food

Frances

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Frances

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE What is the difference between Frances, Melissa Perello’s wonderful, 15-month-old restaurant in the Castro, and Palencia, whose place it took? The interior design? This seems to have changed little, if at all. Frances’ food is different, of course, an expertly sown patchwork quilt of influences and ingredients, whereas Palencia had given a stylish bistro treatment to the underrepresented and, to me, underappreciated foods of the Philippines.

But the most obvious difference is that Frances exists — and is packed — while Palencia is no more, and this has to do, I believe, with Perello herself. She brought her star power to a faceless block of 17th Street, and in so doing, she managed to put this handsome little space on the map. People had heard her name and the gilded words associated with it — Fifth Floor, Ron Siegel, Michael Mina, Charles Nob Hill — and this reputation has been enough, apparently, to induce patrons to seek a restaurant where they wouldn’t necessarily expect to find one, on a residential, tree-lined stretch of pavement far from other restaurants and, for that matter, other businesses.

When you step into Frances, from the lonely street into the lively dining room, long and narrow with lots of wood and cream tones, you have stepped from black to white, chilly to warm, and you are reminded of how commercial establishments tend to huddle together. It’s unusual to find a business isolated in this way; it’s like a secret, a great private party no one knows about, except that everyone seems to know about it. Thankfully, they’ve left their stretch limos at home.

If good things come in threes, then Frances completes a trifecta that also includes Firefly (opened 1993) and Delfina (1998). Three of the best restaurants in the city are neighborhood spots within walking distance of one another. They’re also run by pedigreed chefs who’ve chosen (wisely) to invest themselves in ventures of a manageable, human scale, where details small and large can be controlled and the restaurant can actually be what the chef means it to be.

But our trifecta is more of an isosceles triangle, because — at least food-wise — Frances is nearer Firefly than Delfina: a wonderful Californian arabesque of this and that, with a deep root in a rustic Franco-Italian tradition. The menu shows few to no Asian influences, and it also suggests that Perello loves smoky, earthy effects, as in the beignets ($6.50), crisp doughnut balls flavored with applewood-smoked bacon and easy to dip in maple crème fraiche, though they didn’t need to be dipped in anything.

Other whispers of smoke turned up in a soup ($10) of puréed white beans and roasted fennel root with caramelized garlic, shreds of Tuscan kale, and chunks of chicken confit, and in the ragout of toasted farro accompanying the grilled bavette steak ($25). As the steak aficionado put it, “the beef is fine” — a gorgeous rosy color that made up for its not-quite-tenderness, which we’d been advised of beforehand — “but this stuff is great!” Meaning the farro, enhanced by maitake mushrooms and baby fava microgreens; it was practically a meal in itself.

A proper seasonal menu for winter would naturally include mushrooms and citrus, and so we found black trumpet mushrooms contributing to a bowl of spugnole pasta ($13) along with long coins of cotechino sausage and plenty of pecorino cheese: a marvelous little quartet of tang and earth. Citrus, meanwhile, assumed the form of Meyer lemon, whose juice electrified a salad of lovingly tender grilled calamari ($6.50) on a bed of wild arugula, shaved fennel, and radish. It also appeared as bits of satsuma mandarin orange in a salad of little-gems spears ($12) laden with Dungeness crab meat and dressed with a tarragon vinaigrette.

The panisses ($6.50) were extraordinary, and only in part because you rarely find them offered. They are a slight pain to make, but Frances’ were beautifully formed and expertly fried to produce a good knobbly crust around a creamy interior. These, too, like the beignets, needed no dipping condiment, but the condiment presented with them, an aioli of calabrese peppers, was good enough (with a definite garlic-acid kick) to be taken straight up. This I did, discreetly I hope, with a spoon. And if the duck leg ($23), braised in red wine and served atop a medley of butter beans, escarole, and pitted Sicilian olives, seemed slightly less extraordinary — less smokin’ — that was only because there was more of it.

FRANCES

Dinner: Sun., Tues.–Thurs., 5–10 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5–10:30 p.m.

3870 17th St., SF

(415) 621-3870

www.frances-sf.com

Wine and beer

AE/MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Holy paint rollers

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Holy paint rollers

caitlin@sfbg.com

CULTURE In the Mission there are few things more — and less — sacred than a mural. Every day in the neighborhood a communion is performed: new street art is produced, and in exchange, other street art is mangled, marred by tags scrawled by unimpressed or jealous (depends on who you ask) hands. But some wall pieces in this storied land of concrete canvases are holy in more than just the figurative sense. Two neighborhood mural projects in particular fit this frame, one blessed by priests and one possessing clues about the earliest days of the Mission Dolores.

Caledonia Alley runs alongside St. John the Evangelist’s Episcopal Church. Jesus looks down on the narrow street, which was once so thoroughly covered in needles that Elaine Lew, who was born and raised in a house on Caledonia, says, “You couldn’t drive your car down it because you’d pop your tires.” Every Sunday, families lined up for the free food the church distributed, sharing the space with people openly selling and using drugs.

But since Jesus came to the alley, things have been different. Street artist Dan Plasma happened upon Caledonia looking for fresh wall space to paint, and proposed to the church that he cover their heavily-tagged alley wall with something space-specific. St. John’s acquiesced, so Plasma and his friends, respected artists Mike Giant and Mark Bode, went to work on a spray paint tableau of the crucifixion, with St. John and other biblical figures in supporting roles.

“It really made a big difference in the alley,” says Lew, who notes that the blatant drug activity has subsided in the year since the crew completed the piece. The church recognized the change, and the rector let Plasma know that it would be officially blessing the mural in a ceremony. “I called up Mark and Mike and told them, ‘It’s going to get sprinkled with holy water. We gotta put on some clean shirts,’ ” says Plasma. A year later, the wall is still utterly free of the tags that go on so many other works.

Funds allowing, a miracle of a different sort will soon be watching over the neighborhood’s only weekly farmers market. Artist Ben Wood has made a habit of finding our city’s little-known historical perspectives and presenting them to the San Francisco of today. In 2004, he spent the Fourth of July projecting images of the Ohlone onto Coit Tower and Andrew Galvan, Mission Dolores’ curator — and direct descendent of Ohlone who converted at the church — told Wood there was an original Ohlone mural hidden behind the mission’s central reredos, or altar.

“It’s been hidden for 200 years,” Wood says in a phone interview. “The possibility of recreating the mural for the public — it would allow people to ask questions about life back then.” He and a Presidio historian set to work documenting the piece, dropping a camera into the crawl space between mural and altar and eventually coming up with a composite image of a spiraling, curving design of purple lines and dagger-pierced hearts they hope to recreate on a wall of the historic Mission Market that abuts the relatively new, open-air Mission Community Market.

“The mural is really telling about the tradition of being a muralist in San Francisco,” says [CORRECTION: Jet Martinez clarifies that this is a misquote. The Guardian regrets the error.]

Jet Martinez, street artist and central figure in the Clarion Alley collective, was selected by Wood to work on the piece because of his mastery of intricate patterns in past murals of Oaxacan embroidery and prehistoric plant life. Their team created a Kickstarter account (www.kickstarter.com/profile/missiondoloresmural) for the project and hope to collect the majority of the $8,000 needed for the work by the end of the month. If they succeed, it will add another dimension to the canonization of street art in one of muralismo‘s most well-known neighborhood of galleries.

Man w/ parking

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Man w/ parking

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Dear Earl Butter,

Really??? Really, Earl? Really? Do you really think the source of your romantical problems is lack of parking? If so, by buying a motorcycle, a car, and a parking space, won’t you be setting yourself up for the opposite sort of problem: too much love.

As it is, almost every straight lady in San Francisco wants a piece of you, except for most of them. Still, that’s a good 10 or 12 good women who don’t need no parking spots or a motorcycle helmet to come see you, see?

So … and don’t forget, exactly one year ago the other day I myself proposed marriage to you in this very column because I thought it would make good copy. My being the consummate journalist aside, did I care if you had a parking spot, or wheels of any kind? No. I live downstairs.

Granted, not all women live downstairs from you. I’m just saying. The other night Hedgehog and me went out dancing to Cajun music. Technically, she didn’t dance; she played the washboard, and I danced.

In short, we had the time of our lives and in the process got what would best be described as drunk. I invited the 87-year-old man I was dancing with to come home with us, just in case his last remaining unfulfilled fantasy was to watch two highly carnivorous wimmins in bed together, but he just wanted to keep dancing.

Hedgehog and me went to a grocery store across the street and we bought, among other things we might like to later lick off of each other’s bodies, a bottle of wine. Being already sloppy, as soon as we got outside the store, I accidentally dropped the bag with the wine bottle in it. Her graceful little flower, Hedgehog calls me, mostly for throwing silverware around restaurants. Now this.

She wanted to just leave it, which is kind of a uniquely New Orleans approach to problem-solving. I hailed a cart collector and showed him the mess we’d made so at least they could clean up the glass. “No problem,” he said. “Go get another bottle.”

Not thinking enough to leave the soggy plastic bag there, I dripped purple back into the store to customer service. They said, “No problem. Go get another bottle.”

Never even checked the receipt. Hedgehog could have gotten something twice as expensive, while I stood there bathing in fluorescence watching the mopper mop up my mess and thinking: “What a unique approach to public drunkenness.”

But she didn’t.

Yours,

Me

Dear Mrs. Butter,

That is great. Mod and Kat said you guys tried to go to the Brown Sugar Kitchen before, but could not get in. The thing being that it is always so crowded. We had to wait a little while at noonish on a Tuesday. But then we did get in and got to eat.

Kat had the chicken and waffles ($15), Mod had the BBQ pork sandwich ($9.50) and I got the blackened catfish ($15). We all got the biscuit made with bacon, although I do not remember it being bacony, but it was good.

Kat was very excited about some football league she’s joined and says she’s never looked more forward to getting slaughtered on the field. She says she plays with gals who have never played football before, and it is the most fun she has ever had.

Mod learned how to do some weirdo therapy that brought all my knotted synapse packages to the fore before the food came. It also made my eyes tired and got me interested in the sidestep, like in gym class.

Kat thought the waffles were a little less than substantial, but I found them to be light and delightful. The pork sandwich seemed delicious, but Mod ho-hummed it a little. And I found the catfish to be very subtle, and in need of hot-sauce. We all agreed, good. But maybe not worth the wait.

Yers,

Earl

BROWN SUGAR KITCHEN

Tue.–Sat. 7 a.m.–3 p.m.; Sun. 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

2534 Mandela, Oakl.

(510) 839-7685

MC/V

Beer and wine

2 unusual destinations for cocktails in Los Angeles

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2 unusual destinations for cocktails in Los Angeles

Due to proximity, many of us find ourselves in LA often. Though the cocktail scene finally began to mature there a couple years ago, it’s difficult to find something different than what we’ve long seen in our own city. Here are two cocktail stops (one bar, one Mexican restaurant) offering something memorable for your next jaunt down to the City of Angels. Tlapazola is a humble, mid-range Mexican restaurant in West LA, with a second location in Venice. The food is stand-out on its own, prepared with care, a step above with Oaxacan moles and French cooking technique.

I was particularly impressed with the cocktails, which I didn’t even come here for. I heard they had a broad tequila selection (they do), but their cocktails are shockingly creative. There’s a tiny bar with no seating at the front of the restaurant, hardly a showcase for their drinks.

Ron-Chata ($9) is creamy with Whalers white rum, Kraken spiced rum, and Tres Leches triple-cream liqueur. A house cinnamon syrup adds spice, fruity notes come from prickly pear puree, and caramelized walnut delivers contrasting crunch.

Tlapazola ($10), the house drink, is made with Joya azul mezcal reposado, agave nectar, lime juice and old fashioned bitters. Cilantro adds an herbal tinge, while their own black mole adds heat, texture and meatiness. Further intrigue is added with a spritz of Pechuga mezcal mist, a favorite mezcal from Del Maguey.

I only regret not being able to try more Tlapazola cocktails.

Elsewhere in the metropolis — and not to be confused with downtown LA’s Library Bar (a pleasantly casual, book-lined hang-out, though not memorable on the drink front) — the Library Bar, hidden off the back of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s lobby, makes about the best cocktails I’ve ever had in LA (alongside the molecular creativity of The Bazaar).

A surprising respite off the jarring, touristy Hollywood Boulevard across from Grauman’s Chinese Theater, it’s a one-bartender show on any given night. This means you will wait for a drink, but it is worth it.

A farmers’ market spread of fruits, herbs and vegetables, selected daily, hints at the delights in store. There’s no menu. Tell bartender Matt Biancaniello your preferences or mood, trusting him to concoct a winner. And he will.

Though I love faux zebra bar stools and chairs, paired with sultry, brown leather couches in the mellow room, the one sour note is common in my experience at LA bars: the clientele.

Only one of a handful of people that night seemed to actually be any kind of cocktail appreciator. And he was driving home the point fairly loudly to the girls he was trying to flirt with. These women asked for a vodka tonic or some variation thereof… I couldn’t help but wish that these types would go to any of the hundreds of bars nearby that would happily serve them just such a flavorless drink, leaving this a quiet haven for cocktail aficionados and adventurous palates.

But it’s to Biancaniello’s credit that he cheerfully asked these women questions, pushing their boundaries using various herbs and white rum or gin instead of vodka. Stretching them a bit, but not too far, he did what a great bartender should do: educate and enlighten, without condescension.

For those with expanded taste, delights await. Tastes run savory with vegetables or spices, lush with foams or house-infused liqueurs, tart with an array of citrus. As Biancaniello will say, he’s clearly inspired by the likes of Scott Beattie. If not reaching that level of artistry, he pursues it.

On my visit, Biancaniello made cocktails with white raspberries and sage, or hops-infused gin. After asking for something savory and different, I was a little disappointed to get a drink with gin and strawberries, Last Tango in Modena (which Jonathan Gold calls one of the best cocktails in LA as of 3/3). It was expertly made, though not my favorite of the night. Hendricks gin gave it a cucumber crispness, married with strawberries, topped with St. Germain foam, brown with a sweet, 25yr balsamic vinegar. I have had the aged vinegar and strawberry combo before, from drinks to ice cream, though this was certainly a superior version.

He mixed rum with California’s Winter bounty: blood oranges, Meyer lemons and satsumas. St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram imparted a Wintery spice. A crisped orange slice exhibited a Beattie-like touch.

I especially took to Kentucky Bubble Bath, a bourbon cocktail (Bulleit, in this case), brightened with lemon. Gently floral with house lavender syrup (hence the bubble bath), Cynar artichoke liqueur adds a layer of gentle bitterness.

Cocktail lovers should make a beeline for this bar whenever they’re in LA. It’s not typical for that city, or anywhere, really. The skillful one-man-show, California farmers market bounty, and intimate setting (minus a bit of clientele douchebaggery) make it a drink destination.

But please, if you want a vodka tonic, just go to the perfectly nice-looking bar at the front of the hotel instead.

–Subscribe to Virgina’s newsletter, The Perfect Spot

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 16

Castro farmers’ market seasonal opening Noe between Market and Beaver, SF; 1-800-949-FARM, www.pcfma.com. 4-8pm, free. The Castro farmers’ market is back in business today and every Wednesday hereafter until December 21 with bountiful local produce at bargain prices, live performances, and other events in the works. Today’s market kick-off includes a Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence ribbon cutting ceremony and more St. Patrick’s Day-themed activities to keep you entertained while you peruse the dinosaur kale and heirloom radishes.

 

THURSDAY 17

Tara Jane O’Neil El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 9pm, $5. Remember when you were a kid and you thought paying five bucks for a show was a rip? Well now it’s a bargain – especially for a PDX-Olympia-SF trifecta of awesomeness – so tonight, come see TJo and the Root Buds with Lesbians, and local queer psych rockers Night Call. Also slinging vinyl will be DJ Theo Kwo and DJ Permanent Wave.

Ladies of Letterpress exhibition San Francisco Center for the Book, 300 De Haro, SF; (415) 565-0545, www.sfcb.org. 6-8pm, free. Tonight the SFBC is hosting a talk and a one night only exhibition of letterpress printing featuring works by local members of Ladies of Letterpress, with an “impromptu” letterpress business card mash-up exhibition planned (so bring those letterpress business cards you have lying around) and chocolates in the shape of La Forêt fonts for tasting – cute!

 

SATURDAY 19

An evening with Stephan Pastis Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 6-8pm, $5, free for members. Enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at Pearls Before Swine with the creator of this award-winning comic strip, Stephen Pastis — who is somewhat controversial for his relentless badgering of stale and boring comics (cough*Family Circle*cough) and use of certain subjects that tend to piss people off, like George Bush, Israel, religion – you know, the usual. This ballsy lawyer-turned-cartoonist will be signing books after the presentation and celebration of his new collection, Pearls Blow Up.

 

SUNDAY 20

Sunday Streets kick-off Embarcadero between Fisherman’s Wharf and Terry Francois Drive, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. Another year of Sunday Streets is upon us, marking the onset of beautiful San Francisco weather – knock on wood – with this free health and community oriented event. The first “Streets” of the season will begin at Fisherman’s Wharf and follow the Embarcadero down to Mission Bay, ending at Terry Francois Drive. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, skateboard, or just a plain pair of walking shoes and enjoy the activities and vendors that line this route, closed off from automobile traffic for the day.

Sixth Annual Meat Out Unitarian Center, 11887 Franklin, SF; (415) 273-5481, uufetasf@gmail.com, www.sfvs.org. Noon-2pm, $8 suggested donation. Get on board with the Board of Supervisor-approved Veg Day Mondays resolution a day early at this meatless and cruelty free luncheon with guest speakers – including Bob Linden of Go Vegan Radio on Green 960 AM and clinician-turned-health book author, Dr. Michael Klaper. Free recipes will be available for you to take home and veg out any day of the week. Don’t forget to register in advance by email or phone, as space is limited.

 

MONDAY 21

Pecha Kucha 330 Ritch, 330 Ritch, SF; www.pecha-kucha.org. 7pm, $5 suggested donation. Pecha Kucha, now a popular event in cities around the world, began as a way for young designers in varying fields to show off their work and share ideas in a specific presentation format. A dozen or so designers present 20 images for 20 seconds per piece and have six minutes and 40 seconds to explain their work before the next presenter takes the stage. Today’s presenters include Marilyn Yu, Davis Albertson, and Mila Zelkha, and as a special treat: local soul food eatery Little Skillet will be serving up their famous chicken and waffles.

 

TUESDAY 22

Water Matters book launch party Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF; www.watermatters.eventbrite.com. 6-9pm, free. Celebrate World Water Day with the release of the new book, Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource. There will be a panel discussion with leading environmental thinkers, like Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch and Michael Brune of the Sierra Club, as well as a party to follow.

 

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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THEATER

OPENING

Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Previews Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm (through March 27). Opens March 31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also April 3 and 10, 7pm). Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

BAY AREA

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Previews Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (through Sat/12). Opens Fri/18, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

The Iliad Berkeley City Club, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 698-4030. $12-24. Opens Fri/18, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 3. Inferno Theatre Company presents an adaptation of Homer’s ancient tale.

ONGOING

As Always Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.AsAlwaysTickets.com. $25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through March 27. Tracy Ward directs a new musical by Peter W. Tucker.

Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 26. “I hate assumptions,” says Pidge Meade. In fact, her new solo show, about her experience as a young woman of size on a brutal crash diet, goes a long way toward unsettling more than one. Developed and directed by Charlie Varon (Rush Limbaugh in Night School, Rabbi Sam), Meade’s multi-character monologue eschews easy sentiment for a sharply performed, consistently funny and genuine engagement with her younger, bigger self. Framed by a 20-year college reunion during which she suffers an unwanted conversation with an old roommate about her intervening dramatic weight loss, Meade recounts trying to lose 40 unwanted pounds to please her devoted but “harsh” father, an Olympic-level gymnastics coach shocked and appalled by her weight gain while at school. The father-daughter story comes interlarded with a few other encounters and characters measuring the variety of attitudes and approaches to weight among women in her Midwestern milieu. Meanwhile, Meade’s problematic relationship with her demanding if ultimately responsive father finds an unexpected echo in her former roommate’s pushy inquisitiveness (which, we learn, stems from her own desperate concern over a beloved but obese teen nephew). It’s in quietly mingling awkwardness, fear, and love that Meade’s piece can really surprise, and reaffirm that whatever else follows, it’s the usual assumptions that need shedding first. (Avila)

James Bond: Lady Killer Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 732-9592, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. Dark Room Theater presents an all-new James Bond adventure.

Lady Grey (in ever lower light) EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. ThroughApril 10. Cutting Ball Theater presents the Bay Area premiere of three short plays by Will Eno.

*Loveland Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 26. Ann Randolph’s one-woman show extends its run.

The Oldest Profession Brava Thater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin.

Out of Sight Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through March 27. Sara Felder’s one-woman show extends its run.

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton T8eater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Regrets Only New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 3. New Conservatory Theatre presents a play by Paul Rudnick, directed by Andrew Nance.

7 Sins…One More Time! EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 10. James Judd’s long-running comedy hit has a return engagement.

Sex and Death: A Night with Harold Pinter Phoenix Theatre, Suite 601, 414 Mason; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. The thing with Harold Pinter is you never know for certain whether he means for something to be funny or not. Take his most celebrated one-act, The Dumb Waiter, a rather tense dialogue between two hit-men waiting for their mark to show which veers into disarmingly surrealist territory once they start receiving mysterious lunch orders via a creaky dumbwaiter, despite not having any food, or indeed any gas to cook food on. Is this Pinter’s attempt to lighten the mood in an otherwise joyless examination of two minor functionaries in the criminal underworld, or is it a way for him to interject more unease into their already intractable situation? In Off-Broadway West’s staging they opt mainly for the latter interpretation, neither Gus (Conor Hamill) nor Ben (Shane Fahy) play up much of the sly humor tucked into their lines, and when the “surprise” twist arrives, it feels like a foregone conclusion. More deftly nuanced, the second one-act on the bill, The Lover milks the sex lives of the petty bourgeoisie for all the hidden wit and complicated innuendo that could possibly be excavated. Morphing from chilly society marrieds to shameless afternoon fling and “common garden slut” Chad Stender and Nicole Helfer play out a tightly-wound sexual fantasy with a cool edge, a satisfying end to a low-key revival. (Gluckstern)

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

Tenth Annual Bay One-Acts Festival Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma; 891-7235, www.bayoneacts.org. $20-32. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through March 26. Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company presents the tenth incarnation of the curated festival.

BAY AREA

Death of a Salesman Pear Avenue Theatre, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/20. Pear Avenue Theatre presents the Arthur Miller classic.

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Berkeley Playhouse, 2640 College; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-33. Call for dates and times. Through April 3. Berkeley Playhouse presents a musical fantasy based on the C.S. Lewis story.

The North Pool TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefiled, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 3. TheatreWorks presents a psychological thriller by Rajiv Joseph.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Brian Copeland’s one-man show returns to the stage.

Romeo and Juliet La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. Bet you thought Romeo and Juliet was just a sappy love story at its beating heart. But as Impact Theatre’s artistic director Melissa Hillman, fight director Dave Meier, and production “blood technician” Tunuviel Luv manage to remind us, R&J is known as a tragedy for good reason—full of escalating violence and a bodycount almost as high as Hamlet’s. Before they snuff it though, Romeo (Michael Garret McDonald) and Juliet (Luisa Frasconi) fall in love in a meet-cute, after-school special way: Frasconi exhibiting the coltish excitability of a very young teenager, and doofy McDonald egged on by a pack of uncouth youth (Seth Thygesen as Benvolio, Marilet Martinez as Mercutio, Miyuki Bierlein as Balthasar) who pretty much steal the show with their crass deconstruction of Romeo’s woes. Unfortunately, the Russian mafia angle is less fully fleshed out than the teen romance portion of the show. Yes, the mobsters all sport some great tattoos, carry mean-looking pistols, and occasionally deliver their lines in Russian thanks to language consultant Helen Nesteruk, but setting the show in the ex-pat Russian community “in the Bay Area” dilutes the extreme feudalism that setting the show in Moscow would imply, and allows the production to rely a little too heavily on familiar California-isms—phrases, behaviors, and fashions— rather than committing fully to exploring the vastly different world of the Russkaya Mafiya. (Gluckstern)

*Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through April 10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through April 3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Marga’s Funny Mondays Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk.; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/21, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series.

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

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Boulder Acoustic Society, Victoria Vox, Naomi Greenwald Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Caroliner Rainbow Shade is Natural Composure, Gumball Rimpoche, Tony Dryer, Coagulator, PantyKhrist Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Trevor Childs and the Beholders, Headslide, Bobbleheads El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Clean White Lines Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Crosstops, Undead Boys, Ruleta Rusa, Face the Rail, Street Justice Elbo Room. 8pm, $8.

Vows, Gipsy Moonlight Band, Stirling Says, DJ Mr. Soft Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Pamela Rose’s Wild Women of Song Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $18.

Michael Parsons Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 7pm, $20.

Marc Ribot Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $20-35. Accompanying a screening of The Kid (1921).

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Bueno Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St., SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $2. Soul, funk, swing, and rare grooves with residents Dr. Musco, DJB, and guest Gaselection.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

 

THURSDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Dwele Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $28.

Ex, Death Sentence: Panda!, Street Eaters Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

La Gente, Ziva, Anita Lofton Project, Cassandra Farrar and the Left Brains Café Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Horns of Happiness, Bad Paradise Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Laurie Morvan Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Elliot Randall and the Deadmen, Walty, Brad Brooks Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Sporting Life, Somehow at Sea, White Cloud Knockout. 10pm, $6.

Tenderloins, DJs Omar and Party Ben Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10.

Tunnel, Buffalo Tooth, Poor Sons, That Ghost Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

Wounded Stag, Scission Stud. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Royal Hartigan, Hafez Modirzadeh Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $10-15.

Marcus Roberts Trio Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 7:30pm, $30-50.

“Rrazz Room Third Anniversary Gala Celebration” Rrazz Room. 8pm. With Sarah Dash, Joyce DeWitt, Sally Kellerman, and more; benefit for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Culann’s Hounds, Brothers Comatose, Fucking Buckaroos Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Saddie Cats Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Delhi 2 Dublin, DJ Dragonfly, Pleasuremaker, Dgiin Mezzanine. 9pm.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests. This week: “Madonna Music Video Spectacular.”

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Hot Mess: St. Paddy’s Day Bash Ambassador Lounge, 673 Geary, SF; www.ambassador415.com. 10pm, free. Indie, booty, and electro with DJs White Mike, Greg J, and Audio 1.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Nightvision Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; (415) 777-1077. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Danny Daze, Franky Boissy, and more spinning house, electro, hip hop, funk, and more.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

St. Patrick’s Day Electro Party Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; www.blast-sf.com. 10pm, $10. With Digital Freq, B333Son, Liam Shy, Dizzy, and more.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

 

FRIDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Devo, Octopus Project Warfield. 9pm, $37.50-99.50.

Dwele Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

East of Western, Dogcatcher, Velvet Diplomacy Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

Finches, Coconut, Mist and Mast Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Funk Revival Orchestra, Yung Mars Project, 40 Watt Hype Elbo Room. 10pm, $13.

Katdelic, DJ K-Os Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $15.

New Mastersounds Independent. 9pm, $22.

Cece Peniston Rrazz Room. 9:15pm, $35.

Punch Brothers, Chris Thile, Sweetback Sisters Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

Soul of John Black Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

State Radio, Ton Tons Fillmore. 9pm, $21.

Marnie Stern, Tera Melos, Amaranth Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Vegas is North, Dylan Fox and the Wave, Sunshine Estates, Taking’s Not Stealing Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Emily Anne’s Delights Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

“Go Home: Ben Goldberg, Ellery Eskelin, Charlie Hunter, Scott Amendola” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $20-35.

Amanda McBroom Rrazz Room. 7:30pm, $35.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 8pm, $20.

JL Stiles Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $8-12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Bluegrass Bonanza!” Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6-10. With Bluegrass Revolution and Trespassers.

Brass Menazeri, Michael Musika, Toshio Hirano, DJ Zeljko Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Colm O’Riain St. Cyprian’s Church, 2097 Turk, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. 8pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop, one-hit wonders, soul, and more with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Radioactivity 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 440-0222. 6pm. Synth sounds of the cold war era.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Salted vs. Green Gorilla Lounge Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; (415) 932-0955. 9pm, $10-15. With Miguel Migs.

SF-RES Milk. 9pm, $5. Live beats and electronics with Secret Sidewalk, Broken Figures, and Bento and Jermski, plus DJs MuddBird, DnZ, and Modest Mark.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Trannyshack: David Bowie Tribute DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $15. With special guest Angie Bowie.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free. Old-school punk rock and other gems.

 

SATURDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cartographer, Pegataur, Tigon Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Dwele Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Eric McFaddin Trio, Jeff Cotton’s Gin Joint, Terese Taylor, Carroll Glenn Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Foreverland Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.theshowroomsf.com. 10pm, $15.

Greg Ginn and the Royal We, Big Scenic Nowhere, Glitter Wizard Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Gino Matteo Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

MegaFlame, Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12. With a burlesque performance by Delilah.

Murderess, Countdown to Armageddon, Fix My Head Elbo Room. 5pm.

New Mastersounds Independent. 9pm, $22.

Paris King Band, Jaymie Arrendondo Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Cece Peniston Rrazz Room. 9:15pm, $35.

Slowness, Gosta Berling, Tied to Branches Odes Retox Lounge. 8pm, $5.

Zion-I and the Grouch Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Patricia Barber Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-50.

Dave Mihaly Hoonsut Society Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Amanda McBroom Rrazz Room. 7:30pm, $35.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 2 and 8pm, $20.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Trio Garufa Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bootie SF: Brides of March DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups.

Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickinson.

Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $7. Gay locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJ Earworm, MyKill, and Dcnstrct.

Full House Gravity, 3505 Scott, SF; (415) 776-1928. 9pm, $10. With DJs Roost Uno and Pony P spinning dirty hip hop.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346 – 2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Steve Fabus, Tres Lingerie, Sergio, and more.

Hacienda Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 10pm. With Bobby Browser and resident DJs Jase of Bass, Tristes Tropiques, and Nihar.

Hot Flash Dance: Experience the Magic Ruby Skye. 5-9pm, $15. For older women who like to dance, with DJ Rockaway.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip-hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Non Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-20. Bhangra, hip-hop, reggae, and electronica.

Prince vs. Michael Madrone Art Bar. 8pm, $5. With DJs Dave Paul and Jeff Harris battling it out on the turntables with album cuts, remixes, rare tracks, and classics.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul spin sixties soul.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

True Skool Sessions Bruno’s. 10pm, $10. With DJ Jah Yzer, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, and DJ Franky Fresh spinning hip-hop classics, funk, and more.

 

SUNDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Acid King, Carlton Melton, Qumran Orphics Bottom of the Hill. 2pm, $8.

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12.

Grand Lake, Devotionals Amnesia. 9pm.

Ian Fays, Hobbits NYC, Amber Field Rickshaw Stop. 6pm, $15. Ipads for Autism benefit.

Lucas Nelson and Promise of the Real, Reflectacles Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Mist Giant, Withered Hand, Future Twin Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

She’s, Rotten Kids, Flaming Horizons Slim’s. 4pm, $10.

Zion-I and the Grouch Amnesia, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 2pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Yasmin Levy Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-65.

Amanda McBroom Rrazz Room. 7:30pm, $35.

Montana Skies Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $10-15.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 2pm, $20.

Regina Carter’s Reverse Thread Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5pm, $5-22.

Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Danilo y Universal El Rio. 4pm, $8.

Family Folk Explosion Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8pm, free.

Grooming the Crow, Going Away Party Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Louise Pitre Rrazz Room. 5pm, $30.

DANCE CLUBS

Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest Mexican Dubwiser.

Fresh Ruby Skye. 6pm-midnight, $20-25. With DJ Kimberly S.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

Swing-out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ B-Bop spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more with varying live band weekly.

 

MONDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Destroyer, War on Drugs, Devon Williams, DJ Britt Govea Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Fujiya and Miyagi, Fol Chen Independent. 8pm, $15.

Jimmy Thackery Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Regina Carter’s Reverse Thread Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $22.

Tom Shaw Trio, Shelley, Victoria Theodore, Sheelagh Murphy, Suzanna Smith, Benn Bacot Café Du Nord. 9pm, $30. Benefit for Lyon Martin Health Services.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

 

TUESDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Beta State, Dylan Fox and the Wave, Nouveau-Expo Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Bong-Ra, End.User, Bonk, VJ Slackness Elbo Room. 9pm, $12.

Majors, Scott Alan Simmons El Rio. 7pm, free.

Coco Montoya Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $18.

Niners, Ex-Girlfriends Club, Lotus Moons, Harlowe and the Great North Woods Kimo’s. 8:30pm.

Slow Trucks, Cutter, Maxirad Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Jimmy Thackery Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Unko Atama, Cutter, Ragenet, DJ Lightnin’ Jeff G. Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Boomtown Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 9pm, free. DJ Mundi spins roots, ragga, dancehall, and more.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house

 

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 16

Anarchist salon and potluck

Get together with other anticapitalist and establishment-challenging folk at this month’s anarchist salon, a monthly gathering and conversation followed by a potluck social. This month’s focus is on radical mental health and wellness.

7–-9:30 p.m., $2–$5 suggested donation

Station 40

3030B 16th St., SF

 

Screening plus potluck

Enjoy a special screening of A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, an alarming documentary about the pervasiveness of crude oil in our everyday lives — from the products we buy to the food we eat.

7:30–9:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Humanist Hall

390 27th St., Berk.

www.humanisthall.org

 

THURSDAY 17

International media conference opener

The UC Berkeley two-day conference “Crossing Boundaries” looks at new media and the shape of international news in this age of Internet and cell phone reporting. Speakers include Alan McClain of WikiLeaks, Joaquin Alvarado of American Public Media, and many more. Conference continues on March 18. Check the website for schedule.

9 a.m.–7 p.m., $150–$250

Sutardja Hall

UC Campus, Berk.

www.crossongboundaries2011.org

 

FRIDAY 18

Amnesty International conference opener

Celebrate 50 years of high-impact activism by Amnesty International with an all-weekend event featuring an array of notable guests including Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Christy Turlington Burns, Jahi, and many more — and that’s just day one. Conference continues March 19 and 20. Check the website for schedule.

8 a.m.–5 p.m., $40–$125

Fairmont Hotel

950 Mason, SF

(202) 509-8194

www.amnestyusa.org

 

SATURDAY 19

Girls rock!

Join Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls through music, and its after-school program participants for a rockin’ recital spotlighting the culmination of 10 weeks’ worth of hard work. Fifty-five gals in 12 bands showcase their original songs written at the camp. Enter the drawing for an extra $5 for a chance to win sweet new ax — a cherry red Gretsch Electromatic guitar. Proceeds go to ensure that the after school program continues to rock on.

1–3 p.m., $10 suggested donation

Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts

1428 Alice, Oakl.

www.bayareagirlsrockcamp.org

 

Antiwar demonstration

Protest the war in Iraq on the eighth anniversary of the occupation. Gather at the U.N. Plaza with your signs and radical spirit, then march to two boycotted hotels and demand an end to the “war” on working people.

Noon– 4 p.m., free

UN Plaza

Seventh and Market, SF

www.answersf.org

Facebook: National Day of Action Against the Wars

 

MONDAY 21

World Water Day

Wise up, get down, and take action — learn more about local and global water issues with live music, live painting, dance performances, spoken word, and more. Proceeds benefit water projects in the Bay Area and Kenya.

6:30–9:30 p.m., $10–$15

The New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

www.baylaurelproductions.com

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.

SF health food stores selling out of potassium iodide **UPDATED**

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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27

***UPDATE***

OK, we’ve got some new information here, which is different from what the California Department of Public Health told us a little while ago: U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin told media she supports the idea of buying potassium iodide as a “precaution.”

Here’s a quote from an NBC Bay Area news story: “Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn’t aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared.”

Here’s the original story:

Evidently, folks in the Bay Area are worried that the ongoing nuclear problem in Japan could cause a health hazard in San Francisco, which lies about 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. We phoned several Whole Foods stores in San Francisco to find out if potassium iodide was flying off the shelves, and sure enough, it was the same story at every location.

“We’re all sold out,” one customer service representative said. “Too many people are asking me about this stuff,” said another. Three Whole Foods locations were out of the product, and a fourth didn’t carry it but was all out of kelp, which is also believed to protect the thyroid against radiation exposure.

Our rather unscientific poll seems to reflect the situation in other locations — several national news reports noted that drugstore sales of potassium iodide had increased dramatically.

Are people overreacting? Health officials seem to think so, particularly if they’re ingesting it. “Potassium iodide tablets are not recommended at this time,” said California Department of Public Health spokesperson Ken August. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued a statement indicating that at present, Japan’s nuclear emergency presents no risk to California. “Because there is no indication of any type of radiation exposure as a result of the nuclear power plant problem in Japan, people would be ill-advised to take potassium iodide,” August said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, potassium iodide is a salt of stable (not radioactive) iodine, a chemical that the body uses to make thyroid hormones. If radioactive iodine is inhaled or ingested into the body following a nuclear emergency, the thyroid absorbs it, which can lead to serious health problems such as cancer in the long-term. Potassium iodide can block radioactive iodine from entering the thyroid, according to the CDC, but it cannot prevent radioactive material from entering the body.

August noted that taking potassium iodide could cause health problems for people with allergies to iodine or shellfish, or for people with thyroid problems. “They could have an undiagnosed health condition,” he added. The CDC also notes that taking it can cause side effects such as intestinal upset and rashes, and that it could pose risks to people with certain kinds of skin disorders. Ingesting very high dosages of the stuff can kill you, the CDC warns.

So there you have the risks. For people who are going to take it anyway, it’s probably a good idea to read up on it.

And if a worst-case scenario ever did come to pass? August said that evacuation was the first step that officials would take if there were a serious risk of radiation exposure, and he noted that opting to stay put and take potassium iodide in that scenario would increase health risks, since it only guards against injury to the thyroid gland. The state’s Department of Public Health website notes that California does keep a supply of potassium iodide tablets for emergencies — but only for the area around the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California.

August said air monitoring is conducted in 10 locations throughout California to determine atmospheric levels of radiation, on a weekly basis. He said monitoring of food, water, and ambient radiation is also conducted, on a monthly basis.

Appetite: 2 intriguing new food memoirs

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 2 intriguing new food memoirs

Just released in early March, here are two new reads I’d recommend not only for foodies but for fans of the absorbing, well-crafted memoir.

>>Life, On the Line by Grant Achatz & Nick Kokonas: When Alinea’s chef genius Grant Achatz writes a memoir, it’s destined to get buzz among foodies. When this visionary chef was diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer, threatened to lose his tongue and taste buds (something devastating to anyone, much less a celebrated chef), it was news well beyond the food world.

Achatz’s first memoir, written with his business partner, Nick Kokonas, is much more than a cancer survival story. It is also more than a chef memoir. Appropriately titled, Life, On the Line, it may not be the most literary of food memoirs, but it is gripping. I couldn’t stop reading of Achatz’s humble Michigan roots, his rise as a chef under Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller, and particularly the incessant drive that led him to opening his own, widely acclaimed restaurant just as he entered his thirtieth decade.

Life, On the Line is raw, honest, with a straightforwardness that is refreshing. A bittersweet tone underlies this impressive success story. I love Alinea as much as most who’ve had the privilege of eating there, and this book certainly acquaints me in a real, unsentimental way with the minds behind it.

I’m already plotting how I can get to Chicago after his unparalleled concepts of Aviary and Next open…

>>Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton: Who knew chef of NY’s beloved Prune, in the East Village, was first and foremost a writer? Early word on the street was that her book was, as Anthony Bourdain himself said, “the best memoir by a chef ever.”

I find the hype a bit high, but do think cooks and food lovers will find much to savor in Blood, Bones and Butter. Though I found it not as compelling as Achatz’s Life, On the Line, Hamilton shines in her mastery of the English language, making it a more pleasurable read.  From idyllic, dreamy parties her parents threw at her rural Pennsylvania childhood home, to the devastation of their divorce that led Hamilton to support herself in restaurant jobs from teen years on, her choice of words creates vivid pictures of each era of her life.

Amidst dish-washing and butchery, she describes her move back to school at “the Harvard of the Midwest” (University of Michigan), where she gets an MFA in fiction writing. It’s an intriguing journey from writing to unexpectedly running her own restaurant. You can’t help but feel writing is her first calling.

As she describes the lamb roasts of her youth, you clearly envision it, and acutely wish you were there: “… the lambs on their spits were hoisted off the pit onto the shoulders of men, like in a funeral procession, and set down on the makeshift plywood-on-sawhorse tables to be carved. Then the sun started to set and we lit the paper bag luminaria, which burned soft glowing amber, punctuating the meadow and the night, and the lamb was crisp-skinned and sticky from slow roasting, and the root beer was frigid and it caught, like an emotion, in the back of my throat.”

** Catch Gabrielle this week in SF at Camino in Oakland (3/11), Omnivore Books (3/12).

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

 

Beadeviled

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Beadeviled

CHEAP EATS Dear Earl Butter,

As it turns out, the whole purpose of Mardi Gras is to catch beads. There are also little plastic cups and stuff, but what I want is a football. I want to make a leaping spinning catch, like a halftime Frisbee dog, bring it on home, lay it at Coach’s feet, and pant.

Do you think she will pat me on the head?

Do you think she will let me play in the season opener (this weekend!) even though I’ve missed every single practice since training camp?

I don’t know.

She texted me yesterday to ask how my lesbianism was coming along. I said, We’re at a parade, recording the crowd and the sounds of feet, and taking pictures of the childerns. I said I was trying real hard to catch a football for her, but so far … beads.

She expressed her disbelief (which I share) that I was ever even thinking of France over Mardi Gras. Then she texted again and said, for clarification, "Boobies!!!!!"

I paraphrase. There might have only been four exclamation marks. The point is, Earl, that when people think of Mardi Gras, they think of tits. Well, I am here to tell you — you, Earl, of all people, because I know you are more interested in subtlety and nuance than most of my two lesbian friends — that this is about so much more than that.

For example: ass.

I’m kidding. I’ve been to four parades already and I’ve seen about as much skin as I would have seen if I went to church. Admittedly, I haven’t been hanging out in the French Canadian Quarter, let alone on Bourbon Street, which is what everyone associates with Mardi Gras, not to mention New Orleans. But that’s like thinking of San Francisco as Fisherman’s Wharf.

Which would be what? Ridiculous. Yes. So my own personal, privately-held, and highly journalistic insider’s impression of Mardi Gras so far is that it’s a family affair, featuring marching bands of pimply teenagers and cute-ass kids punctuated by horses, trucks, and tractor-pulled floats from which ridiculously attired adults shower the citizenry and streets of New Orleans with insanely cheap and even more insanely coveted toys and trinkets. You can imagine my joy!

Boobs be damned, Earl, I am catching Coach a football or my name ain’t whatever my name is.

Dear Li’l Sister,

That is great. Me and Diane went to Katana-Ya in downtown San Francisco after seeing the greatest western movie of all time. Diane called my tongue unsavory, which you would think would put me in a funk, but, I don’t know, I just blew it off somehow.

Which is kind of what happens in this western we seen. This guy kind of gets his tongue blew off. It’s an odd way to start an afternoon when you are going to write about food. But it is not too odd.

We both got ramen. Big bowls of delicious noodle soup with prizes, like pot stickers. Hers was vegetable with soba noodles ($11) and mine was the katanaya, which had fried chicken and pork and pot stickers (get to the pot stickers early or they get a little chewy) and corn and fried potatoes and seaweed and scallion and barbecued pork and boiled egg. That is a lot of prizes ($12.90).

We talked of how we were both going to find us mates. Her plan was, I forget. And my plan was to get a garage space in my building and then get a car and a motorcycle. I believe it is the parking inconvenience that has hindered me all these years.

We also had edamame.

And Diane had a lollipop, seeing that there was a bowl of them on the counter and they were free. That is supposed to be a good sign.

Yers,

Earl

Katana-Ya

Daily: 11:30 a.m.–1 a.m.

430 Geary, SF

(415)771-1280

MC/V

Beer and wine

Limon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Limon

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE In our epoch of wood-fired chic, gas-fired sounds, well, ordinary. If you have a barbecue at home, it’s more than likely gas-fired. Gas is cleaner, cheaper, and lights instantly, at the push of a button, without fuss. It’s the barbecue equivalent of an automatic transmission. Charcoal, on the other hand — to say nothing of actual wood — is a balky and oversensitive stick shift: tricky to start and unpredictable once started. If you lay too hot a fire, you’re stuck; you can’t just turn a dial (or downshift) to tame the inferno. Yet, just as a manual tranny is more absorbing and fun to drive than an automatic, charcoal and wood do impart character to food that gas doesn’t. They’re worth the trouble, provided it’s someone else’s trouble.

In this sense, it isn’t a huge surprise that restaurants have been touting their wood- or charcoal-burning bona fides, their grills and pizza ovens. They’re in a much stronger position to stoke the necessary apparatus, and there is presumably strong and steady demand from a public that has largely abandoned charcoal for gas in their home barbies. What does come as a bit of a surprise is that a fairly high-profile restaurant — one bearing the magic name of Limon, as in, Limon Rotisserie — makes a conspicuous display of its brasa, the gas-fired rotisserie on which dozens of chickens are, at any given moment, being roasted in the Peruvian style. It looks like a modern version of one of Mark Twain’s riverboat steamers, with jumping blue flames and the birds turning as if on a paddlewheel.

The evolution of the Limon franchise has been among the more stirring in recent memory. Martin Castillo opened the original Limon in 2002 in a modest 17th Street space now occupied by Maverick. A few years later it moved to grander digs in the heart of the Valencia corridor, with prices and tone rising accordingly. Limon Rotisserie isn’t exactly a throwback, but it does restore roast chicken to pride of place.

And the chicken is really splendid — a reminder of how good this most modest of birds can be if seasoned and cooked with care. A half-bird costs just $9.95 (including two sides) and arrived with crisp skin and cooked-through flesh that was still juicy. The juiciness surely had to do in part with the marinade, whose undisclosed ingredients had to include lemon and garlic, along with (I’m guessing now) cumin and paprika. Nothing about the bird seemed complex or exotic yet the result was sublime. Roast chicken is underrated; if done right, it’s simple, elegant, and memorable.

If the sides don’t make quite the same splash, they do offer variety, including fries in several forms (potato, yucca, sweet potato), tacu-tacu (wonderful rice-and-beans croquettes), and vegetales salteados (basically a quick sauté of green and yellow-wax beans).

Outside of the rotisserie, there is a wealth of ceviches, including a version with red snapper (pescado, $9.75), another with whitefish, calamari, and tiger shrimp (mixto, $9.75), and a soupy cocktail of seafood dice ($4.75) served in a heavy highball glass. All the ceviches are made with what the menu calls leche de tigre, a citrus-based marinade; yet despite this implication of acid, I found them all too salty. And if I find it too salty, it must really be salty. A little sugar (maybe from orange juice) might have helped pull the marinade into better trim and more complexity.

The restaurant’s menu scheme stresses shareability, so the kitchen turns out a wealth of small plates. Notable was the seco de costillas ($8.95), boneless flaps of braised (beef) short rib in a sauce dotted with carrots and peas, like beef Burgundy, but with huacatay (a pungent Peruvian herb) and cilantro. Then there was jalea ($9.75), a kind of relative of fritto misto, with batter-fried calamari rings and shrimp with salsa criolla and huacatay tartar sauce.

Despite a certain perfunctory quality, the dessert menu does offer a stellar possibility: the chocolate bandido ($7.25), a warm chocolate cake with brandy sauce and crème anglaise. The simplicity is deceptive and wise, because the chocolate is an engulfing experience, texturally somewhere between cake and fudge and of a singular intensity, like dark sexual heat. When you have chocolate like this, you really don’t care if the pastry chef has scattered some berries on the plate or made artful doodles with mint cream. No: you’re a fastball pitcher, you bring the heat. Let the batter worry about getting some wood on it.

LIMON ROTISSERIE

Daily: noon–10:30 p.m.

1001 S. Van Ness, SF

(415) 821-2134

www.limonrotisserie.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 9

DIY bike building Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF; www.howtonight.com. 7pm, free. If you’ve ever thought about custom building a bike and wonder what exactly is involved, come to this latest workshop in the “How To Night” series. Tonight, bicycle and skateboard designer Peter Verdone will show you how he builds custom frames from raw materials.

THURSDAY 10

“Beneath the Pacific Ocean” USF Fromm Hall, 330 Parker, SF; (415) 422-6828, www.pacificrim.usfca.edu. 5:45pm, free. Dr. Stephen R. Hammond of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will take you on a visual journey 20,000 leagues beneath the Pacific Rim as he presents his adventures and amazing discoveries from just the first year of a five year study. Learn about the diversity of animal communities, magnetically driven hot springs, underwater volcanoes, and more. Reservations are strongly encouraged.

FRIDAY 11

“History of the Animation Industry in California” California Historical Society Museum, 678 Mission, SF; (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. 6pm, free. Join the California Historical Society and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago as he presents his latest book The Looney Toons Treasure – a celebration of classic cartoons that have entertained generations. See how he breathes new life into such iconic characters as Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny, with behind-the-scenes memorabilia straight from the Warner Brothers vault.

SATURDAY 12

St. Patrick’s Day festival and parade Festival: Civic Center Plaza, Polk and McAllister, SF. 10am-5pm, free; parade starts at Second and Market, SF, 11:30am, free. www.sresproductions.com. San Francisco’s yearly St. Patrick’s Day festivities are the largest of any city west of the Mississippi, so be sure to attend this year’s 160th annual celebration of Irish American culture. The parade begins at Second and Market at 11:30am and will merrily march toward Civic Center Plaza, where many colorful festivities for the whole family awaits – cultural displays, a petting zoo, pony rides, and much more.

Asian American film festival forum Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan, SF; www.caamedia.org; 12-10pm, free. Help kick off the Asian American film festival at this all-day showcase of live music, dancing, food, and fun. On this year’s bill are Taiwanese pop sensation Hola Sisters, indie rockers Soft Knife, dance crew Illest Villains, as well as slam poets, fine art exhibitions, film screenings, and more.

Urban foraging Meet at 7th Ave. and Lawton, SF; (415) 731-5627, www.gardenfortheenvironment.com. 1-3pm, free. Bring your walking shoes – and your appetite – for this eat-your-way-through-San-Francisco tour with local non-profit Garden for the Environment. Learn how to identify the abundant wild foods growing all around us and the best time to harvest as you hoof it up Sutro Hill. The tour is approximately three miles, half of which is uphill, so expect to get a good workout as well. Don’t forget to call ahead to register.

SUNDAY 13

Slingshot turns 23 Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shattuck, SF; (415) 863-8688, www.slingshot.tao.ca. 7-9pm, free. Wish Slingshot Collective a very happy birthday at this party featuring live acoustic bands, tons of food, good people, and fun. Slingshot, in case you don’t know, is the quarterly, independent, radical newspaper that’s been published in the East Bay since 1988. You may have seen their cute handy organizers chock-full of radical info, including a menstrual calendar, info on police repression, and more – very handy indeed. They’ll have back issues available as well as a discussion about the future of the collective.

“Breathed…Unsaid” film festival SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 863-1414, www.somarts.org. Noon-8pm, free. Come check out this all-day mini film festival to accompany SOMArts most recent show “Breathed…Unsaid,” the multi-disciplinary exhibit featuring the work of 20 Bay Area artists exploring such themes as geography, origin, borders, and cultural diaspora. Today’s festival includes City of Borders, a film about an underground gay bar in Jerusalem that stands as a symbol of peace in a land divided by war; Crepe Covered Sidewalks, on one woman’s journey back home to New Orleans after Katrina; The Wall, a film about the complicated US immigration issue and the border patrol as well as shorts, previews, and more.

TUESDAY 15

Persian New Year festival The Persian Center, 2029 Durant, Berk.; (510) 548-5335, www.persiancenter.com. 6-10pm, free. Jump over a bonfire for Chahr-Shanbeh Souri to shake off the darkness of winter and welcome the lightness of spring, a Persian ritual passed down since ancient Zoroastrian times. Persian music, food and craft vendors, cultural organizations, and children’s activities add to the experience.

 

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

THEATER

OPENING

Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Previews Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm (through March 27). Opens March 31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

BAY AREA

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Previews Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (through Sat/12). Opens March 18, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

ONGOING

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 26. “I hate assumptions,” says Pidge Meade. In fact, her new solo show, about her experience as a young woman of size on a brutal crash diet, goes a long way toward unsettling more than one. Developed and directed by Charlie Varon (Rush Limbaugh in Night School, Rabbi Sam), Meade’s multi-character monologue eschews easy sentiment for a sharply performed, consistently funny and genuine engagement with her younger, bigger self. Framed by a 20-year college reunion during which she suffers an unwanted conversation with an old roommate about her intervening dramatic weight loss, Meade recounts trying to lose 40 unwanted pounds to please her devoted but “harsh” father, an Olympic-level gymnastics coach shocked and appalled by her weight gain while at school. The father-daughter story comes interlarded with a few other encounters and characters measuring the variety of attitudes and approaches to weight among women in her Midwestern milieu. Meanwhile, Meade’s problematic relationship with her demanding if ultimately responsive father finds an unexpected echo in her former roommate’s pushy inquisitiveness (which, we learn, stems from her own desperate concern over a beloved but obese teen nephew). It’s in quietly mingling awkwardness, fear, and love that Meade’s piece can really surprise, and reaffirm that whatever else follows, it’s the usual assumptions that need shedding first. (Avila)

James Bond: Lady Killer Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 732-9592, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. Dark Room Theater presents an all-new James Bond adventure.

*Loveland Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 26. Ann Randolph’s one-woman show extends its run.

Out of Sight Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through March 27. Sara Felder’s one-woman show extends its run.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Regrets Only New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 3. New Conservatory Threatre presents a play by Paul Rudnick, directed by Andrew Nance.

Sex and Death: A Night with Harold Pinter Phoenix Theatre, Suite 601, 414 Mason; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. The thing with Harold Pinter is you never know for certain whether he means for something to be funny or not. Take his most celebrated one-act, The Dumb Waiter, a rather tense dialogue between two hit-men waiting for their mark to show which veers into disarmingly surrealist territory once they start receiving mysterious lunch orders via a creaky dumbwaiter, despite not having any food, or indeed any gas to cook food on. Is this Pinter’s attempt to lighten the mood in an otherwise joyless examination of two minor functionaries in the criminal underworld, or is it a way for him to interject more unease into their already intractable situation? In Off-Broadway West’s staging they opt mainly for the latter interpretation, neither Gus (Conor Hamill) nor Ben (Shane Fahy) play up much of the sly humor tucked into their lines, and when the “surprise” twist arrives, it feels like a foregone conclusion. More deftly nuanced, the second one-act on the bill, The Lover milks the sex lives of the petty bourgeoisie for all the hidden wit and complicated innuendo that could possibly be excavated. Morphing from chilly society marrieds to shameless afternoon fling and “common garden slut” Chad Stender and Nicole Helfer play out a tightly-wound sexual fantasy with a cool edge, a satisfying end to a low-key revival. (Gluckstern)

Tenth Annual Bay One-Acts Festival Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma; 891-7235, www.bayoneacts.org. $20-32. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through March 26. Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company presents the tenth incarnation of the curated festival.

BAY AREA

Death of a Salesman Pear Avenue Theatre, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 20. Pear Avenue Theatre presents the Arthur Miller classic.

I Dream of Chang and Eng Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley campus; Berk; (510) 642-8827. $10-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/13. The original “Siamese twins”—Thailand-born Chinese conjoined twins and living “freak” exhibition of the American 19th century, Chang and Eng Bunker (Josemari Saenz and Andy Chan)—are bountiful subjects for this fictional re-imagining of their lives by internationally esteemed Bay Area playwright Philip Kan Gotanda. Slipping in and out of a poetical dreamscape and back again into history, the brothers are much more than metaphor, as their intersected lives the basis for a larger canvas of human connection, discovery, and strife. Characters from the King of Siam to P.T. Barnum populate the large beautifully detailed stage at UC Berkeley, against a historical backdrop that includes such resonant episodes of fraternal friction and racialized violence as the Civil War. At the same time, Gotanda takes care to craft two specific and very different individuals (the actors sometimes float away from one another in their solitary imaginations, but are otherwise joined by a band linking two slim harnesses). Indeed, this sprawling, fitful but often beautiful three-act play—imaginatively staged by Peter Glazer for the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies—works best when the drama gets intimate and concrete, as in a fascinating encounter between the brothers and a worldly, beguiled and beguiling English woman who briefly becomes their lover. She literally puts them before a rare full-length mirror at one point, to their amazement, but the three people in this scene are acting as mirrors to one another in so many ways. (Avila)

A Man’s Home…an Ode to Kafka’s Castle Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant; (510) 558-1381, www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun 5pm (also Sat/12, 5pm). Through Sun/13. Central Works pays homage to Franz.

Romeo and Juliet La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 26. Bet you thought Romeo and Juliet was just a sappy love story at its beating heart. But as Impact Theatre’s artistic director Melissa Hillman, fight director Dave Meier, and production “blood technician” Tunuviel Luv manage to remind us, R&J is known as a tragedy for good reason—full of escalating violence and a bodycount almost as high as Hamlet’s. Before they snuff it though, Romeo (Michael Garret McDonald) and Juliet (Luisa Frasconi) fall in love in a meet-cute, after-school special way: Frasconi exhibiting the coltish excitability of a very young teenager, and doofy McDonald egged on by a pack of uncouth youth (Seth Thygesen as Benvolio, Marilet Martinez as Mercutio, Miyuki Bierlein as Balthasar) who pretty much steal the show with their crass deconstruction of Romeo’s woes. Unfortunately, the Russian mafia angle is less fully fleshed out than the teen romance portion of the show. Yes, the mobsters all sport some great tattoos, carry mean-looking pistols, and occasionally deliver their lines in Russian thanks to language consultant Helen Nesteruk, but setting the show in the ex-pat Russian community “in the Bay Area” dilutes the extreme feudalism that setting the show in Moscow would imply, and allows the production to rely a little too heavily on familiar California-isms—phrases, behaviors, and fashions— rather than committing fully to exploring the vastly different world of the Russkaya Mafiya. (Gluckstern)

Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through April 10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through April 3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BAY AREA

Marga’s Funny Mondays Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/28, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series.

 

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Castanets, Holy Sons, Dolorean Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Dears, Eulogies, Tender Box Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Damien Jurado, Viva Voce, Campfire OK Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Guverment, Curse of Panties, One Over Eight Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Red Hot Blues Sisters Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Sabertooth Zombie, Owen Hart, Xibalba, Grace Alley Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Starfucker, Unknown Mortal Orchestra Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15.

Sway Machinery, Khaira Arby Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Emily Jane White, Hélène Renaut, Ed Masuga Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.

Jesus Diaz and the Afro-Cuban Jazz All-Star Ensemble Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $15.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ettie Street Project Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Medeski, Martin and Wood, Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet Independent. 8pm, $30.

“Musical Flora and Fauna” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 7:30pm, $10. Performed by David Barnett.

Pocket Jazz Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Chico Trujillo, Bang Data, DJ Juan Data Elbo Room. 9pm, $10-12.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

 

THURSDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Joey Cape, Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts, Richmond Kid Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Cave Singers, Lia Ices, Triumph of Lethargy Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

Cheap Time, Idle Times, Dead Meat Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Data Rock, Dirty Ghosts, Baertur Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $14.

Jason King Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Kill Moi, Silent Comedy, Sporting Life Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Miami Horror, Reporter, Boys IV Men, Eli Glad Mezzanine. 9pm, $18.

Wave Array, Ash Reiter, Buckeye Knoll Café Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cosmo Alleycats Blondie’s, 540 Valencia, SF; www.blondiesbar.com. 9pm.

Organsm with Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30pm, free.

SF Jazz Hotplate Series Amnesia. 9pm.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

McCoy Tyner Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-35.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40.

Patrick Wolff Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Tyler Fortier Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

High Country Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests. This week, March birthday babies get in free with a guest.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With Blackbird Blackbird, Designer Deejays, and Richie Panic, plus resident DJ Aaron Axelsen.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

 

FRIDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

“Boxwars” Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.boxwars.tumblr.com. 8pm, $7. “Violent recycling” plus live music with Bum City Saints, 132, and Not Even a Mouse.

Foolproof 4 Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Rick McKay and GQ Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

North Mississippi Allstars Independent. 9pm, $22.

Pogo, Lynx Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, Laura Jensen Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22.

Revolver, Hey Rosetta, 7 Orange ABC Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10.

Lavay Smith and the Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Soft Kill, Dangerous Boys Club, DJ Night School Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Super Diamond, Sun Kings Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

Tapes ‘n Tapes Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 3pm, free.

Tapes ‘n Tapes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Glaciers Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $16.

Truth and Salvage Co., Pirate Radio, Shants Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12. 

• Weedeater, Zoroaster, Kvelertak, Begotten Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12-14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

SF Jazz Collective Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-65. Performing the music of Stevie Wonder.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Valerie Orth, Larry Block, Dana Carmel Dolores Park Café, 501 Dolores, SF; (415) 621-2936. 8pm, $10.

Chuchito Valdez Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Blow Up: Designer Drugs DNA Lounge. 10pm, $20. With Designer Drugs and Jeffrey Paradise.

Club Gossip Cat Club. 9pm, $5-8 (free before 9:30pm). Joy Division tribute night.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Original Plumbing Elbo Room. 10pm, $6. With dance DJs 100 Spokes and Rapid Fire.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

 

SATURDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

AC/Dshe, Total B.S., Only Sons Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Clay Aiken Warfield. 8pm, $34.50-49.50.

Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Bar Feeders, Lopez, Fast Asleep Bender’s Bar and Grill, 900 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Captain 9’s and the Knickerbocker Trio, Kepi Ghoulie Electric, Meat Sluts Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Excision, Downlink, Antiserum Independent. 9pm, $25.

North Mississippi Allstars Independent. 9pm, $22.

Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, Laura Jensen Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22.• Red Fang, Danava, Lecherous Gaze Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Sharp Objects, Complaints, High and Tight, Neighborhood Brats Li Po Lounge. 9pm, $5.• Slough Feg, Christian Mistress, Witch Mountain Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Umphrey’s McGee, Big Gigantic Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Zoo Station: The Complete U2 Experience, Minks, Bang-on Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

SF Jazz High School All-Stars Combo Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 6:30pm, $5-15.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Juanes Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $39.50-79.50.

Rupa and the April Fishes Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Chuchito Valdez Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10pm.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bootie: Brazilian Carnaval Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D plus Faroff and more.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7. With DJ Nuxx and friends.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm. Electro cumbia with Schachthofbronx and DJs Shawn Reynaldo and Oro 11.

 

SUNDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blind Willies, Broun Fellinis, Ferocious Few, Kallisto Stud. 8pm, $10.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Wronglers: Heritage Music Exposed, Barbary Ghosts Slim’s. 5pm, $10.

Hightower, Walken, Asada Messiah Bottom of the Hill. 4pm, $8.

Meshell Ndegeocello Independent. 8pm, $25. Prince covers.

Royal Baths, Twerps, Lilac Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Tahiti 80, It’s For Free Grace, Sunbeam Rd. Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Umphrey’s McGee, Big Gigantic Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

John Butcher, Bill Hsu, Gino Robair Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. 7:30pm, $6.

Mark Inouye and the Unit Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $15.

Marcus Shelby Trio Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 11am, $5-15.

Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey Venitian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. 5pm, $45.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Bourbon Kings Brass Band Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-60.

Pete Yellin, Larry Vuckovich, Buca Necak, Adam Goodhue Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 7pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Falls City Five, Misisipi Mike Wolf Thee Parkside. 2pm, free.

Family Folk Explosion Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild 18th Anniversary: Assemblage 23 DNA Lounge. 8pm, $22. Industrial.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, J Boogie, and guest DJ Arson.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers — sound system for lovers.” Got that?

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

Swing-out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ B-Bop spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more with varying live band weekly.

 

MONDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Liar Script, Threads, Neon Anyway Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Smiths Indeed, Reptile House Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild 18th Anniversary DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $5-10. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

 

TUESDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Beehavers, Passenger and Pilot, Sour Mash Hug Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Harper Blynn, Schuyler Fisk, King Baldwin Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

East Bay Grease, Only Sons, D. Runk Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

House of Pain, Big B, Dirtball, Sozay Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Yea-Ming, Andrew Licoln Levy Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Forro Brazuca, DJ Carioca, DJ P-Shot Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Panique Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild 18th Anniversary: Imperative Reaction DNA Lounge. 8pm, $22. Industrial.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Extra Classic DJ Night Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm. Dub, roots, rockers, and reggae from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

 

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

Mystery of the school lunches — revealed!

Zelda Bronstein
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Mystery of the school lunches — revealed!

Editors note: My son, Michael, constantly complains that none of the reporters who cover the public schools (including me) ever talk to the students. We listen to school board members, adminstrators, parents, sometimes teachers — but the kids never get a voice. I agree — it’s a problem. So when his sixth grade Language Arts class at Aptos came by the Guardian for a field trip (thanks, Ms. Oryall), I decided to let them write their own story, about whatever was bothering them. Here’s the result; I have edited it only for style.

Did you know that the school lunches are made in Illinois? They’re not always organic; in fact, at best they’re only organic once a month.


The district spends $18 million a year on about 4 million lunches.

They’re shipped in a refrigerated truck about 2,000 miles – releasing CO2 emissions.

We got this information by calling Nancy Waymack, executive director of policy and operations for SFUSD.

The lunches are made, she said, by human beings but are packaged by machine. The salads are grown in California and the bread is made in the Bay Area, but those are the only local parts of the lunch.

Aleta Oryall, sixth grade teacher who has worked at Aptos for 12 years, said that for the first nine years she was at the school, food was made at the cafeteria. “They would bake real chickens,” she said. “They served turkey over sweet potatos. It was good.”

Why has it changed?

Waymack said the reason the district can’t go back to local cooking is that it would take more labor, more time and more money. “The district would have to charge $5 or $6 for lunches.”

Students at Aptos are not thrilled with the quality of the lunches. “Most lunches are good, but they are not priced well,” said Jimmy Paterson. “They should be made in the kitchen.”

Jie Tao Tan said that “some are good, but the ones that aren’t good are disgusting because they are soggy.”

Emmanuel Nwabueze said that they lunches were “bad because they’re cold, and they should be made by real people.”
 
Editor’s PS: When Margaret Brodkin was running for school board, she proposed the district do a bond act to pay for a new central kitchen so all the district’s lunches could be made locally. She didn’t win, but it’s still a good idea.

Domestic workers celebrate Women’s Day with call for justice

Andrew Lam
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On the fifth floor of a building in Chinatown salty porridge, fried pastry, and oranges were being passed for at a special Women’s Day meeting of the Chinese Progressive Association. Of course, the day itself is Tuesday, but as member Wen Lan Rong told me (through an interpreter), in China the holiday is a much bigger deal: women often get the day off work to go out to special meals or outings with their lady friends. Staff and volunteers passed out roses and folic acid vitamins to the females in the room, but the morning played host to a discussion of a campaign that, if successful, could be a much more substantial way of honoring women in our society: the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights and attendant legislative drive.  

Rong said that she first heard of the domestic worker campaign when the CPA went to the US Social Forum last summer in Detroit. New York was a month away from passing the bill, which now guarantees overtime pay, rest days, and protection against harassment from employers in an industry that mainly employs immigrant women and that used to be subject to negligible oversight. An ex-restaurant worker that is currently involved in the CPA’s struggle for labor law enforcement in the service industry, Rong is ready to be an ally in the campaign’s new struggle to become law in California. “We fight not just for our rights, but the rights of all men, women, and children,” she said, mentioning the CPA’s support of the Filipino caregivers who fought for and won $70,000 in back pay from unfair employers last year.

And after a CPA organizer’s Power Point presentation on California’s plan to mimic New York’s results – and even improve on them, as our state’s proposed bill includes the right to advance notice of termination, an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep for live-in workers, and the right to cook one’s own food at work – many of Rong’s fellow community activists agreed. 

Which is how we found ourselves making an activist day of it – heading from Chinatown meeting to the Women’s Building for the domestic workers’ campaign kick-off. Originally slated to be in Dolores Park, the California Household Workers Rights Coalition of women’s and other community groups – including Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Filipino Advocates for Justice, and Hand in Hand, a coalition of domestic worker employers – packed itself into the community center’s Audre Lorde room (forced by the drizzle outside) for skits, songs, testimonials from local domestic workers, and the warm, fuzzy feeling of female solidarity. 

Among the guest speakers were several domestic worker employers, one of whom testified from her wheelchair that her success in life wouldn’t be possible without the help her domestic workers provide her in getting her ready for her days. “Without my attendants, I never would have been able to get my master’s degree.” A representative of the female clergy community read a letter about the significance of the campaign on the 100th anniversary of the holiday to promote women’s rights, on behalf of her colleagues that couldn’t attend (apparently they’re busy on Sunday). “Some think there are no battles to be won, but let us not be decieved. One arena where the struggle still exists in the US is that of the domestic workers, who work without many rights in the workplace.”

Cuz let’s be frank, there are definitely male domestic workers – I should know, in my younger days I worked on SEIU’s childcare and homecare worker campaign up in Oregon and there were lots of engaged, awesome men that worked in other peoples’ homes. But cooking, cleaning, and caring for the young, the old, and the differently-abled has traditionally been regarded as “women’s work” in our society – and as such, minimized and denigrated to the point where workers in these fields rarely receive the respect and compensation they deserve. Not to mention the fact that unlike most workers, domestic workers tend to only have a coworker or two, if any, at their worksite, making organizing campaigns like this one all the more difficult. 

So it was nice to see that not only is California responding to New York’s cue, but that the charge is being led by women’s groups themselves. Go on, ladies. After Maria Luna, a member of Mujeres Activas y Unidas, gave a shout-out to the three generations of females in her family in the audience, she sang a song she’d composed for the occasion, sung to the tune of  “Cielito Lindo.” 

Ay yi yi yi, somos mujeres (Ay yi yi yi, we are women)

Mujeres haciendo cambios en nuestras vidas (Women making changes in our lives)

Somos mujeres (We are women)


California domestic workers expert tribunal

April 1 1:30-5 p.m., free

State Office Building

455 Golden Gate, SF

www.nationaldomesticworkeralliance.org

 

Appetite: Betelnut’s secret Malaysian menu, March 8 until May 8

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Betelnut’s secret Malaysian menu, March 8 until May 8

Foodies, take note. If you like offal, Malaysian food, or adventurous eating, there’s a “secret” offal menu through Blackboard Eats. Sign up for the Betelnut special on March 8th only. You’ll get a passcode to give to your waiter at the restaurant during any dinner until May 8th. 

It has been awhile since I visited Betelnut, though I used to frequent it in my early years of living in SF. Chef Alex Ong has been there about that long (10 years), serving Betelnut’s ever-popular mix of Asian cuisines. He gets to bring a bit of his Malaysian roots to this secret menu, combining street food from his home country in family-style dishes for four or more people.

Sampling these generous dishes is both approachable and comforting. Don’t be afraid of animal parts you may not have eaten before. There’s adventure here but in a presentation reminiscent of heartwarming Asian bar food.

Start with crispy chicken livers in black pepper sauce ($9.88). A street food snack, Chef Ong says he’d get these on skewers in a plastic bag they’d eat at the movies in Malaysia. Served here in a bowl, lightly fried livers are tender and slightly crisp, lush with oyster sauce and roasted onions.

In a delicate, sashimi/tartare-like presentation, cured lamb tongue ($11.88) is thinly-sliced, bright with lime juice and chilies, topped with freshly grated galangal root and crispy taro. It’s Malaysia by way of Thailand.

Salt & pepper veal sweetbreads ($12.88) combine Chef Ong’s French-training and French classic, sweetbreads, with Cantonese-style salt and pepper sauce, scallions, ginger, garlic.

My favorite may be the 3-lb. fish head in tamarind curry ($15.88). Served in a giant pot, the fish head holds fall-off-the-bone, flaky fish meat (beware the eyeballs! Eat up the tender cheek meat!) It rests in a bold, coconut milk, shrimp paste, spice-heavy curry that is creamy, textured. Okra dots the dish, as do Fresno chilies. Pickled in vinegar & sugar, these chilies were so good, adding a needed contrast to the rich sauce, that I asked for a side of more. With South Indian roots, this dish is an example of Nonya cuisine (a mix of Malaysian, Indian, Chinese foods), and is served at celebratory meals in Malaysia.

P.S. For more fun, Betelnut roasts whole pigs on Tuesday nights… get there early as they will stop serving this off-menu special once pigs run out.

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

 

Appetite: Three reasons to visit Gitane

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Three reasons to visit Gitane

Sexy, sultry Gitane had me at “hello” when it opened over two years ago. There is no other place in SF with quite its seductive charm. (In the neighboring alley to Gitane’s Claude Lane, Irish Bank is a festive, beer-soaked hang-out.) Gitane lures you into its tiny space with sherry cocktails and Spanish-Moroccan food. 

With a chef (Bridget Batson) and bar manager (Alex Smith) change months back, Gitane blossoms into further radiance. Still evoking romance with a bold, modern spirit, its charged with new tastes that should draw you back if you’re already a fan, or bring you in if you have never been. Do yourself a favor and make a reservation or pull up to the bar for dinner soon… 

P.S. Reservations often need to be made weeks ahead for prime hours as tables are few, and don’t forget to check out what is one of the more fascinating bathrooms around. 

1. Alex Smith’s Cocktails

If you subscribe to my Perfect Spot newsletter, you’ve been hearing me rave about Smith’s sophisticated cocktails over the past month. Sip the increasingly meaty, much-lauded La Convivencia ($12), made of Four Roses bourbon, East India sherry, sweet vermouth, Nocino, and Smith’s house-made chorizo bitters (vegetarian version also available). Or try the light, luscious La Tardor ($13): No. 209 gin, ruby port, cherry heering and lime, soft with honey and egg white, with sweet, earthy nuance from vanilla bean and white peppercorn. Ask for the off-menu Autumn Flip ($11), creamy with whole egg, Laird’s bonded apple brandy, bitter cinnamon cordial and salted maple syrup. You won’t even need dessert. Cocktail aficionados will marvel at the complex layers of Martyr of Cordoba ($14): Copper Fox‘ white rye, Dry Sack sherry, Dimmi, absinthe, apricot liqueur, sweet vermouth, Peychaud’s bitters. There’s just a hint of each element. When you think you are about to call out the ingredients, they slip away, elusive and intriguing.

Lamb Tatare at Gitane. Photo by Virginia Miller

2. Lamb Tartare

Order this dish. Do not fear the raw lamb. Do not expect gaminess. Rather, prepare for fresh, succulent meat to rival the better beef tartares you’ve had. Chef Batson’s lamb tartare ($18) is an unexpected surprise of silky meat, bright with flavor. The added bonus is three dollops of worthy spreads, from an eggplant compote to a mix of pomegranate, walnut, red pepper. There’s currently no other dish like it in town. 

3. Grilled (and stuffed) Calamari

After two recent visits to Gitane, I violate my usual policy of always ordering something different to re-order grilled calamari ($16) stuffed with bacon and onion in a cast-iron skillet. Swimming in an addictive, buttery garlic and herb broth, dotted with Manzanilla olives, cherry tomatoes and heirloom potatoes, I sop up the broth with grilled toasts, my breath happily redolent of garlic. It’s a hefty portion and works as dinner on it’s own. 

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

 

5 Things: March 4, 2011

Andrew Lam
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Each day, our staff picks five (or so) things we think might interest you

>>MONKEY MAN We can count on one hand the email newsletters we get that are an actual thrill to see sitting unopened in our inbox, and Kirk Lombard‘s is one of them. Lombard knows every. Thing. There is to know about Bay Area fishes (he’s a world champion monkeyface eel fisherman and runs urban angling classes outta ForageSF that are an absolute gas to attend): identifying them, catching them sustainably, eating them, respecting their majesty. He’s got a dope blog, but his recent March newsletter clued us into these aquatic happenings: the spirinchus starski is jumpin’, California halibut season is starting (rent a kayak, Lombard says, for optimal fishing of these guys), and a list of items you might not guess would make servicible monkeyface eel fishing poles: a paint-roller extender or golf course flag.

Guanajuato: let the tequila take you

>>DEJA THAT AGAVE If you’ve harbored a mad hankering for Guanajuatan food — washed down with well over 150 tequilas — then head to Tres, formerly known as Tres Agaves, which reopened March 3. The joint’s been redone to make it a little cozier for diners, who used to jostle with drinkers. The menu’s getting a remodel, too — chef Kelvin Ott is expanding beyond Jalisco, to explore the cuisines of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Nayarit and Tamaulipas. Bonus: Happy hour prices are running at all hours of operation through Tues/8: $5 fresh lime margaritas, $3 Mexican draft beers, and $2 chicken, pork al pastor, or rajas tacos. Did we mention tequila?

>>PILLOW TALK Last chance to snuggle up to needlepoint pillows depicting JFK’s assassination and convenience store holdups, on view at Jack Fischer Gallery through Sat/5. Are they more inappropriate than the dirty pillows by Kevin L. Muth or Ethan Maxx  — “The extra X means fun!” — in the window of Chi Chi LaRue’s West Hollywood vanity shop? You decide.

>>HELLA BOOKS, HELLA CHEAP That’s what they’re calling it, and it says it all. Get hella books hella cheap at the Adobe Books sidewalk sale, Sat/5, 11am-2pm. There will be snacks, and records will be played. Score some fresh spring reading — hopefully fresher than “hella.”

>>NO BONES ABOUT IT Back in 2007, we talked about contemporary art and pop culture’s love of skulls, and the cranial passion has carried on, thanks to the likes of Technicolor Skull, Kenneth Anger’s band (!) with Brian Butler, featuring the octogenarian filmmaker on theremin. Instead of a Technicolor skull, the cover art for the debut album by Swedish noise attackers Black Bug — created by San Francisco musician and designer Nathan Berlinguette  — presents a Necco-tinted one. Sweet!

Redevelopment debate full of bum choices

Mary Magee
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Redevelopment debate full of bum choices

At the Potrero Hill Democratic Club’s debate about Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to ax local redevelopment agencies to balance the state’s $26 billion deficit, folks attempted to evaluate if redevelopment agencies are essential for job creation and community revitalization, if reform, not total destruction, is possible, and if bum choices are all we have to look forward to.

The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos, who moderated the debate, noted that redevelopment agencies were created over 60 years ago to create economic development opportunities by borrowing against future tax increases that agencies think they can create.

 “That’s a fancy way to say ‘borrow against future taxes,’” Lagos joked, pointing to the Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard project as an example of an ongoing project, and the Yerba Buena project as an example of a completed success.

 “The Governor is arguing that when the state is cutting schools and other essential services, this is not the best use of tax dollars,” Lagos stated.

 Panelist Olson Lee, deputy executive director of San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency, pointed to affordable housing as evidence of the agency’s positive impact.

 “I think Redevelopment is important because of the good things it has done,” Lee said, pointing to 11,000 units of affordable housing that the agency helped build in the city.

 Panelist Carroll Wills, the communications director for the California Professional Firefighters, said “many wonderful projects” have occurred under Redevelopment. But he pointed to what he called “a decade of tricks and games,” on the part of Redevelopment agencies as one reason why the state is in a fiscal crisis that threatens firefighters’ jobs.

 “Concrete does not trump core services,” Wills said, arguing that it’s not clear that many affordable housing projects would not have been built without redevelopment aid

Arc Ecology’s Saul Bloom accused Gov. Brown of “short-circuiting” what could have been an important statewide discussion about redevelopment reform, with his bombshell suggestion in January to eliminate redevelopment agencies entirely

 “I’m sympathetic to the argument that Redevelopment takes money away from core services,” Bloom said. “But what do we do to replace it? And is economic development versus core services a false choice?”

Lee pointed to Mission Bay as further evidence of Redevelopment’s success.

“It was considered a brown field, and through development, it’s much different,” Lee said, noting that 20 percent of tax increment financing goes to the General Fund to pay for redevelopment infrastructure. “Clearly the university would not have been there. It was an opportunity to place UC there and generate economic opportunities.”

 Wills argued that Redevelopment Agencies are a luxury we can no longer afford, even as he acknowledged being unfamiliar with local redevelopment projects.

“At best, redevelopment moves around the pieces,” Wills said. “It doesn’t increase economic development and it doesn’t necessarily pay for itself.”

Bloom noted that developments like Mission Bay are dependent on large institutions, like the University of California, which can’t be forced to implement city laws like local hire.

And he said he found it “disappointing” that there wasn’t much more of a dialogue around the plans to redevelop Candlestick Point and the Shipyard, despite the fact that the city held hundreds of meetings over the past decade.

“It was more a case of, Here’s our idea, tell us what you think of it,’” Bloom said. “Perhaps if we had invited the nation’s largest industrial developer, instead of the nation’s second largest home developer, we would have had a different dialogue.”

 Lee replied that the Shipyard has been under discussion for 15 years.

“It’s a very large project, the largest in the Western United States,” Lee said. “It’s a brownfield, though I know Espanola will say it’s a Superfund site,” he continued, as Bayview elder Espanola Jackson bristled under her hat, and the audience wondered if Lee meant that the US E.P.A. somehow got it all wrong.

Lee further shocked audience members by saying Treasure Island was not a redevelopment project (leading Bloom to clarify that Treasure Island is under the jurisdiction of the local Treasure Island Development Authority, if not the SF Agency).

“People felt they wanted economic development at the shipyard,” Lee continued, noting that the neighborhood suffered after the Navy withdrew from the shipyard in the 1970s. But he did not mention that major bones of contention around the redevelopment proposal, centered on plans to build 10,000 mostly market-rate condos, a bridge over an environmentally sensitive slough, the taking of a chunk of the community’s only major park, and no proof that thousands of promised jobs will materialize.

Wills noted that most local redevelopment commissions are peopled by the members of each municipality’s city council, a situation he believes leads to a lack of accountability. But members of the audience, including this reporter, noted that San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency consists entirely of mayoral appointees, who, unlike elected officials, can’t easily be voted off the proverbial island.

It was at this point that panelist Calvin Welch, a longtime housing activist, showed up at the debate, apologizing for being late, but blaming his tardiness on being on a phone call with Sen. Mark Leno to discuss Brown’s redevelopment proposal.

And from there, the conversation veered towards discussions of what could happen to existing redevelopment projects if Brown goes through with his elimination threat.

 Lee noted that if projects simply had a disposition and development Aagreement (DDA), but Redevelopment was no longer there, there would be no project financing. “The devil’s in the details,” Lee said. “Because if you don’t have bonds, what’s the point of having an agreement.”

 Wills opined that Gov. Brown’s proposal has “a vehicle to roll back the bum’s rush” of projects that local municipalities have been trying to push across the finish line, ever since Brown dropped his Redevelopment elimination bomb in January.

 Welch went off on a historical riff about how the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) was met with controversy and outrage until 1988, when Art Agnos was elected mayor, and brokered a deal under which SFRA could do tax increment financing, provided the majority of funds were used for affordable housing.

“It became a finance agency to build infrastructure and affordable housing,” Welch said, noting that attempts to build out Mission Bay around commercial offices and high rises failed, until the Agency used tif to redevelop the site.

 “But mark my words, Lennar is going to come out of this just fine,” Welch added, reminding me of a recent comment that former Lennar executive Emile Haddad reportedly made that suggests Haddad believes the California housing market is poised for a rebound.

(The article outlined how Haddad sold 12,000 acres in California for a $277 million profit at the housing market’s peak four years ago, reacquired it at half the price in 2009, and is now saying it’s time to build in his new role as CEO of FivePoint Communities Inc., which is developing four new master-planned communities with a combined 45,000 residences at Newhall Ranch north of L.A., the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County, the Candlestick Point/Hunters Point shipyard and Treasure Island  in San Francisco, with investors including Lennar, Michael S. Dell’s MSD Capital LP, Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Development Co. and Rockpoint Group LLC. “I don’t want the party to show up and I’m not dressed,” Haddad, 52, reportedly said in a recent interview. “When the market says ‘I’m here,’ we’ll be one of the few that can deliver inventory.” 

(The Haddad article, which appears to be a non-bylined reprint from Bloomberg News, also claimed that Hunters Point sales are set to begin by late 2012 with prices starting at $525,000, as the Navy continues its cleanup of the 700-acre site. And that the plan now calls for as many as 12,000 homes, 3 million square feet (of commercial space and a new stadium for the 49ers. And that 7,000 homes may eventually be built on Treasure Island and adjoining Yerba Buena Island, under terms of a final development agreement that may go before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for approval in May, with units averaging  $800,000 and reaching up to $2 million, according to Lennar V.P Kofi Bonner.)

And during the Potrero Hill Dems debate, Bloom noted that the Treasure Island plan is being “sped up” and that the Board is expected to vote on the plan as soon as possible. “But since these plans were not bonded before January [when Gov. Brown took office], what’s the point of speeding up the process?” Bloom asked.

“We’re basically seeing a brick wall,” Welch interjected. “There are virtually no funds for permanent affordable housing in San Francisco.But Jerry Brown is not going to commit financial hari kari. Every major developer of market rate housing will come out just fine, because of state actions, not because of a local vote. Deals are going to be made. It’s the question of affordable housing that’s our challenge. You’re gonna be stuck with public housing, as it is, unless there’s affordable housing financing.”

 Wills claimed that Prop. 22, which voters approved last November, “created a mechanism so rigid,” that the state’s only option was to eliminate redevelopment. “Basic services are dying on the vine,” he said. “We can’t afford to give developers subsidies.”

 Lee noted that SFRA built thousands of affordable units over the years that saved the city thousands in terms of core services it would otherwise have to provide. “Affordable housing is so basic, you can’t do things we take for granted if you are living under a freeway,” he said.

 Bloom suggested Redevelopment could do a better job of economic development, including the creation of permanent and sustainable jobs, like his proposal to create maritime uses at the Shipyard—something not entertained under the city’s Shipyard plan.

 Welch connected the dots between the taxpayer revolt that led to Prop. 13’s passage and the current fiscal woes of municipalities unable to raise taxes on commercial development. “That’s a killer,” he said, noting that housing costs more to build and maintain than it generates property taxes, especially if it’s family housing. ‘It’s those damn kids,” he joked.

Welch noted that Gov. Brown used redevelopment money to enable market rate development in downtown Oakland when he was mayor of Oakland—and claimed that Brown equated affordable housing with crime, at the time.

“We love Brown better than Meg Whitman, but it’s 2011 and we face bum choices.”

Community advocate Sharen Hewitt, who heads the C.L.A.E.R. project, asked if the panel thought San Francisco could be a “demonstration model” for using Redevelopment funds to build 50 percent affordable housing.

Welch said conversations have “already happened” between Mayor Ed Lee and Gov. Jerry Brown that have led him to believe that, “all of San Francisco’s redevelopment projects will be made whole, affordable housing will be protected and Brown will be committed to a San Francisco model.”

“It’s like the film Casablanca, when people are shocked to find out that gambling is going on in a casino,” Welch said. “People are shocked to find out that capital talks in a capitalist system.”

 Espanola Jackson asked Welch what will happen to the shipyard development, in face of a lawsuit that POWER brought that’s due to be heard March 24.

“The shipyard plan has a political function,” Welch said, noting that it was the result of a citywide vote in 2008. ‘We opposed it, but we lost. The structure of that deal flows from the vote.”

 City College Board member Chris Jackson expressed frustration that the Redevelopment conversation had devolved into a housing conversation.

“Mission Bay is all about biotech, but who works at UCSF?” Jackson said, noting that Redevelopment, as a state-funded agency, does not have to agree to the city’s newly approved local hire law.

Welch acknowledged that there has never been a study to determine the tipping point required to lift the Bayview out of poverty.

Lee admitted that Redevelopment’s focus has been housing, “because San Francisco is such an unaffordable city.” But he claimed that SFRA had a “much more aggressive program on local hire than the city, for many years.” Noting that SFRA has tried to attract restaurants and food establishments to Third Street, over the years, Lee said, “It hasn’t been something we’ve been particularly successful at.”

Welch opined that the “skills and abilities of the San Francisco community are far greater at stopping projects and protecting neighborhood character, but we can’t figure out how community-based organizations can employ their own people.”

 And then it was time to go back out into the cold March wind and try to wrap our minds about the true meaning of “bum choices” in 2011.

Yee plans to block Crane’s UC Regents confirmation

Mary Magee
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Yee plans to block Crane’s UC Regents confirmation

Citing UC Regent David Crane’s op-ed in the Chronicle, in which Crane questioned if public sector workers should have collective bargaining rights, Sen. Leland Yee says he wants to stop Crane’s UC Regents confirmation and protect the vital services provided in our communities by public employees.”

In his op-ed, Crane argues that “collective bargaining for public employees in California changed the balance of power and – most importantly – gave public employees power over their compensation and benefits.”

But Yee, who is running in the San Francisco mayor’s race this fall, counters that the only public employees at the UC that have any real power over their compensation are the top executives.

“The Regents consistently cater to the elite and ignore their unionized workers – nurses, janitors, technicians, bus drivers, teaching assistants, and others,” Yee stated. “Collective bargaining is vital in addressing this disparity and fighting the unconscionable acts of UC administrators.”

Crane, who identifies as a Democrat, was an adviser to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed him to the Board of Regents during his final days as governor. And Crane awaits final confirmation to the Board of Regents by the Senate.

But Sen. Yee and a bunch of community members and public employees hope to block Crane’s confirmation, starting with a noontime rally in San Francisco on Friday, March 4, at UC’s Medical Center at 513 Parnassus Avenue.

“UC Regent David Crane recently took his cue from Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and called for an end to collective bargaining rights for California’s teachers, nurses, firefighters, university employees, and other public sector workers,” Yee stated in a press release. “While the Regents approve million dollar contracts for their top administrators, David Crane wants to take away the rights of working class families. It is time for Regent Crane to put away his Wisconsin playbook and come down from his ivory tower.”
 
“While the Regents have approved million dollar contracts for their top administrators, they allow many UC workers and their families to live in poverty,” Yee continued. “Now, Regent Crane wants to take away their only avenue to earning a livable wage and a respectable retirement – their collective bargaining rights.”

Yee notes that UC service workers wages’ can be as low as $13 an hour. That 96 percent of these workers are income eligible for at least one of the following public assistance programs: food stamps, WIC (women, infants, and children), public housing subsidies, and reduced lunch. That many work two or three jobs to meet their families’ basic needs.  And that all this is happening against a backdrop in which the UC Board of Regents has consistently provided double-figure raises to their top administrators. 

Yee cites the “retention salary adjustment” for UCLA Medical Center CEO David Feinberg, whose salary was recently increased by an additional $160,300 per year to $900,000.  The Regents also voted to award Feinberg an additional $250,000 annual retention bonus. And if you add in his annual Medical Center incentive payment, Feinberg’s annual compensation is more than $1. 3 million. UC President Mark Yudof also pulls in over a million annually, when salary, housing, and benefits are factored in.

 

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

I’ve been trying to think of a good metaphor for the public-employee pension story, a way to explain what’s going on without making it so complicated that it becomes a battle of political slogans. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Imagine you and your friends all work at a resort hotel, and you’ve been there a while, and you approach the boss and say it’s expensive to live in the area and you want a raise. But your boss isn’t handing out any more cash — he wants to hire his girlfriend for a cush job, and he wants a promotion in the resort chain, so he has to keep the bottom line tight.

But he can’t afford to lose the group of you, so he offers a deal: no raise, but you and your coworkers can eat lunch free at the resort restaurant. It’s a painless offer for him; the restaurant is booming, so much cash coming in that nobody will notice a few free meals. Still, it’s a benefit you didn’t have, so you accept.

Then a year passes, and resort traffic drops off, and the price of lunch food goes way up, and the guy who handles the books at the restaurant has been skimming and pocketing a big chunk of the proceeds — and suddenly, the free meals aren’t so free for your boss. So he starts pointing fingers at you, telling all the other diners that it’s unfair you get to eat free. The cry goes out: “No free lunch!” He starts to demand that you pay “your fair share.”

Now: you realize like everyone else that the resort is in financial trouble, and you’ve already accepted unpaid overtime and fewer work days. You also realize that a couple of your greedier friends have been taking extra sandwiches home in their pockets and they need to knock it off.

But the huge chain that owns the resort is still doing fine; the percentage profits off the top never change. No cuts there. And your free lunch isn’t “free”; it’s part of your pay. And you suspect that at some point, the economy will pick up and the restaurant will be flush again — and if you give up your benefit now, you’ll wind up with no raise and no lunch either.

But somehow, it’s all your fault. You are the ones bleeding the resort dry.

Look at it that way, and the picture is a little different.

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