pop culture-food trend tie-ins, but when Tout Sweet Patisserie (Macy’s Union Square, 170 O’Farrell St., 3rd Fl, www.toutsweetsf.com) chef Yigit Pura announced the launch of the “Hedwig Schmidt” macaron — in honor of beloved Tony-sweeper Hedwig and the Angy Inch — we totally bit. Bourbon-orange marmalade ganache with a brandied cherry center, covered in edible red glitter? Danke, mister!

IRON MAN: APP DEVELOPER?

Because San Francisco doesn’t have enough tech CEO megalomaniacs, Marvel Comics had to fictionalize one: Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is headed to the city by the bay. Okay, not actually (sorry fellow geeks, Iron Man is fictional), but in the comic book world, the Manhattan-based metallic hero will develop apps by day, and rocket about in his new all white, iPod-esque armor by night. But why not an everyman superhero, like say, Spiderman? Remember, Peter Parker is a photographer: He’d probably move to Oakland.

Arguments against minimum wage increase are out of touch

Michael Redmond

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August 5, 2014

8

EDITORIAL

“Will the SF minimum wage hike kill our restaurants?” Zagat SF tweeted last week.

No, Chicken Little, it won’t. Not even if you tweet it.

Two days earlier, the Board of Supervisors had unanimously approved a measure for the November ballot to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018, up from where it stands at $10.74.

Zagat may be fine for restaurant reviews, but this attack on raising the minimum wage — which parroted fearmongering about high-priced burgers and relied heavily on a narrative served up by a powerful business lobby, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association — was enough to cause heartburn.

And it’s only one example of the backlash directed at low-wage workers since the bid to boost the minimum wage has picked up steam. A now-infamous billboard that popped up in SOMA, funded by conservative lobbying group Employment Policies Institute, taunted minimum-wage workers by claiming they would be replaced with iPads if they didn’t give up the fight for higher pay.

The proposed minimum wage increase, actually a compromise that turned out weaker than an initial proposal spearheaded by a progressive coalition that would have delivered $15 an hour a year earlier, is backed by business-friendly Mayor Ed Lee. Even the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has expressed support for it. Still, some conservative interests seem bent on ensuring that minimum-wage workers never achieve living-wage status — demonstrating how out of touch these naysayers are.

Once better known for its rich labor history and track record of holding employers accountable for wage theft and discriminatory practices, San Francisco is better known these days as one of the nation’s highest-ranking cities for income inequality.

Scraping by at a minimum wage job translates to a stressful existence. Even if minimum-wage earners were currently earning $31,000 a year, the amount a full-time $15-an-hour job would bring in before taxes, it wouldn’t begin to stretch far enough to rent a market-rate apartment. Earlier this year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition pointed out that a renter’s got to earn at least $29.83 an hour — or $62,046 annually — to afford a San Francisco one-bedroom at market rate.

Meanwhile, those spouting doomsday scenarios over a higher minimum wage seem blind to the fact that the city is regularly populated with hordes of tourists and well-compensated San Francisco professionals with a penchant for fine food, even if it’s pricey.

Just for a sense of how much cash is pumping through the local economy, the San Francisco Center for Economic Development reports that San Francisco claimed 40 percent of all venture capital investment in the Bay Area last year, with nearly $5 billion in VC funding invested in 2013. Meanwhile, 16.5 million visitors flocked to the Bay Area last year — can anyone really claim with a straight face that a higher minimum wage for restaurant workers will prevent this army of tourists from chowing down at local restaurants?

Instead of having a debate about whether we ought to raise the minimum wage, a better conversation would focus on the consequences of allowing the city’s sharp inequality to continue unchecked.

PROMO: San Francisco Street Food Festival

Natalia Robyns-Kresich

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August 4, 2014

0

La Cocina’s San Francisco Street Food Festival on Saturday, August 16th, is a celebration of community, culture and entrepreneurial spirit. Where micro-entrepreneurs and informal food vendors cook next to James Beard Award winners and Michelin-starred chefs. Where every block is a barbacoa to bhelpuri to banh mi exploration of flavor (although probably not all at once), all on the same street, and all at the same price. Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, the festival showcases the best of the Bay Area’s local food entrepreneurs and restaurants. The event is hosted by La Cocina, a non-profit kitchen working to formalize food businesses for low-income and immigrant food entrepreneurs. Visit sfstreetfoodfest.com for more information and purchase a passport for extra drink tokens and savings on 8/16!

Happy Hour: The week in music

Steven T. Jones

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August 1, 2014

9

Happy Friday, friends, and welcome to August. We’re only about a month away from summer weather!

As happy hour draws closer, here’s a look back at the best music and music news we heard and saw this past week:

— Sharon Van Etten shone in a free, intimate (though packed-to-the-gills), Pandora-presented evening at The Chapel on Tuesday night [July 29]. “I wrote this song while living in my parents’ basement…I was 26,” she said with a laugh in her voice. “How many of you have ever tried to move back in with your parents’ when you were in your twenties?” [Loud whooping from most of the room.]

“I think that just usually means you’re trying to figure out who you are, that you’re still finding your path, you know?” she continued. “I mean, if you really knew who you were by the time you were 20, fuck you. No, sorry, that’s great. Anyway, this song is about trying to get your shit together.” Millennial anthem for the ages?

— New for this year at Outside Lands: an entire stage devoted to food events, called “GastroMagic.” Some of said events are paired somewhat hilariously with accompanying musical acts, like the “Beignets & Bounce Brunch with Big Freedia and Brenda’s French Soul Food,” in which audience members who answer the Queen of Bounce’s call to twerk will be “awarded with beignets.” No word on the distribution method, exactly, but we pictured t-shirt cannons?

freedia

— This NPR piece on why band photos look the way they do is relevant to our interests. Specifically, if any banjo-laden alt-country/Americana band ever sends us an EPK that includes a photo shoot in an alley full of burning crash cans, we will run it.

— Speaking of Americana: This is a fun piece from the Bay Bridged about the boys of Goodnight, Texas, who make it work despite being in what amounts to a four-way long-distance relationship. Are there Cosmo tips for that yet? Get with it, lady mags. Anyway, GN,TX’s new album Uncle John Farquhar drops Aug. 5, and it’s rather good.

— Here’s a smart essay at Ebony about the shitstorm that ensued this week from Nicki Minaj’s new album, um, art for Anaconda.

— Like much of the music-related Internet, we too got obsessed with a little-known Canadian singer-songwriter named Tobias Jesso Jr., who by all appearances is a young reincarnation of Harry Nilsson mixed with shades of Joe Jackson and who hasn’t even put out an album yet, but damn does he need to hurry up (quick, while Stereogum, Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, your local PTA president, etc., are addicted to this song):

— Hardly Strictly Bluegrass keeps dropping hints about this year’s lineup. Listen here and tell us your guesses.

— Andrew Bird is a self-deprecating sweetheart in addition to being very good at songwriting and whistling, as you can see in this SFist interview, and he’s playing Stern Grove for free this Sunday at 2pm.

— Mastodong.

This Week’s Picks: July 30 – August 5, 2014

Michael Redmond

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July 29, 2014

0

WEDNESDAY 30

The Budos Band

If you ever hear someone say they find instrumental music boring, all you need to do is point them in the direction of the Budos Band, a 10- to 13-member (depending on the year) Afro-soul group that collectively, with its energetic meanderings through jazz and deep-pocket funk with just the right smattering of pop sweetness, commands more attention on stage than many a lead singer I’ve seen. Daptone Records labelmate Sharon Jones is having a banner year — and with the Budos’ first album since 2010, Burnt Offering, due out Oct. 21, we imagine the record company is too. Head to the Independent prepared to get sweaty. (Emma Silvers)

8pm, $25

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

THURSDAY 31

Matthew Curry

Matthew Curry may only be 19, but the burgeoning blues guitarist has already had a career that many musicians spend their entire lives trying to accumulate. The Normal, Illinois native recently came off of a summer tour with Bay Area legends the Steve Miller Band and has already released an acclaimed album made up entirely of originals. His music isn’t just Stevie Ray Vaughan rehashing either — his first disk, Electric Religion, is made up of tracks that explore dynamics, confessional lyricism, and modern production. “Bad Bad Day,” an almost seven-minute jam with prolonged solos by all members of the band, is exhilarating: When Curry comes in on vocals four minutes in, he sounds like a gruff and aged Southern bluesman of the ’50s; he’s that throwback and that mature. Along with his band, The Fury (which is made up of equally talented players who are, on average, about twice Curry’s age), the group is in the midst of a cross-country odyssey that sees them opening for the Doobie Brothers and Peter Frampton. Yoshi’s will provide a break from larger venues and a chance to see Curry’s intricate guitar work up close. (David Kurlander)

8pm, $12-14

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

Pretty In Ink

Featuring highlights from the personal archives of comics historian Trina Robbins, Pretty In Ink (Fantagraphic Books) looks at the work of some of the top women cartoonists from the early 20th century, including Ethel Hays, Edwina Dumm, Nell Brinkley, and Ramona Fradon. An exhibit of the same name is currently on display at the Cartoon Art Museum, with original artwork, photographs, and other rare items featuring characters such as Miss Fury and Flapper Fanny — don’t miss your chance to head down tonight for a reception and party celebrating both, where Robbins will be on hand to autograph the toon-filled tome. (Sean McCourt)

6-8pm, free

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) CAR-TOON

www.cartoonart.org

FRIDAY 1

Omar Souleyman

Though Syrian singer Omar Souleyman’s been performing for two decades and allegedly has over 500 releases to his name, you may not have heard of him until recently. Formerly a regular performer at weddings in Syria, Souleyman performs dabke music, meant to accompany the traditional line dance of the same name. Wild videos of these dances and performances found their way onto YouTube and attracted the attention of Seattle label Sublime Frequencies, which released several compilations of his work and brought him to the attention of the world’s music cognoscenti. A Four Tet-produced album and a few inexplicable Bjork remixes later, he’s become something of an underground star, performing for audiences across the world — including in San Francisco, where he’s set to most likely fill The Independent tonight. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

Xiu Xiu

Twelve albums and 15 years in, Xiu Xiu remains one of the most fearless and uncompromising bands in the American rock underground. Bandleader and songwriter Jamie Stewart speaks to the part of the brain that craves the twisted and taboo, but doesn’t dare make itself known. At best, he’s like that friend you can talk to about just about anything; at worst, he’s like your own fears, screaming in your ears and telling you everything you’re thinking is sick and wrong. Approaching Xiu Xiu’s music takes mental preparation and a certain mindset. But if you think you’re ready, put on one of their records (I’d recommend Knife Play or Fabulous Muscles, but they’re all good) and trek out to see them at Bottom of the Hill. (Daniel Bromfield)

9:30pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Real Estate

As members try to shrug off the stereotype of a “beach band,” there’s something about Real Estate’s mellow guitar pop that resonates with listeners, telling them the band definitely isn’t the modern Jersey equivalent of the Beach Boys. Shaking off a reliance on overdubs, the band recorded almost each take on its newest album, Atlas, live, which bodes well for the Fillmore’s audience tonight. Grab a friend who doesn’t babble about housing prices when you ask if they like Real Estate and prepare for a musical journey of sorts, as the tracks on Atlas are meant to compose a personal road map for the listener. (Amy Char)

With Kevin Morby, Corey Cunningham

9pm, $22.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

Brainwashing The Ride

Seldom has there been a more romantic musical coupling than that of Katie Ann and MC Zill. Ann, an indie singer who recently recorded her debut album, the heart-wrenching The Ride, at Goo Goo Dolls frontman Robbie Takac’s studio in New York, met the socially conscious Zill (his website is mcofpositivity.com) during her recording process, when she hit his car during a stressful day of outtakes. Their friendship morphed into an engagement, and the duo took to the road to spread their music together. The juxtaposition of Ann’s redemptive lyrics and Zill’s existential queries evoke the power pop/hip-hop mashup of later Eminem. The artists have fused the songs from their debuts into alternately sung and rapped tracks that promise an evening of emotional and stylistic fluctuation. (David Kurlander)

8pm, $10

50 Mason Social House

50 Mason, SF

(415) 433-5050

www.50masonsocialhouse.com

SATURDAY 2

Film Night in the park: Clueless

Watch a movie alone on your couch Saturday night? As if! This week’s free film screening, 1995’s Clueless, is timeless. Way timeless. Forget about feeling like a heifer and happily gorge on ice cream from Bi-Rite, a community partner of the outdoor film series, before the movie begins — don’t forget to bring some herbal refreshments. Tonight’s selection is this summer’s third movie in the series, following mid-July’s Frozen, and let’s be real, Coolio’s “Rollin’ With My Homies” totally has more musical merit than that annoying song about a snowman. And sure, this isn’t LA, but the event still offers valet — bicycle valet, that is. So it’s totally okay if you’re a virgin who can’t drive. (Amy Char)

Dusk, free

Dolores Park

19th St. & Dolores, SF

(415) 554-9521

www.sfntf.squarespace.com

Art + Soul Blues & BBQ Blowout

Live blues music all day in the sunshine, paired with barbecue cooked up by 40 top “pitmasters” from all over California. Need I say more? Oakland’s Art + Soul festival has long been a gem in the city’s cultural crown, with visual art, kids’ activities, and killer musical lineups, this year drawing old-school local favorites like Tommy Castro and the Painkillers and “Oakland Blues Divas” Margie Turner, Ella Pennewell, and more for a showcase presented by the Bay Area Blues Society. How good will the barbecue be? Mayor Jean Quan is presenting California “Chef of the Year” Tanya Holland of Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen and B-Side BBQ with a key to the city. So, you know: Officially, city-decreed, smokin.’ (Emma Silvers)

Through Sun/3, noon to 6pm

$10 adults, $7 seniors and youth, kids 12 and under free

14th and Broadway, Oakl.

www.artandsouloakland.com

SUNDAY 3

The Sturgeon Queens

This quick documentary, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of iconic Jewish fishmongers/New York deli nosh-purveyors Russ & Daughters, is a must-see for delicatessen aficionados, or food history buffs, or, you know, anyone who likes to get really hungry while watching movies. At the film’s center are 100-year-old Hattie Russ Gold and 92-year-old Anne Russ Federman, the daughters after which the store was named and the heirs to their family’s culinary Lower East Side legacy; guest appearances by loyal celebrity fans of the store include Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mario Batali, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. (Emma Silvers)

12:15pm, $14 (as part of SFJFF)

The Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.sfjff.org

MONDAY 4

Bad Suns

The 2012 release of “Cardiac Arrest” was supposed to be a one-time deal from Bad Suns — the band planned to have only one song to its name. But not surprisingly, the catchy, sleek track caught people’s attention and blew up on the radio. Opening for groups such as Geographer and The 1975 in the past year or so, the LA-based band finally sets out on its own tour to promote its debut LP, Language & Perspective. With a more impressive repertoire than the members might’ve imagined, the album is comprised of sunshine-infused ’80s-tastic New Wave tunes. Fellow Southern California musical compadres Klev and Hunny join Bad Suns tonight. (Amy Char)

With Klev, Hunny

8pm, $15

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

TUESDAY 5

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Even Clap Your Hands Say Yeah couldn’t have predicted the impact the unassuming Philly band’s self-titled debut had on the music world when it dropped in 2005. First blogs hopped on the hype, then Bowie and Byrne, then The Office. Seemingly overnight, the band and its leader Alec Ounsworth became one of the most polarizing entities in the indie world, at once beloved and derided for their off-kilter vocals and bizarro art-pop. Their second album, Some Loud Thunder, helped members shake off some of the buzzband backlash they’d accumulated, but now that they’re practically elder statesmen, their fan reputation is only growing. Catch the band at The Independent — before music critics decide they were the Talking Heads of their time in 10 years. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

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Theater Listings: July 30 – August 5, 2014

Michael Redmond

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July 29, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Habit of Art Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Previews Thu/31-Fri/1, 8pm; Sat/2, 3pm. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Aug 23. Theatre Rhinoceros presents the return engagement of Alan Bennett’s “very British comedy” about a meeting between Benjamin Britten, W.H. Auden, and other figures from throughout time, including their future biographer.

Noises Off! Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Opens Fri/1, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 25. Shelton Theater performs Michael Frayn’s outrageous backstage comedy.

Show Down! Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Opens Fri/1, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 16. Thunderbird Theatre performs an original comedy, set amid a war against technology at the last all-live TV station left in the United States.

ONGOING

Each and Every Thing Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. The latest solo show from celebrated writer-performer Dan Hoyle (Tings Dey Happen, The Real Americans) winds a more random course than usual across the country and abroad but then that’s the idea — or at least Hoyle warns us, right after an opening encounter with a touchy young white supremacist, that the trip he’s taking us on is a subtle one. Displaying again his exceptional gifts as a writer and protean performer, Hoyle deftly embodies a set of real-life encounters as a means of exploring the primacy and predicament of face-to-face communication in the age of Facebook. With the help of director Charlie Varon (who co-developed the piece with Hoyle and Maureen Towey), this comes across in an entertaining and swift-flowing 75-minute act that includes a witty rap about “phone zombies” and a Dylan-esque screed at a digital detox center. But the purported subject of connection, or lack there of, in our gadget-bound and atomized society is neither very original nor very deeply explored — nor is it necessarily very provocative in a theater, before an audience already primed for the live encounter. Far more interesting and central here is Hoyle’s relationship with his old college buddy Pratim, an Indian American in post-9/11 America whose words are filled with laid-back wisdom and wry humor. Also intriguing is the passing glimpse of early family life in the Hoyle household with Dan’s celebrated artist father, and working-class socialist, Geoff Hoyle. These relationships, rather than the sketches of strangers (albeit very graceful ones), seem the worthier subjects to mine for truth and meaning. Indeed, there’s a line spoken by Pratim that could sum up the essence of Hoyle’s particular art: “It’s so much better,” he says, “when you find yourself in other people than when you just find yourself.” Hoyle’s real frontier could end up being much more personal terrain, much closer to home. (Avila)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God Fights the Plague Marsh San Francisco Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-100. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 10. The Marsh presents a solo show written by and starring 18-year-old theater phenom Dezi Gallegos.

The Guerrillas of Powell Street Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-20. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm. Bindlestiff Studio presents the world premiere of the English translation of Rody Vera’s play about Filipino World War II veterans in San Francisco, based on Benjamin Pimentel’s novel.

Into the Woods San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-120. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 6. SF Playhouse performs Stephen Sondheim’s fractured fairy-tale musical.

Patterns Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion (in the French American International High School), 66 Page, SF; www.thenewstage.com. $30. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 16. The New Stage’s premiere of company founder Amy Munz’s solo work is one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts (by both a new company and a young artist) in recent memory. It’s an ambitious and notably subtle, serious, unsentimental exploration of love, in which a dynamic Munz — on a wide bare stage bounded on three sides by her own wonderfully evocative three-channel video-scape — plays several characters, and three in particular: Amot, Abigail, and Ava, whose stories are slyly interwoven. Amot, the principal focus across two discrete acts, is a young woman raised by her widowed father in his butcher shop, who later falls in love with a young man. But her story, like that of the other young women, comes to us in a form more like the stream of consciousness, fractured and expansive in the disjuncture and interplay between Munz’s ardently committed performance and the shrewd audio and visual environment surrounding the audience — a manufactured landscape of memory, desire, and role-playing in which to some extent the audience is free to find its own way and discover its own truths. Part two further integrates the voices of the other young women, Abigail and Ava, forming a mesh of narratives and associations stimulating in their intellectual, visual, and aural juxtapositions. This is a work that demands a kind of letting go, but also invites full participation of the viewer’s imagination, as the rich mise-en-scène and Munz’s intense, unflinching performance unfold with unexpected abundance. (Avila)

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org.$30-100. Sat, 5pm. Through Aug 23. Brian Copeland’s hit solo show, “a tale of privilege, murder, and sausage,” returns to the Marsh.

Sex and the City: Live!! Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; sexandthecitylive.eventbrite.com. $30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 10. Velvet Rage Productions presents two new live episodes of the hit HBO show, with an all-star drag cast (Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and RuPaul’s Drag Race runner-up Alaska).

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

Sweet Maladies Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Thu/31-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/3, 3pm. Three sisters, former slaves in the household of a petulant mistress, hesitate in the uncertain wake of their formal emancipation in Zakiyyah Alexander’s tightly written, potent new drama. Cecile (Britney Frazier) is the haughty rebel to older sister Polly’s (Kehinde Koyejo) gentler, more cautious nature, while youngest sister Mary (Stefanée Martin) is the seeming innocent who has nevertheless absorbed the full range of slavery’s debased operations — a fact made clear by Mary vis-à-vis her ragdoll in a startlingly well done soliloquy. As witty as it is ferocious, the play — rewardingly inspired by Jean Genet’s The Maids — is at one level all about role-playing. Even as the sisters appropriate and swap roles with each other and their cruel yet needy and equally unmoored mistress (Lisa Ann Porter), a small minstrel stage serves the action as a point of surreal underscoring, adding another layer to the cultural morass in which they struggle for definition and agency. Furtive in its unfolding, the play nevertheless plunges with productive candor into the convoluted violence of American society and culture, its compact yet subtle excavation well served by this intimate production in Brava’s upstairs studio theater, where Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe directs a uniformly strong cast in sharp and lucid performances. (Avila)

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.sfneofuturists.com. $11-16. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Ongoing. The Neo-Futurists perform Greg Allen’s spontaneous, ever-changing show that crams 30 plays into 60 minutes.

BAY AREA

As You Like It Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. Donations accepted. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Aug 10; visit website for specific performance dates and times. It’s outdoor Shakespeare season in the Bay Area! Marin Shakespeare kicks off its 25th season with a classic production of the Bard’s gender-bending comedy.

Dracula Inquest Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ mystery inspired by the Bram Stoker vampire classic.

The Great Pretender Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-74. Wed/30, 7:30pm; Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm (also Sat/2, 2pm); Sun/3, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of David West Read’s bittersweet comedy.

Monsieur Chopin Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Shattuck; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-87. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Wed, 2pm). Through Aug 10. Hershey Felder stars in his musical biography of legendary composer Chopin.

Old Money Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 17. Ross Valley Players performs Wendy Wasserstein’s New York City-set comedy.

The Ripple Effect This week: Montclair Ball Field, 6300 Moraga, Montclair; www.sfmt.org. Wed/30, 7pm. Free (donations accepted). Also Sat/2-Sun/3, 4pm, Southside Park, Bandshell, Sixth and T Sts, Sacramento. Through Sept 1 at various NorCal venues. The veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe stays current by skewering San Francisco’s ever-dividing economy; think rising rents, tech-bus protests, and (natch) Glassholes.

Romeo and Juliet Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $12-35. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for specific performance dates and times. Marin Shakespeare continues its 25th season with the Bard’s timeless tragedy.

Shrek the Musical Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Wed/30-Thu/31, 7pm; Sat/2, 1 and 6pm; Sun/3, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse performs the musical based on the DreamWorks fairy tale film.

“Splathouse Double Feature” La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; http://impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 9. Impact Theatre performs The Sadist and Eegah!, film and live performance blends inspired by the classic exploitation movies.

The Taming of the Shrew This week: Memorial Park Amphitheater, Stevens Creek at Mary, Cupertino; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Fri/1-Sun/3, 7:30pm. Continues through Sept 21 at various Bay Area venues. Free Shakespeare in the Park presents this take on the Bard’s barb-filled romance.

12th Night Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Shotgun Players take a fresh approach to the Shakespeare classic, using folk music and other twists.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“BATS Summer Improv Festival” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 20. $20. This week: “Improvised Downton Abbey,” Fri/1-Sat/2.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/2, Aug 9, 24, 30, Sept 6, 13, 21, 28, Oct 4, 11, 18, 26, 6:30pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dash: Improv in a Flash” Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. Sat, 10pm. $15. Ongoing through Aug 30. A late-night, free-form improv show with Un-Scripted Theater Company.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: “Operation Opera,” Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat-Sun, 7pm, $35-50. Through Aug 10.

“The Glass Menagerie” Beverly Hills Playhouse of SF, 414 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.overcasttheatre.com. Fri/1-Sat/2 and Aug 8-9, 8pm; Sun/3 and Aug 10, 5pm. $14-16. Overcast Theatre performs the Tennessee Williams drama.

Ben Gleib Punch Line Comedy Club, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Tue/5, 8pm. $15. The stand-up comedian performs.

“The Greatest Monkey Show on Earth” Circus Center of San Francisco, 755 Frederick, SF; http://rosstravis.com/antic-in-a-drain/the-greatest-monkey-show-on-earth. Sat/2-Sun/3, 8pm. Free. The Circus Center and Antic in a Drain present Ross Travis’ primate-inspired performance piece.

“Katya On a Hot Tin Roof” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm. $35-85. Cabaret star Katya Smirnoff-Skyy performs an all-new show to benefit NCTC.

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

“Max and Nicky 3: A Music and Comedy Variety Blowout” Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason #601, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com/event/779959. Sat/2, 7:30pm. $10. The twins return with a new variety show.

“Mex I Am: live it to believe it” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org/mex-i-am. Thu/31, 7pm; Fri/1, 5 and 8pm; Sat/2, 2 and 8pm; Sun/3, 5pm. Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Mon/4, 7:30pm. $15-25. Multidisciplinary festival showcasing performing arts, culture, and ideas from Mexico.

“Music Moves Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. July 31-Aug 24, most performances at 8pm. $25-45. Diverse performances celebrating the relationship between music and dance, with Bandelion, Kate Weare Company, San Jose Taiko, and more.

“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. $12. Ongoing. A new, completely improvised show every week.

“People in Plazas” Various locations, SF; www.peopleinplazas.org. Through Oct 3. Free. Lunchtime concerts in various downtown locations showcasing jazz, world, funk, and other styles of music.

Jeff Ross Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Sat/2, 7:30pm. $25. Comedy Central’s “Roastmaster General” performs.

“Rotunda Dance Series” San Francisco City Hall, 1 Carlton B. Goodlett Pl, SF; www.dancersgroup.org. Fri/1, noon. Free. Sound artist and performer Dohee Lee presents ARA Gut (Ritual of Ocean).

“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. $5-15. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7; “Purple Onion All-Stars,” Wed-Thu, 8:15; “The Later Show,” Wed-Thu, 10. Ongoing; check website for Fri-Sat shows and schedule updates.

“San Francisco Conservatory of Dance Summer Dance Series” SFCD, 301 Eighth St, #270, SF; www.sfconservatoryofdance.org. Wed/30, 2pm. $5-10. The SFCD presents Sonorous Figures, co-directed by choreographer Christian Burns and pianist Donald White.

“Shit Creek: Vacation Edition” Cinecave, Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; shitcreekvacation.eventbrite.com. Wed/30, 8pm. $10. Flash back to summer camp with this comedy show featuring Mary Van Note, DJ Real, and Jesse Fernandez, plus guests Tim Svenonius, Kathleen Auterio, and Johan Miranda.

“Snap Judgment!” Nourse Theater, 275 Hayes, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/1-Sat/2, $25-45. Live version of the NPR show, under the theme “Saved: Amazing stories of real people snatching victory from the jaws of calamity.”

“Summer Sampler 2014” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm. $30-150. ODC/Dance hosts its annual summer event, featuring performances of Breathing Underwater and Lifesaving Maneuvers.

“Terminator Too: Judgment Play” and “Point Break LIVE!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/1, Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7, and Dec 5, Terminator at 7:30pm; Break at 11pm. $20-50. The raucous, interactive staged recreations of two of 1991’s greatest action films return to the DNA Lounge.

“Tough” Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Thu/31-Sat/2, Aug 7-9, 8pm. $20-25. Choreographer Chris Black performs a solo work inspired by the life of boxer John L. Sullivan.

“Venus and Adonis” Second Act, 1727 Haight, SF; http://bpt.me/764583. Mon/4-Tue/5, 7pm. $5. East West Connection Theatre Company presents staged readings of Shakespeare’s sonnets and poetry.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Free. Through Oct 26. This week: Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble, Thu/31, 12:30pm; Chelle! and friends, Fri/1, 11am; “AfroSolo in the Gardens” with Anthony Brown in “A Tribute to Paul Robeson,” Sat/2, 1pm; Uncommon Time, Sun/3, 1pm.

BAY AREA

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

“National Poetry Slam” Various venues, Oakl; www.nationalpoetryslam.com. $15-125. Aug 5-9. The National Poetry Slam celebrates its 25th anniversary with a full schedule of events, with 500 poets representing 72 slam teams from across the US and Canada (and including seven from the Bay Area).

“The Pirates of Penzance” Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.lamplighters.org. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm (also Sat/2, 2pm); Sun/3, 2pm. $20-59. Also Aug 9-10, 2pm (also Aug 9, 8pm), Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View. Also Aug 14-16, 8pm (also Aug 16, 2pm); Aug 17, 2pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. Also Aug 23-24, 2pm (also Aug 23, 8pm), Bankhead Theatre, 2400 First St, Livermore. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs the Gilbert & Sullivan classic. *