food

Leave the occupiers alone

Andrew Lam
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EDITORIAL With all of the police raids and arguments over messages and demands and tactics, it’s easy to forget that the Occupy Wall Street movement has a clear political point — and it’s right.

The movement is about the devastating and unsustainable direction of the American economy, about the fact that a tiny elite controls much of the nation’s wealth, that virtually all of the income growth over the past 20 years has gone to the very top, about the collapse of the middle class and the rise of economic inequality that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Those are the central issues facing the United States, the state of California and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland today — and instead of trying to crack down on the protests, city officials ought to be endorsing the occupy movement and talking about cracking down on the financial institutions and the wealthy.

A few things worth noting:

1. The protesters are almost entirely nonviolent. Although there have been a few isolated incidents in Oakland and SF, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people at Justin Herman Plaza and Frank Ogawa Plaza are actively promoting and insisting on nonviolence. This is not a crowd that is a threat to anyone.

2. There’s a precedent for long-term political protest camps in San Francisco. The AIDS Vigil remained at U.N. Plaza — with tents, tarps, and cooking gear — for ten years, from 1985 to 1995.

3. The city of San Francisco’s citations — reported without question in the daily newspapers — about health and sanitation problems are way overblown. The OccupySF protesters are making extraordinary efforts to keep the place clean. When the city failed to live up to its promise to provide portable toilets, the protesters ordered (and paid for) their own. As state Sen. Leland Yee (not known as a crazy radical) noted after a visit Oct. 26: “While hundreds gathered, there was not one incident of violence. If the interim mayor thinks there are health issues, I certainly didn’t see them.” We visited Oct 31, and the place was clean and peaceful.

4. The cat-and-mouse game with the San Francisco police is the equivalent of psychological warfare; protesters have to be on edge at all times for fear of a crackdown that may or may not come.

5. Mayor Jean Quan made a bad mistake sending in the cops to roust Occupy Oakland. Nothing good at all can come of any further police eviction action.

Frankly, we don’t see why the protesters — who are well-behaved, represent no threat to anyone, and are doing a huge civic and national service by bringing attention to an issue that the powers that be in Washington, Sacramento and (sadly) San Francisco have largely ignored — can’t stay where they are. If there are health issues, let the Department of Public Health work with the occupiers. If there’s a problem with a portable kitchen, let the Fire Department show the protesters how to run it safely and legally (there are portable cooking devices at every street fair, in dozens of food trucks and in probably 100 other places around town).

The people at OccupySF and Occupy Oakland have done an amazing job of building a safe, respectful and inclusive community. They are the political heros of 2011. If there’s anyplace in America where the movement ought to be allowed to grow and thrive, it’s here in the Bay Area.

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam
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tredmond@sfbg.com

One cool October day in 1985, when I was a young reporter at the Guardian, a friend who was visiting from New York where she was working with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, called me with an urgent message:

City employees were out with water hoses, trying to force a couple of HIV-positive men from camping in front of a federal office building at U.N. Plaza. I ran down there; she had photos. I talked to the men, who were tired and wet, but determined not to leave — and within a few days after my story ran (“AIDS vigil under attack,” 11/6/85), they were joined by dozens more.

And as the months passed, the AIDS vigil grew and grew. It raised awareness of the federal government’s criminal lack of attention to the epidemic. It became a tent city, a small community in the middle of San Francisco with donated food and supplies. Every once in a while, a politician or a media celebrity would spend a night there.

The feds backed off with the hoses and the city figured out that the encampment was no danger to anyone and was making an important political statement. And it remained there — with tents and tarps — for ten years.

I was at the OccupySF camp Oct. 3rd to do a live KPFA broadcast with Mitch Jeserich, and the place was clean, peaceful and well-organized. A couple of cops walked through while we were on the air; they were smiling and chatting with the protesters, who were negotiation with the Department of Public Works about vacating the grassy areas to allow watering. I saw none of the filth that the daily newspapers have talked about.

The only real health and safety problem was the lack of portable toilets — the seven on site weren’t enough for the number of people there. So if the city wants to keep things sanitary, Mayor Ed Lee ought to send in some more. Oh, and the medical tent needs supplies, particularly ice packs and sterile gauze.

A woman from Occupy Vancouver was down visiting and showing solidarity; she said that protesters all over the continent were looking to San Francisco and Oakland for inspiration.

This is a good thing. The protests may not have an agenda, but they have a message, and it’s getting to big and too loud to ignore. I hope it doesn’t take ten years for politicians at the local, state and federal level to respond — but as long as nobody’s addressing economic inequality, OccupySF is and ought to be here to stay.

Guardian editorial: Leave the occupiers alone!

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As the world watches, San Francisco and Oakland should set the standard by supporting  Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Oakland and supporting  their goals and peaceful tactics.  B3

 With all of the police raids and arguments over messages and demands and tactics, it’s easy to forget that the Occupy Wall Street movement has a clear political point — and it’s right.

The movement is about the devastating and unsustainable direction of the American economy, about the fact that a tiny elite controls much of the nation’s wealth, that virtually all of the income growth over the past 20 years has gone to the very top, about the collapse of the middle class and the rise of economic inequality that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Those are the central issues facing the United States, the state of California and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland today — and instead of trying to crack down on the protests, city officials ought to be endorsing the occupy movement and talking about cracking down on the financial institutions and the wealthy.

A few things worth noting:

1. The protesters are almost entirely nonviolent. Although there have been a few isolated incidents in Oakland and SF, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people at Justin Herman Plaza and Frank Ogawa Plaza are actively promoting and insisting on nonviolence. This is not a crowd that is a threat to anyone.

2. There’s a precedent for long-term political protest camps in San Francisco. The AIDS Vigil remained at U.N. Plaza — with tents, tarps, and cooking gear — for ten years, from 1985 to 1995.

3. The city of San Francisco’s citations — reported without question in the daily newspapers — about health and sanitation problems are way overblown. The OccupySF protesters are making extraordinary efforts to keep the place clean. When the city failed to live up to its promise to provide portable toilets, the protesters ordered (and paid for) their own. As state Sen. Leland Yee (not known as a crazy radical) noted after a visit Oct. 26: “While hundreds gathered, there was not one incident of violence. If the interim mayor thinks there are health issues, I certainly didn’t see them.” We visited Oct 31, and the place was clean and peaceful.

4. The cat-and-mouse game with the San Francisco police is the equivalent of psychological warfare; protesters have to be on edge at all times for fear of a crackdown that may or may not come.

5. Mayor Jean Quan made a bad mistake sending in the cops to roust Occupy Oakland. Nothing good at all can come of any further police eviction action.

Frankly, we don’t see why the protesters — who are well-behaved, represent no threat to anyone, and are doing a huge civic and national service by bringing attention to an issue that the powers that be in Washington, Sacramento and (sadly) San Francisco have largely ignored — can’t stay where they are. If there are health issues, let the Department of Public Health work with the occupiers. If there’s a problem with a portable kitchen, let the Fire Department show the protesters how to run it safely and legally (there are portable cooking devices at every street fair, in dozens of food trucks and in probably 100 other places around town).

The people at OccupySF and Occupy Oakland have done an amazing job of building a safe, respectful and inclusive community. They are the political heroes of 2011. If there’s anyplace in America where the movement ought to be allowed to grow and thrive, it’s here in the Bay Area.

 

Bronc busting: Allegations of cruelty to animals at this year’s Grand National Rodeo

Andrew Lam
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When the Grand National Rodeo was in town Oct. 14-15 and 21-22, we wrote about the presence of animal rights advocates lofting signs in the parking lot of Cow Palace outside the vernerable event. But it turns out the activists got to catch the show too — the Guardian has been sent videos from a local animal advocate that suggest that animals were in fact being mistreated at the event. The video shows a man prodding a bronco that’s waiting to be ridden with a long, angular object. Broncs are also shown having their tail twisted and at one point, being touched with a black object by a cowboy that Andrew Zollman of animal rights group LGBT Compassion says the video is “clearly showing two instances of electric shocks administered to animals” — and that’s illegal.

But when contacted for comment Lindsay Branquinho, press liasion for the Grand National stuck by what she had told this reporter on the sidelines of the very event in the video.

“For these animals their quality of life far exceeds that of most. They are fed the highest quality feeds, given frequent regular medical attention (i.e., check-ups, vaccinations, etc). The amount of time, money, and love that is wrapped up in these animals is huge and the people that own them do all that they can to protect them. These animals are their livelihood, and they would not jeopardize that.” She denied that the black object seen in the video was an electric prod, and said she’d get back to us about what it really was.

But Zollman wasn’t surprised by the contents of the video at all. He says that abuse from the kinds of offenses he sees in it — in addition to “painful caustic ointments” and stabbing, all which he says are violations of California’s penal code section 597(b) which bars tormenting, needless suffering, and unnecessary cruelty towards animals with the exception of slaughter for food — is endemic to all rodeos. He leads a campaign against the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association as well. A history of the Grand National Rodeo’s past offenses can be found here. 

The official response from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association was as follows (yawn): 

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) is committed to the proper care and handling of all animals that participate in our sanctioned rodeos.  There are 60 rules governing the treatment of the livestock are enforced by on-site rodeo officials.  A veterinarian is in attendance at all rodeo competition.  In addition to the PRCA rules, we are aware that the Grand National has additional standards for livestock care. 

The PRCA and the management of the Grand National were contacted regarding videotapes taken by those who wish to ban many uses of animals, including rodeo.  The videotapes have been reviewed by officials at the Grand National, the PRCA  as well as experts on the care of livestock and upon initial review the overall opinion is that the livestock were properly handled in accordance with standard livestock practices and PRCA rules.  There were, however,  a few instances where the care and handling of the livestock was not up to Grand National standards.  In one case, a livestock handler’s actions did not meet Grand Nationals standards for livestock care and was dismissed from working the remainder of the show.  

 The PRCA will continue to work with local officials, rodeo judges, on-site rodeo veterinarians, rodeo livestock owners and our members to insure that the livestock at PRCA sanctioned events is afforded proper care and handling. 

Calls for comment from the SFPD Mounted Unit (who ride at the Grand National and were also forwarded Zollman’s emails) and the Peninsula Humane Society, the organization who handles animal cruelty law enforcement for San Mateo County Animal Control, have so far gone unanswered. We’ll update when they get back to us. 

But is tail twisting inexcusable abuse? Akin to a horseback rider’s spurs? This reporter attended the rodeo and was standing quite close to the bronco pit as the above video was being taken — the tail twisting seemed a little harmful, but it’s hard to say with animals this large how much permanent damage that could cause to a 1,700 pound bull. Of course, some would say that any abuse to animals, regardless of severity, counts as cruelty. And the cattle roping — in which calves are lassoed around the neck as they run at top speed through the ring and thrown to the ground — definitely gave me pause. How much discomfort should animals have to endure to lead cushy lives (as doubtless the broncs’ are, bred as they are for generations to be in top form for the events). 

Thoughts from the cowpokes?

 

Guardian editorial: Let OccupySF and Oakland stay

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With all of the police raids and arguments over messages and demands and tactics, it’s easy to forget that the Occupy Wall Street movement has a clear political point — and it’s right.The movement is about the devastating and unsustainable direction of the American economy, about the fact that a tiny elite controls much of the nation’s wealth, that virtually all of the income growth over the past 20 years has gone to the very top, about the collapse of the middle class and the rise of economic inequality that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Those are the central issues facing the United States, the state of California and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland today — and instead of trying to crack down on the protests, city officials ought to be endorsing the occupy movement and talking about cracking down on the financial institutions and the wealthy.

A few things worth noting:

1. The protesters are almost entirely nonviolent. Although there have been a few isolated incidents in Oakland and SF, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people at Justin Herman Plaza and Frank Ogawa Plaza are actively promoting and insisting on nonviolence. This is not a crowd that is a threat to anyone.

2. The city of San Francisco’s citations — reported without question in the daily newspapers — about health and sanitation problems are way overblown. The OccupySF protesters are making extraordinary efforts to keep the place clean. When the city failed to live up to its promise to provide portable toilets, the protesters ordered (and paid for) their own. As state Sen. Leland Yee (not known as a crazy radical) noted after a visit Oct. 26: “While hundreds gathered, there was not one incident of violence. If the interim mayor thinks there are health issues, I certainly didn’t see them.”

3. The SF Mayor’s Office and the police have made no serious effort to work with or negotiate with the protesters. Even the five supervisors who arrived Oct. 26 (and good for them) when there were rumors of a police action, had no idea what the cops were up to — and Police Chief Greg Suhr wasn’t responding to their phone calls. It’s the equivalent of psychological warfare; protesters have to be on edge at all times for fear of a crackdown that may or may not come.

4. Mayor Jean Quan made a bad mistake sending in the cops to roust Occupy Oakland. Nothing good at all can come of any further police eviction action.

Frankly, we don’t see why the protesters — who are well-behaved, represent no threat to anyone, and are doing a huge civic and national service by bringing attention to an issue that the powers that be in Washington, Sacramento and (sadly) San Francisco have largely ignored — can’t stay where they are. If there are health issues, let the Department of Public Health work with the occupiers. If there’s a problem with a portable kitchen, let the Fire Department show the protesters how to run it safely and legally (there are portable cooking devices at every street fair, in dozens of food trucks and in probably 100 other places around town).

The people at OccupySF and Occupy Oakland have done an amazing job of building a safe, respectful and inclusive community. They are the political heros of 2011. If there’s anyplace in America where the movement ought to be allowed to grow and thrive, it’s here in the Bay Area.

Guardian editorial: Let OccupySF and Oakland stay

Zelda Bronstein
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Guardian editorial: Let OccupySF and Oakland stay

With all of the police raids and arguments over messages and demands and tactics, it’s easy to forget that the Occupy Wall Street movement has a clear political point — and it’s right.

The movement is about the devastating and unsustainable direction of the American economy, about the fact that a tiny elite controls much of the nation’s wealth, that virtually all of the income growth over the past 20 years has gone to the very top, about the collapse of the middle class and the rise of economic inequality that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Those are the central issues facing the United States, the state of California and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland today — and instead of trying to crack down on the protests, city officials ought to be endorsing the occupy movement and talking about cracking down on the financial institutions and the wealthy.

A few things worth noting:

1. The protesters are almost entirely nonviolent. Although there have been a few isolated incidents in Oakland and SF, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people at Justin Herman Plaza and Frank Ogawa Plaza are actively promoting and insisting on nonviolence. This is not a crowd that is a threat to anyone.

2. The city of San Francisco’s citations — reported without question in the daily newspapers — about health and sanitation problems are way overblown. The OccupySF protesters are making extraordinary efforts to keep the place clean. When the city failed to live up to its promise to provide portable toilets, the protesters ordered (and paid for) their own. As state Sen. Leland Yee (not known as a crazy radical) noted after a visit Oct. 26: “While hundreds gathered, there was not one incident of violence. If the interim mayor thinks there are health issues, I certainly didn’t see them.”

3. The SF Mayor’s Office and the police have made no serious effort to work with or negotiate with the protesters. Even the five supervisors who arrived Oct. 26 (and good for them) when there were rumors of a police action, had no idea what the cops were up to — and Police Chief Greg Suhr wasn’t responding to their phone calls. It’s the equivalent of psychological warfare; protesters have to be on edge at all times for fear of a crackdown that may or may not come.

4. Mayor Jean Quan made a bad mistake sending in the cops to roust Occupy Oakland. Nothing good at all can come of any further police eviction action.

Frankly, we don’t see why the protesters — who are well-behaved, represent no threat to anyone, and are doing a huge civic and national service by bringing attention to an issue that the powers that be in Washington, Sacramento and (sadly) San Francisco have largely ignored — can’t stay where they are. If there are health issues, let the Department of Public Health work with the occupiers. If there’s a problem with a portable kitchen, let the Fire Department show the protesters how to run it safely and legally (there are portable cooking devices at every street fair, in dozens of food trucks and in probably 100 other places around town).

The people at OccupySF and Occupy Oakland have done an amazing job of building a safe, respectful and inclusive community. They are the political heros of 2011. If there’s anyplace in America where the movement ought to be allowed to grow and thrive, it’s here in the Bay Area.
 

How OccupySF thwarted a police raid

Zelda Bronstein
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How OccupySF thwarted a police raid

More than 1,000 people amassed at the OccupySF camp last night based on word that police would be raiding the camp. At 4:30 am, there were still 500 gathered in Justin Herman Plaza when OccupySF organizer Ryan Andreola finally announced: “We just got a report from an official police statement that the raid has been called off because there were not enough police for the number of people here,” as the crowd erupted in applause.

It was the end of what was for many protesters a long — and remarkably successful — day. Word began circulating of possible police altercation at 6 a.m. October 26, when police passed through the encampment handing out notices titled “You are subject to arrest,” which claimed that the protest was in violation of several city and state laws and had become a public health hazard.

On Oct 19, city officials had communicated to OccupySF that they would provide portable toilets, but a week later had not followed through; to deal immediately with public health concerns, protesters acquired them on their own.

Around 8:00, having received various tips and seen a document warning nearby businesses of police activity that night, OccupySF put out a call for supporters, saying police raid was confirmed. Justin Herman Plaza officially closes at 10 p.m., so protesters mobilized to be ready for an attack then.
At 9:00, hundreds of people were at the encampment and were meeting about tactics in case the raid occurred. For the next several hours, as hundreds more continued to pour into camp, supporters practiced formations to defend the camp and separate those who were willing to risk arrest from those who weren’t.

At 9:30, photos began circulating social media of scores of police in riot gear waiting with six muni buses near the police operations building in Potrero Hill. Many feared that they were gearing up to descend on Justin Herman Plaza.

Different groups, including a group of clergy, SF Labor Council representatives, a meditation circle and groups practicing blockade formations met throughout the camp. Drum circles continuously pounded, and the Brass Liberation Orchestra jammed throughout the night.

Nurses and medic volunteers distributed materials to protect from and relieve the effects of tear gas, and National Lawyers Guild volunteers scoured the camp making sure protesters had their legal hotline phone number. Talk of the violence and mass arrests at Occupy Oakland that had happened the past few days permeated the group.

The BART stations closest to the OccupySF and Oakland camps were closed last night due to “civil disturbance,” but many supporters still crossed the Bay to swell the OccupySF ranks.

At 10:00, between 500 and 600 people had gathered at the camp. Protesters danced to the constant music and chanted political cries to the beat: “This system has got to die, hella hella occupy!”

Others waited in defense formation around the camp. After spotting Supervisor John Avalos, many began imploring him to sit down in the ranks, which he did.

As the night went on, sightings of police with buses continued. Some protesters joked, “the police are on the way, but they’re taking Muni so it will be a few hours.”

At 12:40, though much of the camp’s kitchen supplies and food had been moved offsite, protesters continued to serve free food. A young man serving up salad and bread gestured to several cases of food, saying “this has all been donated within the last hour.”

At 1 a.m., the group had reached its peak numbers. All sides of Justin Herman Plaza were blocked by masses of people, who also spilled out into the street on Steuart and Market, attracting virtually all passers-by into the crowd. Organizers urged supporters to stay prepared, but as one woman emphasized on a bullhorn “Remember, 99 percent means we are all individuals. It’s your choice how you respond.”

At 1:30, an impromptu speak-out began as protesters, amplified by the Peoples Mic, explained who they were and why they were there that night. Ten minutes later the group decided to allow a makeshift press conference, giving a formal space for five city officials present to speak.

Supervisors John Avalos, Jane Kim, David Campos, David Chiu and Eric Mar, along with state Senator Leland Yee, professed their support for OccupySF and commitment to protecting it from raids. The group was met with mixed responses. Many cheered their support, and one woman said, “I’m from Oakland and I wish Oakland supervisors had done what San Francisco supervisors have done tonight.” Others were less receptive, crying “I don’t trust you!” and “remember, these are the same supervisors that helped pass sit-lie!”

After the politicians finished speaking at 2:00, many supporters left the camp. One man declared, “I’m glad they came, but they do not represent us.”
About 30 minutes later, new reports were coming in that police were massing at Treasure Island. Protesters surveyed their drastically reduced numbers, and voted on what new formations to practice. As the group discussed, drummers punctuated each point, keeping energy high.

Protesters organized new strategies, but by 3:38 there was still no sign of cops. Representatives of labor organizations began a spontaneous rally, speaking to why they supported OccupySF. Mentions of Occupy Oakland’s vote to call for a general strike on Wednesday November 2 circulated, and one labor rep recalled the 1934 general strike.

At 4 a.m., hundreds were still awake and prepared in the camp. Said protester Robert Duddy, “I’m tired. I stayed up last night until 5:30 after getting the notice that we might be evicted. I think they’re trying to wait us out and have our numbers dwindle.” Duddy added that he did not expect the police to show up that night.

Won-Yin Tang wasn’t convinced. “I won’t feel [that we’ve won] until 7 a.m. when they’re not waiting in riot gear anymore. We have to stay focused. When everyone leaves, that’s when they’ll come.”

At 4:30, the long-awaited announcement of victory came. The crowd cheered, and many headed to nearby Muni stations, now open for the morning. Said protester Sam Miller, waiting exhausted in Embarcadero Station, “Tonight was a great triumph of the human sprit. It was the middle class showing we can’t be beaten down anymore. We’re not the zombies that they think we are.”

Protester Sean Semans also celebrated. Said Semans, “We won tonight. Now we just have to sure, if we need to, we can do the same thing tomorrow.”
Staying up until 5 a.m. on weeknights is no easy call to action. But it seems thousands throughout the Bay Area are willing to step up to the plate.

Occupy camps don’t create social ills, they showcase them

Sasha Cuttler
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Occupy camps don’t create social ills, they showcase them

By Anna Lacey

OPINION When I entered the public square off Broadway and 14th on Oct. 17 — the site of the Occupy Oakland camp that police violently broke up this week — I immediately felt dazed by the atmosphere. But rather than seeing the squalor that has been highlighted by city officials and the media, I saw it as a place of real possibilities, particularly from my perspective as a social worker

Surrounded by tall buildings, the square is in the heart of downtown Oakland. It felt like I was in a commune of sorts. Walking through the rows of tents, I found myself amidst a sea of commotion; there were children of different ethnicities playing, a crowd was listening to some guy on a microphone talking about political freedom, a marching band was performing, and lines of people were dishing out and receiving free food. The energy in the air was almost tangible.

The police raided the square Monday night, October 24th, arguing that the occupiers were dangerous or directionless substance abusers. They had also been complaining about a rat infestation and other problems and about the camp being a magnet for homeless people. But when I visited the camp several times before it was raided, there were two important points that struck me about what has really been happening in Oakland’s occupation.

First: The occupation did not create new social problems. Instead, the movement has been making existing problems visible. Oakland is a city with an overwhelming crime problem and serious financial woes, a city known by many as “Oaksterdam” because of its many marijuana dispensaries as well as the presence of weed smokers on the streets. It’s a city with rats, gangs, unemployment, and school closures. Existing social problems have become more visible because people have congregated together, largely because they were sick of suffering from social ills in silence and isolation.

It should also be pointed out that the homeless population was in the square before the occupation. Yet only now are they able to receive free healthcare, learn about available social services, and enjoy respite from police harassment. The police were not allowed in the square for two weeks, and participants in the movement voiced extreme pride of the “liberated space.” As one organizer put it, “Here in Oakland we have a history that makes us unable to dialogue with the police. Occupy Oakland is unique due to the legacy of the Oscar Grant movement; we know the police are not on our side.”

It does seem quite clear that, instead of trying to resolve the problems being brought to light in the square, the police would prefer the protesters remain isolated from each other, so as not to bring attention to existing social problems. I suppose a gang of police in riot gear followed by the terrorizing and arrests of almost 100 peaceful organizers is easier, thanks to our flawed governmental system, than responding to the social issues put forth by the public.

Second: The occupation was never a party zone. Quite the opposite, for two weeks the participants functioned as an organized political and social union. By day, various presenters lectured the crowds on such things as the rights and responsibilities of political beings. One evening, several youth spoke of their hopes and dreams, saying things like, “I want to be the future of America, but I can’t if there’s no money to fund my school.”

Dusk would mark the start of the nightly General Assembly, a sort of lengthy debate giving all the opportunity to make propositions to influence the movement. The assembly would last until after midnight, and a 90 percent majority of votes was needed to pass any given proposition. One evening, the General Assembly closed with everyone chanting, “This isn’t Burning Man,” implying the seriousness of the movement and the need to leave the party in the desert.

At the same time, the square was far from utopian. There were a couple of fights, which were deescalated quickly. Another key issue remains how to manage the movement’s ethos of equality while still moving in a unified direction. However, as one organizer put it, “Our power is in the lack of a leader, and our diversity is a blessing. The media doesn’t know how to control the masses.” There are discussions of new occupations to bring attention not only to the recent jailing of many protestors but also to school closures, police brutality, prison hunger strikes, foreclosures, and other social and political injustices.

Obviously, the Occupy Oakland that I experienced was very different than what the media and police accounts would have you believe. I wish I could tell you to come and judge for your self, but unfortunately there is no longer any one identified place to congregate. Instead, following Monday night’s raid and Tuesday’s squirmishes, many involved in the movement have been scattered out on the streets, forced to defend themselves from the police without the sanctuary of a peaceful and supportive liberated space.

Snow Park, along Lake Merritt, originally an extension of the original camp, is currently one meeting place for those involved in the movement. While I think the police’s senseless and heartless behavior has, at least for the time being, destroyed much of the beauty taking place in Occupy Oakland, I still urge you to lend your support. As one occupier told me, “Be a part of the process. It’s not perfect. Then again, if it was so easy, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Anna Lacey is MSW trainee and therapist with La Clínica de la Raza who lives in Oakland and is working on her master’s in social work at UC Berkeley

Boo ya!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Boo ya!

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

“Unmasked! The 2011 GLBT Historical Society Gala” Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.unmaskedgala.org. 6 p.m.-9 p..m., $60/$100. A star-studded affair featuring fabulous (of course) entertainment, yummy food, and some of the most revered names in the queer community, including Phyllis Lyon, Jose Sarria, and Armistead Maupin.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Club 1994 Halloween Special Vessel, 85 Campton Pl., SF. www.vesselsf.com. 9 p.m.-3 a.m., $18.50 advance.  Sexy electro glamour throwdown for Halloween, anyone? The gorgeous crew behind Blow Up is resurrecting its super-popular, Nintendo-rrific tribute to the pop sounds of the early ’90s (oh yes boy bands and TERL classics!) for a Halloween dress ’em up. With Stretch Armstrong, Jeffrey Paradise, and Vin Sol. The awesome Ava Berlin hosts.  

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Dark Room does Halloween Hot Spot, 1414 Market, SF. 10 p.m., $5. “It’s like Debbie Does Dallas for freaks!” Quoth the undead hosts of this cute monthly queer goth and industrial party at a the little-known but awesome Hot Spot club on Market. Throw on your sheet and twirl. 

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Mansion Madness: Official Playboy Halloween 2011 Mist Ultra Club, 316 11th St., SF. 9 p.m., $40-$80 Find your haunted honey bunny among the bodacious playmate hostesses at this hoppin’ Slayboy event.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

All Hallow’s Eve DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com. 9 p.m.-afterhours, $13, 18+. Great goth and industrial music parties Meat and Death Guild form an unholy alliance with the gorily titillating Hubba Hubba revue burlesque dancers for what’s sure to be a night to dismember. DJs Decay, devon, Joe Radio, Netik, and more tear you apart on the dance floor

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the shirtless gay dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

The Holy Crow Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF., www.honeysoundsystem.com. 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $5. Quaffingly queer electronic music collective Honey Soundsystem throw one of the best weekly parties in the city — the Halloween edition of Honey Sunday should be a total scream, queen. 

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

Viennetta Discotheque: Halloween! UndergroundSF, 424 Haight, SF. 10 p.m., free. One of SF’s cutest underground queer Monday weekly parties will claws you to reel in horror at the frightful fantasticity of its drag denizens. Your body hits the floor with DJ Stanley Frank, Alexis Blair Penny, and Jason Kendig on the decks.

 

24 hours of occupation

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
24 hours of occupation

rebeccab@sfbg.com

No sooner had I arrived at downtown Oakland’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza — christened Oscar Grant Plaza by the activists who have established the Occupy Oakland encampment there –than the police showed up.

It was Oct. 18, and the ever-evolving occupation had been going strong for eight days. Oakland City Hall served as a backdrop for the bustling tent village, and the plaza steps were adorned with banners. “Welcome to Oscar Grant Plaza,” one proclaimed. “This is an occupation. We have not asked for permission. We do not allow the police. You are entering a LIBERATED SPACE.”

By press time, a standoff between Oakland police and the 300 to 400 occupiers hadn’t yet occurred, though a clash seemed imminent. City government had declared the autonomous village illegal and issued several eviction notices, citing health and safety concerns, while occupiers had made clear their intentions to stay put.

Around 5 p.m. on Oct. 18, two cops appeared at the camp. They weren’t in uniform, but black polo shirts emblazoned with the words “Tactical Negotiator.” Protesters immediately surrounded them, a customary response to police presence since the encampment was raised. The police said they’d come to “facilitate” a march scheduled to depart from the camp — but the protesters demurred. Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly had not consented to this, they replied.

The impasse didn’t last long, because a group of about 50 tore into the intersection and headed up Broadway. The radical queer march had commenced. “We’re here! We’re queer!” They chanted. “Tax the banks and eat the rich!” Many donned fabulous costumes, and one skinny person clad in form-fitting leopard print carried a sign showing a unicorn bursting from a cage, with the words, “It’s time to break free.”

As the march passed Wells Fargo and Chase, a dozen police vehicles trailed slowly behind, occasionally sounding sirens. Apparently, this was what they’d meant by “facilitating.”

Despite the cat-and-mouse with the cops, the nonviolent demonstration concluded without incident. Protesters returned, flushed and energized, to home base — Occupy Oakland, a vortex of radical defiance against the ills of capitalism that had materialized Oct. 10 and showed no signs of fading. Intrigued, I decided to spend 24 hours there documenting it.

 

ORGANIZED OPPOSITION

The camp encompassed a lively blend of projects that seemed to have materialized organically. There was a kitchen serving free food, a first aid tent, a media tent where one could power a laptop by bicycle, a free school named for police shooting victim Raheim Brown, an informational booth with stacks of radical literature, a container garden, portable toilets, an arts and crafts space, and a kids’ area. Committees had been set up to tackle safety, sanitation, finances, events, and other duties, replete with color-coded armbands. Regular workshops, political discussions, teach-ins, lectures from notable speakers, and live music performances had all been arranged. Taking it all in, a woman with long gray hair exclaimed, “The ’60s were never this organized!”

Occupy Oakland’s experimental community mushroomed up as part of the wave of encampments established in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, part of a nationwide movement that has captured the public’s imagination and reinvigorated the left.

“We are reclaiming public space to use as a forum for the people to come together, meet one another, listen to each other, and build power for ourselves,” read a statement on the Occupy Oakland website. “[It] is more than just a speak-out or a camp out. The purpose of our gathering here is to plan actions, to mobilize real resistance, to defend ourselves from the economic and physical war that is being waged against our communities.”

The camp supported a wild and unlikely mix of people united in their disenchantment with the status quo — young and old, black and white, housed and homeless, queer and straight, credentialed and uneducated, vegan and omnivorous — and within this developing space, societal barriers seemed to be falling away.

“It’s an occupation that transcends what it was initially about,” reflected a protester named Miguel. “It’s feeding homeless people, and it’s giving people a place to sleep.”

Protesters didn’t rally around demands. “From my understanding, this is a movement of autonomy, and liberation from … the politics of representation, and the economics of capitalism,” said Bryan R., an organizer who helped plan the occupation. “To engage in dialogue with the power by means of demand is to acknowledge their power over us.”

All decisions were made by consensus in a General Assembly. The occupation had passed resolutions stating that it didn’t back any political parties, supported the Pelican Bay prisoners’ hunger strike, and was in solidarity with striking students and workers.

Rodrick Long, a 21-year-old Oakland native who’d been camped at the occupation for two days when I met him, said he felt he was participating in a piece of Oakland’s history.

“As far as Oakland goes, I just think we need more unity,” he said. “There’s a lot of gang violence, and a lot of poverty. A lot of people don’t show enough that they care about Oakland. But it’s a lot of people here. I didn’t expect this many people to come.”

 

MANAGING CONFLICT

Occupy Oakland seemed both serious and playful as it journeyed each day toward fomenting the revolution, or maybe just keeping the camp together, depending on who you asked. A tense General Assembly meeting was reportedly held after the city issued the first eviction notice on Oct. 20, and occupiers vowed to hold their ground. But the somber moment broke up when someone kept randomly shouting “Michael Jackson!” — prompting someone to blast the song “Smooth Criminal” over a loudspeaker, sparking an impromptu dance party before everyone got down to business again.

The occupiers were sculpting a self-governed, non-hierarchical mini society in the heart of Oakland as an affront to Wall Street bankers and capitalism itself — a complicated endeavor, to be sure. This was, after all, a mix of perfect strangers, some with mental-health issues (who’d been failed by the very system the occupation was opposing, several people pointed out to me), striving to coexist in a densely populated public park. Illegally.

There were ups and downs. Mainstream newspapers were running headlines about the occupation’s rat problems, television reporters had gotten into tiffs with protesters, and in the hours before I arrived, a man who went by Kali was forced out for starting arguments that eventually came to blows.

The outside world seemed separate from the occupation, though its presence was acutely felt. News vans were parked along the perimeter at all hours of the day, and a live stream sent raw footage directly to the Internet, making the surreal scene feel a bit like a fishbowl.

As night fell, around 150 people congregated in the plaza’s amphitheater for the evening’s General Assembly, which opened with general announcements. Ellen spoke about organizing actions against foreclosures. Jonathan urged a transition from mega-banks to credit unions. Someone proposed expanding the first aid tent into a free clinic that would operate out of an onsite RV. But just as a woman began describing the struggle of revolutionary youth in Uganda, shouts rang out from somewhere in the thicket of tents. Kali was back. Members of the “safer spaces” committee made a beeline toward him to try and deescalate the conflict, while others milled about in alarm and confusion.

Despite mediators’ efforts, Kali went on a rampage, triggering an emergency meeting to determine how best to handle this kind of aggression. Once he departed, however, the encampment’s emotional rollercoaster seemed to wind down.

“It’s up to us to figure out creatively how to maintain the health of this camp,” organizer Louise Michel told me later. “It’s really important for people here to figure out how to problem solve … Everyone has the commitment.”

 

LOOKING FOR REASONS

Dialogues had been started to address safety issues — but the city of Oakland was highlighting reports of assaults and sexual harassment as reasons the encampment would not be allowed to stay.

Security volunteers were regularly stationed around the plaza perimeter. Tim Simons began his shift around midnight, pacing the sidewalk and gazing out at the deserted downtown Oakland street while maintaining constant communication with his security crew via walkie-talkie.

“It’s been the most intense mixture of people coming together that I’ve ever seen,” reflected Simons, who’d watched the occupation grow since the beginning. “They’re camping here because they want this to become a revolutionary political force. The significant question is: How do we project outward from here? Is this going to become more than just a camp?”

He stressed its significance as a takeover of public space, saying it integrated all manner of people whose lives had been impacted by failed economic policies. Simons also acknowledged the anti-police attitude shared by many occupiers. “In Oakland, it’s really hard to play this game that the police are on our side,” he said. “There’s no real illusion here about what role the cops play.”

That sentiment wasn’t shared by everyone, though. “We’re trying to practice a nonviolent response toward police,” Mindy Stone, who was staying in a tent at the Occupy Oakland overflow camp at Snow Park, told me. “We want to try to make them feel like they are the 99 percent.”

It had been an eventful night. I drifted off to sleep in a borrowed tent, as the banter of people sitting and smoking on park benches floated in.

The next morning was sunny and warm, and the mood of the camp was buoyant. Kitchen volunteers busily prepared food, joking together as they listened to music. Donations flowed in daily from Arizmendi bakery, farmers’ markets, and other generous supporters.

In the arts and crafts area, people were painting a banner to urge people to withdraw their money from major banks by Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day. A redhead in a flowing silken outfit wound his way through camp with a garbage bag, asking people if they had pocket trash. A self-defense workshop was in swing, its participants partnered up, giggling, as they practiced holds and blocks.

 

INCUBATING IDEAS

Dallas Holland was tending wheatgrass, bok choy, herbs, and other edibles in a container garden. “I’ve been overwhelmed with the way the community has come together … It’s amazing to watch this transform into a Mecca of ideas,” she said. “People are having meetings and thinking of ways to perpetuate the movement.” An Alabama native, Holland graduated from college in 2006 and had been unemployed for a year.

Allen Adams, a 37-year-old Oakland native, told me he’d been sleeping outside regularly since before the occupation. “I quadruple up on the shirts. It gets to you,” he said.

He’d had little luck finding work, though he was constantly searching online. With him was Brandy, his well-loved, four-month old pit bull.

“I’ve been struggling all my life,” Adams said. “My dad did, my mom did, my grandmother did. And for what? To have no money.” But he said he was amazed and inspired by the occupation. “I like the fact that people can get together and discuss issues. How can we implement programs to do what California has failed to do? It’s a big task. We’re just working toward betterment. Lasting changes, not just temporary shit.”

Michel echoed these goals. “It’s really bold, and it’s really complex, but no one’s ever lived what we’re trying to do,” she said. “People feel a lot of ownership over what we have here. There’s a sense here of people having each other’s back. Politically, it’s huge.”

During my last hour at Occupy Oakland, David Hilliard, a founding member of the Black Panthers, delivered a speech, driving home the point that the occupation should be organized and focused.

“You’re here, which is a wonderful thing,” Hilliard told the occupiers. “Now we need to have some very basic programs dealing with desires and needs here in Oakland. It can’t be abstract. I can assure you, in a very short time, they’re going to run you out of here. Put something on paper that can help you address the basic desires — otherwise, you’re not going to last long. Get some concrete demands.” *

Lime Rickeys and sourdough sundaes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Lime Rickeys and sourdough sundaes

APPETITE Though my sweet tooth has diminished over the years, it only means I can’t stomach sickly sweet. I still take immense pleasure in a fine dessert. Here are some desserts so good they threaten to surpass the meal that came before.

 

CITIZEN CAKE ICE CREAM PARLOR AND EATS

Citizen Cake has been on a meandering journey from its original Grove Street location, to its new Fillmore home, with a recent revamp from restaurant to ice cream parlor. My last visit nearly went south when at 4 p.m. we arrived hungry for a meal as well as chef Elizabeth Falkner’s ever dreamy desserts.

Our server informed us the restaurant wasn’t serving the regular menu — although the website, menu and storefront all say they serve lunch from 11 a.m. on daily. I’m glad they decided to make a meal for us (they said it was because we were close to 5 p.m. dinner time), but I hope this gets worked out quickly, so that what is stated as being served is served.

Thankfully, the savory dishes we ordered pleased, particularly a fried chicken Cobb sandwich ($13). Although pricey, the chicken is of high quality and expertly fried, laid over a layer of egg salad (nice touch), topped with avocado, blue cheese, and bacon tomato vinaigrette in a brioche bun. The savory menu is predominantly sandwiches, salads, appetizers, and comfort food dinner dishes like meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs.

Where I get excited is with soda fountain offerings. In classic style, there are egg creams (favorites from my East Coast days), milkshakes made with any choice of Falkner’s cakes, phosphates, spritzers, floats, and my all-time favorite root beer, Devil’s Canyon, on draft. Now I don’t have to wait for the annual SF Beer Week to have this gorgeous root beer! Though cherry or Concord grape phosphates ($4) are listed on the menu, ask about off-menu options: I recently ordered a passion fruit phosphate, subtly floral and bright. I likewise reveled in the effervescent tart of a fresh Lime Ricky ($4) balanced by bitters.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know soda fountains are making a comeback, although I’ve been waiting for more to open in San Francisco (watch for a classic parlor to open up soon in Cole Valley).

Soda fountain sips are just the beginning. Falkner’s lush cakes, macaroons, cookies, tarts and cupcakes still abound. But there’s now a liquid nitrogen ice cream machine (which she was operating herself on last visit), the liquid nitrogen ice creams a base for an extensive new list of sundaes and shakes.

I went straight for sourdough ice cream, delicately bready, not too sweet and altogether right in an SF sourdough sundae ($9) drizzled with grape syrup, brazil nuts, and salted Spanish peanuts. The bowl is dotted with diced strawberries and an exceptional chocolate-peanut butter halvah, sticky and satisfying. I was ready for a second bowl as soon as I finished the first.

2125 Fillmore, SF. (415) 861-2222, www.citizencake.com

 

PISCO LATIN LOUNGE/DESTINO

The duo of Pisco Latin Lounge and Destino share adjoining storefronts and menus, including the biggest selection of pisco (over 50 bottles) around. The pisco is certainly a draw. But, unexpectedly, dessert stands out here, too.

Recent returns to this duo (which I’ve been dining at on occasion for years), included a relaxed Sunday brunch and dessert. Blessedly, both brunch and dinner menus offer triple chocolate chile buñeulos ($7). These dense chocolate dough balls are dark and oozy, with merely a hint of chile. Resting in a pool of salted caramel with a vanilla crème anglaise dipping sauce, they are dangerously decadent.

1815 Market, SF. (415) 552-4451, www.destinosf.com

 

JASPER’S CORNER TAP

Dessert at Jasper’s Corner Tap is as much a highlight as the heartwarming, gourmet pub fare and impeccable cocktails. A cinnamon pretzel donut and a shot of Maker’s Mark and espresso with cream ($8) is filling after burgers and Shepherd’s Pie, but you’ll find room. The donut is made from house pretzel dough, but it is still somehow light and soft. A shot of bourbon, espresso, and cream is served affogato-style, an ideal finish. Ultimate kudos go to two house ice creams: fresh mint and Maker’s Mark bourbon ($4 a scoop). The bourbon is creamy and boozy, while fresh mint is bright. Together, it’s a Mint Julep in ice cream form. Genius.

401 Taylor Street at O’Farrell, (415) 775-7979, www.jasperscornertap.com

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Parking it

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

CHEAP EATS So they have that classic car show every year in Alameda. It’s a pretty big deal, and Park Street is closed to traffic. The classic cars park in the parking spots, and the people walk down the middle of the road and look at them, and into them, and under the hood.

My own personal interest in classic cars would best be described as D) Nonexistent. But Boink and his dad like to go. They have a whole tradition around it, which ends in pizza. They look at the cars, they eat the pizza. It’s a boy thing. I wouldn’t know.

Except that this particular Saturday I didn’t have any football or soccer or even necessarily baseball to play. And there was an apartment to look at on Park Street, in Alameda. (This was a couple weeks ago, back when Hedgehog and me were still relatively homeless.) So, OK, so, we went.

Hedgehog looked at the apartment without me. We had by this time begun to start to feel almost a little bit paranoid about the fact that no one seemed to want to sublet to us. Not in Berkeley, not in Oakland, not in San Francisco. The day before, we had looked at a shithole in the Tenderloin and, out of desperation, loved it!

But the guy decided to rent to someone else, for no real reason.

“Why?” I asked him on the phone. We had seen the place first. Our credit is perfect. We are clean, upstanding, even accomplished citizens.

“I don’t know,” he said, after a long pause. “No real reason.”

“Oh,” I said. “OK.” Because what else can you say?

This much we knew: it couldn’t possibly be because we are a gay couple, this being San Francisco. So, we decided, it must be me. To wit, that I am too witty. That I am intimidatingly charming, classy-looking, and well-spoked. Technically, I decided this. But Hedgehog agreed to go see the next place by herself. And that was in Alameda. On Park Street. During the car show.

While she was scoping the place out I wandered aimlessly, people watched, car watched, and just generally sat down on a manhole cover. I was hoping to see Boink and his dad, and/or Popeye the Sailor Girl and her mom. I hadn’t seen any of them all since early summer, so was quite unreasonably excited about the possibility of seeing them.

But mostly I saw legs.

Which made me hungry. Then Hedgehog came back and said the apartment was ours for the taking.

Well, hers. But: no tub, no natural light, no me (technically), and it smelled like dude.

“Let’s eat,” I said, standing up.

And then, as if by some sort of cartoon magic, there was Popeye the Sailor Girl, holding her mom’s hand, the both of them looking about as cute as some buttons. What’s more, they were hungry too!

Then Boink and Dad came by, and they were looking cute too, but not hungry, not like us’ns. They just wanted cars and pizza.

Popeye the Sailor Girl and her mom being both gluten free, their favorite restaurant is Burma Superstar. Hedgehog loves Burmese food.

Ergo: our decision was easy. It’s the same place as the one in the city, on Clement Street, only no lines! Not even at exactly lunch time on a beautiful special-event weekend.

I had me some mint chickeny thingy without mint and Hedgehog had duck garlic noodles without hardly any garlic. But to illustrate what a super restaurant Burma Superstar is, both dishes were still good.

And we had the chicken coconut noodle soup, which was especially tasty, of course. It’s kind of like the Thai classic Tom Ka Gai, only eggs instead of mushrooms, which is trading up in my book. Oh, and noodles — which I always thought Tom Ka Gai should have, anyway.

It was so nice to catch up with Popeye the Sailor Girl, and to play Steal Mommy’s Purse with her while her mom was in the restroom.

A delightful time.

A new favorite old favorite restaurant.

And I don’t know about the classic car show but, hey, I like Alameda.

BURMA SUPERSTAR

Lunch: Tue.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; Dinner: Tue.-Thu., Sun. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-10 p.m.

1345 Park, Alameda

(510) 522-6200

AE/D/MC/V

Beer & Wine

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
-
0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
-
0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.” 

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
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0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.” *

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Anonymous Who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays? The suddenly literary Roland Emmerich (1996’s Independence Day, 2009’s 2012) investigates in this political thriller starring Rhys Ifans. (2:10)

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life Far from perfect, yet imbued with all the playful, artful qualities of the maestro himself, writer-director Joann Sfar goes out of his way to tell singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg’s tale the way that he sees it, as that of an artist, and in the process creates a wonderland of cartoonish perversity from the cradle to the grave. The remainder of A Heroic Life is almost eclipsed by the film’s earliest interludes, which trail the already too-clever-for-his-own-good young musician and painter, born Lucien Ginsburg, as he proudly claims his gold star from the Nazis. With echoes of 400 Blows (1959) resounding with every wayward step, the brash young Lucien lives by his active imagination, dreaming up a fat, spiderlike plaything from the monstrous Jew depicted in Nazi propaganda and conjuring an imaginary alter-ego he dubs his ugly Mug. Though Heroic Life‘s adult Serge is seamlessly embodied by Eric Elmosnino, few of the moments from the grown lothario’s life rival those initial scenes, with the exception of his exuberant love affair with Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta) and the fantastic music that came out of it. Still, it’s a joy to hear his music, even in short snatches, with subtitles that clearly spell out Gainsbourg’s talents as a stunning, uniquely talented lyricist. (2:02) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Gainsbourg: The Man Who Loved Women Those hungry for more of the real Serge Gainsbourg — after being tantalized and teased by Joann Sfar’s whimsical comic book-inspired feature — will want to catch this documentary by Pascal Forneri for many of the details that didn’t fit or were skimmed over, here, in the very words and image of the songwriter and the many iconic women in his life. Much of the chanson master’s photographic or video history seems to be here — from his blunt-force on-camera proposition of Whitney Houston to multiple, insightful interviews with the love of his life, Jane Birkin, as well as the many women who won his heart for just a little while, such as Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Gréco, Françoise Hardy, and Vanessa Paradis. Gainsbourg may be marred by its somewhat choppy, mystifying structure, at times chronological, at times organized according to creative periods, but overriding all are the actual footage and photographs loosely, louchely assembled and collaged by Forneri; delightful pre-music-videos Scopitones of everyone from France Gall to Anna Karina; and the gemlike, oh-so-quotable interviews with the mercurial, admirably honest musical genius and eternally subversive provocateur. Quibble as you might with the short shrift given his later career—in addition to major ’70s LPs like Histoire de Melody Nelson and L’Homme à tête de chou (Cabbage-Head Man) — this is a must-see for fans both casual and seriously seduced. (1:45) Roxie. (Chun)

In Time Justin Timberlake stars in this futuristic thriller, set in a world where people stop aging at 25. Andrew Niccol (1997’s Gattaca) directs. (runtime not available)

The Legend is Born: Ip Man If you prefer your martial arts movies Zhang Yimou-lush, Jackie Chan-hilarious, or Tsui Hark-insane, you’ll want to skip The Legend is Born: Ip Man, an earnest, unfussy semi-biopic about the early years of Wing Chun grandmaster Yip Man (he taught Bruce Lee … respect). Here, he’s called Ip Man and is played by the bland Dennis To, who might be carved from wood if not for his many nimble fight scenes — playful dispute-settling, grueling training sequences, to-the-death clashes, etc. The Ip Man story has been popular Hong Kong movie fodder in recent years, with the far more charismatic Donnie Yen playing the lead in a pair of 2008 and 2010 flicks. This apparently unrelated production is less flashier than those films, but purists will appreciate appearances by fightin’ screen legends Sammo Hung and Yuen Bao, plus a cameo by Yip Man’s real-life son. Side note: director Herman Yau co-directed absolutely bonkers crime drama The Untold Story (1993), starring Anthony Wong as a Sweeney Todd type who runs a restaurant famed for its “pork” buns. Worth a look, fiends. (1:40) Four Star. (Eddy)

*Martha Marcy May Marlene If Winter’s Bone star Jennifer Lawrence was the breakout ingénue of 2010, look for Martha Marcy May Marlene‘s Elizabeth Olsen to take the 2011 title. Both films are backwoodsy and harrowing and offer juicy roles for their leading starlets — not to mention a pair of sinister supporting roles for the great John Harkes. Here, he’s a Manson-y figure who retains disturbing control over Olsen’s character even after the multi-monikered girl flees his back-to-the-land cult. Writer-director Sean Durkin goes for unflashy realism and mounds on the dread as the hollow-eyed Martha attempts to resume normal life, to the initial delight of her estranged, guilt-ridden older sister (Sarah Paulson). Soon, however, it becomes clear that Things Are Not Ok. You’d be forgiven for pooh-poohing Olsen from the get-go; lavish Sundance buzz and the fact that she’s Mary-Kate and Ashley’s sis have already landed her mountains of pre-release publicity. But her performance is unforgettable, and absolutely fearless. (1:41) (Eddy)

*Oka! It’s good to know Lavinia Currier’s 1997 Passion in the Desert — a Napoleonic army officer meets Egyptian leopard love story, and yes you read that right — was no fluke. Her latest is at least as nuts. Diagnosed with liver failure from leprosy, or something, New Jersey ethno-musicologist Larry (tall, skinny Brit Kris Marshall with a shovel-flattened Yankee accent) heeds the telepathic call of a witch doctor and journeys back with recording equipment in hand to the African Bayaka pygmies he once documented, whose Central African Republic home is currently being decimated by foreign-funded deforestation. This wonderfully arbitrary adventure is supposedly based on an unpublished real-life memoir, but then Passion was allegedly derived from Balzac — one suspects everything Currier touches turns to Instant Crazy. (No wonder it’s taken her 26 years to make three features; if any filmmaker deserved a patron with an open checkbook to hurry the old artistic process up, it’s her.) There’s not much plot here, but what with hilarious sexual tensions, political intrigue, spectacular wildlife, and a elephant stampede/quasi-production-number/dream climax, your entertainment dollars will be rolling in dividends. To think that just two weeks ago a Mill Valley Film Festival premiere made Marshall seem the most obnoxious actor alive — here he seems pretty near the most delightful. This has been a shit film year so far, with even the good stuff feeling like the same old. Blessedly eccentric exceptions: Machotaildrop, The Arbor, The Mill and the Cross. Don’t let Oka! become yet another you’ve missed. (1:46) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Oranges and Sunshine At the center of this saga of lives ripped apart by church and state is Margaret Humphreys, the Englishwoman who uncovered the scandalous mass deportation of children from England to Australia. In one of her most rewarding roles since The Proposition (2005), her last foray to Oz, Watson portrays the English social worker who in the ’80s learns of multiple cases of now-adult orphans in Australia who don’t know their real name or even age but remember that they once lived in the UK. She starts to explore the past of victims such as Jack (Hugo Weaving) and Len (David Wenham) and tries to reunite them with their families, including mothers who were told their youngsters were adopted into real families. In the course of her work, and at the expense of her own family life, Humphreys discovers the horrors that befell many young deportees — as child slave-laborers — and the corruption that extends its fingers into government and the Catholic church. In his first feature film, director Jim Loach, son of crusading cinematic force Ken Loach, turns over each stone with care and compassion, finding the perfect filter through which to tell this well-modulated story in Watson, whose Humphreys faces harassment and post-traumatic stress disorder in her quest to heal the children who were lured overseas in the hope that they would ride horses to school and pick oranges off a tree for breakfast. (1:45) Albany, Embarcadero. (Chun)

*Programming the Nation? Filmmaker Jeff Warrick investigates the history of subliminal messages in America, touching on everything from commercials to rock music to political campaigns. The question mark in the title suggests that this sort of subconscious brainwashing might not be going on, but the film offers truckloads of evidence to the contrary; basically, every hidden-message rumor you’ve ever heard (in Beatles songs, Disney movies, Camel cigarette ads, and so forth) is compiled here, for talking-head experts to discuss (and, ultimately, for the viewer pass judgment on). He also posits that the current vogue lies less in actual subliminal imagery and sounds, and more in the vein of not-so-subtle suggestion — think product placement in movies, and slanted news coverage underwritten by advertisers. Warrick’s film suffers a bit from his unpolished narration and a slightly dated quality (aside from a quick mention of Obama at the end, much of the film’s political content refers to the George W. Bush era), but it offers quite a bit of food for thought, and not just for paranoid conspiracy theorists. He’ll be in person Fri/28-Sat/29 at the Balboa to answer questions, plus there’ll be live musical performances after each show — presumably without subliminal content. Turn me on, dead man! (1:45) Balboa. (Eddy)

Puss in Boots Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek voice the leads in this Shrek series spin-off. (1:45)

The Rum Diary Johnny Depp stars in this tropical comedy adapted from a Hunter S. Thompson novel. (2:00) California, Piedmont.

ONGOING

The Big Year The weird, kind of wonderful world of bird watching has to be the most unlikely subject to get the mainstream Hollywood movie treatment this year, yet to director David Frankel and his cast’s credit, this project based on the book by Mark Obmascik takes flight with seemingly feather-light effortlessness. The Big Year entwines itself around three birding obsessives: the cocky Kenny (Owen Wilson), the record holder of the most birds sighted in one year, an achievement known as a Big Year; Stu (Steve Martin), a captain of industry who has eschewed corporate life in his pursuit of choice avian specimens; and Brad (Jack Black), the every guy determined to max out his, and his parents’, credit cards to take a stab at Kenny’s record. Frankel winningly seeds his yarn with playful visual devices (scribbling on the screen, say, to point out the sites of key sightings) but in the end, the human back stories of his absurdly driven characters provide the real foundation for The Big Year, while actors Black, Martin, and Wilson — all fully capable of tumbling into too-cute or too-hammy quagmires — respond with empathy to the story’s delicate handling. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

*The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 Cinematic crate-diggers have plenty to celebrate, checking the results of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Swedish documentarian Göran Hugo Olsson had heard whispers for years that Swedish television archives possessed more archival footage of the Black Panthers than anyone in the states — while poring through film for a doc on Philly soul, he discovered the rumors were dead-on. With this lyrical film, coproduced by the Bay Area’s Danny Glover, Olsson has assembled an elegant snapshot of black activists and urban life in America, relying on the vivid, startlingly crisp images of figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton at their peak, while staying true to the wide-open, refreshingly nonjudgmental lens of the Swedish camera crews. Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas Keith provide the haunting score for the film, beautifully historicized with shots of Oakland in the 1960s and Harlem in the ’70s. It’s made indelible thanks to footage of proto-Panther school kids singing songs about grabbing their guns, and an unforgettable interview with a fiery Angela Davis talking about the uses of violence, from behind bars and from the place of personally knowing the girls who died in the infamous Birmingham, Ala., church bombing of 1963. (1:36) Shattuck. (Chun)

*Blackthorn This low-key neo-Western imagines what would’ve happened if Butch Cassidy had survived that shootout in 1908 Bolivia and retreated into anonymity as a rural rancher. Sam Shepard stars as the outlaw turned grizzled gringo (in flashbacks to the Sundance Kid days, he’s played by Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Butch, now known as James Blackthorn, longs to return to America, so he empties his bank account and sells off his horses. His plan runs afoul when he loses his cash stash, thanks to a series of unfortunate events set into motion by gentleman bandit Eduardo (Eduardo Noriega), who’s just ripped off a nearby mine but is ill-suited for survival in the harsh backcountry. Determined to recoup his losses, Butch reluctantly teams up with Eduardo; there are shoot-outs and escapes on horseback and a nice series of scenes with Stephen Rea as an aging, frequently soused Pinkerton detective. Director Mateo Gil (writer of 1997’s Open Your Eyes, which starred Noriega) delivers an unpretentious spin on a legend highlighted by gorgeous landscapes and, of course, Shepard’s true-gritty performance. (1:38) Shattuck. (Eddy)

*Contagion Tasked with such panic-inducing material, one has to appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s cool head and hand with Contagion. Some might even dub this epic thriller (of sorts) cold, clinical, and completely lacking in bedside manner. Still, for those who’d rather be in the hands of a doctor who refuses to talk down to the patient, Contagion comes on like a refreshingly smart, somewhat melodrama-free clean room, a clear-eyed response to a messy, terrifying subject. A deadly virus is spreading swiftly — sans cure, vaccine, or sense — starting with a few unlikely suspects: globe-trotting corporate exec Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waiter, a European tourist, and a Japanese businessman. The chase is on to track the disease’s genesis and find a way to combat it, from the halls of the San Francisco Chronicle and blog posts of citizen activist-journalist Alan (Jude Law), to the emergency hospital in the Midwest set up by intrepid Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet), to a tiny village in China with a World Health investigator (Marion Cotillard). Soderbergh’s brisk, businesslike storytelling approach nicely counterpoints the hysteria going off on the ground, as looting and anarchy breaks out around Beth’s immune widower Mitch (Matt Damon), and draws you in — though the tact of making this disease’s Typhoid Mary a sexually profligate woman is unsettling and borderline offensive, as is the predictable blame-it-on-the-Chinese origin coda. (1:42) Shattuck. (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) Balboa. (Louis Peitzman)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2:02) Lumiere.

Dolphin Tale (1:53) SF Center.

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Bridge, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

50/50 This is nothing but a mainstream rom-com-dramedy wrapped in indie sheep’s clothes. When Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns he has cancer, he undergoes the requisite denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance like a formality. Aided by his bird-brained but lovable best friend Kyle (Seth Rogan), lovable klutz of a counselor Katherine (Anna Kendrick), and panicky mother (Anjelica Huston), Adam gets a new lease on life. This comes in the form of one-night-stands, furious revelations in parked cars, and a prescribed dose of wacky tobaccy. If 50/50 all sounds like the setup for a pseudo-insightful, kooky feel-goodery, it is. The film doesn’t have the brains or spleen to get down to the bone of cancer. Instead, director Jonathan Levine (2008’s The Wackness) and screenwriter Will Reiser favor highfalutin’ monologues, wooden characters, and a Hollywood ending (with just the right amount of ambiguity). Still, Gordon-Levitt is the most gorgeous cancer patient you will ever see, bald head and all. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Finding Joe Think of Finding Joe as a noob’s every-hero introduction to mythologist Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Director Patrick Takaya Solomon assembles a diverse group of Campbell experts and acolytes such as Joseph Campbell Foundation president Robert Walter, author Deepak Chopra, tai chi master Chungliang Al Huang, A Beautiful Mind (2001) screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and skater Tony Hawk, who expound on every aspect of the hero’s journey, from experiencing spiritual death to finding bliss to summoning the courage to slay dragons. Somewhat predictable clips from Star Wars (1977) and other cinematic sources bring home the ways that pop culture has incorporated and been read through the filter of Campbell’s ideas. All of which makes for an accessible survey of our bro Joe’s work — though despite the inclusion of a few token female talking heads like actress Rashida Jones and Twilight (2008) director Catherine Hardwicke, Solomon’s past shooting action sports and commercials gives the doc a distinctly macho cast. (1:23) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Footloose Another unnecessary remake joins the queue at the box office, aiming for the pockets of ’80s-era nostalgics and fans of dance movies and naked opportunism. A recap for those (if there are those) who never saw the 1984 original: city boy Ren McCormack moves to a Middle American speck-on-the-map called Bomont and riles the town’s inhabitants with his rock ‘n’ roll ways — rock ‘n’ roll, and the lewd acts of physicality it inspires, i.e., dancing, having been criminalized by the town council to preserve the souls and bodies of Bomont’s young people. Ren falls for wayward preacher’s daughter Ariel Moore — whose father has sponsored this oversolicitous piece of legislation — and vows to fight city hall on the civil rights issue of a senior prom. Ren McCormack 2.0 is one Kenny Wormald (prepped for the gig by his tenure in the straight-to-cable dance-movie sequel Center Stage: Turn It Up), who forgoes the ass-grabbing blue jeans that Kevin Bacon once angry-danced through a flour mill in. Otherwise, the 2011 version, directed and cowritten by Craig Brewer (2005’s Hustle & Flow), regurgitates much of the original, hoping to leverage classic lines, familiar scenes, and that Dance Your Ass Off T-shirt of Ariel’s. It doesn’t work. Ren and Ariel (Dancing with the Stars‘ Julianne Hough) are blandly unsympathetic and have the chemistry of two wet paper towels, the adult supporting cast should have known better, and the entire film comes off as a tired, tuneless echo. (1:53) 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

*Hell and Back Again This emotionally jagged documentary mingles footage from the war and home fronts to rather nightmarishly evoke one soldier’s very stressful experiences on both. Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris is seen in combat, patrolling Afghan terrain, communicating — sometimes earnestly, sometimes exasperatedly — with skeptical local villagers who are themselves wedged between foreign forces and the Taliban. After surviving a serious injury during his third tour, he has a rough time re-adjusting to civilian life in North Carolina — undergoing physical therapy, often in pain or zonked on prescription drugs, his anger straining relations with wife Ashley. Seldom articulate, forever creepily playing with his handgun, Nathan doesn’t automatically win sympathy. That lends Danfung Dennis’ film a certain extra veracity: with all his foibles (and all the blanks left in his biography), the protagonist here is probably a more typical representation of today’s U.S. fighting forces than most similar recent docs have offered. The director’s soundtrack and editorial strategies further intensify a movie that tries to get inside the unsettled mind within an (at least temporarily) broken body, and to a discomfiting extent succeeds. (1:28) Lumiere. (Harvey)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun)

The Ides of March Battling it out in the Ohio primaries are two leading Democratic presidential candidates. Filling the role of idealistic upstart new to the national stage — even his poster looks like you-know-who’s Hope one — is Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney), who’s running neck-and-neck in the polls with his rival thanks to veteran campaign manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and ambitious young press secretary Steven (Ryan Gosling). The latter is so tipped for success that he’s wooed to switch teams by a rival politico’s campaign chief (Paul Giamatti). While he declines, even meeting with a representative from the opposing camp is a dangerous move for Steven, who’s already juggling complex loyalties to various folk including New York Times reporter Ida (Marisa Tomei) and campaign intern Molly (Evan Rachel Wood), who happens to be the daughter of the Democratic National Party chairman. Adapted from Beau Willimon’s acclaimed play Farragut North, Clooney’s fourth directorial feature is assured, expertly played, and full of sharp insider dialogue. (Willimon worked on Howard Dean’s 2004 run for the White House.) It’s all thoroughly engaging — yet what evolves into a thriller of sorts involving blackmail and revenge ultimately seems rather beside the point, as it turns upon an old-school personal morals quandary rather than diving seriously into the corporate, religious, and other special interests that really determine (or at least spin) the issues in today’s political landscape. Though stuffed with up-to-the-moment references, Ides already feels curiously dated. (1:51) California, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Johnny English Reborn (1:41) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

The Lion King 3D (1:29) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Love Crime Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance about what sleazy things could potentially be done to this neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller. No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures. Ludivine Sagnier plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. Though it’s no masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his Corneau’s career Corneau (he died at age 67 last August) not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. (1:46) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Margin Call Think of Margin Call as a Mamet-like, fictitious insider jab at the financial crisis, a novelistic rejoinder to Oscar-winning doc Inside Job (2010). First-time feature director and writer J.C. Chandor shows a deft hand with complex, writerly material, creating a darting dance of smart dialogue and well-etched characters as he sidesteps the hazards of overtheatricality, a.k.a. the crushing, overbearing proscenium. The film opens on a familiar Great Recession scene: lay-off day at an investment bank, marked by HR functionaries calling workers one by one into fishbowl conference rooms. The first victim is the most critical — Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), a risk-management staffer who has stumbled on an investment miscalculation that could potentially trigger a Wall Street collapse. On his way out, he passes a drive with his findings to one of his young protégés, Peter (Zachary Quinto), setting off a flash storm over the next 24 hours that will entangle his boss Sam (Kevin Spacey), who’s agonizing over his dying dog while putting up a go-big-or-go-home front; cynical trading manager Will (Paul Bettany); and the firm’s intimidating head (Jeremy Irons), who gets to utter the lines, “Explain to me as you would to a child. Or a Golden Retriever.” Such top-notch players get to really flex their skills here, equipped with Chandor’s spot-on script, which manages to convey the big issues, infuse the numbers with drama and the money managers with humanity, and never talk down to the audience. (1:45) Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Mighty Macs I can’t be the first reviewer to dub The Mighty Macs “Sister Act 2 meets Hoosiers,” but it can’t be avoided — that’s exactly what this movie is. It’s 1971 at Immaculata College, a tiny school in financial trouble staffed by nuns and populated by female students who made it through the 1960s seemingly untouched by any rebellious spirit. Into this uptight milieu strides Sister Mary Clarence, er, Cathy Rush (Carla Gugino), an ambitious young basketball coach determined to make winners out of a team so undervalued they practice in a basement and play games wearing outdated, skirted uniforms. Based on a pretty incredible true story, The Mighty Macs is a completely clichéd sports movie, with locker-room pep talks, a disapproving authority figure (a be-wimpled Ellen Burstyn), last-minute free throws deciding crucial games, etc. But it also offers a gentle lesson about the early days of feminism, not to mention a scene featuring an elderly nun yelling “Watch out for the pick and roll!” from the sidelines. (1:38) Metreon. (Eddy)

Moneyball As fun as it is to watch Brad Pitt listen to the radio, work out, hang out with his cute kid, and drive down I-80 over and over again, it doesn’t quite translate into compelling cinema for the casual baseball fan. A wholesale buy-in to the cult of personality — be it A’s manager Billy Beane or the actor who plays him — is at the center of Moneyball‘s issues. Beane (Pitt) is facing the sad, inevitable fate of having to replace his star players, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, once they command the cash from the more-moneyed teams. He’s gotta think outside of the corporate box, and he finds a few key answers in Peter Brand (a.k.a. Paul DePodesta, played by Jonah Hill), who’s working with the sabermetric ideas of Bill James: scout the undervalued players that get on base to work against better-funded big-hitters. Similarly, against popular thought, Moneyball works best when director Bennett Miller (2005’s Capote) strays from the slightly flattening sunniness of its lead actor and plunges into the number crunching — attempting to visualize the abstract and tapping into the David Fincher network, as it were (in a related note, Aaron Sorkin co-wrote Moneyball‘s screenplay) — though the funny anti-chemistry between Pitt and Hill is at times capable of pulling Moneyball out of its slump. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Mozart’s Sister Pity the talented sister of a world-shaking prodigy. Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, who may have had just as much promise as a composer as her younger brother, according to Rene Féret’s Mozart’s Sister. A scant five years older, enlisted in the traveling family band led by father-teacher Leopold (Marc Barbe), yet forced to hide her music, being female and forbidden to play violin and compose, Nannerl (Marie Féret, the filmmaker’s daughter) tours the courts of Europe and is acclaimed as a keyboardist and vocalist but is expected to share little of her brother’s brilliant future. Following a chance carriage breakdown near a French monastery, Nannerl befriends one of its precious inhabitants, a daughter of Louis XV (Lisa Féret, another offspring), which leads her to Versailles, into a cross-dressing guise of a boy, and puts her into the sights of the Dauphin (Clovis Fouin, who could easily find a spot in the Cullen vampire clan). He’s seduced by her music and likewise charms Nannerl with his power and feline good looks — what’s a humble court minstrel to do? The conceit of casting one’s daughters in a narrative hinging on unjustly neglected female progeny — shades of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III (1990)! — almost capsizes this otherwise thoughtful re-imagination of Maria Anna’s thwarted life; despite the fact Féret has inserted his children in his films in the past, both girls offer little emotional depth to their roles. Nevertheless, as a feminist rediscovery pic akin to Camille Claudel (1988), Mozart’s Sister instructs on yet another tragically quashed woman artist and might inspire some righteous indignation. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*My Afternoons with Margueritte There’s just one moment in this tender French dramedy that touches on star Gerard Depardieu’s real life: his quasi-literate salt-of-the-earth character, Germain, rushes to save his depressed friend from possible suicide only to have his pretentious pal pee on the ground in front of him. Perhaps Depardieu’s recent urinary run-in, on the floor of an airline cabin, was an inspired reference to this moment. In any case, My Afternoons With Margueritte offers a hope of the most humanist sort, for all those bumblers and sad cases that are usually shuttled to the side in the desperate ’00s, as Depardieu demonstrates that he’s fully capable of carrying a film with sheer life force, rotund gut and straw-mop ‘do and all. In fact he’s almost daring you to hate on his aging, bumptious current incarnation: Germain is the 50-something who never quite grew up or left home. The vegetable farmer is treated poorly by his doddering tramp of a mother and is widely considered the village idiot, the butt of all the jokes down at the cafe, though contrary to most assumptions, he manages to score a beautiful, bus-driving girlfriend (Sophie Guillemin). However the true love of his life might be the empathetic, intelligent older woman, Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus), that he meets in the park while counting pigeons. There’s a wee bit of Maude to Germain’s Harold, though Jean Becker’s chaste love story is content to remain within the wholesome confines of small-town life — not a bad thing when it comes to looking for grace in a rough world. (1:22) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Paranormal Activity 3 A prequel to a prequel, this third installment in the faux-home-movie horror series is as good as one could reasonably hope for: considerably better than 2010’s part two, even if inevitably it can’t replicate the relatively fresh impact of the 2007 original. After a brief introductory sequence we’re in 1988, with the grown-up sisters of the first two films now children (Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown) living with a recently separated mom (Lauren Bitter) and her nice new boyfriend (Christopher Smith). His wedding-video business provides the excuse for many a surveillance cam to be set up in their home once things start going bump in the night (and sometimes day). Which indeed they do, pretty quickly. Brown’s little Kristi has an invisible friend called Toby she says is “real,” though of course everyone else trusts he’s a normal, harmless imaginary pal. Needless to say, they are wrong. Written by Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity 2, 2007’s Disturbia) and directed by the guys (Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman) who made interesting nonfiction feature Catfish (2010), this quickly made follow-up does a good job piling on more scares without getting shameless or ludicrous about it, extends the series’ mythology in ways that easily pave way toward future chapters, and maintains the found-footage illusion well enough. (Excellent child performances and creepy camcorder “pans” atop an oscillating fan motor prove a great help; try to forget that video quality just wasn’t this good in ’88.) Not great, but thoroughly decent, and worth seeing in a theater — this remains one chiller concept whose effectiveness can only be diminished to the point of near-uselessness on the small screen. (1:24) California, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Real Steel Everybody knows what this movie about rocking, socking robots should have been called. Had the producers secured the rights to the name, we’d all be sitting down to Over The Top II: Child Endangerment. Absentee father Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his much-too-young son Max (Dakota Goyo) haul their remote-controlled pugilists in a big old truck from one underground competition to the next. Along the way Charlie learns what it means to be a loving father while still routinely managing to leave cherubic Max alone in scenarios of astonishing peril. Seriously, there are displays of parental neglect in this movie that strain credulity well beyond any of its Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em elements. Fortunately the filmmakers had the good sense to make those elements awesome. The robots look great and the ring action can be surprisingly stirring in spite of the paper-thin human story it depends on. And as adept as the script proves to be at skirting the question of robot sentience, we’re no less compelled to root for our scrappy contender. Recommended if you love finely wrought spectacle but hate strong characterization and children. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Jason Shamai)

Sarah’s Key (1:42) Balboa.

The Skin I Live In I’d like to think that Pedro Almodóvar is too far along in his frequently-celebrated career to be having a midlife crisis, but all the classic signs are on display in his flashy, disjointed new thriller. Still mourning the death of his burn victim wife and removed from his psychologically disturbed daughter, brilliant-but-ethically compromised plastic surgeon Robert (played with smoldering creepiness by former Almodóvar heartthrob Antonio Banderas) throws himself into developing a new injury-resistant form of prosthetic skin, testing it on his mysterious live-in guinea pig, Vera (the gorgeous Elena Anaya, whose every curve is on view thanks to an après-ski-ready body suit). Eventually, all hell breaks loose, as does Vera, whose back story, as we find out, owes equally to 1960’s Eyes Without a Face and perhaps one of the Saw films. And that’s not even the half of it — to fully recount every sharp turn, digression and MacGuffin thrown at us would take the entirety of this review. That’s not news for Almodóvar, though. Much like Rainer Werner Fassbinder before him, Almodóvar’s métier is melodrama, as refracted through a gay cinephile’s recuperative affections. His strength as a filmmaker is to keep us emotionally tethered to the story he’s telling, amidst all the allusions, sex changes and plot twists torn straight from a telenovela. The real shame of The Skin I Live In is that so much happens that you don’t actually have time to care much about any of it. Although its many surfaces are beautiful to behold (thanks largely to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine), The Skin I Live In ultimately lacks a key muscle: a heart. (1:57) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

*Take Shelter Jeff Nichols directed Michael Shannon in 2007’s Shotgun Stories, released right around the time the actor’s decade-plus prior career broke huge with an Oscar nom for 2008’s Revolutionary Road. Their second collaboration, Take Shelter, is a subtle drama that succeeds mostly because of Shannon’s strong star turn, with an assist from Jessica Chastain (suddenly ubiquitous after The Help, The Debt, and Tree of Life). Curtis (Shannon) and Samantha (Chastain) live paycheck to paycheck in a small Midwestern town; the health insurance associated with his construction job is the only reason they’ll be able to afford a cochlear implant for their deaf daughter. When Curtis starts having horrible nightmares, he can’t shake the feeling that his dreams prophesize an actual disaster to come — or are an indicator that Curtis, like his mother before him, is slowly losing touch with reality. Curtis does seek professional help, but he also starts ripping up his backyard, making expensive improvements to the family’s tornado shelter. You know, just in case. Domestic turmoil, troubles at work, and social ostracization inevitably follow. Where will it all lead? Won’t spoil it for you, but Take Shelter‘s conclusion isn’t nearly as gripping as Shannon’s performance, an skillfully balanced mix of confusion, anger, regret, and white-hot terror. (2:00) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Thing John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing is my go-to favorite film (that and 1988’s They Live — I’m a little bit Carpenter-obsessed). So this prequel-which-is-actually-more-like-a-remake is already treading on holy cinematic ground with me. My expectations were low. Pleasantly, first-time director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. doesn’t deliver a total suckfest (as most remakes of sacred movies do, like the abominable 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre); his Thing is rated R, is not in 3D, casts a few actual Norwegians to play the inhabitants of Norway’s Antarctic research lab, etc. It also tries to create continuity with Carpenter’s film by ending exactly where the 1982 film begins. However, all that comes before is basically a weak imitation of Carpenter, whose own film was heavily inspired by 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World (all three versions list John W. Campbell Jr.’s story “Who Goes There?” as source material). Van Heihningen Jr. offers nothing new except for CG (the 1982 organic FX were creepier, though). Oh, there’s also a “we need a final girl” plot device that shoehorns Mary Elizabeth Winstead into the mix. Both this version and Carpenter’s film build up dread with paranoia. But Carpenter’s was also heavy with the Antarctic-long-haul side effects of cabin fever and extreme isolation. Not really a factor when your main character has just jetted in from New York. (1:43) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Three Musketeers 3D (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

The Way (1:55) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Weekend In post-World War II Britain, the “Angry Young Man” school excited international interest even as it triggered alarm and disdain from various native bastions of cultural conservatism. Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) discomfited many by depicting a young factory grunt who frequently wakes in a married woman’s bed, chases other available tail, lies as naturally as he breathes, and calls neighborhood busybodies “bitches and whores.” Today British movies (at least the ones that get exported) are still more or less divided by a sort of class system. There’s the Masterpiece Theatre school of costumed romance and intrigue on one hand, the pint-mouthed rebel yellers practicing gritty realism on another. Except contemporary examples of the latter now allow that Angry Young Men might be something else beyond the radar once tuned to cocky, white male antiheroes. The “something else” is gay in Weekend, which was shot in some of the same Nottingham locations where Albert Finney kicked against the pricks in the 1960 film version of Saturday Night. The landscape has changed, but is still nondescript; the boozy clubs still loud but with different bad music. It’s at one such that bearded, late-20s Russell (Tom Cullen) wakes up next morning with a hangover next to no married lady but rather Glen (Chris New). It would be unfair to reveal more of Weekend‘s plot, what little there is. Suffice it to say these two lads get to know each other over less than 48 hours, during which it emerges that Russell isn’t really “out,” while Glen is with a vengeance — though the matter of who is more emotionally mature or well adjusted isn’t so simple. Writer-director Andrew Haigh made one prior feature, a semi-interesting, perhaps semi-staged portrait of a male hustler called Greek Pete (2009). It didn’t really prepare one for Weekend, which is the kind of yakkety, bumps and-all romantic brief encounter movies (or any other media) so rarely render this fresh, natural, and un-stagy. (1:36) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

The Woman on the Sixth Floor There is a particular strain of populist European comedy in which stuffy northerners are loosened up by liberating exposure to those sensual, passionate, loud, all-embracing simple folk from the sunny south. The line between multicultural inclusion and condescension is a thin one these movies not infrequently cross. Set in 1960, Philippe Le Guay’s film has a bourgeoisie Paris couple hiring a new maid in the person of attractive young Maria (Natalia Verbeke). She joins a large group of Spanish women toiling for snobbish French gentry in the same building. Her presence has a leavening effect on investment counselor employer Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini), to the point where he actually troubles to improve the poorly housed maids’ lot. (Hitherto no one has cared that their shared toilet is broken.) But he also takes an inappropriate and (initially) unwanted romantic interest in this woman, lending a creepy edge to what’s intended as a feel-good romp. (For the record, Verbeke is about a quarter-century younger than Luchini — a difference one can’t imagine the film would ignore so completely if the genders were reversed.) Le Guay’s screenplay trades in easy stereotypes — the Spanish “help” are all big-hearted lovers of life, the Gallic upper-crusters (including Sandrine Kiberlain as J-L’s shallow, insecure wife) emotionally constipated, xenophobic boors — predictable conflicts and pat resolutions. As formulaic crowd-pleasers go, it could be worse. But don’t be fooled — if this were in English, there’d be no fawning mainstream reviews. In fact, it has been in English, more or less. And that ugly moment in cinematic history was called Spanglish (2004). (1:44) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

alert@sfbg.com

Editor’s Note: Protests and other events connected to the Occupy Wall Street movement, include OccupySF and Occupy Oakland, have been developing quickly. To take part, follow our Politics blog or check with the websites associated with this important economic justice movement: occupysf.com, occupyoakland.org, or occupytogether.org. And you can send tips about what’s happening to news@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 26

San Francisco’s budget crisis

Youth from the Bay Area Urban Debate League opine on solving the budget crisis in San Francisco. These electrifying young orators seek to engage the community in conversation and share their research about the current economic atmosphere.

6 p.m., free

SFUSD Board Room

555 Franklin St, 1st Floor

www.baudl.org


THURSDAY 27

Progressive prospects in fall election

Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond holds a talk on how the upcoming election will effect the progressive community. Join in discussion, sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America, and ask questions regarding mayoral candidates and city politics.

7-9pm, free

Unitarian Universalist Center, Martin Luther King Room

1187 Franklin, SF

TGTGTGTGTG@aol.com

www.pdamerica.org


FRIDAY 28

White Picket Fences Reception

This multi-media visual and performance art exhibit highlights queer perspectives on the family unit and reflections of contemporary marriage and relationships. Artists like Midori, Monica Canilao, Harrison Bartlett, Mev Luna, Amelia Reiff Hill and Madison Young conjure dialogue in and out of the LGBT community on the dynamics of progressive life. This family oriented event is open to all ages and will be catered with food, wine and performances of featured artists.

7:30-10 p.m.

Michelle O’Connor Gallery

2111 Mission, SF

www.feminapotens.org


SUNDAY 30

Organize and fight back

The Party for Socialism and Revolution is holding its NorCal Regional Conference, with discussions on how big corporations avoid taxes, endless U.S. Wars, the cost of higher education, the prospects for capitalism and socialism, and other topics.

10 a.m.-5 p.m., $7-10

2969 Mission, SF

(415) 821-6171

sf@pwlweb.org


Making Democracy Work

Celebrate 17 years of social justice service with keynote speakers Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) and Imam Siraj Wahhaj, religious director of At-Taqwa Mosque in NY, at a dinner banquet. This fundraiser supports the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Islamic grassroots civil rights and advocacy group in the country.

5-10 p.m.

Santa Clara Marriott

2700 Mission College, Santa Clara

(408) 986-9874

www.ca.cair.com/sfba/event/17thannualbanquet

 

 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Avalos offers resolution supporting OccupySF and its camp

Sasha Cuttler
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57
Avalos offers resolution supporting OccupySF and its camp

In the wake of last night’s violent police raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment (a still-tense situation that we’re now on the scene covering) and two similar late-night police crackdowns on OccupySF in recent weeks, Sup. John Avalos and co-sponsors Eric Mar and David Campos are introducing a resolution at today’s San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting that calls for the city to explicitly allow the OccupySF encampment and its related infrastructure to remain.

That resolution (the full text follows below), which Avalos legislative aide Raquel Redondiez says will be the subject of a special hearing on Monday before being considered by the full board on Tuesday, Nov. 1, grew out of testimony from OccupySF participants that Avalos solicited at last week’s board meeting following a late night police raid on Oct. 16 that resulted in five arrests and many injuries.

As we report in this week’s paper (see “Mixed messages,” to be posted this evening, Tues/25), at that Oct. 18 board meeting, Mayor Ed Lee took the position that no tents, kitchens, or other infrastructure would be permitted, a stance that Police Chief Greg Suhr seemed to soften slightly at a raucous Police Commission hearing the next day. In the face of those mixed messages, OccupySF grew into a full-blown tent city in Justin Herman Plaza and there have been no real conflicts with police since.

Both the San Francisco Police Department and the Mayor’s Office were slow to respond to messages we left all week seeking to clarify the city’s policy toward OccupySF, but both finally got back to us last night after the article had gone to press.

SFPD spokesperson Daryl Fong told us, “We’re still currently doing daily safety inspections at Justin Herman Plaza and continuing to provide leafletting…We’re educating the campers about violations and concerns for public safety,” such as unsanitary conditions or unsafe camping structures.

But he said OccupySF hasn’t been given any deadlines for removing structures and there are no current plans for another raid. “Our goal is to get compliance from the campers voluntarily,” he said. “This situation is being continually monitored as it progresses.”

When we asked the Mayor’s Office about the contradiction being Lee’s stance and the city’s reaction to the growing tent city, Press Secretary Christine Falvey wrote, “The mayor’s position on Occupy SF has not changed. He has directed his departments to facilitate peaceful protest, but not allow structures, tents, or a permanent campsite. He wants to ensure the area is safe for demonstrators and the general public. If you have been to the site, you may have seen the Fire and Public Health Departments conducting inspections for public health and safety concerns and you may have seen Recreation and Park and Police staff informing people of the parks and public safety codes that prohibit camping equipment. Individuals are being informed daily of this and the city’s Homeless Outreach Team is offering services to anyone in the area who may need it. The policy stands and departments are educating the group about what is and is not allowed and the mayor expects those who want to use the space to protest, to follow the rules.”

But OccupySF protesters say they have no intention of leaving the space, believing it’s their right to be there as part of a national movement spotlighting the greed and corruption of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. And when I told Falvey that the encampment seems to defy the mayor’s stated position, she wrote, “The mayor has asked several departments to enforce the existing codes, and I understand a number of informational contacts have gone out daily to educate those using the plaza about what is allowable in addition to Fire and Public Health inspections to make sure open flames or dangerous materials are not being used or stored at the site.”

I told her that didn’t address my question, and I asked for a reaction to the Avalos legislation that would explicitly allow “tents, tarps, First Aid supplies, environmentally clean and fire-safe energy sources, and the ability to store, prepare, and serve hot food,” which is the reality now on the ground. I’ll update this post when I get a response.

In the meantime, here’s the full text of the resolution:

[Expressing Support for Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement and the People’s Right to Peaceful Assembly in San Francisco]

Resolution Supporting the Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement and Urging Mayor Lee to Uphold People’s Right to Peaceful Assembly and Collaborate with Occupy SF to Ensure Safety of the Protestors, their Supporters, and the Greater Public.

WHEREAS, “Occupy Wall Street” was formed by a broad spectrum of people coming together to protest the corporate-serving economic and political system controlled by the 1 percent, profiting at the expense of 99 percent of the people; and

WHEREAS, Three years after the current financial crisis caused by Wall Street speculators and profiteers, the unemployment rate in the United States is still at the highest level since the Great Depression with the unemployment rate in San Francisco currently at 8.3 percent; and,

WHEREAS, The United States’ major banking institutions, which have been bailed-out by the government and United States taxpayers, have done little to prevent massive foreclosure of residential properties or support the revitalization of local economies by sustaining small businesses; and,

WHEREAS, Since 2008, there have been 1.2 million foreclosures in California, with 12,410 homes in San Francisco alone; and,

WHEREAS, The “Occupy Wall Street” protest movement has struck a chord with the people of the United States and around the world, inspiring over 900 similar protests and solidarity actions across the country, where tens of thousands of people have come out to express their deep indignation against Wall Street greed and systemic socio-economic injustices; and,

WHEREAS, The “Occupy” demonstrations are a rapidly growing movement of people from all walks of life with the goal of occupying public space in order to create a shared dialogue and assert demands for economic justice; and,

WHEREAS, The “Occupy” demonstrations have been supported by the California Nurses Association/ National Nurses Association, American Federation of Labor -Congress of Industrial Organizations, Change to Win, International Longshore and Warehouse Union-International, Teamsters Joint Council 7, Services Employees International Union, Laborers International Union of North America, and many others; and,

WHEREAS, The OccupySF demonstrations began in September with small gatherings of people and have since grown and gained supported from thousands of individuals, community and faith-based organizations, and unions; and,

WHEREAS, On October 12, a 500-person march and civil disobedience organized by local community groups received national media attention, exposing the struggles of San Francisco residents against foreclosure, corporate control, and spiraling unemployment; and,

WHEREAS, The October march and protest action culminated in civil disobedience and, despite the arrest of 11 people, lacked any antagonistic conflict between the police and protestors; and,

WHEREAS, Similar to demonstrations in hundreds of cities across the United States, OccupySF demonstrators are asserting their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to create public dialogue around corporate control of the political process and public space; and,

WHEREAS, Numerous and various groups continue to join the protesters at OccupySF, including an interfaith clergy contingent and the California Nurses Association, which has set up a First Aid tent to support the protestors and help ensure public safety; and,

WHEREAS, The City of San Francisco has a right and duty to ensure the safety and security of the general public including the protestors and their supporters; and,

WHEREAS, Since the beginning of the protest, City actions have resulted in the confiscation of food, tents, sleeping bags, and other belongings from the OccupySF demonstrators as well as causing preventable injuries and arrests; and,

WHEREAS, The City has a lengthy and proud history of political protest and has upheld the rights of people to free speech, freedom of assembly, and peaceful protest; and,

WHEREAS, With clear leadership from the Mayor, City departments can set a tone of cooperation and collaboration with OccupySF protestors and supporters, help mitigate harm, and address any public safety, health and sanitation concerns, all while avoiding unnecessary conflict; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors supports the Occupy Wall Street protest movement and the rights of all who protest to assemble peacefully and enjoy free speech in the City and County of San Francisco; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors recognizes that Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly should not be limited to daytime nor short-term activities and we deem the need of protesters to have tents, tarps, First Aid supplies, environmentally clean and fire-safe energy sources, and the ability to store, prepare, and serve hot food reasonable; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges the Mayor, the Police Department, and other City agencies to uphold the rights of protestors to political speech and public assembly, and to recognize that the full exercise of such rights requires that participants are able to attend to the needs of everyday life, and have a space free from harassment; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges Mayor Ed Lee to direct the Recreation and Park Department, the Department of Public Works, the Police Department, and other City agencies, as relevant, to be flexible and to collaborate with protestors for the safe sharing of public spaces, in which demonstrators can exercise their political rights and the City can address legitimate safety concerns while avoiding unnecessary antagonism; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges Mayor Ed Lee, in order to prevent further harm and conflict to any members of the public, including protestors of OccupySF, to direct the Police Department to ensure that there will be no use of force to dislodge the OccupySF demonstrators and confiscate their belongings.

Interview with a master pumpkin carver: Shawn Feeney of Team Bling Bats

Andrew Lam
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0

The triumphant Team Bling Bats might owe some of their success to German electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Without it, the champions of the Food Network reality design show Halloween Wars might not have had the kickass contributions of SF local Shawn Feeney, who helped drive the team to victory in the four-episode series final show on Sunday.

Feeney is an concept art illustrator working at Industrial Light and Magic, but in his spare time he creates these killer jack-o-lanterns that feature the face of a musician who has passed away in the last year (wo0o0o0o0o0oo!). Stockhausen, a composer who made music to be performed on helicopters, by three orchestras at once, and in weeklong cycles. His face was one of the ones that Food Network brass saw on Feeney’s website, who then contacted him to be on the show. 

On Sunday, Feeney sat down with buddies at Asiento in the Mission to watch his Bling Bats defeat Team Boo. Then he sat down to email us his secret tricks and what he’s going to say to Obama to put this country back on track, via pumpkinery. 

 

SFBG: Where’d you get them carving skills from?

SF: I used to work in a prosthetic hand laboratory. I also got a master of fine arts in New Zealand, and later worked as a forensic artist for the New York police. Recently, I have been working at effects studio Industrial Light and Magic, where I’ve further developed my analog and digital sculpting skills.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, German godfather of electronic music, composed pieces that were meant to be performed in a helicopter and one for three orchestras. He became Feeney’s gourd muse when he passed away in 2007.

SFBG: How did you prepare for last night’s battle?

SF: There was an enormous amount of surface area on that 1200-pound pumpkin, so I knew the ribbon loop tool I usually use wouldn’t suffice to get the skin off. Instead, I got an angle grinder – that thing vaporized the pumpkin skin into a fine mist (although it made the floor dangerously slippery).

 

SFBG: How would you rate your performance?

SF: I think Karen Portaleo, Susan Notter, and I really worked well together as a team, with each member contributing equally. I’m in awe of their talents. I didn’t approach this as a pumpkin carving contest – rather, I tried to develop designs that showcased everyone’s skills in a cohesive manner.

 

SFBG: How are you celebrating your triumph?

SF: I watched the final episode at Asiento in the Mission with some friends – the whole bar was on pins and needles! I’ve decided to use the winnings to further develop my carving practice, even beyond pumpkins. I’ll be making a lot more work in this field in the coming months, and I’m available for custom carvings, events, and teaching. I’ve really excited to offer my skills to the Bay Area foodie culture. 

 

SFBG: I hear you’re carving presidents for Obama. Please explain. 

SF: I’m carving pumpkins for Obama. A couple weeks ago, I got in touch with fruit and vegetable artist James Parker. He’d been watching Halloween Wars and liked my work. James organizes this event to bring some of the top carving and culinary artists to create displays for the White House lawn on Halloween. I feel honored that he invited me to participate.

 

SFBG: Also, can you tell him that we’re a little frustrated with him right now? I’m not sure if you can work that into pumpkin discussions, but surely you can craft a metaphor involving pumpkin smashing. Or whatnot. 

SF: Hopefully Obama is astute enough to realize there is much unrest in the country right now due to vast economic inequality. At this event though, I’m really aiming to inspire (and perhaps scare) the trick-o-treaters, and to collaborate with some of the top food sculptors in the country.

 

WTF, Chuck?

Zelda Bronstein
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18
WTF, Chuck?

And now for a new installment in the ongoing saga of What the Fuck, Chuck?, our attempt to figure out the unfathomable positions of the Chron’s local columnist, C.W. Nevius. Today’s episode: Why is Nevius so determined to stir up a clash between the police and the OccupySF protesters?

Although the Oakland cops have rousted Occupy Oakland — with a nightime raid, arrests, and the works — things have been pretty mellow in San Francisco for the past week. Police Chief Greg Suhr has tried to avoid sending riot troops in to evict the camp. The campers are working with city officials to get a permit for a stove. The camp is largely peaceful; nobody’s hurting anyone or anything.

Oh, but Chuck is nervous:

Many of the city’s homeless residents have gravitated there, the sanitation is a nightmare, there are rats, and car batteries are neither a safe nor ecological energy source.

Well, there were rats there before the protesters arrived. City officials have offered to set up portable toilets. Car batteries aren’t perfect, but if you charge them by riding a stationary bicycle, the energy is pretty darn ecological. And really, unless you knock the battery over and it cracks and spills, car batteries are pretty safe; the don’t explode or emit fumes. The acid and lead are toxic, but they’re pretty well contained. There are more than 300,000 car batteries on the streets of San Francisco already; every car has one.

And so what if “many of the the city’s homeless residents” have gone to join the protests? Some are eager for the free food and shelter, which is fine — putting the more middle-class radicals side by side with homeless people isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, it’s about the most radical thing that OccupySF is doing. Homeless people are the most visible victims of the economic injustict that the occupyers are protesting; shouldn’t they be part of the action?

I realize that some homeless people have mental health and substance abuse issues, but those didn’t start with OccupySF. Instead of whining about the situation, the city ought to be taking advantage of it — here’s a group of hard-to-reach folks who social workers can probably connect with more easily in an environment and community that’s supportive.

But Nevius can’t imagine anything good coming of any of this:

As Occupy SF gets bigger and louder, the potential for trouble only increases.

I guess Nevius doesn’t believe it’s possible for an alternative community that includes a wide range of activists and homeless people to grow and make its voice heard without “trouble.” And the only way out is to send in the troops.

What the Fuck, Chuck?

 

 

SFPD allows OccupySF to grow into a tent city

Sasha Cuttler
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14

Photos by Steven T. Jones, who also contributed to this report.

It seems the San Francisco Police Department is laying off the OccupySF encampment, at least for now. After top city officials sent mixed messages to the occupiers during a pair of high-profile hearings in City Hall this week, a full-blown tent city with working kitchen and medical tent has now been erected in Justin Herman Plaza.

During the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Ed Lee voiced support for the movement’s message, but said that tents, tarps, and cooking in the plaza or in OccupySF’s presence on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Reserve wouldn’t be tolerated.

A string of protesters testified against the policy and the two recent police crackdowns, which was also criticized by John Avalos and other progressive supervisors who are working on a legislative solution to the standoff. But at the Police Commission hearing the next night, Police Chief Greg Suhr seemed to announce that police would stand  down and allow the encampment to continue.

Protesters packed the meeting and disrupted the proceedings with chants of “SFPD where is your humanity” and accusations of police brutality at several recent raids of their camp. Many representatives made public comments condemning police brutality and repression of the protests, and many speakers also connected it with a broader problem of police harassment, notably in Bayview-Hunters Point.

Said OccupySF protester Christopher Ray: “Obama himself does not have the right to come tell us to stop, to tell us to take down our tarps, to tell us we can’t eat, to cook food, to sleep there. Period. You would have change the Constitution of the United States in order to do that. We’re not leaving.”

By the end of the long meeting, Suhr expressed support in what seemed like a promise to OccupySF: “We have no future plans to go into the demonstration. We know that it’s for the long haul. We did work, or, I’m told that we were trying to work all day Sunday to take down the tarps and the structures. We did meet last week and I did provide a written notice that’s been provided wholesale since down there. We realize that this movement could go on indefinitely, and as such, I’m actually working with the Mayor’s Office personally to put the port-o-potties and the handwashing stations down there to provide sanitation. I don’t know that anybody’s doing that. And in other towns where this movement has grown and is very large, they’re already experiencing things like dogs that have bitten people, rats, sanitation issues, the lack of running water so I can assure you that our efforts are to keep it safe and to facilitate the First Amendment demonstration.”

His statement was meant with a cry of “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” and thunderous applause from the chamber, and the OccupySF movement has interpreted the remarks as permission for the encampment to continue without further police harassment. Guardian calls to the SFPD Public Affairs Office to clarify the policy have not yet been returned.

By last night, the encampment’s numbers and infrastructure had grown — with a kitchen producing group dinners and new tents being added throughout the evening — and there seemed to be only a cursory police presence. Many protesters were essentially declaring victory, telling the Guardian that the numbers only grew after each police raid, expressing hope that the city has now had a change of heart. 

This comes after a rocky history of SFPD relations with the protest. On October 5, police issued a notice requiring all tents at the encampment to be removed. Protesters complied, but police still moved in, confiscated all the protest’s materials, and ended up making one arrest in the ensuing altercation. Since, OccupySF has mostly refrained from erecting any structures; instead, the growing numbers, now an average of 200 per night, sleep on the sidewalk. When they put up two tarps when weather turned rainy on Sunday the 16th, the result was another nighttime police raid, this time with five arrests and several injuries to demonstrators.

Yet the next morning, protesters had strung up more tarps.  And in the past few days, many have pitched tents. Now, tents number over 40, and the police are yet to raid.

On Thursday, California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Association worked with OccupySF’s medic team to set up a medical tent. The tent has been sorely needed for a while, but it is only recently that supporters of the protest felt safe creating it.

When the tent was put up, police came and circulated a notice that had been issued on Oct. 1 stating, “Tents, overhead tarps, and/or wooden pallets are not to be within the demonstration area unless appropriate permits are obtained because of the potential hazard they present.” But police exited without attempting to enforce this notice, and as of now the medical tent, complete with a cot and a growing stock of supplies, is still in place.

Said Pilar Schiavo, an organizer with CNA who has been working with OccupySF: “We were able to provide treatment to a bunch of occupiers today.” She says there are many at OccupySF with no other access to health care besides the new tent. “It’s just basic first aid so far, but a little goes a long way here. One had a broken finger from Sunday’s raid.”

Schiavo says when they set up the tent early Thursday morning, protesters Tweeted, Facebooked, and otherwise put out calls for needed medical supplies. Shiavo was proud to report that “supplies started showing up an hour later.”

Just a short BART ride away, city officials in Oakland have accommodated Occupy Oakland and it has grown into a large tent city with ever-improving infrastructure and organization. Perhaps OccupySF is now headed down the same path.

The bad old days

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
The bad old days

tredmond@sfbg.com

Willie L. Brown, according to the Chronicle’s John Cote, is “a tremendously popular figure in the city, viewed by many as an avuncular man-about-town, elder statesman and a uniquely San Franciscan character.” The Ed Lee Story, a hagiographic campaign book, refers to Brown’s “characteristic showmanship and hypnotic charm.” Even Randy Shaw, the housing activist who clashed with Brown over gentrification once upon a time, now says in BeyondChron that Brown’s first term “was the most progressive of any mayor in modern San Francisco history.”

I feel as if I’m living in some sort of strange parallel universe, something out of Orwell or North Korea or the Soviet Union of the 1950s. It’s as if history never happened, as if the years between 1996 and 2004 have just vanished, have been deleted from San Francisco’s collective memory. It’s crazy.

I wonder:

What about the thousands and thousands of people who lost their homes and were tossed out of the city like refugees from a war? What about the rampant corruption at City Hall? What about the legions of unqualified political cronies who got good jobs and commission posts? What about the iron-fisted machine rule that kept local politics closed to all but the loyal insiders? Doesn’t any of that count?

Here are some things that absolutely, undeniable, demonstrably happened while Willie Brown was mayor:

Rents on the East Side of town, particularly in the Mission, tripled and sometimes quadrupled between 1996, when Brown took office, and 2004, when he left. Evictions more than tripled, too, and at one point more than 100 people a month were losing their homes. Most of those people were low-income, long-term tenants. They were forced out because richer people were moving into town during the dot-com boom and could pay more for those apartments. We called it the “Economic Cleansing of San Francisco.”

Every day, it seemed, we’d be out at another rally as the Tenants Union and the Mission Antidisplacement Coalition tried to save another family from the forces of gentrification. Every week, it seemed, another group house full of artists would be served an eviction notice. Everywhere you looked, nonprofits and small businesses were losing space to high-tech companies with plenty of money.

I watched the wrecking crew tear down a studio complex on Bryant Street, forcing more than 100 painters and photographers to leave, to make way for a high-tech office project that was approved even though it violated the local zoning laws — and then was never built. For two years, I walked to get my lunch past the empty hole in the ground that had once been a thriving community.

That was typical. Every developer who waved money in front of the mayor got a building permit, no matter how crazy, illogical or illegal the project was. The Planning Department and the Bureau of Building Inspection were little more than fronts for the lobbyists and Brown cronies who determined development policy in the city.

In October, 1999, the author Paulina Borsook wrote a famous piece in Salon called “How the Internet Ruined San Francisco.” I agreed with the sentiment; the influx of the dot-commers was wrecking all that was cool and weird about the city. But she got one point wrong: The Internet didn’t ruin anything. The Internet was, and is, a technology, a tool, something that, like most technological advances, can be used for good or evil.

Mayor Brown didn’t create the dot-com boom. Although he took credit for an awful lot of things, even Willie didn’t claim to have invented the Internet.

But what he did — and what ruined many San Francisco neighborhoods, and ruined the lives of many San Franciscans — was to let the economic cleansing of the city happen, without raising a finger to slow it down or prevent the evictions or protect the most vulnerable people in the city. Over and over, he encouraged it — by appointing commissioners and supervisors and department heads who allowed evictions and development and displacement in the name of growth and prosperity.

In fact, when reporters from the zine Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll asked Brown about the problems facing poor people, he told them that the city had become so expensive that poor people would be better off living somewhere else.

Because he didn’t care about poor people, or tenants, or artists, or anyone who lacked money and flash and dazzle and clout. He was the worst kind of imperial mayor.

Here’s how we put in it in our 33rd anniversary issue in 1998:

“Let’s say the next major earthquake that hits San Francisco is of roughly the same magnitude of the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, or maybe just a bit stronger. Let’s say it wipes out right 1,000 houses and leave some 5,000 people homeless … and lets say a few unscrupulous profiteers take advantage of the shortages of critical supplies and charge desperate residents triple the normal rate for food, blankets and drinking water….

“The profiteers, speculators and charlatans would be exposed in the press and roundly, loudly denounced by every political and community leader in the city. The ones who didn’t wind up in jail would be forced to leave town in disgrace.”

Or else they wouldn’t. Because when an economic earthquake ravaged San Francisco during his term, Brown — the most powerful mayor in modern history, a guy who could have had an immense impact on what was happening — went to meet the speculators and profiteers with outstretched arms, welcomed them to the city and partied with them at night.

And when he ran for re-election, they thanked him by funding an astonishing $5 million campaign.

Then there was the corruption. Not only did Brown raise pay-to-play to a new art form, he filled the city payroll and key commissions with campaign workers, former political allies, and cronies, subverting the civil service system and undermining both the function of city agencies and public respect for local government. At least seven Brown appointees were indicted or investigated for criminal misconduct. While sentencing a Housing Authority official to five years in prison, U.S. District Judge Charles Legge decried what he called Third World-style corruption at San Francisco City Hall.

When Mayor Ed Lee, who is now seeking a full four-year term, was asked to give Brown a grade for his eight years in Room 200, Lee said: A-Plus.

Which makes us a little nervous. To say the least.

I’ve been going back through the Guardian archives over the past couple of weeks, picking out some great covers to reproduce (see page 18) and looking at four and a half decades of alternative news coverage of San Francisco. And if there’s one theme that emerges from the stacks and stacks and stacks of papers, it’s that local government matters.

In the 1960s, when the underground press was talking about sex, drugs and dropping out, the Guardian was talking about the ways big corporations were stealing the taxpayers’ money at City Hall. (Okay, the Guardian wrote about sex and drugs too. But sex and drugs and political scandals.)

The difference between the independent alternative press and the underground papers of the era was more than just thematic. The underground publishers were having a great time and celebrating culture, but none of those publications was built to last. From the day they published their first issue in October, 1966, Guardian founders Bruce Brugmann and Jean Dibble intended their paper to become a permanent part of San Francisco.

The Guardian quickly demonstrated that it had a different approach than a lot of the “New Left” — particularly when it came to electoral politics. At a time when some were saying that it made no difference whether Ronald Reagan or Pat Brown won the 1966 governor’s race, the Guardian made the key point about Reagan.

“California cannot afford the luxury of this kind of conservatism,” a Nov. 7, 1966 editorial stated. “Because of the millions of people coming to California, because San Francisco and Los Angeles soon will have the greatest concentration of urban power in history, because farm land and open space is vanishing at a suicidal rate, because technology is putting vast populations out of work, because of the social neglect of our cities and the uglification of our countryside, because we now have the knowledge to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.”

And while the paper devoted considerable space to reporting on and opposing the war in Vietnam, it was also developing a reputation for local investigative reporting. One June 7, 1971 story showed how the city had all of its short-term deposits in local banks that paid no interest at all. The story parked an investigation by the city’s budget analyst, the resignation of the city treasurer — and a new investment policy that brought the city at least $1 million more revenue a year. (Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $5 million a year, times 40 years is a lot of money that the Guardian brought into the city coffers).

And from the start, the Guardian was a nonpartisan, independent foe of corruption, secrecy and undue influence at City Hall. So while the paper eagerly endorsed Phil Burton (and later his brother, John) for Congress and lauded their antiwar and environmental policies, the Guardian also blasted the Burtons for exercising undue influence back home. The paper strongly endorsed George Moscone for mayor — then denounced him when he fired Harvey Milk from a commission post after Milk had the gall to challenge the Moscone/Burton candidate for state Assembly.

The 1999 Sunshine Ordinance, which dramatically opened up City Hall records, was sponsored and promoted by the Guardian. Willie Brown and his cronies hated it.

It’s probably a misnomer to say that the Burtons, who were a dominant force in local politics in the 1970s and 1980s, ran an old-fashioned machine. They didn’t have the iron control over local politics and the patronage jobs system that the word “machine” implies.

But when Brown became mayor of San Francisco, he had all of that. Brown controlled eight solid votes on the Board of Supervisors (and through various political machinations, had managed to appoint most of them). “He ruled the building,” Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who was a supervisor during those years, recalled. “If you defied him, you were radioactive.”

And one of the people who rose through the ranks as a loyal Brown appointee was Ed Lee. Who to this day thinks things in that administration were just dandy.

 

The Lee campaign complains about “guilt by association,” and that’s a legitimate point. Ed Lee isn’t Willie Brown. He’s a lot more open, a lot (a lot) more humble, and as numerous progressives have pointed out to us, his door is open. He doesn’t have the history of sleaze that pretty much defined Brown’s political career.

There will be no “Ed Lee Machine.” In fact, with district elections of supervisors pretty much guaranteeing more diffuse political power in the city, there will never be another mayor able to rule the way Brown did.

And these days, Brown’s clout could easily be overstated. Until he engineered the selection of Ed Lee as mayor, his power seemed to be waning. And even Mayor Lee hasn’t done everything that Brown wanted.

Of course, the Chronicle, which he helped immensely when Hearst Corp. bought the paper and had trouble with federal regulators, has helped Brown by giving him a column that created a new, sanitized persona.

But the important thing about the Brown administration was not so much who was in charge but who benefited. The landlords, the developers, the big corporations got pretty much what they wanted from City Hall. The rest of us got screwed.

And now those same interests — in some cases, the exact same people — who supported, promoted and worked with Willie Brown are backing Lee for mayor. If they thought he was going to be an independent progressive, that money and support wouldn’t be coming in. There are people who miss the machine days — and if they think Ed Lee is their guy, it’s reason to worry.

Corruption matters. When people lose faith in local government because they see the kind of sleaze that was daily business under Brown, then they stop wanting to pay taxes for public services. After all, the mayor is wasting our money already. Lee may be a decent guy — but some of the people he hangs out with, some of the people who are supporting him, have a long and very unpleasant history in this town. And all the time he was sitting there at City Hall, while Brown was running a corrupt operation that did lasting damage, Lee never raised a public finger in protest. I hate to see all the history forgotten when people decide who to support for mayor in November, 2011.

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