Health

Hot sexy events: August 24-30

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: August 24-30

You’re dying for a new pair of marijuana leaf-shaped pasties, but also can’t go another moment without some hot trans docu-porn? Well thank goodness for Oakland’s Feelmore510. The downtown adult store continues its killing-it line-up of sexy, useful, and educational events this week with a screening of Trans Entities. Morty Smith’s filmed profile of Papí and Wil, a real-life trans couple, switches between probing, honest interviews and raw, hot sex. All in all, the anti-plastic fantastic of mainstream skin flicks.

And now it’s carrying Pastease, a line of fantastical tit covers that veer from sexy to silly and back again. The cannabis leaf-shaped pair caught our eyes originally, but that is not to say we’re not into the skull-and-crossbone set or the four leaf clover numbers. Anyway, take note – one stop sexiness has made it to the East Bay. 

 

Lyon Martin-Femina Potens art exhibit

Katie Gilmartin, Kira Scarlet, Suzanne Rachel Forbes, and KD “Megaphone” Diamond all know the power of their sex-positive art. And now through November, the four are harnessing it for the forces of good. Femina Potens helped to organize this art installation at one of SF’s favorite sexual health clinics — the artists’ works were all inspired by the mission to create a welcoming, positive space for the clients of Lyon Martin. 

Through November 5

Lyon Martin Health Services

1748 Market, SF

www.feminapotens.org

 

Hubba Hubba Summer Camp

Hey campers! Celebrate the summer we never have in the city with this sleep-away themed edition of the Hubba Hubba Revue burlesque blowouts. We’re talking “campfire comedy” and “astonishing acts of nature,” according to the event poster — pack your Calamine lotion and head out, scouts. 

Fri/26 9 p.m., $10-15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

www.hubbahubbarevue.com

 

Steam

It’ll be the first time you come to Powerhouse to get clean — maybe. This party meets you at the door with towel rental and clothing check, but something tells us that the “Powershower” its featuring is unlikely to give you a chance to shampoo and condition. Sweaty go-go dancers provide inspiration to drop the soap… 

Fri/26 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom, SF

www.powerhouse-sf.com

 

“Anatomy of Pleasure with Robert and Carol”

Going beyond the typical lexicon of opening energies and “feeling” your partner, this one-off workshop taught by sex luminaries Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence makes use of anatomical in’s to sexual pleasure: proprioception, dermatones, sensory specificity. What do those terms mean? Hey, we’re not the ones teaching the course, go check it out for yourself. 

Sun/28 1-5 p.m., $20-60

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

Trans Entities: Naughty Love of Papí and Wil

The talking scenes are sweet and thought-provoking, the bedroom scenes are sexy and brutal — Trans Entities picks up where other adult films leave off and tonight you can check it out in downtown Oakland’s new woman-run sex store hot spot. 

Mon/29 7:30-9:30 p.m., donation suggested

Feelmore510

1703 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 891-0199

www.feelmore510.com

Inside the V.I.P. cocktail party with Willie Brown

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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10

The Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth hosted a V.I.P. reception just before a mayoral candidate forum held at UCSF Aug. 16, and former Mayor Willie Brown appeared to be the guest of honor. Although the theme of the event was technically “honoring San Francisco’s mayors” — former Mayor Frank Jordan was there, someone indicated that former Mayor Art Agnos was in the room, former Mayor Gavin Newsom was invited but didn’t show, and Mayor Ed Lee was of course in attendence — Brown seemed to be given more prominent recognition than any of the others.

The moment he strolled in, Sup. Mark Farrell, who was doing introductions for the the affair, scrambled onstage to announce Brown’s presence and deliver a warm welcome, and everyone applauded. Within minutes, the former mayor was seen chatting with a crowd that included Mayor Lee and several others. Soon after, Brown and former Mayor Frank Jordan were summoned to the stage to say a few words.

Once in the limelight, Brown cracked a few jokes. He said he felt for the 36 mayoral candidates, who are forced to campaign in an era when the Internet threatens to reveal videos and photos of them at any time to thousands of online viewers. “I’m glad they didn’t have that kind of communication system when I was running,” he said. “I can’t imagine the photographs you’d have of me floating around doing things I shouldn’t have been doing.”

As for his own time in Room 200, “I enjoyed every single solitary minute of it, and if I really thought I had great skills, I would be number 37,” he said, drawing more applause.

Then again, common wisdom says it isn’t necessary for Brown to bother campaigning in order to gain access to Room 200 these days. Later that same evening, during his own turn in the spotlight at the mayoral debate, Mayor Lee came under fire from Board President David Chiu, who revealed that Lee had privately confided to him about a week before he announced his candidacy that he was having a difficult time saying no to Brown and influential Chinatown business consultant Rose Pak when it came to launching a campaign for a full term.

Chiu’s pointed question for the mayor was what had changed in his mind since that conversation, but Lee referenced neither Brown nor Pak in his answer. Instead, he said he’d changed his mind after witnessing his success in changing the tone of government and getting things done in City Hall.

Back at the V.I.P. reception, Brown and Jordan were invited onstage again, this time to receive awards presented by the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth. But first Steve Falk, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, reminded the crowd that there was still time to buy a drink before the debate got underway. He said, “Debates are much more interesting after three drinks.”

Before Falk presented Brown with a commemorative plaque, he said, “It’s tough to put in a few sentences the life and times of Willie Brown,” and proceeded to note that, with his term in the California Assembly and time serving as mayor of San Francisco behind him, Brown “has now followed his friend Herb Caen into an honest line of work as a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.”

Being a newspaper columnist doesn’t mean Brown is always kind to members of the local media. While mixing through the crowd minutes after receiving his award, he fired some harsh words at a well-known City Hall reporter who had recently published some unflattering articles about the “Run, Ed, Run” effort to encourage Lee to seek a full term.

In recent months, Brown’s columns have provided the public at large with a rare glimpse into Mayor Lee’s dining experiences in San Francisco. In February, Brown wrote in one of his columns that he went out to North Beach Restaurant at sat at the window table with Lee, Brown’s “friend” Sonya Molodetskaya, and Jack Baylis, who serves as the US Group Executive of Strategic Development for AECOM, one of the city’s largest contractors and a sponsor of the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth Event. (Baylis was on the invite list for the V.I.P reception, too.)

Apparently, AECOM had something to celebrate that same day — according to an Aug. 16 press release, an AECOM joint venture was just awarded a $150 million contract for program management services for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s wastewater improvement program.

The V.I.P. reception had representation from many key players in the downtown business community, with sponsorship from AT&T, AECOM, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Wells Fargo, Motorola, California Pacific Medical Center, the San Francsico Chamber of Commerce, the Building Owners and Managers Association, the San Francisco Police Officer’s Association, Shorenstein Properties, and others. Several labor unions, including the United Association of Plumbers & Pipefitters Union Local 38, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Local Union No. 22, and United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 5 were also listed as sponsors. Guests included district supervisors, developers, lobbyists, business owners, mayoral candidates, media spokespeople, executives from the health care industry, and other political insiders.

Clearly, there were many people in the room who wanted to get on Brown’s good side.

Sweet streets: Gelatin dessert art at this weekend’s Street Food Festival

Andrew Lam
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0
Sweet streets: Gelatin dessert art at this weekend’s Street Food Festival

As the foodie masses descend on the Mission for Sat/20’s Street Food Festival, they’ll be met with a diverse representation of what San Francisco eats. In this corner, fancy brick and mortar spots: Slanted Door, 15 Romolo, and Rye are but a few representatives of the eateries that are taking grills and spatulas into the fresh air this weekend. But for sheer culinary comeliness, the big guys have a serious contender when it comes to Sweets Collection arty gelatin creations. 

Graduates of the La Cocina street food incubator program will total a solid 50 percent of the 60 vendors in attendance at the festival. The varying styles of food preparation are meant to express the breadth of eats in San Francisco, but also to reinforce the fact that the huarache you buy at your local farmer’s market has the culinary chops to stand up against many places that take Visa.

According to the website, in a perfect world the festival would “get rid of all the white tents, and just do it block party style, but that’s not so cool with the Health Department, so you will have to imagine it with us.”

Rosa Rodriguez would surely be invited if the fest turned into a block party. She lives in the Mission, and has been creating her Sweets Collection intricate gelatin creations, in which graceful flowers bloom in edible gel, for a year now. We mentioned certain circumstances under which her treats might prove particularly awesome in the paper today, and here’s more on Rodriguez from an email interview we conducted with her last week. (You can also check out food writer Virginia Miller’s adventuresome picks for the fest here.) 

Sweets Collection got its name when Rodriguez realized her treats wouldn’t look amiss in an art gallery

SFBG: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you start Sweets Collection?

RR: My name is Rosa Rodriguez, I have two children, one is 15 years old and named Dayra, and Hasam is eight years old, we are from Durango, Mexico. I’m a single mother. When we are not doing artistic desserts, my children go to school and I take English classes and work on my business. I became unemployed in 2009, and in 2010 I had the idea of starting my own business to cover household expenses and share the art of my greatest passions.

 

SFBG: Can you tell us a little about gelatin art?

RR: Arte floral en gelatina has become a centerpiece of Mexican culture. Evening parties in Cancun often have intricate gelatin dessert flowers served in glass, personalized gelatin desserts are in demand at corporate events in Mexico, and no birthday is complete without fun gelatin designs on the cake.  

 

SFBG: Most of your work I’ve seen is of flowers. Do you do any other kinds of designs?

RR: I am fascinated by flowers, but do figures, characters or any design. You can get your favorite hobby, movie, or fantasy adventure in a gelatin dessert.

 

SFBG: What are you bringing to the Street Food Festival this weekend?

RR: Sweets Collection will participate by offering fanciful jello shots at two bars that will be located on Folsom and 23rd streets. But we also have a booth on that intersection, selling designs that the entire family can enjoy. Last year was my first year, like me, many people were impressed by the art to gelatin and I hope that this year more people came by our Booth , to know and taste the art you can eat.

 

SFBG: What does it taste like?

RR: This artistic dessert is made with passion. They’re handcrafted and they taste how they look… delicious.

 

San Francisco Street Food Festival

Sat/20 11 a.m.- 7 p.m., free

Folsom between 22nd and 26th sts. and surrounding area, SF

www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

Green buds

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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56
Green buds

steve@sfbg.com

CANNABIS Most marijuana sold in Bay Area dispensaries is grown indoors, where the ability to precisely control conditions creates the kind of buds — strong, dense, crystal-covered, fragrant, beautiful — that consumers have come to expect. But that perfection comes at a high price, both financially and environmentally.

So some local leaders in the medical marijuana movement have begun to nudge the industry to return to its roots, to the days before prohibition and the helicopter raids of the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting chased the pot growers indoors. They say it’s time for California to start growing more of its cannabis outdoors again, in the soil and sunlight, just like the rest of the state’s crops.

Growers have long known how inefficient it is to grow indoors. All they need to do is look at their huge monthly energy bills. Between the powerful grow lights, constantly running air conditioners, elaborate ventilation systems, pumps and water purifiers, and heaters used for drying and curing, this is an energy-intensive endeavor.

But a widely circulated study released in April — “Energy Up in Smoke: The Carbon Footprint of Indoor Cannabis Production” by Evan Mills, a researcher with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — revealed just what a huge cumulative toll the practice was taking on California and the planet.

It found that indoor pot production accounts for about 8 percent of California household energy use, costing about $3 billion annually and producing about 4 millions tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of 1 million automobiles. Producing one joint was the equivalent of driving 15 miles in a 44 mpg car.

“The emergent industry of indoor Cannabis production results in prodigious energy use, costs, and greenhouse-gas pollution. Large-scale industrialized and highly energy-intensive indoor cultivation of cannabis is driven by criminalization, pursuit of security, and the desire for greater process control and yields,” Mills wrote in the report’s summary.

Yet while opponents of marijuana seized on the report to condemn the industry, proponents say there’s a very simple solution to the problem: grow it outdoors. And with the artisanship and quality in the fields and greenhouses now rivaling that of indoor buds, the biggest barriers to moving most marijuana production outdoors are federal laws and the biases of pot consumers.

“There’s a misconception out there that indoor is better marijuana than outdoor, but we don’t think that’s true,” Erich Pearson, who runs the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center (SPARC) dispensary and sits on the city’s Medical Cannabis Task Force. “Marijuana is a plant that came from the earth and that’s where we should grow it, just like our food.”

 

INDOOR VS. OUTDOOR

There are definitely some benefits to growing indoors, beyond just the ability to hide it from the prying eyes of law enforcement. The grow cycles are shorter, allowing for multiple harvests around the year. The generally small operations and precise control over growing conditions also tend to produce the best-looking buds, which command the highest prices and win the top prizes in competitions.

Kevin Reed, who runs Green Cross — a venerable medical marijuana delivery service that works closely with an established group of growers — told us there are several reasons why indoor buds have dominated the marketplace.

“The most important factor is local laws and regulations and the enforcement of those various laws. A second factor is space and climate — obviously outdoor cultivation will flourish is some places better than other. And, a final factor is sustainability of the market; indoor cultivators can produce crops on a year-round basis, providing some stability in the market over the long-term, especially in the event of crop failure or other unforeseen and unexpected disasters,” Reed told us.

Yet he also said, “If cultivated correctly and with care, there should be no difference between the same strain grown in- or outdoors.” And he said that from an environmental standpoint, outdoor is clearly superior: “So far as environmental factors are concerned, there is little doubt in my mind that outdoor cultivation is kinder to Mother Earth.”

Wilson Linker, with Steep Hill Laboratories, Northern California’s largest tester of medical marijuana, said that outdoor plants generally have more vegetative growth because of the longer light cycles, meaning that “indoor tests generally higher in cannabanoids, with THC [marijuana’s main psychoactive compound] in particular.”

But he and other marijuana experts also say that the quality of the buds ultimately depends on a wide variety of factors, from the strain used to the expertise of the cultivators to the time and care taken by the trimmers.

“I’ve seen outdoor that can compete with the best indoor strains,” said David Goldman, who runs San Francisco’s Americans for Safe Access (ASA) chapter, sits on the city’s Medical Marijuana Task Force, and is active in rating the various dispensaries and pot strains in terms of quality, using magnifying glasses to investigate the trichomes and other characteristics. “I would match the best outdoor I know up with anybody’s indoor, any day.”

Even when indoor buds look better, Pearson said, that doesn’t means they are better. Looks can be deceiving, he said, noting how local consumers now accept that those perfect-looking, genetically modified apples and tomatoes in the store aren’t as tasty or good for you as their ugly, organic counterparts.

“It’s not all about appearance,” he said, noting that marijuana grown in the sunshine is more robust and complex than its indoor cousins.

“We’re starting to find [outdoor] strains that were scoring just as high as indoor,” says Rick Pfrommer, the purchasing manager for Oakland’s Harborside Health Center.

And that’s especially true when the cannabis is grown in greenhouses, where it gets natural sunlight but growing conditions can be controlled better than in the fields.

“Greenhouses can attain a level of cosmetic attractiveness that is right up there with indoor,” Pfrommer said.

“There are a lot of products coming out of greenhouses that even trained eyes can’t tell the difference with [compared to indoors],” Linker said. “Greenhouses are the future.”

Or at least they might be the future if there is a change in the federal laws, which still view any marijuana cultivation as a crime — which is why indoor grows flourished in the first place.

 

LINGERING PROHIBITION

Rising demand for medical marijuana has created some regulatory pushback, even in pot-friendly San Francisco, where the Department of Public Health announced earlier this year that it wanted to create a registry of growers that work with the dispensaries in order to weed out the illegal growing operations.

“In the last few years, there’s been a proliferation of both illegal and legal cultivators,” Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s environmental health director, told us earlier this summer. “We’re asking for this information to try to steer them back toward legal cultivation.”

Reed, Goldman, and other industry representatives strongly condemned the move, mostly on the grounds that creating lists of growers could subject them to federal prosecution, so the idea was shelved for now. But Bhatia said the problem remains, and in San Francisco, it’s a problem created largely by the demand for cannabis grown indoors.

But allowing for a more widespread conversion to sustainably grown marijuana will require a relaxation of the federal enforcement to allow for more land cultivation and the development of high-tech greenhouses.

“A lot of that rests in the hands of law enforcement,” Pearson said.

But it isn’t just the cops. Consumers are also supporting indoor grows.

 

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Pfrommer said there are many factors that influence whether customers choose indoor or outdoor, or what he calls the “bag appeal” that causes customers to zero in on one strain among the 40 or so that can be offered at one time.

Generally, indoor grows are smaller operations, allowing greater care in the tending and processing of the buds, whereas outdoor grows usually produce large crops harvested all at once, “so frequently people won’t manicure it as well,” Pfrommer said.

Smell is another big factor, Pfrommer said, and that’s one area where he thinks outdoor actually has an advantage. “Outdoor generally has a more pungent smell,” he said. “Cannabis is very sensitive to the environment, so it can pick up elements from the soil, the wind, and the surroundings. It picks up different qualities.”

For that reason, he also said, “I personally find outdoor to taste better when it’s grown well,” comparing it to the subtle qualities that various appellations can give to fine wines.

The final factor is price, and that’s one area where outdoor has a distinct advantage. SPARC is currently selling quarter-ounces of greenhouse-grown Big Buddha Cheese with a THC content of more than 17 percent for just $70. And when the buds from open outdoor fields arrive this fall, they’ll be as low as $50.

“This,” Pearson said, holding up a beautiful bud of greenhouse-grown Green Dragon, “was grown at a fraction of the cost of indoor and it’s outstanding.”

“That’s why indoor sells for so much more,” Goldman said, ” because it costs so much more to grow.”

So if outdoor cannabis is cheaper, better for the environment, less risky for the industry, and just as good, why are the indoor stains still so much more popular?

“You’re looking a 20-plus years of indoor being the standard,” Pfrommer said, noting that the hardest part of creating a more substantial changeover in people’s buying habits is their expectations.

He said Harborside started offering more outdoor strains three years ago, “but the market wasn’t responding as strongly.” In other words, people still preferred indoor.

Yet things are changing, prompted partly by the Mills study. “That was what kicked off this latest round,” Pfrommer said. “There is a small but growing awareness among the regular marijuana consumers about the costs of growing indoors…The consciousness is starting to shift, but it’ll be slow, probably over the next two seasons.”

Harvests usually take place during the full moons in September and October, after which they are cured and processed for about four weeks, finally coming to market around Thanksgiving.

“It’s mostly an education process,” Pfrommer said. “We’re going to have a vigorous push around harvest time this year.”

“We’re trying to transition completely to outdoor because the environmental toll is less, the cost is less, the yield is higher, and our testing is showing that the quality is just as good,” said Nick Smilgys, who has done both marketing and purchasing at SPARC. “It just makes more sense to grow it outdoors.”

“Rollercoaster ride” for victims in the aftermath of Oakland gay-bashing

Andrew Lam
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1
“Rollercoaster ride” for victims in the aftermath of Oakland gay-bashing

“This was me running in to grab my friend, I didn’t think twice about it,” says Oakland assault victim Adal Castellon, who (as reported by the Bay Citizen) was attacked with bandmate Brontez Purnell outside of Club Paradiso at 2 a.m. late Wednesday night. “That’s when the guy socked me in the face.”

Hard. When the Guardian spoke with him this afternoon, Castellon had just returned from the hospital where doctors told him bones in his face had been broken in five places. Recently unemployed after seven years working in Bay Area social services, he has no health insurance. 

Two days after the ordeal, the musician has barely had time to think about what he’ll have to do to recover from the assault. “This came at the worst time,” he says. “It’s been such a rollercoaster ride.”

The two men had arrived at the club around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, according to Castellon. It was a slow night, and they talked about issues pertaining to their band (Younger Lovers). Castellon, in training for the New York Marathon, wasn’t drinking.

When they exited, says Castellon “these guys told us that we were in the wrong club. This is our neighborhood club! Brontez has been going there since he was 22, and he’s 29 now.”

Purnell answered back “how dare you?” and the situation escalated until, Castellon tells us, the men started punching Purnell. He ran in to grab his friend, and caught the worst of the situation; three punches to the face. Now, Castellon’s upper jaw, cheekbone, and bones around his eye socket are broken, and in some places shattered. 

“[Castellon] is not a violent, confrontational person at all,” Purnell told the Guardian. 

The police are still searching for the assailants, but according to Castellon have some good leads to work on. “I know who one of [the assailants] is,” he tells us.

But regardless, Castellon’s marathon is off now, and the Bay Area queer community and its allies have been left wondering just what the hell is going on in our cities lately. Looks like we’re suffering from the same kind of ignorant goings-on that happen everywhere else. This from Purnell: “You can meet up with knuckleheads anywhere. What’s cool is the support that we have here.”

For information on how to donate to Adal Castellon’s medical expenses, contact Melissa Merit at (415) 816-9176.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have planned a march tomorrow in the Castro to speak out about the recent spate of homophobic beatings. 3 p.m. at Jane Warner Plaza. More information available here.

Tasty tunes

Andrew Lam
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0
Tasty tunes

virginia@sfbg.com

FESTIVAL Outside Lands has been descending on lush Golden Gate Park for three years now. As the music lineup continues to feature some of the biggest acts on the summer tour circuit, the festival’s local food and drink offerings have been steadily increasing their profile. A Taste of the Bay Area, OL’s edible arena, hosts 54 food vendors, and 30 wineries and winemakers pour 100 different wines amid whimsical barrel seating under the big tent of Wine Lands. As if our dancecards weren’t already full of all the music we want to see!

To maximize your opportunities to stuff yourself, we’ve compiled an eating-drinking guide for the weekend that pairs just a few of each day’s musicians with harmonious eats. Also included: suggestions for your inter-set hydration intervals. (Read: the best booze and caffeine on offer.)

 

FRIDAY

New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, noon, Land’s End Stage Take traditional Jewish klezmer, amplify to the power of New Orleans, and suddenly you have New Orleans Klezmer Allstars on your hands. As you’re gyrating wildly to the sounds of the group’s clarinet and accordion, snack on some fried kosher dill pickles. Those Fabulous Frickle Brothers will be serving deep fried “frickle” chips and fried green tomatoes perfect for dipping in the booth’s cukaracha Sriracha, or perhaps its tasty curry mustard.

Drink interlude Avail yourself to a range of Kermit Lynch’s imported wines — the Berkeley local (a musician himself) was a key player in the introduction of French wines to the United States.

Phish, 6:30 p.m., Land’s End Stage Call us hippies, but what could go better with the ultimate jam band high than sweet summer produce? Full Belly Farms will be offering plump melons, peaches, tomatoes, corn, green beans, and bell peppers. Another farm-fresh pick: cucumber-melon spritzers from Flour + Water’s soon-to-open Salumeria. Pick up a porchetta sandwiches there to counteract all that good health.

Big Audio Dynamite, 7 p.m., Twin Peak Stage Don’t call it a comeback. With the return of Big Audio Dynamite (BAD), playful good times are sure to ensue — a perfect pair for Hayes Valley restaurant Straw’s Outside Lands carnival game, (also called Playful), which will be taking place in the Corral area of the festival. Don’t worry if you don’t win any prizes — Straw’s sweet potato tots and its falafel and schawarma snow cones will be reward enough.

Erykah Badu, 7:50 p.m., Sutro Stage Maybe you won’t be at your sexiest while slurping Split Pea Seduction’s soups, but sounds from the sultry Ms. Badu make a creation like sweet corn and smoked trout chowder oh-so-alluring — not to mention the stand’s spit-roasted lamb and Puerto Rican pork pernil sandwiches.

 

SATURDAY

Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers, 12:05 p.m., Sutro Stage Nicki Bluhm’s lazy sunny day tunes will make it feel like summer, even if (when) the fog rolls into Golden Gate Park. Fresh seafood can also bring out that summer shine, particularly Woodhouse Fish Co.’s BBQ or fresh oysters. Even better for when that condensation does convene is its excellent clam chowder.

Drink interlude Elegant Rhône varietals and Chardonnay from the central coast’s Qupé winery have made many a fan forget the next set they wanted to see.

The Black Keys, 6:15 p.m., Land’s End Stage The guttural blues rock of Ohio natives Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney is sure to be one of this year’s highlights. The group is the first ever act to play multiple years at Outside Lands, so you’ll want real crowd pleasing snacks at its show. Nombe’s ever-satisfying Japanese izakaya eats should fit the bill — its popular chicken wings, honey-sweetened, lime-and-fish-sauce perky, rarely leave their audience underplussed. Nombe will also be serving up odango (fried rice balls) and fried tofu for vegetarian music lovers.

The Roots, 6:50 p.m., Twin Peaks Stage The Roots have been interjecting ensemble musicianship into the hip-hop scene since 1987. You know what else is keeping it real? American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. We look forward to seeing what multi-voiced sandwiches it will be grilling up — will the Jalapeno Popper with chèvre, jack, applewood-smoked bacon, and apricot-jalapeño relish make an appearance? What about the Mousetrap, with its sharp cheddar, havarti, and jack?

Drink interlude Wind Gap’s grapes are grown from the Sonoma Coast down to Paso Robles, resulting in earnest, heartfelt wines that express a sampling of California’s terroir. Known for its syrahs, the winery also produces Chardonnay, grenache, and pinot gris.

Muse, 8:10 p.m., Land’s End Stage All of Muse’s dramatic intensity and rock opera influences mean you’ll need to lube up your vocal chords if you want to hit those soaring vocals alongside frontman Matthew Bellamy. Down a cup of Juice To You’s energizing green juice, watermelon juice, or Thai young coconut water before you belt it out.

 

SUNDAY

Drink interlude Hedge your energy for the last day of festivities with Ritual Coffee Roaster’s iced joe or a strong coffee brew from Philz.

Mavis Staples, 1:45 p.m., Land’s End Stage From her days with the Staples Singers to her latest Grammy-winning, Jeff Tweedy-produced album You Are Not Alone, this woman bleeds heart and soul. You’ll taste both in 4505 Meats’ raved-about chicharrones and hot dogs, Namu’s Korean tacos, or Rosamunde’s beer, chicken-cherry, and apple-sage sausages.

Drink interlude Manhattan restaurateur and sommelier Paul Grieco of Hearth and Terroir Wine Bar will be at the festival on his Summer of Riesling tour, touting — you guessed it — refreshing, crisp rieslings.

Julieta Venegas, 3:50 p.m., Sutro Stage Tijuana native Julieta Venegas has earned fans globally with her Spanish language rock. Augment her Latina vibes with El Huarache Loco’s huaraches or Little Chihuahua’s dreamy fried plantain-black bean burritos. For dessert skip to the Southern Hemisphere for mouth-watering Argentinean treats: Sabores del Sur’s dreamy alfajores, powdered sugar-dusted butter cookies sandwiched around creamy dulce de leche.

John Fogerty, 4:45 p.m., Land’s End Stage Creedence Clearwater Revival’s frontman is a living legend. No one epitomizes roots rock like Fogerty — who, despite CCR’s famous Southern sound, is a Berkeley native. His one-of-a-kind local vocals make a happy pair with Little Skillet’s fried chicken, Maverick’s pulled pork sandwiches, or Criolla Kitchen’s shrimp po’ boys.

www.sfoutsidelands.com/taste

 

Obama, Lee, Avalos, and the arc of history

Sasha Cuttler
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84
Obama, Lee, Avalos, and the arc of history

People need to hear compelling stories, particularly from those who aspire to lead them, a point that author and psychologist Drew Westen nailed in his incisive think-piece in Sunday’s New York Times, “What Happened to Obama?” His conclusions also apply in San Francisco, where progressives have lost control of the narrative to the tax-cutting centrists, who are telling stories that serve mainly to enfeeble the people and prop up powerful interests.

“The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to ‘expect’ stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought,” Westen writes.

Contrast that with the guiding narrative in San Francisco politics right now, put forth by Mayor Ed Lee, his supporters, and the crew of mostly bland centrists who aspire to replace him, all of whom cast conflict itself as the villain. Much like Obama, they all style themselves as the administrators-in-chief, conflict-averse protagonists content to compromise away what little wealth and power the average citizen still possesses. Not only does that narrative guarantee that Lee will be elected, but it’s a false and short-sighted narrative that does a profound disservice to this city.

The one candidate in the mayor’s race who understands that class matters, that conflict is a necessary part of politics, and that we’re all getting screwed over by the rich and powerful is John Avalos. But despite some flashes of progressive populism on the stump, he hasn’t really been consistently and boldly telling San Francisco the story of itself that it really needs to hear right now, which is the same story that Obama should be telling the American people.

“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out,” begins the story that Westen said Obama should have told during his inaugural address.

And that’s the story that Avalos should be telling right now, combating the myths that have been put out there by Lee, David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Dennis Herrera, and the other centrists in the race, that if we just give Twitter, Zynga, Oracle, Sutter Health, Willie Brown’s clients, and every other corporation and developer who promises to create jobs everything they want, then we’ll all be okay.

But on some level, we all know that just isn’t true, and it hasn’t been true for a long time. Only a fool would trust them to take care of us at this point. The greed and self-interest of rich individuals and corporations – which has gone unchecked for far too long, at least partly because of the political corruption they’ve sponsored – is reaching epidemic proportions. It is the villain that needs to be fought, it is the hill that needs to be climbed.

“When faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far,” Westen wrote.

He was riffing off Obama’s penchant for quoting the MLK line, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” which he returned to again with his devastating conclusion: “But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.”

That is the moment we find ourselves in, both as a country and as a city. And it is a story that we’re still waiting for a future leader to tell us with enough power and passion that we all begin to believe it.

So classy

Andrew Lam
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0
So classy

caitlin@sfbg.com

Reward the long-term relationships in your life by taking your game up a notch. Brain fitness? Bar-stocking skills? Bicyclist rights? It’ll all make for more scintillating dinner conversations, so take the pupil plunge. Most of the following classes will charge for your mental charge, but always remember that the Free University of San Francisco (www.freeuniversitysf.org) and the East Bay Free Skool (eastbayfreeskool.wikia.com) have incredible learning opportunities available gratis.

URBAN BICYCLING WORKSHOP

The streets can be a scary place for poor little meat puppets, particularly when one doesn’t know the rules of the road. Lucky for us, the SF Bike Coalition hosts regular crash courses on how not to crash on course. Its biking workshops cover everything from choosing the right bicycle for you, to traffic safety on two wheels, to getting your bike on BART, to your rights as a bicyclist. Did we mention it’s free? More power to the pedal.

Aug. 20, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., free. St. Anne’s Church, 1320 14th Ave., SF. www.sfbike.org

 

DIY LIQUEURS AND INFUSIONS

With one four-to-eight-ounce jar (err on the larger size, trust) you can take your party game up a notch. That’s because Sean Timberlake of Punk Domestics — a local site promoting fermentation and other home cooking processes — will be guiding you through the steps of creating a fantastically flavored liquor at community-food space 18 Reasons. Pluots? Cucumbers? Bananas and brandy? The world is alive and flavorful!

Aug. 23, 7-9 p.m., $40-50. 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero, SF. www.18reasons.org

 

RIGID HEDDLE WEAVING

It’s not going to be summer forever, Gidget. Time to jump on a rigid heddle loom, which in addition to being a beach party of a phrase to say out loud is one of the easiest ways to learn how to weave a top-notch scarf for a cold season cover-up. This class requires you to bring some supplies with you, so make sure you check the website (and yarn store A Verb For Keeping Warm’s selection of chill-chasing threads) before heading over.

First class: Aug. 27, 2:30-5:30 p.m. Second class: Sept. 3, 3:30-4:30 p.m., $54-64. A Verb For Keeping Warm, 6328 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 595-8372, www.averbforkeepingwarm.com

 

IAPP DESIGN

Those that control the iPhone applications, control the world. Seriously, we don’t care what market you’re in, your boss probably wants you to design an app for your company. On second thought, this class will definitely not improve your dinnertime banter, but if you can make your way through the course (and it does require a wee bit of prior computer knowledge), at least your talent will be popular!

Oct. 8, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., $155. San Francisco State Downtown Campus, 835 Market, SF. www.cel.sfsu.edu

 

MIND-BODY HEALTH

Okay this one for sure your friends will love. T’ai chi sessions included, this class will bestow upon you methodologies for getting physically healthier by getting mentally healthier. Clean out those mental cobwebs and untoward cognitive ruts, why don’tcha. The class is available in multiple locations — at the Mission branch of City College as well as a senior citizen home near Fort Mason.

Various City College of San Francisco class times and locations. www.ccsf.edu

 

SKILLSHARE

Once upon a time, a nationwide website took it upon itself to teach local communities how to teach themselves things. Recently, the site opened its e-doors to San Francisco, kind of. Classes haven’t started yet, but many potential listings are already up and you can sign up to be a “watcher” — someone who is interested in one of the course descriptions. Many of the courses are under $20, and will be taught by people who’ve got local cred in the topics at hand — which so far include fantasy football strategies, underground dinners, social media skills, and whiskey 101.

www.skillshare.com

Ecological rewind

Andrew Lam
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Ecological rewind

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Follow the trail from Yosemite National Park’s Rancheria Falls up along dusty switchbacks and down through a canopy of pines and madrones for roughly three miles, and you will reach Tiltill Valley.

Accessible only to hikers and horseback riders, the backwoods meadow hums with the chatter of birds, bees, and the distant rush of water spilling over rocks. Butterflies dart among wild orchids, lilies, yarrow, and other kinds of flowering plants that thrive there, and a lone sequoia stands along the perimeter. The valley floor is lush and boggy, with the forested hills of the High Sierra as its backdrop.

Tiltill Valley is a real-life example of what Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley might look like if the reservoir that holds San Francisco’s water supply were drained and the terrain allowed to return to its natural state, according to Mike Marshall, executive director of Restore Hetch Hetchy.

His nonprofit group has a singular mission, as the title suggests. The upbeat, 50-year-old former political consultant wants to place a charter amendment on the November 2012 ballot to ask San Francisco voters if Hetch Hetchy Reservoir should be drained so that the valley, which has been underwater since 1923, can be ecologically restored and turned into an attraction for park visitors.

Yet that simply stated goal belies an extraordinarily difficult and expensive task, one that would fundamentally alter San Francisco’s water delivery system and diminish a city-owned source of inexpensive, green energy.

“The destruction of Hetch Hetchy Valley in the 1920s was the worst environmental disaster to ever besiege the national park system,” Marshall says. “And today, it is completely out of whack with the values of the vast majority of people who live here.”

But most city officials think this idea is just plain crazy. Whether or not it was a good idea to build the dam originally, they say it’s unwise and unrealistic to spend scarce resources to destroy one of city’s most valuable assets.

“While it is an interesting idea, I don’t think that there is yet a credible plan to move forward and actually restore Hetch Hetchy that will ensure that within our budget, we’ll be able to get the water that 2.5 million Bay Area customers need, as well as do everything else that the current Hetch Hetchy system does,” Board President David Chiu told the Guardian.

Based in San Francisco, Restore Hetch Hetchy worked in tandem with the Environmental Defense Fund and a consulting firm to craft a technical analysis describing how the city could continue receiving reliable freshwater deliveries without the reservoir, although it would require filtration because of its lower quality and be less abundant in drought years.

While restoring the valley would be an ecological win in a perfect world, cost estimates range in the billions of dollars at a time when budgets are shrinking and economic turbulence rocks the public and private sectors.

Draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and replacing it with other water and power projects would punch holes in an already cash-strapped city budget, first with the high capital costs and then with higher long-term annual costs. The hydro-electric system provides carbon-free electricity to city agencies at basement rates and helps fund local renewable-energy projects, so relinquishing some of that generation capacity would be a step backward when it comes to addressing climate change.

“The loss of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir would fly in the face of every effort San Francisco has made to replace fossil-fuel power generation with renewable energy sources,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera wrote in a 2004 editorial in the Guardian. Losing hydropower from the dam, he wrote, “would force greater dependence on fossil-fuel electricity and impair low-cost hydropower with higher-cost renewables, making San Francisco’s efforts to create a sustainable energy future virtually impractical. And it would devastate our efforts to enact a public power system in San Francisco. Hetch Hetchy was built by people who envisioned a public power system to serve all of San Francisco. We should finish that system before we start tearing it down.”

But when a round of invitations went out to Bay Area journalists to join a three-day backpacking trip in Yosemite and learn about Restore Hetch Hetchy’s vision, I signed up to attend. After all, here was a chance to go backpacking in beautiful terrain and assess one of the most controversial and impactful proposals facing San Francisco.

 

WATER

Our first stop within park boundaries was a chocolate-colored chalet with a spacious deck overlooking the waterfront. Owned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), it’s notorious in San Francisco politics as a weekend getaway for local elected officials, city commissioners, and favored staffers. Stories of the chalet abound, as it’s rumored to have been the site of private soirees for powerful players and a rendezvous for lovers in extramarital affairs.

The eight-mile long, 300-foot deep Hetch Hetchy Reservoir holds 360,000 acre-feet of water, and the dam itself is an impressive structure, although Marshall scoffs at the popular wisdom casting it as “a marvel of engineering,” and dryly quips, “so was the Titanic.”

Native American remains were buried underwater when it was built, Marshall told us as we peered out over the towering dam wall, and 67 lives were lost during construction. As we rounded the perimeter of the man-made water body, sweating in the summer heat and saddled with gear, he asked us to imagine peering down into a dramatic sloping valley instead of what it looks like in its current state, which is a lake.

“Don’t call it a lake,” he insisted. Restore Hetch Hetchy regards the reservoir as an unnatural blemish that should never have been imposed upon a scenic and biodiverse environment in a national park. According to Mark Cedorborg, an ecological restoration expert with Hanford ARC and a Restore Hetch Hetchy board member who joined the trip, it wouldn’t take long for the natural ecosystem to bounce back if the water were removed, recreating a rare wildlife habitat that would mirror Yosemite Valley.

Sierra Club founding president John Muir would have sided with them, of course. The famous ecologist wrote passionately about the valley and vehemently fought the effort to submerge it. At the time, a chorus of opposition arose against flooding Hetch Hetchy — and that was before modern science documenting the impacts dams have wrought on the environment.

A black-and-white image of Michael O’Shaughnessy, the civil engineer behind the project, is posted on an info kiosk beside the dam, his eyebrows arched in a wizard-like, calculating gaze as he uses a pointer to mark the spot on a map of San Francisco’s watershed.

As things stand today, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is a crucial storage facility for drinking water. Freshwater flowing from the Tuolumne River through the glacial formation accounts for 85 percent of SFPUC deliveries to about 2.5 million customers in the city and on the peninsula.

Hetch Hetchy is unique in that it’s just one of a handful of water systems nationwide that uses chemical treatment and ultraviolet disinfection, but no filtration, to purify fresh water that is transported along a gravity-fed system down to the city.

SFPUC spokesperson Tyrone Jue said Hetch Hetchy water does not require filtration “because basically, it’s a giant granite basin there in the reservoir, so there’s no sedimentation.” He added that the water quality is exceptionally high. “It’s high up in the watershed. The higher up in the watershed, the better it is.”

Restore Hetch Hetchy has submitted a number of proposals to ensure that San Francisco could still receive adequate supplies without the reservoir, including constructing a new intertie at Don Pedro Reservoir, which lies downstream from Hetch Hetchy, to get drinking water supplies from there instead.

Under this scenario, the SFPUC would continue to get its water from the Tuolumne River — but it would have to build a new filtration system to treat it because the water quality would be worse and the city would lose its federal waiver.

That’s an expensive consideration, particularly at a time when city coffers are depleted, critical services for vulnerable populations have been gutted, and taxpayers are wary of authorizing costly new endeavors.

Marshall defends the cost by asserting that the current system is flawed; the lack of filtration makes San Francisco’s water more susceptible to contamination from nasty microorganisms like cryptosporidium and giardia, he says.

“San Francisco has a unique health demographic in that over 5 percent of the people that live in the city have compromised immune systems, if you just look at people who are HIV positive,” he said. “Ultimately, San Francisco is going to be forced to filter its water, so why are we kicking this can down the road?”

But filtering water at the residential level would be far cheaper than tearing down the dam. Jue pegs the cost of a new filtration system at somewhere between $3 billion and $10 billion, but Marshall rejects that estimate as “just crazy.”

So we called Xavier Irias, director of engineering at the East Bay Municipal Utility District. “Ten looks a little high, but the three sounds very credible,” Irias said, acknowledging that there were many complicating factors that could affect cost. Ultimately, he said, the cost range could be anywhere from half a billion to the single-digit billions of dollars.

“With the filtration costs, not only are you talking about building a facility to filter the water, you’re now talking about increased power consumption to basically power those filtration plants,” Jue noted. “You’d have to start pumping water, which would require additional energy. And then on top of that, there’s the long-term operation.”

What’s more is that the quantity of water that San Francisco now depends on wouldn’t be guaranteed every year. According to an analysis done in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, reconfiguring the system to tap Don Pedro would result in 19 percent less water delivered from the Tuolumne in critically dry years, and similar losses would result from alternative proposals like tapping Cherry Reservoir, another storage facility in the SFPUC system.

Restore Hetch Hetchy has suggested that the shortfall could be made up in part with new water-conservation measures, something that cities arguably ought to be practicing anyhow since climate change threatens to bring about drier conditions in California’s watershed. It could also place the city in the position of having to go to the open market to purchase water for customers — just as dwindling water supplies raise the temperature between cities and counties scrambling to secure reliable deliveries.

“The Hetch Hetchy water system is a fully owned public asset,” Jue notes. “At a time when state and federal governments are struggling with even being able to close our budget deficits, to even look at dismantling an environmentally sound, cost-efficient water system that delivers water to 2.5 million people is sort of outrageous.”

 

POWER

In addition to capturing the flow of pristine Tuolumne River water that eventually makes its way into the city’s plumbing network, O’Shaughnessy Dam is a key component of the SFPUC-owned hydro-electric system, which produced 1.7 billion kilowatt hours of power last year with no greenhouse gas emissions.

If efforts to advance the cause of a public power system resurfaced in San Francisco, having the full capacity of the Hetch Hetchy hydro-electric generation in place would be vital. Juice for city streetlights, Muni’s light rail cars, the chandeliers adorning the Board Chambers in City Hall, and countless other municipal uses are derived from this gravity-fed system, which provides roughly one-fifth of San Francisco’s overall energy needs.

City departments pay three or four cents per kilowatt-hour, less than what it costs to generate the power. If all the hydro-electric power were eliminated and substituted with PG&E power, the city would get pinned with $32 million in additional costs annually, and its carbon footprint would expand by more than 900 million pounds of greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the SFPUC. However, a technical report produced by the Environmental Defense Fund suggests the city would only suffer a 20 percent decline in the hydro-electric output, since operations at other SFPUC reservoirs would continue.

The hydro-electric system also generates revenue through the sale of excess power to Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts, but that would come to an end if the generation capacity fell by 20 percent. Restore Hetch Hetchy estimates this loss to be around $10 million annually.

“Whenever we sell the power to Modesto and Turlock, that revenue then goes to fund programs like GoSolarSF, and all of our energy-efficiency retrofits of municipal facilities,” Jue explains. If the city lost its ability to sell off this excess supply, “We would no longer be getting power revenue at all, which we’re using to help fund community choice aggregation.”

Fraught with problems as it is, the city’s effort to launch a community choice aggregation program offering residential customers an alternative to PG&E nevertheless holds promise as a powerful green shift for a major metropolitan hub. For all the ecological benefits to Yosemite, restoring Hetch Hetchy could wind up undercutting the fledgling green power initiative, and the upshot would be a boon for PG&E. Coupled with the fact that ceding control of the valley back to the National Park Service could strip the city of its mandate for public power, the utility giant would benefit tremendously from this plan.

All of this makes it somewhat surprising that District 5 Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, a longtime champion of the cause of public power, appointed Marshall to serve on the SFPUC Citizens Advisory Committee, a move that rankled SFPUC staff.

“I’ve known Mike many years and have found him to be whip smart when it comes to complicated policy issues,” Mirkarimi told the Guardian when asked about this. “He knows that I am an unwavering supporter for public power and that I’d hope his advocacy on the SFPUC continues to advance and innovate our locally-driven clean energy objectives.”

 

POLITICS

The concept of bringing back Hetch Hetchy Valley originated with the Sierra Club in 1999, and several mainstream environmental organizations have lent support for the cause although few have made it a high priority. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of financial backing and support from key political players to keep the vision alive.

Democratic County Central Committee Chair Aaron Peskin, a member of Restore Hetch Hetchy’s national advisory board, told me he’s been active with the group for at least a decade, making him a rare exception among the city’s political leaders.

“San Francisco is a remarkably sophisticated town that is technologically advanced and environmentally advanced, and this is an opportunity to right one of the most destructive environmental wrongs,” he said. “It’s time to start a local and national conversation.”

He acknowledged that there were a lot of technical issues to contend with, saying, “It should only be done in a way that makes sure San Francisco and communities that rely on the system are taken care of.”

Major funders backing Restore Hetch Hetchy include retired businesspeople from the financial sector, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, council members of the Yosemite Conservancy, and Lance Olson, a Restore Hetch Hetchy board member and partner in Olson Hagel & Fishburn, LLP, a prominent Sacramento legal firm that represents the California Democratic Party and elected officials.

Other influential and politically connected individuals have joined the effort as well. Marshall assured me that “no one from PG&E has given us a dime.” Yet the project still faces some powerful opponents. “I have opposed removing the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley for decades and I remain opposed,” U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein told the Guardian. “Draining the reservoir would endanger San Francisco’s water supply, further jeopardize California’s water infrastructure and impose a huge financial burden on the state.”

The foodie crackdown

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
The foodie crackdown

news@sfbg.com

Yet another blow was dealt to the San Francisco’s free-thinking food scene on June 11 when the final Underground Market was staged by ForageSF, at least for the time being. The market was shut down by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) in a clash between small-time food businesses and city officials over permitting and regulatory issues.

“I was ready for this for a while,” ForageSF founder Iso Rabins told us. “I thought someone would show up eventually to say something about this, and now they have.”

Rabins began the Underground Market in 2009 as a monthly venue for food entrepreneurs to share their goods without financial and bureaucratic red tape. It’s basically a farmers market without the permits, fees, and commercial kitchen requirements that add thousands of dollars to the cost of staging an event. Throw in live music, drinks, a little subversive thrill, and you’ve got a gathering that has proven enormously popular.

Until now, the market has operated as a private event. It is held in a private space and attendees are required to sign a membership form and pay a $5 entrance fee. It’s become a huge draw for foodies, with 1,500 to 3,200 patrons per event, according to Rabins, so the state government got wind of its largely unregulated operations.

Alicia Saam, the temporary events coordinator with SFDPH, says her department was asked by state officials to observe the market. It’s now too big to be considered private, she says, so it must adhere to health code and public safety regulations just like any other public event.

“One of the things that differentiate private versus public events is how much advertisement goes out there,” Saam said. “Something that is advertised and has grown big enough to have a following, that becomes a concern for us as a public event.”

Without official oversight, rules are bound to be broken. As with any novice venture, mistakes are made. When officials came to the Underground Market, they saw some vendors acting more like friends at a house party than professional food vendors, which is the complicated line that the market tries to toe.

“We observed operators and vendors eating and then handling the food, and that’s a huge contamination hazard for us,” Saam said. “They weren’t washing their hands before continuing food service, nor did they have a hand-washing set-up right there at their booth. There looked to be temperature issues as far as some of the food that was being stored, such as protein foods, sausages, and dairy. Some foods were not protected but were displayed on the table uncovered. People come up and they’re excited and curious, there’s a lot of creativity there, so they’re hovering over the food and possibly contaminating it with all sorts of things. The source of food, such as the kitchen where the food is coming from, needs to be an approved space where there are no animals, or cats like in some homes. It needs to be a commercial space that is properly cleaned and sanitized.”

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, one in six Americans get sick each year from eating contaminated food. Salmonella infection is of particular concern because food can be contaminated anywhere from the fields to kitchen surfaces.

The SFDPH has already allowed the Underground Market to operate unregulated for more than a year without any reported food illnesses, but Rabins is quick to agree that these health concerns are real.

“I do believe that these issues of health are important, and although I feel that all the vendors at the market are very careful about what they make, we do want to institute some Serve-Safe classes, basic food safety,” Rabins says.

He says that on the whole, people cooking small batches pay much more attention to their ingredients and processes than industrial food companies do. Rabin said that while the country’s food safety system works pretty well, it doesn’t allow for much locally based innovation in new models for making and sharing food.

“The Health Department’s position makes sense because this is the system that has existed, this is the system that they know and that their jobs support, and it’s a system that works in a lot of ways. But it’s also a system that was really created for industrial processes,” Rabins says. “Unfortunately the way regulations work, top-down is one-size-fits-all, but that’s just not the way it is.”

That gets to the meat of the issue: whether and how much the city should get involved in people’s food habits. Where is the line between public restaurants and private homes — and are there ways of creating hybrids of the two? It’s an ongoing battle in San Francisco between regulating restaurants (and netting taxes) while still promoting an innovative food industry that attracts locals and tourists alike.

In the past few years, the mobile food truck craze has hit San Francisco with little bits of foodie culture from all over the world. Entrepreneurs say it’s too difficult and expensive to start a successful restaurant in SF, so they’re trying small-time pop-ups instead.

At first they went unregulated, but now laws define what they can sell, the permits they need, and limit their mobility. Permits are expensive too, starting at $1660 for initial basic coverage, which is why Rabins says the Underground Market provides an additional support for motivated locals. As city officials have closed big budget deficits year after year without any substantial increases in general tax revenue, fees and permit costs have risen substantially in recent years.

According to Rabins, getting the Underground Market up to code means, “getting all the vendors commercial kitchen space, making them get catering licenses, which is around $600, making them pay for vendor event permits, which is $140 per event, and then I would have to buy a sponsor permit which is another $1200 per event plus event insurance plus, plus, plus all these things that would essentially destroy the spirit of the event. It would make the bar way too high.”

Tightening the membership rules is another option, such as making people sign up weeks in advance or requiring member cards. Richard Lee, the director of environmental health regulatory programs at SFPHD, says that regardless of the vendor’s complaints, the regulations must be met.

“We think that these are reasonable options,” Lee said. “Anyone who is going to sell to the public needs to meet certain requirements, and unfortunately some of those requirements are going to be costly. They have to pay for permits and whatever those permits cost they’re going to have to pay.”

Until some agreement can be reached, the Underground Market won’t be operating, and San Franciscans will have to find their fix at the numerous above ground markets and restaurants. Lee says that he hopes that the market meets city demands, and soon, as this kind of entrepreneurial innovation is essential to a thriving food economy.

“We do encourage the micro-enterprises, and there are possible ways to have that started in San Francisco,” Lee said. “It is possible that there may be legislation in the future that might be supported by the Board [of Supervisors] to make it easier for them to get permitted, so there are things that can be done. For us, though, it is food safety and public health that are the most important things.”

But Rabins is already looking far beyond just the small market model.

“They just want to make it another farmers market,” Rabins said. “I’m not interested in running another farmers market. There are plenty of farmers markets around and people who have been doing them for years and know how to do them.”

He also isn’t interested in conforming to the pre-set expectations and sees the motivation behind the market taking it to new heights. In addition to reopening, he says that ForageSF has secured a kitchen space for helping entrepreneurs launch their small businesses and host public classes.

“We are going to hopefully have a rooftop garden with a movie screen, a retail space in front that sells products being made in the kitchen by vendors, and possibly a small-scale brewery in back,” Rabins said.

He is also reaching out to other similar market organizers, such as some in Los Angeles, to brainstorm ways to make this business model more acceptable across the country. He says they are in the initial phases of creating a model that is reproducible for others who want to start their own markets.

Once again, in the place where the organic food movement first bloomed, people are coming together to create new interactions between producers, consumers, and their food.

The crucial question: why didn’t Obama invoke the 14th amendment and seize the day?

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For me, the crucial question for President Obama is why he didn’t take the advice of former President Bill Clinton, Rep. John Garamendi, and others who urged him to invoke  the 14th Amendment and its “validity of the public debt” point and then unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.

The Tea Party Republicans had manufactured a phony crisis with the debt ceiling, linked it to their wrongway issue of tax reduction, and then held the nation hostage to their  maniacal demands for trillions of  cuts to domestic programs.
Armageddon was nigh.

Yet Obama, after caving on single payer health care, the public option,  restoring the Bush tax cuts, on and on, and after negotiating  the debt crisis on Republican turf with many of their arguments and much of their language, refused to take the one crucial  step that could have saved the day for him  and the country that will suffer further under Teapartyism.
 
Sure, Republicans would have screamed bloody murder. Tough.  They  forced Obama to the brink,  and public opinion would have supported him fighting it out for once and  taking this understandable position of executive authority under these draconian circumstances.

The legal experts I read and heard on television said that they didn’t think that Congress could have  been able to subvert this decision.  And consider the campaign issue: Obama took on the Teaparty Republicans and beat them at their own game. Instead, he allowed them to win the battle and allowed Speaker of the House John Boehner to claim that he had gotten 98 per cent of what he wanted.

And what did Obama and the Democrats get?  The prospect of  a Republican tax-cutting disaster moving in agonizing stages that will most likely deepen the recession, stunt job growth even further,  keep unemployment rising, and give the Republicans an armory full of ammunition to knock him out.

Shakespeare has a phrase for this in his sonnet 73:  Obama and his adminstration were  “consumed by that with which it was nourished by.”  B3

P.S. Paul Krugman was right. The MSNBC lineup has done a wonderful job of covering the crisis and laying out the issues with passion and not Beltway “objectivity.”  Cbris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and the guy who started it all, Keith Olberman now on Current TV on Channel 170 in San Francisco. Thomm Hartmann and Randi Rhodes did good work on Green 960.

Those crazy San Franciscans

Zelda Bronstein
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63
Those crazy San Franciscans

Joe Eskenazi has an SF Weekly piece that pretty much repeats what he’s been saying for years: That San Francisco has too much government. This time he goes after all the boards, task forces and commissions — and yeah, there are a lot of them, and yeah, some of them might not be necessary. I could also argue, though, that San Francisco is one of the most politically active cities in the world, and that having a whole lot of ways for residents to plug in to what’s going on in their city isn’t a bad thing at all.


Whatever. Here’s the stuff that drives me nuts:


Last month, the volunteer body appointed by the Board of Supervisors advocated curtailing all pet sales in the city — including guppies, goldfish, and live rodents meant as snake food. Coming on the heels of a proposed criminalization of circumcision, San Francisco was, once again, reduced to an international punchline — many were left to wonder whether a ban on circumcising goldfish is our logical next step. Disbelieving articles poured in from around the globe. Perhaps none was as caustic as a piece in London‘s Telegraph titled “San Francisco goldfish ban exposes the pathology of America’s bourgeois liberal nutjobs.”


Ah, yes, Joe: Those crazy San Francisco liberals and their madcap ideas.


I’m not for banning pet sales (although I think banning puppy mills — also a wacky idea that came out of the Animal Control and Welfare Commission — is a fine thing). And I’m not for the circumcision ban (although, geez, it has lead to some interesting commentary that gives new meaning to the term “dick face.”)


But every time I hear somebody talk about how San Franciscans should stop it with the nutty ideas, I think about a few I’ve followed over the years — and how they’ve changed the way the entire nation thinks. Let me suggest a few for Eskanazi to look at:


“Those crazy San Franciscans don’t want to build freeways.” Yep — in the late 1950s and early 1960s, while the rest of the country (and in particular, California) was rushing to build freeways as fast as possible, people in this city decided to say No. The freeway revolt and the movement that grew out of it changed the way Americans view cities. Wacky shit.


“Those crazy San Franciscans think homosexuals should have the same rights as married people.” Yep, back in the 1970s San Franciscans started talking not only about nondiscrimination — they actually said that gay people who live together should have health insurance benefits. Imagine that.


“Those crazy San Franciscans think that women should make the same amount of money as men.” When then- Sup Nancy Walker introduced legislation in 1985 making “comparable worth” (the notion that men and women who do jobs that require comparable skills should be paid the same) it made headlines all over the country — and was universally derided by the same set that now complain about “liberal nutjobs.” It cost the city a lot of extra money (money that the Eskinazi crew of the day said was too much for a broke city) and led to all sorts of comments about social engineering. San Francisco was the first to push the issue, and it’s now considered mainstream employment policy.


“Those crazy San Franciscans think we ought to give bicycles the same rights as cars.” All the way back in the mid-1980s, bicycle advocates were talking about bike lanes, bike maps, bike racks and alternatives to the automobile. What were they drinking?


“Those crazy San Franciscans think that transgender people ought to get health benefits.” This was as recent as 1993 — and if you think circumcision and pets put SF in the right-wing-talk-show and late-night-comedy targets, imagine when the city decided “to use taxpayer dollars to fund sex-change operations,” as the detractors insisted. Guess what? It turned out to be a major step forward for transgender rights.


“Those crazy San Franciscans think gay people should be allowed to get married.” We did. We do. We were first. The rest of the country is following.


“Those crazy San Franciscans want to ban plastic bags.” We did. For good reason. So did L.A. In another few years, it will be national policy.


“Those crazy San Franciscans want to ban happy meals.” Guess what — McDonald’s got the message. 


I could list plenty more.


Yeah, we’re ahead of the curve. Yeah, sometimes our shit seems crazy. But it’s the crazy shit that makes the world change — and over time, the world catches up to San Francisco. And if we weren’t doing it, the world would get better just a little more slowly.


 


 


 

Hot sexy events: July 27-August 3

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events: July 27-August 3

Ugh. There is nothing sexy about breast cancer (unless you’re Annie Sprinkle). But honestly, when life gives you tumors, you give that thing tumescence – or at least, that’s adult film performer Hollie Stevens’ view.

Stevens was diagnosed with breast cancer this year, but it’s hardly held her down. The clown porn enthusiast filmed an intense scene on societysm.com in which her head was shaved – it had to happen anyway for chemo, so why not make it someone’s fantasy? This week, you can help young Stevens out in her quest for health. On Fri/29, she’s hosting a low-lit lingerie roller disco, complete with an auction featuring Chuck Stevens pornography prints, and Girls and Corpses magazines – the site of Stevens’ recent “Playdead bunnies” feature.

“Is Leather Dead? Does it Need to Die?”

Leather leader-author Guy Baldwin, kink educator Race Bannon, lesbian activist Gayle Rubin, and Instigator magazine editor Michael Thorn take a hard look at leather’s relevance today. In the age of Internet cruising, can a community still be said to exist? Heady questions being asked mere days before the Up Your Alley street fair. 

Weds/27 7-10 p.m., free

LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

www.folsomstreetfair.org


A Night for Hollie Stevens

The press release says bring your fat wallet, lingerie, or both. So you’ve got options. Can’t make it? Donate to Stevens here.

Fri/29 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., $30

Private SoMa location, SF (buy ticket for details)

www.holliestevensxxx.com


Comfort and Joy Active Touch

Burning Man fundraising season is upon us (for those who were lucky enough to score a ticket) and one of the most venerable playa sexy camps is throwing a big, swinging bash set to jams by DJ Bus Station John

Fri/29 10 p.m.-4 a.m., $20 suggested donation

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Perverts Put Out! Dore Alley edition

Our sex columnist Gina De Vries is over the moon for this recurring performance series that focuses on the gamut of sex and artistic expression – cop fantasies, “bearlesque,” even cruising the Excelsior has gotten its due on stage over the years. What will go off this year? You’ll have to attend to find out – it’s also the perfect pre-party for all those that are gonna have to work Up Your Alley tomorrow. 

Sat/30 7:30 p.m., $10-15

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org


Up Your Alley street fair 

In the thick of hippie summer fests comes Up Your Alley Fair, an al fresco get-together that unmasks the sexual undertones of other festivals. Why pretend it’s all about the music when you know all you’re trying to do is get that hottie back to your tent to get laid? Up Your Alley (and Folsom Street Fair, its big brother) makes no pretense – it’s all sexy sex all the time, in the DJ areas, in the women-only Venus Playground, and by your favorite pillory. 

Sun/31 11a.m.-6 p.m., $7 suggested donation

Folsom between Seventh and 12th St., SF

www.folsomstreetfair.org/alley

 

Perverts give good poetry

Andrew Lam
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0
Perverts give good poetry

culture@sfbg.com

LUST FOR LIFE I work at the St. James Infirmary, an occupational health clinic for current and former sex workers. The clinic is a beneficiary of Dore Alley’s Up Your Alley Fair — a pride celebration for kinky people and little sister of the Folsom Street Fair — so every year I have to a work a shift at the festival. I haven’t been able to enjoy the actual street fair aspect of it for a while. But I always look forward to this week, and to Dore Alley Eve (as those of us in the kink and leather communities jokingly call it) because of Perverts Put Out (PPO), which this year takes the stage Saturday, July 30.

Now, it’s impossible for me to write about PPO without bias. I’m good friends with the producers and I’ve been on their rotating roster of performers since 2007. But I’ve also been coming to PPO as an audience member since 2004, right about the time I graduated from teen poetry slams and started performing my own works around the Bay Area.

Attending PPO for those first three years as an adult performer (in all senses of that term) and newly-minted sex writer trying to find her place in the SF spoken word scene, I received an amazing lesson in our sex and art communities. PPO is responsible for much of my education about both writing and performance. I sat back. I watched. I learned. I took a lot of notes.

So consistently well curated it borders on absurd, PPO is an impressive mix of genre and content — everything from poetry to performance art, diatribes to elegantly crafted erotic short stories. The unifying theme of PPO is of course sexuality, and most of the performers are queer in some way. But queerness and sexuality can cover a lot of ground.

Some of my favorite PPO memories from over the years: Kirk Read’s tragically beautiful piece about going duck hunting with a new lover. Daphne Gottlieb’s gorgeous poem “Carpe Nocturne” about (among other things) desire, lineage, death, and love. Lori Selke’s razor-sharp breakup letter to the racist and sexist mainstream BDSM scene. Meliza Banales’ riotously funny story about doing crystal healing sex work in Santa Cruz. Steven Schwartz’s “Bearlesque,” a smart and funny rumination on bear identity, complete with dancing and tassles. Jaime Cortez’s eerily beautiful short story “Excelsior,” about queer men cruising not in the Castro or SoMa, but in the Excelsior District. Fran Varian’s secret and brutal cop fantasy, told from the perspective of an anti-imperialist queer activist protagonist. Pretty much everything poet Horehound Stillpoint has ever done, ever. I could go on. But really, you should just come to the show.

PERVERTS PUT OUT: THE DORE ALLEY EDITION

Sat/30 7:30 p.m., $10–$15

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.sexandculture.org

 

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27

 

Discussion of contemporary Afghan women

To mark the publication of the book Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women, coeditor and sociologist Ashraf Zahedi and contributor Amina Kator discuss this portrait of a misunderstood people. The book features essays from scholars, humanitarian workers, politicians, and journalists who abandon stereotypes or clichés, focusing on the women’s struggle for peace and justice instead.

5:30–7:30 p.m., $5 members/$10 nonmembers

Russ Building

235 Montgomery, SF

www.imow.org

THURSDAY, JUNE 28

 

Unsung heroes of U.S. history

This event spotlights the lesser-known Philippine heroes of U.S. history and features stories told by descendants of the Buffalo Soldiers who helped the U.S. win World War II; a discussion of the Filipino farm workers in Delano who fought fair wages and ethical working conditions; and a tribute to Al Robles —SF’s Manilatown community leader who was instrumental in the fight against the eviction and demolition of the famed I-Hotel — a refuge for Filipino laborers.

5–9 p.m., free

Manilatown Center

868 Kearny

www.laborfest.net

Operation Recovery: Right to Heal tour

Support the Iraqi Veterans Against the War, a nonprofit that fights for adequate medical and mental health care as well as G.I. rights for returning soldiers. The organization is on tour to share their stories while on the road fighting to win veterans “the right to heal.” The events also features musical performances by Ryan Harvey and Nomi.

7–10 p.m., sliding scale donation

766 Fell, SF

www.ivaw.org

SATURDAY, JUNE 30

 

Walk through labor history

Revisit the sites involved in the 1946 strike that was started spontaneously by the mostly women retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores in Oakland. More than 100,000 workers strong, the so-called “Work Holiday” strike shut down all city commerce for 54 hours. Also, along the way you can learn about the five other general strikes across the U.S. that same yea — the year that set the record for the most strikes in our country’s history.

10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., free

Latham Square fountain

Broadway and Telegraph, Oakl.

www.laborfest.net 2

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

Best of the Bay 2011: BEST SHOP FOR THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS STITCH

Andrew Lam
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0

A sobering fact: your clothes were probably made in a sweatshop (sorry). Most of our industrially produced togs — you are probably aware — are made by people making far from decent wages, working with toxic, health-shattering dyes. Small wonder then that local fiber movements are beginning to stitch. Visit Oakland yarn shop A Verb For Keeping Warm to be indoctrinated. Owner Kristine Vejar sells an in-house line of local fibers and natural dyes, and stocks other brands as well. Plus she gives classes on the skills you need to clothe yourself sustainably and hosts free sewing nights to develop community among people who purl — responsibly.

6328 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 595-8372, www.averbforkeepingwarm.com

Best of the Bay 2011:BEST MORNING-AFTER MEDICINE

Andrew Lam
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0

You’ve just experienced one of those glorious one-night stands you read about in fairy tales like the “Sex and the City” columns of yore. But the morning after … well, let’s just say things aren’t exactly coming up roses. Where do you turn for safe, comfortable, confidential STD testing and treatment? San Francisco City Clinic, of course. This year the clinic is celebrating 100 years of zapping not just simple post-tryst maladies, but more alarming epidemics as well. From the “red plague” of the Barbary Coast (syphilis) to the devastation of “gay cancer” (AIDS) and beyond, the capable city clinicians — trained through the San Francisco Department of Public Health — have fought back against STDs in an honest, shame-free environment. Free and low-cost diagnosis and treatments are a priority; promoting healthy sex while protecting against transmission and outbreaks is the mission.

356 Seventh St., SF. (415) 487-5500, www.sfcityclinic.org, www.100yearsofsex.org

Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks: Shopping

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks

Shopping

 

BEST VINYL FLIPPERS

Tweekin Records in the Lower Haight was one of the centers of Bay Area dance music culture for the better part of two decades. But besides the basic insanity of operating a specialty record store in these e-times, the Tweekin brand had gotten a bit ragged over the years. So it was a charge for vinyl lovers when Manny Alferez and crew stepped up for a reinvigoration, unveiling Black Pancake Records. Pretty much the same concept reigns: great funk, soul, house, techno, jazz, and even (gasp!) rock records, plus a friendly staff with some primo recommendations. Perhaps best of all, there are a couple of those rarest of beasts — listening stations. Yep, you can put the actual circular whatsit on the doohickey that spins around and hear it make the music, little Johnny. All without clickety-clicking on the wee mouse-thingy.

593 Haight, SF. (415) 626-6995, www.blackpancakerecords.com

 

BEST EVERYDAY KAN DO

Peruse the labels of say, a kitty-shaped exfoliating washcloth or exquisitely lacquered bento box at Ichiban Kan, and you’re likely to see a Good Housekeeping seal of approval-style label trumpeting that the item won a design award in Japan. At times it seems like everything wins a design award in Japan, then the realization sets in that no other country seems to have dedicated itself so fervently to assuring that the everyday things of life — from paper clips to cooking utensils — be attractive, eminently functional, durable, and well-designed. When we want to load up on the best of the quotidian (we’re particular fans of the rolls of plastic wrap for $1), we come here.

Various locations, www.ichibankanusa.com

 

BEST GEEKDOM: THE GATHERING

It’s a constant nerd alert — not that that’s a bad thing — at Cards and Comics Central, a Richmond District shop where employees know the difference between vine whips and seed bombs and can explain why destroy effects don’t harm a cattank. Kids into Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, or Magic will be overwhelmed by the shop’s vast selection. Parents will be overwhelmed at the price tag — you can spend more than $100 on a single card, though assorted decks (available for under $10) might keep the average young collector sated. Check out the back room for the real action — pale adults playing Magic with an intensity you won’t find at most Vegas poker tables.

5424 Geary, SF. (415) 668-3544, www.candccentral.com

 

BEST REFILL, NOT LANDFILL

What does it take to win a gazillion green business awards? It certainly starts with a great concept, a seriously vetted supply chain, and a commitment to spreading the eco-word. It also helps to have a pleasing storefront in Noe Valley, cute and eager staff, luscious products, and bulk-store prices without the forklifts and doublewide shopping carts. Green 11, launched by married couple Marco Pietschmann and Bettina Limaco and inspired by a Rachel Carson observation (“For the first time in history, every human being is being subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception to death.”), offers soaps, cleaning supplies, pet food, shampoo, conditioners, and lotions, all ready for your refillable, affordable use. Bring your own containers or put for up a starter container at the store.

3980 24th St., SF. (415) 425-5195. www.shopgreen11.com

 

BEST FAIR FEATHERS

You think your head hurts from the plumage parade that alit on Dolo Park this year? Think of the feather-farm roosters and other avian amigos that have lost their lives to appease the current mania for quill jewelry and hair extensions. Happily, two gentle crafters have taken the torture out of the trend: Erykah Prentice and Martha Hudson started their accessories label Divine Dandelions for peace, not plucking. The two create their cascading earrings and fanciful headdresses from foraged feathers, selling them from a sweet little gazebo at festivals up and down the West Coast. If you find yourself Bay-bound during next month’s Gaia Festival (up in the hills of Laytonville), you can always check out their Kahlil Gibran-quoting website for custom-made creations.

www.divinedandelions.com

 

BEST MEMORY TRANSFERENCE

Are your childhood camcorder memories gathering worrisome mildew by the minute? Entrust your VHS-ed precious moments to the Mission’s Video Transfer Center run by Jennifer Miko, a 2008 graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and a collaborator with the Image Permanence Institute. Miko, along with husband Buck Bito, boasts some of the best equipment in the biz — including a fancy-pants transfer system for 8mm and Super-8 that the center says is California’s first and only. For a small fee, the team will inspect, repair, and transfer your film memories to a digital format that will last forever … or at least until we figure out brain-to-brain info-beaming.

395 South Van Ness, SF. (415) 558-8815, www.videotransfercenter.com

 

BEST BUGS BUNNY B-BOY FLASHBACKS

Mission vintage stores tend to cater to your typical high-waisted jean-clad, chain-smoking-in-front-of-Four-Barrel kind of girl. (We love her!) But New Jack City is a breath of fresh hype air. This “throwback goods” outpost at 15th and Guerrero streets specializes in sports gear and B-boy stylings straight from your favorite scene in Houseparty 2. Vintage Giants jackets, old school stripes, Bugs Bunny tees of various ages, priceless Afro-centric relics, and breezy caps repping teams or just plain reppin’ … . Actual 1980s and ’90s B-boys (and newer admirers) will feel they never left their Cold Crush Brothers and KRS-One cassettes in their cousin’s janky hoopty’s deck once they step inside.

299 Guerrero, SF. (415) 624-3751, newjackcitysf.blogspot.com

 

BEST REASON TO NOT GET OUT OF BED

You know those girls who flounce down 24th Street, vintage pastel print sundresses fluttering over their kicky cork wedge sandals, carrying a perfect sexy grandma purse? We know their style secret. Oakland’s Field Day Wearables’ bedding dresses are handmade by a crunchy-awesome label that wants to take the disposable out of fashion. They’ve got pockets and detachable straps that double as a matchy-match headband, and you can find them in patterns from striped to pansied to Batman (yes, they’re made from actual sheets). Score ’em at myriad brick-and-mortar distributing boutiques — or even better, by trying them on over your jeans at one of the craft fairs and street walks where FDW sets up a pretty post.

Available at various Bay Area locations. www.fielddaywearables.com

 

BEST SMALL WORLDS AFTER ALL

Apparently all the people who came of age in the late 1960s and early ’70s are either dead or too busy filling out Social Security forms to notice that at least one of their cherished craft projects is making a comeback. (No, not candle-splattered Mateus wine bottles or macramé hanging plant slings.) We’re talking about terrariums, the terrestrial equivalent of a ship in a bottle. So what if many G4-era terrarium enthusiasts call them “terraniums”? Their variation on vivarium nomenclature does nothing to diminish the charm of these glassed-in mini-worlds. And particularly high on the charm assessment scale are the creations of the good women of Studio Choo, part of Prairie Collective, whose arrangements of tiny ferns, succulents, and other floral inspire full minutes of unbroken, smart phone-free contemplation.

Available at Prairie Collective 262 Divisadero. (415) 701-8701, www.studiochoo.com, www.prairiecollective.com


BEST BET FOR BAROQUE BEAUTY

You’ve redecorated your living room, but still something is missing. Could it be? Yes it is — a fuchsia-toned chaise lounge. Do not despair, for we have your marching orders: SF Antiques and Design Mall. The 13-year-old Bayview behemoth is something akin to an indoor flea market, and is home to 200 experts in the art of antique, all of whom have booths filled to the brim with fanciful paperweights, glittering heaps of costume jewelry, and ever-so-whimsical seating options. Seriously, if your interior design is hankering for a touch of the over-embellished, a whiff of kitsch, or perhaps a splash of hanging basket chair, you will find it here.

701 Bayshore, SF. (415) 656-3530, www.sfantique.com

 

BEST FASHION SHRINE

Natural wooden tables, colorful blankets spread here and there, a goat’s head staring placidly down on wonder-covered shelves — Hayes Valley’s Reliquary could be a gaucho explorer’s treasure room. And — minus the gaucho part — that’s pretty much what boutique owner Leah Bershad has created it to be. Bershad stocks the year-old space with crafts and vintage finds from all around the country, plus Europe and — in the case of some elaborate bead-and-quilt satchels stacked near the counter — Afghanistan. The store’s racks of secondhand embroidered dresses and its smattering of designer wear like high-waisted Court denim mean that, as far as fashion church goes, Reliquary lives up to its name: a container for sacred relics.

537 Octavia, SF. (415) 431-4000, reliquarysf.tumblr.com

 

BEST PLACE TO BUY 300 PAIRS OF PANTS, 250 TELEPHONES, OR 7,651 RUBBER GASKETS

If you’ve ever spent an afternoon wistfully clicking your way through the Craigslist “free” section — pondering all you could do with an extra this or that — you’ve sampled a certain seductive sweet taste. Beware: the California Materials Exchange is crack to Craigslist’s cocaine. It’s eBay on steroids, Urban Ore for colossi. A state-sponsored recycling program, CalMAX facilitates the transfer of bulk, odd, and industrially useful products for wholesale and discount rates, and sometimes for free. So, looking for extra cubicles? How ’bout a free 1000-gallon asphalt-emulsion tank? Or 7,500 pounds of apparel, including 300 women’s black twill pants missing only the waist button? That’ll cost you a paltry 10 grand, but for someone with a plan — and a lot of storage — it could be just the thing.

www.calrecycle.ca.gov/CalMAX

 

BEST SHOP FOR THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS STITCH

A sobering fact: your clothes were probably made in a sweatshop (sorry). Most of our industrially produced togs — you are probably aware — are made by people making far from decent wages, working with toxic, health-shattering dyes. Small wonder then that local fiber movements are beginning to stitch. Visit Oakland yarn shop A Verb For Keeping Warm to be indoctrinated. Owner Kristine Vejar sells an in-house line of local fibers and natural dyes, and stocks other brands as well. Plus she gives classes on the skills you need to clothe yourself sustainably and hosts free sewing nights to develop community among people who purl — responsibly.

6328 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 595-8372, www.averbforkeepingwarm.com

 

BEST WAY TO SIGN UP

Beautify the street and bolster your curb appeal in classic style with some legit hand-lettering from New Bohemia Signs. Using traditional enamels and gold leaf, New Bohemia practices its old-school art with pride — snazzing up placards with over-the-top fonts, providing elegant window signage for boutiques and restaurants, crafting appetizing menu boards, even revamping your Victorian with a gilded transom. Founder Damon Styer and crew have also branched out into the gallery scene: a recent art show at Guerrero Gallery featured work by present and past New Bohemia staff. The vintage feel, handmade aesthetic, and design-addict cache — New Bohemia’s products have even been salivated over in The New York Times — seem a perfect sign of our local, small-batch, skill-appreciative times.

281 Ninth St., SF. (415) 864-7057, www.newbohemiasigns.com

 

BEST PROTOTYPES (PRIMATE OR OTHERWISE)

The website of the Foam Monkeys concept modeling studio has an “awards” section that admits, “While we can’t honestly recall Foam Monkeys ever actually being mentioned for an award, the company has certainly been a part of many award-winning product development teams.” But we’re giving the company itself a real, bona fide Best of the Bay to boast about. Why? Because! Here you can not only construct a polyurethane primate, but also all sorts of useful stuff — like prototypes for everything from MacBooks to microchips. Sure, the company is geared toward creating serious conceptual models for industrial design and product development, but that doesn’t make the idea of an accessible foam-based 3-D modeling studio any less awesome.

32 Shotwell, SF. (415) 552-5577, www.foammonkeys.com

 

BEST SONIC SAFARI

Deep in the thick of the taquerias, bodegas, butcher shops , and joyerias of 24th Street dwells this exotic little shopping outpost for fearless cultural adventurers. Explorist International captain Chris Dixon (known on assorted music bills as Phengren Oswald) lets his collector come out to play here, sharing new and used recordings of global party riddims, heady jazz, weird old folk and country blues, and various unclassifiables — as well as art books, micro-run zines, and McSweeney’s volumes. The record bins are where the real action is, though: Moondog vinyl canoodles with Sperm Walls rarities, and Charlie Nothing crashes with the Indonesian prog and funk of Those Shocking, Shaking Days. Would we like to snag that vinyl copy of Luk Thung: Classic and Obscure 78s from the Thai Countryside? Yes, Dr. Livingstone, we would indeed.

3174 24th St., SF. (415) 400-5850, www.exploristinternational.com

 

BEST CHEAP PLACE TO SCORE A CUP AND A CONRAD

Literature and coffee: such sweet, sweet dependencies. Enable both on the cheap at Reader’s Café . Inconspicuous to those on a casual Fort Mason stroll, this used book treasure trove on the bay is infinite and grand once found. With $20, it’s possible to take home a few written works (some only $1!) and still have change for indulging in a custom-brewed cup of Blue Bottle. Reader’s is a production of the San Francisco Friends of the Library, so not only does each purchase soothe the DTs, it’s for a good cause.

Building C, Room 165, Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 771-1076, www.readerscafe.org

 

BEST PARTNER IN PREUSED PURCHASE

In a perfect world, each visit to the Apartment would be a leisurely half-day treasure hunt. The Mission District store is packed with vintage furnishings, boxes of old family photos and 1960s magazines, even a $1 tray for affordable finds. No plywood or cheap IKEA stuff here — everything on offer is well maintained and crafted. Of course, that quality comes with some heft, but if you’ve fallen in love with a cedar armoire when you were supposed to be on the hunt for a throw rug, the Apartment will pay for its delivery: $65 plus $10 for every flight of stairs it must ascend to your door. So accommodating!

3469 18th St., SF. (415) 255-1100

 

BEST ANTI-GOLIATH GAME FACE

After a five-year effort by chain-wary neighborhood activists to keep it off the grand hippie boulevard, megachain Whole Foods opened at Haight and Stanyan streets early this year. It furthered the neighborhood’s fitful transmogrification into Fancy Town (or Ashbury Valley, the ‘hood’s new NoPa-like real estate agency-created moniker), but Haight Street Market is rising to this market-share challenge. With shifts starting before the crack of dawn, the 30-year-old family-owned shop has stepped it up, adding a high-quality butcher counter, a deli, the least pricey and most diverse beer selection in the Upper Haight, and a buffed-up coffee selection. If only all small businesses could up their game in the face of corporate claims.

1530 Haight, SF. (415) 255-0644, www.haightstreetmarket.com

 

BEST LEATHER-SCENTED TIME WARP

Stepping into cobbler Suzanne George’s shop is like entering a hide-covered time warp. George crafts her clodhoppers in much the same way that shoes were made several hundred years ago. She works the leather by hand, stitching the pieces with thread and hammering it all together with actual nails. Not only are the shoes custom-made to fit every tootsie they encase, they are also unique pieces of art, nearly too lovely to take tramping on the dirty pavement. George shares her high-quality, low-technology workshop with Peter, a shoemaker originally from Italy who used to make sandals for Mother Teresa. Together they make some damn fine throwback sling-backs.

1787 Church, SF. (415) 775-1775, www.suzannegeorgeshoes.com

 

BEST COUCH-BOUND — BUT COMMUNITY-MINDED — STONER’S DREAM COME TRUE

While a marijuana home delivery business may sound like nothing more than a couch-bound stoner’s dream come true, the Green Cross actually offers a valuable service to many of the city’s neediest residents who are less mobile as a result of illness, disability, or age. And this is no slapdash selection, either. Brick-and-mortar dispensaries can’t beat its impressive array of hard-to-find THC-infused specialty items like olive oil and agave nectar. Plus it boasts vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free goodies, all made in-house. So toke it all in — a portion of the proceeds are reinvested in the community, supporting social service agencies like the SF AIDS Foundation and the YMCA.

(415) 648-4420, www.thegreencross.org

 

BEST GOAL-GETTERS

Toby and Libby Rappolt hardly leave the balls behind when they exit their 20-year business, Sunset Soccer Supply, for the day. The Rappolts are players, coaches, and fans too. If they’re not holding up the counter at their shop, chatting with regulars about the most recent match or the best way to teach a kid to dribble or selling a team-sized box of scrimmage vests, there’s a good chance they’re out supporting the SF soccer community. The business is especially into rooting for women’s teams: it was present at the Civic Center showing of the World Cup final, it sponsors tournaments, and it has even invited players to in-store signings.

3401 Irving, SF. (415) 753-2666, www.sunsetsoccer.com

 

BEST PLACE TO PUT A CORD ON IT

Where to trundle if you want to wear that pretty pierced stone you found on your first anniversary hike up Mount Diablo? The Bead Store has a vast assortment of necklace-ready cords, and the Castro shop’s friendly staff can point you toward a nice clasp, or even tie a slip-knot for you if you’re not fancy. It’s the city’s smallest and oldest bead store — it has been in the same spot since 1964 — and stocks centuries-old beads and rare stones you won’t find anywhere else, as well as the standard tools you need to take your diamonds from the rough.

417 Castro, SF. (415) 861-7332, www.thebeadstoresf.com

 

BEST RING OF SUCCESS

Jewelry — it can be scary! We don’t mean the fun ornamental kind of jewelry, like Celtic nipple rings or jade idol earrings or purple pentagram pendants (although those can be scary too). No, we’re referring to real jewelry — like the fancy traditional kind you’d better get right or Bridezilla/o is gonna ‘splode and slap you silly with a rolled-up copy of Country Weddings magazine. How will you know how to score the perfect engagement ring, or wedding band, or anniversary bracelet, or birthday watch? Don’t fret. The enormously helpful and nice folks of Just Bands will help you with everything, from sizing and color to design and polish. Their showroom in the labyrinthine San Francisco Gift Center sparkles not just with diamonds and silver, but with the smiles of satisfied lovers whose romance wasn’t tarnished by stressful transactions.

888 Brannan, Suite 151, SF. (415) 626-2318

 

BEST THROUGH THE RABBIT HOLE

The N-Judah thunders by it dozens of times a day, but because it’s tucked well back in a garden courtyard, you’d never know this spirited, magickal little “multitraditional world mysticism” shop existed. Unless you capital-K Know. Look into your third eye: do you Know? Randy, the genial owner of the Sword and the Rose — a man who is part Keith Richards, part Baba Yaga — definitely Knows. And he’ll graciously tell you, spinning tales of about gods and goddesses from esoteric cultures past and present, or reading your tarot cards in a cozy nook warmed by an amber fire, or selling you his house-produced incense, or offering lessons in spellcraft, all while bestowing friendly (if a bit confusing to the uninitiated) guidance to more transcendent realms. First stop: Cole and Carl streets. Next stop: the Divine.

85 Carl, SF. (415) 681-5434

 

BEST BARREL FULL OF MONKEY SUITS

Let’s face it, if you’re a happenin’ gentleman or a trouser-trusting lady in this fancy-pants city, you’re going to need to bust out the occasional tuxedo. But who wants to spend a few hundred bucks on a new tux? Screw that noise, get over to Held Over, and check out the selection of $20 used tux shirts and wide variety of full monkey suits — from the 1970s-style mariachi look to something a bit more classic. Hell, why don’t you mix-and-match it up? They’ve already got you in a suit, so you might as well have some fun with it.

1542 Haight, SF. (415) 864-0818

 

BEST GRAND POOBAH OF THE PAST

A visit to the cavernous Potrero Hill digs of Big Daddy’s Antiques ushers you into a wondrous, uncannily postmodern version of the past. There’s definitely a little vintage-meets-steampunk aesthetic going on — Big Daddy grand poobah Shane Brown and his magic elves have collected enough old-school film lights, globes, wooden angel wings, horse-drawn buggies, large animal heads, giant pillars, and studio cameras with bellows to kit out the dreams of antique queens and cyber-fanboys alike. (Tech guys, please get your decor here.) And the large collection of Depression-era Americana like shoe shop signs and flag bunting adds to the pleasantly discombobulating Twilight Zone feel. Don’t worry though; the amiable Big Daddy’s staff will guide you though it all.

1550 17th St., SF. (415) 621-6800, www.bdantiques.com

 

BEST SHOT OF PANACHE

We just have one question for you, Revolver: can we move in? We would fit so well in your charming, roomy, homey, comfy store-and-gallery. On warm summer days, we could don one of your light summer frocks and Illesteva sunglasses, like contemporary post-ironic preppies but not that heavy; seal in our dewy look with one of your delicious moisturizers; and have coffee while pondering the art on display in your back room. Evenings, we could venture out in a pair of Tretorn rubber boots or suede Volta high tops and Creep khaki chinos, then settle in for the night on one of your durable cotton Japanese Workers pillow covers. In short, Revolver, we like everything about your small, beautifully curated store. Just one more thing: Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you glad to see us?

136 Fillmore, SF. (415) 578-3363, www.revolversf.com

 

BEST HOLGA ROLLS

You know what’s tired? Using your iPhone to take a picture of yourself in the mirror for your Google+ profile. You know what’s not tired? Using a low-fi medium format 120 film Chinese toy camera from the 1980s to snap that same pic. Sure, you could just download Hipstamatic, but the hardcore among us prefer to use the delightful original mechanism — an actual Holga camera — which, thanks to a mini-craze in the past few years, has become readily available in the U.S. But you’ll need the right roll of film, and the awesome Photoworks is here to provide. Photoworks stocks hard-to-find film from all over the world, offers excellent print production services, and will even stretch your Holga hotness on a canvas to hang in your hallway.

2077-A Market, SF. (415) 626-6800, www.photoworkssf.com

 

BEST NATURE NOOKIE NAPSACKS

Backpacks, tents, and BPA-free utensils designed with an eye for classic retro outdoors-y accouterments (think 1980s L.L. Bean and 1970s RV campers), Mission District-based camping company Alite Designs‘ gear is innovative, body conscious, and oh-so-considerate of our decadent ways. Take for example its Sexy Hotness sleeping bag — at first glance, just a pretty sack for camp-crashing, but unzip the center fastener and it becomes a thermo-Snuggie with built-in feet, its center zipper freeing your nether regions for trips to the john or even a little nature nookie. Plus, the bags connect endlessly, so if you roll deep ‘n’ dirty, your camp orgies will be well served.

2505 Mariposa, SF. (415) 626-1526, www.alitedesigns.com

Will Esbernd support Lee?

Zelda Bronstein
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24
Will Esbernd support Lee?

As the tom toms grew louder at the Chronicle and in the Willie Brown/Rose Pak community for Interim Mayor Ed Lee to run for the full term as mayor, I emailed two impertinent questions to my district supervisor Sean Elsbernd:


1. Would you have nominated Ed Lee for interim mayor had you known he would consider running for the job?


2. Will you endorse him if he does decide to run for mayor?


As a longtime West Portal resident, I’ve always gotten annoyed at how Elsbernd (and other supervisors) love to play the neighborhood game back in their district — but when the chips are down on a power structure issue, they go down to City Hall and vote with Willie Brown and the downtown gang. Which is what happened in January on the critical vote for mayor when the Willie Brown/Rose Pak forces worked a quiet play to knock out the progressive candidates (Sheriff Mike Hennessey and former Mayor Art Agnos) and put in City Administrator  Ed Lee, a Willie Brown ally.


Elsbernd was happy to nominate Lee and told us at the time that he had done so because he wanted an interim mayor who would not run in November.


In his email answer to me, Elsbernd wrote, “I believe the benefits of that strategy have proven correct (e.g. the overall budget process and its unanimous approval, and the unanimous approval of the consensus and comprehensive pension/health care charter amendment.“


So what about today when Lee seems more and more poised to run?


Elsburn noted that he has not endorsed anyone, but that “I have been most attracted to the candidacies of City Attorney Dennis Herrera and former Supervisors Alioto-Pier and Bevan Dufty.” He said that these three have the “right combination of qualifications, experience, intelligence, skills and integrity to serve as mayor.”


So what’s his out? “Should Mayor Lee run for election, I would only consider endorsing his effort under one circumstance—if, and only if, I was convinced that without his candidacy, Sen. Leland Yee would be elected. That is, if I see that no one else can beat Sen, Yee other than Mayor Lee, then I would support a Mayor Lee campaign. At this point, I’m not convinced of that—I still think any one of the three I mentioned above could beat Sen. Yee.”


Well, that’s Elsbernd back in his district doing his neighborhood routine at the Village Grill, a favorite Elsbernd breakfast place. Elsbernd has still left himself a way to do what he said he was dead set against doing: going along with Willie Brown and  Rose Pak and  helping Lee become the fulltime mayor. Bring back Quentin Kopp and John Barbagelata. B3


 

Dick Meister: New hope for domestic workers

Maria Poblet
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0

 

With a lot of luck, we may finally take decisive action to guarantee decent treatment for the world’s highly exploited housekeepers, maids, nannies and other domestic workers. There are an estimated 100 million of them, working in more than 180 countries.

Their pay is generally at the poverty level, and very few have fringe benefits such as pensions and employer-paid health care. Few have the protection of unions or labor laws, and they’re often at the mercy of unscrupulous labor contractors.  Almost half of them are not entitled to even one day off per week. About a third of the female workers are denied maternity leave.

The hope for improving the domestics’ slavery-like conditions has arisen from action taken in Geneva this month at the annual meeting of the United Nation’s International Labor Organization – the ILO.

Delegates representing unions, employers and governments voted 396 to 16  for what’s called a “Convention on Domestic Workers.” The non-binding convention spells out how domestics should be treated in UN member countries – most importantly in the pace-setting United States.

In the U.S., as in most other countries, an estimated 80 percent of the domestics are women of color, subject to racial discrimination and physical and sexual abuse.  In the United States, most of them are immigrants as well . They’re easy targets for exploitation, especially since, as elsewhere, domestics mainly work in private unregulated households, usually alone.

What’s more, U.S. domestics lack most of the protections of state and federal labor laws that are granted most U.S. workers outside of agriculture . Most other non-agricultural workers at least have the right to unionize. But domestics don’t even have that basic right.

The National Labor Relations Act specifically denies union rights to anyone “in the domestic service of any family or person.” That’s right. The Depression-era law that was designed to pull poverty-stricken workers out of poverty and build a middle class does indeed prohibit an entire group of exceptionally needy workers  from taking a major step to improve their extremely poor working conditions. The word for that is “un-American.” 

That outrageous legal prohibition has its roots in racism. Pressures from southern states, which objected to granting union rights to the mainly black domestics, was the main reason domestics were excluded from the National Labor Relations Act.

 Some domestics have nevertheless formed union-like organizations to seek better treatment. But they need the force of law behind them.

The ILO convention calls for guaranteeing domestic workers in the United States and everywhere else some of the key rights that unionized workers invariably have, among them, regular working hours, vacations, maternity leaves and Social Security benefits.

Domestics would be promised what amount to contracts with employers that would make clear just what they would be expected to do, for how long, and for how much pay.  Their working conditions would have to include time off of at least 24 hours a week.

Migrant workers would have to be provided with a written job offer of employment or a contract before crossing  the border into another country to work.

It took several years for ILO representatives to adopt the domestic workers convention. It was finally adopted as a direct result of campaigning here and aboard by groups of activists from unions and other organizations. They will  be working for the next few years to get as many nations as possible to implement the ILO convention with their help.

The effort in this country is being led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, with major support from the AFL-CIO, which has arranged to have some domestic workers represent themselves in ILO meetings and voting.

Among other things, proponents hope to make it clear that “domestic workers are real workers, NOT powerless individuals who are expected to remain in quiet servitude and endure long hours without overtime pay, along with hazardous working conditions without access to health and safety protections.”

Proponents also hope to end the “cultural relativity excuse that sleeping on a mattress in an unheated garage is better than he or she would get in their home country, or that the poor treatment of domestics is a tradition.”  The ILO convention says otherwise and workers in the United States and other countries where it is adopted  “will be armed with the knowledge that there is an international standard that protects them.”

Domestics already are granted labor rights in New York State, and California legislators are considering a proposal to bring them under that state’s labor laws. But winning basic rights for the badly exploited domestic workers elsewhere will be very difficult. But so was convincing ILO representatives to take on the task, the long needed task of granting domestic workers union rights and, with them, the decent wages, hours and working conditions that come with unionization.

Yes, winning the union rights for domestics worldwide will be very difficult. But we know it can be done.  And certainly we know that it should be done. 


Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century.  He can be reached through his website, dickmeister.com, which includes more than 300 of his columns.

 

The (unsafe) UCSF shuttles

Zelda Bronstein
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9
The (unsafe) UCSF shuttles

No question: The shuttles used by UCSF (which, is, forgodsake, a health-care organization) ought to have seat belts. So should school buses (actually, full-body restraints in school buses might not be such a bad idea. I want them in my car, too. Shut up and sit down, you little bastards — we’re driving here.) And the UCSF drivers should be more careful.


There are also other safety issues around those shuttles, though. Particularly when they pick up and drop off passengers on city streets.


The UCSF campuses have their own shuttle stops; the ones at Mission Bay are the same as any normal bus stops. But the shuttles don’t just stop on the campuses. They stop, among other places, at 16th and Mission — and typically they use the Muni stop.


Or sort of. Travel west on 16th St. any afternoon, and you’ll see this scene: A UCSF shuttle is halfway in and halfway out of the Muni stop. A Muni bus is stopped behind, unable to pull in. Cars are pulling around the bus and can’t see the (smaller) shuttle as it starts to pull out of the stop (and the bus starts to pull in). Traffic is all backed up waiting for this mess to clear — except for the drivers in a rush, who pull around (sometimes inching into the opposing lane of traffic), typically missing the shuttle bus by inches as it slides back onto the street.


And there are a lot of bicycle riders in the mix. It’s pretty much a bloody accident waiting to happen.


If UCSF gets to use Muni stops (nobody else can — nobody. Not the On Lok shuttle, not the private Genentech buses, not commercial tourist vehicles) then the university ought to pay the city a fee to make the stops big enough, then the drivers ought to be trained to pull forward all the way into the stop to let the Muni bus in behind (and so other cars can see them). And the Muni drivers and everyone else should be trained to treat the shuttles as part of the local transit system.


I get the need for the UCSF shuttles. Without them, all those doctors and medical students might be driving all over town between the campuses (although again: health-care organization. Bicycles are very healthy). But either they’re part of the city system and can use city facilities (properly) — or they aren’t, and they shouldn’t stop in the Muni zones.


Pet peeve of the week.   

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY 20

Hotel Frank picket line

Since being foreclosed on by Wells Fargo and taken over by a union-busting management team, Hotel Frank has unilaterally subjected its workers to new working condition and benefits and fired two labor representatives who resisted the changes (see “Lembi’s legacy,” 9/21/10, and “Hotel Frank fires key union organizer,” SFBG Politics blog, 10/4/10). Join UNITE HERE Local 2 members and other supporters of Hotel Frank workers in picketing the hotel and calling for management to respect workers’ rights. Repeats each Wednesday, and on Fridays from 1–5:30 p.m.

3–5:30 p.m., free

Hotel Frank, Geary and Mason, SF

www.hotelfranksf.info

 

THURSDAY 21

Summer of Choice kickoff

Concerned about how budget cuts and new campaigns against abortion rights, the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights is launching the Summer of Choice with an event featuring Shawna Pattison of New Generations Health Center, Loren Dobkin of UCSF Nursing Students for Choice, and Belle Taylor-McGhee, president of California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.

7–9 p.m., $3 donation

Quaker Meeting House

65 Ninth St, SF

bacorrinfo@yahoo.com

 

FRIDAY 22

Living Wage Awards dinner

The San Francisco Living Wage Coalition, which has sponsored several successful local campaigns protecting and expanding the rights of workers, is holding the first of what is intended to be an annual awards ceremony honoring labor’s local heroes. Conny Ford, the secretary-treasurer of Office and Professional Employees Local 3, will be named Labor Woman of the Year, while San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson will receive Labor Man of the Year honors. The event is part of this year’s Laborfest, a month-long commemorate of San Francisco’s 1934 General Strike. And for details on a pair of labor mural tours on Saturday, July 23, visit www.laborfest.net/2011/2011schedule.htm

6:30 p.m., $35 or $300 for a table of nine

Third Baptist Church

1399 McAllister, SF

415-863-1225

sflivingwage@riseup.net

www.livingwage-sf.org

 

SUNDAY 24

Mirkarimi for Sheriff fundraiser

Join supporters of Ross Mirkarimi in a fundraiser for his campaign to succeed longtime Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who has endorsed Mirkarimi. In addition to serving on the Board of Supervisors, Mirkarimi is graduate of the San Francisco Police Academy and former investigator with the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. He’s running against a field of police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

2–4 p.m., $25+ suggested donation

Park 77

77 Cambon, SF

www.rossmirkarimi.com

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