Green

Saving the bay

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Saving the bay

rebeccab@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY When three women from the Berkeley Hills banded together in 1961 to halt monstrous development plans that would have filled in huge swaths of the San Francisco Bay, it became what some have characterized as the first-ever grassroots environmental campaign in the Bay Area.

Critics dismissed Catherine Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Esther Gulick as "enemies of progress, impractical idealists, do-gooders, posy pickers, eco-freaks, enviro-maniacs, little old ladies in tennis shoes, and even almond cookie revolutionaries," Gulick once told a crowd at UC Berkeley. But their critics were defeated in the end, and popular support for preserving the bay prevailed.

Organizing initially over almond cookies and tea, the trio of housewives forged ahead with the Save San Francisco Bay Association, which later evolved into Save The Bay. They drummed up widespread support for stronger coastal protections to curb rampant bay fill and garbage dumping along the waterfront.

Their efforts eventually helped spur the creation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), which later served as a template for the creation of the California Coastal Commission and influenced the push for federal coastline protection.

This bit of history is the key narrative to Saving The Bay, a four-part documentary series produced by filmmaker Ron Blatman, KQED, and KTEH to tell the story of the San Francisco Bay. Narrated by Robert Redford and featuring luminaries like oceanographer Sylvia Earle, former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, and renowned California historian Kevin Starr, the four-hour documentary is the most comprehensive history of the bay ever produced.

The filmmaker refers to it as "the project that ate my life," since it took seven years to complete. His production crew amassed about 1,000 images from 70 different institutions, he says, and even collected historic film clips to illustrate the story through the lens of various eras. The funding was provided by a host of public agencies and corporate donors.

"The title comes from the three women in the Berkeley Hills," explains Blatman. But the series begins at a much earlier point in history: the time when the Miwok and Ohlone were the only people who inhabited the area, which was rich with natural wonder and teeming with fish and wildlife.

In some ways, the story of the San Francisco Bay is depressing. Viewers are confronted with the dramatic impacts that 160 years of industry and development have had on the region’s once-thriving ecosystem. From the loss of native tribes to the collapse of fisheries, to fill projects that permanently altered wetlands to lingering toxic byproducts of heavy industry, San Francisco’s transformation from a sleepy little town before the Gold Rush era into today’s thriving metropolitan hub has brought no shortage of irreversible environmental consequences.

Still, Blatman says that in the end, it’s a feel-good story. "If you went back 40 years and drew a projection of what the bay would look like today, you’d never get this picture," he points out. The Save the Bay movement revolutionized the way people thought about the San Francisco Bay, he says, and the preservation mindset has marked a positive turnaround. Today, wetland restoration projects abound, and people are accustomed to the idea that the shoreline is a resource that is equally shared by all members of the public — even though these were radical concepts several decades ago.

The inception of this documentary project was accidental, Blatman says. It started because Will Travis, executive director of BCDC, needed something better than the low-quality educational slideshow he used to bring new BCDC commissioners up to speed on the natural history of the bay. A mutual friend introduced the two, and the filmmaker agreed to produce a half-hour educational piece. But the project grew deeper, wider, and much longer.

Lately, Travis says his focus has shifted from educating people about the past to warning them about the future. As a consequence of climate change, sea levels are rising, and the bay is projected to expand. "I hate to tell Ron," Travis jokes, "but he’s going to have to make another film."

Saving the Bay premieres on KQED Channel 9 Thursday evenings Oct. 8 and 15 from 8-10 p.m. (repeating overnight and Sundays Oct. 11 and 18 noon-2 p.m.). The series will then run on KTEH four successive Thursday evenings Oct. 22 to Nov. 12 from 9-10 p.m. For more, visit www.savingthebay.org.

Events listings

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Events listings

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 7

Dead-ication Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; (415) 863-8688. 7:30pm, free. Join well-known author Ben Fong-Torres as he presents his new book, The Grateful Dead Scrapbook: The Long, Strange Trip in Stories, Photos, and Memorabilia. The book is a collection of never-before published photos, flyers, fan letters, and other ephemera, accompanied by Fong-Torres’ personal experience of the San Francisco music scene at that time, as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine.

FRIDAY 9

HPV: The Silent Killer Commonwealth Club, 2nd floor, 595 Market, SF; (415) 869-5930. Noon, $15. Hear from health care professionals about the future of HPV prevention and treatment and the controversy surrounding the current vaccine.

Litquake Various venues across Bay Area; www.litquake.org. Oct. 9-17, $0-30. Join in on this inclusive celebration of San Francisco’s unique contemporary literary scene by attending lectures, readings, workshops, panel discussions, and, best of all, parties. Attend the Porchlight Storytelling Series, where authors take the stage to tell true takes of punk rock excess (Mon/12). See Amy Tan be roasted by her peers including, Dave Eggers, Andrew Sean Greer, and Armistead Maupin at the Barbary Coast Award ceremony (Wed/14). Witness a Literary Death Match where writers compete for bragging rights (Thurs/15).

Litquake’s Book Ball Herbst Theater, Green Room, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.litquake.org. 8pm; $19.99, includes one drink and snacks. Kick off this years litquake at a Black, White, and Read harlequin ball where attendees don masks inspired by their favorite books or writers. Live music, dancing, and plenty of authors guaranteed.

SATURDAY 10

Chinese-American Art Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, 3rd floor, 750 Kearny, SF; (415) 986-1822, ext. 21. 1pm, free. Attend this lecture by Stanford University Professor Gordon H. Chang on Chinese-American art followed by a guided tour of the current exhibition Chromatic Constructions: Contemporary Fiber Art by Dora Hsiung.

Hip Hop Chess Federation John O’Connell High School, 2355 Folsom, SF; www.bayareachess.com. 9am-6pm, free. This all day youth empowerment program includes a chess tournament, music, chess lessons, graffiti art battles, martial arts, and more to promote unity, strategy, and non-violence. Hip hop celebrity guests include Rakaa Iriscience, Ray Luv, Traxamillion, Casual, Conscious Daughters, and more. All ages welcome.

Morbid Curiosity Borderland Books, 866 Valencia, SF; (415) 824-8203. 3pm, free. Celebrate the release of a new book drawn from the pages of Morbid Curiosity magazine called, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stories of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual, with readings by Simon Wood crashes his car, Katrina James drinks blood, A.M. Muffaz endures an exorcism, and more.

Open Studios Various studios around neighborhoods Bernal Heights, Castro, Duboce, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Mission, Noe Valley, and Portola. Sat-Sun 11am-6pm.

Writing about Art The Lab, 2948 16th St., SF; (415) 864-8855. 3pm, $5-10 sliding scale. Attend the first installment of a three part series, Critical Sources: Writing about Art in the Bay Area, featuring speakers Glen Helfand, Tirza True Latimer, Matt Sussman, and David Cunningham.

Yoga Tree Anniversary Yoga Tree Castro Studio, 97 Collingwood, SF; (415) 701-YOGA. 7pm, free. As a thank you to the community in honor of Yoga Tree’s ten year anniversary, owners Tim and Tara are offering a night of free yoga, Kirtan, dance, entertainment, and goodies.

BAY AREA

Indigenous Peoples Day Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center at Martin Luther King, Jr., Berk.; (510) 595-5520. 10am, free. Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day with a Pow Wow and Indian Market featuring Native American dancing, drumming, and singing, and a Native American crafts sale. The farmers’ market will also be holding a free fall fruit tasting with a whole range of Fall varieties you can find at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market.

SUNDAY 11

Arab Cultural Festival County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, 9th Ave. at Lincoln, SF; (415) 664-2200. Noon, $6. Celebrate the contributions of the Arab-American community to San Francisco at this day-long showcase of the art, entertainment, food and traditions of Arab and Arab-American people that have contributed to the Bay Area’s cultural landscape.

Japanese Confinement in North America National Japanese American Historical Society, 1684 Post, SF; (415) 921-5007. Hear Greg Robinson read and discuss his book, A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America, which analyses the confinement of 120,000 people of Japanese descent in the United States during World War II.

Philosophy Talk Marsh Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750. Noon, $20. Be part of a live studio audience at this recording of Philosophy Talk, a public radio show hosted by two Stanford philosophy professors and broadcast locally on KALW 91.7 and nationally on other public radio stations. The show’s topics will be "The Minds of Babies" with guest Alison Gopnick and "Nihilism and Meaning" with guest Hubert Dreyfus.

WhiskyWeek Seminars Elixir, 3200 16th St., (415) 552-1633. From Sun/11-Thrus/15, various times; $35 per seminar, www.elixirSF.com to sign up. In honor of WhiskeyWeek, learn about five different approaches to whiskey making from experts from whiskey makers around the world, like Glenmorangie, St. George, Yamazaki, and more.

BAY AREA

Radical Love Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shattuck, Berk.; (510) 540-0751. 7pm, $10-15 sliding scale. Attend this workshop and discussion with Wendy-O Matik on how to re-invent your relationships outside the dominant social paradigm, focusing on love and intimacy, not sex. The components at the heart of this non-judgmental workshop are feminism, social activism, and revolution.

MONDAY 12

Meet the Programmers Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF; (415) 625-8880. 7pm, $8. Attend this SFFS Film Arts forum starting with a preview of the Film Society’s fall festival lineup, followed by a panel discussion featuring programmers from various San Francisco film festivals, followed by peer-to-peer screenings, review, and feedback on works in progress, leading into an open networking forum.

TUESDAY 13

Jew Tube Congregation Sherith Israel, 2266 California, SF; (415) 346-1720. 7pm; $48, for five part series. Every Tuesday for 5 weeks David Perlstein will show two episodes that demonstrate the evolution of Jewish identity and issues throughout the past 60 years of television situation comedies at this series titled, Jew Tube: TV Sitcoms’ Jewish Family Portraits.

On Print Journalism Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400. 8pm, $20. Hear Jill Abramson, Managing Editor, The New York Times, and Jane Mayer, Staff Writer, The New Yorker, discuss the current state of print journalism, the impact of the shift toward a more digital world, and the future of print media.

Music listings

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Music listings

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Girls Go to Hell, Street Score, Battery Powered Grandpa, High School Parties Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $5.

Tia Carroll and the Hardwork Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Highhorse, Famous, Eric Shea and the High Deserters El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Little Junior Davis and the Knucklehead Blues Hounds Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Lotus, Break Science Independent. 9pm, $1-20.

Kermit Lynch and His Band Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $125.

Mimicking Birds, Kathryn Anne Davis Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Mudbug Coda. 9pm, $7.

Mumlers, Emily Jane White, Osage Orange Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

No Use for a Name, Perfect Machines, Rockfight Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

People Under the Stairs, Kenan Bell Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Starfucker, Deelay Ceelay, Strength Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Andrew W.K. and Calder Quartet Café du Nord. 8pm, $25.

Witness the Horror, Hukaholix, Murderess Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

Katona Twins Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. 6:30pm, $20.

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

Realistic Orchestra Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $14.

Carlos Reyes Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Country Jam Plough and Stars. 9pm, free. With Jeanie and Chuck.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

New Directions in Indian Classical Music Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St., SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15.

DANCE CLUBS

Afreaka! Attic, 3336 24th St; souljazz45@gmail.com. 10pm, free. Psychedelic beats from Brazil, Turkey, India, Africa, and across the globe with MAKossa.

Bizarre Love Triangle Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Eighties dance party with DJs Anso and Choice.

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

Dubstep vs. Disco Poleng Lounge. 10pm, $5. Featuring In Flagranti.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Hump Night Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. The week’s half over – bump it out at Hump Night!

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

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

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

THURSDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Atomic Bomb Audition, Diminished Men, Blanketship Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Bite, Black Dream, Capp Street Girls, MC Meat Hook and the Vital Organs Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

Tim Bluhm, Neal Casal, and Fred Torphy Make-Out Room. 7pm, $12.

Boombox, Ana Sia Independent. 9pm, $15.

Brass Liberation Orchestra, Charming Hostess, Loco Bloco El Rio. 7pm, $5-20.

Death Valley High, Thrill of it All, King Loses Crown Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Foreigner Fillmore. 8pm, $45.

Great American Taxi, Kate Gaffney Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; (415) 552-4440. 9pm, $12.

Carey Head, Kirk Hamilton, Alex Kelly Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Jelly Bread Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $5.

"Manofest 2009" Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7. With Hellowar (Hellhunter), Barry Manowar (Fleshies), Womanowar (Dalton), Warriors of the World, and DJ Rob Metal.

Coco Montoya Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $18.

Sugar and Gold, Battlehooch, Vows Eagle Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Burmese, TITS Slim’s. 8pm, $25.

TLXN, Birdmonster, Erin Brazill Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $8.

BAY AREA

Loggins and Messina Paramount Theatre. 8pm, $39.50-79.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Laurent Fourgo Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7:30pm, free.

John Kalleen Group Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"SF Jazz Presents Hotplate: Wil Blades plays Jimmy Smith" Amnesia. 8pm, $5.

Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Will Blades Amnesia. 9pm, $5. Tribute to Jimmy Smith.

Manicato Coda. 9pm, $7.

Parno Graszt, Brass Menazeri Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $10.

Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Eric and Suzy Thompson Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Toubab Krewe Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

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

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

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 6th St., SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

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

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

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

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

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest.

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

Trinity Dance DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $16. Tribute to Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave with 5 Cent Coffee, Fromagique, and DJs James Bradley, Persephone, Mz Samantha, and Kit.

FRIDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Children of Bodom, Black Dahlia Murder, Austrian Death Machine, Skeletonwitch Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $30.

D’Fibrillatorz Mocha 101, 1722 Taraval, SF; (415) 702-9869. 8pm, free.

Damon and Naomi Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 6pm, free.

*Floating Goat, Dirty Power, Serpents Crown Annie’s Social Club. 5pm, $5.

A Hawk and a Handsaw, Damon and Naomi Independent. 9pm, $14.

Honey Island Swamp Band Boom Boom Room. 10pm.

Danny James and Pear, These Hills of Gold, Parlour Suite Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Jane Doe’s Union Room (at Biscuits and Blues). 9:30pm, $10.

Monsters Are Not Myths, Wave Array, Sentinel Hotel Utah. 9pm, $12.

Mutemath Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Kim Nalley Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

OvO, Subarachnoid Space, Worm Orouboros Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

*"Part Time Punks Mini-Fest" Mezzanine. 8pm, $20. With Raincoats, Section 25, Gang of Four, For Against, and more.

Phil and Jackets, Forget About Boston, Jacob Wolkenhauer, Essence, DJ Roy Two Thousand Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Polvo, Moggs Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Rosewood Thieves, Dead Trees, Mist and Mast Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Stung, Petty Theft Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $12.

BAY AREA

Belly of the Whale, Pentacles, Groundskeeper, Talky Tina Uptown. 9pm, free.

Jason Mraz, Brett Dennen, Robert Francis, Bushwalla Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.ticketmaster.com. 7pm, $47.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

"Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the deYoung presents Jazz at Intersection" Wilsey Court, de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, SF; www.deyoungmuseum.org. 6:30pm, free. With Nice Guy Trio’s Root Exchange Finale: Season Two.

8 Legged Monster Coda. 10pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Josh Jones Latin Jazz Ensemble Vin Club, 515 Broadway, SF; (415) 277-7228. 7pm, free.

"Lester Bowie Tribute Concert" Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. 7:30pm, $30-50. With James Carter, Corey Wilkes, Fred Ho, Roscoe Mitchell, and Famoudou Don Moye.

Lucid Lovers Rex Hotel, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-4434. 6-8pm.

Michael Zilber Jazz Quartet Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-20.

Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.

Terry Disley Experience Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Words Partisan Gallery, 112 Guerrero, SF; www.partisangallery.com. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Mild Colonial Boys Plough and Stars. 9pm, $7. With Fergus Feeley.

Wisin Y Yandel Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.goldenvoice.com. 8pm, $56-76.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

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

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris, Makossa, and Quickie Mart spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Grime City Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Joe Nice, Bogl, Grime City Crew, Emcee Chilo, and more spinning dubstep.

Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.

I Can’t Feel My Face Amnesia. 10pm, $3. With DJs EUG and J Montag spinning punk, funk, electro, rock, disco, hip hop, and no wave.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Lovebuzz Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $5. Classic punk, 90s, and rock with Jason aka Jawa, Jetset James, and Melody Nelson.

Lucky Road DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. Gypsy punk dance party with Hot Pink Feathers, Barbary Coast Shakedown, Tara Quinn, Sister Kete, MssRockwell DeVill, DJ Alxndr, and Gypsy Bazaar.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

Shit Robot Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $10. With DJs Tal M. Klein and Chardmo spinning disco and funk.

6 to 9 800 Larkin, 800 Larkin, SF; (415) 567-9326. 6pm, free. DJs David Justin and Dean Manning spinning downtempo, electro breaks, techno, and tech house. Free food by 800 Larkin. Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop, funk, reggae, and Latin with DJs Vinnie Esparza and B-Cause.

SATURDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cory Brown, Melissa Phillips Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $8.

Curtis Bumpy Coda. 10pm, $10.

Chapter 2, Panda Conspiracy Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $12.

Disastroid, Big Blue Whale, Solid Hemlock Tavern. 10pm, $7.

Fast Times Pier 39, SF; www.pier39.com. 7:30pm, free.

"Frisco Freakout!" Thee Parkside. 2pm, $15. With Heavy Hills, Lumerians, Powell St. John and the Aliens, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Liquorball with Steve MacKay, Wooden Shjips, Citay, and more.

Ernie Johnson Velma’s, 2246 Jerrold, SF; (415) 824-7646. 8pm.

Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Zach Gill Independent. 9pm, $17.

Metronomy, Fool’s Gold, Leopold and His Fiction Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Pi Bruno’s. 8:30pm, $5-10.

La Plebe, Get Dead, Compton SF, Keeners Annie’s Social Club. 9:30pm, $8.

"Rocket Dog Rescue Benefit" El Rio. 3pm. With Lady Fingaz, Solid, Jay Trainer Band, and Scranton.

Satyricon, Bleeding Through, Toxic Holocaust, Chthonic Slim’s. 8pm, $20.

Stone Foxes, Bhi Bhiman, Dubious Ranger Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $10.

Tommy Castro Band and the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Tower of Power Fillmore. 8pm, $40.

"Tricycle Music Fest West" San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; http://tricyclefest.org. 10am-2pm, free. With Hipwaders, Charity and the JamBand, and Frances England and the Time-Outs.

Mitch Woods Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

BAY AREA

Bob Dylan and His Band Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $50.

Har Mar Superstar, Heavenly States, Hot Tub, Somehow at Sea Uptown. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jack Pollard Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.

Paula West with George Mesterhazy Quartet Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.performances.org. 8pm, $27-39.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Culann’s Hounds Plough and Stars. 9pm, $7.

"Fela Kuti Birthday Celebration" Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12. With DJ Jeremiah and the Afrobeat Nation, and DJ Said.

Krosswindz Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Maus Haus, Church Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Mission Bohemia Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12.

Stellamara Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 454-5238. 8:15pm, $17.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with DJs Reno, ComaR, Phatbastard, and residents Adrian and Mysterious D, and Dada.

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

Krazy for Karaoke Happy Hour Knockout. 5-9pm, free. Belt it out with your host Deadbeat.

Rebel Radio Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs Green B and Funky C spinning reggae and hip hop and a live performance by Hypnotic Vibrations.

Reggae Gold SF Endup. 10pm, $5. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’Quuz, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, and remixes all night.

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

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

Summer Saturdays Bar On Church. 9pm, free. With DJ Mark Andrus spinning top 40, mashups, hip hop, and electro.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Electro-cumbia with Sabo, Disco Shawn, and Oro 11.

SUNDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Academy Is, Mayday Parade, Set Your Goals, You Me At Six Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $18.

And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Future of the Left Hotel Utah. 8pm, $20.

"Battle of the Bands" DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Raya Nova, Inner Sunset, Accept Your Fate, Dopesick Tight, and more.

Hanalei, Daikon, Themes, Polar Bears Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

Honey Island Swamp Band, Whisky Pills Pier 23. 4pm.

In ‘n Out Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $12.

Mensclub, Short Dogs Grow, Street Lyons, John Thaxton Bottom of the Hill. 1pm, $10.

Nadja, Date Palms, Portraits Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Thursday, Fall of Troy, Dear Hunter, Touche Amore Slim’s. 7:30pm, $20.

Gregg Wright Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

BAY AREA

Bob Dylan and His Band Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Rob Modica and friends Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 3pm, free.

Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White Yoshi’s San Francisco. 2 and 7pm, $5-32.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Meredith Edgar Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Jack Gilder, Kevin Bemhagen, Richard Mandel and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Paulo Presotto and the Ziriguidum Project Coda. 9pm, $7.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, Lady A and Her Heeldraggers Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Kush Arora, MC Zulu, Spit Brothers, and DJ Sep.

5 O’Clock Jive Inside Live Art Gallery, 151 Potrero, SF; (415) 305-8242. 5pm, $5. A weekly swing dance party.

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

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

BluesMix Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Elliott Brood, Rosi Golan, Wooden Sky Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Burmese, Javelina, Waylon Genocide Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Shawn Colvin Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

Sean Kingston, Flo Rida, New Boyz, Jaiko Warfield. 8pm, $35-40.

Sean McArdle, James Finch Jr., Caught in Motion Club Waziema, 543 Divisadero, SF; (415) 999-4061. 8pm, free.

Mono, Maserati Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

Nomeansno, Triclops! Independent. 8pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Toshio Hirano Amnesia. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

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

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bell X1 Independent. 8pm, $15.

Shawn Colvin Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

Frankenstein L.I.V.S., Ashtray, Just Head Knockout. 10pm, free.

Craig Horton Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Junior Boys, Circlesquare Mezzanine. 9pm, $18.

Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkeybirds, Bridez, Baths Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Juliette Lewis, Ettes, American Bang Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Pogues, Devotchka, Sean Wheeler and Zander Schloss Warfield. 8pm, $47.50-69.50.

Subdudes, Jimmy Sweetwater and Craig Ventresco Great American Music Hall. 7:30pm, $21.

Sunny Day Real Estate Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

A Wilhelm Scream, Living With Lions, Riot Before, Heartsounds Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Yellow Dress, Lime Colony, Passenger and Pilot, JJ Schultz Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Yogoman Burning Band, Makru, Slow Trucks Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Spaceheater’s Blast Furnace.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Barry O’Connell, Vinnie Cronin and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Lightnin’ Jeff G., and Damage Case.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Random tunes and chaos with DJ Reptile.

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

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Latin Biatz Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Funk, hip-hop, and Latin with Funky C, Joya, and DJ C-Funk.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

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

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Sing out

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Sing out

superego@sfbg.com


SUPER EGO The only place social constructivism — and its attendant corollary, relativism — can fully fluoresce as a philosophical trope is in poetry. There, I said it. Never mind simply reverse-engineering facts to reach a mere equivocation. The "deep metaphysical vision" that John R. Searle attributes to constructivists in a recent New York Review of Books article is actually a deep metaphorical vision, one in which objects gingerly materialize through the screen door of mental language, sometimes banging open, sometimes clicking locked. Situations arise from their own plots.


See-line woman

Dressed in green

Wears silk stockings

With golden seams

See-line woman


+++


Was this at last our Balearic summer? Did dance music decisively turn from tracky loops to center instead on a sunny little something called "songs"?

"That Balearic era of music was so formative for me. The Stone Roses, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, and the Verve are some of my faves," Gavin Hardkiss (www.gavinhardkiss.com), one of San Francisco’s classic Hardkiss Brothers, told me over e-mail, limning the baggier side of early rave. "Recently, I downloaded about 100 Balearic anthems from that era. I didn’t like most of them, though, so it’s not like the entire era was golden." As Hawke, a nom du disque he’s recorded under since 1993, Hardkiss has just released a nifty album, +++ (Eighth Dimension), full of sing-along electronic tunes that not only call up past Madchester glories, but also the intricate audio daydreams of Ultramarine and Orbital.

Hardkiss will forever epitomize the ’90s Lower Haight techno scene — graffiti on concrete, stars in eyes. But he’s all grown up now, and his musical complexity is complemented by the simple, practical lyrics of a new dad. "I love to make beats for DJs, but the new challenge became making songs. For this album, I had no audience in mind other than the fans who live in my house, something the family would enjoy listening to over and over. My two-year-old keeps singing my lyrics, ‘You took my money … you took my money’ and that makes me happier than anything."

He also asked several edgy artist friends to create works based on +++ tracks, which will be displayed Oct. 7-16 at Project One Gallery (251 Rhode Island, SF. www.p1sf.com), accompanied by various party events, including an opening shindig (Wed/7, 7 p.m., free), a sharp Honey Soundsystem kiss (Fri/9, 9 p.m., free) and an appearance by brother Robbie Hardkiss (Oct. 16, 9 p.m., free). Gavin promises that the art "isn’t 15 Swiss Army knife emblems."

IN FLAGRANTI


I’ve been creaming my Sergios for trip-disco lately, which stretches and tweaks rare classics without losing the red-light sensuality of the originals. Coming to a similar conclusion, but with original compositions, is Brooklyn "cut-and-paste" disco duo In Flagranti, who’ve developed an entire aesthetic that incorporates slinky synths, ’70s graphic design, bad ad piracy, horny housewives, and tunes that turn on the fog machines all by themselves.

Wed/7, 10 p.m., $5, 18+. Poleng Lounge, 1751 Fulton, SF. www.hacksawent.com

BLACK, WHITE, AND READ


No, not that kind of "read," you queen — the kind you do (or once did) with a book. LitQuake kicks off its citywide verbal smackdown with a "book ball" that hearkens back to Truman Capote’s celebrity-ridden master masques of yore. Mask yourself as your favorite scribe, light a Thai stick, and flip through the night with DJ Juanita More, rappers Khalil & Glynn, and the SF Jazz High School All-Stars. Perfectly, Miss More will also perform Carmen McCrae’s "I’m Always Drunk in San Francisco."
Fri/9, 8 p.m., $19.99. Green Room, Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.litquake.org

Psychic Dream Astrology

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Psychic Dream Astrology

ARIES

March 21-April 19

There is a bummer in town and it has taken up residence in your achy-breaky heart. No matter what the downer is, the worst thing for you to do right now is to boldly and courageously get past it. That’s right, Aries. Trying to push ahead will backfire. Instead, right the loss of balance you feel on the inside.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

You’ve got a breakthrough percoutf8g. This is not the time for compromising your vision or plans, but don’t confuse that with a green light to forgo diplomacy. Stand firm for what you want, and kick some ass to get it. Including others in your process will not only advance your cause, it will make it sweeter too.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

How can you maintain your sense of self around all the different people in your world? Work toward moving in different circles and still remaining true to your identity. Know yourself well enough that you can hold your own, no matter what your circumstances.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

You have to take some risks in the name of a happy heart. Being emotionally open is hard work, ’cause you run the risk of being open to the bad stuff along with the good. It’s worth it. Make whatever adjustments necessary to stay balanced. And try to bring a sense of adventure to the unknown, rather than the worrying you’re famous for.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

In the illustrious words of Young MC, "Don’t just stand there, bust a move." Amass your energy and make shit happen, Leo. Just do it differently than you used to, now informed by the wisdom of your past exploits. Step out and leave all the old demons behind you so you can make new mistakes instead of the same tired old ones.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The thing about hoarders is not that they are terribly materialistic, but that they attribute sentimentality to objects in a way that it makes it hard to get rid of anything. The process of discerning what needs to go and then giving it the old heave-ho is an art form. Recognize what’s outlived it’s usefulness in your life and let it go.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Fretting over things doesn’t actually improve matters. Finding someone you can blame for injustices has a shelf life. This week, take responsibility for what you are bringing to the table, remembering that if you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Channel your inner diplomat and put ‘er to work.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Your week is very Sammy Davis Jr., very "I’ve just gotta be me." Not remaking past mistakes takes a bit of patience and a lot of insight. If you can swing being true to yourself, it’ll help you step up and be unhampered by the crappy conditions you’ve been living under. Make up your mind and then speak it out, Scorpio. Things are looking up.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Lucky for you, you’ve got a gamblers spirit — because it’s time to roll the dice. Well-timed action and a little risk-taking will carry you far. Just don’t let external pressures bully you. Find your own pace and follow that.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You may posture like a badass, but I know you struggle with not trusting yourself. Anxiety is the only thing that can get in your way, so develop a strategy for dealing with it before it smacks you around again. Every light casts some shadow, so don’t get caught up in your fear of the dark. You’re on the right track, Cap.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

This is not the time to freeze up or throw in the towel. Change your life for the better, even if you feel like giving up. You have something to learn from all those obstacles in your way, but not quite yet. The universe wants you to find the energy that can carry you forward before you make any important moves, so get it together.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Trust your instincts, because you’re on a one-way track to awesome. This is one of those special times when your energy is in harmony with your insight, which is flowing with your wits. In other words, you can totally make shit happen! If you don’t know what you want, now is the time to figure it out and follow through on what feels right. *

Jessica lanyadoo has been a psychic dreamer for 15 years. Check out her Web site at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com.

More on sea-level rise in the San Francisco Bay

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By Rebecca Bowe

whole Bay Area rise.jpg
In this image of the Bay Area, the light blue shows areas that would be inundated with a 16-inch sea-level rise, and the dark blue shows areas impacted by a 55-inch sea-level rise.

When it comes to San Francisco Bay waterfront development, sea-level rise is a long-term threat that policymakers, developers, and coastal communities are just beginning to consider seriously. As we report in today’s Green City, water levels in the Bay are projected to rise as high as 16 inches by the middle of this century, and 55 inches by 2100, in worst-case scenarios, as a consequence of climate change.

San Francisco Bay: Preparing for the Next Level, a report issued by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and a trio of Dutch research and engineering firms, begins to lay out the possible implications of sea-level rise and offer possible mitigation strategies.

Here are a few images from that report depicting not just what may loom ahead, but how engineers from the Netherlands have suggested we deal with it.

Living with water

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Here’s a sobering thought: By the middle of the century, the waters of the San Francisco Bay could rise up to 16 inches. By 2100, in a worst-case scenario, the water level could creep up 55 inches higher, affecting some 270,000 people and placing economic resources worth $62 billion at risk.

These projections, which are potential consequences of climate change, are outlined in San Francisco Bay: Preparing for the Next Level, a joint report issued by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and a team of Dutch research and engineering firms.

The Dutch have centuries of experience with flood mitigation. The low-lying, flood-prone territory of the Netherlands, adjacent to the North Sea, has forced Dutch engineers to become well versed in utilizing dikes, levees, and other adaptive techniques to contend with sea-level rise.

Drawing on that expertise, the San Francisco Bay study serves as a wake-up call and the beginnings of a roadmap for the Bay Area, listing 60 possible measures for addressing what appears to be an inevitable rise in sea level. Ideas range from sturdy levees, to mechanical floodwalls, to innovations such as floating houses.

"Adaptation is essential because it’s really too late to stop climate change and sea-level rise," Will Travis, executive director of BCDC, noted at a Sept. 21 symposium held to discuss the study. "If we shut down all the power plants, turn off all the lights, and park all the cars today, it’ll still continue to get warmer for at least a half a century or more."

Even with the world’s flood-mitigation experts on the case, the scenarios are daunting — and the implications are only beginning to come into focus for policymakers, planners, and the urban populations who inhabit coastal territories.

Waves in the bay could swell to about 25 percent higher on average. Intense storms are also expected to happen more often. If the sea level rose one foot, for instance, a storm-surge induced flood that used to occur roughly once a century would instead happen once a decade. The changes would be accompanied by an air-temperature increase of more than 10 degrees by 2100 — the difference between a typical summer day and a typical winter day in San Francisco.

"The reality of sea-level rise needs to be taken seriously," San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who delivered remarks at the symposium, told the Guardian. Chiu represents San Francisco on BCDC, one of the few bodies that can bring multiple stakeholders from throughout the region under one tent to plan for sea-level rise.

If the sea level in the San Francisco Bay rose three feet, some critical landmarks — Treasure Island, AT&T Park, and San Francisco International Airport — would end up underwater unless mitigation measures were in place.

Treasure Island, the site of one of the largest redevelopment projects currently moving forward in San Francisco, was cited in the report as a case study "for how large-scale development projects can deal with rising sea levels." Project developers are looking at artificially increasing island elevation to accommodate a three-foot rise in water level, according to Jack Sylvan, director of joint development for the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Plans also include creating a buffer between new construction and the high-water line, and leaving open the possibility of shoring up the perimeter if it’s necessary to prevent flooding in the future, he said. "The fact that it’s an island forces us to address the issue," Sylvan told the Guardian.

In the report, proposed strategies for coping with climate change were presented along a continuum. One end emphasized fortress-like solutions that would support economic growth alone, while the opposite end featured more ecologically-oriented ideas like retreating from the waterfront and allowing nature to take its course.

The guiding philosophy from the Dutch was that the best approach would be to find a middle ground between these two extremes, and tailor solutions to each individual coastal area. "You should not only fight water," advised Bart Van Bolhuis, of the Consulate General of the Netherlands. "We want to share with you how we’ve mastered living with water."

The inside outsider

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news@sfbg.com

A private-sector engineering and construction consultant has worked for years out of the San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) offices for free, using public resources and having inside access to top department officials, a status gained through a questionable competitive bidding process, a Guardian investigation has revealed.

Andrew Petreas, senior project manager for Environmental and Construction Solutions, Inc. (ECS), which has done contract work for DPW since 2004, has a city e-mail address. Petreas and his assistant both work on the fourth floor of DPW’s Bureau of Construction Management (BCM) building on Mission Street, in close proximity to bureau manager Donald Eng.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian earlier this year, ECS is providing construction and consultation services for various DPW projects, including repairs to the building where he works, trying to bring it in line with the city’s Green Building Ordinance, a project that is still going three months after its scheduled completion date of June 2009.

Because of the city’s competitive bidding process for using outside consultants on DPW projects — such as construction, repairs, and construction management on all city-owned buildings and maintenance of city streets and sewers — Petreas’ inside access raises questions of fairness among competing bidders and could pose a conflict of interest. DPW officials confirm the working arrangement, but deny that there’s anything improper about it.

DPW spokesperson Christine Falvey told us that Petreas’ occupancy is necessary to "improve the flow of communication between staff and consultants" and "deliver the project more efficiently." She also said Petreas will vacate the premises once his contract has expired. But insider sources and department documents indicate that Petreas has been in the department for many years, beginning as an employee under Don Todd Associates, which first began consulting for DPW in the early 1990s. And because of questionable contract extensions, there seems to be no end in sight for the department’s relationship with Petreas or his great deal on office space.

No other contractor appears to receive this kind of advantage, and all are subject to the same competitive bidding process for obtaining contracts. City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey told the Guardian that "it makes sense in some cases to co-locate," but he couldn’t provide specific guidelines that regulate such arrangements.

When the Guardian requested all correspondence directed to and from Petreas’ city e-mail account, we were given e-mails dating only as far back as July 2008. We were further stonewalled by DPW when we asked how long Petreas has had a working relationship with the department.

Frank Lee, executive assistant to the director of the DPW, told us via e-mail: "I do not know the exact length of time that Andrew has worked for our department, but the e-mails that were forwarded to you were the only e-mails that we currently possess." He further told us that five e-mails were withheld in accordance to California Evidence Code Section 1152, which essentially states that public records can be withheld if it contains information about a money dispute between the city and a contractor. Lee would not say if the disputing contractor was Petreas or his firm, but did tell us that the matter is in litigation and the content is about "litigation strategies."

Earlier this year, ECS completed work on the department’s Materials Testing Lab, a project that initially began in March 2008 with a two-month timeline, but was given a 15-month extension. The firm also has been contracted to train DPW staff to estimate the cost of DPW projects, a contract worth $102,000, which is just below the $114,000 threshold for inviting competing bidders.

The documents also show that in the 2007-08 fiscal year, the department funneled additional money to ECS on top of its initial contract amount for "multidisciplinary construction management services" — essentailly retainer services — when other contractors on retainer had not yet fulfilled their contracted amount. ECS received an additional $500,000 on top of its contracted $1 million when the other contracted consultants (AGS, Inc., CPM/TMI Joint Venture, and PGH Wong Engineering, Inc.) had spent less than 50 percent of its $1 million contracted amount.

It’s not that ECS is better qualified or cheaper than these other private consultants. Consulting firms for the four open retainer slots are selected by the city’s Human Rights Commission for a two-year period through a competitive request for proposals (RFP) bidding process. For the last two periods, the commission ranked ECS in third place; before that, it came in second, but got a contract anyway.

Yet Petreas continues to be the only consultant who enjoys city e-mail privileges, not to mention a rent-free, roomy office in the city-owned building, with a view from the fourth floor. But if fairness among competing private contractors is an issue, the other contenders aren’t complaining, perhaps out of fear of not being awarded future contracts by DPW or other city agencies.

When asked whether the RFP process was even-handed and if Petreas’ insider status gives him an advantage, Jack Wang, principal engineer for AGS, Inc., hesitated to speak with us, saying that he didn’t want to get in trouble and that he "can’t comment on undue influence." He also told us that Petreas’ augmented contract amount and time extensions were "not enough for me to be alarmed about." He later added that "the industry is small. It’s very competitive."

When the Guardian took a look at all contract agreements between the department and ECS, as well as with Don Todd Associates, we discovered an employment gap that coincided with public scrutiny of the arrangement. Shortly after a September 1999 article by Peter Byrne ("It Ate City Hall") in SF Weekly reporting that Don Todd Associates had been paid $6 million over the course of nine years, some of it in apparent violation of city policies, its contract agreement ended and was never renewed or extended. But Petreas reemerged in 2004 under ECS, where he and his wife are the current owners.

The department offered no explanation for Petreas’ ongoing good fortune or his relationship with Eng, who did not return calls from the Guardian. Instead it diverted inquiries to public information officers. Several attempts were made to contact Petreas and other ECS representatives, but our calls were not returned.

So is it fair to say that there are no guidelines or oversight for the length of time a private consultant may provide services to the city and that it is wholly up to the discretion of the department manager? When we brought up this opportunity for cronyism and corruption — a big loophole in city labor law — to Deputy City Controller Monique Zmuda, she told us that "there’s no prohibition on the city contracting with one entity for a long time."

Earlier this year, ECS completed yet another round of contract negotiations with the city and signed a new master agreement for multidisciplinary services for the next five years, in which it will be paid out $1 million for as-needed services.

Balompie Cafe

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paulr@sfbg.com

Balompié Café looks like many another modest restaurants in the Mission, but it does make a convincing claim to uniqueness, in three parts. The first is the striking name — basically “ball foot” in Spanish. Football by any other name — including “balompié” and “fútbol” — is still … soccer. Somehow soccer’s claim to being the true football is more convincing than our own. In American football, the combination of ball and foot is seldom a presence or factor.

The second part of our triad is Balompié’s identity as a soccer bar. The walls of the otherwise unassuming space are festooned with soccer-club banners from around the world, and flat-panel televisions mounted high on the walls show plenty of action. Some of the patrons scattered around the dining room and at the bar are likely to be watching rapt, while others will be dividing their attention between the screens and the plates of Salvadorean food in front of them — the place’s Salvadoreanness being its third distinguishing characteristic. Salvadorean cuisine resembles its Mexican cousin in broad outline, with corn and beans at the foundation, as they have been for centuries in Mesoamerica. But Salvadorean cuisine has its specialties and special delights.

Torn though some of the other patrons might be between the food and the televised proceedings, there was no contest for us. Soccer is a little too free-form a game to translate comfortably to television; the main impression made on the remote spectator pertains to the green vastness of the playing field. It’s like looking at an image from Google Earth, with tiny figures frantically running around. The food, on the other hand, richly rewards the attention you pay to it. It is as flavorful as any food you’ll find in this city and is also monumentally inexpensive. Balompié has been at its central Mission location since 1987, and in recent years has opened up at a few other spots (one in SoMa, the other in the outer Mission), but it still gives big bang for the buck, and that’s probably never been more valuable than it is now, in this depression-by-any-other-name.

The best-known Salvadorean dish in this country is the pupusa — and I probably should say “pupusas,” since, as with Lay’s potato chips, the singular reference is absurd. (Balompié’s menu codifies this preference for the plural by requiring that you order a minimum of two pupusas; the regular ones are $2.50 each, the fancier sorts $3.50.) Pupusas are basically stuffed flatbreads (made here either from masa or rice flour) that look a lot like small pita breads, and they can be filled with a variety of delectables.

Spinach and cheese reminded me of the Greek pastry pie spanikopita, while chorizo and cheese had the air of a Mexican-style breakfast. In the case of the blander pupusas — the cheese-and-beans combo springs to mind — enhancement is available in the form of an impressively spicy cabbage slaw, a dish of pickled vegetables (including carrot coins, cauliflower florets, and rounds of jalapeño pepper), and a richly tomatoey, though mild-mannered, salsa.

The pupusas are griddled. The corn pies called pasteles ($5.75 for three), on the other hand, are deep-fried and resemble an improbable cross between corn dogs, falafel balls, and Easter eggs. They’re crunchy on the outside and are filled with well-seasoned minced pork. (Chicken and shrimp versions are also available.)

The bigger plates tend to include large swaths of beans and rice — a worthy combination that can assume the proportions of a small landslide. (You can get the beans and rice as discrete entities, with salad, or mixed together and fried as casamiento.) The wonderful garlic chicken ($9.95), for instance, would have been fine on its own. The meat had been sliced into boneless flaps, then cooked — I would guess on the griddle — until the edges were lightly crisped and caramelized. The finishing touch was a fabulously creamy garlic sauce with a hint of lemon ladled over the top.

A chile relleno ($10.75) turned out to be less routine than it sounded. The pepper, a poblano, was familiar enough; the filling, of chopped, spiced beef, was less so. But the real puzzle was a band of mysterious white threads with the texture of pickled radish and a bitter-fruity flavor. That bite took some getting used to but was, in the end, a real enhancement. We quizzed our server, and she brought forth a jar labelled “pacaya,” or date palm — actually a date-palm blossom, pickled in brine. The date palm is a native of Mesopotamia and is one of the world’s most venerable food sources.

This is the sort of interesting food factoid that can get overlooked when Mexico scores on Costa Rica and the tiny figures run around on the surface of their flat green planet while, at Balompié, murmurs of exultation or disappointment ripple through the crowd and more beer is ordered, perhaps a bottle of Regia from El Salvador, a gorgeously smooth golden lager in a vessel like a quart of motor oil. Sort of the beer equivalent of the foot-long hotdog.

BALOMPIÉ CAFÉ

Daily, 8 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

3349 18th St. (also at 525 Seventh St. and 3801 Mission), SF

(415) 648-9199 (558-9668, 647-4000)

Beer and wine

DS/MC/V

Loud but bearable

Wheelchair accessible

 

Music listings

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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alma Desnuda, Lady Danville, Davey G Project, Ilaya, Brett Hunter Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Little Junior Davis and the All-Star Blues Hounds Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Hamilton Loomis Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Hammerlock, Holley 750 Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $7.

Ida Marie, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head Fillmore. 8pm, $20. Hosted by Perez Hilton.

Mason Jennings, Crash Kings Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Mo’Fone, Brothers Goldman Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $5.

Publish the Quest, Radioactive Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Gil Scott-Heron, Ise Lyfe, Orgone Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $35.

Sermon, Blank Stares Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Sonos, Austin Hartley-Leonard Hotel Utahl. 9pm, $10.

Stripmall Architecture, Sweet Trip, Boy in Static Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Tell-Tale Heartbreakers, Green Lady Killers, Hooray for Everything Knockout. 10pm, $6.

Works Progress Administration, Molly Jenson Independent. 8pm, $15.

BAY AREA

Kylie Minogue Fox Theater. 8pm, $58.50-99.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Nick Rossi Trio.

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

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

Swing With Stan Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

49 Special Climate Theater, 285 9th St., SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15 sliding scale. Part of the Music Box Series.

Soja, Kapakahi, Movement Slim’s. 9pm, $21.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Abe Vigoda, Psychic Reality, Mi Ami DJs Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

David Bazan, Say Hi Independent. 8pm, $15.

Heather Combs, Aiden James, David Greco, Francesca Lee Hotel Utah. 7:30pm, $8.

Datarock, Esser, Kav Slim’s. 8:30pm, $16.

Glenn Labs, Mark Matos and Os Beaches, TV Mike and the Scarecrows Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Hot Fog, Private Dancer, Careerers Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Hot Toddies, Foxes!, Ian Fays, DJs from Your Latest Crush Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

*Kylesa, Saviours, Bison BC, Kowloon Walled City DNA Lounge. 7pm, $15.

Maldroid, We Should Be Dead, Hooks Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Mass Fiction, DoubleDouble, Dubious Ranger Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Please Do Not Fight, Bird by Bird, Ghost and City, Finish Ticket Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $10.

Boz Scaggs and the Blue Velvet Band Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $100. Benefit for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Fund.

Seconds on End Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $5.

Johnny Vernazza Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

*Gillian Welch Fillmore. 8pm, $29.50.

BAY AREA

Kylie Minogue Fox Theater. 8pm, $58.50-99.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Debashish Bhattacharya Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Laurent Fourgo Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7:30pm, free.

"Full Moon Concert Series: Blood Moon" Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $6-10. With James Kaiser and AC Way, and Past-Present-Future.

Lisa Lindsley and Walter Bankovitch Trio Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

Oz Noy Coda. 9pm, $15.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Dark Hollow Band Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Shannon Ceili Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Whisky Richards Maggie McGarry’s, 1353 Grant, SF; (415) 399-9020. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Bingotopia Knockout. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Play for drinks, dignity, and dorky prizes with Lady Stacy Pants.

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

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

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

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Holy Thursday Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Bay Area electronic hip hop producers showcase their cutting edge styles monthly.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro.

LovEvolution Pre-Party Supperclub. Dinner 7-9:30pm, $55; afterparty 9pm, $10. Join the LovEvolution staff for dinner and performances at 7pm, or get down at the after party to some dance beats.

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

Mizra Party and Soul Movers Infusion Lounge. 9pm, free. Featuring DJ Cams.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest. Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs Peeplay, Pat Les Stache, and Marnacle.

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Armagideons, Eric McFadden, Hooks, Two Timin Hussies, Interchords Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10. Seventh annual SF Joe Strummer Tribute and benefit for Strummerville.

Asobi Seksu, Loney, Dear, Anna Ternheim Slim’s. 9pm, $17.

L’Avventura, Music Lovers, Honneycombs Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.

Chris Cain Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Clipd Beaks, Experimental Dental School Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Dark Star Orchestra Fillmore. 9pm, $31.

Destroyer 666, Accused, Witchhaven, Wietus Mortuus, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.

Digital Bliss, Return to Mono, Divasonic, Celeste Lear, Weather Pending 111 Minna. 9pm.

John Predny, Fleeting Trance, Andy Mason Retox Lounge. 9pm, $5.

Boz Scaggs and the Blue Velvet Band Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $100. Benefit for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Fund.

Tartufi, Geographer, Judgement Day Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Tornado Rider, My Revolver, Stirling Says Red Devi Lounge. 9pm, $10.

Wicked Mercies, Hi-Nobles, I Love My Label Annie’s Social Club. 9pm.

Zony Mash, Horns Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

Broun Fellinis Coda. 9pm, $10.

"Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the deYoung presents Jazz at Intersection" Wilsey Court, de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, SF; www.deyoungmuseum.org. 6:30pm, free. With Will Bernard/Beth Custer Ensemble.

Duo Gadjo Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Lucid Lovers Rex Hotel, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-4434. 6-8pm.

Plays Monk Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-20.

Ramsey Lewis Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Christopher Dallman Dolores Park Café. 7pm, free.

*"Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9" Speedway, Marx, and Lindley Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com. 2-7pm, free. Today’s performers include MC Hammer, Fireants, Poor Man’s Whiskey, Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman, John Prine, and Lyle Lovett and His Large Band.

Jon Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Rosie Flores, Sadies, Sally Timms, Rico Bell Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 7:30pm, $20.

Mild Colonial Boys Plough and Stars. 9pm, $5.

Montana Slim String Band, Bucky Walters, Innapropriaters Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Tin Cat, Apple Orange, Avi Vinocur, Grace Woods Red Vic, 1665 Haight, SF; (415) 864-1978. 7:15pm, $2.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

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

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

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

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Jam on It Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Hip-hop with host Z-Man and DJs Quest, Roy Two Thousand, Tyra from Saigon, and Lady Fingaz.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Lovesick Etiquette Lounge, 1108 Market, SF; (415) 863-3929. 9pm, $10. A pre-party for LovEvolution hosted by South Sound Collective featuring DJs DRC, Alland Byallo, Dizzy Dave and more.

Martinez Brothers Mighty. 10pm, $15. Get your dancing legs warmed up for Saturday’s LovEvolution parade and festival at this pre-party hosted by Pink Mammoth.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

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

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

Tyrant Club 525. 7pm, $25. London DJ duo Lee Burridge and Craig Richards spin the Love at this LovEvolution festival pre-party.

Undead Wedding Cat Club. 9pm; $10, $3 for zombie brides and grooms. Featuring goth, industrial, and death rock music along with wedding ceremonies, cake, and photographers.

Upper Playground and Sonic Living Happy Hour Laszlo. 6-9pm, free. Resident DJs Amplive and Tourist with special guests. Drink specials and giveaways.

SATURDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bugs, Dadfag, Sad Horse Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Dark Star Orchestra Fillmore. 9pm, $31.

Fat Bottom Girls, Sassy, Yes Gos, Bloody Hells, Horror-X Annie’s Social Club. 9pm.

Horrors, Japanese Motors, Rocket Independent. 9pm, $20.

Love Songs, Ed Mudshi, Cobra Skulls, Airfix Kits El Rio. 10pm, $7.

Monophonix Deluxe Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $10.

Sunny Rhodes Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Schande, Who Cares, Belly of the Whale, Sleeptalks Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Shinedown, Sick Puppies, Adelitas Way Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $30.

*Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Pine Box Boys, Tiny Television Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Miike Snow, Jack Peñate, Loquat Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Stone Foxes, Soft White Sixties, Courtney Janes, Anna Troy, DJ Joel Selvin Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Ralph Carney and friends Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Mads Tolling Trio Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Ramsey Lewis Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Bonanza Plough and Stars. 9pm, $5.

Jordan Carp Caffe Trieste, 1667 Market, SF; (415) 551-1000. 8pm, free.

Danny Cohen, Jonah Kit, Magic! Magic Roses House of Shields. 9pm, $5.

Folk4Parks Rock-It Room. 8pm, $10. Help stop the impending closure of over 100 California State Parks at this benefit featuring Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Ramblers, Kristina Bennett, Better Maker, and more.

*"Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9" Speedway, Marx, and Lindley Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com. 11am-8pm, free. Today’s performers include Okkervil River, Boz Scaggs and the Blue Velvet Band, Old 97s, Steve Earle and the Bluegrass Dukes, Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, Richie Havens, and many more.

Belle Monroe and Her Brewglass Boys, Shut-Ins, Gayle Lynn and Her Hired Hands Plough and Stars. 9pm, $10.

Pladdohg Ireland’s 32. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

BADNB Lovelution Afterparty Club Six. 9pm, $15. Featuring three stages of drum and bass with DJs KJ Sawka, Gridlok, Bachelors of Science, Method One, Maneesh the Twister, and more.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. Wear a flannel, get in free before 11pm to this 90s alternative dance party with DJs Jamie Jams and Emdee.

Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love.

Get Loose! Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJ White Mike spinning dance jams.

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

Leisure Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $7. DJs Omar, Aaron, and Jet Set James spinning classic britpop, mod, 60s soul, and 90s indie.

LovEvolution Parade starts at Market and 2nd St. and ends at Civic Center Plaza for a dance music festival, SF; www.sflovevolution.org. Parade starts at noon, free; festival from noon-8pm, $10. Featuring a diverse and extensive line up of dance music DJs.

Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5. "Electroindierockhiphop" and 80s dance party for dykes, bois, femmes, and queers with DJ China G and guests.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul spin 60s soul on 45s.

So Special Club Six. 9pm, $5. DJ Dans One and guests spinning dancehall, reggae, classics, and remixes.

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

Summer Saturdays Bar On Church. 9pm, free. With DJ Mark Andrus spinning top 40, mashups, hip hop, and electro.

SUNDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blakes, Music for Animals, Lucky Jesus Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Trevor Childs and the Beholders, Echo Falls, Cyndi Harvell Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Dark Star Orchestra Fillmore. 8pm, $31.

*John Doe, Sadies, Brothers Comatose Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $12.

Jolie Holland, Michael Hurley Independent. 8pm, $20.

Dr. MoJo Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, free.

Lloyd Gregory Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Liquid Indian, Mujaheddin Bernstein Affair, North Fork, White Pee Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

New Model Army, Salty Walt and the Rattlin’ Ratlines DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $12.

Soulfly, Prong, Cattle Decapitation Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $24.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Contemporary Insights: Music and Conversation" ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.sfcmp.org. 4:30pm, $5-10. Performance and discussion of John Harris’ "The Seven Ages."

Imani Winds with Stefon Harris Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.performances.org. 7pm, $27-39.

Mr. Lucky, Ramshackle Romeos Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Rob Modica and friends Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 3pm, free.

Ramsey Lewis Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

*"Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9" Speedway, Marx, and Lindley Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com. 11am-8pm, free. Today’s performers include Billy Bragg, Chieftains, Old Crow Medicine Show, Marianne Faithfull, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Earl Scruggs, Hazel Dickens, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Mavis Staples, Neko Case, Dr. Dog, and many more.

Mucho Axé Coda. 8pm, $7.

Quin and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm free.

DANCE CLUBS

Body and Soul Mighty. 8pm, $25. A nonstop dance fest featuring DJs Francois K, Joaquin "Joe" Claussell, and Danny Krivit.

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and Vinnie Esparza.

5 O’Clock Jive Inside Live Art Gallery, 151 Potrero, SF; (415) 305-8242. 5pm, $5. A weekly swing dance party.

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

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Shuckin’ and Jivin’ Knockout. 10pm, free. DJs Dr. Scott and Oran spin rock, doo-wop, jive, stomp, and more on 78rpm records.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Billy Bragg Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $30.

*God Dethroned, Abigail Williams, Woe of Tyrants, Augury, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 8pm, $15.

Fever Ray, Vuk Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

*Motorhead, Reverend Horton Heat, Nashville Pussy Warfield. 8pm, $38.

Serious Bees, Ms Cloud Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $5.

69 Eyes, Dommin, Becoming Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $17.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"From the Top" Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfcmp.org. 8pm, $10-28. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players present five pieces by American composers Harbison, Reich, Wuorinen, Feldman, and Campion.

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Project, Classical Revolution Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Dubstep/DNB Underground SF. 9pm, $5. With DJs Tromaone, Qzen, Rastatronics, and more.

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Chris Ayer, Steph Johnson Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Bane, Trash Talk, Foundation, Grace Alley Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12.

Billy Bragg Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $30.

Busdriver, Themselves, Nocando Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Cave Singers, Lightning Dust Independent. 8pm, $14.

Elm, Higuma, New Red Sun Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

School of Seven Bells, Warpaint, Phantogram Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Stratovarius, Pagans Mind Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Joe Bagale.

Kaweh Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $22.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Suzanne Cronin and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Gema, Terroritmo Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Tim Holt West Portal Library, 190 Lenox, SF; (415) 355-2886. 6:30pm, free. A performance of American history through folk songs.

Tina Dico Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

DJ Ism Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, free.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Rotating DJs and shot specials.

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

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

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

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Events listings

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Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 30

Where the Wild Things Are Metreon Theater, 101 4th St., SF; www.826valencia.org. 7pm, $75. Enjoy a special screening of Where the Wild Things Are followed by a Q and A discussion with director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers. All proceeds to benefit 826 Valencia.

THURSDAY 01

BAY AREA

Night Bazaar Jack London Square, Broadway at Embarcadero, Oak; oaklandunwrapped.org. 5:30pm, free. Enjoy this nighttime market organized in the festive tradition of Italian village fairs, German holiday markets, and Moroccan bazaars. Featuring local artisans, merchants, music, ice skating, and more.

FRIDAY 02

Clash of the Heroes Bayfront Theater, Building B, Fort Mason Center, SF; (415) 474-6776. Fri.-Sat. 8pm, Sun. 7pm; $20. Join BATS Improv troupe for a competition between improve teams performing scenes, games, and musical numbers which will be scored by judges.

Gandhi Birthday Poetry Reading Gandhi Statue, San Francisco Ferry Building, foot of Mission and Market Streets, SF; (510) 845-5481. 4:30pm, free. Attend a poetry reading on the bay to celebrate the 140th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth followed by a walk to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Yerba Buena Gardens.

Oktoberfest By the Bay Pier 48, San Francisco Waterfront, across from AT&T park, SF; 1-888-746-7522. Fri. 3pm-Midnight, Sat. 11am-5pm, Sat. 6pm-Midnight, Sun. 11am-6pm; $30-35. Bring the spirit of Germany to the Bay Area at this festival featuring great beer, German food, and authentic German music. Tickets cover admission and entertainment only.

Redefining the Universe Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400. Fri. 8pm, Sat. 10am, Sat. 1:30pm; $20-100. In honor of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope, Humanities West is presenting a two-day program of lectures, discussions, music, and dance presentations titled, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler: Redefining our Place in the Universe.

SATURDAY 03

Fall Garden Festival Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco Botanical Garden, 9th Ave. at Lincoln, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 661-1316. 10am, free. Garden lovers and gardeners can enjoy a full day of activities and demonstrations about plants and gardening from local horticultural and conservation organizations.

Heroes of the Environment Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; (415) 431-6800. 5pm, free. Hear author Harriet Rohmer discuss her new book Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet with special guest Erica Fernandez, the 14 year old who helped stop an offshore mining operation.

Hispanic Heritage Day Mission Branch Library, 300 Bartlett, SF; (415) 355-2800. Noon, free. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at the Mission Branch library with dance and music from Mexico, a presentation about the history of Argentinean tango, bilingual poetry, and more.

LovEvolution Parade starts at Market and 2nd St. and ends at Civic Center Plaza for a dance music festival, SF; www.sflovevolution.org. Parade starts at noon, free; festival from noon-8pm, $10. If you like to dance, people watch, and dress colorfully, check out this celebration of music and love featuring a diverse line up of dance music DJs.

Open Studios Preview SOMArts Main Gallery, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 861-9838. 7:30pm, $60. Get your Open Studios engine revving by being the first to view the SF Open Studios Exhibition, featuring work from over 400 SF Open Studios artists. Admission includes open bar and creative cuisine.

Original Plumbing Seventh Heart, 1593 Market, SF; www.originalplumbing.com. 3pm, free. Attend the release party for the first issue or Original Plumbing magazine titled The Bedroom Issue. The magazine seeks to document the diversity within the female-to-male transgender community with photos, essays, personal narratives, and more.

Sandcastle Contest Ocean Beach, near Cliff House, SF; (415) 512-1899. 10am, free. This year’s theme, Stories in the Sand: Classic Children’s Books, promises to unearth giant monsters and characters. Participate in the community sandcastle building area for a $5-10 suggested donation and help raise money for the arts in Bay Area schools.

SUNDAY 04

Castro Street Faire Castro at Market, SF; (415) 841-1824. 11am, $5 suggested donation. "Come Get Hitched" at this years Castro Street Fair and enjoy a wedding party, music and dance performances, art, a dating game, and more. Proceeds from admission and vendors go toward charitable causes important to the Castro Community.

TUESDAY 06

Margaret Atwood Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400. 8pm, $20. Poet, novelist, and social historian Margaret Atwood is hosting an evening of music, performance, and readings from and inspired by her new novel The Year of the Flood.

Noam Chomsky Commonwealth Club, 2nd floor, 595 Market, SF; (415) 597-6700. 6pm, $18. Hear world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky discuss how the masses are kept in line and how to remain a freethinking, active citizen.


The national parks: A radical idea

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By Tim Redmond

I have two kids (with piano, gymnastics, tae kwon do, PTA and assorted play dates and sleepovers), a busy job, a dog to walk, dirty dishes to wash … you know the drill. So I haven’t been able to watch every minute of every episode of Ken Burns magnum opus on the national park system. I don’t think I know anyone who has that kind of time these days.

But I tuned in for a while last night, to Episode Two, which tracks John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, the Antiquities Act etc., and I walked away with a very clear message:

This is a series about what government does right.

In the segment I saw, the feds were the good guys — Congress was saving wild areas, and when the western ranchers and developers tried to commercialize the Grand Canyon (in the name of private enterprise), Roosevelt used his authority to block them, infuriating the states-rights and anti-government Westerners but (of course) preserving what everyone know agrees is a national treasure.

There was a fabulous quote from environmental journalist Juanita Green.

“In other parts of the world,” she says, “there are places that are wild because some nobleman decreed it. In the United States, we don’t need a nobleman. … that’s democracy.”

At a time when the mayor of San Francisco is lauding the death of a billionaire who believed just the opposite — that the private sector should decide what gets saved and that private philanthropy (from fortunes built on tax cuts) is a better solution than public spending (fueled by taxes on the wealthy), we all ought to think about that a little.

If the national parks are “America’s best idea,” as Burns dubs his documentary, then the best thing this nation has ever done is exerted government supremacy over the private sector when it comes to the use of land. It’s sad to think how radical that sounds today.

Americana: More from Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and ‘American Idiot,’ the musical

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am idiot sm 1 092609.jpg
Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, from left, Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool. Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Records.

By Kimberly Chun

Another helping of American Idiot, anyone? Berkeley Rep has obliged by extending the run of the musical through Nov. 1. Meanwhile here’s more from an interview with Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong in August — for the rest of the story, see “No Brainer” in the Guardian’s Fall Arts Preview issue.

SFBG: So what does the album mean to you now?

Billie Joe Armstrong: Um, I think it means that we were right. [Laughs] I think it means … a lot. I love that album. It’s one of my proudest moments as a musician, for sure — having the guts and audacity to make a record that was that ambitious, but still, at the same time, be true to rock ‘n’ roll music, I guess.

Energy efficiency gets a boost, but foxes still guard the hen house

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By Rebecca Bowe

electric meter.jpg

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a $3.1 billion budget yesterday for statewide energy efficiency programs that will be in place until 2012. California’s powerful investor-owned utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, and Southern California Gas Company — are in charge of implementing the programs, while the funding is derived from ratepayers.

While the decision marks the creation of the largest energy-efficiency program in the country, some question the wisdom of the colossal investment, because it relies on utility companies to implement dramatic reductions in energy use.

It’s the greatest financial contribution the state utility commission has ever pledged toward energy efficiency. According to the CPUC, the potential energy savings will negate the need for three new 500-megawatt power plants, and avoid 3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The funding from this decision could create between 15,000 and 18,000 green jobs, the CPUC estimates.

The decision will provide $260 million for local efforts such as municipal building retrofits. It also requires utilities to track progress toward goals and strategies established in a long-term statewide plan for reducing energy use. Included in the effort is an ambitious home-retrofit program, which sets a goal of 20 percent energy savings for up to 130,000 homes.

“This investment in California’s clean energy economy is just what we need to create new jobs for our communities and fight global warming pollution,” said Lara Ettenson, director of California Energy Efficiency Policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a prominent environmental organization.

Not everyone shares NRDC’s optimism, however.

The Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), an independent consumer advocacy division of the CPUC, warned that the powerful utility companies should be closely monitored to see how they make use of such a tremendous sum.

In a statement released this morning, the DRA highlighted “a continuing need for stronger mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability in the utilities’ use of the billions of dollars of ratepayer money.” Utility giant PG&E has been criticized in the past for misuse of energy-efficiency funds.

Remaking Market Street

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steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Market Street is a mess that doesn’t work well for any of its users. In famously fractious San Francisco, that’s something politicians and citizens of all political stripes can agree on — and it’s now something that a wide variety of city agencies and interest groups have finally started to work on improving, experiment by experiment.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Sept. 10 announcement of a series of pilot projects on Market Street — including a plan to divert many automobiles from Market Street that begins Sept. 29, followed by creation of more sidewalk seating areas and art projects in the coming months — drew from work started a year ago by his arch-rival, Sup. Chris Daly, who in turn was furthering plans for an eventually carfree Market Street initiated by former Mayor Willie Brown.

"I’m glad that it’s going to get done and we’re going to take cars off of Market Street," Daly told the Guardian after Newsom’s announcement. Newsom presented the changes in grander terms, saying in a prepared statement, "The new and improved Market Street will rival main streets around the world."

Among the streets Newsom cited as an example is Broadway in New York City, "for piloting ways to use streets as open space," according to the Mayor’s Office statement. But while many San Franciscans like Broadway’s new separated bike lanes and street-level open space, others covet Broadway’s flashy electronic signs and billboards, which this November’s Proposition D would bring to the mid-Market area.

"The next thing is going to happen whether Prop. D passes or not," said David Addington, the Warfield Theater owner who proposed the measure to allow more commercial signage on Market between Fifth and Seventh streets as a source of revenue to improve mid-Market. "This area could be fantastic."

Indeed, it appears that Market Street is bound for some big changes. And unlike efforts in the past, which involved long studies of ideas that were never implemented, there’s a sense of experimentation and immediacy that marks the latest push.

"I’m very excited about the Market Street changes and I think it’s good for San Francisco to be in a mode where we give ourselves permission to experiment with our streets," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, which is supporting Prop. D and Newsom’s Market plans.

"I really appreciative that the city is willing to start things in Market Street in trial phases so we can wade in," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "Reducing the number of cars on Market Street will definitely be a benefit for those walking and biking, as well as speeding up transit."

Plans call for signs encouraging eastbound motorists on Market to turn right at 10th Street before requiring them to do so at Eighth Street and again at Sixth Street.

The San Francisco Transportation Authority (governed by the Board of Supervisors), which prepared the study on diverting cars from Market Street, was also poised to approve (on Sept. 22, after Guardian press time) some complementary measures to "calm the safety zone" on Market Street.

That plan is to create better markings on the street to delineate the spaces used by motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, including colored pavement and moving back the points where cars stop at intersections to create safer access to transit stops.

Once the court injunction against bike projects is lifted — for which a hearing is set Nov. 2 — the plan would also create colored "bike boxes" at Market intersections and a buffer zone between the bike lanes and cars between Eighth Street and Van Ness. "It would be the city’s first separated bike lane, with very little work," Shahum said.

The Mayor’s Office says various city agencies will monitor and evaluate the Market Street pilot projects being implemented over the next year, with full implementation of a designed Market Street coming in 2013 after taking community input.

"We’re excited about it. There’s a long history of ideas about what to do about Market," said Judson True, spokesperson for the Municipal Transportation Agency, which is guiding the improvements. "This is the start of the next phase on Market Street."

Microfinance for radicals

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news@sfbg.com

In 1969, 11 antiwar protesters loced up at the Santa Rita County Jail began questioning each other about the future of the movement. By the time they were released, they’d decided that the creative nonviolent projects that were emerging would all need funding — and the Agape Foundation was born.

Agape, which celebrates its 40th anniversary Sept. 24, is not the only progressive foundation in San Francisco, and not the only source of money for small progressive groups. But it is, in many ways, the boldest, the one most willing to take risks on organizations that are new, small, and doing things far out on the political edge.

Nina Dessart, Agape’s administrative director, says the group is "unusual for funding only social justice or change." And unlike other foundations that look for long track records, Agape funds startups. Indeed, an organization must be less than five years old to be eligible for Agape’s funding options.

"We love to be the first ones [to give aid to an emerging cause,]" Dessart said. "It is hard to get grants to organizations without track records."

Some big, nationally prominent organizations also have benefited from Agape’s money, including Amnesty International, the National Farm worker Ministry, and Bread and Roses.

Agape — the name comes from the Greek word for altruism — also prides itself on helping the likes of People’s Grocery in West Oakland, a small operation that promotes food and health awareness in an economically depressed community.

And long before microloans became popular, the folks at Agape realized that a little money could go a long way. For example, the National Farmworkers Ministry "used [a] 1959 Plymouth station wagon [purchased with Agape funds] continuously until its demise in the autumn," according to Agape records. The group used the station wagon to bring food and relief to families whose families members had been jailed for picketing, to carry protesters to picket lines from jail, and to map out the picket lines.

Agape funds have supplied portable toilets for antinuclear protests. The group has been funding gay military counseling since 1972. That same year, Agape underwrote a four-day "consciousness raising" conference for ex-prisoners and their families. In 1975, Agape paid for the construction of the Trident Monster — a submarine-like sculpture used to raise awareness of nuclear weapons.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Agape gave money and support to antinuclear organizations such as the Honeywell Project and the Abalone Alliance — a time when groups that were constantly engaged in civil disobedience and defying federal and state authorities would have had trouble getting tax-exempt status.

Indeed, tax-status assistance has been one of Agape’s most powerful tools — groups can use the foundation as a fiscal sponsor and not have to worry about wrangling with tax documents.

Women for Genuine Security, a Bay Area advocacy group, uses Agape to process contributions to "minimize administrative aspects of getting a tax-exempt status," coordinator Gwen Kirk told us.

Five years ago Agape broadened its focus from fundraising by starting an annual awards program to spotlight the people and groups that are creatively and actively working toward peace. Nicole Hsiang, an Agape board member, explains that around the initiation of the Iraq War, Agape started giving out peace awards "to the real heroes."

Last year the Agape Peace Prize went to Nancy Hernandez, youth program coordinator of H.O.M.E.Y. (Homies Organizing to Empower Mission Youth). Hernandez used the money from the prize to take rival Mission District gang members camping. These youth — and those helped by Youth Together and other organizations funded, aided, and spotlighted by Agape — are "the next 40," Hernandez says, the ones at the forefront of social change for the next 40 years in San Francisco.

Jacqueline Cabasso, this year’s recipient of the Enduring Visionary Prize, is executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, which helped form the nation’s largest antiwar coalition, US Abolition 2000 and the People’s Nonviolent Response Coalition after 9/11.

Eileen Hansen, acting director of Agape, puts it simply: "We fund new, struggling, barely formed groups that can hardly call themselves an organization — and nobody else will take a chance on them," she said. "When you look back at the social justice movement over the past 40 years and all the groups we’ve helped, you have to wonder where that movement would have been without Agape."

Agape’s awards ceremony and anniversary party is Sept. 24, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness. $50 donation. www.agapepeaceprize.org.

Too clever by half

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“>THEATER REVIEW With a notable streak of successful New York–bound liftoffs and landings — for everything from solo shows (Bridge & Tunnel) to unconventional musicals (Passing Strange) — it’s fair to call Berkeley Rep the regional NASA to Broadway’s firmament. It therefore seemed more savvy than surprising that the Rep took on staging Green Day’s humongous hit concept album, American Idiot, as a musical. Given the attention-grabbing concept-squared, the built-in youth market, the local angle, and the precedent (and writer-director Michael Mayer) borrowed from Spring Awakening — the faux-punk teen-angst Tony-winner of 2007 — American Idiot the musical must have been something of a no-brainer.

And sure enough, there are no brains in this show, just lots of songs and outfits and group dancing and mild thrashing and writhing around amid high-grade eye candy. It lasts 85 minutes, or an eternity, I’m not sure which came first. I wasn’t expecting much, having not cared for the hollow gestures in Spring Awakening, but I got even less. Shot out of the circus canon of commercial instinct, the stage version of Green Day’s album is as tarted up and vapid as they come. It will do the band and the Rep no harm, but anyone who actually takes their theater seriously or, yeah, even rebellion against a body-and-soul–smashing capitalist machine will be, uh, let’s say, disappointed. The gestures of rebellion here — thoroughly watered down and washed away by a flood of sentimentality, admittedly derived largely from the album itself — are worthy of any of the more slick corporate advertising campaigns. Meanwhile, a vague storyline of redemptive dissolution and lost love preens around a loser-hero and two distant and less central buddies, but it’s all faded imprints of a million things you’ve seen before.

AMERICAN IDIOT

Through Nov. 1

Check Web site for schedule, $16-$95

Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk

1-888-4-BRT-Tix, www.berkeleyrep.org

Jannah

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paulr@sfbg.com

DINE The brightness of Yahya Salih’s new restaurant, Jannah, belies — or redeems — what went before. Jannah’s immediate predecessor was a place called Gabin, a Korean-inflected karaoke bar that drew some spicy Yelp commentary. Before that, it was Café Daebul, also Korean-influenced, maybe a bit less commentable. Both places were, apparently, on the gloomy, claustrophobic side.

Jannah, by contrast, is all about openness. Huge plate-glass windows look onto the lively Fulton-at-Masonic street scene, while the interior consists of a vast, pillarless dining room embroidered by a bar set off by a half-wall. The main floor is an expanse of wood planks worthy of a basketball court, but the ceiling is a little low, so it would probably have to be Nerf basketball. And BYO hoops.

Salih’s other city endeavor, the four-year-old YaYa (on Van Ness at the western edge of Russian Hill), manages to combine Iraqi and Californian influences to impressive effect, and Jannah does much the same thing, at a lower price point, as befits its quasi-college-town location. (USF and its hordes of collegians on budgets is practically across the street.) All the main courses are $11, and, as if that weren’t enough, the list includes dishes and ingredients you don’t often see, including fesenjoon (the chicken dish associated both with Iraq and Iran) and a version of masgouf, the grilled-fish preparation that is one of the gastronomic signatures of Iraq.

Of course, the menu offers plenty of items that will seem familiar, including that trinity of tasty mushes from the Middle East, tabbouleh, hummus, and baba ghanoush — or, as it is spelled at Jannah, ghnooge. There’s even falafel, but it’s not like the falafel we generally see, chickpea fritters the size and shape of golf balls. Instead the batter is worked into a small disk ($5) and, like a pizza, topped with a tasty Mediterranean mélange of eggplant, roasted red-bell pepper, scallions, red onions, shiitake mushrooms, diced tomatoes, and feta and goat cheeses. The crust, in the best triangle-slice tradition, is sufficiently rigid even at the point to support the toppings without wilting or crumbling, and it’s tasty enough to stand on its own. In an odd way, the pie reminded me of the chickpea-flour tort known as a farinata in Liguria and a socca in the south of France.

Kelecha ($3) are ravioli-like dough pockets, stuffed here with dates, cardamom, and cinnamon and topped with yogurt that’s been coarsened with chopped walnuts and subtly eniched with Parmesan cheese. The menu lists this dish as a starter, with other salads and dips, but it’s also just sweet enough to qualify as a light dessert. The yogurt sauce, in particular, is reminiscent of the cream-cheese frosting often found on carrot cakes.

We did think the variety of pickles ($3) tended a little too much toward saltiness — especially the cauliflower florets. But the plate (which also included radish, cabbage, peppers, and olives) was a festival of slightly surreal colors worthy of the Enterprise cafeteria on the original Star Trek, with lime green, bubble-gum red, and electric yellow being well-represented.

The main courses include an array of phyllo-dough preparations that vaguely resemble pot pies: the principal ingredients are sealed in a pastry crust and baked. In the case of kubsee ($11), the pastry is formed into a squat cylinder, then filled with prawns, scallops, fava beans, chickpeas, and rice. The rather staggering roster of seasonings includes cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, almond, tomato paste, hot pepper, and sun-dried lime, and the whole thing is ringee by a smoky tomato-eggplant purée.

Sun-dried lime, incidentally, is one of those ingredients that’s almost unknown in the occidental kitchen and helps give this kind of cooking a lot of its distinctive aura. To get a better idea of its flavor, you can have it as a lightly sweetened drink, a kind of Middle Eastern limeade whose sunset color won’t give you any sort of clue as to what it’s made of.

The masgouf ($11) features a subtly seasoned, butterflied trout — a freshwater fish (often sustainably farmed now) whose pinkish flesh is reminiscent of salmon. The freshwater angle is appropriate here, since Iraqis tend to grill fish taken from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and it also lends the final result a certain similarity to gravlax. The rest of the plate consists of a heap of rice, another of tomato-eggplant compote, and a colorful honor guard of cauliflower and broccoli florets and carrot and yellow summer squash coins, all steamed and arranged around the periphery.

For dessert (assuming you don’t want the kelecha or had them earlier on), how about kahi ($5), a pair of fried pastry triangles, like a child’s set of military hats from the 18th century, bronzed for posterity? They are stuffed with cardamon whipped cream (which has a cheesy-thick texture, neither pleasant nor unpleasant) and are set afloat on a small red sea of raspberry purée, which is nearly an event in itself. Bright, too.

JANNAH

Dinner: Mon.–Thurs., 5–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sun., 5–10 p.m.

Lunch: daily, 11 a.m.–2 p.m.

1775 Fulton, SF

(415) 567-4400

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Echoey noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Bike trek ends in SF theft

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By Steven T. Jones
Andrew Marinelli on his bike.jpg

Bike thefts in San Francisco are always bad (and mostly ignored by the local cops), but this one seems particularly tragic. Andrew Marinelli just completed a 6,255-mile, cross-country bike trek to raise money for the UN World Food Program, arriving in San Francisco on Saturday.

And then last night, his bike was stolen from the downtown area, where it was locked at the corner of Montgomery and Sutter streets. The bike is a large frame dark green Windsor road bike with one fender in the back and a broken right pedal. If you have any leads, contact him directly at 803.443.9343 or andrewmarinelli@gmail.com.

Despite the loss, he had a pretty good attitude about it, telling us, “It happens. I’m just glad that I made it here first.”

Rock me, Amadeus

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kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER How do you fluff up sagging ole demon rock in the 21st century? Break it down to just one dude with a laptop and free-floating mix of hip-hop and hesher, ho’-pulling and hoary? Take it up a couple jillion notches and set it free of verse, chorus, and bridge to nowhere, heading into noise’s bristling, gristly outerzone? Or just turn it around and send it through the filter of another country, another tongue, another cult-cha — and back. The latter is the case for French combo Phoenix and Israeli outfit Monotonix (see sidebar), two travelers in the rutted, wrecked roads of rock — both playing this week in this bobo bastion by the Bay.

"When we were young," says Phoenix guitarist Laurent "Branco" Brancowitz, 35, "we tried to sound like the Velvet Underground and tried to erase the Frenchness." He chuckles under his breath. He’s on the phone from Versailles, where Phoenix first rose up from old Europe’s antiquities. "But now that we’ve grown up, we don’t try to hide our accent. We love the fact that we had to admit we come from a different country than most rock musicians. We can’t talk about Cadillacs, but we talk about our own things: we talk about the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the things that are our Mississippi and cotton fields."

Tough to reenvision the Eiffel as a small-town Midwestern water tower — but Phoenix manages its own reinvention on the Parisian landmark on "1901," off Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Loyaute/Glassnote) — as well as, Brancowitz explains, "all these things that were so modern at the time, that are now so obvious and cliché. There was a moment when [the Eiffel was] scary, offering a new vision for the future. It was an idea we were fascinated by, the idea of modernity in the past and how you relate to that."

Phoenix has flown far since the days when it served as early Air’s live band and had a sleeper hit of sorts with "Too Young" via the Lost in Translation soundtrack. Vocalist Thomas Mars might have graduated to the gossip columns as director Sofia Coppola’s baby daddy, but Wolfgang can stand proudly on its own (with help from producer Philippe Zdar of Cassius), straddling the kingdom of Killers-ish dancefloor-friendly rock-pop with ethereal numbers like "Fences" and the more austere, ambitious ambient outskirts, as embodied by the lovely "Love Like a Sunset Part I."

Thanks to its old Versailles nest, the outfit is accustomed to both staring inward at the past and out. There, says Brancowitz, "the buildings were perfectly symmetrical. There’s the boredom — that’s important. We had all these dreams of escaping. The combination of boredom and beauty shaped us." The band members hid out in their basements listening to the Velvets and the Beatles and retreating to another kind of inspiring yet imposing past, while Mozart, Liszt, and the like blared in the background. As kids, Brancowitz recalls, "We had a lot of soccer matches with a soundtrack of classical music — very loud classical music."

That breed of bonding has led to the fact, as the guitarist puts it, "for some very strange reason, all the good French artists are friends." Brancowitz himself started out in a band called Darlin’ with Daft Punk’s Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, the pair who changed the world’s perception of French pop. The punk Beach Boys-inspired band crumbled when the other two "decided to go to a lot of rave parties, and I didn’t because I didn’t like the nightclub life. I’m a bit of a snob about it — I find it very vulgar." He laughs. "But we are friends. No issues." *

PHOENIX

Thurs/17, 8 p.m., $30–$32

Warfield

982 Market, SF

www.goldenboice.com


MONOTONIX IN STEREO

"Sit the fuck down! Sit the fuck down!" yelled Monotonix vocalist Levi "Ha Haziz" Elvis, né Ami Shalev, at this year’s Mess with Texas getdown during South by Southwest. An impressive display of crowd control, honed by somewhat unexpected circumstances. "I was trained in the Israeli Army," says Shalev. "They want you to be able to control people — just kidding!" But seriously, kids: "I must say every time the crowd does whatever I tell them to do, it’s kind of surprising." He’s on the phone in Jaffa, outside Tel Aviv, where the rock-out rage machine known as Monotonix is still based, despite the city’s (and country’s) small rock scene: "The only way for us to get bigger, develop, was to go outside Israel," he says. "There are a lot of good things in Israel, but not in rock music. Rock music is not in our culture." Nevertheless Monotonix’s first full-length, Where Were You When It Happened (Drag City), which the group recorded with Tim Green in SF, sounds like it’s running spectacularly well on the filthy fumes of stateside guitar-army conscripts like MC5. And word keeps spreading about Monotonix’s fiery shows. "I don’t want to sound arrogant," says Shalev, "but it keeps snowballing."

Thurs/17, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Music listings

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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Altarboys, Midnight Bombers, Inferno of Joy Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

*Bad Brains, P.O.S., Trouble Andrew Slim’s. 8pm, $26.

Pete Bernhard, Leopold and His Fiction, Erin Brazil Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $8.

Dave the Pastor Dalton, Mike and Ruthy, Meri St. Mary, Virgil Shaw Hotel Utah. 8pm, $6.

Disastroid, Solid, Sticks and Stones Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Every Time I Die, Bring Me the Horizon, Oh Sleeper, Architects Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $20.

Global Noize Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $15.

Joshua James and Cory Chisel Independent. 9pm, $12.

Jinx and Jezzebelle Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Light Machine, Charlie Gone Mad, Black Eagle Trust Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $5.

Love Language, All Smiles Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Oh My God, Highway Patrol, Wave Array Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Okmoniks, Magnetix, Wau y Los Arrgghs, Rantouls Knockout. 9pm, $9.

Tip of the Top Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Todd Wolfe Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Yourself and the Air, Excuses for Skipping, Mister Loveless Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

BAY AREA

Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal Paramount Theatre. 8pm, $39.75-59.75.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Sylvia Cuenca Organ Trio.

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Leigh Gregory Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

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

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival" Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfemf.org. 7pm, $10-17. With Miya Masaoka, Lukas Ligeti, and Amy X Neuburg.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Freddy Clarke Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $12. Latin, Middle Eastern funk.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Fringe Madrone Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning the best of indie rock and classic new wave.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ Slick D.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blank Slates, Jank, Warren Teagarden Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Blues Traveler Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

Buxter Hoot’n, David and Joanna, Nathan Hughes El Rio. 10pm, $5.

Chairlift, Magic Bullets, El Ten Eleven Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Terry Hanck Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Happy Mondays, Psychedelic Furs, Amusement Parks on Fire Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $35.

Hundred Days, Trophy Fire, Atlantic Line Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Jahlectrik, Big Lion, Erica Sunshine Lee Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Monotonix, Triclops, Anavan Independent. 8pm, $15.

Phoenix, Soft Pack Warfield. 8pm, $32.

Rademacher, Young Hunting, Gold Medalists Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Tarrakian, Christian Mistress, Meow Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

Telepath and Big Gigantic Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $10.

Throw Me the Statue, Brunettes, My First Earthquake Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Turbonegra, Switchblade Riot, My Parade, DJ Squid Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

World/Inferno Friendship Society Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

BAY AREA

*Avengers, Pansy Division, Paul Collins Beat Uptown. 9pm, $12.

Ben Harper and Relentless7 Fox Theater. 8pm, $35.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Al Coster Trio Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

Duuy Quintet Coda. 9pm, $7.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Mads Tolling Trio Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

Stephen Merriman Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Sakai Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival" Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfemf.org. 7pm, $10-17. With Mark Trayle, Donald Swearington, Maria Chavez, and Mason Bates.

Scott Amendola Trio with Jeff Parker and John Shifflet Café du Nord. 8pm, $15.

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

Bernie Worrell, Broun Fellinis Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Rebecca Cross and the Saints, Stella Royale, New Map of the West Bollyhood Café. 9pm, free.

Flamenco Thursdays Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30pm; $12.

Robyn Harris, Chris Trapper Dolores Park Café. 7:30pm, free.

Belle Monroe and Her Brewglass Boys Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Bingotopia Knockout. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Play for drinks and dignity with Lady Stacy Pants.

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

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

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

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

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

Mirza Party and Soul Movers Infusion Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ E Rock.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and DJs Green B, Daneekah, and Smoke 1.

Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Avengers, Pansy Division, Paul Collins Beat Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Blue Rabbit, Marcus Very Ordinary, Gregg Tillery, Hoof and the Heel Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Citizen Cope Fillmore. 9pm, $27.50.

Dead Guise Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 9pm.

Drones, Model/Actress, Spyrals, DJ Duke of Windsor Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Grand Lake, White Cloud, Rad Cloud Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Ice Cream Socialites Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Illness, Sideshow Fiasco, Groundskeeper Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Depreciation Guild, Cymbals Eat Guitars Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Porcupine Tree, That 1 Guy Warfield. 9pm, $27.50-32.50.

Sea Wolf, Old-Fashioned Way, Sara Lov Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $15.

Shotty, Lipstick Conspiracy, Richie and the Curious Proclivities El Rio. 10pm, $5.

Timber Timbre, Harbours Rickshaw Stop. 6pm, $10.

"Your Music Magazine Band Olympicks" Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $10.

BAY AREA

Miley Cyrus, Metro Station Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum Wy, Oakl; www.ticketmaster.com. 7pm, $39.50-79.50.

Furthur Fox Theater. 7:30pm, $49.50.

White Witch Canyon, 3rd Rail, 667 Uptown. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

"Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the deYoung presents Jazz at Intersection" Wilsey Court, de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, SF; www.deyoungmuseum.org. 6:30pm, free. With Crushing Spiral Ensemble.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Barry Finnerty and trio Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

"Idle Warship: Talib Kweli, Res, and Graph Nobel" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Jessica Johnson Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Lucid Lovers Rex Hotel, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-4434. 6-8pm.

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival" Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfemf.org. 7pm, $10-17. With Ed Osborn, Preshish Moments, Frank Bretschneider, and Joan La Barbara.

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

David Tranchina Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Will Bernard Band, Skerik Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Bonanza Plough and Stars. 9pm. Presented by Shelby Ash.

Boca Do Rio Coda. 10pm, $10.

Brownout, Manicato, DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

Crushing Spiral Ensemble deYoung Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF; (415) 750-3600. 6:30pm, free.

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15.

Shayle Matuda Dolores Park Café. 7:30pm, free.

Mestizo, Caravanserai: The Santana Tribute, Vortex Tribe feat. Mingo Lewis Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

"Methods of Defiance" Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $25-37.50. With Dr. Israel, Bernie Worrell, Toshinori Kondo, Hawkman, Guy Licata, and Bill Laswell.

Julia Nunes Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 7:30pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10-15. With DJ Jefrodisiac and Ava Berlin.

Boombox Saints Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs Pep Love, Amp Live, Xein How, and more spinning hip hop.

Deep Fried Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. DJs jaybee, David Justin, and Dean Manning spinning indie, dance rock, electronica, funk, hip hop, and more.

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

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Jump Off Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs Eddie Leader, Hector Moralez, and Oscar Miranda spinning house.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

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

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

David Savior and Don Lynch Infusion Lounge. 9pm, $20.

SATURDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Agent Ribbons, Splinters, Sarees Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Amazing Baby, Entrance Band, Total Hound Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Citizen Cope Fillmore. 9pm, $27.50.

*Dirty Three, Faun Fables Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $19.

Dragonforce, Sonata Arctica, Taking Dawn Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

Fleeting Trance, Foreign Cinema, Boatclub Li Po Lounge. 8:30pm, $7.

Mark Hummel and Rusty Zinn Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Little Boots, Music Go Music, Yes Giantess, DJ Aaron Axelsen Independent. 9pm, $17.

Loretta Lynch, Hollyhocks, Yard Sale Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Lou Dog Trio, Audiodub, Search Party Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $15.

*Meat Puppets, Dead Confederate, Ume Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Middle Class Murder, Tomorrowmen, Hi-Watters Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

No Alternative, Druglords of the Avenues, Downtown Struts El Rio. 9pm, $8.

Sex Vid, Corpus, Milk Music Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Starving Weirdos, William Fowler Collins, Metal Rouge, Darwinsbitch, Jim Haynes, John Davis, Danny Paul Grody Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 2pm, $10.

Tarentel, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Alps, Ducktails, Pete Swanson, Joe Grimm, Operative Café du Nord. 8pm, $15.

Will Bernard Band with Skerik Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $15.

BAY AREA

Dave Rude Band Uptown. 9pm, $10.

Furthur, Vice Fox Theater. 6:15pm, $49.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Bop City Coda. 10pm, $10.

Terrence Brewer Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Groove Rebellion Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

"Idle Warship: Talib Kweli, Res, and Graph Nobel" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $16.

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival" Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfemf.org. 7pm, $10-17. With Jorge Bachmann, Gino Robair, and Pamela Z.

Savanna Jazz Trio Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5. With jazz harpist Motoshi Kosako.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

"Sounds of Unity Jazz Concert" Unity Church of San Francisco, 2222 Bush, SF; www.unitysf.com. 7:30pm, free.

Will Bernard Band, Skerik Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Rahim AlHaj and Alam Khan Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 621-6600. Music from Iraq and India.

Bajofondo Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $25.

Carnaval Del Sur Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $15.

Plucked Seventh Avenue Performances, 1329 7th Ave., SF; (415) 664-2543. 7:30pm, $18. With Diane Rowan, Celtic harp and Dominic Schaner, lute and vihuela.

Whiskey Richards, Amanda Duncan Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

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

Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $6. Locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJ Earworm and hostess Felicia Fellatio.

Doherty’s Birthday Bash EndUp. Late Show 10pm-5am, Early Show 5am-Noon; $15. With Late Show DJs spinning breakbeats, electro, hip hop hybrids, and more and Early Show DJs spinning house, tech house, and progressive house.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

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

Juakali Triple Crown. 10pm, $7.

Knocked Up Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.

Let’s Blaze Club Six. 9pm, $10. With live performances by C U Next Weekend, Jeanine Da Feen, and more.

Life S.F. Infusion Lounge. 9pm, $20. With DJ J Espinosa and Designer DJs.

NonStop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15. Dholrhythms and DJ Jimmy Love present the latest Bhangra grooves.

Saturday Night Live Fat City, 314 11th St; selfmade2c@yahoo.com. 10:30pm.Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul spin 60s soul 45s.

Soul Slam IV: Prince and Michael Jackson Mezzanine. 9pm, $25.

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

Summer Saturdays Bar On Church. 9pm, free. With DJ Mark Andrus spinning top 40, mashups, hip hop, and electro.

SUNDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Daikaiju, Pollo Del Mar, Secret Samurai, TomorrowMen Hotel Utah. 2pm, $10.

*Flood, Emeralds, Early Graves Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Gaslight Anthem, Murder By Death, Loved Ones, Frank Turner Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Grouper, Christina Carter, Ilayas Ahmed, Barn Owl, Sun Circle, Common Eider King Eider,

Austin Lucas, Two Cow Garage, Mike Hale Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Ming and Ping, Miss Derringer, Wooden Ponies Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Brendon Murray Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 6:30pm, $20.

Pink Mountaintops, Pack AD Independent. 8pm, $12.

"Rock for MS presents Roy Rogers" Boom Boom Room. 8:30pm, $25-100.

"Sunset Youth Services presents: Top Performers from Upstar Records" Bottom of the Hill. 1:30pm, $10.

These United States Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Tigercity, Royal Bangs, Actors Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $10.

BAY AREA

Furthur Fox Theater. 7:30pm, $49.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Rob Modica and friends Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 3pm, free.

Moped Mojito, 1337 Grant; www.mojitosf.com. 8pm.

Savanna Jazz Trio Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Tony Lindsay Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $18.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bajofondo Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $25.

Marla Fibish and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Fiesta Adina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $12. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

King Cab Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Maria Volonte: Tango Dance Party Coda. 8pm, $10.

Hank Williams Birthday Tribute Amnesia. 10pm, $5. Live-band country karaoke.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and Ludichris.

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

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

T-Dance Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 4pm, $5 suggested donation. Positive guys and their friends are welcome at this benefit for Positive Force featuring DJ Robbie Martin.

MONDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Buffalo Collision Independent. 8pm, $20.

Get Up Kids, Youth Group, Pretty and Nice Fillmore. 8pm, $23.50.

In Flames, Between the Buried and Me, 3 Inches of Blood, Faceless Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $26.

Qwel and Maker, Denizen Kane, Rock Bottom, Influence and Ro Knew, Bwan Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Titus Andronicus, So So Glos, Relatives Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Jazz at the Rrazz" Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $25. With Jeremy Cohen.

John Patitucci Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $14-18.

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Ceremony Knockout. 10m, free. Dark pop, goth, industrial, and new wave with DJs Deadbeat and Yule Be Sorry.

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Krazy for Karaoke Happy Hour Knockout. 5-10pm, free. Belt it out with host Deadbeat.

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bon Iver Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Complaints, Sharp Objects, High and Tight Knockout. 10pm, free.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Five Finger Death Punch, Shadows Fall, Otep, 2Cents Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $22.

Erin McCarley, Landon Pigg Independent. 8pm, $15.

Moneybrother, Farewell Typewriter Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Most Serene Republic, Grand Archives, Lonely Forest Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

One Eskimo, Haley Bonar Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Pet Shop Boys Warfield. 9pm, $55-89.50.

Prizehog, Rabbits, Iron Witch Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Jill Tracy, Eli August, Vernian Process Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

BAY AREA

Australian Pink Floyd Show Fox Theater. 8pm, $32.50-39.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabakin Quartet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 19pm, $16-20.

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With the Park and special guests.

Dame Cleo Laine and Sir John Dankworth Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $50-65.

MO Jazz Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Deadbeat, and Big Nate.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Weekly guest DJs and shot specials.

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

POSH Infusion Lounge. 5pm, $20. Featuring a live band.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

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

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.


Take warning

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The forests are in flames, the desert is advancing, the glaciers have vanished, and in a solar-powered facility towering above the ice-free waters of the Arctic, some 800 miles north of Norway, a solitary older man (Pete Postlethwaite) roams the hallways of the Global Archive, a warehouse sheltering banks of data-storage servers, a civilization’s worth of art and invention, and a Noah’s ark of extinguished species. From this lonely outpost, he gravely explores a stomach-churning inquiry: "We could have saved ourselves. But we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in to face extinction and simply shrug it off?"

Good question, and one that Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid, a hybrid merging documentary material and a fictional frame tale, forcefully suggests we start addressing like we mean it — immediately. That is to say, before runaway climate change makes its debut and some or all of its widely forecasted ecological consequences begin to manifest, along with resource shortages, food and water riots, and massive societal collapse.

Delineating the complex global network of climate-change causes and effects, The Age of Stupid interweaves real-life documentary footage from the lives of six present-day subjects in New Orleans, the French Alps, Jordan, southwest England, a small Nigerian fishing village, and Mumbai, India. Interspersed is real and faux (future) archival footage depicting and predicting the environmental consequences of humanity’s bad habits. And all of it is presented as the digital artifacts of a dying-off civilization, preserved for uncertain posterity in the Global Archive. While covering similar terrain to that of An Inconvenient Truth (2006), the film serves as a kind of "No, but really, folks …" in the face of frighteningly incremental gestures toward sustainability — and continued shortsighted resistance — at the levels of national, state, and local government as well as citizenry.

The film’s opening sequence begins with the big bang and hurtles via countdown clock through billions of years, flying past the earliest stages of evolution, past dinosaurs, past the industrial revolution, and past the present day, the titular Age of Stupid, so fast that we barely have time to notice ourselves on the screen before it’s 2055, the Age of Too Late. The message: in the grand scheme of things, we have about a nanosecond left to kid ourselves as we refill our metal water bottle and press the start button on our Energy Star-qualified washer-dryer or Prius — or to find a way, at the level of populace, not green-minded individual, to radically swerve from our current path. According to Armstrong and her cohorts in the Not Stupid Campaign, the film’s companion activist effort, our fate will pretty much be decided by December’s climate talks in Copenhagen. (The film, which premiered in the U.K. in March, has its 50-country "global premiere" Sept. 21-22.)

So then, do the canvas bags, travel mugs, energy-saving appliances, clotheslines, CSA memberships, cycling, recycling, composting, and other ecologically minded efforts of a smattering of well-intentioned individuals matter at all? Or matter enough — in the face of factories, factory farming, methane-emitting landfills, canyons of office towers lit up 24/7, a continent-sized constellation of plastic detritus in the Pacific, and millions of trips cross-country at an average elevation of 30,000 feet?

Colin Beavan, the subject of Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein’s No Impact Man, is banking on yes, being of the "be the change you wish to see in the world" school of thought (admittedly in good company, with Mahatma Gandhi). Taking its name from Beavan’s book project and blog, No Impact Man shadows the NYC-based writer; his wife, Michelle Conlin, a senior writer at BusinessWeek admitting to "an intense relationship with retail" and a high-fructose corn syrup addiction; and their toddler daughter, Isabella, during a year in which they try to achieve a net-neutral environmental impact.

This entails giving up, in successive stages, with varying degrees of exactitude, packaged food (hard on a family whose caloric mainstay is take-out), nonlocal food (hard on a woman who drinks multiple quadruple-shot espressos a day; impossible, as it turns out), paper products (magazine subscriptions, TP), fossil-fuel-dependent transit (airplanes, elevators, and even the subway), electricity (i.e., the refrigerator), and, to a large extent, trash. The idea is to learn empirically — and demonstrate — which behaviors might be permanently ditched and which are virtually hardwired.

There are, predictably, certain criticisms –- from irritated environmentalists, from semianonymous blog commenters, from the New York Times Home and Garden section. There is the matter of giving up public transportation rather than championing it, and the issue (raised by a community gardener who takes Beavan under his wing) of Conlin’s laboring for a high-circulation publication that trumpets capitalist virtues antithetical to the project of tapering off consumption and waste. And Beavan sometimes comes across, particularly in the book, as well-meaning but stubbornly myopic in his focus on self-improvement.

Then again, the guy and his family gave up toilet paper, electric light, motor vehicles, spontaneous slices of pizza, and many deeply ingrained habits of wastefulness for a year while most of the rest of the country got up each morning and brushed their teeth with the water running. What impact the No Impact project might have on, for instance, the mounds of trash-filled Heftys that line Manhattan’s sidewalks each week remains to be seen. But as the Age of Stupid winds down, it’s probably a waste of time to fault anyone’s attempts to forestall the Age of Too Late.

NO IMPACT MAN opens Fri/18 in Bay Area theaters.

THE AGE OF STUPID plays Mon/21, 8 p.m., SF Center. Visit www.ageofstupid.net for additional Bay Area screenings.

Metro Cafe

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paulr@sfbg.com

A half-score (or so) years ago, there came to the border country between the upper and lower Haight a restaurant called Metro Café. The place was an offshoot of Baker Street Bistro, and, like its progenitor, it was rather wonderful and quite affordable. In the mid-aughts the restaurant morphed into Metro Kathmandu, which served a Nepalese-Indian menu. The change was improbable, but the food was just as good in its way. Now, after a too-short run, Metro Kathmandu has disappeared, only to become … Metro Café again.

Actually, it hasn’t altogether disappeared: the look of the dining room remains the same, with a tendency toward red and umber tones and fanciful light fixtures that look like bubbles of colored Plexiglass that someone sawed off the bottoms of. Nor is it quite accurate, perhaps, to speak of the new Metro Café as a return of the original. There are points of similarity, yes, mainly in the emphasis on a three-course prix-fixe menu. At $25, it’s quite a bit more than in the good old days (on the order of $10 more), but what isn’t? It’s still a good deal, especially when you consider that you can have any starter, main dish, and dessert. And no surcharges for the fancier stuff like New York steak or duck confit. I call that sporting.

But the food doesn’t seem to be quite as pointedly French as the last time. The pediment of Chef Jacques Rousseau’s style is unmistakably Gallic — he offers snails, and need we say more? — but the menu is Californian, not French. There are dishes here you’d have a tough time finding in Paris — and not just macaroni and cheese ($8), although Metro’s version is quite tony, with cheddar, Swiss, and Parmesan mingling under a thick crust of garlic-bread crumbs. The only thing missing was a bit of salt, but this was easily added from a shaker already on the table. We liked the serving dish, an earthenware crock in the shape of a paddle.

Equally in a Ameri-Cali, if more elevated, vein was a plate of grilled squid ($6.50), accompanied by white beans, bits of frisee and chopped black olives, and a beguilingly fragrant olive oil infused with preserved lemon. The pieces of squid were beautifully tender — no small trick; squid overcooks and toughens easily — while the lemon oil cast a spell like sunshine over everything.

And I do not think you’d easily find in Paris any preparation to match the baby back ribs ($15), with their glaze of honey, cardamom, and coffee — darkly sweet but also a little smoky, like a demitasse of espresso with a half-cube of sugar. Since pork is naturally sweet, a sly mix of sweetness and smoke produced a complex harmony with the meat. The ribs arrived atop a generous slathering of green lentils, properly cooked al dente.

As for the ultimate French treat, les esgargots ($7): they came discreetly swaddled in pastry pockets that looked like empanadas. There was plenty of garlic on hand and, on the floor of the plate, a garish pool of red-pepper purée; these were quite useful flourishes if you needed some distraction from the advertised main ingredient. But the real main ingredient turned out not to be snails but pastry.

Duck confit ($16) is another quintessentially French dish, and Rousseau’s kitchen handles it with aplomb. The result: tender, juicy meat inside appealingly crisp, golden skin. The potatoes landaise did not particularly impress, however; instead of the traditional Pyrenees-style version, of potato cubes fried with onion, garlic, and ham, Metro offered what appeared to be handful of roasted, and underseasoned, potato quarters. An underseasoned potato is a piteous thing, naked and flabby, even if there’s some red-pepper purée on the plate for consolation.

The dessert list is the most purely French sector of the menu. Tarte tatin? Check. It costs $6 and is distinguished by large chunks of apple that are the shape of Gary Oldman’s strange, puffy hair in Dracula. The apple also retained some of its texture — a plus — but I did suspect the kitchen had used big, sweetish apples (maybe some sort of Delicious) rather than one of the smaller, sourer, denser varieties that, in my experience, work better in this tart.

The one non-French note struck among the desserts involved the chocolate cake ($6), which turned out to be a layered mousse cake that included a stratum of raspberry preserves. Sort of a variation on the Viennese specialty Sachertorte, with the raspberry preserves substituted for apricot. I like these kinds of small flourishes, which go a long way toward lifting the pall of enslavement that can sometimes hang over French-influenced restaurants in our corner of the New World. If, at some point, Metro Café becomes Cosmo Café, I would gladly clink my champagne flute.

METRO CAFÉ

Dinner: Sun.–Thurs., 5:30–10 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 5:30–11 p.m.

Brunch: Sat.–Sun., 9:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

311 Divisadero, SF

(415) 552-0903

www.metrocafe311.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible

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