Golden Gate Park Archives — Page 13 of 28 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks: Arts and Entertainment

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 26, 2011

Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks

Arts and Entertainment

It is safe to say that Scott Weaver loves San Francisco. Leaving aside that Weaver’s family has called the City by the Bay home for three generations, the man has spent the majority of his life recreating the city’s charms with 100,000 toothpicks in an almost masochistically intricate behemoth he’s titled “Rolling Through the Bay.” The sculpture — which includes two tracks that vault rolling ping pong balls past landmarks like the 1929 Cliff House, Fleischhacker Pool, and Humphrey the whale — had its Exploratorium debut this year, stunning audiences with Weaver’s commitment to his craft. His regard for the skinny sticks is for real: the guy even had friends and family chucking ‘picks at his wedding. That’s love!

www.rollingthroughthebay.com

BEST HIGHBROW WITH YOUR HIGHBALL

Though we appreciate the legions of pubs that rely on still shots and a good jukebox to entertain, we sometimes feel the need to broaden our drunken horizons with a good dose of drama. For those times, San Francisco Theater Pub is just the ticket. Chummily convened in the TenderNob’s low-key Café Royale, San Francisco Theater Pub has performed new translations of classic Greek dramas and staged adaptations of Lovecraft, Whitman, Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Evgeny Shvart’s The Dragon, and Vlacav Havel’s The Audience, as well as a series of San Francisco-themed shorts and a 75-minute version of Shakespeare’s Henry the IV and V — all against a backdrop of barstools, beer mugs, and bad lighting. Best of all, admission is free, so you can spend more on beer. Ah, the sweet, sweet hangover of dramaturgy.

At Café Royale, 800 Post, SF. (415) 441-4099, sftheaterpub.wordpress.com

BEST TITILLATING T.M.I.

Try as we might to hold to prudish societal lines, there’s simply nothing like telling a Really. Dirty. Story. (To a receptive group of friends.) Rejoice in your sluttiness, people! That’s the franchise line that Bawdy Storytelling creator Dixie De La Tour touts. Started as a recurring post-swinger’s night “kaffeeklatcsh for pervs,” around her kitchen table, De La Tour has grown Bawdy into a public, monthly, multicity storytelling event for kinksters and exhibitionists. Each edition has its own theme (polygamy, public sex, and SF-specific tales have all had their moments of glory); a cast of performers ranging from writers to pro pussy-petters; an occasional Grope-A-Clown box for intermission entertainment; and always, Dixie — to shout encouraging innuendos when the occasion arises.

www.bawdystorytelling.com

BEST PROGRESSIVE CLUBHOUSE

Since early January, when Chris Daly stepped down from the Board of Supervisors and took ownership of the Buck Tavern, a political realignment has made City Hall a far less welcoming place for progressives. So they’ve followed Daly over to his new digs (nicknamed Daly’s Dive) instantly transforming the Mid-Market bar into the seat of power for the progressive local government-in-exile: a place where revolutions are plotted and frustrations are soothed with strong drinks and juicy burgers. With SFGTV on the tube, Daly slinging classic cocktails and brewskis, and malcontents lining the bar, the Buck has become a refuge for leftist political junkies. And for those looking for shockingly clean bar bathrooms.

1655 Market, SF.(415) 874-9183

BEST LORD OF METAL

You can’t put Slough Feg’s Mike Scalzi in a tidy box. As front man of the cult local metal band — its most recent album, 2010’s The Animal Spirits, earned critical raves — he prowls the stage with a vaudevillian flair while performing blistering, melodious tunes (sample titles: “Trick the Vicar,” “Ask the Casket&quot. Plus: he’s a sci-fi fan; he teaches philosophy at Diablo Valley College; and he occasionally pens highly articulate, commenter-rattling columns for respected metal blog Invisible Oranges. Slough Feg will play a rare show Aug. 17 at the Elbo Room, opening for New Wave of British heavy metal legends Diamond Head. Voices will soar; faces will melt.

www.sloughfeg.com

BEST PLACE TO MEET YOUR MAKER

If you ever need reminding that nerd is still the new black, TechShop is at the ready. Inside this SoMa “open access public workshop” you’ll find a veritable wonderland of high-tech tools for metal- and wood-working, machining, fabric crafts, electronics, and robotics — with classes on how to use it all. Offerings range from entry-level courses on basic skills like soldering, laser-cutting, silk-screening, milling, and injection-molding, to pro-pushing seminars on the latest precision machining tools and high-tech design software. Individual memberships are a pricey, $100–$125 per month (less for students), but hey — at least you won’t have to buy your own 3-D scanner! Whether you have a skill you’re itching to hone, an invention you’d like to prototype, or a project you’re hoping to finalize, this shop’s capable crew will help you see it through.

926 Howard, SF. (415) 263-9161, www.techshop.ws/tssf

BEST AEROSOL ROOTS

It’s easy to forget, with the advent of sleekly produced, four-story street art extravaganzas, that graffiti used to be the strictly illegal pursuit of brave-crazy iconoclasts hustling around with backpacks full of signed FedEx stickers and cans of Krylon. But thanks to the self-described “lizard people” behind Endless Canvas, the art of the throw up is still being honored. The Bay Area street-art blog is updated daily with the kinds of pieces that’ll never star in a Warholian post — from ground tags to the bubble letters of WIRE, to the small wheat paste gems of Bella Ciao’s roses and Esu’s proud female faces. The site’s documentation dedication is testament to the real glory of street art: reasserting our right to be seen in a world that prefers blank walls.

www.endlesscanvas.com

BEST UN-EGGS-PECTED PUPPET SHOW

The goofy brainchild of professional juggler Thomas John, “The Lady on the Wall” turns the dry bones, childhood mystery of the fall of Humpty Dumpty into a convincingly hard-boiled puppet noir, where all the puppets are eggs and almost all of them come to a rotten end. John’s deadpan, pun-filled narration and his deft physical manipulation of the principal players make “Lady” the best-laid plot starring a farm-fresh, extra-large dozen in the Bay.

Performance runs are sporadic but well worth the watching and waiting. You can also catch John performing his combination clowning-and-juggling shows on the Center Stage at Fisherman’s Wharf, and root for him as a final contestant on America’s Got Talent. Plus he plays the glockenspiel? Pretty crackin’, if you ask us.

www.gigsalad.com/thomas_john

BEST ROMP WITH YOUR INNER PSYCHOPATH

“Do you want to play?” challenges Nathaniel Justiniano, the artistic director of Naked Empire Bouffon Company, who invites performing artists and activists of all disciplines to explore their loonier selves during his hardcore Bouffon Intensive weekend workshops. Participants learn to tap into their physical and emotional “asymmetry” and exaggerate it, excavating the bouffon within and applying their inside-out personas to any performance situation. The resultant characters — bundles of twisted, giggling, homicidal urges who have an uncomfortable talent for honing in on the weaknesses of others — are, well, insanely entertaining. Justiniano, who trained in bouffonnerie at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, believes these “groveling goblin prophets” are harbingers of essential truths whose very grotesqueness compels people to pay them heed.

www.nakedempirebouffon.com

BEST SING-ALONG FOR WANNABE SEA DOGS

Admit it. You’ve always wanted to run away to sea. But landlubbin’ reality just keeps on getting in the way. Still, those Captain Kidd fantasies won’t go gently, so isn’t it great that there’s a safe space to live out your water-logged fantasies in real swashbuckling style? On the first Saturday of the month, at the very end of Hyde Street Pier (a National Park Service sanctuary for historic boats) a diverse crowd of young buffs and old salts gather together for a spirited sing-along, the Sea Chantey Sing. The atmosphere is pretty wholesome overall, but still a convivial anarchy reigns supreme. Want to lead a chantey? Go ahead. Want to improvise a harmony line during the chorus? Do it. Want to take a break and tool around the meticulously-restored tall boat Balclutha where the sing is held, cup of hot cider in hand? Totally encouraged! It’s free. It’s fantastically fun. And this October it’ll be a tradition 30 years young.

First Saturdays of the month, 8 p.m., free, reservations required. The Balclutha, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF. (415) 561-7171, www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/chantey-sing

BEST SITE-SPECIFIC CLASSICISTS

This year marks the end of We Players’ three-year collaboration with the National Parks Service on Alcatraz Island. The project showcased the island’s scenic isolation in a number of artistic and community-building endeavors. The stage company’s 2010 marathon production of Hamlet was a tour de force of site-specificity, taking actors and audiences all over the island, including areas normally off-limits to the public. In their imaginative stagings of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Iphigenia, as well as their ongoing art exhibitions for, by, and about incarcerated juveniles and adults, the Players highlight themes of isolation, incarceration, justice, and redemption. They wield their art as a catalyst rather than as nostalgic revival. Their Alcatraz residency ends in the fall. In 2012, it partners with the California Parks Service to stage The Odyssey on Angel Island.

www.weplayers.org

BEST FRISCO FUSION

If San Francisco was one big dance floor, Bayonics would be its house band. Mission born-and-bred members Pedro Gomez and Jairo Vargas met through the salsa scene and the youth arts organization Loco Bloco (drummer Gomez, who joined the group when he was 12, is now its music director). The band incorporated the other sounds of the city: reggaeton, funk, old school Frisco hip-hop, reggae irie. Now with horns, timbales, and three emcees, it packs sweaty venues (and stages) with a diverse sound that could have only come from the Bay. A big band in the era of the iPhone DJ? With a new album, Mission Statement, dropping this summer, we bet there’s enough Bayonics love in this city to keep the party going.

www.bayonics.com

BEST BARGAIN BEBOP TUTELAGE

What kind of music do young ‘uns listen to nowadays? Cheesy Disney tweens? Justin Bieber? Kidz Bop? Start the culture-makers of tomorrow on the road to good taste today by taking them to venerable jazz club Yoshi’s — either the Oakland or San Francisco outpost — for the Yoshi’s Children’s Matinee. Certain Sunday early-evening shows offer a special admission rate of five bucks for kids, with a discount, usually $15–$18, for accompanying adults. And while the idea of children learning the finer points of free jazz and bebop makes sense — kids love to improvise — Yoshi’s calendar actually factors in just about every genre other than heavy metal (start your tyke down that road with a copy of Black Sabbath). Recent $5 matinees have featured Hawaiian guitarist Willie K., flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert, and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater’s tribute to Billie Holiday.

1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600 and 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510)238-9200, www.yoshis.com

BEST HOMEBOY SCRIBE

Awash as it is in traffic-stopping murals and radical neighborhood galleries, the Mission hasn’t produced a lot of novels recently from its native sons and daughters. So when born-and-bred Missionite and City College literature professor Benjamin Bac Sierra‘s debut effort Barrio Bushido turned out to be a magical realistic, drug-and-violence-driven, sophisticated lyrical achievement, the ‘hood rejoiced in its son. Bac Sierra’s readings at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts turned out a capacity crowd, and a retinue of candy-painted, hydraulic-powered low-riders lined the curb outside. With Bac Sierra as a role model, maybe the barrio won’t have to wait long for another of its own to follow suit and publish something great.

todobododown.wordpress.com

BEST KARAOKE PROUSTIAN

The continued karaoke tyranny of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” induces revulsion on the order of Barney’s theme song. Now one fine man, maverick karaoke DJ Roger Niner, has taken a stand for all of us against the song’s monopoly. The wildly costumed, wildly fun Niner levies a $5 tax for its use, and uses the extra cash to buy more songs for his collection. Niner can usually be found at the Parlor near Fisherman’s Wharf on Wednesdays, San Mateo’s Swingin’ Door on Thursdays and Fridays, and SoMa’s Butter on Sundays. Ever the intellect, his website quotes Marcel Proust: “Detest bad music but do not despise it. As it is played, and especially sung, much more passionately than good music, it has much more than the latter been impregnated, little by little, with man’s tears.”

www.rogerniner.com

BEST “HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS”

In 2010, Bay Area performance artist and provocateur Philip Huang bucked the notion of institutionalized artistic legitimacy and challenged his friends to stage performances in their own homes. “We can legitimize ourselves,” his manifesto promised, calling the welfare state of professional arts organizations a “crock of shit.” One year later, the all-volunteer, thoroughly-DIY Home Theatre Festival spanned the globe, with scheduled performances on four continents. The premise is simple: without paying hundreds of dollars to a venue for overhead expenses, artists can charge $8 at the door and still walk away with some profit, while audiences get to experience an intimately staged performance without an institutional filter. Whether home theater can or should replace all professional art space is up for debate, but it’s nice to be reminded that ultimately the art, not the venue, matters most.

philiphuangpresents.blogspot.com

BEST DOOR GUY IN A LOIN CLOTH

Bouncer-for-hire Isaac is a towering figure in San Francisco, standing sentry at all of the top cultural happenings and cool club events. Simultaneously a welcoming presence and one who is not to be trifled with, he can be as cuddly as a teddy bear and as imposing as a grizzly. (Although he artfully and subtly conveys his grizzliness without feeling a need to menace or provoke.) Simply by being who he is — a big bearded guy in a loincloth who seems to know everyone — his presence validates the cultural cred of any event, and ensures you’ll find the entertainment you’re looking for therein. As a veteran performer with Fireside Storytelling, he may even provide some of it.

BEST SPIRIT-RAISING TWIRL

Imagine yourself traipsing through Golden Gate Park one sunny afternoon when the sound of the great Sylvester’s “Can’t Stop Dancing” tugs you by the ear toward the AIDS Memorial Grove. There you spy dozens of human butterflies, fluttering and whirling in the breeze as a DJ turns them out. Drawn by your fascination, you enter the fray, pick up a couple of psychedelic-patterned pieces of fabric, and begin to twirl with abandon. You’re floating with Flagging in the Park, the charitable monthly afternoon flood of queer love, put on by personal trainer Xavier Caylor and friends. Like fan-dancing, flagging (dancing with weighted pieces of fabric) is a decades-old gay dance floor tradition that has taken on a spiritual edge, calling up the memories of those affected by AIDS and drawing the blessing of our own spiritual godmothers, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It’s also simply fabulous.

Sat/30 and monthly, 1 p.m.–4 p.m., free (donation requested), AIDS Memorial Grove, Golden Gate Park, SF. Facebook: Flagging in the Park

BEST SHOEGAZERS ON THE BLOCK

The distortion burns. The reverb uncoils in snakey moans. And the rubbery bass and authoritative tom push forward, ever forward, in the hands of vocalist-bassist Shaun Durkan, guitarist Kevin Johnson, and drummer Abe Pedroza of Weekend. Formed just a year after the shoegaze pioneers of My Bloody Valentine made their way to San Francisco once more to play the hulking and reverberant Concourse, Weekend’s three unassuming childhood friends have managed to reform that cavernous shoegaze sound into something closely held and intimate, yet sweeping in its reach and tremulous with contemporary possibilities. The threesome’s first full-length album Sports (Slumberland, 2010), droned like 1990s post-punk yesterday once more — careening like a loud, unforgettable dream. End times have rarely sounded so breezy, so good.

www.myspace.com/weekendmusic

BEST WORD OF LAW

Gone are the days when poetry readings were confined to the dimly lit coffee shops, public libraries and beat bars of urbania. San Francisco being one of the world’s meccas for all things literary, we word-worshipping denizens hardly bat an eyelash when we hear of something like the regular poetry readings at Tony Serra’s law offices on Pier Five. Serra, who has made a career defending and championing society’s outcasts by expressing “the poetry of the law,” has been holding such events for three years, usually with a theme attached and a lively crowd attending. This year included poetry events celebrating Native American culture and the great, lost deserts of America.

506 Broadway, SF. (415) 986-5591, www.pier5law.com/j-tony-serra

BEST READY-MADE ROCK BAND

The Byrds drawled it best: So you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star? Then listen now, to what I say. Thanks Jim McGuinn, we’ll take it from here. Or rather, Blue Bear School of Music’s band workshops will. The school sets groups of about seven beginner-level musicians to practice cover songs (genres range from rock to country) for three months with a very patient teacher before they perform at Café Du Nord or Bottom of the Hill. Just don’t let it go to your head. Back to McGuinn: the money, the fame, and the public acclaim. Don’t forget what you are, you’re a star.

Building D, Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 673-3600, www.bluebearmusic.org

BEST SIXTH STREET SENSE

Does growing up in San Francisco make you an insider in its art scene? Definitely not — but it can be fertile ground for creating a scene of one’s own. Sixth Street resident and Filipino immigrant Reynaldo Cayetano Jr.’s passion for film photography led him to convene Inks of Truth, an art collective of young City College students and SF natives. The group has thrown packed multimedia art openings with live local hip-hop soundtracks all along Sixth Street — Rancho Parnassus, the House Kombucha factory, and Bayanihan Community Center. This year, group members got the keys to DA Arts, the one-time SF district attorney’s office, whose walls they have lined with stunning black and white photography of life on Sixth Street.

DA Arts, 135 Sixth St., SF. www.wix.com/purposebeyondreach/inksoftruth

BEST DARKWAVE EMBRACE

“Dark is the new light!” raves one online fan of San Francisco bleak-star rockers the Soft Moon. Outfit leader Luis Vasquez does double duty on conga and synth in Oakland-SF band, the Lumerians, weaving a sparkling, seething thread of exotica into that combo’s tropi-psych mind-meld. But the Soft Moon is where Vasquez chooses to tread darkly, venturing into an extremely chilled, vaguely menacing, yet exquisitely goth-derived and highly synthesized future. Rest assured, the way comes black-iced with ’80s-era shivers and intimations of Krautrock. Armed live with driving beats, bat cave echoes, and stabbing black-and-white visuals, Vasquez and Co. are the Bay’s prime entries in the “darkwave” wave that’s been sweeping underground dance floors. The Soft Moon released its self-titled debut on Captured Tracks in 2010. Next stop — your shattered earbuds.

www.myspace.com/thesoftmoon

BEST ALL PEDAL EVERYTHING

This year, in the interest of a more sustainable diet, Mark Zuckerberg started only eating animals he personally killed. Sure, Zuck can afford to slay a steer or 20, but he raises interesting questions about our individual consumption patterns. The expanding Bicycle Music Festival has been experimenting in this very concept as it relates to the live music fest. This year a free all-day, all-night outdoors affair featuring more than 12 bands and performing groups took place in two different city locations — with a three-piece band and opera singers performing while the entire festival biked from one site to the other. Powered by volunteers on generator-bikes — which occasionally lost their charge — attendees learned a lot about party-time energy costs.

www.bicyclemusicfestival.com

BEST SCARY CLOWN TOWN

This could also be titled “worst place to go after you ingest hallucinogens,” but hell, don’t blame Playland-Not-At-The-Beach for its slightly creepy-carny vibe. Blame the former first lady of San Francisco’s seaside: Laughing Sal, the legendary Playland attraction with the unforgettable ghoulish guffaw. A version of Sal keeps her eye on the joint, which is tucked into an unassuming El Cerrito building concealing a stuffed-to-the-gills treasure trove of Playland history. Other attractions include side show and circus artwork, modern pinball machines, and some incredibly elaborate dioramas — everything from a frosty, candy-laden “Santa’s Village” to the awesome “Dark Mystery,” featuring a zombie scene and a cows ‘n’ aliens vignette.

10979 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 592-3002, www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org

BEST MAKE-SHIFT TO DIY CULTURE

From sand tapestries to cupcake cars, soap-making to 70-foot sculptures of spinning stone and steel, Make Magazine’s Maker Faire proves that people can make some cra-zay shit when they’re given the proper encouragement and place to show it off (and warehouse space). The event has gained a reputation for being like Burning Man — only with less dust and fun fur. This year, it featured the work of more than 600 makers, rendering the San Mateo County Event Center into a hand-woven, hydraulic-powered, homegrown healthy bacteria-sprouting maze of maker magic. The fair was also celebrating its fifth year in action (the East Bay edition of the fair takes place Oct. 16 in Oakland), having already turned on thousands to the joys of tinkering.

www.makerfaire.com

BEST SINGLE-FILE STYLE

If bikes are ever going to live up to their potential as game-changers in the world’s consumption of fossil fuels, their proponents are gonna need smarts, heart, and damn if they’re not gonna need style as well. Luckily, Tyrone “Baybe Champ” Stevenson Jr. has all three covered. The Oakland cyclist started decorating his two-wheelers with flashy strips of foil, elaborate sound systems, and kitschy corporate logos, sparking a movement that now claims a hip-hop video with more than 3 million hits on YouTube, a dedicated East Bay youth massive, and a world of imitators. The Original Scraper Bike Team holds head-turning single-file group rides through its neighborhoods and has become a bike advocate on par with few. Broke environmentalists everywhere can jam with OSBT anthem: “My bike rides/<0x2009>Don’t need no car.”

originalscraperbikes.blogspot.com

BEST (SWAG) TWITTER (SWAG) RAPPER (SWAG SWAG)

Hey Lil B, we don’t get you — which is crazy because you’re blowing up our Twitter feeds, clogging YouTube with your endless mixtapes and party tracks, and inspiring kitchen dances and gratuitous catchphrases (#swag, #based, #rare) — or rather, repetitious outbursts you insert into your hooks and tag all over aforementioned feeds like there’s no tomorrow. You’d think we’d all have the material necessary to formulate a theory, or something. But then we listen to your 2010 album Rain in England, whose songs lay your spoken word ruminations on dreams and feminine beauty over soothing ambient aural waves. Don’t even get us started with this year’s I’m Gay album-brouhaha. And you’re from Berkeley? #Complex.

www.basedworld.com

BEST HOW SOON IS WOW

Smiths-mania is an admirable torment that afflicts any teen worth her salt who craves morosely literate lyrics paired with driving, jangly melodies. It can continue to affect its victims well into adulthood, too — from nostalgic Gen-Xers who slip on Meat is Murder when the sky is gray and the black dog is growling softly, to folks like author Simon Goddard, whose Mozipedia meticulously breaks down the particulars of every song the 1980s British group recorded. Another work of genius that a feverish Smiths obsession has engendered? Janice Whaley’s The Smiths Project. The Bay Area singer produced a six-CD, 71-song a cappella recreation of the melancholic Mancunians’ entire catalog — in one year. The ingeniously layered beauty of Whaley’s voice fills in all the parts of classics like “How Soon is Now” and “The Queen is Dead.” But all the ache of the originals remains.

thesmithsproject.blogspot.com

BEST PUBLIC WORK (DANCE VERSION)

San Francisco is a global center of house and techno, and despite lacking the vibrantly extra-legal underground scene of other cities like Berlin, Philadelphia, or (closer to home) Oakland, it has always retained a handful of winning clubs that could host a killer party or two. But in the past five years, there’s been an explosion of dance music output — and dance music interest. Today there are just as many in-demand DJs as there are touring indie bands. For a while it seemed as if San Francisco wouldn’t be able to handle the flood, providing the required sound quality (expensive) at the right door price (affordable), while shunning annoying VIP vibes. So when a number of longtime nightlife freaks got together and opened a space last year with the right raw feel, kickass sound system (state-of-the-art Funktion One), and dedication to the funds-challenged community, San Franciscans breathed easy and got sweaty. The consistently stellar lineups and innovative charitable programming at Public Works has polished our little stop on the worldwide party train. Toot toot!

161 Erie, SF. (415) 932-0955, www.publicsf.com

BEST ATLAS OF OURSELVES

We couldn’t pass it around fast enough. Rebecca Solnit’s Infinities Cities, the SF intellectual’s cartographic wonderpiece of Bay Area history and emotion, swept a large part of the Guardian staff off our feet, so pleased were we by its 22 out-of-the-box renderings of the hills and valleys we work and play on. Sites of gay struggle superimposed with the natural habitats of butterflies; a comparison of how identities shift (in this case, Solnit’s and Mission District performance artist Guillermo Gomez Peña’s) between neighborhoods like Pac Heights and the Sunset — a city can’t be defined by Muni maps alone. Solnit’s book, which features deeply researched essays to accompany each map, showed us new roads toward understanding the Bay Area.

www.rebeccasolnit.com

our Weekly Picks, July 13-19, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 12, 2011

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THURSDAY 14

EVENT

Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara

Here’s your spiritual riddle of the week, young grasshopper. Say you’re a Buddhist monk. Two thousand fires are sprinting across California’s tinderous golden landscape. The wind shifts. One blaze streams down a single unpaved road, the sole portal to your monastery. The conundrum expressed best by the Clash alights in your ever-mindful mind: should I stay or should I go now? In June 2008, five monks chose to stay when the Big Sur fires threatened Tassajara, the country’s oldest Zen monastery. Author Colleen Morton Busch shares their story in her new book Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara. Hear her read selections, plus stories from the monks and wild land firefighters, on how they successfully fought the fire with the fire within. (Kat Renz)

7:30 p.m., free

San Francisco Zen Center

300 Page, SF

(415) 863-3136

www.sfzc.org

EVENT

“Cabaret Bastille”

LitQuake revives the ghosts of Left Bank bohemia for its cabaret and fundraiser Cabaret Bastille. Everyone’s favorite modernists will be in the house — Anais Nin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, Henry Miller, H.D. and of course, the salon dom herself Gertrude Stein — as local writers impersonate these legends and read selections from their work. Other merriments include songs by accordion-accompanied chanteuse Gabrielle Ekedal, a make-your-own-Matisse station, exquisite corpses, and much genius-inducing imbibing. (Matt Sussman)

8 p.m.–midnight, $15

Cellspace

2050 Bryant, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

EVENT

“Crimes Against Horticulture: When Bad Taste Meets Power Tools”

I earn most of my money on my knees, initiating a rampage of genocidal proportions upon the natural world. I pull weeds and I love the killing, though not without remorse, for who am I to judge? (As a nonbreeder, I’m biologically nil compared to the reproductive success of an invasive plant.) I wonder if funny-man gardener Billy Goodnick would diagnose this murderous spree a “crime against” or a “crime in the name of” horticulture? An award-winning landscape architect and host of the Santa Barbara television show Garden Wise Guys, Goodnick brings his humor-infused message of sustainability to horticultural criminals, crazies (any “compulsive rakers” out there?), and petal perfectionists alike. (Renz)

7 p.m., $15

Conservatory of Flowers

100 John F. Kennedy, Golden Gate Park, SF

(415) 831-2090

www.conservatoryofflowers.org

COMEDY

Jay Pharoah

Even though comedian Jay Pharoah is only 23, he is already a seasoned veteran of the stand-up circuit, hitting stages since his early teens and honing his hilarious impersonation skills. Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, and President Obama are among his stable of dead-on, side splitting impressions, some of which, along with his many other comedic talents, have been featured on national television since he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live last year. Pharoah’s star is only certain to rise with more national exposure, so do yourself a favor and catch him this weekend in the cozy confines of Cobb’s before it’s too late. (Sean McCourt)

Thurs/14–Sun/17, 8 p.m.

Also Fri/15–Sat/16, 10:15 p.m., $18.50–$20.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedy.com

FRIDAY 15

PERFORMANCE

Persepolis, Texas

Sometimes it takes a Texas-reared second-generation Iranian American cisgendered female in drag to point out what should be obvious: “That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows” (to quote an old Englishman who never set a pointy shoe in Texas). Is self-presentation of any kind just a drag act by another name? Isn’t the real question whose terms apply in the fashioning of one’s persona? Whose hijab is it anyway? San Francisco–based performance artist Maryam Farnaz Rostami explores the tenuous line between identity, persona, eroticism, and exoticism in her first evening-length solo show, embodying a handful of characters — including Rostami’s celebrated drag persona Mona G. Hawd — in movement, music, and an unexpected narrative encompassing contemporary Iran, Iranian Texas, and queer San Francisco. (Robert Avila)

Fri/15–Sun/17, 8 p.m., $20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

1-800-838-3006

www.counterpulse.org

FILM

Skatetown, U.S.A.

Billed as “The Rock and Roller Disco Movie of the Year!” — the people behind Roller Boogie (which came out the same year) must have taken great offense — 1979 crapsterpiece Skatetown, U.S.A. has been very hard to find for years. What a cast: top-billed rodent Scott Baio, a slutted-up Marcia Brady (a.k.a. Maureen McCormick, who claimed she became a coke addict on this shoot), and 1979 Playboy Playmate-turned-1980-murder-victim Dorothy Stratten, to name just a few. Plus tons of actual roller-disco troupes — you can tell they thought this was their ticket to Broadway — and two genuinely talented dancers showcased as good and bad guy. The very Warriors-style villain is Patrick Swayze, making his film debut (his belt-whip skate solo smokes). With its mix of stupid skit comedy and stupider ensemble dramatics, Skatetown, U.S.A. is a fungal time capsule that played less-than-fresh even at its moment of birth. Yet it’s kind of great anyway. This one-night only revival features free tube socks, presumably not-free beer, and a post-screening roller disco party at Cellspace. (Dennis Harvey)

7 and 9 p.m., $15 (includes roller disco)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 431-3611

www.roxie.com

PERFORMANCE

Hello, My Name is Joe

Bringing a global perspective to the push and pull of power structures, Meridian Dance presents 8213 Physical Dance Theater’s world premiere Hello, My Name is Joe, a site-specific work inspired by the concurrent visual art exhibition “In Extremis: Prints Monumental, Intimate.” Based in Taipei, Taiwan, under the direction of Chuo-Tai Sun with collaborator Casey Avaunt (a Maine native), 8213 Physical Dance Theater reveals the ways humans emotionally and physically battle controls. Launching from the old children’s song “Hello, My Name is Joe,” in which the protagonist is asked by his boss to push, pull, and turn buttons, the work challenges the performers to negotiate their freedom within the walls of the Meridian Gallery. (Julie Potter)

Fri/15–Sat/16, 7:30 p.m., $10–$20

Meridian Gallery

535 Powell, SF

(415) 398-7229

www.meridiangallery.org

SATURDAY 16

FILM

When Harry Met Sally …

They’ve brought salsa and swing dancing, a circus festival, and classical music to Union Square. Now the Jewels in the Square Performance Series reopens age-old debates about the nature of friendships and sex, the rebound girlfriend, and orgasmic deli dishes. The latest event on the outdoor-entertainment calendar (in partnership with Film Night in the Park and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival) is a screening of 1989 classic rom-com When Harry Met Sally. Prime your funny bone for the upcoming 2011 SFJFF (opening night is July 21) with the ultimate “Can a straight man and a straight woman ever be just friends?” flick, starring Meg “On the Side” Ryan and Billy “Made a Woman Meow” Crystal. Bring a friend, significant other, or both. (David Getman)

8 p.m., free

Union Square

Geary at Powell, SF

www.sfjff.org

MUSIC

Black Dynamic Sound Orchestra

“Blaxsploitation” cinema is as much prized for its music as for its leather-wearing, Afro-having, ass-kicking heroes and the vengeance that they wreak. What would Shaft (1971) be without its theme song? How could justice be adequately dispensed, or love properly made, without exceptionally funky grooves? It was with questions such as these in mind that the producers of Black Dynamite (2009) must have chosen Adrian Younge to score their filmic love song to black belts and pointy collars. Younge, who also edited Black Dynamite, created a perfect backdrop to a ridiculous movie, and wrote some great songs doing it. With Younge at the helm, Black Dynamite Sound Orchestra takes his vision on the road, performing selections from the Black Dynamite original soundtrack as well as unreleased tracks from a forthcoming album. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

With Lord Loves a Working Man and the Struts

10 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

EVENT

Phono Del Sol Music and Food Festival

Music festivals can totally suck. They cost an Xbox 360, take half a week of your life (that’s never coming back) to see four bands that were in town at small venues the month before, make you realize Kanye is better on YouTube, force you to fend off that bro who won’t stop asking for drugs, and camp in a in a parking lot next to Porta-Potties. It’s a little much. Thankfully the folks at the Bay Bridged blog and Tiny Telephone have you covered with this darling, commitment-free fest that combines two SF passions: music and food. They’ll bring musicians including Aesop Rock, Mirah, and Appetite, and you bring your appetite (plus cash for Off the Grid’s food trucks.) (Ryan Prendiville)

Noon-7 p.m., free

Potrero Del Sol Park

25th St. at San Bruno, SF

www.thebaybridged.com

SUNDAY 17

VISUAL ART/EVENT

“Google Family Day”

In its “Doodle 4 Google: What I’d Like To Do Someday … ” exhibit (through July 19), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art linked up with Google to showcase the works of 40 student artists. The works (selected from more than 100,000 submissions) were inspired by a prompt for kids to envision what they would like to do in the future — and channel that energy into redesigning a logo for the website’s continually changing home page. The moon-themed winner (which earned its seven-year-old creator, South San Francisco’s Matteo Lopez, $15,000 in college money plus a technology grant for his school) hit Google in May. The 39 other contestants have the pretty nifty consolation prize of having had their artwork hung in a museum before they’ve even hit 18. Today’s “Google Family Day” event offers free entry for families with kids under 12, with special hands-on activities, performances, and more aimed at young artists. (Getman)

11 a.m.–4 p.m., free for families with children under 12

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

TUESDAY 19

MUSIC

Parenthetical Girls

Pop music. To some these two words together bring to fore images of cloying sweetness, a toothy smile in high gloss shrink-wrap bearing down on contented mall shoppers. Parenthetical Girls is here to remind us that pop still has cards up its sleeve, if not revel in the antagonism. The willfully obscure recording project (usually) from the Pacific Northwest warps complex operatic composition à la Sparks and Eno, adds a dash of Morrissey’s infamous ego, and ends up with songs that are almost caustically intellectual. Experimental it is, but not so much that the essential framework is smothered. Instead, Parenthetical Girls emerges as something uncanny; it draws you in with familiar pop music tropes but leaves you pleasantly unsettled. (Berkmoyer)

With Extra Life and Sam Mickens

9 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 12, 2011

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

WEDNESDAY 13

How to be a podcaster Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF; www.howtonight.com, www.sparkminute.com. 7pm, free with food or drink purchase. Have something to say, but don’t have the resources to buy a radio transmitter à la Christian Slater in Pump up the Volume? Luckily for you it’s the 21st century, and you can record digital files and distribute them via the Internet as podcasts. Davis Spark – journalist, producer, and founder of Spark Media Solutions – will show you the ropes of creating your own unique podcast series, and even making a buck or two in the process.

THURSDAY 14

Not your average poetry reading Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 7-10pm, $5-10. Part of the Cartoon Art Museum’s “Art of Howl” exhibition, local celebrities – including Dean Disaster, Dam Dyke, Supervisor Eric Mar, and Sunny Angulo – read selections from Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem Howl. Local artists Justin Hall and Jon Macy also appear, and the evening is hosted by the always fabulous Anna Conda.

FRIDAY 15

Roller disco party Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.cellspace.org. 9pm-2am, $5-$10. Celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Golden Gate Park Skate Patrol, which grew out of the explosive popularity of outdoor roller skating in Golden Gate Park in 1979 when 20,000 plus funky roller disco enthusiasts started skating through the park every Sunday. Hardcore roller disco junkies can check out either the 7pm or 9pm viewing of Skate Town USA at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th St., SF.) – bring your ticket stub for discounted admission to the roller disco party – and then boogie-oogie to the funkiest jams and relive the good ‘ol days of roller disco.

“When We Were Kids” opening reception 1:AM Gallery, 1000 Howard, SF; (415) 861-5089, www.1amsf.com. 6:30-9:30pm, free. View the art work of Minette Mangahas, Christopher deLeon, and James Garcia at this 21 plus-only art exhibition inspired by the summertime nostalgia of being a kid – whether it be backyard BBQs or learning the hardships of life and struggle. View the primary-colored drama while sipping free-flowing wine and PBR to the beats of DJ Don Kainoa on the wheels of steel.

SUNDAY 17

Daytime Realness El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; Facebook: Daytime Realness. 3-8pm, $8. Drag has officially stepped into the light – the daylight that is. This 1970s-themed daytime drag party – think summertime BBQ at a cross-dressing trailer park circa 1976 – debuts as part of El Rio’s new Sunday schedule of patio parties. Every third Sunday from here on out, hosts Heklina (Trannyshack) and DJ Carnitas (Hard French) along with DJ Stanley Frank (Chilidog) will get you cutting the shag rug as they showcase San Francisco’s finest queens. On this month’s bill are performances by Gina La Divina, Ambrosia Salad, Miss Rahni, Rotisserie Ethnicity Jackson Houston Ross, and more.

Candlestick Park Antique Faire Candlestick Park, Hunter’s Point Expressway at Jamestown, SF; (650) 242-1294, www.candlestickantiques.com. 6am-3pm, $5-$10. Calling all thrifters, hoarders, or just regular folks looking for cool stuff at bargain prices: soak up the summer sun with hundreds of interesting vendors and booths filled with antique and collectible treasures for sale all day long. You will find one-of-a-kind vintage clothes, jewelry, furniture, plus gourmet food trucks (no soggy hot dogs here) and free parking all day long.

AIDS Walk after-party Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF; (650) 242-1294, www.clubsix1.com, www.brownpapertickets.com. 9pm, $5. Since 1987, AIDS Walk San Francisco has raised nearly $74 million for HIV research programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tonight, make musical history while serving a good cause at the 25th anniversary bash for the AIDS walk, called “Hip-Hop, Hope, and Harmony.” Help raise money and awareness for next year’s walk through music – this party will feature performances by BPos, Z’Amico, Simian Scribes, and many others.

Prepare for the playa Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF; (650) 242-1294, www.preparefortheplaya.com. 12-7pm, free. Attend this huge street festival and stock up on everything you need for a great burn at Nevada’s Black Rock Desert – tribal, furry, steampunk, and goth fashions, dust goggles and masks, funky costumes, accessories and more will be showcased to get you hyped for Burning Man. There will also be art installations aplenty, and Playa U will teach you survival tactics at various how-to clinics.

Great Bay escapes

Andrew Lam

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July 12, 2011

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culture@sfbg.com

AÑO NUEVO STATE PARK

Due to their penis-noses and penchant for lazing about, no animal invites as much tittering as the male elephant seal. We are currently in the thick of their molting season (older males nap and shed on the beach from July until the end of August), the perfect time to hike out to their hangout on the tip of Año Nuevo. Be sure you snag your visitor’s permit — you’ll need one to enter from April-August — from the entrance station.

Open March–Sept., 8 a.m.–6 p.m. 1 New Year’s Creek, Pescadero. (Off Highway 1) (650) 879-2025, www.parks.ca.gov

ALAMEDA BOOZE DISTRICT

On the western edge of the island of Alameda, a one-time naval station has been repurposed into the discerning boozehound’s day trip of choice. Located within a easy block’s stumble of one another lie the tasting rooms of St. George Spirits (boasting absinthe, flavored vodkas, and coffee liqueur on the shelves) and Rock Wall Wine Company, a co-op of local wineries. They’re both a sunny walk from the ferry terminal — stroll by the massive aircraft carriers docked farther down the shore if you need to sober up after, or west to Rosenblum Cellars (2900 Main, Alameda) if you need more tastes.

St. George Spirits, 2601 Monarch, Alameda. (510) 769-1601, www.stgeorgespirits.com; Rock Wall Wine Company, 2301 Monarch, Alameda. (510) 522-5700, www.rockwallwines.com

CANDLESTICK POINT STATE RECREATION AREA

Candlestick Point has gone through a lot of changes in its varied history — but its current incarnation as a well-tended, if sometimes landscaped-feeling, urban refuge perfectly jibes with our times. Refreshing views of the bay, some fantastic hiking trails, and a sense of seclusion (despite the nearness of Highway 101 and the stadium) make this a neato spot to picnic, bird watch, or fish. Don’t forget to bring those layers though becuase sometimes the wind attempts to rifle gently through you.

Candlestick Park exit off Highway 101, SF

CHINA CAMP STATE PARK

Historically this waterfront slice on San Pablo Bay is important as the site of a Cantonese immigrant shrimp-fishing village in the 1800s (there’s a wee museum). For nature, there’s a delightful salt marsh and lazy-day winding paths drenched in sunlight and the calls of waterfowl. But — why hide it? — this is one of the best make-out places on the bay, with couples gladly making hay in the grasses. After the picnic, of course. Wet your whistle for the Annual Heritage Day Celebration on Aug. 27, 11:30 a.m.–4 p.m.

101 Peacock Gap Trail, San Rafael. www.parks.ca.gov

INK WELLS

Damn this SF summer fog! Escape north to Marin, where just past Boonville and just inside the border of Samuel P. Taylor State Park lie these cool pools. The rocky, clothing-optional swimming holes cascade into each other and feature prime jump-off spots for the daredevils among us who can’t be satisfied with a shady forest and some cold water on a hot day. Park your car just past Shafter Bridge (coming from Lagunitas) and walk underneath the copper-colored bridge to arrive. Samuel P. Taylor Park, Sir Francis Drake, Lagunitas

SLACKER HILL

Don’t freak, you don’t have to go far for nature adventures. This inappropriately-named Marin Headlands summit is just a 15 minute — albeit gnarly — hike up a gorgeous trail from a stop on the No. 76 Muni line. Once you’ve peaked, rest in the tall grass with a phenomenal 180 degree view of Sausalito, the bay, the bridges, and the city from downtown to the avenues. It’s like you’re inside one of those awesome Panoramio pics, but it’s not freezing your computer.

Trailhead begins on the right, 100 feet downhill on McCollough from the Conzelman intersection, Marin County.

UPCOMING FESTIVALS

SUNSET CAMPOUT

Three-day dancing and frolicking to superlative house music with thousands of others. With DJ Larry Heard, a.k.a. Mr. Fingers.

Fri/15-Sun/17, $125–>$150, Belden. www.sunsetcampout.com

PAL BLUES FESTIVAL

A smokin’ BBQ competition will satisfy, as will roots and blues music from dozens of performers.

Friday, July 22, 6 p.m.–8 p.m. and Saturday, July 23, 11 a.m.–8 p.m., free.

Courthouse Square, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City. www.palbluesfestival.com

SONOMA COUNTY FAIR

It’s the 75th year for this bonanza of California country living, with carnival rides, turkey races, vaudeville performances, wine tasting, and live music.

July 27–Aug. 14, various times, $9, kids under six and seniors free. Sonoma County Fairgrounds, www.sonomacountyfair.com

WANDERLUST

Bend over backward, outdoors, as yoga meets music with Michael Franti and Spearhead, Girl Talk, Cornflower, MC Yogi, and more.

July 28–31, $24.50–$450, Squaw Valley. squaw.wanderlustfestival.com

GAIA FESTIVAL

Celebrate the earth by getting down (and dirty?) with India.Arie and Idan Raichel, Aaron Neville, the Wailers, Funky Meters, and dozens more.

Aug. 5-7, $5–$180. Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville. www.thegaiafestival.com

GOOD OLD FASHIONED BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL

The Northern California Bluegrass Society goes all out with three days of pickin’ and pluckin’ campground jams and family fun.

Aug. 12–14, $8.50–$65. Bolado Park, Tres Piños. www.scbs.org/events/gov

OUTSIDE LANDS

A revamped food and wine aspect refreshes the massive SF music fest, whose star power includes Muse, Phish, and Arcade Fire.

Aug. 12–14, times and prices vary. Golden Gate Park, www.sfoutsidelands.com

BODEGA SEAFOOD ART AND WINE FESTIVAL

Drink, dine, and shop to your heart’s content. Also: Bodega Seafood Festival rubber duck races!

Saturday, Aug. 27, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 28, 10 a .m.–5 p.m., $8–$15. children under 12 free. 16855 Bodega Hwy, Bodega. www.winecountryfestivals.com

LOVEVOLUTION

The Bay’s hugest legal outdoor rave returns, now in Oakland for your fun-fur, hands-in-the-air pleasure. There will be a million DJs.

Sept. 24, price and time TBD. Oakland Coliseum Grounds, Oakl. www.sflovevolution.com

For more summer fairs and festival fun, visit www.sfbg.com/summerfests.

Parks Inc.

Andrew Lam

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July 12, 2011

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steve@sfbg.com

Should the city be trying to make money off of its parks, recreation centers, and other facilities operated by the Recreation and Park Department? That’s the question at the center of several big controversies in recent years, as well as a fall ballot measure and an effort to elevate revenue generation into an official long-term strategy for the department.

So far, the revenue-generating initiatives by RPD General Manager Phil Ginsburg and former Mayor Gavin Newsom have been done on an ad hoc basis — such as permitting vendors in Dolores Park, charging visitors to Strybing Arboretum, and leasing out recreation centers — but an update of the Recreation and Open Space Element (ROSE) of the General Plan seeks to make it official city policy.

The last of six objectives in the plan, which will be heard by the Planning Commission Aug. 4, is “secure long-term resources and management for open space acquisition, operations, and maintenance,” a goal that includes three policies: develop long-term funding mechanisms (mostly through new fees and taxes); partner with other public agencies and nonprofits to manage resources; and, most controversially, “pursue public-private partnerships to generate new operating revenues for open spaces.”

The plan likens that last policy to the city’s deal with Clear Channel to maintain Muni bus stops with funding from advertising revenue, saying that “similar strategies could apply to parks.” It cites the Portland Parks Foundation as a model for letting Nike and Columbia Sportswear maintain facilities and mark them with their corporate logos, and said businesses such as bike rental shops, cafes, and coffee kiosks can “serve to activate an open space,” a phrase it uses repeatedly.

“The city should seek out new opportunities, including corporate sponsorships where appropriate, and where such sponsorship is in keeping with the mission of the open space itself,” the document says.

Yet that approach is anathema to how many San Franciscans see their parks and open spaces — as vital public assets that should be maintained with general tax revenue rather than being dependent on volunteers and wealthy donors, subject to entry fees, or leased to private organizations.

That basic philosophical divide over how the city’s parks and recreational facilities are managed has animated a series of conflicts in recent years that have soured many people on the RPD. They include the mass firing of rec directors and leasing out of rec centers, the scandal-tinged process of selecting a new Stow Lake Boathouse vendor, new vending contracts for Dolores Park, the eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Center recycling facility, plans to develop western Golden Gate Park and other spots, the conversion by the private City Fields Foundation of many soccer fields to artificial turf, and the imposition of entry fees at the arboretum.

Activists involved in those seemingly unrelated battles united into a group called Take Back Our Parks, recognizing that “it’s all the same problem: the monetization of the park system,” says member John Rizzo, a Sierra Club activist and elected City College trustee. “It’s this Republican idea that the parks should pay for themselves.”

And now, with the help of the four most progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, the group is putting the issue before voters and trying to stop what it calls the auctioning off of the city’s most valuable public assets to the highest bidders.

The Parks for the Public initiative — which was written by the group and placed on the ballot by Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi — is intended to “ensure equal public access to parks and recreation facilities and prevent privatization of our public parks and facilities,” as the measure states. It would prevent the department from entering into any new leases or creating new entry fees for parks and other facilities.

Even its promoters call it a small first step that doesn’t get into controversies such as permitting more vending in the parks, including placing a taco truck in Dolores Park and the aborted attempt to allow a Blue Bottle Coffee concession there. But it does address the central strategy Newsom and his former chief of staff, Ginsburg, have been using to address the dwindling RPD budget, which was slashed by 7 percent last year.

“What a lot of us think the Recreation and Parks Department is actually doing is relinquishing the maintenance of park facilities to private entities,” says Denis Mosgofian, who founded the group following his battles with RPD over the closures and leases rec centers. “They’re actually dismantling much of what the public has created.”

He notes that San Francisco voters have approved $371 million in bonds over the last 20 years to improve parks and recreation centers, only to have their operations defunded and control of many of them simply turned over to private organizations that often limit the public’s ability to use them.

By Mosgofian’s calculation, at least 14 of the city’s 47 clubhouses and recreation centers have been leased out and another 11 have been made available for leases, often for $90 per hour, which is more than most community groups can afford. And he says 166 recreation directors and support staffers have been laid off in the last two years, offset by the hiring of at least nine property management positions to handle the leases.

Often, he said, the leases don’t even make fiscal sense, with some facilities being leased for less money than the city is spending to service the debt used to refurbish them. Other lease arrangements raised economic justice concerns, such as when RPD evicted a 38-year-old City College preschool program from the Laurel Hill Clubhouse to lease it to Language in Action, a company that does language immersion programs for preschoolers.

“Without telling anyone, they arranged to have a private, high-end preschool go in,” Rizzo said, noting that its annual tuition of around $12,000 is too expensive for most city residents and that the program even fenced off part of the playground for its private use, all for a monthly lease of less than $1,500. “They don’t talk to the neighbors who are affected or the users of the park … We’re paying for it and then we don’t have access to it.”

They also refused to answer our questions. Neither Ginsburg nor Recreation and Park Commission President Mark Buell responded to Guardian messages. Department spokesperson Connie Chan responded by e-mail and asked us to submit a list of questions, which department officials still hadn’t answered at Guardian press time. But it does appear that the approach has at least the tacit backing of Mayor Ed Lee.

“In order to increase its financial sustainability in the face of ongoing General Fund reductions, the Recreation and Parks Department continues to focus on maximizing its earned revenue. Its efforts include capitalizing on the value of the department’s property and concessions by entering into new leases and developing new park amenities, pursuing philanthropy, and searching for sponsorships and development opportunities,” reads Mayor Lee’s proposed budget for RPD, which includes a chart entitled “Department Generated Revenue” that shows it steadily increasing from about $35 million in 2005-06 to about $45 million in 2011-12.

And that policy approach would get a big boost if it gets written into the city’s General Plan, which could happen later this year.

Land use attorney Sue Hestor has been fighting projects that have disproportionately favored the wealthy for decades, often using the city’s General Plan, a state-mandated document that lays out official city goals and policies. She also is concerned that the ROSE is quietly being developed to “run interference for Rec-Park to do anything they want to.”

“By getting policies into the General Plan that are a rationalization of privatization, it backs up what Rec-Park is doing,” Hestor said, noting how much influence Ginsburg and his allies have clearly exerted over the Planning Department document. “It’s effectively a Rec-Park plan.”

Sue Exeline, the lead planner on ROSE, said the process was launched in November 2007 by an Open Space Task Force created by Newsom, and that the Planning Department, Neighborhood Parks Council, and speakers at community meetings have all influenced its development. Yet she conceded that RPD was “a big part of the process.”

When we asked about the revenue-generating policies, where they came from, and why they were presented in such laudatory fashion without noting the controversy that underlies them, Exeline said simply: “It will continue to be vetted.” And when we continued to push for answers, she tried to say the conversation was off-the-record, referred us to RPD or Planning Director John Rahaim, and hung up the phone.

The rationale for bringing in private sources of revenue: it’s the only way to maintain RPD resources during these tight budget times. A July 5 San Francisco Examiner editorial that praised these “revenue-generating business partnerships” and lambasted the ballot measure and its proponents was titled “Purists want Rec and Park to pull cash off trees.”

But critics say the department could be putting more energy into a tax measure, impact fees, or other general revenue sources rather than simply turning toward privatization options.

“We need to see revenue, but we also need to stop the knee-jerk acceptance of every corporate hand that offers anything,” Mosgofian said. “Our political leadership believes you need to genuflect before wealth.”

And they say that their supporters cover the entire ideological spectrum.

“We’re getting wide support, everywhere from conservative neighborhoods to progressive neighborhoods. It’s not a left-right issue, it’s about fairness and equity,” Rizzo said.

In sponsoring the Parks for the People initiative and unsuccessfully trying to end the arboretum fees (it failed on a 5-6 vote at the Board of Supervisors, with President David Chiu the swing vote), John Avalos is the one major mayoral candidate that is raising concerns about the RPD schemes.

“Our parks are our public commons. They are public assets that should be paid for with tax dollars,” Avalos told us. He called the idea of allowing advertising and corporate sponsorships into the parks, “a real breach from what the public expects from parks and open space.”

When asked whether, if he’s elected mayor, he would continue the policies and let Ginsburg continue to run RPD, Avalos said, “Probably not. I think we need to make a lot of changes in the department. They should be given better support in the General Fund so we don’t have to make these kinds of choices.”

ROSE will be the subject of informational hearings before the Planning Commission on Aug. 4 and Sept. 15, with an adoption hearing scheduled for Oct. 13. Each hearing begins at noon in Room 400, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Dr., San Francisco.

Upcoming summer festivals

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 7, 2011

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July 14-24

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues. (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org . Prices vary. You won’t be hearing any Beethoven or Schubert at this midsummer series — the name of the day is Mr. Mozart alone.

July 16-17

Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz between Camino and Johnson, Menlo Park. (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Let the artisans do what they do best — you’ll polish off the fruits of their labor at this outdoor expo of artisan food, wine, and craft.

July 21-Aug 8

SF Jewish Film Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfjff.org. Times and prices vary. A three week smorgasbord of world premiere Jewish films at theaters in SF, Berkeley, the Peninsula, and Marin County.

July 22-Aug 13

Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton. (650) 330-2030, www.musicatmenlo.org. Classical chamber music at its best: this year’s theme “Through Brahms,” will take you on a journey through Johannes’ most notable works.

July 23-Sept 25

SF Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfshakes.org. Various times, free. Picnic with Princess Innogen and her crew with dropping a dime at this year’s production of Cymbeline. It’s by that playwriter guy… what’s his name again?

July 30

Oakland A’s Beer Festival Eastside Club at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl. www.oakland.athletics.mlb.com. 4:05-6:05pm, free with game ticket. Booze your way through the Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins game while the coliseum is filled with brewskies from over 30 microbreweries, there for the chugging in your souvenir A’s beer mug.

July 30-31

Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker, Berk. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-5pm, free. A joyous selection of Berkeley’s coolest kites, all in one easy location.

July 31

Up Your Alley Dore between Folsom and Howard, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $7-10 suggested donation. Whether you are into BDSM, leather, paddles, nipple clamps, hardcore — or don’t know what any of the above means, this Dore Alley stroll is surprisingly friendly and cute once you get past all the whips!

Aug 1-7

SF Chefs Various venues, SF. www.sfchefs2011.com. Times and prices vary. Those that love to taste test will rejoice during this foodie’s paradise of culinary stars sharing their latest bites. Best of all, the goal for 2011’s event is tons of taste with zero waste.

Aug 7

SF Theater Festival Fort Mason Center. Buchanan and Marina, SF. www.sftheaterfestival.org. 11am-5pm, free. Think you can face about 100 live theater acts in one day? Set a personal record at this indoor and outdoor celebration of thespians.

Aug 13

San Rafael Food and Wine Festival Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission, San Rafael. 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. Noon-6pm, $25 food and wine tasting, $15 food tasting only. A sampler’s paradise, this festival features an array of tastes from the Bay’s best wineries and restaurants.

Aug 13-14

* Nihonmachi Street Fair Post and Webster, SF. www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Founded by Asian Pacific American youths, this Japantown tradition is a yearly tribute to the difficult history and prevailing spirit of Asian American culture in this SF neighborhood.

Aug 20-21

Oakland Art and Soul Festival Entrances at 14th St. and Broadway, 16th St. and San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. $15. A musical entertainment tribute to downtown Oakland’s art and soul, this festival features nationally-known R&B, jazz, gospel, and rock artists.

Aug 20-22

* SF Street Food Festival Folsom St from Twenty Sixth to Twenty Second, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. All of the city’s best food, available without having to go indoors — or sit down. 2011 brings a bigger and better Street Food Fest, perfect for SF’s burgeoning addiction to pavement meals.

Aug 29-Sept 5

Burning Man Black Rock City, Nev. (415) TO-FLAME, www.burningman.com. $320. This year’s theme, “Rites of Passage,” is set to explore transitional spaces and feelings. Gather with the best of the burned-out at one of the world’s weirdest, most renowned parties.

Sep 10-11

* Autumn Moon Festival Street Fair Grant between California and Broadway, SF. (415) 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm, free. A time to celebrate the summer harvest and the end of summer full-moon, rejoice in bounty with the moon goddess.

Sept 17-18

SF International Dragon Boat Festival California and Avenue D, Treasure Island. www.sfdragonboat.com. 10am-5pm, free. The country’s largest dragon boat festival sees beautiful man-powered boats take to the water in 300 and 500 meter competitive races.

Sept 23-25

SF Greek Food Festival Annunciation Cathedral. 245 Valencia, SF. www.sfgreekfoodfestival.org. Fri.-Sat., 11am-10pm; Sun., noon-9pm, free with advance ticket. Get your baba ghanoush on during this late summer festival, complete with traditional Greek dancing, music, and wine.

Sept 25

Folsom Street Fair Folsom between 7th and 12th St., SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org . 11am-6pm, free. The urban Burning Man equivalent for leather enthusiasts, going to this expansive SoMa celebration of kink and fetish culture is the surest way to see a penis in public (you dirty dog!).

Sept 30-Oct 2

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com. 11am-7pm, free. Pack some whiskey and shoulder your banjo: this free three day festival draws record-breaking crowds — and top names in a variety of twangy genres — each year.

Items with asterisks note family-fun activities.

On the Cheap

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 5, 2011

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

THURSDAY 7

SPACEcraft’s birthday bash CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.cellspace.org. 7-11pm, free. This one-night-only event featuring visual art, music, and performances from emerging artists has been going strong every first Thursday at CELLspace for two years now. It is once again time for the yearly celebration of this local art collective with a show featuring the works of Grace Cooper (you may also know her from the Sandwitches), Kool Kid Kreyola (yeah, that Kid Kreyola), and 25 others – not to mention musical performances from Panic is Perfect, Late Space Empire, and more.

SATURDAY 9

Renegade Craft Fair Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, Marina and Buchanan, SF.; www.renegadecraft.com. Sat/9 and Sun/10, 11am-7pm, free. Been jonesing for some post-Maker Faire handmade whatchamacallits? Get your D.I.Y. fix at this two-day smorgasbord of handmade goods – everything from jewelry, clothing, ceramics, stationary, and housewares to comics, art, and more. Looking for something specific? Plushy pomegranate-shaped salt and pepper shakers? If it’s handmade, it’s fair game and chances are you will find whatever you are looking for here – if not the inspiration to make it yourself.

Bay Area Now 6 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF.; (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org. Noon, free. This is the YBCA’s triennial nod to outstanding artistic talents who are inspired by the Bay Area – whether it be African American identity in Oakland as expressed in the afro-futurist canvasses of David Huffman or the re-birth of heavy metal, articulated in the quilting of Ben Venom. However varied the media and styles, the works are all connected by a common thread that resonates Golden Gate.

“Sees Girls” opening reception Mission Comics and Art, 3520 20th St., SF; (415) 695-1545, www.jenwang.net, www.missioncomicsandart.com. 7pm, free. Jen Wang – San Francisco native now living in L.A. – can add artist, illustrator, cartoonist, paper doll designer, and now graphic novelist to her curriculum vitae. Having contributed artwork to various art anthologies and McSweeny’s publications in the past, Wang has recently published her very own graphic novel, Koko Be Good, a colorful tale of a happy 20-something drifter living in San Francisco about to embark on some big life changes. Be sure to check out her homecoming exhibition, mostly of recent paintings, illustrations, and (hopefully) fan-art (fingers crossed – we hear she’s a big Game of Thrones enthusiast).

A Rocky Horror roller disco Big Gay Warehouse, SF; www.biggaywarehouse.com, Facebook: Rocky Horror Roller Disco. 7pm, sliding scale donation. Dust off your roller skates, this will be the last event ever at the Big Gay Warehouse – for real this time, (sadly) we swear. Be sure to bring some cash because they need help with their moving costs. It will surely be worth every penny with the night they have planned – lot’s of bands, a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show (“I’m just a sweet transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvania”) and a roller disco with DJs spinning everything from – surprise! – disco to house and hardcore. Be sure to check Facebook – the exact address will be disclosed the day of for the newbies.

SUNDAY 10

The Stranger Dinners Various locations, SF; www.strangerdinner.org. Time TBD, $5-10 suggested donation. Tonight (and usually about once or twice a month), groups of six strangers will come together to create a collaborative meal without any expectations or commitment attached. Did you say the guy across from you chews with his mouth full? Gross! You won’t ever have to see him again. But more than likely, you will make a new friend or two, snag a couple of recipes or learn a new joke, because you’re an amazing, outgoing, and adventurous person, right? Bring your favorite dish to share (social lubricants provided) and get ready for a serendipitous adventure! Don’t forget to register online to participate and receive the deets, like time and location.

Sunday Streets: Great Highway! Great Highway, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. The fifth “Streets” of the season returns to the Great Highway. It will begin at the SF Zoo and follow Route 1 to Golden Gate Park and continue down JFK Drive to Stanyan. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, skateboard, or just a plain pair of walking shoes and enjoy the activities and vendors that line the nearly six miles of car-free roads.

The Performant: Impossible weekend! Or: what to do when there’s everything to do?

Andrew Lam

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June 21, 2011

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Bicycle Music Festival and “A Clockwork Orange Afternoon”

Oh lordy, let me catch my breath. Weekend, you have officially kicked my ass.

Merely mortal, I found it difficult to plot an itinerary efficient enough to be able to hit every event that beckoned my attention over those bright and sunny 48 hours. Would I attend the annual Juneteenth street festival or a lecture on the benefits of zombie domestication? Journey to the End of the Night or a CLASH scavenger hunt? Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at Stern Grove or Klaus Kinski at YBCA? Cloning myself seems a more attractive option by the day.

Spoiled for choice, and seeking the sun, I was wooed by the Bicycle Music Festival on Saturday afternoon. Located in the comfy meadow just past the De Young in Golden Gate Park, the Bicycle Music Fest kicked off with local folk rockers StitchCraft. Heather Normandale’s Jolie-Holland husk accompanied by her own guitar and Joey “Cello Joe” Chang wafted sweetly in the mild breeze while a team of stationary-bike pedalers powered up the PA system.

Introduced by festival organizer and Rock the Bike founder Paul “Fossil Fool” Freedman as an “OG” of the Bicycle Music movement, Normandale is a fixture with the Pleasant Revolution bicycle-powered music touring group, including a five-month tour of Europe with fellow BMF-featured performers, The Ginger Ninjas, as well as a participant of the Shake Your Peace 2009 Winter Walking Tour. Next up, Cradle Duende brought the gypsy noise followed by Evan Francis and fellow jazz mafiosos who played a mellow, sax-heavy set, warm as the rare June sunshine.

Solar-charged, pedal-powered, and ready for shade, I made tracks on Sunday for “A Clockwork Orange Afternoon” at the Edinburgh Castle. A celebration of the 40-year anniversary of the notorious Kubrick film made of the Anthony Burgess book of the same name, choice excerpts were read, and partly enacted, by Castle regulars: Jack Boulware as narrator, pub proprietor Alan Black as a slew of bit characters (including a spot-on interpretation of the Prison Chaplain), and bowler-hatted Crispin Barker as “Little Alex”.

At 49, the book itself is still pretty spry, alternating between restless and relentless, full of ultra-violence, yes, and weepy devotchkas and the red, red vino on tap — but not far below the shock value of its remorseless protagonist’s actions lies Burgess’ unwavering belief that the basis for our humanity is our power of choice, for good or for ill.

“When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man,” asserts the prison chaplain doggedly, a statement echoed by Burgess himself in his 1986 essay “A Clockwork Orange, Resucked”. Stripped of his ability to choose his own moral path, and simultaneously losing his ability to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth (for Burgess, a self-taught composer, this was undoubtedly the ultimate cruelty), Alex pays dearly for his state-sanctioned “freedom”. And nearly fifty years later, the dire implications of the “Ludovico technique” still provoke as strongly as any spot of “twenty-to-one”.

Pedaling out in front: Bike Music Festival 2011 shows us what it takes

Andrew Lam

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June 21, 2011

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Pedaling out in front: Bike Music Festival 2011 shows us what it takes

Chilling in the middle of Saturday evening traffic in the Stanyan-Kezar intersection doesn’t seem like a situation engineered to produce warm fuzzy feelings. But the aggressive honk cloud of surely confused, possibly perturbed automobiles behind me mattered little – I was digging too much on the tandems, trailers, and trees rolling past me on two (and three, holler back trikes!) wheels.

In a way, that was all part one of the Bicycle Music Festival organizers, Paul “Fossil Fool” Freedman’s plan. Freedman (who we profiled in our recent Bike To Work issue), co-founder Gabe Dominguez, the Rock the Bike crew, and a superhuman pack of volunteers, staged the fifth year of their outdoor festival on June 18. Once again, it was completely pedal-powered, from the stage to the smoothies.

The fest started out in Golden Gate Park, in a concave field near Stowe Lake. But it was no day in the park to implement, this plan.

At the festival’s peak, 12 in-shape attendees, pumping away on bikes hooked up to electrical generators, were needed to keep the tunes going. A flashing LED stick and a multi-colored tube holding a floating soda can were used to monitor the voltage being produced.

When I hopped aboard for my turn to pump up the jams, I was surprised to find that the levels being generated by the bikers weren’t always enough to keep the music moving. In fact, during the second-to-last set of the night (when temperatures were dropping rapidly and a tired crowd had begun to disperse), rapper Ashel Eldrige lost power momentarily.

Periodically, a core volunteer held up a handmade “PEDAL” sign. To, you know, make people pedal harder.

This would cause a meltdown in many event organizers — but then, Freedman’s not your typical event organizer. “I think it’s cool that it works that way,” he said in a phone interview with the Guardian.

“We’re used to things being ‘on.’ I think it’s a cool message that if you don’t show up, we’re not going to be able to have our festival.”

For Freedman, the Bicycle Music Festival is more about the journey. In fact, it was his favorite part of Saturday. After an already full day featuring female Latin rock vocalists, pedal-churned ice cream, mass instances of square-dancing, and a solid chunk of klezmer, it was time to pack it all up and head to the next location – Showplace Triangle, an intersection in Potrero Hill that has been converted into a temporary community plaza by urban sustainability group Rebar. There, the second half of the lineup would commence, including tunes from the California Honeydrops and an aerial acrobatist who’d cavort from a hoop attached to Freedman’s infamous tree-on-a-bike, El Arbol.

Around six p.m., volunteers had racked up all stage equipment (including the Ginger Ninjas, a three piece band who re-stationed itself on the stage after it had been securely affixed to the back of a three wheeled trike), all the bike-powered smoothie machines, and lineup posters. The hundreds of biking music lovers at the fest had also boarded their bikes, and we all looked on in awe at the bike mechanic flaunting of the laws of physics that was being performed.

I had volunteered to help out as a “turn marshall” on the ride so that my fellow partiers could cruise without fear of being crushed by an impatient commuter, so I was up at the front of the pack near the more complicated endeavors.

“This isn’t the first time that you’re… doing this, right?” I asked Mark Sullivan, the brave soul who had been selected (while he was out of the room, he told me) to tote the live music across town. “Well, we’ve done it. Maybe not with all the equipment, but yeah…” I made a mental note not to ride in front of the band bike going down a hill.

Off we went, the music playing, and random spurts of cheering erupting as they are wont to do in such mass bike rides. I detached on Stanyan street to cork traffic and watch the parade of bikes and music and festival. It was a welcome break in my day – and gave me those aforementioned warm fuzzies to be doing something for the fun. But for reports on the rest of the ride we’ll have to turn to Freedman:

“I was really praying for Mark when he was climbing the hill in East Mission. If he had stopped, the trailer would have fallen over. I had an amazing view because I was up high on the tree, but I couldn’t help, so I was just watching him. Then I was praying the brakes would be sound going down the hill.”

Halfway through the ride, at Duboce Park, the second act took the stage: opera singers from the San Francisco Conservatory.

“People were leaning out of windows, it was real street theater,” says Freedman. “Opera doesn’t have a strong beat, but the audio was excellent, and the way [the sound] was echoing off of buildings – it didn’t hurt the song. One singer would give the rock sign after each track ended and everyone would cheer.”

Looking back on the day, its organizer is proud, but convinced that it’s just the beginning. “I don’t think we nailed it like we could have. I’m very grateful for where we are right now, but it can only get better.”

Even more important that the audio quality, Freedman looks forward to growing the people portion of the Bike Music Festival – partially for selfish reasons (he’d like to be able to dance more next year).

Christopher Drellow is Freedman’s neighbor. Saturday was his first major role in one of the bike music productions – he rode a heavily loaded bike and trailer from his home in the Mission to both concert locations, and then home at the end of the day. He started out concerned about the heavy load he was toting, but as the day progressed, got sucked into the endless possibilities of bike cargo.

“Because at that point it seemed clear that, well fuck it, it can clearly be done. I even invited passengers onto the load because suddenly [I] became interested in what can’t be done on these things — like, at what point will this fail? Or call it my hubris, that’s fine too.”

All told, he was bike-musicking from nine a.m. to three in the morning, which gave him ample time to reflect on what it meant to power over 15 musical acts for a daylong party.

“I guess primarily what I’ve been thinking about has been BMF indicating a kind of proof that transitioning off fossil fuel driven machines will not be easy. And that it will be totally doable.”

All the hustling, all the saddle sores – these are the real cost of powering a festival. Somewhat akin to Mark Zuckerberg’s recent, much ballyhooed decision to eat only the animals that he killed personally, one has to wonder if people would party the same way if they knew what it cost in fossil fuel to bring the beat back (and back, and back).

Or maybe low-emission festivity would just mean a shift in what we think of as a celebration. “ People pitch in their different skills and talents and energy and love,” says Freedman. “We need positive examples of that to reaffirm our faith in living together in a city. There are advantages to living in a tight space, you can pull things off that you can’t do in car culture suburbia.”

Says Drellow: “It’s something of a time-honored tradition for people to cling to the assumption that something is impossible until someone else goes out and does it. Seeing the work done is something people kind of need. And okay, perhaps there are circumstances where bicycles are not the solution. But they seem to work pretty damn well beyond our common understanding of them. So I guess that’s what Paul Freedman is doing.”

Rock the Bike is working on the first NYC bike-powered music festival this weekend. (Freedman told us it’ll have the “most amazing” pedal-powered sound yet.) If you’re East Coastin’, check it out. The crew will be back in SF to perform at the July 10 Great Highway Sunday Streets and the July 31 SF Marathon.

Heroes and hoedowns

Andrew Lam

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June 14, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

FRAMELINE This year’s Bay Area-centric Frameline features run a thematic and identification gamut appropriate to the festival’s ever-inclusive programming. Several are celebrations of local LGBT heroines and heroines, some recently deceased and some still-with-us.

Scott Gracheff’s With You commemorates the life and legacy of late local resident Mark Bingham, who famously died on United Airlines Flight 93 and is strongly suspected of being among the passengers who stormed the cockpit and prevented that hijacked Newark-to-SFO flight from reaching its presumed governmental target in Washington, D.C., on 9/11.

As his activist mother Alice Hoagland and everyone else here says, it’s the sort of thing he would do — Bingham was, among other things, an avid rugby player, metalhead, daredevil, UC Berkeley frat president, world-class partier, several-time arrestee (for reckless hijinks rather than criminal menace), bear chaser, global traveler, dot-com-wave surfer, and “human labrador retriever” (as a long-term boyfriend calls him). He lived a very full life and doubtlessly would have continued living it to the limit if this encounter with terrorism hadn’t cut his time short at 31.

A life that remained eventful for nearly three times that length was that of Del Martin, who along with surviving partner Phyllis Lyon founded SF’s Daughters of Bilitis — the nation’s first lesbian political and social organization — in the highly conservative climate of 1955. They remained highly active in feminist, gay, senior, and other progressive causes over the decades. Martin’s death in 2008 at age 87 occasioned a tribute in the City Hall rotunda that is captured by veteran local filmmaker Debra Chasnoff’s Celebrating the Life of Del Martin. This hour-long document demonstrates the breadth of Martin’s influence as prominent politicians, musicians, authors, progressive and religious leaders, et al. pay homage.

How exactly to honor our dead is the question at the heart of Andy Abrahams Wilson’s very polished The Grove, which charts the creation of the National AIDS Memorial Grove — an idea brought to fruition by the surviving partner of local landscape gardener Stephen Marcus — as well as some struggles over its visibility (even most visitors to Golden Gate Park don’t seem to know it’s there) and purpose.

When a recent contest was held for an installation to be added to the site, two women designers won with a striking sculptural concept intended to make a potent statement à la D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial about the disease’s devastation. But the grove’s current board shot it down, preferring to maintain the space’s leafy, meditative feel — even if that might also maintain its relative public invisibility. Should the memorial comfort those who directly suffered loss, or metaphorically convey that loss in vivid terms for future generations?

Very much living with HIV — emphasis on the living part — is the subject of Dain Percifield’s Running in Heels: The Glendon “Anna Conda” Hyde Story. Glendon Hyde a.k.a. Anna Conda fled a horrific Bible Belt background to become one of SF’s premier drag personalities, running the Cinch’s popular Friday night Charlie Horse revue for five years until a new condo’s complaining tenants shut that down. Enraged by the city’s “war on fun,” hostility toward the homeless, and other issues to boot, he joined 13 other candidates running for District 6 (Tenderloin) supervisor last year. He didn’t win, but this doc will make you hope he tries again.

Last but far from least is this year’s sole Bay Area narrative feature, shot largely in Fruitvale even if it is set in Texas. A big leap from writer director David Lewis’ prior features, Longhorns is a delightful romantic comedy about several 1982 Lone Star state frat boys dealing with sexual impulses and related emotions that might — oh lawd no — mean they’s quar, not just “messing around.” With some soundtracked songs by H.P. Mendoza (2006’s Colma: The Musical), this total charmer is (as one character puts it) “hotter’n a billy goat in a pepper patch.”

FRAMELINE 35: SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL LGBT FILM FESTIVAL

June 16–26, most films $9–$15

Various venues

www.frameline.org

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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June 14, 2011

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tredmond@sfbg.com

I heard Phil Ginsburg, the head of the San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks, on KQED’s Forum June 13, talking about the state of the public parks, and he got the usual angry calls. One person wanted to know why it costs so much to play on the city’s ball fields. Another wanted to know why the city is working with a private foundation to put artificial turf and big lights out at the end of Golden Gate Park. (I still don’t understand why the baseball field at Holly Park is always — always — locked and nobody seems to be allowed to play on it at all. Except the people who jump the fence. Not that my kids and I would know anything about that.)

Ginsburg did his best to duck and weave and answer — and portray this as a tough situation with a lack of public resources. But what he didn’t say is that the overall mission of the department has changed over the past few years. Dramatically. And it follows an alarming national trend that, ironically, started right here in San Francisco, with the Presidio National Park.

When the Sixth Army moved out of the Presidio and the land reverted to the National Park Service, Republicans in Congress threatened to sell it off. The NPS was short of money to develop and maintain the place, so Rep. Nancy Pelosi came up with a plan. She turned the park into a semiprivate enclave run by a board of real-estate developers with a mandate to become economically self-sufficient. Step one: give that notable Marin County pauper George Lucas a $50 million tax break to build a commercial office building in the middle of a national park.

It was a terrible precedent. Public parks aren’t supposed to be money-making enterprises. But it took hold — and now Ginsburg is following the same model.

Rec and Parks these days is all about commercialization. The recreation centers are leased to private operations. More and more park space is going to private food vendors. The Stowe Lake concession is set to become an upscale café (run by an out-of-town outfit). The City Fields Foundation, run by the sons of Gap Inc. founder Don Fisher, is taking over soccer fields. It costs money for tourists to visit the arboretum.

I know: there’s no cash, the city’s broke, and Ginsburg says this is the only way to keep the department running. But it’s really dangerous — because once you treat the public commons as a commodity, you’ve crossed a line. And it’s hard to go back.

Our Weekly Picks: June 15-21, 2011

Maria Poblet

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June 14, 2011

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WEDNESDAY 15

EVENT

“Snakes and Lizards: The Summer of Slither”

“It is I; be not afraid.” Such were the comforting words, according to the Gospel of John, spoketh by Jesus C. unto his disciples after he reportedly walked across the sea. Now imagine another creature — right here, right now — capable of sprinting across the water: the neon-emerald mini-pterodactyl “green basilisk lizard,” expressing the same sentiment through its namesake stare. Need you be afraid of the 60 snakes and lizards — collectively known as “squamates” — visiting the California Academy of Sciences till September? Maybe. But these scaly species, along with their academy interpreters, have an important role this summer as live ambassadors from the reptilian realm. You just might find God, the devil, Darwin, or all three. (Kat Renz) Through Sept. 5

Mon.–Sat., 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m.;

Sun., 11 a.m.–-5 p.m., $19.95–$29.95

California Academy of Sciences

55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF

(415) 379-8000

www.calacademy.org

THURSDAY 16

PERFORMANCE

Fresh Meat Festival

Fresh Meat, the transgender and queer performance festival, is 10 years fresh this year. And to celebrate, the festival offers its most ambitious program to date, four full nights’ worth of work, including Vogue Evolution, the New York City LGBT street dance group featured on the reality competition America’s Best Dance Crew. Also fleshing out this year’s roster: Los Angeles–based Robbie Tristan and Willem DeVries (same-sex ballroom world champions), New Mexico’s Cohdi Harrell (world-class trapeze artist), Sean Dorsey Dance, Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu (an all-male hula company), the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance Men’s Chorus, glamourpuss singer-songwriter Shawna Virago, and comedian Natasha Muse. (Robert Avila)

Thurs/16–Sat/18, 8 p.m.;

Sun/19, 7 p.m., $15–$20

Z Space at Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

www.freshmeatproductions.org

FRIDAY 17

DANCE

Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater

Recently returned from Mexicali, Mexico, the globetrotting choreographer Kim Epifano brings her art and travels back to SF with a home season work at the ODC Theater. Solo Lo Que Fue, a dance film shot at Cantina El Norteño, a historic bar in Mexicali, features a site-specific dance with performers from the region. The program also includes Heelomali, a multimedia piece created with composer and didgeridoo master Stephen Kent and Burmese harp player Su Wai, as well as Alonesome/Twosome, a duet inspired by an airmail drawing sent to Epifano by acclaimed artist Remy Charlip with live music by Epifano and Kent. Enjoy this armchair travel from the theater. (Julie Potter)

Fri/17–Sun/19, 8 p.m.; Sun/19, 7 p.m., $16–$20

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odcdance.org

MUSIC

Horrid Red

Imagine an almost ludicrously compact car of obscure design speeding through the Teutonic countryside. It’s the early to mid-1980s. Driver and passenger, both with shaved heads and dressed entirely in black, are leaving their usual neon-soaked haunts in Berlin for a weekend in the mountains. They are very much in love, and Horrid Red is the soundtrack to their affections. Featuring three-fourths of shitgaze pioneers Teenage Panzerkorps, Horrid Red eschews the aggression of this other incarnation and opts instead for a near-perfect and haunting blend of krautrock, new wave, and early minimalist punk. Split between two continents (vocalist Bunker Wolf lives in Germany while the rest of the band resides right here in San Francisco), Horrid Red is a collaborative effort that only rarely allows for live performance. In other words, don’t miss them. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

With Burial Hex and Brute Heart

9:30 p.m., $8

Hemlock

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

SATURDAY 18

DANCE

Patricia Bulitt

Patricia Bulitt is for the birds. Literally. She has been making dances about them for more than 30 years, first in Alaska, most recently in New Zealand and Japan. To her they are harbingers of peace and beauty, qualities she finds woefully absent in our humdrum existence, and her dances honor them. One piece was dedicated to the native birds of Lake Merritt in an Oakland refuge, another to a blackbird residing in grove on the UC Berkeley campus. But her biggest love is the majestic egret. Her Egretfully, performed on the lawn below the nesting couples at the Audubon Canyon Ranch, has become an annual event. (Rita Felciano)

2–4 p.m., free (contributions requested)

Audubon Canyon Ranch

4900 Shoreline Hwy., Stinson Beach

415-868-9244

www.egret.org

MUSIC

Pete Rock

Pete Rock recently tweeted about “dat Montel Williams blender, the fucking truth. Watch ur fingers, dat shit will blend ur joints up nicely lol.” A mainstay of classic 1990s hip-hop, Pete Rock isn’t new to blending, plucking from the depths of R&B, funk, and jazz records for his signature fusion of music styles. With his kitchen blender, Rock concocted an “apple, celery, parsley drink” and declared that “man dis shit is good.” Tonight is the chance to see what he’ll cook up outside the kitchen, as the legendary producer performs a two-hour set. In the spirit of remixes, Yoshi’s offers Japanese delicacies to sample alongside the music. (David Getman)

10:30 p.m., $25

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

EVENT

Northern California Pirate Festival

Arrr! Forget about all other expeditions ye may have plotted for this here comin’ weekend, ya lousy bilge rats! Ye best be settin’ sail for swashbuckling adventures of all manner at the fifth annual Northern California Pirate Festival, a true buccaneer’s dream come true. Costumed revelry, sword-fighting, sailing ships, canon firings, music, food, grog, wenches, treasure, and more be in store, whether ye be a seasoned deck hand or a curious landlubber. What better way to spend Father’s Day weekend than to take Dad to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick — be warned, ye may want to bring along a healthy ration of rum — and then make way for a festival where you may actually walk away with $5,000 in gold coins and treasure? (Sean McCourt)

10 a.m.–6 p.m., free

Vallejo Waterfront Park

Adjacent to Vallejo Ferry Terminal

298 Mare Island Way, Vallejo

1-800-921-YARR

www.norcalpiratefestival.com

MUSIC

Bill Callahan

Apocalypse, Bill Callahan’s follow-up to 2009’s beautiful Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, is a striking left turn from the lush production and personal reflection that populated much of that album. Instead, with his deeply rich baritone always front and center in the mix, Callahan has created a song cycle more in line with the fractured folk and wry humor of Smog, the alias he worked under for nearly 20 years. Apocalypse stretches eight songs over the course of 40 minutes, each full of stark takes on American roots music and wrapped in simple, haunting arrangements. It’s another example of Callahan’s slow, steady climb to the upper echelon of modern American songwriters. (Landon Moblad)

With Michael Chapman

9 p.m., $20

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

SUNDAY 19

MUSIC

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

To ring in its 74th season of free summer performances, organizers of the Stern Grove Festival enlist Motown-revivalist masters Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. With a massive voice in the lead and instruments authentic to the period, the band is tailor-made for the festival circuit and outdoor arenas. Today’s concert is the first of many to come this summer, including performances by Neko Case, Aaron Neville, and the trifecta that is the SF Symphony, Ballet, and Opera. Nothing beats listening to Sharon Jones and Co. jam — other than listening to Sharon Jones while picnicking on rolling hills.Beer and wine welcome. (Getman)

With Ben L’Oncle Soul

2 p.m., free

Sigmund Stern Grove

19th Ave. at Sloat, SF

(415) 252-6252

www.sterngrove.org

FILM

Wings of Desire

Before there was City of Angels (1998), and before there was “Stillness Is the Move,” there was 1987’s Wings of Desire. Three years after Paris, Texas, German New Wave director Wim Wenders made this art film that went on to inspire that insipid remake, as well as the Dirty Projectors’ pop song. An angel falls for a mortal trapeze artist amid the graffitied wasteland of West Berlin and sheds his wings in exchange for love, mortality, and coffee. With music from Nick Cave and Crime and the City Solution, it’s essential viewing for all the hopeless romantics hopelessly trapped in the ’80s, before being so was hip or ironic. Wenders just knows. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Sun/19–Mon/20, 7:30 p.m.

Also Sun/19, 2 and 4:45 p.m., $6–$9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

PERFORMANCE

“Hubba Hubba Revue: Flying Saucer Beach Party”

In the vein of classic B-movies from the 1950s and ’60s like Horror of Party Beach (1964), Hubba Hubba Revue’s Flying Saucer Beach Party promises to be a sci-fi summer kick off that will deliver a ghoulishly good time. In addition to a bevy of burlesque beauties from the Bay Area and the greater known universe, the afternoon will feature live surf rock from the Deadlies and Pollo Del Mar, special guests Balrok and the Cave Girls from Creepy KOFY Movie Time, a “Martians, Maidens, and Monsters” swimsuit and costume contest, and much more monstrous fun! (Sean McCourt)

2–8 p.m., $10–$12

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

TUESDAY 21

MUSIC

Martyrdod

When you describe a band as blackened crustcore from Sweden, you’re bound to raise a few eyebrows. Blackened crustcore? Why not just crustcore? Wait … what the hell is crustcore? Martyrdod has been around since 2001 and has consistently carried the banner high for heaviness in punk. What sets it apart from contemporaries, besides how utterly crushing it is, is the subtle way a black metal influence has worked itself into Martyrdod’s records; it’s punk and it’s heavy, but its also gloomy and terse. It’s filled with despair and anger and totally without hope. Think Motorhead if Lemmy was really into Crass and Darkthrone. The atmospheric considerations don’t diminish the intensity of the assault, and Martyrdod emerges on this, its West Coast tour, as a punishing force in punk. (Berkmoyer)

With No Statik and Yadokai

9:30 p.m., $7

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

(415) 550-6994

www.theknockoutsf.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Music Listings

Maria Poblet

-

June 7, 2011

0

WEDNESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Edie Carey, Justin Trawick Hotel Utah. 8pm, $14.

Daniel Castro Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Dirty Boots, Astral Force, Kelly McFarling Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Loquat, Inu, DJ Roll Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $14.

Bruno Mars, Janelle Monae, Mayer Hawthorne and the County Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $37.50.

Matmos, Wobbly Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $18.

My First Earthquake, Le Vice, DJ Bortvans Ltd. Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Naysayers Knockout. 9pm, $5.

Rough Waters, Junior Boogie Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Alex Skolnick Trio San Francisco Marriot Marquis, Bin 55 Lobby Lounge, 55 Fourth St., SF; www.ampkitapp.com. 6pm. Instruments will be played via iPad.

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

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

Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hombres G, Enanitos Verdes Fillmore. 8pm, $55.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, free. Funk, swing, rare grooves, and more with Dr. Musco and guests.

Friendly Fires DJ set Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9:30pm, $10. With DJs Aaron Axelson and White Mike.

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

Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.

THURSDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

Death Cab for Cutie, Lonely Forest Fillmore. 9pm, $35.

Les Dudek Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Diego Garcia, Chairman Wow Hotel Utah. 9pm, $12.

Grouplove, Walk the Moon, Death Cab for Cutie DJ Set Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12.

“I Give a Fuck: Benefit for Natalie ‘SkinFiend’ Chandler” Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10-20. Music and burlesque with Alotta Boutte, BC3, Jackie Strano, Kentucky Fried Woman, and more.

Mental 99 El Rio. 7pm, free.

Miami Horror, Jeffrey Jerusalem, DJ Matthew Grand DNA Lounge. 9pm, $18.

Raw Geronimo Knockout. 9:30pm.

Signal Path, Malah, Neurovoltaic Orchestra Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Lucas Silveira, Joe Stephens, Alex Davis El Rio. 8pm, $10.

Tied to the Branches, Slowness, Summer of Glaciers Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

Krishna Das Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $38.

Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.

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

SF Jazz Hotplate Series Amnesia. 9pm.

Soul jazz party with Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Culture Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Roots reggae, dub, rocksteady, and classic dancehall with DJ Tomas, Yusuke, Vinnie Esparza, and Basshaka and ILWF.

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

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

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

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

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Buzzcocks, Images Slim’s. 9pm, $35.

Detroit Cobras, Girl in a Coma Independent. 9pm, $15.

Extra Action (Electric) Marching Band, Itchy-O Marching Band, Tiger Honey Pot Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15. Also with Amnesia Babies and the Burning Wigs of Sedition.

Farewell Continental, Gold Motel, Here Come the Saviours Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Foxtail Somersault, Sam Flax and Higher Color, Garbaj Kaetz Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Old Firm Casuals, Toughskins, Hounds and Harlots Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

PrOnStar 2.0, My Addiction, Miranda Ferriss Jones Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Si*Sé, Boca Do Rio Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $22.

Timber Timbre, Marissa Nadler Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $15.

Trio Grande Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20. Salute to “the Cream of Clapton.”

Carlos Varela Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Young Widows, My Discos, Hides, Name Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8-10.

Yoya Amnesia. 7pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Jules Broussard Club Deluxe, 1511 Haight, SF; www.sfclubdeluxe.com. 10pm, $10.

Dan Zelman Quartet with Kenny Washington Red Poppy Art House. 9pm, $12-20.

Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

“A Night in Treme” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $20-65. With Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins, Donald Harrison, and more.

Yellowjackets with Robben Ford Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bucky Walters Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Blow Up: Six Year Anniversary Bash DNA Lounge. 10pm, $20. The popular party celebrates six years with Tenderloins, Trevor Simpson, Jeffrey Paradise, and host Ava Berlin.

DJ Sandman Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

Indy Slash Amnesia. 10pm. With DJ Danny White.

Loose Joints! Make-Out Room. 1-pm, $5. Celebrate three years of the underground dance party with Jeremy Ellis, plus Tom Thump, DJ Centipede, and Damon Bell.

Treat ‘Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. DJs Vinnie Esparza, B-Cause, and Relly Rels spin hip-hop, funk, Latin, reggae, and more.

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

SATURDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

An Horse, Poor Bailey, Steve Taylor Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Black Lips, Cerebral Ballzy, Personal and the Pizzas Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Evolfo Doofeht, Rozzi Crane, Candlespit Collective Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Front Line Assembly, Dismantled, Cyanotic, Hardwire, DJ Acucrack Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $20.

Miasmal, Bone Sickness, Mortuous Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

Mutaytor, Brass Menazeri, Motion Potion Independent. 9pm, $25.

Necroveck, Los Gringos Chicanos, Moss Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Jackie Payne Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Shannon and the Clams, Ranx/Xerox, Outdoorsmen Knockout. 10pm, $8.

Sheets, Amalgamation, Kenny Eng Rock-It Room. 8pm, $7.

Si*Sé, Boca Do Rio Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $22.

Slow Poisoner, Crystelles, Tunnel, Agness Twin Retox Lounge. 9pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Golden Gate Park Band Festival” Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park; www.goldengateparkband.org. 11am-5pm. With San Jose Metropolitan Band, Great Mother Lode Brass Band, and more.

Soul jazz party with Jules Broussard and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Yellowjackets, Sandro Albert Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Paula Held Bazaar Café, 5927 California, SF; www.bazaarcafe.com. 7pm, free.

Panteón Rococó Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

“Saturday Night Salsa” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Bootie SF: Girl Tack DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. With Girl Talk tribute act Girl Tack, Smash-Up Derby, Adrian and Mysterious D, John!John!, and more.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-10. Dance party for homos, lezzies, and friends with DJ Natalie Nuxx and VJ Mark Andrus.

Fly Me to the Moon Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 9:30pm, free. Sixties soul, girl groups, and garage with DJs Amy A and DJ the DJ.

Synergy Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $20.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. DJs Shawn Reynaldo and Oro spin electro-cumbia.

SUNDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Fate on Impulse, SuperBabe, Hell 69, and more.

Black Lips, Cerebral Ballzy, Personal and the Pizzas Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Crystelles, Tongue and Teeth, Agness Twin Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Hooray For the Riff Raff, Sam Doores and the Tumbleweeds Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Mother Mother, Frail, Altars Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Brendan Perry and Robin Guthrie Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $25.

Resurrection Men, Our Vinyl Vows, Pounders, John Heart Jackie Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Slow Motion, Crazy Spirit, Young Offenders Knockout. 8:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Golden Gate Park Band Festival” Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park; www.goldengateparkband.org. 11am-5pm. With West County Winds, Golden Gate Park Band, and more.

Willie K. Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-20.

Eddie Marshall, Larry Vuckovich, and Jeff Chambers Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Sunday jazz organ party with Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

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

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.

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

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

MONDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Deftones, Dillinger Escape Plan, Le Butcherettes Warfield. 7:30pm, $35-42.50.

Diamond Rings Independent. 8pm, $12.

Sean and Zander, Cunt Sparrer, Love Songs from the Hated, Roland Finn Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $8.

Wildbirds and Peacedrums, Therapies Son Café Du Nord. 9pm, $14.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

.357 String Band, Human Condition Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Club Metrojolt Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-15. Electro house bangers with Beardforce, DJ Kimo, and DJ Cy.

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

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

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

TUESDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Mark Lanegan, Sean Wheeler, Zander Schloss Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

Maine, Augustana Fillmore. 6:30pm, $20.

Barbara Manning, Boom Bang, Fine Steps Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Jesse Morris and the Man Cougars, Saint Christopher, Kemo Sabe, DJ Jay Jaworski Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson Independent. 8pm, $20.

Rockfight, Atomic Machines, Unko Atama Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Times New Viking, King Tuff, Spencey Dude and the Doodles Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $14.

Michael Yonkers, Sandwitches, Bronze Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Fromagique Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Live music and burlesque with Bombshell Betty and Her Burlesqueteers.

HANC gets a new eviction notice

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

-

June 1, 2011

33

The City and County of San Francisco voluntarily dismissed an eviction notice it had issued to the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center, but then the Recreation & Parks Department promptly sent a new one with a deadline of June 30.

The HANC recycling center and native plant nursery has continued operating in Golden Gate Park’s Kezar Triangle despite an effort initiated last year under former Mayor Gavin Newsom to evict the facility. The recycling center, which also offers compost for urban gardeners and a place to drop off used veggie oil, has been in Golden Gate Park for decades and has formed partnerships with community gardening projects throughout the city.

Rec & Park started making plans to replace it with a community garden last year amid concerns about “quality of life” issues. Some neighbors were bothered by recyclers filling up shopping carts with containers plucked from their sidewalk recycling bins, to trade in for small amounts of cash. Members of HANC, meanwhile, saw the eviction as political payback from Newsom, who encountered stiff opposition from the progressive neighborhood group when he led the charge to place San Francisco’s sit / lie ordinance on the ballot.

The request for dismissal, filed May 26 in San Francisco Superior Court and signed by Attorney David Ammons in the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera, doesn’t provide a clear reason for the move. But Robert De Vries, HANC’s attorney, said the tactic was likely meant to avert legal entanglement by dissolving the first, and more legally problematic, attempt at eviction and replacing it with a new one that may be harder to challenge in court. In a letter to Rec & Park commissioners dated Dec. 2, 2010, De Vries wrote that the first eviction notice was illegal under the structure of the lease that HANC had signed with the city, and asserted that HANC could legally possess the property until June 30, 2011.

Because the dismissal of the first eviction was done “without prejudice,” there was nothing preventing Rec & Park from issuing a new eviction notice, which it did the same day. Rec & Park did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“Your attorney has argued in court that the notice was not effective to terminate the lease,” notes a May 26 letter from Rec & Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg. “While we continue to believe that we gave you more than adequate notice of the Lease termination and to disagree with the assertion that the Lease has continued on a year-to-year basis, to avoid that dispute, we are superseding the earlier notice with this one.”

HANC’s Jim Rhoads told the Guardian that he wasn’t very surprised by Rec & Park’s latest move. “We knew this would happen,” he said. “We’re going to meet with our lawyers, and decide on the legal front what we do next.”

De Vries said he could not discuss all the possible legal angles that HANC could use to try and fight the eviction, but he hinted that the eviction could be considered retaliatory. “This … termination was initiated under Newsom as payback for my client [for opposing] sit / lie,” he said.

Phantom menaces

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

-

May 31, 2011

11

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Does anyone actually believe Ghost Adventures is real? Including its hosts? For the uninitiated, this is the Travel Channel show that locks a trio of doucheba — er, paranormal investigators inside an allegedly haunted location overnight, leaving them with an arsenal of high-tech gadgets to record any paranormal happenings.

Inevitably, these goings-on include supernatural “voices” captured by one of their doohickeys (the voice always sounds exactly like garbled static, but is subtitled into meaning — usually a variation of “Get out!”) Main host Zak Bagans employs obnoxious tactics to goad the spirits into responding. Did you see that one where he decided he needed to bare his telegenically pumped-up chest to provoke the phantom that hated tattoos? It was fully necessary, people. For science. Also, it was 24-karat unintentional comedy gold.

Ghost Adventures and similar shows (main ingredient: shaky, sickly-green night vision) are ripe for parody, but they’re also au courant. As anyone with a pair of eyes and a thirst for blood can attest, there’s been a trend in “I am filming myself at all times” horror since ye olden days of The Blair Witch Project (1999), sure to be buoyed along for another decade-plus thanks to the monster success of 2007’s Paranormal Activity. (Last year’s The Last Exorcism being a prime example.) If these films are fake-real, then shows like Ghost Adventures, which follow regular people through actual abandoned prisons, sanitariums, and the like, are real-fake.

Which brings us to Grave Encounters, a fake-real movie that does a number on Zak Bagans types and delivers some pretty decent scares in the process. (Don’t be put off by the directors’ corny nom de screen, “the Vicious Brothers.” Although, dudes — really?) The film, which closes out the 2011 Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, is introduced by a slick production-company type who assures us that what we are about to see is undoctored video from a ghost-hunting reality show. Seems the crew of Grave Encounters, including lead investigator Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson), have vanished from the crumbling confines of their latest filming location, a decrepit mental hospital with a sinister past.

With this Blair Witch-y setup, the found footage rolls, including outtakes that let us know Lance and company are skeptics not above manipulating circumstances to get the shots they need. The faux-show apes Ghost Adventures‘ title sequence, low-angle shots, and jumpy editing. There’s even a slightly unhinged caretaker on hand to lock the Grave Encounters folks in for the night. And this wouldn’t be a horror movie (as opposed to a highly questionable reality show) if creepy critters didn’t end up coming out to play. It’s not a spoiler to disclose that once doors start slamming by themselves, full-scale shit-hitting-fannage (shades of 2001’s excellent Session 9) is not far behind.

In a similar vein, but with a more succinct running time and more likeable characters, is Haunted Changi, one of HoleHead’s opening-night films. A group of young filmmakers (portrayed by actors who have the same names as their characters) set out to make a documentary about Singapore’s Old Changi Hospital, a vacant structure troubled by the lingering fragments of World War II-era prisoners of war and their decapitation-happy Japanese captors. Plus, the occasional vampire. Old Changi Hospital is apparently a bona fide ghost-hunting hotspot, which makes the fake-real Haunted Changi a little more real than it probably ought to be.

After the four-person crew’s initial visit to the hospital, director Andrew (Andrew Lau, also credited as Haunted Changi‘s director) becomes obsessed with the place, returning again and again to shoot more footage and hang out with a mysterious woman he encounters there. Meanwhile, uptight producer Sheena (Sheena Chung), dreadlocked sound guy Farid (Farid Azlam), and “I am filming myself at all times” camera guy Audi (Audi Khalis) feel the after-effects in different ways — all of them bad.

Haunted Changi features a scene where a group of paranormal investigators use a little kid as their supernatural-activity barometer, like a canary in a coal mine. Way creepy, and one of the few novel ideas in a film that’s solid without being particularly original. Still, Old Changi Hospital has plenty of built-in atmosphere; a real-real documentary on its history would probably be just as scary as Haunted Changi‘s paranormal fantasy.

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL

June 2–17, $11

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.sfindie.com

NUGGETS OF GUTS: SHORT TAKES ON ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD 2011

Absentia (Mike Flanagan, U.S., 2010) Daniel has been missing for seven years. His wife, Tricia (Courtney Bell), has dutifully done all the right things, distributing missing-person posters, mourning, seeking therapy, and filling out the paperwork to have him declared dead in absentia. But — heavily pregnant by a new suitor — she’s more than ready to move on with her life. In town to help with this task is her younger sister, Callie (Katie Parker), a former drug addict who nudges Tricia to look for new apartments and work on her social life. But is Daniel really dead? Tricia’s been having freaky visions that suggest he’s still … somewhere. And what, exactly, is haunting that tunnel down the block from Tricia’s front door? Absentia is an indie-horror find: Bell and Parker are totally believable as sisters who stick together despite their complicated relationship, and writer-director Mike Flanagan conjures serious menace from a benign suburban streetscape. Mon/6, 9:20 p.m.; June 12, 5:20 p.m. (Cheryl Eddy)

Apocrypha (Michael Fredianelli, U.S., 2011) Vampires are about as ubiquitous and tired a pop cultural fixture as the Kardashians and it’s getting harder and harder to come up with an original twist on such a shopworn staple. That’s all the more reason why I wanted Apocrypha, a modestly-budgeted, locally-made indie premiering at HoleHead, to make good on its promising premise that vampires aren’t just bloodsuckers, they’re also amnesiacs. Unfortunately, director Michael Fredianelli (who also coproduced, edited, cowrote, and stars in the film) makes a hot mess out of this neat idea thanks to weak dialogue, inept direction, lackluster performances, and a virulent misogynistic streak that’s far more unsettling than the inevitable torrents of blood. Fredianelli plays Griffith Townsend, a man at wit’s end to understand his growing compulsion to bite the women he takes home. Eventually, his path crosses with Maggie (cowriter and coproducer Kat Reichmuth) — an equally confused woman trying to find out how she woke up in Golden Gate Park — with whom he shares a dark, and somewhat obvious, connection. When Townsend’s job as a senior editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, rather than all the neck-biting, requires the greatest suspension of audience disbelief, you know it’s time to go back to the drawing board. June 11, 3:20 p.m. (Matt Sussman)

Auschwitz (Uwe Boll, Germany, 2010) It takes serious cojones or at least a healthy dose of self-delusion, for Uwe Boll to decide he’s the one to give us a realistic depiction of Auschwitz. Boll is often considered cinema’s most reviled director, known more for his schlocky video game adaptations than for his sense of morality. But in Auschwitz, he does his best to reflect on a horrific atrocity, bookending his portrayal of the death camp with a short documentary in which he questions German youth about the Holocaust. The mind-boggling ignorance on display is somewhat effective, but these teenagers likely know about as much as most American high schoolers — if not more. And Boll’s gritty Auschwitz isn’t the answer: it’s hard to watch at times, and it’s certainly more to the point than Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). But Boll shows his trademark lack of restraint, and the legitimately stirring moments are undercut by shock value violence. June 10, 9:20 p.m.; June 13, 7:20 p.m. (Louis Peitzman)

Helldriver (Yoshihiro Nishimura, Japan, 2010) Leave it to Japanese director Yoshihiro Nishimura (2008’s Tokyo Gore Police) to give us a joyous, blood-soaked twist on zombies. Helldriver‘s living dead are distinguished by the antlers growing out of their foreheads — antlers that can be removed and ground into powder for use as a popular street drug. There’s more of a plot to Helldriver than the set-up, but it’s admittedly a little tough to make sense of it with body parts and buckets of blood flying in all directions. Short version: Kika (Yumiko Hara) has to take down her evil stepmother, who has become the Zombie Queen. To say there are casualties along the way is an understatement — nearly every character is flayed, decapitated, or torn into pieces, all with gleeful abandon. However gross Helldriver may be, it’s an awful lot of fun, an over-the-top, distinctly Japanese reinvention of the genre. Fri/3 and June 13, 9:20 p.m. (Peitzman)

The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue (Mike Bradecich and John LaFlamboy, U.S., 2010) What happens when a pair of slacker brothers (writers-directors-stars Mike Bradecich and John LaFlamboy) inherit a dilapidated apartment building with a perilously low occupancy rate? What if that building also has a pet-eating monster scrambling between its walls? And what’s that ever-hungry monster gonna eat once all the pets are gone? Dilemmas — all of them absurd, some of them gory, and most of them hilarious — abound in this clever, fast-paced cracker featuring Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund in a cameo as a cranky, horny tenant. Chicago-bred comedians Bradecich and LaFlamboy have Simon Pegg-Nick Frost levels of chemistry. Is it too much to hope that the dreaded Mole Man will return so there’ll be a sequel? Sun/5, 7:20 p.m.; Tues/7, 9:20 p.m. (Eddy)

The Oregonian (Calvin Lee Reeder, U.S., 2010) More an experiment in tedium than terror, Calvin Lee Reeder’s The Oregonian will look familiar to anyone who has seen their share of David Lynch movies. Only unlike Lynch, Reeder offers little in the way of narrative or structure to counterbalance all the creepy randomness he throws at us. One can truly sympathize with the film’s nameless heroine — a frightened young woman who, upon waking up in a station wagon covered in blood, embarks on a hellish journey through the Oregon countryside — for in watching The Oregonian in its entirety the audience also undergoes a seemingly endless slog, only the succession of borrowed gestures merely exhausts rather than frightens. If you really want some good backwoods scares, watch Gummo (1997) or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) instead. Sat/4, 9:20 p.m.; June 16, 7:20 p.m. (Sussman)

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet

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May 31, 2011

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

WEDNESDAY 1

Wicked Plants indeed Conservatory of Flowers, 100 JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 831-2090, www.conservatoryofflowers.org. 6:30-8pm, $10. Meet botanical rockstar Amy Stewart, author of the bestselling book Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities – which happens to be the inspiration for the Conservatory’s current exhibition, also called Wicked Plants. Hear about a tree that sheds poison daggers, a red seed that stops the heart, a shrub that causes paralysis, a vine that strangles, and a leaf that triggered a war.

THURSDAY 2

“Bestia Mundi” art opening Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk.; (510) 526-6262, www.boneroompresents.com. 7-9pm, free. Check out the latest work of Ron Pippin, the artist who creates museums of “wunderkammers” – specimens of an empyrean other-world consisting of boxes and skeletons articulated with strange machinery – at his opening for “Bestia Mundi.” Of course, given the venue, you will be able to peruse the wonders of natural history as well as the oddities that the Bone Room has to offer.

FRIDAY 3

Small space, big taste Books, Inc., 2551 Chestnut, SF; (415) 931-3633 , www.booksinc.net, www.biggirlssmallkitchen.com. 7pm, free. Having a large kitchen, especially in San Francisco, is not always an option. Quarter-life Cooks Cara Eisnepress and Phoebe Lapine understand all too well and have got you covered with their new cookbook to accompany their cooking blog, Big Girls Small Kitchen. They teach you everything from buying your first spatula to must-have kitchen essentials and recipes that reflect a twenty-something and cramped-for-space point-of-view.

SATURDAY 4

Eco-urban festival Union Street between Gough and Steiner, SF; www.unionstreetfestival.com. Sat/4 and Sun/5, 10am-6pm, free. This year the Union Street Festival promises to be even more focused on on health, green education, and sustainable living. Dine at the many healthy food booths, cafes, and bistros, and peruse the local green vendors while listening to live entertainment featuring jazz, classical and swing music. But be sure to leave your brown bags at home – this year the festival is alcohol-free.

King of RPGs launch party Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 5:30-7:30pm, free. Celebrate the release of the second volume of this popular Graphic novel, King of RPGs, a tongue-in-cheek tale of nerd rage due to a crippling World of Warcraft addiction. Tonight, writer and manga expert Jason Thompson and artist Victor C. Hao meet and greet fans with beverages, light food and a talk about the process of making professionally published manga.

SUNDAY 5

Dance church el Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3323, www.elriosf.com. 11am-3pm, $3-$5 suggested donation. Its parties like this that helped save Lyon Martin Health Services from closure, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop showing the love. This Sunday’s Dance Church – a booty dancing, bloody mary drinking alternative to traditional church – will be donating the cover charges to the much needed health clinic. There will be breakfast, bloody marys (of course,) and a queer communion on the back patio.

MONDAY 6

The Lazy Gourmet book launch party Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620, www.twolazygourmets.com. 6-9pm, free with drink purchase. Help celebrate the launch of Robin Donovan and Juliana Gallin’s new cookbook, The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy, and learn how even the most unmotivated person with an empty stomach can make simple, elegant, and delicious dishes. Come hungry, buy a book, and sample the recipes prepared by the authors themselves.

TUESDAY 7

Viral Time Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, SF; (415) 752-5537, www.longnow.org. 7-8:30pm, $10, free for members. This installment of the Long Now Foundation’s monthly series called “Seminars About Long-term Thinking” features science journalist Carl Zimmer as he discusses blazingly fast and ancient viral time in his new book, A Planet of Viruses. Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand hosts this discussion about these microscopic organisms – some good, some bad – that are a major engine for the evolution of all other life on the planet.

Whore! Magazine release party Casanova Lounge, 527 Valencia, SF; www.whoremagazine.net. 7-10pm, free. The second issue of Whore! Magazine – the quarterly publication that celebrates the women who define themselves outside of the status quo – features vagina fashion, women of the French Revolution, feminism (duh!), and more. Kick back with a cocktail among like-minded feministas and give cheers to another issue of this provocative magazine.

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet

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May 24, 2011

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

WEDNESDAY 25

Diva Dare tour Books Inc., 2275 Market, SF; (415) 864-6777, www.thedivadoctrine.com. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Drag starlet Chlamydia Killroy joins author Patricia Davis – who challenges all women to channel their inner diva in her new book, The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know – for a book signing and costume contest. Dress like a diva and enter to win a basket of goodies while you sip bubbly and nibble the food of the goddesses (a.k.a., strawberries and chocolates.)

Slow Sex premier Minna Street Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 7-10pm, free. Join OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone for a soiree celebrating the publication of her new book, Slow sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm, with a burlesque show, cocktails, and beats by DJ Gray. Of course their will be readings from the book and a chance to go home with an autographed copy, as well as sexy surprises that you won’t want to miss.

THURSDAY 26

“Retelling Stories” Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. 7pm, $6. Enjoy A night of not-totally-depressing film storytelling in conjunction with the current window installation “Necrocapital: AIDS in the Age of Surplus Value” – a chandelier made of hundreds of pill bottles created in response to Governor Jerry Brown’s cuts to AIDS patient funding. The films are intended to be a lighter, more tongue-in-cheek route to addressing an intense issue, like a re-scripted biography of the closeted Liberace as a young AIDS activist in the short film LIBERACEÓN.

FRIDAY 27

Cultural encounters de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 750-3600, www.deyoungmuseum.org, 6-8:45pm, free. Save your Anthropology tuition and attend this special presentation of the “two spirits” tradition – a modern term for ancient gender-bending that describes Native Americans who express both masculine and feminine qualities. Performers and artists from a variety or tribes will provide an evening of cultural immersion for the whole family with poetry and dance performances, discussions, percussive instrument-making, and more.

Smart night out Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 321-1383, www.ybca.org. 7-11:30pm, free with RSVP. Explore the concept of quiet as it relates to contemporary art and performance with a silent dance party that interacts with the gallery artwork and architecture, ambient sound art, workshops led by the artists of the “Daily Lives” exhibit, and more. Later on in the evening, Kid Kameleon and the Hard French DJs will pump up the volume for a more traditional and less conceptual dance floor affair.

SATURDAY 28

“Chop Shop” Plug and Play, 1353 Bush St., SF; bourgeoisgirl@gmail.com, Facebook: Chop Shop. 3:30-7pm, $5. Realize your dreams of becoming a rock star at this open audition for musicians – a one-stop chop shop for mingling and meeting your future band-mates. Here’s how it works: you bring your guitars, drumsticks, and vocal chords (they provide all the big stuff) and get yourself video-recorded and uploaded on to the event’s YouTube channel. All auditions will be available for viewing for a month. Even if you can’t make it to the event, you can still upload a video of your own, or simply peruse the auditions on the YouTube channel. Smart!

SUNDAY 29

Trash Mash-Up at Carnaval Mission and 17th St., SF; (415) 752-5537, www.trashmashup.org. 9:30am, free. The Mission District celebrates Carnaval with music, food, dance, crafts, and a parade featuring lavish floats, costumed dancers, international musicians, and colorful paraders. Follow the spectacle from Bryant and 24th Street to Mission and 17th Street. The parade will flow into a festival area featuring the Trash Mash-Up community art project where participants can make their own splendid costumes out of – you guessed it – trash!

A Clockwork Orange party The Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary St., SF; (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com. 2pm, $7. Get a group of your favorite droogs together and brush up on your Nadsat slang – This month marks the 40th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, a film that Steven Spielberg once called “the most dangerous film” and Burgess himself claimed was misinterpreted, yet brilliant. You can surely expect Moloko Milkbar-themed cocktails, viddys on the screen, raffle prizes, readings, and spooky selections from the intense soundtrack.

Your summer guide to art escapes

Andrew Lam

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May 18, 2011

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Living in San Francisco means having the richness of art in a major city, and the natural beauty of California all in one fell swoop. Here’s your guide to enjoying urban escapes and art and live performance – at the same time! – this summer. Also, check out our guides to the season’s falls and festivals, movies, music, and best adventures you can go on without a car.

WITHIN THE CITY

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

With three stages of free performances, this festival is perfect for a dose of culture and fresh air during your lunch hour with music, dance, theater, and readings. There’s weekend concerts too: the SF Mime Troupe performs Aug. 21, SF’s local songbird Meklit Hadero on Aug. 27, and SF’s pluckiest free ring wraiths, Circus Bella return to the lawn for the weekend of July 1-2.

May through September, free. www.ybgf.org

Stern Grove Festival

Stern Grove’s eucalyptus tree surroundings create a pretty magical summer stage for free performances. The experience gets even better when you pack a tasty picnic spread to enjoy — but leave your umbrellas and high-back chairs at home to keep the peace with those who didn’t snag the primo front row spots. In addition to the annual appearances of the San Francisco Ballet, Opera and Symphony, the concert lineup features Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, the Jazz Mafia Symphony, Neko Case, Afrocubism, The English Beat, Aaron Neville, and Javier Limon and Buika.

Sundays, June 19-August 21, free. www.sterngrove.org

San Francisco Mime Troupe at Dolores Park

Enjoy palm trees and revolutionary spirit with your Tecate: with this historic troupe of not-mimes – forget the pantomime, this is socially relevant theater in the park.

July 2, 3, 4, free. www.sfmt.org

San Francisco Symphony in the Park

This year’s concert, which will be performed in Sharon Meadow, features conductor Michael Francis and pianist Valentina Lisitsa on a program of Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

July 10, 2 p.m., free. www.sfsymphony.org

Shakespeare in the Park, The Presidio

Bring the whole family for this year’s performance of Cymbeline at the Presidio’s Main Post Parade Ground Lawn.

September 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25, free. Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.sfshakes.org

Opera in the Park

This year’s annual concert, also in Sharon Meadow, features a special musical program commemorating the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.

September 11, 1:30 p.m., free. Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.sfopera.com

AND BEYOND…

Oliver Ranch

Seventy miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County, Oliver Ranch boasts scenic acres and 18 site-specific installations by artists such as Bruce Nauman and Richard Serra, as well as Ann Hamilton’s distinct tower where commissioned dance, poetry, theater, and music performances unfold. The tower structure – defined by two staircases built in a double helix form that accommodate the audience on one staircase and the performers on the other — suits a range of sensory projects and performances hosting artists like Meredith Monk and the Kronos Quartet. Limited capacity allows for only 100 visitors, making this ticket a splurge — but it’s all good, each concert in the tower benefits a non-profit organization. June appearances include Pauline Oliveros and Terry and Jo Harvey Allen. Should you be lucky enough to get tickets, be sure to bring some water and sunscreen and make a day of it visiting all the nearby wineries.

Various dates in June, prices vary. 22205 River, Geyserville. (510) 412-9090, www.oliverranchfoundation.org

Headlands Center for the Arts open house

Just across the bridge in the rugged Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Headlands Center for the Arts synthesizes natural and urban environments in a cluster of historic, 1900s military buildings at Fort Barry among hills, cliffs, coves, and beaches. At the center’s summer open house, artists open their studios to the public to show their works-in-progress and talk with visitors about their creative process in a variety of disciplines. Catch one of the many performances and readings scheduled throughout the day and then head to the mess hall, which is transformed into a café serving delicious homemade snacks at down-home prices for the event. While you’re there, a hike through the windy Headland hills is a must-do.

July 24, 12-5 p.m., free. 944 Fort Barry, Sausalito. (415) 331-2787, www.headlands.org

Robert Mondavi Winery Summer Music Festival

One of the first wineries in the Napa Valley, the Robert Mondavi Winery offers much more than sipping, swilling, and spitting. A concert series scheduled for Saturday nights in July features music in an open-air setting and this summer’s lineup includes Gavin DeGraw, Colbie Caillat, David Foster, Chris Isaak, K.D. Lang, and the Siss Boom Bang. Mondavi’s grounds also include an art gallery open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with artifacts and paintings as well as a sculpture collection focused on the work of San Francisco artist, Beniamino Bufano, displayed in the main courtyard surrounded by rows of vines. Head here for a fancy summer night of outdoor music and wind down after an afternoon of tastings.

Saturdays in July, $75-$105. 7801 St. Helena Hwy., Oakville. (888) 766-6328, www.robertmondavi.com

Summer fairs and festivals

Maria Poblet

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May 17, 2011

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ONGOING

Young At Art Festival de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 695-2441, www.youngatartsf.com. Through May 22, free. The creative achievements of our city’s youth are celebrated in this eight day event curated and hosted by the de Young Museum.

* Oakland Asian Cultural Center Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St., Oakl. (510) 637-0462, www.oacc.cc. Through May 26. Times and prices vary. Music, lectures, performances, family-friendly events in honor of Asian and Pacific American culture and traditions.

DIVAfest Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF. (415) 931-2699, www.theexit.org. Through May 28. Times and prices vary. Bastion of the alternative, EXIT Theatre showcases its 10th annual buffet of fierce women writers, performers, and directors. This year features two plays, beat poetry, musical exploration, and more.

* Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and Third St., SF. (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct. 31. Times vary, free. A series of cultural events, performances, activities, music, and children and family programs to highlight the green goodness of SoMa’s landscaped oasis.

May 18-June 5

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues. (415) 399-9554, www.sfiaf.org. Times and prices vary. Celebrate the arts through with this mish-mash of artistic collaborations dedicated to increasing human awareness. Artists included hail from around the world and right here in the Bay Area.

May 21

* A La Carte & Art Castro St. between Church and Evelyn, Mountain View. (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. With vendors selling handmade crafts, microbrewed beers, fresh foods, a farmers market, and even a fun zone for kids, there’s little you won’t find at this all-in-one fun fair.• Asian Heritage Street Celebration Larkin and McAllister, SF. www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. This year’s at the country’s largest gathering of APA’s promises a Muay Thai kickboxing ring, DJs, and the latest in Asian pop culture fanfare — as well as tasty bites to keep your strength up.

Freestone Fermentation Festival Salmon Creek School, 1935 Bohemian Hwy, Sonoma. (707) 479-3557, www.freestonefermentationfestival.com. Noon-5pm, $12. Learn about the magical wonders of fermentation with hands-on and mouth-on demonstrations, exhibits, and tasty live food nibbles.

Uncorked! San Francisco Wine Festival Ghirardelli Square, SF. (415) 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, $45-50 for tasting tickets, free for other activities. Uncorked! brings you the real California wine experience with tastings, cooking demonstrations, and even a wine 101 class for those who are feeling not quite wine-refined.

May 20-29

SF Sex Worker Film and Art Festival Various venues, SF. (415) 751-1659, www.sexworkerfest.com. Times and prices vary. Webcam workshops, empowering film screenings, shared dialogues on plant healing to sex work in the age of HIV: this fest has everything to offer sex workers and the people who love ’em.

May 22

Lagunitas Beer Circus Lagunitas Brewing Co., 1280 N McDowell, Petaluma. (303) 447-0816, www.craftbeer.com. Noon-6pm, $40. All the wonders of a live circus — snake charmers, plate spinners, and sword swallowers — doing their thing inside of a brewery!

May 21-22

* Maker Faire San Mateo County Event Center, 2495 South Delaware, San Mateo. www.makerfaire.com. Sat, 10am- 8pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, $5-25. Make Magazine’s annual showcase of all things DIY is a tribute to human craftiness. This is where the making minds meet.• Castroville Artichoke Festival Castroville, Calif. (831) 633-0485, www.artichokefestival.org. Sat., 10am- 6pm; Sun., 11 am- 4:30 p.m., free. Pay homage to the only vegetable with a heart: the artichoke. This fest does just that, with music, parades, and camping.

May 28-29

San Francisco Carnaval Harrison between 16th and 22nd St., SF. 10am-6pm, free. The theme of this year’s showcase of Latin and Caribbean culture is “Live Your Fantasy” — bound to bring dreams alive on the streets of the Mission.

June 3-12

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Various venues, Healdsburg. (707) 433-463, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org. Times and prices vary. Bask in the lounge-lit glow of all things jazz-related at this celebration in Sonoma’s wine county.

June 3-July 3

SF Ethnic Dance Festival Zellerbach Hall, Berk. and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. www.worldartswest.org. Times and prices vary. A powerful display of world dance and music taking to the stage over the course of five weekends.

June 4

* Berkeley World Music Festival Telegraph, Berk. www.berkeleyworldmusicfestival.org. Noon-9pm, free. Fourteen world music artists serenade the streets and stores of Telegraph Avenue and al fresco admirers in People’s Park.

Huicha Music Festival Gundlach Bundschu Winery, 2000 Denmark St., Sonoma. (707) 938-5277, www.gunbun.com/hmfevent. 2-11pm, $55. Indie music in the fields of a wine country: Fruit Bats, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Sonny and the Sunsets, and more.

June 4-5

Union Street Eco-Urban Festival Union from Gough to Steiner and parts of Octavia, SF. (800) 310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Festival goers will have traffic-free access to Cow Hollow merchants and restaurant booths. The eco-urban theme highlights progressive, green-minded advocates and products.

The Great San Francisco Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center, Building A., SF. (415) 383-7837, home.earthlink.net/~sfxtl/index.html. Sat., 10am-6pm; Sun., 10am-4pm, $6. Gems and all they have to offer: beauty, fashion, and mysterious healing powers.

June 5

* Israel in the Gardens Yerba Buena Gardens, SF. (415) 512-6420, www.sfjcf.org. 11am-5pm, free. One full day of food, music, film, family activities, and ceremonies celebrating the Bay Area’s Jewish community and Israel’s 63rd birthday.

June 10-12

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa. www.harmonyfestival.com. 10am-10pm, $45 one day, $120 for three day passes. This is where your love for tea, The Flaming Lips, goddess culture, techno, eco-living, spirituality, and getting drunk with your fellow hippies come together in one wild weekend.

Queer Women of Color Film Festival Brava Theater. 2789 24th St., SF. (415) 752-0868, www.qwocmap.org. Times vary, free. A panel discussion called “Thinkers and Trouble Makers,” bisects three days of screenings from up-and-coming filmmakers with stories all their own.

June 11-12

* Live Oak Park Fair 1301 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 227-7110, www.liveoakparkfair.com. 10am-6pm, free. This festival’s 41st year brings the latest handmade treasures from Berkeley’s vibrant arts and crafts community. With food, face-paint, and entertainment, this fair is perfect for a weekend activity with the family.

June 11-19

San Mateo County Fair San Mateo County Fairgrounds. 2495 S. Delaware, San Mateo. www.sanmateocountyfair.com. June 11, 14, 18, and 19, 11am-10pm; all other days, noon-10pm, $10 for adults. It features competitive exhibits from farmers, foodies, and even technological developers — but let’s face it, we’re going to see the pig races.

June 12

* Haight Ashbury Street Fair Haight between Stanyan and Ashbury, SF. www.haightashburystreetfair.org. 11am-5:30pm, free. Make your way down to the grooviest corner in history and celebrate the long-standing diversity and color of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, featuring the annual battle of the bands.

June 16-26

Frameline Film Festival Various venues, SF. www.frameline.org. Times and prices vary. This unique LGBT film festival comes back for its 35th year showcasing queer documentaries, shorts, and features.

June 17-19 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds. 14400 CA-128, Boonville. (916) 777-5550, www.snwmf.com. Fri, 6pm-midnight; Sat, 11am-midnight; Sun, 11am-10pm, $60 for Friday and Sunday day pass; $70 for Saturday day pass, $150 three day pass. Featuring Rebulution, Toots and the Maytals, and Jah Love Sound System, this fest comes with a message of peace, unity, and love through music.

June 18

Summer SAILstice Encinal Yacht Club, 1251 Pacific Marina, Alameda. (415) 412-6961, www.summersailstice.com. 8am-8pm, free. Boat building, sailboat rides, sailing seminars, informational booths, music, a kid zone, and of course, wind, sun, and water.

Pinot Days Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 382-8663, www.pinotdays.com. 1-5pm, $50. Break out your corkscrews and head over to this unique event. With 220 artisan winemakers pouring up tastes of their one-of-a-kind vino, you better make sure you’ve got a DD for the ride home.

June 18-19

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, SF. (800) 310-6563, www.northbeachchamber.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, free. Make your way down to the spaghetti capital of SF and enjoy food, music, arts and crafts booths, and the traditional blessing of the animals.

Marin Art Festival Marin Civic Center, San Rafael. (415) 388-0151, www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $10. A city center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright plays host to this idyllic art festival. Strolling through pavilions, sampling wines, eating grilled oysters, and viewing the work of hundreds of creative types.

June 20-Aug 21

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove. Sloat and 19th Ave., SF. (415) 252-6252, www.sterngrove.org. Sundays 2pm, free. This free outdoor concert series is a must-do for San Francisco summers. This year’s lineup includes Neko Case, the SF Symphony, Sharon Jones, and much more.

June 25-26

San Francisco Pride Celebration Civic Center Plaza, SF; Parade starts at Market and Beale. (415) 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Parade starts at 10:30am, free. Gays, trannies, queers, and the rest of the rainbow waits all year for this grand-scale celebration of diversity, love, and being fabulous.• San Francisco Free Folk Festival Presidio Middle School. 450 30th Ave., SF. (415) 661-2217, www.sffolkfest.org. Noon-10pm, free. Folk-y times for the whole family — not just music but crafts, dance workshops, crafts, and food vendors too.

June 29-July 3

International Queer Tango Festival La Pista. 768 Brannan, SF. www.queertango.freehosting.net. Times vary, $10-35. Spice up your Pride (and Frameline film fest) week with some queer positive tango lessons in culturally diverse, welcoming groups of same sex couples.

June 30-July 3

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas-Sierra Fairgrounds, Quincy. www.highsierramusic.com. Gates open at 8am Thursday. $205 weekend pass, $90 parking fee. Yonder Mountain String Band, My Morning Jacket, and most importantly, Ween. Bring out your sleeping bags for this four day mountaintop grassroots festival.

July 2

Vans Warped Tour Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View. www.vanswarpedtour.com. 11am, $46-72. Skating, pop punk, hardcore, screamo, and a whole lot of emo fun.

July 2-3

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF, 1-800-310-6563, www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Thousands of people get jazzed-up every year for this musical feast in a historically soulful neighborhood.

July 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July waterfront celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero and Beach, SF. (415) 709-5500, www.pier39.com. Noon-9:30pm, free. Ring in the USA’s birthday on the water, with a day full of music and end up at in the city’s front row when the fireworks take to the sky.

July 9-10

Renegade Craft Fair Fort Mason Festival Pavilion. Buchanan and Marina, SF. (312) 496-3215, www.renegadecraft.com. 11am-7pm, free. Put a bird on it at this craft fair for the particularly indie at heart.

July 14-24

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues. (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org. Prices vary. You won’t be hearing any Beethoven or Schubert at this midsummer series — the name of the day is Mr. Mozart alone.

July 16-17

Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz between Camino and Johnson, Menlo Park. (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Let the artisans do what they do best — you’ll polish off the fruits of their labor at this outdoor expo of artisan food, wine, and craft.

July 21-Aug 8

SF Jewish Film Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfjff.org. Times and prices vary. A three week smorgasbord of world premiere Jewish films at theaters in SF, Berkeley, the Peninsula, and Marin County.

July 22-Aug 13

Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton. (650) 330-2030, www.musicatmenlo.org. Classical chamber music at its best: this year’s theme “Through Brahms,” will take you on a journey through Johannes’ most notable works.

July 23-Sept 25

SF Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfshakes.org. Various times, free. Picnic with Princess Innogen and her crew with dropping a dime at this year’s production of Cymbeline. It’s by that playwriter guy… what’s his name again?

July 30

Oakland A’s Beer Festival Eastside Club at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl. www.oakland.athletics.mlb.com. 4:05-6:05pm, free with game ticket. Booze your way through the Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins game while the coliseum is filled with brewskies from over 30 microbreweries, there for the chugging in your souvenir A’s beer mug.

July 30-31

Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker, Berk. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-5pm, free. A joyous selection of Berkeley’s coolest kites, all in one easy location.

July 31

Up Your Alley Dore between Folsom and Howard, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $7-10 suggested donation. Whether you are into BDSM, leather, paddles, nipple clamps, hardcore — or don’t know what any of the above means, this Dore Alley stroll is surprisingly friendly and cute once you get past all the whips!

Aug 1-7

SF Chefs Various venues, SF. www.sfchefs2011.com. Times and prices vary. Those that love to taste test will rejoice during this foodie’s paradise of culinary stars sharing their latest bites. Best of all, the goal for 2011’s event is tons of taste with zero waste.

Aug 7

SF Theater Festival Fort Mason Center. Buchanan and Marina, SF. www.sftheaterfestival.org. 11am-5pm, free. Think you can face about 100 live theater acts in one day? Set a personal record at this indoor and outdoor celebration of thespians.

Aug 13

San Rafael Food and Wine Festival Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission, San Rafael. 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. Noon-6pm, $25 food and wine tasting, $15 food tasting only. A sampler’s paradise, this festival features an array of tastes from the Bay’s best wineries and restaurants.

Aug 13-14

* Nihonmachi Street Fair Post and Webster, SF. www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Founded by Asian Pacific American youths, this Japantown tradition is a yearly tribute to the difficult history and prevailing spirit of Asian American culture in this SF neighborhood.

Aug 20-21

Oakland Art and Soul Festival Entrances at 14th St. and Broadway, 16th St. and San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. $15. A musical entertainment tribute to downtown Oakland’s art and soul, this festival features nationally-known R&B, jazz, gospel, and rock artists.

Aug 20-22

* SF Street Food Festival Folsom St from Twenty Sixth to Twenty Second, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. All of the city’s best food, available without having to go indoors — or sit down. 2011 brings a bigger and better Street Food Fest, perfect for SF’s burgeoning addiction to pavement meals.

Aug 29-Sept 5

Burning Man Black Rock City, Nev. (415) TO-FLAME, www.burningman.com. $320. This year’s theme, “Rites of Passage,” is set to explore transitional spaces and feelings. Gather with the best of the burned-out at one of the world’s weirdest, most renowned parties.

Sep 10-11

* Autumn Moon Festival Street Fair Grant between California and Broadway, SF. (415) 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm, free. A time to celebrate the summer harvest and the end of summer full-moon, rejoice in bounty with the moon goddess.

Sept 17-18

SF International Dragon Boat Festival California and Avenue D, Treasure Island. www.sfdragonboat.com. 10am-5pm, free. The country’s largest dragon boat festival sees beautiful man-powered boats take to the water in 300 and 500 meter competitive races.

Sept 23-25

SF Greek Food Festival Annunciation Cathedral. 245 Valencia, SF. www.sfgreekfoodfestival.org. Fri.-Sat., 11am-10pm; Sun., noon-9pm, free with advance ticket. Get your baba ghanoush on during this late summer festival, complete with traditional Greek dancing, music, and wine.

Sept 25

Folsom Street Fair Folsom between 7th and 12th St., SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. The urban Burning Man equivalent for leather enthusiasts, going to this expansive SoMa celebration of kink and fetish culture is the surest way to see a penis in public (you dirty dog!).

Sept 30-Oct 2

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com. 11am-7pm, free. Pack some whiskey and shoulder your banjo: this free three day festival draws record-breaking crowds — and top names in a variety of twangy genres — each year.

Items with asterisks note family-fun activities.

Sounds of summer

Maria Poblet

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May 17, 2011

1

arts@sfbg.com

Live music in the Bay Area this summer is bracketed by festivals, from the lowercase indoor venue indie pop of the San Francisco Pop Fest on Memorial Day weekend to the outdoor mid-August convergence of Outside Lands. The guide below aims to name some highlights from a wide variety of genres, with an emphasis on rare and first-time appearances in the Bay Area.

MAY 25-29

San Francisco Pop Fest The lineup includes groups and songwriters from the post-punk (The Undertones) and C86 (14 Iced Bears, Phil Wilson) eras, the Sarah Records’ band Aberdeen, some indie pop faves of the present (Allo Darlin’, The Beets), and more than a few local groups (The Mantles, Brilliant Colors, Dominant Legs, Terry Malts, The Art Museums). Various venues, www.sfpopfest.com.

MAY 29

Mobb Deep The East Coast rap duo hits the stage in SF for the first time in years. Mezzanine, www.mezzaninesf.com .

JUNE 2-3

Architecture in Helsinki The band of five Australian multi-instrumentalists tours in support of its fourth album (and first on Modular). Great American Music Hall and Slim’s; www.gamh.com , www.slims-sf.com .

JUNE 3-4

Bluegrass for the Greenbelt Presented by Slim’s, an overnight concert — with more music on the second day — benefiting the Greenback Alliance, with camping for up to 200 people who bring tents. Dunsmuir-Helman Estate, Oakl.; www.slims-sf.com .

JUNE 7

Omar Souleyman After releases on Sublime Frequencies, the Dabke idol brings the sounds of Syria to SF, with a Björk collaboration set for release. Mezzanine, www.mezzaninesf.com .

Orange Goblin The veteran UK stoner metal act headlines, with support from beefy Indiana doom band Gates of Slumber, who just released a crushing new eight-song album entitled The Wretch and a DJ set by Rob Metal. Bottom of the Hill, www.bottomofthehill.com .

JUNE 8

Matmos Now based in Baltimore, Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt come back to the Bay Area. Bottom of the Hill, www.bottomofthehill.com .

JUNE 10

Timber Timbre, Marissa Nadler The trio tour in support of a follow-up album, while Nadler moves past black metal back to solo ventures with a self-titled album. Swedish American Hall, www.cafedunord.com .

JUNE 22

Kid Congo Powers and The Pink Monkey Birds He’s been a major force within a handful of all-time great punk and post-punk bands, and Kid Congo Powers has a new album out on In the Red that taps into sounds ranging from glam to ’60s Chicano rock. Rickshaw Stop, www.rickshawstop.com .

JUNE 23-25

Jackie Greene In conjunction with the release of his sixth album, the singer-songwriter plays a trio of concerts. Swedish American Hall, www.cafedunord.com .

Bill Orcutt The guitarist has just released a tour 7-inch single, and the bill includes fellow locals Date Palms. Hemlock Tavern, www.hemlocktavern.com .

JUNE 24-25

2011 US Air Guitar Championships San Francisco Regionals Two nights of air shredding, with special performances by past champions Hot Lixx Hulahan and C-Diddy and at least 20 local competitors. The Independent, www.independentsf.com .

JUNE 25

Blackalicious From Solesides to Epitaph, Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel have spanned decades and still throw down live. Mezzanine, www.mezzaninesf.com .

JULY 5

Quintron and Miss Pussycat Shannon and the Clams and the Younger Lovers open for the New Orleans’ husband-and-wife duo. Bottom of the Hill, www.bottomofthehill.com .

JULY 6

Darwin Deez New Yorker Darwin Smith’s pop songs have found a large audience in the UK, but for now, he’s still playing smaller venues here. Bottom of the Hill, www.bottomofthehill.com .

Maus Haus The group moves past krautrock into other electronic territory on Lark Marvels, and co-headlines with Swahili Blonde on a California tour. Rickshaw Stop, www.rickshawstop.com .

Seefeel The vanguard postrock group recently reunited and put out an album on Warp. Great American Music Hall, www.gamh.com .

JULY 7-9

The Reverend Horton Heat The Reverend goes back to country music’s past on Laughin’ and Cryin’, and is joined by locals the Swingin’ Utters. The Independent, www.independentsf.com .

JULY 9

Washed Out Since he first visited the Rickshaw Stop, Ernest Greene’s music has been used in Portlandia, and his first full album is coming out on Sub Pop. Great American Music Hall, www.gamh.com .

JULY 14-15

Three Day Stubble’s Nerd Fest The group is celebrating three decades of nerd rock, with four additional acts on each night.

Tinariwen Live desert blues from the current touring version of the Tuareg band. Bimbo’s 365 Club, www.bimbos365club.com .

JULY 26

Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile An East Coast rock twofer. Great American Music Hall, www.gamh.com .

JULY 30-31

Woodsist Festival 2011 The festival returns to Big Sur, with Nodzzz, Thee Oh Sees, and Woods (also playing songs from the new Sun and Shade) joining the Fresh & Onlys to form a bigger band. Fernwood and Henry Miller Library, Big Sur; www.folkyeah.com .

August 12-14

Outside Lands This year’s lineup includes Erykah Badu, and Big Boi, with local contributions from Tamaryn, The Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall, and Diego’s Umbrella. Golden Gate Park, www.sfoutsidelands.com .

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet

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May 17, 2011

0

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

WEDNESDAY 18

Nerd alert! Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.sf.nerdnite.com. 8pm, $8. Dust off your pocket protectors and Casio watches and get ready to nerd it up for the first anniversary of Nerd Nite — which just so happens to be the coolest lecture series around — with DJs, booze, and brainy babes. For this installment, Michael Epstein argues the new-found hipness of museum audio tours, Indre Viscontas gets meta with his discussion of how memory obscures truth, and Luigi Anzivino talks about the science of magic. Speaking of magic, where are all the Juggalos when you need them?

“May Fairs” opening reception Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF; www.p1sf.com. 8pm, free. Beauty, confidence, and empowerment are a few of the themes present in the new works on display by Charmaine Olivia, Angela Simone, Megan Wolfe, and Chelsea Brown. Often dreamy and sometimes surreal, these ladies make magic happen with a variety of media. Plus, Project One has been known to throw a good party or two, with DJs and a full service bar.

THURSDAY 19

Badbadbad is goodgoodgood Fivepoints Arthouse, 72 Tehama, SF; www.fivepointsarthouse.com. 7-10pm, free. Badbadbad creator Jesús Ángel García presents his transmedia novel about sex, God, rock ‘n’ roll and the social web, while combining traditional print with a soundtrack of original songs and film clips for a unique literary-audio-visual experience. Special Guests include Tony Dushane, Lauren Becker, Odessa Chen, Burlesque goddesses, and others.

Homegrown Potluck and skillshare Hayes Valley Farm, 250 Laguna, SF; www.homegrown.org. 6-8pm, free. Shepherdess Cornelia is in town for Make Magazine’s annual D.I.Y.-fest known as the Maker Faire (Sat/21 & Sun/22, San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo) and will be joining Homegrown for a potluck and skillshare. Meet fellow food enthusiasts, trade tips, learn new skills, share a potluck meal, and together make self watering planters, seed bombs, and more.

FRIDAY 20

El Tecolote benefit art auction Minna Street Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.eltocolote.org, 5-9pm, free. What started out as a La Raza studies course at San Francisco State as a means to usher young Latin Americans into the field of journalism is now in its 40th year, and is also the longest running Spanish-English bilingual newspaper in California. Attend this art auction and benefit to ensure that this pillar of advocacy journalism remains a voice for the Mission District and Latino communities throughout California for at least another 40 years. Artists include Yolanda Lopez, Calixto Robles, Kate Connell, and dozens more.

Documentary double dose Recology, 900 Seventh St., SF; www.insearchofgoodfood.org, www.thegreenhorns.net. 6-10pm, free. Check out these two great documentaries about food – In Search of Good Food chronicles Antonio Roman-Acala’s quest for sustainable food systems in California (does he find any?) and The Greenhorns is a film tour of the non-profit of the same name that seeks to recruit, promote, and support young farmers around the country. A double feature about food is sure to make your mouth water, so Bi-Rite Market is thoughtfully providing popcorn and other munchies to satiate all of the revolutionary foodies and urban homesteaders in attendance.

SATURDAY 21

American fashion history de Young Museum, Koret Auditorium, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.deyoung.famsf.org. 10am, $5/$10. Kaye Spilker, resident fashion historian at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will share her wealth of knowledge about the evolving careers of American fashion designers from the 1930s to the 1960s, the same time period that the Balenciaga fashion house – on display right now at the de Young, by the way – was actively producing couture looks in France. France gets all the glory when it comes to fashion, but a distinctive American style emerged out of both the seductive power and glamour of Hollywood and the active lives of the everyday woman who often worked outside of the home. Learn about the designers that paved the way for this new American style.

SUNDAY 22

DooF-a-Palooza Jack London Square, 70 Washington, Oakl.; www.foodbackwards.com. 10am-5pm, free. To clarify, “doof” is “food” spelled backwards and the infamous DooF-balls from this Berkeley non-profit are determined to get you and your family to explore food from every possible perspective — backwards, forwards, sideways, upside-down and inside-out — at this play-with-your-food festival. Kind of like an Exploratorium with food, this all day event features everything from meatball catapulting, to stop-motion vegetable movie-making, and pizza dough tossing, as well as pony rides, a Ferris wheel, and so much more!

City officials pedal and praise on Bike to Work Day

Sasha Cuttler

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May 12, 2011

6

photos by Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal

Almost every top city official pedaled up to City Hall this morning for the 17^th annual Bike to Work Day, all pledging their support for expanding safe cycling opportunities in San Francisco and declaring the bike to be a vital part of the city’s transportation infrastructure that will only grow in importance in the coming years.

“We should all feel proud that we have more to celebrate than ever in the history of Bike to Work Day,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which sponsored the event and facilitated the rides by city officials, including riding Sups. Jane Kim and Carmen Chu to work on tandem bikes. Shahum praised the city for rapidly expanding the network of bike lanes and facilities over the last year.

Shahum accompanied Mayor Ed Lee on a ride along JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park (which Lee announced will soon get the city’s next separated green bikeway), along car-clogged Fell and Oak streets, through the Wiggle, and along Market Street toward City Hall.

Lee told us, “I feel good, exhilarated,” as he neared City Hall, where he and officials gave speeches praising bikes and calling for improvements to the system. “I want to experiment with ways to have detached bike lanes on Fell and Oak,” Lee said to the applause of cyclists familiar with competing with cars on those fast-moving streets.

Lee also declared his support for the goals of SFBC’s Connecting the City initiative, which calls for a system of safe, crosstown bikeways, connecting the bay to the ocean and the northern waterfront to the south side of the city. He also called for continuing the green bike lanes on Market Street all the way to the Ferry Building and said, “I’m dedicated to it.”

Board President David Chiu, who sponsored the legislation that set the goal of achieving 20 percent of all vehicle trips by bicycle by the year 2020, said he was proud to see so many bikes on the streets today. “Thank you for showing the world how we roll,” he told the crowd, also voicing his support for the crosstown bike route plan. “We have to imagine safe enough conditions for 8- and 80-year-olds to bike.”

“It makes us a healthier, happier, and more vibrant city when we bike together,” Sup. Eric Mar told the gathering.

Sup. Sean Elsbernd was the only member of the board not to bike today, but his fellow fiscal conservative Sup. Mark Farrell biked in from District 2 and told the gathering that improving the city’s bicycling infrastructure “is critical to our future.”

Chu doesn’t ride a bike, but she hoped on a tandem bike with SFBC board member Amandeep Jawa and told him, “Thanks for helping me see San Francisco in a new way,” noting her new appreciation for the sights, smells, and small details that opened up along a route to work that she usually drives.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi called his District 5 the “epicenter” for cycling in the city and declared, “It’s time that we take back Masonic Boulevard…to make sure it’s safe for bicyclists and pedestrians.”

Sup. Jane Kim told the crowd, “I grew up a city girl and I never learned how to ride a bike,” but said that former SFBC director Dave Snyder and others have been trying to teach her recently. In her ride in on the back of a tandem bike, “I got to feel how unsafe it is to have cars and buses jostle around you.”

Sup. Scott Wiener told the gathering, “This was my first Bike to Work Day and it’s not going to be my last.”

Sup. David Campos told us he really enjoyed his ride up Valencia Street, where the stoplights are timed to the pace of bicyclists. “It’s the best ride in the city. If we can make more streets like Valencia we’d be in better shape,” Campos told us.

In his speech, Campos said, “We have so much happening around bicycling, bu we also have a long way to go.”

Sup. Malia Cohen said she biked the longest way in to City Hall, all the way from 3^rd Street and Thomas, and that she was happy about both the bike infrastructure improvements and carfree events like Sunday Streets. “I want to encourage you all to come out to the Bayview for Sunday Streets [on June 12],” she said.

For all the celebration and improvements to the system, Sup. John Avalos said it’s important to continue establishing respect on the roads for bicyclists. “We have to change many minds about biking in San Francisco,” he said.

To illustrate the increasingly important role that bicycling is playing in San Francisco, SFMTA Commissioner Cheryl Brinkman cited city studies showing a 58 percent increasing in the number of cyclists on the streets of San Francisco over the last four years, noting a comparable increase in Muni ridership or in motorists on the roads would have resulted in gridlock in those systems.

“It’s a good lesson for us,” Brinkman said, voicing support for the goal to creating 100 miles of dedicated bikeways throughout the city in order to promote safe cycling.

The fun side of bikes

Maria Poblet

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May 10, 2011

3

steve@sfbg.com

Paul Freedman, a.k.a. the Fossil Fool, is a singer-songwriter and builder of elaborate art bikes who lives in San Francisco’s Mission District. Since 2001, when he decided to apply his Harvard University education to building custom bikes, accessories, pedal-powered products, and mobile sound systems, Freedman created Fossil Fool and Rock the Bike to sell his creations and provide a platform for his performances and alternative transportation advocacy work.

But anyone who’s watched Freedman build and ride his creations — such as his latest, El Arbol, a 14-foot fiberglass tree built around a double-decker tall bike with elaborate generator, sound, and lighting systems and innovative landing gears — knows this is a serious labor of love by an individual at the forefront of Bay Area bike culture. We caught up with him recently to discuss his work and vision.

SFBG How did Rock the Bike start?

FOSSIL FUEL I was working at a shop in Berkeley and I decided to make my first bike music system, which I called Soul Cycles. So I had that other job at a bicycle nonprofit, which is cool, and that was the first impetus. I did two innovative things with my first bike music system: I put the controls on the handlebars, which I’d never seen anyone do, and I put speaker back-lighting to make the speakers look nice at night. I used a really nice CFL fluorescent lamp, and I started playing around with those and it looked great, so that was our first product for those first three or four years.

SFBG What was going on in the larger culture at the time that led you to believe your interest in bikes and technology was going to be fruitful or make an interesting statement?

FF I care deeply about biking and a lot of the people I was with did too, but I felt like the bicycle advocacy scene was not very effective when it came to actual outreach. I felt like the thing that had been really formative for me was this person-to-person interaction, in my case by hanging out with the guys who started Xtracycle, and going on quests to get ingredients for dinner and riding late at night with the music systems on the tour. I felt like those experiences were what made bicycling appealing, but the bike advocacy scene was using guilt trips and telling people you should ride a bike because you’re too fat and you should ride a bike because there’s too much traffic. And I felt like we needed to shift that mindset and really start focusing on the fun aspects of biking and the social aspects to grow the scene.

SFBG Do you feel like it has, and what effect do you think it had on those who weren’t already riding bikes?

FF I think it’s moving that direction. Even within traditional bike advocacy groups, those people are starting to really focus on their events and creating community, in a good way, and challenging themselves with doing so. And I think that’s really positive.

SFBG Your timing also dovetailed with heightened green awareness — with a push for renewable energy, concerns over peak oil, and things like that.

FF Yeah, I feel that transportation choices are the main thing people need to examine about their lives with respect to their impact on global warming. And that’s not just a feeling, that’s the consensus of the Union of Concerned Scientists. They say that if you want to have an impact on the planet, positive or negative, the first thing you should consider is your transportation habits. So that means flying, it means driving, and everything else. I don’t think it’s really beneficial to focus on what people need to do with a car, like they need to drop their kids off. It’s more important how people do the optional things with cars like the trips to Tahoe, and the flights to Mexico. It’s those optional things I want to focus on, which is why I’m so interested in Sunday Streets, which is like the antidote. It’s this thing you can do here, that you can walk and bike to, that’s as fun as driving to Tahoe.

SFBG Through your technology and design work, it also seems like you’re showing a broad range of what people can do on a bike, with lots of cargo or a whole performance stage setup. Do you think design is convincing people that bikes are more versatile that they thought they were?

FF Oh yeah, I think that would be a really beneficial outcome of this work. By riding through town with our music gear, of course people are going to look at that and think, oh yeah, I could probably go to Rainbow Grocery and buy a bunch of food for my household on a bike. So it would be a great outcome if people would make that connection.

SFBG Is there anything about San Francisco that makes people here more receptive to your message?

FF San Francisco is a very tight city geographically. It’s not like Phoenix. The blocks are pretty short here and the distances are pretty short here, and you can ride year-round here, which is not true in Boston where I grew up.

SFBG The focus on technology and design here also probably helps, right?

FF Oh, for sure. This is an awesome place to be prototyping and doing funky mechanical, electrical art. There’s a lot of support for it. There are places like Tap Plastics for learning about fiberglass. There are lots of electronics stores that serve the Silicon Valley tech developer communities. You can buy stuff there that’s helpful. You can learn about Arduino [an open source microprocessor] at Noisebridge. There are a lot of resources for doing interactive art here or for doing bicycle-related projects. There are a lot of welders here.

SFBG Where do you think we are on the arch with this stuff — the beginning, the middle? — in terms of gaining wider acceptance of biking as an imperative and an option for anyone?

FF I think there’s an important generational shift underway, and I don’t know whether it’s my focus on bikes that leads me to meet all these kinds of people, but it feels like I’m meeting more people these days that are going to pick their next city or their next neighborhood based on how it is to bike there. They’re bringing it up in conversation, it’s not me. So it seems like people are really considering what their daily life is going to be like and how the community feels, and biking is one of the symbols of a whole swath of other beneficial things. They know that if they see a bunch of bikes when they visit a place, then there’s probably a lot of other cool stuff like music, arts, farmers markets. Those kinds of things are sort of linked together, and the bike is the key indicator. So there’s been this generational change of thought. The idea that having a bigger, faster car is better, I just don’t think that’s popular with these people. They no longer believe it.

SFBG It’s having cooler bike.

FF It’s having cooler bike and being able to use it and not have to step into the stress of car culture if you can avoid it.

SFBG What’s your next step?

FF One of the really positive things for me has been the Rock the Bike community, with its roadies, performers, musicians — all types of people who are on our e-mail list. So I can just say, I need three roadies for a three-hour performance slot and there’s going to be a jam at the end, so bring your instruments. That’s an awesome thing and it’s just going to improve, so I think the community will grow as we continue do gigs where we have fun and the people have fun.

In terms of my own art, this tree [gesturing to his El Arbol bike] has been my focus for the last year or two, and it’s not done yet. It has to look undeniably like a tree. It looks like a tree, but with a light green bark that you really don’t see in nature, so that has to change. I want it to have brown bark, but I still want it to do beautiful things at night with translucency. And I want it to have a true canopy of leaves, so that when you’re far away from it at Sunday Streets and you’re wondering whether to go over there, you’ll see a tree. Not just a representation of a tree, but I want them to be like, how the hell did he ride a tree over here?

SFBG Why a tree?

FF I don’t know. You get these ideas, and you start drawing them and can’t shake them. There are all sorts of reasons why trees are interesting. They are gathering points.

SFBG And you’re doing some very innovative design work on this bike, such as the landing gear.

FF The roots. Yeah, that’s never been done before. Through the course of doing the project, people would send me tips and interesting things, and one guy sent me a link to a photo of tall bikes being used in Chicago in the early 1900s as gas lamp lighting tools, and they were very tall. I’d say 10 to 12 feet tall, and they were tandems, so there was a guy on top and a stoker on the bottom providing extra power, and they didn’t have landing gears. So they would ride from one lamp to another and hold the lamp as they refilled it. And I just love that story because if you were growing up in Chicago, and you saw these gas lamp people coming by in the early evening to turn the lights on, and if you were a little kid trying to fall asleep or whatever, that would have an indelible mark on your childhood, and that whimsical quality is what I’m going for. That should be part of what it’s like to grow up in the Mission District in 2011.

SFBG How does that fit into the other cultural stuff that you’re also bringing to the bike movement, the music you’re writing, design work, the style, and the events that you’re creating?

FF Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so multipronged. I would clearly be a better performer and musician if it was the only thing I did, so I apologize to all my fans for not putting 100 percent into the music. But I put 100 percent into the whole thing, including creating bikes and running Rock the Bike, which is a business.

SFBG But are you doing all these things because you find a synergy among them?

FF It’s the fullest expression of who I am.

SFBG Where do you see this headed? What will Rock the Bike be like five years from now?

FF I would like to see the quality of our entertainment offerings steadily improve to the point where people genuinely look forward to it, and not just to the gee-whiz aspect of look what they’re doing, but just for the feeling of being there. So I’d like to challenge ourselves with the quality of the music, how it is to be engaged in the setup process — because I think the setup is cool, with biking to the event and engaging in the transition to a spectacle, where every step along the way is part of the show. I like that idea. I’d like to challenge ourselves to be a carbon-free Cirque du Soleil, a show that is slamming entertainment and they bike there and pedal-power everything: the lighting, the sound, the transportation. And I want the performers to be just as good.

SFBG Are there people in other cities doing similar things?

FF The Bicycle Music Festival is spreading to other cities, which is cool. I think there are going to be over a dozen bicycle music festivals this summer. In terms of people doing really inspiring work with bike culture or this kind of mobile art, you definitely see some amazing things at Burning Man. That’s probably one of the best venues for this type of art. But I can’t think of another city where people are doing all of this. I’m part of a group on Flickr called Bicycle and Skater Sound Systems, and there’s nothing on that whole group that I see as being on this level. I don’t know why.

SFBG When you ride a cool custom bike down the street, the reactions it elicits from passersby is just so strong and happy. What is that about?

FF It’s a reaction to an expression of personal freedom. People light up when they see you expressing yourself, and a part of them thinks, oh yeah, that would be fun, I’d like to express myself. And there are just so many ways to express yourself and be human — and that’s something that we need to remind ourselves because, in many ways, our personal freedoms are declining and there’s more surveillance.

SFBG And people might take that spark and do any number of things with it.

FF One of the very cool things about bicycle art is that it’s mobile. So you ride your bike and you might turn heads a couple dozen times a day. I ride this tree, and if it’s in the full mode where it’s 14-feet tall and there’s music on, and I’m going from here to Golden Gate Park, I’d estimate that 500 people see it. There’s probably no other art form you can do that with. I can’t think of any other that’s like that. So it’s a really cool art form. Those people aren’t paying you, but you shared art with them, and it’s a good way to get exposure. It’s a great way for a lot of people to see your art.

SFBG With your mobile, pedal-powered stages, you’re also demonstrating green ways of powering even stationary art.

FF It is an interesting time for pedal power. I feel like there’s a turning point that’s maybe beginning in the field of events with how they’re powered. I think there are going to be a lot more people who are going to festivals in the coming years who are looking at the diesel generators and saying, ‘My summertime festival experience is being powered by diesel.’ And I think there are going to be a lot of people seeing that and wanting to do something else.

SFBG Have the technologies for how much juice you’re able to get out of pedal power been advancing since you’ve been working on it?

FF Yes, it’s truly impressive right now, particularly if you’re putting that juice into music because we have very efficient generators where there’s no friction interface anymore, nothing rolling on the tire, it’s all just ball bearings rolling on the hub. Then we put that power into these new modified amps, and they have a DC power supply now, as opposed to an AC power supply, so we don’t have to put the power into an inverter. So the net sum of that is one person can pedal-power dance music for 200 people, which is pretty amazing and inspiring.

SFBG And the battery technology is also improving, right?

FF Yeah, the batteries are what you use for the mobile rides, and that’s getting better. If you’ve been to a bike party, it’s just incredible how many good, loud sound systems there are right now. It’s a very kinetic art form, although I wish people would focus more on the visual aspects of their system, because I feel like there’s a trend to get big and loud fast. But I wish there were more people doing the work that Jay Brummel is doing, where he doesn’t just want to ride on a bicycle, so he turned his bike into a deer and he steers by holding the antlers.

SFBG But there has been some push-back from the police. Have you gotten many tickets?

FF Well, I got tickets for riding up high on this quadracycle. There is a law against riding tall bikes in California. It says you shouldn’t ride a bicycle in such as manner as to not be able to stop safely and put your foot down. Obviously you can’t put your foot down on a tall bike.

SFBG The fact that you have landing gears on your bike didn’t make a difference?

FF Well the officer didn’t take it seriously, but the court sided in my favor. The judge was flipping through photos of the landing gear the entire trial — he couldn’t stop flipping through them. And he asked, ‘How do you get on? Where do you step?’ So I was like, ‘Well, you step here, you step there, and you swing.’ It was pretty fun.

BICYCLE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Saturday, June 18

11 a.m.–10 p.m., free

Various locations, SF

www.rockthebike.com

www.fossilfool.com

Bike Party!

Maria Poblet

-

May 10, 2011

12

caitlin@sfbg.com, steve@sfbg.com

On Friday night, May 6, hundreds of bikes lean against the massive pillars holding up the Palace of Fine Arts’ rotunda, a colorful array of plastic flowers and stereo speakers affixed to their baskets and trailers.

Their riders, flushed with endorphins after a four-mile cruise across town, are ignoring the winds whipping off the bay and dancing their asses off to a pumping sound-system that switches from bubblegum pop to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and on to an electronica instrumental as more bikes arrive under the dome and the circle of dancers grows.

As a conga line forms, the dancers intermittently cheer “Bike party!” just as the cyclists have been declaring at the mini-parties held at every red light throughout this and the other monthly San Francisco Bike Party rides that started in January.

It’s a celebratory moment for San Francisco bike culture, and a sign that it’s branching off into new directions. While the venerable Critical Mass ride — which marks its 20th anniversary next year — seizes space on the roads, ignores red lights, and often sparks confrontations with motorists, Bike Party is a celebration that seeks to share space, avoid conflict, and just have fun.

Bike Party follows a set route on the first Friday night of every month, stopping two to three times along the way for dance parties. The basic idea is that participants should obey most traffic laws, stop at red lights, and try to avoid taking up more than one lane. And while Critical Mass is a local invention that was exported to cities around the world, Bike Party was imported from San Jose, where it started with the efforts of three 20-something roommates.

They were Nick Laskowski, who had helped to organize the by-then defunct San Jose Critical Mass ride; Amber Lamason, another organizer of San Jose social bike rides; and Lauryn McCarthy, an East Coast native new to San Jose who “just wanted to build community and meet people who liked to bike.”

In a town hardly known for its great biking environment (despite its relative-to-San-Francisco flatness, bike riding on San Jose’s freeway-like thoroughfares “can be really daunting to new riders,” as one SJBP organizer put it) the three publicized their new Bike Party on Facebook, and 25 people showed up to the first ride in October 2007.

“We were stoked,” McCarthy, who has since moved to San Francisco, recalled during an interview at a cafe on lower Divisadero Street. By June 2008, the monthly ride hit 120 riders, and one day a biker she didn’t recognize invited McCarthy to join the ride. “I knew it had arrived.”

S–M TO ANIMALS

These days, San Jose Bike Parties have monthly costume themes from S–M to animals, and can attract up to 3,500 riders. The events have gotten so large that organizers now wait to publish routes until 24 hours before the ride to cut down the numbers. Other chapters have sprung up (with the organizational help of San Jose core volunteers) in the East Bay and San Francisco.

How to explain Bike Party’s instant popularity among Bay Area riders? It might be that its ethos appeals to a different sentiment than Critical Mass. While most Mass riders see that monthly ride as an opportunity to disrupt the automobile status quo, Bike Party is built around sharing the road.

It’s been a welcome new addition to the scene for many longtime urban cycling advocates like Justin Fraser, who has long held a Critical Mass pre-party but who switched the event to precede the San Francisco Bike Party after having a great time at the maiden ride in January.

“I’ve been doing Critical Mass since the late ’90s, and I usually go about 10 times over the course of the year, so I’m a regular. What I loved about Critical Mass is it’s a great group bike ride.” Fraser said.

But he and other regular riders often grew tired of the regular confrontations with angry motorists, the police presence, and the often circular routes through car-clogged downtown during rush hour that the leaderless Critical Mass ride would take.

“I love how it’s a planned ride and you get out to other parts of the city, like the recent ride out to Candlestick Point,” Fraser said. “Bike Party avoids lots of Critical Mass’ conflicts by stopping at lights, getting out of downtown, and starting later.”

Amandeep “Deep” Jawa, another longtime bike culture leader whose “Trikeasaurus,” a three-wheeler tricked out with a booming sound system, is a familiar sight to many SF riders, has also warmly embraced Bike Party and volunteered his time to helping establish it here.

“I’m not sure whether it’s an evolution or just something different,” Jawa said, comparing Bike Party to Critical Mass. “I love both of them for different reasons. I don’t think Bike Party is ever going to have that agit-prop element to it.”

Indeed, Critical Mass was founded as an agitation-propaganda event to directly challenge the dominance of car culture, something Jawa says is still relevant and attractive to him. But Bike Party is a deliberate effort to broaden the appeal of group bike rides to larger audiences, which organizers say still has a political impact.

“Anytime you put bicycles on the road en masse, it’s an inherently political act,” says McCarthy. In an e-mail to the Guardian, the San Francisco Bike Party collective backed up her sentiment. “While SFBP doesn’t specifically advocate for any politics or policies, by simply showing how many regular folks want to party on their bikes each month, we’re showing that there is a need for a public space for people who ride bikes.”

FIXIES AND FAMILIES

Contrary to much of the Bike Party’s recent coverage by anti-Critical Mass media sources, which tend to represent it as the antithesis to the decades-old ride, the two events started with similar traffic policies and work to many of the same ends.

Like Mass, Bike Party practiced “corking” in its early stages in San Jose, assigning volunteers (or “birds,” in the group’s parlance) to post up in intersections to block cars for other riders as a safety precaution.

In 1997, Critical Mass experimented with stopping at red lights but soon eschewed the practice — it was considered too dangerous with the 5,000 to 8,000 people who were then riders. “It just meant a very long, slow-moving traffic jam,” said Hugh D’Andrade, who has been involved with Critical Mass almost since shortly after its first ride in 1992 and created a website devoted to the San Francisco ride.

It wasn’t until 2008 that Bike Party organizers decided to switch to the ride’s current system of stopping at lights and sharing the road. “We thought it would be safer for our riders,” said McCarthy. D’Andrade and friends rode in the San Jose Bike Party in early 2010, a ride he recalls was “so thoughtfully laid out, super celebratory, ethnically diverse.”

That ethos seems to appeal to bikers at all levels of commitment and many walks of life. The San Jose rides now attract “mountain bikes, fixies, roadies — we have a cruiser bike gang that comes, even families,” said McCarthy. San Francisco’s ride, which officially kicked off Jan. 7 with a “happy birthday” theme, has yet to draw the thousands of people that Critical Mass or its San Jose counterpart do. But some bike activists we interviewed for this article felt like it was only a matter of time before it does.

D’Andrade now rides both events every month. He designed SF Bike Party’s logo and now is a member of the group’s planning collective, or “hub” as Bike Partiers refer to themselves. He said he feels the same vibe riding in both events.

But here’s no doubt that the two rides were created at very different moments in San Francisco bike culture. “To ride through San Francisco in the early ’90s was to take your life into your hands and be subject to harassment,” he said. “Bicycling was not a mainstream transportation option.”

Today, thanks to decades of Critical Mass Rides and concerted political advocacy work by people like Fraser and Jawa — both longtime board members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition — the city now offers an extensive bike lane network, near universal political support for bicycling, and packs of bicyclists on the road offering the safety of numbers.

“You wouldn’t have this critical mass without the earnest approach of the Bike Coalition. But then, when all these people are out there cycling, it creates opportunities for things like the Bike Party,” Jawa said. “There are just so many of us now, and so much joy around it, that people automatically get excited.”

The sophistication of Bike Party’s route planning and event management is another difference between the two rides. D’Andrade remembers the April 1 ride (themed “Robots and Cyborgs”) when the group stopped at Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park, and caught in a moment of glee, swarmed the play structures en masse.

It was fun, but to D’Andrade, it just didn’t feel quite as organic or spontaneous as the best moments of Critical Mass. As he said, “That kind of thing happens at Critical Mass, but here you know it was planned.”

Luckily, there’s no need to roll your wheels just one way. With the SF Bike Party on the first Friday of every month and Critical Mass on the last Friday, San Francisco bike culture has more than enough room for both events — and then some.