Girls Archives — Page 62 of 67 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Not Coachillin’

May 8, 2007

SONIC REDUCER “I can’t believe you slept through the police helicopter above the tent at 3 a.m. and the megaphone going, ‘Disperse immediately or you’ll all be arrested,'” tentmate Fluffy marveled the day after another ear-busting night of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s unofficial after-party scene in the campgrounds. It was only 8 a.m., though the sun was already beating down relentlessly like our heedless neighborhood drum circle.

I’ve snoozed through my share of lousy plays, bad bands, and crappy circuses, but I never thought I’d slumber through the 24-7 thrills at the Empire Polo Fields. And the chopper was just the chaser to April 28 trance headliner Tiesto, who began his loud set, pompously booming out over our not-so-fair tent city of spring breakers and Euro tourists, with “In the beginning there was the earth….”

We’re gonna have to sleep through the history of the planet, was my last thought as I drifted off.

O Coachella, don’t you cry for me, ’cause I’ve come from Alabama Street with a heat rash on my knee — and doubts about making the scene at the festival despite the fact that about 160,000 brave music fans were expected to face down the desert swelter as the event swelled to three days.

At this juncture, Coachella might be described as a music festival on steroids: it’s a carnival for 18 and overs with rides, art installations, dancers, and completely insane people wearing full-body chicken costumes in the 110-degree heat, though still boasting a comprehensive bill of today’s so-called hot bands. It’s your one-stop smorgasbord for music lovers, who will happily chat you up about the performer they deemed the most mind-blowing the previous night or the last Rage Against the Machine show they caught.

And they got what they came for: the Björk shroom headdress; the crazed buzz rising from such festival circuiteers as Amy Winehouse and Klaxons; solid pop from Jarvis Cocker and Peter Bjorn and John; show-stopping performances by DJ Shadow, CSS, Arcade Fire, and Konono No. 1; and the rattle of reunion bones by an amped and antic Rage Against the Machine, glowering and balding Jesus and Mary Chain, and, er, Crowded House. You couldn’t go amiss if you stuck to the desert to-do’s rave roots and entrenched yourself beneath the mirror ball, video screens, and pink and blue lights of the Sahara tent: the performances there by Justice and LCD Soundsystem connected with the crowd with a screw-it-all exuberance.

But the untold story lay far away from the press tent and Palm Springs love nests — in the crowded, brutal heat of the campgrounds next to the performance area. Is it possible to review a camping trip? In what seemed like a dusty, straw-strewn football field with thousands of other wake ‘n’ bakers? I spent far too much time taking refuge from the nonstop heat at the campground’s cybercafé, where hundreds of shirtless boys and bikinied girls would miserably crouch, recharging their cells at a bank of outlets, sit stunned watching the Coachella film on a loop, or lie on the ground like clammy, comatose dead fish, waiting out the morning before the acts began in early afternoon.

The southerly discomfort led most campers on a lengthy hike from the tent city, past the obscenely grassy country clubs surrounding the polo grounds, to find refrigerated refuge and 40s at Ralph’s, the nearest supermarket, where people were literally chillin’ on store lawn furniture. Coachella: the fest that inspired global warming — and a post–<\d>Earth Day longing for air-con.

Organizers Golden Voice had a clue: they gave away free water sporadically and provided campers with free Internet use and showers. But there were too few laptops, the wi-fi was too erratic, and the showers were locked down too early — and you knew there was too little shade in general when audience members broiled in the sparse shadows of lemonade stands.

The crowd — weighted with Rage Against the Machine fans eager to see the band’s first concert in more than five years — was also heavy on the testosterone. But maybe that’s just the state of Rage love: the band never really seemed too underground to me but has historically worked to surface activist subversion via modern rock radio. And their audience was still boiling — and amazingly good-natured despite the sleepless nights. As for myself, I finally woke up hours after the helicopter early April 29 to the sound of a random dude shouting, “Whoo!” and yammering loudly in Portuguese to the tentizens the next flap over. Later I was tempted to put my own spin on Zack de la Rocha’s onstage suggestion that Bush and Cheney be “tried for war crimes and shot.” I know the 12-hour roller coaster ride of quality hallucinogens can be a bitch — but then, so can I: is it so wrong to want the early morning shouters and the dude with the air horn to be tried for crimes against humanity’s sleep schedule and shot? I’d settle for finding out where they were dozing it off and delivering a special whoo-gram of my own.

BOB DYLAN STUDIED HERE That’s the rumor, anyway, at the Blue Bear School of Music, which has seen Tracy Chapman and more than 20,000 other musicians come through its doors in the past 36 years. Executive director Kevin Marlatt told me the nonprofit’s second annual fundraiser — showcasing 2007 Grammy Lifetime Achievement winner Booker T. Jones as well as Blue Bear staffer Bonnie Hayes and Sista Monica — will include an appearance by the James Lick Middle School Band, the result of the organization’s efforts in the last year to get more involved in public school music education. Since it took over the James Lick music program and brought in 30 guitars, he says, more than a dozen bands have popped up at just that school. So Stax around for a good cause. *

BOOKER T. JONES

Sat/12, 8 p.m., $45–$125

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.bluebearmusic.org

Summer 2007 fairs and festivals guide

May 8, 2007

ONGOING

ArtSFest Various venues; www.artsfestsf.org. For its fourth year, ArtSFest presents a showcase of theater, dance, visual art, film, music, spoken word, and more. Through May 28.

Night Market Ferry Bldg Marketplace, along the Embarcadero at the foot of Market; 693-0996, www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com. Thurs, 4-8pm, through Oct 26. Marketplace merchants and farmers offer their freshest artisan foods and produce at this weekly sunset event.

United States of Asian America Arts Festival Various venues; 864-4120, www.apiculturalcenter.org. Through June 30. This festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, showcases Asian Pacific Islander dance, music, visual art, theater, and multidisciplinary performance ensembles at many San Francisco venues.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St at Mission; 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct, free. Nearly 100 artistic and cultural events for all ages takes place at the gardens this summer including Moroccan percussionists, Hawaiian ukulele players, Yiddish klezmer violinists, Balinese dancers, Shakespearean actors, Cuban musicians, and Japanese shakuhachi players.

BAY AREA

Silicon Valley Open Studios www.svos.org. Sat-Sun, 11am-5pm, through May 20. Check out Silicon Valley artists’ works and the spaces they use to create them at this community art program.

MAY 8–20

The Hip-Hop Theater Festival: Bay Area 2007 Various venues; www.youthspeaks.org. Youth Speaks, La Peña Cultural Center, the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, and San Francisco International Arts Festival present this showcase of new theater works that feature break dancing, MCing, graffiti, spoken word, and DJ sampling.

MAY 10-20

Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival Various venues; www.mcmf.org. The Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival features the best and brightest independent musicians and artists, including music by Vincent Gallo, Acid Mothers Temple, Edith Frost, and Gary Higgins. Literary and film events are also planned.

MAY 12

KFOG KaBoom! Piers 30-32; 817-KFOG, www.kfog.com. 4-10pm, free. Kick off the summer with this popular event featuring music, a spectacular fireworks show, food and drinks, and activities for kids. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Guster, and Ozomatli perform.

BAY AREA

Arlen Ness Motorcycles Anniversary Party Arlen Ness, 6050 Dublin, Dublin; (925) 479-6300, www.arlenness.com. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate the company’s fourth year in Dublin and 37th year in business with a display of the largest selection of Ness, Victory, American Iron Horse, and Big Dog Motorcycles in California, a walk through the museum, and a live music from Journey tribute band Evolution.

Beltane Pagan Festival Civic Center Park, 2151 MLK Jr. Way, Berk; www.thepaganalliance.org.10am-5:30pm, free. This year’s festival focuses on children and young adults and features a procession, performances, vendors, storytelling, an authors’ circle, and information booths.

Peralta in Bloom Spring Festival Carter Middle School, 4521 Webster, Oakl; (510) 655-1502, www.peraltaschool.org. Due to a fire, Peralta’s spring festival will be held at a temporary home this year. Expect the same great live entertainment, carnival games, old-fashioned high-steppin’ cakewalk, free arts and crafts, and delicious barbecue as always.

MAY 13

Hood Games VI "Tender Love" Turk between Mason and Taylor; 11am-4pm. This celebration of youth culture features live skating and music, art, a fashion show, contests, and a raffle. Bonus: every mom who shows up for this Mother’s Day event gets a free skateboard.

BAY AREA

Russian-American Fair Terman Middle School, 655 Arastradero, Palo Alto; (650) 852-3509, paloaltojcc.org. 10am-5pm, $3-5. The Palo Alto Jewish Community Center puts on this huge, colorful cultural extravaganza featuring ethnic food, entertainment, crafts and gift items, art exhibits, carnival games, and vodka tasting.

MAY 16–27

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues; (415) 439-2456, www.sfiaf.org. The theme for this year’s multidisciplinary festival is the Truth in Knowing/Now, a Conversation across the African Diaspora.

MAY 17–20

Carmel Art Festival Devendorf Park, Carmel; (831) 642-2503, www.carmelartfestival.org. Call for times, free. Enjoy viewing works by more than 60 visual artists at this four-day festival. In addition to the Plein Air and Sculpture-in-the-Park events, the CAF is host to the Carmel Youth Art Show, Quick Draw, and Kids Art Day.

MAY 18–20

Festival of Greece 4700 Lincoln, Oakl; (510) 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 10am-11pm; Sun, 11am-9pm, $6. Free on Fri 10-4 and Sun 6-9. Let’s hear an "opa!" for Greek music, dance, food, and a stunning view at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s three-day festival.

MAY 19

A La Carte and Art Castro St, Mountain View; (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. A moveable feast of people and colorful tents offering two days of attractions, music, art, a farmers’ market, and a special appearance by TV star Delta Burke.

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Howard between Fifth and Seventh streets; 321-5865, www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. More than 200 organizations participate in this festival, which features Asian cooking demonstrations, beer and sake, arts and crafts, a variety of food, and live entertainment.

Family Fun Festival and Silent Auction 165 Grattan; 759-2815. 11am-5pm, free. Enjoy this second annual family event in Cole Valley, featuring a kids’ carnival with prizes, street theater, live music, refreshments, and a silent auction.

Oyster and Beer Fest Great Meadows, Fort Mason, Laguna at Bay; www.oreillysoysterfestival.com. 12-7pm, $15-19 ($50 reserved seating). O’Reilly’s Productions presents the 8th annual festival celebrating oysters and beer, featuring cooking demos, competitions, and live performance from Flogging Molly, Shantytown, The Hooks, and more.

Saints Kiril and Metody Bulgarian Cultural Festival Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga; (510) 649-0941, www.slavonicweb.org. 3pm-midnight, $15. Enjoy live music, dance, and traditional food and wine in celebration of Bulgarian culture. A concert features Nestinari, Zaedno, Brass Punks, and many more.

Taiwanese American Cultural Festival Union Square; (408) 268-5637, www.tafnc.org. 10am-7pm, free. Explore Taiwan by tasting delicious Taiwanese delicacies, viewing a puppet show and other performances, and browsing arts and crafts exhibits.

Uncorked! Public Wine Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 N Point; 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, event free, wine tasting $40-100. This second annual wine festival features wine tasting, five-star chef demonstrations, wine seminars, and a chocolate and wine pairing event.

BAY AREA

Cupertino Special Festival in the Park Cupertino Civic Center, 10300 Torre, Cupertino; (408) 996-0850, www.osfamilies.org. 10am-6pm, free. The Organization of Special Needs Families hosts its third annual festival for people of all walks or wheels of life. Featuring live music, food and beer, bouncy houses, arts and crafts, and other activities.

Pixie Park Spring Fair Marin Art and Garden Center, Sir Francis Drake Blvd at Lagunitas, Ross; www.pixiepark.org. 9am-4pm, free. This fair for preschoolers and kindergarteners features bathtub races, pony rides, a petting zoo, a puppet show, and much more.

MAY 19-20

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, San Pablo Dam Road near Castro Ranch, El Sobrante; (510) 644-2593, www.bayareastorytelling.org.

Sat, 9:30am-8pm; Sun, 9:30am-5:15pm, $8-65. Gather around and listen to stories told by storytellers from around the world at this outdoor festival. Sheila Kay Adams, Charlotte Blake Alston, Bill Harley and others are featured.

Castroville Artichoke Festival 10100 Merritt, Castroville; (831) 633-2465, www.artichoke-festival.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $3-6. Have a heart — eat an artichoke. This festival cooks up the vegetable in every way imaginable and features tons of fun activities for kids, music, a parade, a farmers’ market, and much more.

Day of Decadence Women’s Expo Sedusa Studios, 1300 Dell, Campbell; (408) 826-9087, www.sedusastudios.com. 1-4pm, $5. Twenty-five women-owned businesses exhibit their products and pamper their customers at this decadent event. Includes free services, champagne, refreshments, and a chocolate fountain.

French Flea Market Chateau Sonoma, 153 West Napa, Sonoma; (707) 935-8553, www.chateausonoma.com. 10:30am-5:30pm, call for price. Attention, Francophiles: this flea market is for you! Shop for antiques, garden furniture, and accessories from French importers.

Himalayan Fair Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-5:30pm, call for price. This benefit for humanitarian grassroots projects in the Himalayas features award-winning dancers and musicians representing Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mongolia. Check out the art and taste the delicious food.

Maker Faire San Mateo Fairgrounds, San Mateo; (415) 318-9067, www.makerfaire.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $5-15. A two-day, family-friendly event established by the creators of Make and Create magazines that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects, and the do-it-yourself mindset.

Muscle Car, Hot Rods, and Art Fair Bollinger Canyon Rd and Camino Ramon, San Ramon; (925) 855-1950, www.hatsoffamerica.us. 10am-5pm, free. Hats Off America presents this family event featuring muscle cars, classics and hot rods, art exhibits, children’s activities, live entertainment, and beer and wine.

Passport to Sonoma Valley Various venues; (707) 935-0803, www.sonomavalleywine.com. 11am-4pm, $55 (weekend, $65). This first of its kind, valleywide event will provide visitors rare access to the many hidden gems of California’s oldest wine region. More than 40 Sonoma wineries are participating, and the cost includes unlimited tasting.

Sunset Celebration Weekend Sunset headquarters, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park; 1-800-786-7375, www.sunset.com. 10am-5pm, $10-12, kids free. Sunset magazine presents a two-day outdoor festival featuring beer, wine, and food tasting; test-kitchen tours, celebrity chef demonstrations, live music, seminars, and more.

Spring Fling Open House Rosenblum Cellars, 2900 Main, Alameda; (510) 995-4100, www.rosenblumcellars.com. Noon-5pm, $30. Try new and current releases at Rosenblum’s Alameda winery while enjoying wine-friendly hors d’oeuvres and music from local musicians.

MAY 20

ING Bay to Breakers Begins at Howard and Spear, ends at the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, SF; www.baytobreakers.com. 8am, $33-40. See a gang of Elvis impersonators in running shorts and a gigantic balloon shaped like a tube of Crest floating above a crowd of scantily clad, and unclad, joggers at this annual race from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean.

BAY AREA

Jazz on Fourth Street Festival Fourth St, between Hearst and Virginia, Berk; (510) 526-6294, www.4thstreetshop.com. 11am-5pm, free. Local merchants present this annual outdoor music festival featuring Marcus Shelby Quartet, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group, two Berkeley High combos, and the award-winning Berkeley High Jazz ensemble.

Niles Wildflower Art and Garden Show Niles Blvd at Main, Fremont; www.niles.org. 10am-3pm, event free, garden tour $12-15. Take a self-guided tour of beautiful home gardens and enjoy the creative works of local artists.

MAY 24–27

Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival Field of Dreams, 179 First St W, Sonoma; 1-866-527-8499, www.sonomajazz.org. $45-95. Thurs-Sat, 6:30 and 9pm; Sun, 8:30pm, $45-110. Head on up to California’s wine country for Memorial Day weekend and soak in the sounds of LeAnn Rimes, Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, and Harry Connick Jr.

MAY 25–28

Memorial Day Folk Music Camp Out Waterman Creek Camp, Santa Cruz County; (510) 523-6533. www.sffmc.org. $7/night. Preregistration required. Camp and sing along with the San Francisco Folk Music Club. Everybody’s goin’!

MAY 26

Soul Jazz Festival Crown Canyon Park, 8000 Crow Canyon, Castro Valley; www.souljazzfestival.com. 12-8pm, $45-49. A one-day music event celebrating the worlds of jazz, funk, and soul. This year pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and features Johnny Holiday, Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets, and Ella Fitzgerald’s son, Ray Brown Jr.

MAY 26–27

Carnaval San Francisco Harrison between 16th and 24th streets; (415) 920-0122, www.carnavalsf.com. 10am-6pm, free. The vibrant Mission District plays host to the best of Latin and Caribbean cultures and traditions with an array of food, music, dance, and art. The theme for this year’s carnaval is Love Happens, and it features speed dating at the Love Nest, a performance by Los Lonely Boys, and a parade on Sunday.

North American Cycle Courier Championship Speakeasy Brewery, 1195 Evans; 748-2941. Sat, 9am-2pm; Sun, 10am-1pm, free. This weekend-long celebration of bike culture features a race on a closed course that tests all areas of bike messenger skill.

BAY AREA

Santa Cruz Blues Festival 100 Aptos Creek, Aptos; (831) 479-9814, www.santacruzbluesfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $20-100. Rhythm and blues buffs beware. This annual festival, in its 15th year, showcases some of the most renowned acts of new and vintage R&B, soul, and blues rock, including Los Lonely Boys, Etta James and the Roots Band, and Little Feat. International food booths, juice bars, and beer make this event add to the appeal.

MAY 26–28

The San Francisco Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament and Festival Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field, SF; (415) 337-6630, www.sfcup.com. 8:30am. This 20th annual premier event brings together 128 national and international teams of both genders for great soccer excitement.

MAY 26–JUNE 30

Bay Area Summer Poetry Marathon Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; (415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org. 7-10pm,. $3-15 sliding scale. Various Bay Area and national poets read their work at this event held throughout the summer.

MAY 27

Antique Street Faire Main St, Pleasanton; (760) 724-9400, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 8am-4pm, free. This semiannual event sponsored by the Pleasanton Downtown Association provides more than a mile of antiques and collectibles displayed by about 300 professional dealers.

Art in the Vineyard Wente Vineyards Estate Winery, 5565 Tesla, Livermore; (925) 456-2305, www.livermoreartassociation.com. 11am-5pm, admission free, wine tasting $15. Mark your calendars for the 35th anniversary of this popular event, featuring 40 talented multimedia artists in addition to music by Vested Interest.

Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds, Sausalito; (415) 339-3900, www.baykidsmuseum.org.10am-5pm, free. Experience taiko drumming, the Marin Chinese Cultural Association’s Lion Dance Team, and other Polynesian and Pacific Islander arts groups, as well as traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino cuisine in honor of Asian Pacific Islander Month.

Caledonia Street Fair Caledonia St, Sausalito; (415) 289-4152, www.ci.sausalito.ca.us.10:30am-6pm, free. This fest boasts multicultural food, dance, music, and more than 120 arts and crafts vendors. Don’t miss out on the Taste of Sausalito luncheon and wine-tasting event featuring food and wine prepared by select Napa and Sonoma wineries and restaurants.

MAY 28

Stone Soul Picnic Cal State East Bay’s Pioneer Amphitheatre, 25800 Carlos Bee, Hayward; 1-800-225-2277, www.kblx.com. Doors at 10am, show at noon, $56-81.50 includes parking. KBLX Radio 102.9 FM presents its 10th annual R&B and soul music event, featuring performances by Isaac Hayes, the Whispers, the Dells, and Tower of Power.

MAY 29–30

BALLE Film Fest Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, Berk; (415) 255-1108, ext 112, livingeconomies.org. 6 and 8:30pm, $10 for screening, $15 for night. Business Alliance for Local Living Economies presents a two-night film festival reutf8g to BALLE principles, including Everything’s Cool, a film about global warming, and Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary about China’s industrial revolution.

MAY 31–JUNE 3

Contra Costa County Fair Contra Costa County Fairgrounds,10th and L streets, Antioch; (925) 757-4400, www.ccfair.org. Thurs-Fri, noon-11pm.; Sat-Sun, 11am-11pm, $4-7, parking $3. Now 70 years old, this county fair has a little of everything. Daily sea lion shows, a man dressed as a giant tree, and, of course, clown acts, are just some of the events presented to fairgoers this year.

JUNE 1–10

East Bay Open Studios Various venues; (510) 763-4361, www.proartsgallery.org. Open studios: June 2-3, 9-10, 11am-6pm; formal artists’ reception May 31, 6-10pm, free. For more than 25 years, the East Bay Open Studios have drawn more than 50,000 visitors to Pro Arts Gallery and various artist workspaces to support the work of local artists. The public can view exhibits, purchase artwork, attend workshops, and go on an art bus tour.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Check Web site for ticket prices and venues in and around Healdsburg; (707) 433-4644, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com. This ninth annual week-and-a-half-long jazz festival will feature a range of artists, from the George Cables Project and Roy Hargrove Quintet to the funky Louisiana-style Rebirth Brass Band and first-rate vocalist Rhiannon.

JUNE 2

Berkeley Farmers Market’s Strawberry Family Fun Festival Civic Center Park, Center at MLK Jr, Berk; (510) 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org. 10am-3pm, free. Living up to its name, this festival is a guaranteed good time for the whole family. Highlights include environmental information booths, hands-on activities, delectable strawberry shortcake, and live performances by Nigerian Brothers, EarthCapades Environmental Vaudeville, Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, and Young Fiddlers.

Heartland Festival Riverdance Farms, Livingston; (831) 763-2111, www.eco-farm.org. 10am-7pm, $10 advance, $12 at gate. Celebrate a summer weekend by picking berries, taking farm and garden workshops, buying fresh produce from a farmers’ market, and enjoying live music at this family event.

Sonoma Valley Vintage Race Car Festival Sonoma Plaza, Sonoma; (707) 996-1090, www.sonomavalleyvisitors.com. 5pm, free entrance. Wine and food $30 in advance, $35 at the door. A gigantic taste explosion filled with more than 30 vintage dragsters, gourmet food, and wine samples.

Springfest 2007 Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael; (415) 499-8891, www.mdt.org. 1 and 5pm, $14-22. Marin Dance Theatre presents this spring program featuring various performances directed by Margaret Swarthout.

JUNE 2–3

Art Deco and Modernism Sale Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St; (650) 599-DECO, www.artdecosale.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 11am-5pm, $7-9. An extravagant art sale featuring pottery, books, art, vintage clothing, glass, furniture, and other accessories dating from 1900 to 1980.

Art in the Avenues Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave and Lincoln; www.sunsetartists.com. 10am-5pm. This annual exhibition and sale presented by the Sunset Artists Society brings together artists and art lovers from all over the Bay Area.

Great San Francisco Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 383-7837, www.crystalfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $5. This year’s fair is sure to please anyone interested in mystical and healing arts. Check out the more than 40 vendors catering to all of your crystal, mineral, bead, and jewelry needs.

Union Street Festival Union between Gough and Steiner; 1-800-310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. This year marks the 31st anniversary of one of San Francisco’s largest free art festivals. In addition to more than 200 artists and 20 gourmet food booths, the event features activities that represent the history of the Union Street Festival, including a special photographic exhibit that shows Union Street as it was 100 years ago.

BAY AREA

Marin Home Show and Benefit Jazz Fest Marin Center Exhibit Hall and Fairgrounds, San Rafael; (415) 499-6900, www.marinhomeshow.com. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, $8 (Sat tix include free return on Sun). Not only will there be hundreds of experts in everything from renovation to landscaping on hand to answer all of your home and garden questions, but there will also be live jazz acts to entertain you throughout the weekend. Proceeds benefit Marin County public schools.

JUNE 3

Santa Cruz LGBT Pride March and Rally Starts at Pacific, ends at Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz; (831) 427-4009, www.santacruzpride.org. 11am-5pm, free. Join the largest gathering of queers and allies in Santa Cruz County. Stage lineup includes Frootie Flavors, Nedra Johnson, Twilight Vixen Revue, Horizontes, and Assemblymember John Laird. Valet bike parking provided.

JUNE 6

Strollin’ on Main Street Party Main between St John and Old Bernal, Pleasanton; (925) 484-2199, ext 4, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 6-9pm, free. Stroll down Main Street and visit vendor booths, a beer and wine garden, and a stage where featured band Drive will play.

JUNE 6–AUG 29

Summer Sounds Oakland City Center, adjacent to 12th St/City Center BART Station, Oakl; www.oaklandcitycenter.com. Wed, noon-1pm, free. The Oakland City Center presents a weekly spotlight on an array of diverse musical artists.

JUNE 7–17

San Francisco Black Film Festival Various venues; (415) 771-9271, www.sfbff.org. The festival celebrates African American cinema and the African cultural diaspora by showcasing films by black filmmakers and emphasizing the power of film to foster cultural understanding and initiate progressive social change.

JUNE 8–10

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds,1350 Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. Fri, 12pm-9pm; Sat, 10am-10pm; Sun, 10am-9pm, $20-149. This year’s theme is "promoting global cooling" boasts an ecovillage offering tips for living and consuming, a well-being pavilion featuring natural remedies, and a culinary showcase of dishes using natural ingredients. Festival-goers can camp onsite and musical highlights include Brian Wilson, Erykah Badu, the Roots, moe., and Rickie Lee Jones.

JUNE 9

Dia de Portugal Festival Kelley Park, San Jose; www.diadeportugal.com. 10am, free. The Portuguese Heritage Society of California presents this annual festival featuring a parade, live music, food and wine, a book and art sale, and more.

Temescal Street Fair Telegraph between 48th and 51st streets, Oakl; (510) 654-6346, ext 2, www.temescalmerchants.com. Noon-5pm, free. This fair will feature live music, crafts, martial arts demonstrations and food samplings from local restaurants, including an Italian beer and wine garden, a tribute to days when the district once flourished with beer gardens and canteens.

JUNE 9–10

Italian Street Painting Festival Fifth Ave at A St, San Rafael; (415) 457-4878, ext 15, www.youthinarts.org. 9am-7pm, free. Street painters paint beautiful and awe-inspiring chalk artwork on the streets of San Rafael.

Live Oak Park Fair Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 898-3282, www.liveoakparkfair.com.10am-6pm, free. Is there a better way to revel in the summertime than to enjoy original arts and crafts, delicious fresh food, and live jazz by Berkeley’s Jazzschool all weekend long in beautiful Live Oak Park? Didn’t think so.

San Jose Gay Pride Festival Discovery Meadow, Guadalupe River Park, San Jose; (408) 278-5563, www.sjgaypride.org. Sat, 10am-6pm, free; Sun, 10:30am, $15. This year’s San Jose pride celebration is two days’ worth of events, speakers, and music, including performances by the Cheeseballs, Average Dyke Band, and Smash-Up Derby. After the parade on Sunday, cruise vendor booths peddling their LGBT-friendly goods and services.

JUNE 9–24

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.worldartswest.org. Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm, $22-36. Performers from around the world converge at the Palace of Fine Arts to bring San Francisco a diverse selection of the world’s most talented dancers, including North Indian Kathak, Cantonese style Chinese lion dance, flamenco, and Middle Eastern belly dance.

JUNE 14–16

Transgender and Queer Performance Festival ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.freshmeatproductions.org. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm, $15. Fresh Meat Productions celebrates its sixth annual festival. This year’s artists perform traditional forms and path-blazing ones: hula, taiko, traditional Colombian dance, aerial dance, spoken word, rock ‘n’ roll, theater, hip-hop, and modern dance.

JUNE 14–17

CBA 32nd Annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival Nevada County Fairgrounds, McCourtney, Grass Valley; www.cbaontheweb.org. Ticket prices vary. Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Cherryholmes, the Del McCoury Band, Dan Paisley and the Southern Grass, Country Current, the US Navy Band, the Dale Ann Bradley Band, and John Reischman and the Jay Birds perform at this California Bluegrass Association bluegrass jamboree.

JUNE 14–24

Frameline31: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival Various venues; (415) 703-8650. www.frameline.org. The 31st annual film festival by and about the LGBT community continues with a whole new program of innovative queer cinema.

JUNE 15–17

International Robogames Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, SF; www.RoboGames.net. Noon-10pm, $15-20. Engineers from around the world return for the fourth annual event listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest robot competition. Featuring 83 different competitions, including 18 just for walking humanoids.

JUNE 16–17

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and adjacent streets; 989-2220, www.sfnorthbeach.org. 10am-6pm, free. Touted as the country’s original outdoor arts and crafts festival, the North Beach Festival celebrates its 53rd anniversary with juried arts and crafts exhibitions and sales, a celebrity pizza toss, live entertainment stages, a cooking stage with celebrity chefs, Assisi animal blessings (Vallejo/Columbus), Arte di Gesso (Italian street chalk art competition, 1500 block Stockton), indoor classical concerts (4 pm, at National Shrine of St Francis), a poetry stage, and more.

San Francisco Free Folk Festival San Francisco City College, North Gym, 50 Phelan, SF; www.sffreefolkfest.org. Noon-10pm, free. Folkies unite for the 31st anniversary of this festival that features local and national artists, dances, open mics, family events, and workshops.

San Francisco Juneteenth Celebration Art of the Fillmore Jazz Presentation District, Fillmore from Geary Blvd to Fulton; 931-2729, www.sfjuneteenth.org. 10am-7pm, free. This Bay Area-wide celebration celebrates African American freedom while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures. Promoted through a community festival that celebrates and shares African American history and culture through music, the performing arts, living history, and other cultural activities. Seven full blocks of food, arts and crafts, and community and corporate information booths. Three stages of entertainment, educational speakers, and health and job fairs. All neighborhoods welcomed.

BAY AREA

Marin Art Festival Lagoon Park, Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 388-0151, www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $8. More than 250 fine artists join in at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Center. Look out for the stilt walkers!

Russian River Blues Festival Johnson’s Beach, Guerneville; (952) 866-9599, www.russianriverbluesfest.com. 10am-6pm, $45-180. Head on down to the river for this annual affair featuring Buddy Guy, Little Richard, Koko Taylor, Roy Rogers and the Delta Kings, Lowrider Band, Elvin Bishop, and many others. Festival organizers also invite attendees to indulge in wine tasting for a nominal fee.

JUNE 17

Native Contemporary Arts Festival Esplanade at Yerba Buena Gardens, Fourth St and Mission, SF; (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. 12pm-3pm, free. This fest features amazing performances, plus kids can make their own dream catchers, baskets, and bracelets.

JUNE 17–AUG 19

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sun 2pm, free. This beloved San Francisco festival celebrating community, nature, and the arts is in its 70th season.

JUNE 20–24

Sonoma-Marin Fair Petaluma Fairgrounds, Petaluma; www.sonoma-marinfair.org. $8-14. This fair promotes and showcases agriculture, while displaying the diverse talents, interests, and accomplishments of the citizens of California, especially the youth of Sonoma and Marin counties. Catch acts such as Cheap Trick, SHe DAISY, and Bowling for Soup on the main stage.

JUNE 22–24

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Hwy 128, Boonville; www.snwmf.com. Three-day pass, $125; camping, $50-100. Camp for three days and listen to the international sounds of Bunny Wailer, Toots and the Maytals, Luciano, Ojos de Brujo, Les Nubian, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Junior Kelly, Sugar Minot, and many others.

JUNE 22–JULY 8

Alameda County Fair Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton, Pleasanton; (925) 426-7559, www.alamedacountyfair.com. $4-9. Enjoy opening night fireworks, carnival attractions, a wine competition, a karaoke contest, an interactive sports and fitness expo, concerts, and oh so much more.

JUNE 23

Dyke March Dolores Park between 18th and 20th streets, SF; (415) 241-8882, www.dykemarch.org. Rally at 3pm; march at 7pm, free. Head on out to march with the San Francisco chapter of this now internationally coordinated rally. A Dolores Park celebration and rally precedes the march.

JUNE 23–24

San Francisco Pride 2006 Civic Center, Larkin between Grove and McAllister; 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Celebration Sat-Sun, noon-6pm; parade Sun, 10:30am, free. A month of queer-empowering events culminates in this weekend celebration, a massive party with two days of music, food, dancing that continues to boost San Francisco’s rep as a gay mecca. Do not under any circumstances miss the parade!

BAY AREA

Danville Fine Arts Fair Hartz Ave, Danville; (831) 438-4751, www.danvillecachamber.com. 10am-6pm, free. The quintessential arts and crafts fair descends upon Danville each year, bringing with it fine food and drink, Italian-style street painting, and more.

JUNE 23–25

King of the Bay Third Ave, Foster City; www.kingofthebay.com. 1pm, free. See the world’s top kiteboarders and windsurfers compete at this event.

JUNE 23–30

Jazz Camp West 2006 (510) 287-8880, www.jazzcampwest.com. This eight-day jazz program for adults and older teens features more than 100 classes taught by more than 45 nationally and internationally known artists.

JUNE 23–AUG 4

Stanford Jazz Festival Various venues. (650) 736-0324, www.stanfordjazz.org. This acclaimed festival has been injecting Northern California with a healthy dose of both classic and modern jazz for more than three decades.

JUNE 23–SEPT 8

Concert in the Hills Series Cal State East Bay, Concord Campus, 4700 Ygnacio Valley Rd, Concord; (925) 602-8654, www.concord.csueastbay.edu/concertinthehills.htm. Free. This series celebrates its eighth season with performances by acts such as Dr. Loco and His Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, Aja Vu, Joni Morris, and Native Elements.

JUNE 29–JULY 1

Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville; (707) 829-7067, www.katewolf.com/festival. Fri, 1pm-midnight; Sat, 10am-11:30pm; Sun, 11am-10pm, $55-160. This annual tribute to Northern California singer-songwriter Kate Wolf, who is credited with repopularizing folk music in the 1970s, features performances by Utah Phillips, Joe Craven and Sam Bevan, the Bills, and many others. Don’t miss the "Hobo Jungle Campfire," a nightly campfire on the creek shore with story swappin’ and song jammin’ aplenty.

JUNE 30–JULY 1

23rd Annual Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. 10am-6pm, free. Three stages of nonstop entertainment featuring top and emerging artists. Ten blocks of art booths and gourmet food.

JUNE 30–JULY 4

Marin County Fair Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 499-6400, www.marinfair.org. 11am-11pm, $11-13. This county fair stands above the rest with its promise of nightly fireworks, There will be many fun, new competitions to enter this year, including the Dancing Stars Competition, in which contestants may perform any style of dance — from tap to ballroom, salsa to boogie. Also not to be missed is the 18th annual "Creatures and Models" exhibit and the 37th annual "National Short Film and Video Festival," plus food and rides and other fun fair stuff.

JULY 1

Vans Warped Tour 2006 Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; (650) 967-3000. www.warpedtour.com. 11am, $29.99. As Cities Burn, Bad Religion, Boys Like Girls, Coheed and Cambria, Escape the Fate, Pennywise, the Used, Funeral for a Friend, Revolution Mother, the Matches, and others perform at this annual punk music and culture event.

JULY 3–4

WorldOne Festival Cerrito Vista Park, El Cerrito; www.worldoneradio.org. Mon 5pm, Tue 10:30am, free. Worldoneradio hosts a world music and culture stage in the park. The eighth annual event is produced as a public service and fundraiser for area nonprofits.

JULY 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero at Beach, SF; (415) 705-5500, www.pier39.com. 1-9:30pm, free. SF’s waterfront Independence Day celebration features live music, kids’ activities, and an exciting fireworks show.

JULY 5–8

International Working Class Film and Video Festival New College Roxie Media Center, 3117 16th St; www.laborfest.net. Held annually to commemorate the San Francisco general strike of 1934 brings together filmmakers and labor artists from around the United States and internationally.

BAY AREA

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas Fairgrounds, 204 Fairground Rd, Quincy; (510) 595-1115, www.highsierramusic.org. 11am-11pm, $35-156. Enjoy your favorite jam bands on five different stages and at five different late-night venues, a kid zone, arts and crafts, food and drinks, beer, yoga, dancing, camping, and more. The lineup features performances by Xavier Rudd, the Disco Biscuits, Yonder Mountain String Band, Martin Sexton, and Les Claypool.

JULY 6–SEPT 29

Marin Shakespeare Company Festival Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University of California, Grand Ave, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. Fri-Sun, varying times, $7-30. The Marin Shakespeare Company presents its outdoor festival featuring performances of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2.

JULY 10–21

Mendocino Music Festival Various venues; (707) 937-2044, www.mendocinomusic.com. $15-45. David Lindley, Mollie O’Brien, the Chris Cain Quartet, and others celebrate the 21st anniversary of this classical and contemporary music festival.

JULY 12–15

World California Fest Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley; (530) 891-4098. www.worldfest.net. $30-140. The 11th annual festival features eight stages and four days of music, with performances by everyone from Ani DiFranco to the Venezuelan Music Project. Camping is encouraged.

JULY 13–15

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; (415) 777-4908, www.silentfilm.org. Call for times and prices. The Golden Age of the silver screen comes to life, complete with a swelling Wurlitzer.

JULY 14-15

San Francisco International Chocolate Salon Fort Mason Conference Center; www.SFChocolateSalon.com. Sat, 11am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $20. The first major chocolate show on the West Coast in two decades takes place this summer with the theme Chocolat, in honor of Bastille Day. Experience the finest in artisan, gourmet, and premium chocolate with tastings, demonstrations, chef and author talks, and wine pairings.

BAY AREA

Los Altos Arts and Wine Festival Main and State, Los Altos; (650) 917-9799. www.losaltos-downtown.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, free. Enjoy original art and free entertainment while indulging in gourmet food and fine wine.

San Anselmo Art and Design Festival San Anselmo between Tamalpais and Bolinas, San Anselmo; 1-800-310-6563, www.artanddesignfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. The San Anselmo Chamber of Commerce brings this buffet of cooking, home, and landscape design to the masses.

JULY 19–29

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various venues; (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org. $30-60. The Mozart-only music concert series features pianist Janina Fialkowska, the Haffner Serenades, and the Coronation Mass.

JULY 19–AUG 6

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Various venues; (415) 621-0556, www.sfjff.org. The world’s first and largest Jewish film festival has toured the Bay Area for 27 years.

JULY 21–22

Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz Ave, Menlo Park; (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. This annual midsummer festival hosts live jazz, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll as well as arts and crafts, chef demonstrations, international cuisine, and lots of fun for the kids.

JULY 27–29

Gilroy Garlic Festival Christmas Hill Park, Hwy 101, Gilroy; (408) 842-1625, www.gilroygarlicfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $6-12. If 17,000 pounds of garlic bread isn’t enough of a reason to go, then all the other manifestations of this flavorful food are. Gourmet food and cook-offs, as well as free music and children’s activities, entertain you as you munch.

JULY 29

San Francisco Marathon Begins and ends at the Ferry Bldg, Embarcadero, SF; www.runsfm.com. $110 to compete. Tighten your laces for 26.2 miles around the Bay. The less enthusiastic can run a half marathon, 5K, or "progressive marathon," instead.

Up Your Alley Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard, Folsom between Ninth and 10th streets, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm. Hundreds of naughty and nice leather lovers sport their stuff in SoMa at this precursor to the Folsom Street Fair.

AUG 3–5

Reggae on the River Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; (707) 923-4583, www.reggaeontheriver.com. $165-225. Further details pending. This year’s riverside roots and reggae fest features the Roots, Shaggy, Angelique Kidjo, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mad Professor, the Itals, Eek-A-Mouse, Sierre Leone’s Refugee Allstars, and many others.

Reggae Rising Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; www.reggaerising.com. $175 for a 3 day pass. Further details pending. This new summer festival will benefit various nonprofit groups in this southern Humboldt community and features Damian Marley, Sly and Robbie, Tanya Stephens, Fantan Mojah, and more.

AUG 4–5

Aloha Festival San Francisco Presidio Parade Grounds, near Lincoln at Graham, SF; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest/index.html. 10am-5pm, free. The Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association presents its annual Polynesian cultural festival featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, island cuisine, exhibits, and more.

AUG 9–12

Redwood Empire Fair Redwood Empire Fairgrounds, 1055 N State, Ukiah; (707) 462-3884, www.redwoodempirefair.com. Noon-11pm, $3-6. Bring the family to this old-timey fair, complete with rides, food, and fun.

AUG 10–12

Comcast San Jose Jazz Festival Various venues; (408) 288-7557, www.sanjosejazz.org. $5. This three-day music festival hosts dozens of acclaimed musicians playing all flavors of jazz.

AUG 11

SEEN Festival 2006 People’s Park, Telegraph and Dwight, Berk; (510) 938-2463, www.maxpages.com/seen2000. 11:30am-5pm, $5 suggested donation. This year marks the 12th anniversary of this world music, reggae, and soul festival.

AUG 11–12

Nihonmachi Street Fair Japantown Center, Post and Webster, SF; (415) 771-9861, www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Japantown’s 34th annual celebration of the Bay Area’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities continues this year with educational booths and programs, local musicians and entertainers, exhibits, and artisans.

Pistahan Yerba Buena Gardens, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybgf.org. 11am-5pm, free. The Bay Area Filipino festival of culture and cuisine features arts and crafts, live entertainment, food, and more.

Vintage Paper Fair Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave at Lincoln, SF; (323) 883-1702, www.vintagepaperfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, free. Craft lovers will enjoy this fair, which presents works made from all kinds of paper — from photographs, postcards, and memorabilia to brochures and trade cards.

AUG 18–19

Solfest Solar Living Institute,13771 S Hwy 101, Hopland; (707)744-2017, www.solfest.org. "The greenest show on earth" is back for another year featuring exhibits about renewable energy, green building, ecodesign tools, organic agriculture, and much more.

SEPT 1–2

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. More than 100,000 visitors will gather for this festive Mardi Gras-style celebration featuring R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and soul music, as well as arts and crafts, food and beverages, live performance, and activities for kids.

SEPT 8–9

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn Ave, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Known as one of America’s finest art festivals, this vibrant celebration featuring art, music, and a kids’ park draws more than 200,000 arts lovers to Silicon Valley’s epicenter.

SEPT 9

Solano Stroll Solano Ave, Berk and Albany; (510) 527-5358, www.SolanoStroll.org. 10am-6pm, free. The vibes are always mellow and the air filled with rhythm at the Solano Ave Stroll. In its 33rd year, the milelong block party will feature a pancake breakfast, booths, entertainers, a parade, and more, this year with the Going Green — It’s Easy! theme.

SEPT 15

Expo for the Artist and Musician SomArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 861-5302; artsandmedia.net. 11am-6pm. This eighth annual event, sponsored by Independent Arts and Media, is the Bay Area’s only grassroots connection fair for independent arts, music, and culture, featuring workshops, performances, and networking.

SEPT 22

California Poets Festival History Park San Jose, 1650 Center, San Jose; californiapoetsfestival.org. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate California’s distinctive heritage of poets, poetry, and presses at this all-day outdoor festival. *

Compiled by Nathan Baker, Angela Bass, Sam Devine, Molly Freedenberg, and Chris Jasmin

Willow Willow – or won’t you?

May 7, 2007

Bay Area beauty-pop duo Willow Willow branch out with a new self-titled album on Mod Lang. English folk, Anglo-pop ala Marine Girls and Tracey Thorn, and much sweetness for all.

Willow Willow‘s Miranda Zeiger and Jessica Vohs get together for an album release party, Tuesday, May 8, at Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. Bart Davenport – last sighted, slinging ax, at “Notes from a Toon Underground” at the Castro – and Ricky Lee Robinson open, starting at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Coachella images twirling through the mind, chapter 2

May 4, 2007

By Charles Russo

More ruminations on Coachella? You got it.

Got Jah angst? Not here next to Stephen Marley. All photos by Charles Russo.

Twilight of the costumed revelers.

Rage Against the Machine: I found it to be pretty amazing that the band, playing what was possibly the most anticipated popular musical performance in the world this year, could suffer the sort of mix problems that they went through for the first half of their set. This especially when one considers how excellent Bjork sounded two nights earlier.

Furthermore, the odd ordering of their set list put some heavyweight tracks too far up in front, and robbed them of their drama. “Bombtrack,” “Bullet in the Head,” and “Know Your Enemy” in the fourth, fifth, and sixth slots made for a somewhat anti-climactic experience. However three tracks off The Battle of Los Angeles really turned the show around: “Calm Like a Bomb,” “Sleep Now in the Fire” (especially the “TV Eye” guitar breakdown in the middle), and “Guerrilla Radio.”

That said, I thought they really salvaged their show by the second half of the set, and by the time they played “Wake Up” (which I haven’t seen them play live since 1993), the band was really living up to the hype.

Leaving the press pit after the third song was just utter pandemonium. I had to jump over various barricades to get out. Security was fighting like all hell to retain control of the situation. Further out, I was amazed how many people were packed onto that main stage field. I’ve seen a lot of headliners play over the last seven years, but never to that kind of crowd.

O whither that elusive butterfly named Sleep?

The Nightwatchman: Tommy Morello played one of the best sets of the entire weekend in the Gobi tent on Saturday afternoon, showcasing his Woody Guthrie-meets-Bruce Springsteen-via-Bob Dylan solo acoustic material to an extremely receptive crowd. He closed the set by enlisting Perry Farrell and Boots Riley to sing Guthrie’s “This Land Is My Land.” Quite a spectacle.

Watch this, Nightwatchman.

The three surprise performances of the weekend for me were Busdriver, Brazilian Girls, and the Klaxons. Of course, this required me to miss much of Jarvis Cocker, Interpol, and Placebo. I guess that’s the nature of the festival.

Busdriver wants you to check out his tonsils.

Peaches: definitely one of the best sets of the festival – if for no other reason than her sense of theater. After Ron Jeremy introduced her and the band took the stage wielding light sabers and wearing space masks (?), Peaches got up on the drum kit and started with “Fuck or Kill,” getting the crowd to sing “Impeach My Bush” (though they soon leave out the “My”). She then strapped on a guitar and started into the driving riff of “Rock Show,” jumping down and running up to the center stage mic to sing.

The common drum set cowers beneath Peaches’s boot.

Sympathy for the (she) devil

April 25, 2007

> le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS They don’t have kickoffs. They just start the game. It was the Lexington Club Bruisers vs. the Diablas, and we were the only two people in the stands. Again. Me and Twinkle Wonderkid.

Crocker Amazon. The weather: football weather, foggy and freezing … I had every intention in the world of rooting for the Bruisers. I don’t know, the Lexington Club just kind of feels like the home team to me. Plus I like the pink shirts.

However, there was a lot more pink on the field than there was blue. First I thought all the Diablas were lost in the fog. Then the Kid helped me count, and it was eight to five. And the mismatch was not only on the field; the Lexington Club had a separate offense and defense, a few extra subs, and two cheerleaders.

So the five Diablas on the field were going to have to play both sides of the ball, every play, whole game, and cheer for themselves too. They didn’t look very cheerful. They looked defeated, shoulders slumped and faces blank as blankets. They seemed sleepy and soft, as if the fog were on the inside too.

"Oh no," I said.

Twinkle stated the obvious. "We can’t exactly not root for the underdog," she said. Then: "Can we?" She’s not as experienced a football fan as I am.

"Oh no," I said. "Oh no no no no no." I wasn’t thinking about rooting for anyone anymore. My cleats were in my pickup truck. My truck was in the parking lot. The parking lot was just on the other side of the playing field…. I come from Ohio. Rooting be damned, I wanted to play for the Diablas.

I stood up, sat back down, stood up, and then, like a good Sunday morning Catholic, knelt. The thing was that, technically speaking, I was on a date. Twinkle Wonderkid and me are positively hooked on girl football. It’s our thing. Sunday mornings, Crocker Amazon. We pick up some chicken adobo or a mess o’ meat meat meat at Turo-Turo or the South Pacific Island Restaurant, and we tailgate in the Crocker Amazon parking lot, or picnic on a blanket in the grass, and then cross the field to watch the games from the bleachers. If I got to play, Twinkle’d be sitting in the stands all alonesome, and what kind of a date is that?

"Go ahead," she said, being pretty saintly for an ex-sailor and a cowboy girl. "Are you kidding me? I’d love to watch you play football."

I decided not to say, "Really?" – not even once – for fear she would change her mind. I also decided to wait a while, until the Diablas were getting crushed. Outnumbered eight-to-five on the field, and at least eight-to-none on the sidelines … it didn’t take long. They play 20-minute halves, and our girls were down to the Bruisers 19-0 by halftime.

"Wish me luck," I said, kissing Twinkle on the cheek, and I crossed the field in my shit-kicker buckle shoes and swirly skirt to ask, for the first time since I was seven, if I could play.

I asked the Diablas, the Bruisers, the refs, and the league commissioner. They all said the same thing: I couldn’t play. I could play. I mean, I couldn’t not play because I was trans, but because it was too late to get on the roster, halftime of Game Four being on the wrong side of the sign-up deadline, apparently. Well! …

I wished the Diablas the best of luck, told them we were on their side, hang in there, they were my new favorite football team, could I play for them next season, here’s my phone number, gimme a call, next season we can be outnumbered eight-to-six, etc., and I clomped back across the middle of the field, trying not to feel like a halftime show.

Lucky me! If they would have let me play, I wouldn’t have gotten to watch the greatest, most inspired, most inspiring comeback in the history of sports. Remember: I watched Joe Montana work. And Steve Young. Hell, I remember John Brodie to Gene Washington, a playoff game against the Redskins. And I’ve never seen anything like this.

By the closing whistle, me and the Kid were all screamed out and piss-pantsed, the score was tied 19-19, and I was madly in love with five of the badassest ballplayers I’d ever seen play ball.

Turo-Turo’s a fine, fine restaurant, but I like South Pacific Island even better, so … *

SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND RESTAURANT

Tues.-Sat., 8 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun., 8 a.m.-6 p.m.

2803 Geneva, Daly City

(415) 467-1870

Takeout available

No alcohol

AE/MC/V

Wheelchair accessible

Give it a hand

April 24, 2007

> andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear readers:

Every few months some harried freelancer charged with coming up with a novel spin on something sexual or other contacts me for a pithy quote. And since I am all about the pith, I will oblige if at all possible. Most recently, the writer was a staffer at Details, which I used to read when it was sort of sceney and kinda gay back in the ’80s but which sunk beneath my radar when it morphed into some sort of younger, more metro GQ. What did I think, the writer wanted to know, about the demise of the hand job? Had the rise of more exotic pursuits among American teenagers sealed its fate, or was good old manual release doomed to fade into obscurity by dint of its own lack of pizzazz? What was the hand job’s appeal, if any? And by the way, did I know any really good horror stories, Indian burns, that sort of thing?

It got me thinking, first about horror stories. As a collector of (other people’s) horrible sex accident stories, I know that hand jobs hardly figure. Skin-to-skin virus transmission is possible, sure, but nobody ever seems to accidentally yank anybody’s equipment clean off or anything. Not even close. Even CBT, cock and ball torture, is rarely as grizzly as it sounds. I did once demonstrate my most successful technique, a two-fisted opposite swivel, for a friendgirl who’d had only girlfriends but was considering branching out. Damned if my little pantomime didn’t look very much like I was administering an Indian (sorry, Native American is it?) burn, something I’d never noticed when doing it for real. Of course, hand jobs are best administered with a generous shot of lube or, at the very least, a palmful of spit. It’s really hard to hurt somebody with a palmful of spit.

So, hand jobs are safe, I concluded, but are they sexy? Is nobody doing them anymore because there’s so much hotter stuff to do, or is it simply that they’re not worth doing? These I couldn’t answer because I’m not sure I buy the premise. There’s no question that there has been a steady trickle (ew) of articles and TV scare pieces about the oral sex "epidemic" among young people, going back at least 10 years. But not only do these fail to convince me that more young people (well, women – these articles are never about a cunnilingus epidemic) are going down, they never say a thing about them eschewing hand jobs in favor of blow jobs. If you compare The National Survey of Family Growth, the best recent research on Americans’ sex habits, published in 2005, with Sex in America, the last decent survey, done in the early ’90s, there isn’t much increase in the incidence of oral sex. Period. There is, intriguingly, an increase in the incidence of anal sex, potentially a much greater health risk. But it doesn’t say a thing about hand jobs, which are, presumably, relegated to the catchall category "any" sex. So no matter how many articles are published insisting that life for the typical American teen these days is one big blow job party (the parts that aren’t taken up with pornographically violent video games and being obese, anyway), I haven’t seen anything supporting it. And before people start freaking out about all those teenagers having anal sex, the increase there was among people in their 20s.

My own take is that hand jobs aren’t dead, they’re just boring. Or at least, boringish. Boringish to receive, depending upon the recipient’s level of desperation and the donor’s skill, of course; boringish to perform (at least compared to the raunchier, more dramatic blow job), and above all boringish to write TV magazine scare pieces about. Nobody dies from them, so nobody cares. Also, while the hand job may figure prominently in some gay male scenes, most straight people kind of forget about them as they leave their teenage groping days behind. This leaves me, an inveterate champion of the underdog, in the position of having to defend the poor, disrespected hand job. Besides the obvious safety issue, they’re, um, easy. They don’t make you gag, not unless something nearly unimaginable disgusting is going on. They’re a good way to learn about penises. This last is true, actually, since for some reason most girls start out believing that a penis ought to be patted gently on the head, like an elderly lap dog, while in truth they can, and ought, to be wrangled, roped, and thrown like a rodeo doggie. Only hands-on learning will do.

So this is what I told the writer from Details: "After its high school glory days, the hand job may go underground, but it’s rarely completely missing from a couple’s repertoire. It’s just that it becomes a tool, or a tool of a tool, rather than an act in its own right. Foreplay without any hand play, for instance, would become sort of a special trick, like writing a paragraph without using any e‘s."

Love,

Andrea

Andrea Nemerson teaches sex and communication skills with San Francisco Sex Information. She has been a theater artist, a women’s health educator, and a composting instructor, but not at the same time. She is considering offering a workshop on how to have and rear twins without going crazy, since she’s currently doing that too.

Small Business Awards 2007: Community Institution Award

April 24, 2007

It started in 1971, with a handful of people who worked for Socialist Revolution magazine and wanted to sell books that would give the Movement – and back then it had a capital M – some historical and theoretical perspective. The magazine’s editor, Jim Weinstein, provided the rag with a free 900-square-foot space in a building he owned. With $5,000 in raised funds, the idealistic collective opened Modern Times Bookstore in the Mission.

A lot of similar projects were launched in San Francisco during that era – co-operative businesses and ventures founded by activists with a radical social vision – and most of them folded. Modern Times grew. And while independent bookstores around the country are failing by the day, Modern Times is thriving.

"I think it’s because we’ve always had the support of the community," Michael Rosenthal, who started at Modern Times just weeks after it opened and retired this year, told us. "We were always a community bookstore."

And unlike a lot of ’60s-era institutions, Modern Times was open to adapting and changing – while preserving its core beliefs. There have always been books for sale on Marxism and socialist theory, but as Rosenthal points out, "at a certain point, we realized we were just speaking to a coterie."

Taking a broader approach, Modern Times became one of the first bookstores in the country to offer a lesbian-gay section and one on women’s issues. And these days the store has an incredible variety of books from major and small-press houses in all sorts of different genres, including Spanish-language and children’s books, and an extensive rack of zines and cultural periodicals. New College, right down the street, uses Modern Times as its school bookstore, a deal that helps both local institutions.

Modern Times has maintained its worker-ownership structure – and has always been a community resource. Its back room is abuzz with local author book signings and queer experimental poetry readings. Political and community groups use the store for everything from panel discussions on the city’s wi-fi plan to workshops on economics and how-to sessions on bike safety. The site has hosted events featuring the storied radical feminist ’80s performance art and culture-jamming group the Guerrilla Girls, and San Francisco’s innovative Cutting Ball Theater is currently in residence there. Check out the events page on the store’s Web site for a fabulous list of upcoming eclectic and wonderful writers, speakers, and interactive programs.

Modern Times has become more than just a neighborhood bookstore for the Mission. It’s also a crucial part of San Francisco’s progressive community. And it’s a sign that independent bookstores can withstand gentrification and the assault of the big chains – and make a difference. (Tim Redmond)

MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE

888 Valencia, SF

(415) 282-9246

www.moderntimesbookstore.com

FIREWORKS, TEENAGE GIRLS AND AN SFPD PATROL CAR: Former cop caught in alleged corruption snafu

April 18, 2007

By G.W. Schulz

Chronicle gossip sluts Matier & Ross caught up with an interesting scoop today involving a guy who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. His name is Arkady Zlobinsky. That’s him below in a photo the Chron ran, which kinda looks more like a Glamour Shot stolen from a bargain-bin picture frame than a staff-produced image.

Former SFPD cop Arkady Zlobinsky from, uh,
a series of Glamour Shots the Chronicle lined up?

Anyway, a while back, we reminded you of a short-lived feature we’d launched last year called “Cops Behaving Badly,” which was supposed to be a regular summary of the more disturbing and/or hilarious police disciplinary cases arriving at the San Francisco Police Commission for review, details of which we could obtain as public records from the commission’s secretary, a nice guy named Sgt. Joe Reilly.

Well, the series started off as loads of fun. There was the cop who got busted with pot in Lake Tahoe. There was the domestic-violence investigator who drunkenly crashed into a parked SUV in Marin County while off the clock. There was the lieutenant who was allegedly pulled over at different spots throughout the city three times while off duty in a string of civilian automobiles, twice with a golf towel curiously wrapped over his license plate.

He claimed to sometimes play golf late at night in the park, and the towel must have miraculously got caught in his trunk. All a big misunderstanding, but after apparently letting him go a few times, officers finally reported the incidents and the chief was forced to charge him with being uncooperative by refusing to turn over his license and trying to intimidate the officers who’d pulled him over. That was the same lieutenant who was arrested in 1983 for soliciting an act of prostitution.

The shiznit

April 17, 2007

› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

Two years ago I met a guy who was a friend of a friend. I got to know him and realized that he was the most fascinating, intelligent person I’d ever met. Despite not being initially attracted to him, I soon got over this and fell in love with him.

We skirted discussing a romantic relationship because he had deep emotional problems precipitated by a number of traumatic things that happened to him in his childhood. He could often be unfriendly to the point of cruelty. I made too many allowances for this and probably let him get away with things I wouldn’t have tolerated in anyone else.

We remained friends even though we now live in different cities. I have had involvements with numerous other people but have always known that if this guy suddenly wanted me, I would drop everything. It’s against my feminist sensibility, but no one can compare. I can’t see myself ever meeting another person who understands me so completely. Will I ever get over it? Am I being totally pathetic?

Love,

Hung Up and Hung Over

Dear Hung:

Yep. Pathetic in a way I have no problem understanding and even reutf8g to, but pathetic nonetheless. And yes, you’ll get over it, but I can’t promise it will be quick or painless. Extractions and amputations so rarely are.

Look, we’ve all been there. Most people who value (I’m tempted to say "overvalue") qualities such as intelligence and quick wit in a partner have been there. Sadly, there is no rule that says a big brain has to come with a big heart or any heart at all, for that matter. A big, fast, fascinating brain is no guarantor of sanity either. Your friend sounds like he might have been more than a little dinged up by his crappy childhood — he’s probably broken beyond reasonable hope of repair. I’m sure he’s also devastatingly sexy or whatever, but who cares? Not you. Not anymore. Not if I have anything to say about it, anyway.

Here’s another lesson it’s hard to learn: getting your jokes is not the same thing as getting you. He may be wonderful to talk to, and you may have endless "Oh my gawd, nobody else ever got that!!!!" moments with him, but that doesn’t mean he knows (or cares) what you need, what makes you happy, or even what’s so great about you. Even more disappointing, understanding you is not at all the same thing as being your friend. If he’s the kind of charming, destructive bastard I think he is, he’s nobody’s friend, not even his own.

While I’m rabbiting on about how you don’t have to be this to be that or that to be this and so on, here’s another one: you don’t have to be nice to be exciting in bed. Not for certain values of exciting, anyway. So let’s just be thankful that you never did it with him. You didn’t, right? Realizing just how deadly a bullet you might have dodged there, let’s give you credit for making at least one terribly smart decision, even if it’s because you never got the chance to do him and still regret it. I’ll never tell.

So, let’s summarize. This guy, alluring as he is, is pretty much a shit. Happily for you, he’s currently a long-distance shit (good lord, what an image). Unhappily for you, he has probably acquired something of that long-distance glow since you’ve been apart. Look, for instance, at the time dilation you’ve apparently undergone since you started letting him warp your space-time continuum: you say you’ve "always known" you’d drop everything and go to him should he ever express interest, yet it’s been all of two years since you met and probably much less since you started mooning around over him (and that marks the last of the cheesy space metaphors, I promise). Don’t let him warp your sense of the future — will you "ever get over" him? Of course you will. You’ll even find someone just as much to your liking eventually, but he won’t be just a nice version of the shit, so don’t waste your time looking for that. Such a quest is doomed to fail, not to mention make the not-shitty guys you do meet think you’re kind of messed up in a not-all-that-appealing way.

Oh, and one last thing — there’s nothing gender-politics related about your situation, so don’t go getting your feminist sensibility in a wad. You think guys don’t lose their fool hearts to girls who are perfect for them in every way except for being cold and cruel and maybe a little crazy? Where would great art be without the Cruel Mistress or La Belle Dame sans Merci? In Barneyland, that’s where. "I love you, you love me" makes for a very nice LTR, but you can’t dance to it.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she’s raising twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.

Hot Lex

April 10, 2007

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Lesbians: is there nothing they can’t do? They can run a contemporary art gallery in thigh-baring Versace, tossing back their Paul Labrecqued locks as they leap from their roofless 330Ci. They can go from homeless crack addict to nude Hugo Boss model without gaining a single ounce. They can be a smokin’-hot Latina named Papi, a sassy, brassy canoodler who just happens — surprise! — to be a whiz at hoops. Astonishing lesbians!

Oh, wait. That’s The L Word — about as far from the real world of gloriously rambunctious, wild San Francisco dykes as you can get without scarfing down a gift sack of MAC Pervette lip frost, doing Pilates to Ashlee Simpson ("I am me!"), and microwaving Cheeto, your stump-tailed calico cat. Yes, yes, I know the writhing isle of televised lesbos that L makes LA out to be is one big, fat, easy, anorexic target. Don’t get your Mary Green panties in a bunch, Caitlyn. Just lie back, relax, and think of Joan Jett and Carmen Electra. It’s OK. But just as Chuck D. once bemoaned the fact that most of his heroes don’t appear on no stamps, so my homo heroes don’t appear on no Showtime.

Case in point: Lila Thirkield, the superhumanly vivacious owner of SF sapphic outpost the Lexington Club. When I first moved here in the early ’90s, I almost turned straight or something. The San Francisco my naive dreams envisioned was full of hot, scruffy, tattooed boys into hip-hop and punk, all of them on goofy, gleaming bicycles, occasionally in drag. What I got were mostly overgymed proto–circuit queens in pink spandex thongs and cracked-out twinks you could practically see through. Great if I needed to floss, but … And while all the cute ex–ACT UPers were somewhere adrift — busy shearing sleeves off flannels, maybe — it was the rough-and-tumble sistas who really dotted the t’s on my fanboy résumé. Dykes ruled it.

That was back when wallet chains were radical and FTMs were the new It girls. I’m dating myself, but who wouldn’t, hello? Alas, despite all those Sister Sledge–soundtracked strides up the rainbow of equal signs, women could still get kicked out of bars for making out. Wha? It was a gay man, man, man’s world, and the few lesbian watering holes hewed strictly to the old-school standards: alternadykes, calm down.

Thirkield, a spiky-souled kid at the time, stepped up and opened the Lexington in 1997 to give dykes of a different stripe a dive of their own. Like all bars clever enough to fill a cultural gap, the Lex galvanized its community and reinforced the new, boisterous lesbo aesthetic that combined street activism, machismo appropriation, punk rock attitude, and a winking yen for girly pop culture. And hot sex, of course.

"It seemed so important to have a space where we could be creative, where artists, street kids, and young people could hook up and express themselves," Thirkield says. "It was my first time running a bar, but it was like the whole community was running it with me."

Over the past decade the Lex has persevered in the same spirit. "The economics of the city have really changed," Thirkield says. "Our crowd has a really hard time living here now — that’s why we never charge a cover and we always support other things going on. But really, we’re doing better than ever."

The young drinking dyke crowd has also expanded, finding homes over the years in such spaces as the Phone Booth and Pop’s, as well as legendary joints such as Sadie’s Flying Elephant and the Wild Side West. New bar Stray is catering to a mostly female clientele, and, although lesbian spaces Cherry and the old Transfer have succumbed, a slew of roving dyke dance parties have taken root.

"The dyke scene has changed in the past 10 years too," Thirkield says. "It’s more diverse. Certain aspects of it are more visible in the media — some people expect different things. We get a lot more complaints from people coming in for the first time, saying things like ‘It’s such a dive!’ Well, yes, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, it’s great that lipstick types exist. I hope they find a place that makes them happy. But if you want to flick your lighter and sing along to old Journey songs with a roomful of babes from around the world — like during Pride last year — this is the place."

And what about that pesky L Word? "We get a big crowd to watch it on Sunday nights — mostly because they can’t afford cable. Then they stay for an hour afterward, drinking and bitching about it. So it’s great for business!" *

LEXINGTON CLUB 10TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Sat/14, 8 p.m.–2 a.m., free

3464 19th St., SF

(415) 863-2052

www.lexingtonclub.com

A hammer, a pizza guy, and $60

April 10, 2007

› gwschulz@sfbg.com

When Darius Simms walked into Department 25 at the Hall of Justice late last year, dressed in the orange cottons inmates wear at the county’s downtown jail, he received some good news. He was being released.

The bad news was that he was still going to be punished for something a judge said she was pretty sure he didn’t do.

Simms had been on probation when he was arrested for allegedly bashing in the head of a pizza delivery driver for $60. But the District Attorney’s Office couldn’t make a criminal case against him, and the charges of assault, attempted murder, and robbery were dropped.

Still, on the advice of his lawyer, Simms accepted a deal that extended his probation until 2009 just to escape the hoosegow — essentially on the grounds that the normal rules of the criminal justice system don’t count for those on probation, innocent or not.

The way California’s probation system works, it doesn’t matter if law enforcement proves an ex-con committed a crime. Just getting arrested can mean trouble.

It is, one defense lawyer told us, a "dirty little secret" of criminal prosecutions in the state.

The prosecutors may not have a case to take to a jury, in which a defendant is innocent until proved guilty and the evidence has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But they can send people on probation, such as Simms, to jail anyway, and that requires only a hearing before a judge.

"It’s not 12 people agreeing. It’s one," Robert Dunlap, the defense attorney for Simms, told the Guardian. "And it’s not beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s by a preponderance of the evidence. It’s a lower standard of proof."

Deputy district attorney Jim Thompson insisted that Simms was guilty even though he lacked proof, and he wanted to railroad the 26-year-old Western Addition native into more jail time.

Sitting behind the prosecutor that day in the gallery of Department 25 was a man named Tony Portillo. If Simms’s defense attorney hadn’t negotiated an extended probation for his client, Portillo would likely have testified that Simms pounded the pizza driver with what Portillo says was a wood-handled, iron-head hammer — the same testimony Portillo gave during a preliminary hearing for Simms in September 2006.

Portillo was the people’s main witness, an auto mechanic who the DA’s Office had originally believed would help keep Simms behind bars for what Thompson described as a "heinous" crime.

But case number 194817 reveals just how quickly the roles can alternate in Superior Court and how the probation status of a defendant can make a mess of the legal system.

FOR THE PEOPLE

For several months Portillo had been restoring a 1973 Dodge Challenger for his pal Apollo Pacheco’s girlfriend. The car was kept in the garage of Pacheco’s home, on 47th Avenue in the Sunset.

The 28-year-old Portillo has an unassuming stature at two inches shy of six feet and boasts an "SF" tattoo on his right arm. On April 4, 2006, he was in Pacheco’s garage working on the Challenger’s floorboards, wheelhouse, and one of the quarter panels. Portillo says he had seen Simms around the neighborhood, and the day before, Simms stopped by to ask if Portillo was willing to sell his car, which was sitting in Pacheco’s driveway. "He seemed like a fine individual," Portillo would later testify.

Simms is heavyset at six-foot-one and at the time had a short moustache and beard. He’s no stranger to the Hall of Justice. In fact, the very law enforcement office that would later try to pin him for attempted murder had sent him to the Sunset in the first place. He was supposed to be living quietly with his mother by the beach in a witness protection program, poised to testify against a man who’d allegedly shot him five times.

When the Guardian reached Portillo in person, he declined to speak on the record, but he did tell police inspectors that Simms lied at the time of their meeting by telling him he was 22. Simms, who is now 27, was also on probation for a handful of robbery and battery cases stemming from 2001.

The sale of Portillo’s junker never happened, but Simms returned the next day, and Portillo asked for help removing the Challenger’s rear window. "He was there basically for company," Portillo told the court. Throughout that second day the two talked over cans of Olde English, at which point the story began to turn.

According to court records, at some time during the afternoon, Portillo slunk into the house and stole from the fridge a rum drink prepared by Pacheco’s roommate, Ted Langlais. Langlais discovered the theft later, and the two would clash over it.

After sharing the rum, Portillo realized he needed to run to the Kragen Auto Parts store on Taraval and buy a new piece for his welder. On his way out, he asked Langlais for money, who testified that he said no.

Two young women who were visiting stayed behind at Pacheco’s house, where Langlais was painting their nails. (One of the two girls is a witness in the case, but we are concealing her name because she’s a minor. Portillo testified he believed she was Simms’s girlfriend.)

Simms, Portillo, and the girl congregated back at the garage around 7 or 8 p.m. Simms and the girl wanted to order pizza. Portillo promised to pitch in five dollars. After a period during which Portillo stated he was gathering his tools and cleaning up, the pizza arrived.

"I was washing my hands to get ready to eat," Portillo later testified. "I heard a knock on the garage. The garage was slightly open. I looked up. I saw [Simms]. I heard a thump. I looked over. I saw him striking the pizza delivery person with the blunt object."

The pizza guy, Marco Maluf, was screaming, and Simms was telling him to shut up, Portillo told inspectors the night it happened. Maluf had $60 cash on him, which he would later testify was taken.

Simms and his friend left on foot down 47th Avenue. Portillo was in shock and didn’t know what to do. He reported that he collected his tools and threw them into his car.

"Ted came down, and he said, ‘Dude, why is this guy bleeding all over my floor?’ " Portillo told the inspectors. "And I go, ‘I don’t know, Ted. Ask, ask them,’ " pointing toward the couple walking away. He didn’t call 911 but drove back toward his home in the Portola District. He called a childhood friend, a firefighter at Station 42 on San Bruno Avenue named Michael Guajardo, to ask for help. Guajardo encouraged him to go to the Taraval police station, where inspectors recorded Portillo’s version of the story.

He told the inspectors Simms called him afterward to tell him about the $60. "Dude, don’t call me again, dude," Portillo said he told Simms. "We’re done. Don’t ever — we’re done. You fucked up."

Five days later Simms was arrested for the attack. He told police interrogators that he wasn’t in the garage when the pizza arrived. Portillo, he said then, had given him and the remaining girl a ride to his house up the street. But Simms eventually admitted to police he’d returned to the garage with the girl. The girl ultimately admitted the same thing during her interview with the inspectors.

This story is far from complete, however. While Simms waited in jail, defense attorney Robert Dunlap pursued a different narrative for what happened on April 4.

FOR THE DEFENSE

Simms says he never knew Portillo as much by his birth name as he did by a nickname Portillo had given himself: Capone. He says Portillo introduced him to Langlais as a "friend from high school."

"He called me his window man," Simms told the Guardian. Simms had never taken a window out in his life, he admitted, nor had he known Portillo extensively, but he played along. "I said, ‘Cool, it’s a place to hang and drink and everything.’ "

Portillo denied in court that he ever went by the name Capone. But his close friend, Guajardo, testified during a September 2006 preliminary hearing that in recent months Portillo had, in fact, been calling himself by that name. Simms was calling Portillo by that name to police interrogators five days after Maluf was beaten. So was the girl who remained at the home that night.

Simms never testified in court, because the primary charges against him were dropped. But if Simms had testified before a jury, he likely would have told them he and Portillo had dropped by the home of Portillo’s grandfather to get some money for crack during their trip to the Kragen Auto Parts store. That’s how Simms says he knew Portillo’s grandfather had a breathing problem.

Guajardo also told the court that Portillo’s grandfather relied on a breathing apparatus for oxygen. He noted that his fire station had made medical calls to the man’s Portola home to assist him. But when defense attorney Dunlap asked Portillo about it, he denied to the court that his grandfather had any breathing problem.

Portillo also couldn’t clearly recall for the court if he’d ever been convicted of a felony. But in 2000, records show, police did arrest Portillo for cocaine and marijuana possession, and at the time, he had a suspended driver’s license. The day before Maluf was attacked, Portillo had also received a ticket for running a stop sign while taking Simms for a spin in his car along the Sunset’s Great Highway. At that time, he had a 30-day restricted license, the result of a DUI case.

After returning from the trip to Kragen and drinking a couple more beers, Portillo took Simms and the girl to Simms’s house for a change of clothes, and Portillo left alone, Simms told us.

Langlais was livid by then, having realized Portillo took his rum from the fridge. On Portillo’s way back to the house, he and Langlais argued over the phone. When he arrived, Langlais was armed with a baseball bat, according to Portillo’s court statements.

"I called Tony," Langlais testified last September, "and basically was just yelling at him on the phone for a little while…. He apologized profusely, broke down, and started crying, and I just didn’t expect that."

"I go, ‘Hey, look,’ " Portillo told the court. "’I’m not here to fight with you over this rum.’ … And he was pretty mad, so I got a little emotional."

Much of April 4 seemed charged with anxiety. Portillo by then sounded drunk, according to the testimony of Pacheco, who also argued on the phone with Portillo about the stolen rum.

The rum fiasco was resolved delicately. Simms and the girl returned to the garage with more beers. They ordered pizza. Portillo promised to pitch in. Simms says that he stepped outside for fresh air, his head spinning from the drink. The pizza man arrived.

"As soon as I step outside, I hear, ‘Uh! Uh!’ He just cavin’ this guy’s head in," Simms says. "Kickin’ him. Hittin’ him with the hammer. Just blowin’ him out of the water with it. This guy is cryin’, sayin’ some shit in some other language [Portuguese]. And [Portillo’s] yellin’, kickin’ him, sayin’, ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up now!’ Ted comes down. He looks. ‘What the fuck is goin’ on?’ [Portillo’s], like, ‘We gotta get up outta here. I’m goin’ to Mexico.’ "

Simms says it was the start of the month and he had just cashed a Supplemental Security Income check. He didn’t need to rob the pizza man. He says police arrested him because of his background and because he lied to them about being in the garage — "I just panicked. I know how it is. I got priors."

He didn’t bother with a coat of sugar.

"The guy was small. I’m a big boy. I don’t need no fuckin’ hammer to get him. I’m just sayin’. I’m 300 pounds. If I would have used that hammer on that man, he would have been dead."

The pizza driver survived after being transferred to San Francisco General Hospital but suffered a skull fracture and lacerations that took 30 staples in his head to repair. He still gets headaches and can’t remember anything about that night.

STANDARDS OF PROOF

Nearly two decades ago the California Supreme Court declared that a lower standard of proof was sufficient to put suspects behind bars for vioutf8g the terms of their probation.

A judge convicted Juan Carlos Rodriguez of vioutf8g his probation in 1988 after a convenience store employee in King City testified that Rodriguez had shoplifted several pairs of utility gloves. The judge relied on a diluted standard of proof known as "a preponderance of the evidence" to revoke his probation rather than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required from juries at full-blown criminal trials.

Rodriguez appealed and won. But prosecutors took the case to the state’s highest court, and in 1990 the justices decided that state case law already permitted a lower standard of proof known as "clear and convincing evidence." In effect, the court ruled, the state could send a person on probation back to jail on as little proof as it wanted. Besides, the justices argued, a higher standard amounted to retrying a criminal who’d already been granted the court’s grace and would unnecessarily burden the system.

Coincidentally, former San Francisco DA Arlo Smith filed a friend of the court brief in People v. Rodriguez supporting the state’s position.

But at least one concurring judge worried ominously that with a lower threshold for alleged probation violations, "an unfortunate incentive might arise to use the revocation hearing as a substitute for a criminal prosecution."

Former supervisor Matt Gonzalez, who worked as a public defender prior to his time at City Hall, says that’s exactly what’s happened. He recalls a case that surfaced years after Rodriguez involving a woman named Mary Elizabeth Alcoser. Although she had a long history of trouble ranging from severe narcotics abuse to prostitution dating back to the 1970s, according to criminal records, after police charged her with assault in a 1997 case, she was fully acquitted by a jury, citing self-defense.

"Even though she was acquitted," Gonzalez said, "the judge sent her to prison on a probation violation, because he determined that by a lower standard of proof, she was guilty…. The real question is, who benefits when you don’t have the higher standard of proof employed?"

In another case, Gonzalez represented a Hispanic man facing robbery charges following an incident at a Mission bar. A witness described the assailant during testimony as African American. But the judge sent Gonzalez’s client to prison on a probation violation anyway, claiming that a piece of jewelry snatched during the encounter and later found on the suspect implicated him, even though he’d never even been charged with receiving stolen property.

Gonzalez calls it the "innuendo of a case unproven."

Speaking in general terms, longtime local defense attorney Don Bergerson said it’s far from uncommon for the DA’s Office to use an alleged probation violation as leverage for getting tough jail sentences when a case otherwise looks lifeless.

"To hide behind the fact that the standard of proof required to revoke probation is ostensibly less seems to me to be morally and practically dishonest," Bergerson said, "even if one can justify it semantically."

When we reached deputy district attorney Thompson, he refused to talk about the Simms case. But spokesperson Debbie Mesloh said outright that the DA’s Office was seeking to take advantage of the lower standard of proof and added that there was at least enough evidence to hold Simms for trial.

"The charges in this case were dismissed because we await crucial DNA evidence that was not available at the time that the defendant was scheduled to go to trial," Mesloh wrote in a January e-mail. "We currently await the findings of this evidence."

Her office confirmed in a follow-up e-mail, however, that the DNA analysis has so far gone nowhere. To this day, no reasonably good physical evidence from the case has been identified.

FOR THE RECORD

Somebody almost killed Maluf, and the two most likely suspects are Portillo and Simms. Neither is a Boy Scout, and both have an obvious incentive to finger the other.

That’s exactly why courts require strong evidence — enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt — before sending someone to prison. Using shortcuts such as probation revocations leads to slipshod prosecutions and wrongful convictions.

Strong evidence standards are particularly important for a case as muddled as this one.

Portillo told the court he doesn’t do drugs, let alone smoke crack.

While he’s "got no love for Tony" over the stolen rum, Langlais told us he’s certain he heard Simms yelling at Maluf, and he saw Simms standing over him when he entered the garage from upstairs. He’s "enraged" that San Francisco’s "revolving-door" criminal justice system put Simms back on the street.

But defense attorney Dunlap said Portillo’s testimony, which the lawyer described as "inconsistent," wasn’t nearly enough to prove the assault, robbery, and attempted murder charges.

"When Jim Thompson got the case assigned to him upstairs," Dunlap said, "I think he took an honest look at it and realized he was going to have a hard time convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that [Simms] was guilty of the crime. Because [Simms] was on probation, [Thompson] opted to dismiss the trial and proceed on a motion to revoke instead…. It was more or less a practical way to try and salvage something from a sinking ship."

After reluctantly accepting the extended probation deal for Simms at the hearing Dec. 13, 2006, Thompson still complained that Simms deserved more jail time.

"Your honor, this disposition is over the people’s strenuous objection," he indignantly informed Judge Charlotte Woolard. "The defendant has a lengthy criminal history…. And I do believe there is sufficient evidence that the defendant was the culprit in this matter."

But Woolard had a different opinion, based on a reading of Portillo’s testimony from the preliminary hearing, a telling example of how difficult it will always be to turn a real-world criminal prosecution into a fictionalized television drama and why the resolution of this case might actually be the worst possible outcome.

"The people’s main witness," she said, "in this court’s opinion is quite likely the person that committed this offense." *

Oh yes she did

April 3, 2007

AMERICA’S NEXT TOP TRANNY Why would Felicia Fellatio, a 6’7″ drag queen from Trashville, USA, get up at 5 a.m. on March 20 and wing it down to the Serramonte Center in Daly City to audition for America’s Next Top Model? Well, why wouldn’t she? In six-inch fuck-me pumps and a belt whose giant buckle spelled “ORAL” in diamonds, even. Glittery! We hit her up at her Dumpster that morning, cheered her on as she desperately Bioré-stripped her cleavage and puffy-penned her eyebrows (no time for a tuck), then hitched with her down 280, tossing back the Peet’s and Chivas.

Oh, how they make those poor, hopeful creatures suffer! First, Felicia had to stand outside Mervyns for two hours in the freezing drizzle with about 200 sticklike beauties, weathering the intrusive queries of passing senior mall walkers. Mervyns! Really. Luckily, she had warm company in adorable fellow aspirants such as Jamilee “Can you see my butt in this dress? Good!” Mills and Tyra look-alike — therefore doomed — Chelsea, a sexual-violence social worker who decried recent Western Addition gentrification as “cultural genocide.” Tell it to Twiggy, sweetie.

After slogging it through the exhausting line and dutifully saying, “Next up on the CW: The King of Queens!” into a waiting camera, the girls were corralled, 50 at a time, into a private office with no windows. No one blinked twice about Felicia. Gotta love the new generation: even the ogling homeboys passing by in their souped-up Sentras offered catcalls of encouragement.

Inside the office the girls were asked to step forward and give their name, age, height, and weight. Sadly, although they knew their weight to the ounce, many couldn’t recall their height — even though this was an early question on the 15-page application. (Other questions: Have you ever had a restraining order issued against you? Have you ever been to a nude beach? How do you deal with anger?) Three slick LA model-picker types — sorry, no Miss Jay, ladies — silently, nerve-wrackingly conferred and asked eight girls to stay for semifinals. The rest were left somewhat wrecked.

“Even though I had no chance in hell, I feel like a sledgehammer hit me,” Felicia sighed. “Fuck modeling. Let’s get McDonald’s.” (Marke B.)

Scissor twister

March 27, 2007

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Tweet-tweet twitter. Tweet.

It’s 6 a.m., and I think I just asked a mailbox for a light. Nonetheless, it was a cute and sturdy one, unlike the male boxes I usually encounter stumbling home from Nob Hill in the way-wee hours — and at least I got that light. Right?

Twoot-twitter. Twoot-twitter.

I’m pitching and reeling — contentedly, mind — from my new favorite little alcoholic hideaway, Writers Vice Lounge, in the cushy Hotel Rex, which looks and feels like a cocktail bar that crashed through the roof of an Ivy League library. Thus it combines two of my most beloved interests: tipple and antiquities. Plus, it’s right off the hotel lobby, so there’s all the bookish tourist trade one can handle. Therefore, my glorious exit at dawn. Now if only I could …

Trr-eet! Trrr-eet! Twoodle-oo! Twoo!

What the fuck is that noise?!? I raise one gentle, half-gloved hand to my coif, wherein I feel a slight and unkind tugging.

Jesus Maria. There’s a freaking bird in my hair.

I come from Detroit, the ne plus ultra of OCD hairometry. Amazing Motor City salons: Total Clips of the Heart, We Be Cuttin’ Hair and Stuff, and the tip-top, Charlene’s, a raucous, 24-hour bob-and-weave joint downtown. (There’s nothing on this earth like a salon full of Detroit girls lit up like a Christmas tree in that city’s postapocalyptic twilight). I was raised amid the black tradition of Hair Balls, in which scissor queens battled out their latest looks onstage, and preposterous topiary — shark cages, UFOs, Mount Rushmore — arose from the scalps of models whose asses had long ago fallen asleep. RuPaul would weep. So it was a damn shame I’d let my beehive become a bird’s nest.

The Bay’s got its fair share of fabu hairdoers too, from the superslick Chicago Barber Shop chain to the superglam Glamorama. But until now, you couldn’t legally order a cocktail with your cut at any of them. What good’s a clip without a (noncomplimentary chardonnay) sip?

So I pounced on the new MR., San Francisco’s first fully liquor-licensed salon. Pardon me, barbershop. The friendly owners, Kumi and Sean, work hard to make it known that their gorgeous outfit in the Financial District is meant to hark back to the comfy hood hair joints of yore, for "real guys who want to enjoy themselves, get a quality cut, relax, and can handle a little smack from the rest of the guys."

If that "smacks" a bit of Metrosexual 2.0, then March Madness on the giant gilt-framed hi-def in the main room, the array of GQ accessories for sale at the bar, and the available treatment packages titled "Hitter," "Player," and "Mogul" clinched it for me. I even dressed metrosexual to go there! Black Kangol hat, stretchy silver poplin Banana Republic shirt, and a quick spritz of Axe. I was going in June 2000 and coming out Entourage, dammit. Now where’s my frickin’ chocotini?

Thing is, MR. is pretty fab — even to the testosterone challenged like myself. After conducting three years’ worth of interviews around the country with "real guys," the owners have planned everything to a tee — from the average preferred height of the mirrors to the angular relation of the barber chairs to one another. Real guys are so anal! Soon Kumi and Sean will launch a 360-degree computer modeling program that will allow patrons to save their favorite haircuts to the MR. database. (Too bad the name CyberTrim’s already taken). And in a delicious switch, ladies can toss back brewskis at the bar while their real guys get all gussied up.

I fell in love with Shirley, the utterly sweet shampoo girl, and swooned over barber Nick Calvanese — aka. Nicky the Barber — a Rat Pack–loving transplant from South Philly with slicked-back hair and a straight razor tattooed on his chest. But real guys don’t swoon — at least not when the other guy’s holding scissors. In the end, I looked great. I walked out feeling if not exactly Jeremy Piven, then at least somewhat David Beckham. Yay for feeling David Beckham!

Now, which Pussycat Doll should I boink? *

WRITERS VICE LOUNGE

Daily, 5:30 p.m.–late

Hotel Rex

562 Sutter, SF

(415) 433-4434

www.jdvhospitality.com

MR.

Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sat.–Sun., 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

560 Sacramento, SF

(415) 291-8812

www.mrthebarbershop.com

Superlist No. 829: Safe houses

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March 27, 2007
0

› superlists@sfbg.com

In 1971 community activist Bea Robinson improvised a battered-women’s shelter in the garage of her San Jose home. Thanks to demands for shelter legislation by women’s rights groups of the same era, an ample network of Bay Area safe houses is now available to women from all walks of life — from abused mothers and trafficked teens to marginalized immigrants and disempowered queers.

Each of the listed shelters is communal, confidentially located, child friendly, and multilingual. They also offer or can help secure longer-term housing, counseling, and legal aid. Other services include food, clothing, transportation, employment assistance, and play areas. Calling one of these confidential 24-hour crisis lines starts the shelter intake process and connects battered women to the Bea Robinsons of the Bay Area.

In an effort to keep families united, Oakland’s A Safe Place (510-536-SAFE, www.asafeplacedvs.org) accepts male children up to age 17. During the maximum eight-week stay, residents receive counseling while younger children participate in play therapy.

Substance-free women and their children may reside indefinitely in one of the 16 beds at Marin Abused Women’s Services (MAWS) (English: 415-924-6616; Spanish: 415-924-3456; men’s line: 415-924-1070; www.maws.org). MAWS works globally to educate communities about the sociopolitical roots of domestic violence. In 1980, MAWS initiated ManKind, a male-led program that reeducates imprisoned abuse offenders and confronts community beliefs that support male violence.

San Francisco’s Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) (1-877-751-0880, www.sfaws.org) renders services in 31 Asian languages. The AWS serves all women but is especially outfitted for Asian immigrants who speak little to no English. An average stay at its 18-bed shelter lasts 12 to 16 weeks, though extensions are often granted. The Queer Asian Women Services program supports lesbian, bisexual, and transgender survivors of relationship violence. The AWS also confronts forced labor and sexual exploitation via the Asian Anti-Trafficking Collaborative. Its affiliate, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, offers pro bono legal services.

Building Futures with Women and Children (1-866-A-WAY-OUT, www.bfwc.org), a 20-bed safe house in San Leandro, doesn’t exclude women with substance abuse or mental health issues, as do some shelters. A typical stay at this former overnight winter relief refuge also known as Sister Me Home can last up to 21 weeks. Programs include child tutoring, parent support groups, and family night — one night per week of guided mother-child bonding.

The Emergency Shelter Program (ESP) (1-888-339-SAFE, www.espca.org) in Hayward can accommodate 40 women and their children, including teen boys, for 12 weeks. The ESP also accepts single teen mothers and functions as a homeless shelter for those who have been evicted, are out of work, or are experiencing familial hardship.

As San Francisco’s largest domestic violence shelter, La Casa de las Madres (adults: 1-877-503-1850; teens: 1-877-923-0700; www.lacasa.org) can house up to 35 women and children for eight weeks at a time. Thanks to a 24-hour intake, women can be admitted to the shelter whenever necessary. Art therapy and animal-assisted counseling give residents a chance to learn, relax, and have fun. The teen program offers a 24-hour emergency crisis line and youth-tailored services for battered or at-risk girls.

Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence (408-501-7550, www.nextdoor.org), whose crisis line hasn’t changed for the past 34 years, is Robinson’s brainchild. The shelter can accommodate up to 19 women and children for as long as four weeks. Elderly battered women older than 50 can benefit from the unique MAVEN (Mature Alternatives to Violent Environments Now) program, which offers home visits and recreational activities. On-site legal services include court accompaniment and support for undocumented immigrants.

The Riley Center (415-255-0165, www.rileycenter.org), a program of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco, gives priority to women and children in immediate danger. Its 25-bed shelter, known as the Rosalie House, provides a 12-week refuge. Families receive private rooms, though women without children may have to share accommodations. Residents perform basic chores in shared living spaces. Prospective residents should call the crisis line for a confidential interview with a trained counselor.

Safe Alternatives to Violent Environments (SAVE) (510-794-6055, www.save-dv.org) is in Fremont but serves the world over. It offers a 30-bed shelter — the only battered shelter in Fremont, Newark, and Union City — where women and their children can reside for 12 weeks. Counseling with a licensed clinical therapist is available for a sliding-scale fee. SAVE also holds free drop-in support groups facilitated by certified domestic violence counselors on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Concord’s STAND! Against Domestic Violence (1-888-215-5555, www.standagainstdv.org) manages additional offices in Richmond, Antioch, and Pittsburg to better serve its Contra Costa County hub. The Rollie Mullen Center, a six-building complex containing its 24-bed shelter, can accommodate families and individuals for up to six weeks. On-site services and amenities include long-term transitional housing, a computer lab, and a playroom. *

Douchebags in Fall Out Boy might get sued again for ripping off yet another band

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March 22, 2007
4

By G.W. Schulz

It’s tough to come up with your own musical concepts and ideas when your schedule is loaded with photo sessions and magazine interviews inquiring about your sex life on behalf of thousands of barely legal teenage girls.

How does Fall Out Boy have time to write music these days? They’re everywhere ‘cept behind their instruments. They’re on the cover of Rolling Stone. They’re on the cover of Spin. Shit, the New Yorker even ran a piece on them, dutifully highlighting in the photo that one guy who insists on liberally applying mascara and not wearing a shirt. You’re no Iggy Pop, douchebag. Who is their publicist fellating to get all this good press, by the way? Do people still buy this trash? Most of all, why is Microsoft Word telling me not to use “fellatio” as a verb, or even “douchbag” as a noun? Perhaps the new Word version in Microsoft Vista will list “Fall Out Boy” among the alternatives for “douchebags.”

Anyway, it looks like Nicholas Hans of the now-defunct Knives Out is considering legal action against Fall Out Douche for ripping off the image that appeared on a shirt Knives Out was selling a few years ago in 2001 while on tour.

Tale of two Valley Girls

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March 20, 2007
0

THE ORIGINAL It starts as a joke, but it rarely ends well. You pick up a piece of slang to make fun of it and then, at some point far too late down the line, realize you are physically incapable of putting it down. Who knew — I didn’t in seventh grade, when I first started using the word “like” as an irritating placeholder for nothing in particular — that Moon Unit Zappa and her dad’s joke, a song mimicking a youthful subculture’s garbled tongue, was also on me and my friends, 3,000 miles distant from Sherman Oaks, or that 24 years later I would still sound vaguely like a character from Martha Coolidge’s film Valley Girl?

My community of incoherents is a large one. The syntax has stuck around, and so has the film at least partly responsible for it — not to mention the threads sported on both sides of the film’s Hollyweird-Valley divide, which have now cycled back into fashion at least twice in the past decade. The streets of San Francisco are filled with stripy-shirted hipsters, Valley Girl is still being paid tribute at events such as Midnites for Maniacs at the Castro, and now the admirers who packed that house can even troop down to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for a screening that pairs OG VG with a low-budget homage directed by Michele O’Marah.

If you’ve seen the original, and I’m so sure you have, you know exactly why a crazed fan would undertake such an endeavor. Starring Deborah Foreman as Julie, the titular Valley girl, and Nicolas Cage as Randy, her tubular, dreamy-eyed swain from the wrong side of the Hollywood Hills, Valley Girl managed to gently send up a vapid ’80s mall culture while at the same time treating its viewers to a torrid new-romantic love story fueled by worlds colliding, the Plimsouls, and a song about getting it on mid–nuclear holocaust (Modern English’s “I Melt with You”).

Building on the can’t-fail tale of R+J, the film cruises the Hollywood club scene and sneaks into the tract homes of Tarzana and Van Nuys, coolly siding against a brand of teen robotics and materialism epitomized by middle-class girls running loose in the Galleria with their parents’ credit cards — yet admitting that they look “truly dazzling” in their string bikinis at the beach. Fittingly, or fitting-roomly, a shopping montage supplies the footage for the opening credits. But if shopping’s not your bag, try the “I Melt with You” montage, or the Randy-stalking-Julie montage, or lines like Randy’s “Well, fuck you! No, fuck off, for sure! Like, totally!” — an utterance whose consummate blend of anguish and hilarity never fails to secure viewer forgiveness for the admittedly shocking sight, early on, of Cage’s saltwater-slicked V-shaped chest hair. (Lynn Rapoport)

THE REMAKE When she was a teenager, Michele O’Marah’s favorite movie was Valley Girl — reason enough, as an adult, to mount a remake of what’s probably the most popular teen love story of the 1980s (non–John Hughes division). Or was affection the only reason? According to an August 2006 interview O’Marah did with the Web site Austinist, she created her homage as “a serious piece of artwork to be viewed in a gallery” addressing the film’s “serious issues — how a teenage girl thinks about herself, and how she thinks about men and how they should treat her.”

Whether or not this intention comes through is debatable. Fact is, the audience that goes to see a Valley Girl remake (even when it’s showing in a museum) is going to be largely composed of Valley Girl fans, who might let things like O’Marah’s charmingly homemade sets slide but will mutter among themselves when key details are altered. Why didn’t O’Marah direct the guy playing Tommy to make that crazy arm gesture after he knocks back a drink at Suzi’s party? Why are certain crucial lines jumbled beyond recognition?

The disconnects are all the more puzzling when you consider all that O’Marah gets exactly right. Her tweaks can be incredibly winning: Julie’s dad’s broken sandals — the “Water Buffalos” — are made of cardboard; a bewigged Plimsouls cover band offers excellent coverage during the Hollywood bar scenes.

O’Marah was clearly operating with a budget one-zillionth the size of the original’s, itself a cheap film by Hollywood standards. But if her lo-fi Valley Girl is to be taken as serious artwork, it raises a serious question: why remake something you love only to emphasize subtext over joy? In the 1980s a group of junior high kids devoted endless summers to a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They had the same flagrant disregard for copyright laws as O’Marah but no pretensions whatsoever. Their product may have been technically rough, but it was also energetic and enjoyable. Thing is, when you start putting quote marks around quote marks, fun becomes work. To the max. (Cheryl Eddy)

FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL: VARIATIONS ON THE REMAKE — VALLEY GIRL

Thurs/22, 6:30 p.m. Valley Girl (Michele O’Marah) and 8:30 p.m. Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge)

Sun/25, 2 p.m. Valley Girl (O’Marah) and 4 p.m. Valley Girl (Coolidge)

$5–$7

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Phyllis Wattis Theater

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

>

WEDNESDAY

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March 14, 2007
0

March 14

EVENT

Pi Day

How hot is math right now? Hot enough for me to date a geek just so I can leave him and upgrade once he becomes a billionaire. Right now I’m breaking out my high school textbooks in preparation for Pi Day at the Exploratorium on March 14 (a.k.a. 3.14). And it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday! The museum will celebrate with a gathering around the pi shrine at 1:59 p.m. to sing Pi Day songs and make a beaded pi string. (Elaine Santore)

1:59 p.m., $8-$13
Exploratorium
Palace of Fine Arts
3601 Lyon, SF
(415) 561-0360
www.exploratorium.edu

MUSIC

Dead Science

After signing to Berkeley’s Absolutely Kosher Records, Seattle’s the Dead Science are running as pop weirdos, though the band’s sometimes silky, sometimes scuzzy jazz rock dynamism reminds me more of groups such as the Dirty Three and Tin Hat Trio. Whatever its correct classification might be, the trio cooks up the kind of dense, dreamy sound that could score a nightclub scene in a David Lynch movie. (Max Goldberg)

With Parenthetical Girls
8 p.m., $7
21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakl.
(510) 444-7263
www.21grand.org

Freewheelin’

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March 13, 2007
0

› duncan@sfbg.com

True to the post-postmodern hyperreal world of the inner-Web, I hit the Trucks’ MySpace page before I’d heard their 2006 self-titled CD (Clickpop). Browsing through their photo pages, I saw toy xylophones, lots of keyboards, underwear on the outside, leg warmers, pigtails, and more stripes than a Quiet Riot promo photo. A brief listen to their posted tracks left me feeling old and arrhythmic. I felt my receding hairline burn, like youth was talking behind my back.

Determined to find the dark lining in even the fluffiest of pink clouds, I kept the disc in heavy rotation while driving. At first it felt like a guilty pleasure — infectious synth pop–dance punk, with a menagerie of female voices singing choruses and cracking wise in concordance with or contradiction to the main vocal line. The issues are put out there on the opening track, "Introduction": "I’ve been in therapy for five years / I’ll be in therapy for five years more," Kristin Allen-Zito sings. (I think it’s her — three out of four Trucks are credited with vocals.) "I wake up depressed, I wake up manic / You never know what you’re gonna get."

Still, as the opening beats of the unequivocal dance jam of the decade, "Titties," come through the speakers, it’s hard to feel that there’s any kind of subliminal bum-out happening beneath the Peaches-esque query "What makes you think we can fuck just because you put your tongue in my mouth and you twisted my titties, baby?" "Titties" is one of a series of songs touching on the theme of failed relationships and inept lovermen. The poignant indie pop perfection of "Messages" has Allen-Zito serenading an absentee boyfriend whose voice mails are more attentive than he is: "Well, I save all my messages from you / Just in case you’re not there / When I want you to be."

A dozen tracks in, the concept of a boyfriend has been jettisoned for the much more accommodating vibrator in "Diddle Bot," which is closer to a lover than any mentioned heretofore: "You made me feel brand new / You love me through and through." The album ends with "Why the ?," an indictment of a beau who’s prepared to woo with everything but his tongue, and an a cappella request: "Dear Santa, please don’t bring me another boyfriend for Christmas / Oh no! / The last one sucked." Or didn’t, as the case may be.

Never do the Trucks jettison humor for histrionics in their tales of love gone awry in the great wet Northwest: the band members, who share songwriting duties, get their point across in a way that transcends merely grinding the storied ax of feminism. Sisters are doing for themselves, sure, but it’s not a girls-only joint: everyone’s invited to dance their woes away. Thematically, the disc gets heavier than the tales of missed connections and inept sexing. "Shattered" has implications of rape: "You could not keep your pretty hands off me … You shattered my image of love / While I was naked in the tub." "Man Voice" is call-and-response song play touching on predatory types, with a gothic-baroque feel that resembles Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies meeting Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Finally, "Comeback" tells the tale of love turned obsession turned homicide from a male point of view: "You don’t have to run away / I’m gonna kill you anyway."

"It’s pretty standard turning pain into comedy, trying to somehow make peace with things that have happened to us or to people that we’ve known," Allen-Zito says on the phone from Seattle.

Does the fact that their songs are still fun and danceable lead people to dismiss the Trucks as fluff? "That’s what I enjoy the most," she explains. "I think it’s really great when we play shows and there’s a mixture of people in the audience. There’ll be dudes who are, like, ‘Play the titties song! You guys are hot!’ They’re obviously not getting the lyrics at all. And then, on the other hand, there’s these two feminist friends of mine who are definitely a little overboard. Just seeing them next to these dudes that were just falling over themselves — it was hilarious and perfect. This one woman came up to me outside and put her arm around my neck and was, like, ‘Kristin, they just don’t get it. They don’t get it!’ It’s kind of funny, because maybe she doesn’t get it."

And for me, that’s what I enjoy most. The fact that you can get it on one level and miss it entirely on another. Free your mind, and your ass will follow. Or, perhaps, free your ass, and your mind will follow. You can have just as much fun missing the point as getting it: the Trucks are simultaneously above your head and below your knees. *

TRUCKS

March 24, 9 p.m., $8

Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 503-0393
>

On white planes

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March 13, 2007
0

By Johnny Ray Huston

› johnny@sfbg.com

Life on tour isn’t just about partying. It’s partly about crafty use of time and space. In that sense, the German electronic duo Booka Shade are expert pragmatists. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier don’t just attempt to write songs while they’re on planes or in hotel rooms — they’ll record them as well. "In a traditional studio you always have the same atmosphere. Day and night changes, of course, yet it’s basically the same," Kammermeier explains over the phone from Berlin. "But if you travel and have a laptop with you, you can look out the window and see a new, completely different thing while recording."

Such flexibility is at the core of Booka Shade’s second album, on their self-run label, Get Physical. Its very title, Movements, reflects a recording process propelled by the touring connected with flagship club hits such as "Body Language" and the irresistible dance floor stormer "Mandarine Girl," which boasts a melody that sounds like it was made with a gargantuan electronic woodwind. "We had a good time meeting people internationally, and all that energy went into Movements," Kammermeier says, discussing the record, which like most of the group’s releases sports Hannah Hoch–like cut-with-a-kitchen-knife body parts on its sleeve art. "That’s probably why it’s a lot less dark than Memento [the duo’s 2004 debut] and has more drive."

It would be hard for Movements to be darker than Memento, considering Booka Shade’s first album, complete with a name that might have been borrowed from Christopher Nolan, repeatedly digs into the realm of film ("16MM") and especially film noir ("Vertigo"). "It’s not like we have a library of 10,000 DVDs, but we like the combination of pictures and music," says Kammermeier, who also scores commercials with Merziger. "One thing we did for [Memento] was put a film on with the sound off and watch the pictures while we were working — that atmosphere gave us a lot of inspiration."

GET A REP

Booka Shade’s inspiration and reputation stem from their label as much as their music. In recent years Get Physical has garnered a critical rep that calls to mind canonical imprints such as Warp and the still thriving house-inflected Kompakt. This praise is due to Booka Shade’s constant collaborations with mix-oriented labelmates such as DJ T and M.A.N.D.Y. and to their production work on tracks such as a pair of classic early singles by Chelonis R. Jones, "One and One" and "I Don’t Know?" Those tracks are peerless in both a pop and a club sense, with "I Don’t Know?" suggesting what would happen if a male diva from the heyday of Chicago house who possessed encyclopedic brilliance hooked up with "Blue Monday"–era New Order. "The chorus of ‘One and One’ wasn’t originally a chorus as Chelonis had sung it," Kammermeier says while discussing the collaborations. "We placed it there, like part of a puzzle."

Working with a talent as singular as Jones is a far cry from the duo’s early days in the music business, when they created Europop for Spice Girls–esque major-label prefab acts such as No Angels, a girl group for whom they designed a cover of Alison Moyet’s "All Cried Out." The dead-end results of those efforts and of Merziger and Kammermeier’s first venture as a group, called Planet Claire, led them to start Get Physical. That, and a desire to broaden the formulaic boundaries of techno in particular and electronic music in general — a desire further sparked on hearing well-arranged ’70s- and ’80s-tinged tracks by the likes of Metro Area.

"Walter and I were both kids of the ’80s," says Kammermeier, who grew up with a jazz musician father and guitar- and piano-playing siblings, while Merziger was raised by a Richard Wagner–loving father. "Anything that came out of England — Soft Cell, the Smiths, Depeche Mode — was very influential to us." Last year the duo’s ’80s influences came full circle when Booka Shade remixed and shared concert bills with the last group. And it turns out Kammermeier is listening to Soft Cell again, having recently downloaded both their underrated aggro 1984 finale, This Last Night in Sodom, which includes early studio work by the influential producer Flood, and their 1983 sophomore effort, The Art of Falling Apart. "I just listened to [Art] again," Kammermeier admits. "There’s so much frustration and darkness in those songs."

THE ART OF COMING TOGETHER

There’s so much frustration that it might seep into Booka Shade’s sound, if song titles are worthwhile clues. One single from The Art of Falling Apart was the club ho litany "Numbers," and it turns out the first single from Booka Shade’s next full-length recording will bear the same name. "We want to introduce a vocal side on the next album," Kammermeier says when describing "Numbers" and some of the group’s other songs, including a track created by Merziger in a Rio hotel room. "We’ll introduce it in a different way — not verse-chorus vocal but little parts that we perform. We’re not great fans of these ‘featured artist’ albums, where people just get a handful of star vocalists to perform on different tracks. Also, we can’t bring a bunch of vocalists or a session vocalist on the road."

That said, Booka Shade do aim to put their show on the road in the old-school sense — an ambitious plan at a time when many of the best electronic music makers are still better off DJing than pulling rock star poses on a stage. "People always ask what instrument I play, and I say, ‘I’m one of those guys who hangs out with musicians — I’m a drummer,’ " Kammermeier jokes. He’ll have to put that joke into practice as he and Merziger embark on their second US tour — and maybe he’ll write and record some songs while in flight as well. *

BOOKA SHADE

With Future Force and Hours of Worship

March 23, 9 p.m., $14 advance

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.getphysical.com

For a top 10 list from Booka Shade’s Get Physical labelmate Chelonis R. Jones, go to www.sfbg.com/blogs/music.

Of blood and blintzes

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March 13, 2007
0

› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS The hawks are looking hungry. My chickens are scared. Me too. We spend a lot of time in the bushes, plucking and preening and trying to act casual. And while they’re scratching for bugs, I’m collecting dandelion greens for my salad. The price of lettuce has literally brought me to my knees.

You’re thinking: Lettuce? The price of lettuce?

Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know how much salad I eat. (A: a lot.) My favorite statistic says that when they have unlimited access to grass, chickens will eat it more than anything. Up to two-thirds of their diet will be green. That’s why true free-range eggs glow the way they do, the yolks. And true free-range chicken farmers glow too, in case you haven’t noticed.

Because probably two-thirds of what I eat are greens. And the other third, instead of bugs and spiders and stuff that chickens eat, is chickens; and chicken-fried steak; and big, bloody, rare burgers; and, of course, eggs.

All of which has nothing to do with what I’m doing in the bushes, let alone my new favorite restaurants. I’m on a secret surveillance mission. The mission: to find out how my escape-artist chicken, Houdini II, is finding her way out of the chicken yard and into the neighbor’s flower bed.

The method: to learn to think like a chicken, eat like a chicken, fear like a chicken, crave neighbors’ flower beds like a chicken, escape like a chicken, and, failing all that, to cut a chicken’s head off and make gumbo out of her.

My chicken-farmerly reputation hangs in the balance, like, like, like … like a foot-tied headless chicken draining into a bucket. Also at stake: the copaceticness of my relationship with certain flower bed–having neighbors.

But all this talk of blood and gore and ruffled feathers is reminding me of my weekend last weekend, when I got to go to my ex-wife Crawdad’s baby shower and hug my ex-mother-in-law, Crawma, for the first time in my new format.

She didn’t recognize me, I don’t think.

"Crawdad," I said, "introduce me to your mom."

Then she recognized me but did seem a little weirded out, and who could blame her? It was a baby shower! What could be weirder? Everything was nice and pretty and cute, and afterward I needed to go to the roller derby.

I have a new favorite sport!

The Richmond Wrecking Belles beat the crap out of the SF Shevil Dead, and I ate a hot dog. But you’re probably more interested in Saul’s Delicatessen, huh?

Saul’s is Berkeley’s way of saying "hey" to New York. And just like Zachary’s does Chicago pizza better than Chicago (you ask me), I believe Saul’s would out-apple the Apple in belly-to-belly competition. But what do I know? I’m just a chicken farmer.

Well, sure, because of local-grown organic produce and Neiman Marcus designer meats, Saul’s might boast. But I like it better than New York for my usual reason: it’s closer. By a lot. And they have everything Jewish and wonderful, like potato latkes, blintzes, matzo ball soup, and so on. And bagels.

I got salami and eggs, and it was great. I mean, the eggs were just eggs, because we didn’t make them, me and my girls, but the salami was good and plentiful, and the latke, which you can get instead of hash browns for a buck-fifty extra … it’s worth it.

I love latkes. They’re those potato and onion pancakes, you know, served with applesauce and sour cream. I love that they were used, according to Jewish legend, to put some Assyrian meanie to sleep and then chop off his head.

And I love Saul’s. It’s a cheerful, comfortable place to hang out. I sat there with my new friend Thingpart, the famous five-minute cartoonist, and we blah blah blah blah blah’d like two old hens for way more than five minutes. We must have sat there for over two hours, I’m thinking, because what we ate was breakfast, and it was lunchtime by the time I left. And between this, the beautiful day that day, a great soccer match, a baby shower, and the Bay Area Derby Girls, I was one happy happy farmer.

Last weekend. But now it’s the work week, and, if you’ll excuse me, I have to whip up a potato latke, so to speak, for one of my girls. Here, Houdini! *

SAUL’S

Mon.–Thurs. and Sun., 8 a.m.–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 8 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

1475 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 848-3354

Takeout available

Beer, wine, and cocktails

MC/V

Bustling

Wheelchair accessible
>

The corporation that ate San Francisco

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March 13, 2007
0

› sarah@sfbg.com

For the past decade, Florida-based megadeveloper Lennar Corp. has been snatching up the rights to the Bay Area’s former naval bases, those vast stretches of land that once housed the Pacific Fleet but are now home to rats, weeds, and in some places, low-income renters.

When the Navy pulled out of Hunters Point Shipyard in 1974, it left behind a landscape pitted with abandoned barracks, cracked runways, spooky radiation laboratories, antique cranes, rusting docks, and countless toxic spills.

A quarter century later, Lennar came knocking at the shipyard’s door — and those of other military bases abandoned in the waning days of the cold war — recognizing these toxic wastelands as the last frontier of underdeveloped land in urban American and an unparalleled opportunity to make big money.

Lennar had already won its first battle in 1997, seizing control of the Bay Area’s former military pearl in Vallejo when it was named master developer for the old Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Two years later it almost lost its bid for Hunters Point Shipyard when a consultant for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency recommended giving the development rights to the Ohio-based Forest City.

Lennar fought back, calling on politically connected friends and citing its deep pockets and its track record at Mare Island.

A parade of Lennar supporters, many of them friends of then-mayor Willie Brown and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, told the Redevelopment Agency commissioners that Lennar was the only developer that had bothered to reach out to the Bayview–Hunters Point community. In the end, the commissioners — all of them mayoral appointees — ignored their consultant’s advice and voted for Lennar.

Nobody knows if Forest City would have done a better job. A developer is, after all, a developer. But Lennar’s victory at the shipyard helped it win the rights, four years later, to redevelop Treasure Island — long before it had even broken ground at Hunters Point. And a couple years ago, it parlayed those footholds into an exclusive development agreement for Candlestick Point.

Now the Fortune 500 company, which had revenues of $16.3 billion in 2006, does have a track record at the shipyard. And that performance is raising doubts about whether San Francisco should have entrusted almost its entire undeveloped coastline to a profit-driven corporation that is proving difficult to regulate or hold accountable for its actions.

Sure, Lennar has provided job training for southeast San Francisco residents, set up small-business assistance and community builder programs, and invested $75 million in the first phase of development. That’s the good news.

But on Lennar’s watch, a subcontractor failed to monitor and control dangerous asbestos dust next to a school at the Hunters Point Shipyard, potentially exposing students to a deadly toxin — despite promising to carefully monitor the air and control the construction dust.

And when the homebuilding industry took a nosedive last year, Lennar reneged on its promise to provide needed rental housing on Hunters Point — saying that its profit margins were no longer good enough to make rentals worthwhile. All of which raises questions about whether this company, which is working with Mayor Gavin Newsom to build a stadium at the shipyard to keep the 49ers in town, really has San Francisco’s interests in mind.

Bayview–Hunters Point native Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, a physician and a Sierra Club member, called the Lennar deal the "dirty transfer of the shipyard." She told us, "There is no reason why I’d trust Lennar more than I would the Navy and the federal regulators who have stringently worked on the cleanup of Hunters Point Shipyard, and yet it still remains toxic."

"This is just a play to get the shipyard," said Porter Sumchai, whose father was a longshore worker at the shipyard and died from asbestosis.

Part of the problem is systemic: the Redevelopment Agency hands over these giant projects to master, for-profit developers — who can then change the plans based on financial considerations, not community needs. And while Lennar likes to tell decision makers of its massive size and resources, the actual work at these bases has been delegated to limited-liability subsidiaries with far fewer available assets.

In this case, Lennar experienced a 3 percent drop in sales last year, a 29 percent increase in cancellation rates on homes, and a 15 percent dip in its fourth quarter profits. The downturn prompted Lennar’s president and CEO, Stuart Miller, to identify ways to improve what he described in the annual report as the company’s "margin of improvement" in 2007. These included "reducing construction costs by negotiating lower prices, redesigning products to meet today’s market demand and building on land at current market prices."

A Lennar spokesperson, Sam Singer, issued a statement to us saying that "Lennar BVHP is committed to operating responsibly, continually incorporating best community and environmental practices into our everyday business decisions."

But for a look at how Lennar’s model clashes with community interests, you need go no further than the edge of the site where Lennar has been digging up asbestos-laden rock.

DUST IN THE WIND

The Muhammed University of Islam is a small private school that occupies a modest flat-roofed hilltop building on Kiska Road with a bird’s-eye view of the abandoned Hunters Point Shipyard. This year-round K–12 school is affiliated with the Nation of Islam and attracts mostly African American students but also brings in Latino, Asian, and Pacific Islander children, many of whom have had problems in the public school system and whose parents can’t cover the cost of a private school.

"We find a way," the school’s mustachioed and nattily dressed minister, Christopher Muhammed, recently told the Redevelopment Agency in a veiled allusion to the financial nexus between the MUI and the Nation of Islam’s mosque and bakery on Third Street. "Many students aren’t members of our tradition but live across the street, down the street, or come from Oakland and Vallejo."

The minister is asking the Redevelopment Agency, the agency that selected Lennar and oversees the project, to permanently relocate the school. The school’s classrooms and basketball courts sit on the other side of a chain-link fence from Parcel A, which is the first and only plot of land that the Navy has certified at the shipyard as clean and ready for development.

Standing on these courts, the children have been able to watch heavy machinery digging up and moving huge amounts of earth in preparation for the 1,600 condos and town houses that Lennar wants to build on this sunny hillside, which has views of the bay and the rest of the shipyard.

The shipyard’s other five parcels are still part of a federal Superfund site, despite having undergone years of decontamination. Black tarps cover piles of soil that have been tagged as contaminated, and recently, radiological deposits were found in the sewers and soil. The Navy is still cleaning up a long list of nasty toxins, including PCBs and solvents, on Parcels B through F, the land Newsom now wants the city to take over so that it can hastily build a stadium for the 49ers.

But the minister’s request to relocate the MUI isn’t inspired by fear of Navy-related contamination or the impact of a stadium on the neighborhood but rather by the reality that asbestos is naturally present in this hillside and Lennar’s excavation work on the other side of the school’s chain-link fence has been kicking up dust for almost a year.

It’s not that Lennar and the city didn’t know about the asbestos. In April 2000 the environmental impact report for the shipyard reuse noted, "Because asbestos-containing serpentinite rock occurs at Hunters Point Shipyard, construction-related excavation activities could cause chrysotile asbestos associated with serpentinite to become airborne, creating a potentially significant impact to public health and safety."

So when Lennar proposed demolishing abandoned housing and roads and grading and transferring massive amounts of earth on Parcel A, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District demanded an asbestos dust mitigation plan that included sweeping and watering the construction sites and making sure that vehicle tires are washed before drivers exit.

The state Asbestos Air Control Toxic Measure also stipulates that if a school lies within a quarter mile of a construction site, local air districts can require developers to install asbestos dust monitors and shut down their sites whenever asbestos registers 16,000 fibers per cubic meter. The state requires these extra steps because children have higher metabolisms, growing lungs, and longer life expectancy. Plus, they’re lower to the ground and are likely to run, skip, hop, and play ball games that kick up dust.

Although Lennar agreed to abide by the air district’s requirements, the developer failed to properly implement this plan for more than a year.

The air district’s records show that Lennar’s environmental consultant, CH2M Hill, failed to include any air monitoring in its original plan for Parcel A, which is odd because the school is obvious to anyone who visits the site. It was only when the air district pointed out the existence of the Hunters Point Boys and Girls Club, the Milton Meyer Recreation Center, and the MUI, all within the quarter-mile limit, that Lennar agreed, at least on paper, to what the air district describes as "one of the most stringent asbestos dust mitigation plans in the state."

The plan combines the air district’s asbestos requirements with the city’s demands that Lennar limit "ordinary dust" that can cause respiratory irritation and aggravate existing respiratory conditions, such as asthma and bronchitis. Lennar agreed to implement the plan in the summer of 2005 and determine background levels of dust and toxins at the site before work began in the spring of 2006.

But that didn’t happen. For 13 months there is no data to show how much asbestos the MUI students were exposed to, neither for the 10 months before construction started on the cleared site nor for the first three hot and dusty months when Lennar’s subcontractors began massive earth-moving operations next to the school.

You’d think that after these failures became public knowledge, a devastated Lennar would have gotten a black eye and perhaps fired the subcontractors involved. Failing to protect children in a community that’s been the repeat victim of environmental injustice is a public relations nightmare, particularly in a part of town where distrust of redevelopment runs deep, thanks to the travesties in the Fillmore in the 1960s, followed by the city’s recent rejection of a referendum to put the Bayview–Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan to a public vote.

But while Lennar’s executives finally did the right thing last August by alerting the air district and replacing CH2M Hill, they didn’t release their two other subcontractors, Gordon Ball and Luster, nor did they sufficiently rein them in when violations continued, critics have testified at agency meetings.

And instead of apologizing to the air district and the city’s Department of Public Health for making them look like impotent fools, Lennar executives pushed back, contending that asbestos monitoring wasn’t necessary until May 2006 and that they didn’t need to water the tires of private vehicles.

They even listed economic rationalizations for the screwups that did happen. According to a memo marked "confidential" that the Guardian unearthed in the air district’s files, written by the air district’s inspector, Wayne Lee, Lennar stated, "It costs approximately $40,000 a day to stop grading and construction activity" and "Gordon Ball would have to idle about 26 employees on site, and employees tend to look for other work when the work is not consistent."

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Health was left reeling. Environmental health director Dr. Rajiv Bhatia told us, "It was very disappointing. We worked very hard. We wanted this system to be health protective. Whenever things don’t work, it takes time to get back to levels of trust. This hurts trust and credibility."

In September 2006 the air district issued Lennar a notice of violation for the period of July 14, 2005, through Aug. 3, 2006. Lee wrote that vegetation removal on the site "disturbed the soil and in some cases, likely resulted in dust." He also made it clear that "any track onto common roads could be tracked out to public thoroughfares and create asbestos dust plumes."

Lennar’s fines have yet to be determined, but they could reach into millions of dollars. State fines for emitting air contaminants range from $1,000 a day, if the violation wasn’t the result of intentional or negligent conduct, to $75,000 a day, if the conduct was deemed willful and intentional.

But as the air district weighs the evidence, one thing’s for sure: this wasn’t an isolated case of one set of monitors failing or one subcontractor screwing up. This case involves numerous violations and three subcontractors, two of which — Gordon Ball and Luster — are still working next to the MUI (neither company returned our calls).

Records show that once Lennar fired its environmental compliance subcontractor, CH2M Hill, properly installed monitors immediately detected asbestos dust, triggering 15 health-protective shutdowns during the course of the next six months. From these results, is it reasonable to conclude that had Lennar got its monitoring right from the beginning, further shutdowns would have cost Lennar’s construction subcontractors even more truckloads of money, as would have adequate watering of the site, which they didn’t get right for months?

So far, the only explanation for the watering deficiencies has come from Kofi Bonner, president of Lennar Urban for Northern California, who told the Redevelopment Agency, "Given the hilly terrain, it can only be watered enough so as not to create difficult conditions for the workers going up and down the site."

Lennar didn’t finally start to really control its subcontractors until January, when Lennar ordered Gordon Ball and Luster to "replace two site superintendents with new personnel who must demonstrate environmental sensitivity in conducting their work," according to public records.

MIAMI VICE

Headquartered in Miami Beach, Fla., Lennar began in 1954 as a small home builder, but by 1969 it was developing, owning, and managing commercial and residential real estate. Three years later it became a publicly traded company and has been profitable ever since, spinning off new entities.

Lennar Urban is one such venture. Established in 2003 to focus on military-base reuse, Lennar Urban recently produced a glossy brochure in which it proclaimed, "Military base reuse is our business — this is what we do."

Military-base development may be good business — but it isn’t always such a good deal for cities, particularly when communities don’t end up receiving what was promised on the front end.

In November 2006, Lennar announced it wouldn’t build any rental homes in its 1,600-unit development at the Hunters Point Shipyard. The Redevelopment Agency had originally approved a plan for 700 rental units on the 500-acre site, but Lennar said rising construction costs make rentals a losing investment.

Also in November, Arc Ecology economist Eve Bach warned the Board of Supervisors that Lennar’s public-benefits package for Treasure Island could be seriously compromised.

The package includes 1,800 below-market affordable housing units, 300 acres of parks, open space and recreational amenities, thousands of permanent and construction jobs, green building standards, and innovative transportation.

Bach summed up these proposals as "good concepts, uncertain delivery" and noted the discrepancy between Lennar’s stated desire for a 25 percent return and Budget Analyst Harvey Rose’s conservative prediction of an 18.6 percent return.

"Particularly at risk of shortfalls are transit service levels, very-low-income housing, and open-space maintenance," Bach warned.

With community benefits up in the air, high profits expected, and Lennar’s ability to regulate developers uncertain, many community activists question just what San Francisco is getting from the company.

"I can’t say that Lennar is trustworthy, not when they come up with a community benefits package that has no benefit for the community," activist Marie Harrison said. "I’d like to be able to say that the bulk of our community are going to be homeowners, but I resent that Lennar is spoon-feeding that idea to folks in public housing who want a roof over their heads and don’t want to live with mold and mildew but don’t have jobs or good credit or a down payment. I’ve heard seniors say, ‘I can’t even afford to die.’ Lennar is not being realistic, and that hurts my feelings and breaks my heart."

SHOE-IN

The story of Lennar and Muhammed University of Islam underscores the problems with a system that essentially relies on developers to regulate themselves. Bay Area Air Quality Management District records show officials didn’t know monitoring equipment at the site wasn’t working until August 2006, when Lennar discovered and reported the problem.

Lee reported after an Aug. 31, 2006, meeting with CH2M Hill staff, "They were not confident that the air sampling equipment was sampling correctly, due to faulty records and suspect batteries. CH2M Hill staff discovered depleted batteries and could not determine when they drained."

The air district’s air quality program manager, Janet Glasgow, told the Guardian, "The district had never been in this situation before, in which a developer, Lennar, came in and self-reported that they discovered a problem with their monitoring — something the district would never have been able to determine."

Worrisome as Glasgow’s statement is, there’s also the possibility that CH2M Hill’s failures might never have come to light had it not been for the city’s decision to demand another layer of dust controls. As Department of Public Health engineer Amy Brownell said, her inspectors were witnessing trails of dust firsthand, yet CH2M Hill’s monitors kept registering "non-detect" around asbestos.

"Which was suspicious," Brownell told us, "since they were doing massive earthwork."

Saul Bloom, who is executive director for Arc Ecology, a local nonprofit that helps communities plan for base closures and cleanups, told us he recalls "waiting for the first shoe to drop, wondering how there could be no work stoppages when Lennar was digging up a hillside of serpentinite."

The other shoe did drop shortly after the August 2006 meeting. It was black and well polished and attached to the foot of Muhammed, who began questioning whether the dust wasn’t harming his students.

But Muhammed found his questions weren’t easy to answer, given that Lennar had failed to monitor itself and therefore lacked the data that could have proved no harm was done, a scary situation since health problems from asbestos exposure don’t generally manifest themselves until many years later.

Those questions raised others about Lennar and whether it should be trusted to self-regulate.

D&EACUTE;J&AGRAVE; VU

In December 2006, Redevelopment Agency Commissioner Francee Covington asked Lennar’s environmental manager, Sheila Roebuck, if the company had any asbestos issues at other projects in the nation. Roebuck replied no, not to her knowledge.

But the Guardian has learned that Lennar already had problems with naturally occurring asbestos in El Dorado. The problems concerned dynamiting in hills that were full of naturally occurring asbestos and resulted in a $350,000 settlement in November 2006. The case involved two El Dorado Hills developers, Angelo K. Tsakopoulos and Larry Gualco, and their earthmoving subcontractor, DeSilva Gates Construction of Dublin.

As part of the terms of the settlement, the county agreed, at the behest of the developers, to make their earthmoving contractor, DeSilva Gates, who provided the dynamite, solely responsible for the settlement. Accused of, but not formally charged with, 47 violations of air- and water-pollution laws is West Valley, a limited liability company composed of Lennar Communities of Roseville, Gualco, and Tsakopoulos’s AKT Investments of Sacramento, with Lennar managing the LLC and AKT acting as the investor.

But as the Sacramento Bee‘s Chris Bowman reported, El Dorado Air Quality Management District head Marcella McTaggart expressed her displeasure directly to Lennar Communities, writing, "We are very disappointed to note that the agreed-upon measures to minimize … dust were completely disregarded by your company."

McTaggart’s words bear an eerie resemblance to Bhatia’s comments about how Lennar’s failure to protect the public heath "hurts trust and credibility."

"Ultimately, I’m very interested in being able to talk to the families and children who believe they have been harmed," Bhatia told us. "I want to help with people’s uncertainties and fears."

LEGAL PROBLEMS

Uncertainty and fear were on display at the Redevelopment Agency’s December 2006 meeting when Muhammed claimed that serpentinite, arsenic, and antimony had been found on his students and staff through "resonance testing."

Lung cancer experts doubt that methodology, telling us the only way to detect serpentinite in bodies is by doing an autopsy.

Following the minister’s claims, a rattled Bonner told the Redevelopment Agency, "Lennar cannot continue to be accused of covering something up or willfully poisoning the community because of profits. Lennar is a national public company, and the accusations and allegations are very serious."

Unfortunately for Lennar and the city, the company’s failures to monitor and control dust have left both entities exposed, since they formed a limited liability company without extensive resources, Lennar BVHP, to conduct the shipyard cleanup.

This exposure became even more evident when Muhammed returned to the Redevelopment Agency Commission in January with 15 MUI students in tow to ask for a temporary shutdown of Lennar’s site until a permanent relocation of the school had been worked out.

"It doesn’t seem proper to have peace discussions while the other side is still shooting," Muhammed said.

His relocation request got Bayview–Hunters Point community activist Espanola Jackson raising more questions: "OK, but where are the other residents going? How can you displace them? Have the residents on Kiska Road been notified? Or on Palou? Nope. You give people dollars to do outreach, but they don’t come to my door. Someone is being paid to not give the truth."

Scott Madison, a member of the Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee, who’d observed large excavation machines breaking rock but not using water or any other dust controls, said, "I don’t understand how Lennar, who I believe has a sincere interest in doing right, can continue to have a contractor who is out of control."

Bonner explained that Lennar sent notices of default to its subcontractors and hired people from the community to be monitors, plus installed a secondary level of consultants to monitor contractors. But when Redevelopment Agency commissioner London Breed expressed interest in releasing the old contractor and hiring a new one, the agency’s executive director, Marcia Rosen, chimed in.

"Our agreement," Rosen said, "is not with the subcontractor. Our agreement is with Lennar." Her words illustrated the agency’s impotency or unwillingness to crack the whip over Lennar and its subcontractors. But when Lennar Urban vice president Paul Menaker began to explain that its contractors have a 10-day cure period, it was too much for Commissioner Covington.

"We’re way past that," Covington exploded. "We’re not hams!"

EXPLODING HAMS

Perhaps they’re not hams, but the commissioners’ apparent inability to pull the plug on Lennar or its subcontractors leaves observers wondering how best to characterize the relationship between the agency, the city, the community, and Lennar.

Redevelopment Agency commissioners have been appointed either by Mayor Gavin Newsom or his predecessor, the consummate dealmaker Willie Brown. But the incestuous web of political connections goes even further.

Newsom is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s nephew by marriage. Newsom’s campaign treasurer is another Pelosi nephew, Laurence Pelosi, who used to be vice president of acquisitions for Lennar and now works for Morgan Stanley Real Estate, which holds Lennar stock.

Both Newsom and Laurence Pelosi are connected to lobbyist Darius Anderson, who hosted a fundraiser to pay off Newsom’s campaign debts. Anderson counts Lennar as his client for Treasure Island, Mare Island, the Hunters Point Shipyard, and Candlestick Point, another vast swath of land that Lennar controls.

Brown’s ties to the agency and Lennar run equally deep, thanks in part to Lennar’s Bonner, who was Brown’s former head of economic development and before that worked for the Redevelopment Agency, where he recommended hiring KPMG Peat Marwick to choose between Catellus, Lennar, and Forest City for the Hunters Point project.

KPMG acknowledged all three were capable master developers, but the commission decided to go with the most deep-pocketed entity.

Clearly, Lennar plays both sides of the political fence, a reality that suggests it would be wiser for cities to give elected officials such as the Board of Supervisors, not mayoral appointees, the job of controlling developers.

DAMAGE CONTROL

Under the current system, in which Lennar seems accountable to no one except an apparently toothless Redevelopment Agency, you can’t trust Lennar to answer tough questions once it’s already won your military base.

Asked about asbestos at the Hunters Point Shipyard, Bonner directed the Guardian‘s questions to veteran flack Sam Singer, who also handles PR for Ruby Rippey-Tourk. Singer tried to dodge the issue by cherry-picking quotes, beginning with a Dec. 1, 2006, letter that the city’s health director, Dr. Mitch Katz, sent to Redevelopment’s Rosen.

Katz wrote, "I believe that regulatory mechanisms currently in place for Shipyard Redevelopment are appropriate and adequate to protect the public from potential environmental hazards."

The assessment would seem to be at odds with that of Katz’s environmental health director Bhatia, who has been on the frontline of the asbestos fallout and wrote in a Jan. 25 letter, "The failure to secure timely compliance with the regulations by the developer and the repeated violations has also challenged our credibility as a public health agency able and committed to securing the regulatory compliance necessary to protect public health."

Singer also quoted from a Feb. 20 Arc Ecology report on asbestos and dust control for Parcel A, which stated, "Lennar’s responses have been consistently cooperative." But he failed to include Arc’s criticisms of Lennar, namely that its "subcontractors have consistently undermined its compliance requirements," that it has "not exercised sufficient contractual control over its subcontractors so as to ensure compliance," and that it was "overly slow" in implementing an enhanced community air-monitoring system.

Singer focused instead on Arc’s observation that "there is currently no evidence that asbestos from the grading operation on Parcel A poses an endangerment to human health and the environment."

Lack of evidence is not the same as proof, and while Arc’s Saul Bloom doesn’t believe that "asbestos dust is the issue," he does believe that not moving the school, at least temporarily, leaves Lennar and the city liable.

"They formed a partnership, protective measures didn’t happen, the subcontractors continue to be unreliable, and dust in general continues to be a problem," Bloom told us.

Bloom also recommends the Redevelopment Agency have an independent consultant on-site each day and bar contractors who screw up. "Without these teeth, the Redevelopment Agency’s claims that they have enforcement capabilities are like arguments for the existence of God."

Raymond Tompkins, an associate researcher in the Chemistry Department at San Francisco State University and a member of the Remediation Advisory Board to the Navy who has family in Bayview–Hunters Point, says what’s missing from the city’s relationship with Lennar is accountability, independence, and citizen oversight.

"If you can’t put water on dirt so dust doesn’t come up, you can’t deal with the processes at the rest of the shipyard, which are far more complicated," says Tompkins, who doesn’t want the Navy to walk away and believes an industrial hygienist is needed.

"The cavalier attitude around asbestos dust and Lennar at the shipyard fosters the concerns of the African American community that gentrification is taking place — and that, next stop, they are going to be sacrificed for a stadium." *

God chillin’

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March 7, 2007
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER O brother, where art thou, blog-worthy, buzz-besieged bands? Whither the classes of 2004 and ’05? As memory fades and fads pass, the Klaxons and Beirut had best look to the respective fates of Arcade Fire and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, both of which have spawned second albums at a time when Britney Spears’s postpartum-postbreakup cue-ball cutes (uh, was she actually a musician, mommy?) score almost twice as many hits as Beyoncé or any ole artist who has actually issued fresh tracks in the last four years. How has blogosphere-borne hypey held up? Can the viral gospel survive, with or without fast-buck comps with the word "Hitz" in their titles? (Was I dozing through Now That’s What I Call Indie! Vol. 23?) Was there any substance to the sound of the mid-’00s when it comes to Arcade Fire and CYHSY — two indie taste sensations that musically mimed Talking Heads and, in their number, resembled villages more than singular villains? Can they bring sexy back sonically, even though they never bumped billiard balls with the naked-noggined queen of pop?

From the sound of the last CYHSY show I caught at the Warfield, the Philly–New York sprawl seemed well on its way to sell-out-by staleness. Out were the frothy, Afropop-derived David Byrne–ing campfire rhythms. Enter monotonous, monochromatic indie rock.

Yet although CYHSY’s new (and still bravely self-released) ‘un, Some Loud Thunder, peters to a dull roar by the time "Five Easy Pieces" rolls around, the full-length still impresses with its sense of aural experimentation. Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann throws fuzz, shmutz, and the noise equivalent of cat fur and tumbleweed over the proceedings, futzing the opening, title track into a cunning combo of foregrounded murk and tambourine-shimmy clarity. CYHSY cut through the fog of pop with the dissonance-laced sweetness of a cockeyed, choral "Emily Jean Stock" and the Dylanishly titilutf8g manifesto tease of "Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?" Some Loud Thunder is a freakin’ busy record — with the emphasis happily on the freak — and it’s almost as if CYHSY were trying to reach beyond the easy, cumbersome cool of their name (always suspected to be a major part of their appeal) and toward, hoo-boy, depth. Too bad the lyrics aren’t often up to the musical intrigue on such songs as "Satan Said Dance" and "Goodbye to Mother and the Cove," making CYHSY sound like the E.E. Cummingses of indie, for whatever that’s worth. "Gravity’s one thing and / Gravity’s something but / How about coming down …," Alec Ounsworth whinnies. "Weird but you’re back talking." Wonderfully weird, yes, though is it unfair to ask if you have anything to say?

Back also, in priestly black, are Arcade Fire, who have plenty to tell in the three years since Funeral was unveiled. Amid the majestic choral sheen, synth pop flock, and Tijuana brass of their new album, Neon Bible (Merge), Win Butler and party have unearthed and dusted off the lost threads of connection between the teary tough-guy sentimentality of Gene Pitney and Roy Orbison, the jittery junked-up teardrops of "Little Johnny Jewel" and Suicide, and the quavering, coaguutf8g pop syrup of the Cure and OMD. Arcade Fire have crawled through a creaky, darkened looking glass and found a lost, perhaps losing world populated with forlorn soldiers, urban paranoiacs, rough water, guiding lights, lions and lambs, and idling vehicles.

Cloaked in increasingly trad folk and ’80s pop-song structures, engineering by Markus Dravs (Björk) and Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls), and contributions by members of Calexico, Wolf Parade, and Final Fantasy, Arcade Fire thankfully put lyrical clichés to work during Neon Bible‘s clamorous service, to the end of genuine storytelling. They’re preaching the gospel of transcendence through music and art — something that now seems unique to rock, in contrast to rap — questioning a holy war in "Intervention" ("Working for the church while my family died / Your little sister is going to lose her mind / Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home / Hear the soldier groan / He’ll go it alone") and the god-fearing hysteria of "(Antichrist Television Blues)" ("Don’t want to work in a building downtown / I don’t know what I’m going to do / Because the planes keep crashing, two by two"). Arcade Fire are far from the first to fire artful shots in response to wartime, but Neon Bible — as bold and beautiful, as hysterical and hopeful, as corny and acute as a rockin’ soap opera or Jesus Christ Superstar — feels like the best album of 2007 so far. *

ARCADE FIRE

June 1–2, 8 p.m., $31.50

Greek Theatre

UC Berkeley, Gayley Road, Berk.

www.ticketmaster.com

GET OUT

NICE BOYS

The Portland, Ore., upstarts with mighty fine shaggy rooster cuts step up with ’70s-style glitter pop. With Time Flys and Apache. Wed/7, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

OLD TIME RELIJUN

K Records’ wrecking crew just might find a deity at the bottom of a beer stein. With Tussle and the Weasel Walter Quartet. Wed/7, 10 p.m., $5. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994

BUNNY RABBIT

CocoRosie’s girly rapper protégé freestyles with a thumb-sucking bounce. Is her Lovers and Crypts (Voodoo-Eros) for reals? With Tha Pumpsta and Bruno and the Dreamies. Thurs/8, 8 p.m., $6. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. (510) 444-7263. Tues/13, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

EMPTY ROOMS

A new self-titled EP finds the Bay Area moodniks waxing gothily. With Worship of Silence and This Isn’t It. Sun/11, 9 p.m., $6. Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. (415) 546-6300

Girls Rule

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March 2, 2007
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Oooh, how I love me some rockin’ women. And last night seemed to be chock full of ’em. (The men weren’t half bad either…)

First was Noise Pop Happy Hour at the Parkside (are we seeing a theme here?) featuring the mesmerizing Loquat. Listening to the adorable Kylee Swenson (pictured top right) layer gorgeous, haunting vocals over the band’s catchy guitar-pop-meets-danceable-electronica (thanks to bandmates Earl Otsuka, Anthony Gordon, Christopher Lautz, and the newest band member, a laptop) was the perfect way to start off an evening of rock.

Next up was Slim’s, for a stellar line-up featuring French Kicks (moderately far away photo here)and Scissors for Lefty(very far away photo here), both of whom were fantastic. But opening band The Oohlas really stole the show. The music was true, heart-pounding rock’n’roll — and so was frontwoman Olivia Stone (in the other two photos), whose smile was as engaging as her on-stage antics.

Watch video here.

(And by the way, this isn’t some “I Am Wemoon Therefore I Heart Womyn In Rock” thing. Merely having a vagina is not enough to make me like your band. These chicks have vaginas — presumably…I didn’t actually see ’em — and they fucking rock. Uh, the chicks. Not the vaginas….Never mind.) (Molly Freedenberg)

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