Journalism

Si se puede, making a difference: El Tecolote turns 40

Andrew Lam
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It was with relish that I awaited my interviews with El Tecolote’s managing editor, Roberto Daza, and its founding editor Juan Gonzales on a homey couch in the paper’s modest office on 24th Street. Being a community journalist, it isn’t every day that you are able to check out the digs of another community newspaper – particularly one with as storied a history as the Mission’s bilingual go-to for news on social issues that affect the historically Latino and working class neighborhood. El Tecolote is celebrating forty years of activist journalism this month, kicking off with an opening reception tonight (Wed/11) at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts of an exhibit featuring their extensive photo archives. 

I’m stoked to be there, so I chill and savor the feeling that good work is being done around me. Reporter-advertising manager Francisco Barradas’ computer keys are nearly the only sounds in the office, though passing staff assure me that this is a deadline day in the office. He answers the phone and speaks alternately in Spanish and English, most often a genial mixture of the two. Calendar editor Alfonso Texidor stalks past me multiple times, his distinctive hat and cane combo instantly marking him as one of the driving forces of last week’s popular literary review issue as identified by Eva Martinez, executive director of Accion Latina, the organization which houses Tecolote. 

The office itself reads – as many of the headquarters of these rags will do – like desks and computers framed by a collection of events past. Owls (the newspaper’s namesake) stare at me wide-eyed from the corners. An owl cuckoo clock here, a mascot originally meant to frighten birds away from property perched on a potted tree next to the couch there, a kite on the back wall, the reception desk lined with a cache of ceramic hooters. The walls have a bright collection of silk-screened posters announcing EL Tecolote fundraisers going back through the history of the paper, some which announce that proceeds will also go “for Chile democratico.”  

Later, after it is determined that rush hour traffic and recent hip replacement surgery have held up Daza and Gonzales, respectively, we settle on phone interviews all around. Still sitting on the couch in the office, I ask Gonzalez which stories he is most proud of looking back on the past forty years. His three examples are all moments in which his paper made a difference in the lives of Missionites. In the ’70s, a woman came to them who had recently lost a child. She had gone to SF General Hospital complaining of stomach pains and bleeding, but with no Spanish translators on hand, staff sent her home, told her to lay down. When she returned with her English-speaking son later that day they admitted her, but it was too late: she miscarried soon thereafter.

“We jumped on it,” Gonzales tells me. The newspaper discovered woefully inadequate translator staffing levels at General, and impelled their readers to act. “We mobilized the community,” says Juan. The hospital was forced to sign an agreement with activists from the neighborhood to guarantee translators on duty – the first such accord between a hospital and a community group. El Tecolote pursued similar campaigns with telephone emergency services in the ’80s, and more recently has supported tenants in a fight against Mission Housing Development when they attempted to raise rents in one of their apartment buildings.

“It’s one thing to make people see a newspaper around all the time. It’s another one to speak to the heart of the community,” Gonzales reflects.

From the get, the creation of El Tecolote was meant to give voice to those whom it was elusive. Gonzales started the paper as an off-shoot to his work in SF State’s fledgling Ethnic Studies program, itself born of the Alcatraz occupation and its own student strikes. A recent journalism graduate from the university himself, Gonzales was tapped by the administration to put together a course syllabus that analyzed media coverage of Latinos and taught ways to talk about issues that affected the population. He called it La Raza Journalism, but also craved a place where his students could get on the job experience.

So he held a series of fund-raising events, including an amateur talent show which drummed up the necessary $300 to publish the first El Tecolote on August 24th 1970. And then some. “At that time $50 was enough to publish 500 copies,” Gonzalez muses. His team chose to locate its office in the Mission, in a space donated by non-profit organization Centro Latino on 25th Street and Potrero to avoid reliance on university funding, which they felt could be pulled at any time. Already known to the community from his efforts in covering the area for the SF State paper, Gonzales and his paper were off and running.

“The bottom line is, the paper had to reflect the neighborhood,” he tells me. In those early days, the issues weren’t that much different than now: housing, tensions with the police, immigration, bilingual services and education, schools. They took care to represent all the facts of the controversies. “Don’t be afraid to ask the other side their reaction,” Gonzales says. “They could say things that help the cause.” El Tecolote, running as it does today 90-95% on the efforts of dedicated volunteers, also published pieces on young artists, many of which were at the center of an exciting new push for Latino-centric art forms. “We had to reflect how the cultural movement was really expanding,” its founder tells me. 

Nowadays, the paper experiences its share of the challenges to adapt that are facing most print publications. “We’ve had to make concessions: the quality of the paper we print on, the number of pages,” says Daza, who at a chipper 25 years old comes to the paper as another recent SF State grad. He first entered the Tecolote offices two years ago on a field trip as part of a technical writing class, and tells me the paper’s website upgrade earlier this year was much needed. “The running joke prior to that was that we didn’t want to tell people we even had a website.” 

Which is not to say that they are moving past the paper page. “For us,” Daza says “the print edition represents something completely different. It’s for people that don’t have an iPhone, don’t spend a good percentage of their lives online. That’s the kind of people we want to provide for.” Many community members still use El Tecolote to learn a language – initially, scanning the English articles for new vocabulary words, but more recently, with changes in the neighborhood’s demographics, checking out the Spanish pieces to develop new skills in español.

Daza makes it in after the majority of our interview, in time before his staff meeting to escort me through the paper’s recently organized binders of historic photos (from which we selected this piece’s graphic of Cesar Chavez’s visit to the paper’s office for a press conference on a UFW boycott). We flip to it past shots of a struggle immortalized. Demonstrations in the playgrounds of schools, under murals who this week I will recognize as I fly past them on my bicycle. Fists raised, hands extended, changes wrought – and it’s all there in El Tecolote, typed down in two different languages so that we can remember that this neighborhood has a past (and present, and future) worth remembering. 

“El Tecolote is all about making a difference in the struggle for social change,” says Gonzales, who will reassume the managing editor position when Daza heads across the Bay to pursue a graduate degree at UC Berkeley this fall, tells me. Safe to say the paper has, and will continue to do so, si se puede.

 

Imagining the Mission: El Tecolote’s 40th anniversary

Wed/11 6:30-9:30 p.m., $5

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

2868 Mission, SF

(415) 643-2785

www.missionculturalcenter.org 

 

Our Weekly Picks: August 11-17, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 11

MUSIC

Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista

Anyone who’s witnessed Carla Bozulich live knows the former Geraldine Fibbers frontperson is a true force of nature, bravely following her muse into the flatlands of Texas, onto arena-sized stages, or to the ear-scorching reaches of experimental music. For the past month, the Bay Area has been home to the artistically restless Bozulich, who says she never stays anywhere for very long. Still, this is her refuge as she writes her fourth album with Evangelista for the respected Constellation imprint — recording once again with players in Godspeed You! Black Emperor — before she heads out again. This fall, she’ll be directing and performing at a massive multiday installation-performance in Krems, Austria. Godspeed you, Ms. Bozulich, who hopes to “shake things up a bit” at her favorite old haunt, Cafe Du Nord, with guests Ava Mendoza on guitar and John Eichenseer on viola. (Kimberly Chun)

With Common Eider, King Eider

9:30 p.m., $14

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

EVENT

Henry Lee

Once a prolific Chronicler of one of the biggest media snafus in recent Bay Area memory, Henry Lee adapted and expanded his coverage of the Hans Reiser murder case for his true crime book Presumed Dead. What elevates it beyond a sensationalist paperback is Lee’s cogent reportage and willingness to think more about the unthinkable (spousicide, for one) than most would ever dare. He starts with the life of murder victim Nina Sharanova and weaves his way into the nitty-gritty of the case. Even before this summer’s publication, Lee proved himself a stalwart for local journalism — and for all the other strong stomachs out there delivering cold, hard truths. (Ryan Lattanzio)

7 p.m., free

Books, Inc.

1760 Fourth St., Berk.

(510) 525-7777

www.booksinc.net

 

THURSDAY 12

EVENT

 

“Infinite City: Right Wing of the Dove”

The release of Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas — a book that digs through the dense and dirty histories, cultures, and sites of the Bay Area with help from cartographers, artists, and writers — is preceded by a series of cartographic “live art” events at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in the Bay Area at large. Part two of this series is a screening of In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of the Californias (2003), written and art-directed by Sandow Birk. Drawing from his own experience amid the antagonisms of these two cities, Birk satirically envisions a civil war between Los Angeles and SF, and his 100-plus artworks comically probe the ongoing geo-ideo-cultural tension. Afterward, Solnit leads a post-screening discussion on the contradictory relationship between our liberal values and local economy. That SF and LA are cultural foils is well-known. But Solnit points out, friction is being made closer to home. (Spencer Young)

7 p.m., free with museum admission ($9–$18)

SFMOMA

Phyllis Wattis Theater

151 Third St, SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

THEATER/DANCE

Rapid Descent Physical Performance Company

Love ain’t easy. Relationships are intense, emotionally draining, and take up too much time. What then (besides cuddling) keeps us coupling up? New Zealand playwright Gary Henderson might have the answer. And thanks to choreographer Megan Finlay and her physical performance company Rapid Descent, you won’t have to go all the way to New Zealand to find out. Finlay brings Henderson’s Skin Tight to San Francisco and reworks the original script to incorporate dance as well as live music by trumpeter Aaron Priskorn. Centering around the enduring love of one couple (played by Beth Deitchman and Nathaniel Justiniano), Skin Tight exposes the visceral complexity of hostility and attachment. (Katie Gaydos)

Through Aug. 28

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m., $20–$35

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

 

ROCK

Dawes

The California Academy of Sciences, a place that puts nature on its proper pedestal, is a great venue for Dawes. The band has appreciation not just for its own musical genealogy, but also for the mysteries of the American landscape. This folk rock quartet, helmed by the Goldsmith brothers, saw Americana anew on the debut album North Hills, undoubtedly a nod to that small-town Louisiana region. The songcraft recalls the harmonic pastures of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Like a pair of Levis, Dawes’ faded wear-and-tear is contrived — yet it feels genuine, and that’s what counts. A song like “Take Me Out Of The City” gives a microcosmic view of the band’s guitar-plucking, straw-gnawing aesthetic. (Lattanzio)

6 p.m., $12

California Academy of Sciences

55 Music Concourse Dr., SF

(415) 379-8000

www.calacademy.org

 

MUSIC

Reverend Horton Heat

It may be hard to believe, but the rockabilly juggernaut that is the Reverend Horton Heat will be hitting the 25 year mark soon — and as fans of the Texas trio know, the band’s strong suit is its live show. So in fitting fashion, it has decided to celebrate its upcoming milestone by filming a live set in our fair city’s legendary music venue, the Fillmore, for a special release next year. Although the band will be sure to touch on material from its latest album, Laughin’ and Cryin’ With The Reverend Horton Heat, expect Jim Heath, Jimbo Wallace, and Paul Simmons to dig into their back catalog for some oldies and goodies as well. (Sean McCourt)

With Split Lip Rayfield, Hillstomp

9 p.m., $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

 

FRIDAY 13

EVENT

Terry Zwigoff

On Aug. 10, there were two things of utmost importance you should’ve celebrated: National S’mores Day and the arrival of Terry Zwigoff’s 1995 documentary Crumb on Criterion Collection DVD. Zwigoff, personal hero of many (including myself), will be at Amoeba to sign copies of that new release plus his 1985 film Louie Blue, also slated for Criterion treatment. Blues musicians Frank Fairfield and Blind Boy Paxton will accompany, which fits the bill since Zwigoff has made the blues and its many subgenres a focus of his films. He probably saw some of himself in Seymour, the LP-loving and lovable schlub in Ghost World (2001), just as he understood artist R. Crumb’s grotesque genius. (Lattanzio)

6 p.m., free

Amoeba Music

1855 Haight, SF

(415) 831-1200

www.amoeba.com

 

COMEDY

Bobcat Goldthwait

Although he is perhaps most initially recognizable for his high-pitched, scratchy voice and wacky mannerisms from his appearances in 1980s movies and comedy specials, Bobcat Goldthwait is a man of many talents. From his breakout acting roles in flicks, including the Police Academy series, to his live album Meat Bob, to directing his first film Shakes The Clown in 1991, the versatile performer has had an ever-expanding resume. He even opened for Nirvana on its 1993 U.S. tour. Last year saw the release of his critically acclaimed film World’s Greatest Dad, and his newest project is directing a U.K. musical production based on the Kinks’ Schoolboys in Disgrace album. Be sure to catch the hilarious — and busy — man live on stage while you can. (McCourt)

Through Sat/14

8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., $20.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

SATURDAY 14

MUSIC

Stone River Boys

Although their recent debut album Love On The Dial was born in the midst of enduring personal tragedies, the Stone River Boys created a collection of inspiring tunes that meld country with a host of other roots rock influences. Featuring guitarist Dave Gonzalez (the Paladins and the Hacienda Brothers) and singer Mike Barfield (the Hollisters), the group came together a couple of years ago while the two were trying to help raise money for friend and fellow musician Chris Gaffney’s cancer treatments. “Gaff” passed away before the benefit tour could begin, but the resulting music is a fitting tribute, carrying the torch and keeping the infectious spirit of their friendship alive. (McCourt)

With Carolyn Wonderland, Mother Truckers

9 p.m., $15

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

SUNDAY 15

MUSIC

Dan Sartain

How did a lip-stachioed rocker from Birmingham, Ala., become the poster child for the garage roots revival? Well, he didn’t really; Jack White already had that crown. But years of paying tribute to the gods of garage and blues eventually landed Sartain on a tour with the White Stripes in 2007 — the subsequent 7-inch release for White’s Third Man label now seems like your textbook well, of course! facepalm moment. The pair’s aesthetics of “garage-a-billy” with a Morricone spaghetti western tinge are invariably complementary. And although it may seem a disservice to all the time Sartain put into his sound before this epic meeting of minds, you have to admit there are worse career maneuvers than being linked to Jack White. (Peter Galvin)

With Leopold and His Fiction, Twinks

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

MUSIC

Rasputina

Fourteen years on from the advent of Rasputina’s cello-goth-lite musical stylings on Thanks for the Ether, the trio is touring behind its latest record Sister Kinderhook. Vocalist-songwriter-cellist Melora Creager is the only remaining original member (in fact, the band’s lineup has even changed since recording the album, with percussionist Catie D’Amica stepping down). Rasputina seems to be maintaining its historical fascination here — the album’s embroidered cover anachronistically purports that it was “wrought by Rasputina circa 1809.” They’re well-matched with supporting act Larkin Grimm, a skilled practitioner of weird folk and one-time member of Dirty Projectors whose riveting life story incorporates being born into a cult, studying at Yale, and spending time in Thailand and Guatemala. (Sam Stander)

With Larkin Grimm

8 p.m., $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

MONDAY 16

EVENT

Alison Gopnik

UC Berkeley psychology and philosophy professor Alison Gopnik is responsible for groundbreaking work exploring the ways young children think and learn. She’ll be reading from her latest book, The Philosophical Baby, just a few blocks from Berkeley campus. A Chronicle bestseller, the book continues to delve into developmental psychology for new insight into some momentous topics (it is, after all, subtitled What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life). Heavy subject matter, to be sure. But since it’s also about babies, you can temper those overwhelmingly deep thoughts with cuteness and chortling. Oh, and an inborn template for the scientific method, apparently. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., free

Pegasus Books Downtown

2349 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 649-1320

www.pegasusbookstore.com

 

TUESDAY 17

EVENT

“Idiolexicon”

It’s changed over the years, for better and for worse, but the Bay Area is still a hospitable place for poets. Just look at the newly opened café-performance space Rancho Parnassus. According to its website, RP’s goal is “to get the abundant untapped talent around Sixth Street working together.” Toward this end, the venue is hosting an installment of the “Idiolexicon” series, with readings from local poets Carrie Hunter, Della Watson, and Jessica Wickens. All three are billed as experimental, but their work also bears more than a hint of high-modernist influence. Watson’s unconventional syntax is reminiscent of Gertrude Stein, while Hunter’s “Kine(sta)sis” evokes Poundian Imagism. On the page, it’s all pretty effective stuff. Come to the reading, and you can decide how it plays live. (Zach Ritter)

7 p.m., free

Rancho Parnassus

132 Sixth St, SF

(415) 503-0700

www.idiolexicon.com 


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Our Weekly Picks: August 4-10, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 4

MUSIC

Blondie

Emerging from the early punk and new wave scenes of New York City in the mid-1970s, Blondie incorporated a variety of musical styles into its overall sound, helping to set itself apart from its contemporaries and creating a following that perseveres today. It’s hard to believe that firebrand singer Deborah Harry is now 65, but she, along with founding members Chris Stein and Clem Burke, continues to powerfully rollick through the band’s impressive back catalog of favorites such as “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Atomic,” and its cover of The Paragons’ “The Tide Is High.” With Gorvette (featuring Nikki Corvette alongside Amy Gore of the Gore Gore Girls). (Sean McCourt)

With Gorvette

8 p.m., $55

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

 

COMEDY

Tim Lee

There are many career paths available to someone with an advanced degree in biology, but standup comedy usually isn’t one of them. That explains the immediate appeal of Tim Lee, a PhD from UC Davis who’s made his name mining the rich comedic veins of fossil records and molecular geometry. This is actually way better than it sounds — think of the guy as your witty high school science teacher writ large. His use of PowerPoint slides makes him a kind of Demetri Martin for the un-stoned. But what ultimately sets Lee apart is his undeniably charming wonkiness. Sure, you’ve heard a million Larry King jokes, but have you heard one that manages to work in the Cambrian explosion? (Zach Ritter)

8 p.m., $20

Punch Line Comedy Club

444 Battery, SF

(415) 397-7573

www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

 

THURSDAY 5


DANCE/THEATER

CounterPULSE artists-in-residence

What is feminine? Answering such a broad and loaded question undoubtedly generates some anxiety. Not so for CounterPULSE’s summer artists-in-residence, Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit. Merging dance and theater, these two emerging choreographers aren’t afraid to dive head-first into notions of sex, gender, and authenticity. Their shared showcase at CounterPULSE (a nonprofit community performance space) features Arrington’s latest piece, Hot Wings — which centers around four women in a cardboard castle — and Hewit’s newest creation, Tell Them That You Saw Me, a work with everything from lipstick and large tanks of water to sacred hymns and sex stories. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/5-Sat/7, 8 p.m.; Sun/8, 3 p.m., $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2060

http://counterpulse.org

 

THEATER

Sex Tapes for Seniors

If you have a comfortable relationship founded on bridging the generational gap, Sex Tapes For Seniors is a show you can see with your grandparents. They can relate to, or at least chuckle at, the plight of old folks clinging to their libidos before slipping into senility, and you can appreciate it because this is your future. Yet as Mario Cossa –– playwright, director, and choreographer –– fills your imagination, you might realize you don’t want to be sitting with grandma and grandpa after all. Upon retiring, a group of seniors starts making their own instructional sex tapes and thus, the locals get all verklempt. In the words of the late TV series Party Down, this musical is “seniorlicious!” (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 22

Previews tonight, 8 p.m.

Runs Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $20–$40

Victoria Theater

2961 16th St, SF

(415) 863-7576

www.stfsproductions.com

 

EVENT

“Exploratorium After Dark: Nomadic Communities”

As thousands of Bay Area residents prepare for their annual pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, the monthly Exploratorium After Dark series takes on the topic of nomadic communities. “While true nomads are rare in industrialized countries, hybrids of whimsical and economically inventive itinerancies are evolving here in the Bay Area,” notes the program. Burning Man board member and chief city builder Harley Dubois will discuss the evolution of Black Rock City while attendees have the chance to nosh on one of the blue plate specials at the mobile Dust City Diner, a project developed by Burning Man artists that brings the ’40s-style diner experience to the most random spots. Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck will also talk about nomads from the animal world and how they’ve come to live and thrive in the Bay Area, with interactive exhibits. (Steven T. Jones)

6–10 p.m., $15

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

 

FRIDAY 6

 

THEATER

The Norman Conquests

The Shotgun Players invade the Ashby Stage with British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests, a triptych of farce, lunacy, and suburban malaise. The Conquests feature three freestanding yet complementary plays set in separate rooms of a house revolving around the same characters: Table Manners happens in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and finally Round and Round the Garden in the … well, you get it. In 2009, a revival garnered one Tony and five nominations. A three-play package affords you many chances to catch each, but on Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, you can see them all in one marathon. (Lattanzio)

Through Sept. 5

Performance times vary, $20–$25 (three-play package, $50)

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.shotgunplayers.org

 

VISUAL ART

“Gangsters, Guns, and Floozies”

The cinematic microverse populated by shamuses and femmes fatales is fodder for plenty of critical writing as well as contemporary neo-noir film, but a gallery of visual art inspired by the form stands to capture the shadows from a different angle. Nicole Ferrara’s works depict harsh gray moments in time, with the titular floozies, guns, and gangsters as primary subjects. The immediacy of the faces on Ferrara’s characters is enough to convey the continued relevance of this decades-old aesthetic. Whether painted or caught on film, the desperate acts of desperate people are riveting and revealing. Ferrara also paints B-movie inspired art, apparently drawing inspiration from the alternate visual reality presented in such films. (Sam Stander)

Through Aug. 31

Reception 6 p.m., free

Hive Gallery

301 Jefferson, Oakl.

www.hivestudios.org/hive_gallery.html

 

VISUAL ART

“Por Skunkey”

Big Umbrella Studios is a cooperative gallery and a community of artists, and with them comes DIY-chic culture to the Divisadero Corridor. “Por Skunkey” brings together the artists-in-residence –– including the abstract, gestural paintings of Umbrella co-owner Chad Kipfer –– along with a few guests to pay tribute to Skunkey, also known as canine-in-residence, also known as Mama Skunk. And if you’d like some oil spill on the side of your oil painting, then under the Umbrella you’ll find artist responses to this summer’s BP disaster. Here’s hoping Skunkey herself shows up, so be nice and pet the pooch. When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you. (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 31

7 p.m., free

Big Umbrella Gallery

906 1/2 Divisadero, SF

(415) 359-9211

www.bigumbrellastudios.com

 

SATURDAY 7

 

MUSIC/PERFORMANCE

Slammin’ All-Body Band

Clap, snap, stomp, slap, step, tap. Try it and you’ll see it’s easy to make sound with your body. Making music though, proves far more difficult. Keith Terry — a trained percussionist and drummer for the original Jazz Tap Ensemble — has mastered what he terms body music. He’s been clapping and stomping his way through awe-inspiring kinetic soundtracks for more than 30 years. In 2008 he founded the International Body Music Festival out of his nonprofit Oakland arts organization, Crosspulse. This benefit show with Slammin’ All-Body Band — plus guest dancers and renowned hambone artist Derique McGee — highlights the artists before they head off to the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival. Proceeds help fund the group’s NYC debut. (Gaydos)

8 p.m., $25–$100

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 849-2568

www.crosspulse.com

 

FILM/PERFORMANCE

“Night of 1,000 Showgirls“

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Showgirls was first released? The crowning achievement in a directing career that also included 1997’s Starship Troopers, 1992’s Basic Instinct, 1990’s Total Recall, and 1987’s RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s trashiest, most glorious film is, by extension, probably the trashiest, most glorious film of all time. Peaches Christ (now a filmmaker in her own right, thanks to alter ego Joshua Grannell’s All About Evil) hosts “Night of 1,000 Showgirls,” maybe the biggest tribute the tit-tastic classic has ever enjoyed. In addition to a Goddess–themed preshow, there’ll be a contest for Nomi Malone look-alikes — don’t forget the nails! And don’t eat all the chips … or the doggie chow. (Cheryl Eddy)

8 p.m., $18

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.peacheschrist.com

 

SUNDAY 8

DANCE

San Francisco Ballet

An afternoon at the ballet doesn’t come cheap. Rarely ever, free. But thanks to the annual performing series Stern Grove Festival, park-goers can see one of the nation’s top ballet companies, San Francisco Ballet, for a grand total of zero dollars. In its one and only Bay Area summer appearance, SFB performs Christopher Wheeldon’s romantic pas de deux, After the Rain; Mark Morris’ playful ensemble piece, Sandpaper Ballet; the classic pas de deux from act three of Petipa’s Don Quixote; and the neoclassical work Prism by SFB artistic director Helgi Tomasson. So skip out on Dolores Park for one Sunday this summer, trade in your tall can for a bottle of wine, and head to Stern Grove for a tutu-filled midsummer afternoon. (Gaydos)

2 p.m., free

Sigmund Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

 

MONDAY 9

 

EVENT

“The Evolving Landscape of Local Journalism”

In the face of the ever more hectic state of print journalism, as exemplified by the recent strife at the San Francisco Chronicle and the disappearance of other local publications, new modes of reporting are cropping up to fill the need for engaged investigative coverage. Tonight at the Booksmith, Lisa Frazier from the recently opened Bay Citizen, SF Public Press’s Michael Stoll, and Mission Local’s Lydia Chavez discuss the future of local journalism as a significant alternative to our standard methods of news delivery and consumption. If these three aren’t enough San Francisco journalistic players for you, the panel discussion will be moderated by Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith and a contributor to the Huffington Post. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., free

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

 

TUESDAY 10

MUSIC

Weird Al Yankovic

Must we seek to encapsulate Weird Al Yankovic in 130 words or less? Some would call this treason against the United States of Awesome. Yankovic has been marshaling the ludricrousness of pop culture music into parodies no less farcical since 1979 — and his campaign (surprise!) continues to this day. Certainly, “Eat It,” “I Love Rocky Road,” and “Amish Paradise” — the track that incurred the wrath of Coolio at the height of his celebrity powers — were classics seared into our souls like the brand on a cow’s behind. But rest assured of the future’s brightness by his recent offerings, like an ode to that modern day zeitgeist, “Craigslist.” (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $36-50

Warfield

982 Market, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com 

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FAIR: WikiLeaks and the U.S. Press

David Talbot
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Media resistance to exposure of government secrets

The website WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of classified intelligence documents relating to the Afghanistan War on Sunday, July 25. Spanning the years 2004-09, the documents had been shared in advance with reporters from the New York Times, the British Guardian and the German Der Spiegel, all of which produced long pieces offering their interpretations of the documents.

In corporate U.S. media, the documents produced several narratives. For some, the WikiLeaks revelations were either not all that important, or certainly not as important as the leak of the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers. As a Washington Post story put it (7/27/10), “Unlike the Pentagon Papers, these documents–although they are closer to a real-time assessment and although they land in the superheated Internet era–do not reveal any strategy on the part of the government to mislead the public about the mission and its chances for success.” The New York Times (7/26/10) noted that

overall, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements–attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles, or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.

Such comments reflect a somewhat puzzling standard for what qualifies as official deception. But the overriding message of some prominent outlets was that there was little to glean from the disclosures. The July 27 Washington Post provided a remarkable case study. One news story, headlined “WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War,” presented the leaks as good news for the war effort, asserting that the “release could compel President Obama to explain more forcefully the war’s importance,” and conveying White House claims that “the classified accounts bolstered Obama’s decision in December to pour more troops and money into a war effort that had not received sufficient attention or resources from the Bush administration.”

Another Post story, headlined “WikiLeaks Documents Cause Little Concern Over Public Perception of War,” suggested that the White House and Congress were trying to turn the leaks into “an affirmation of the president’s decision to shift strategy and boost troop levels in the nearly nine-year-long war.” The same could be said for the Washington Post, which also editorialized that the WikiLeaks release “hardly merits the hype offered by the website’s founder.”

One area of obvious concern were documents that described attacks on civilians by U.S. and NATO forces. The WikiLeaks files brought this issue back into the media spotlight, but it’s worth considering how different papers treated the issue. One of the Guardian‘s July 26 stories began with this lead:

A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighboring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.

While the British paper led with civilian deaths, the New York Times‘ July 26 story reported that the archive of classified documents “offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.” The article’s second paragraph describes it as a “daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.” Ten paragraphs into the piece there is a reference to commando missions that “claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.” But the documents’ numerous accounts of civilians killed by U.S. or allied forces got little attention in the Times‘ write-up, a choice justified that executive editor Bill Keller (NYTimes.com, 7/25/10) attempted to justify by saying that “all of the major episodes of civilian deaths described in the War Logs had been previously reported in the Times.”

The possibility that the leaked documents might lead to more discussion of civilian casualties was frequently raised as a concern in U.S. media. The Washington Post editorial tried to minimize the documents’ revelations on this issue: “The British newspaper in turn highlights what it says are 144 reported incidents in which Afghan civilians were killed or wounded by coalition forces. But the 195 deaths it counts in those episodes, though regrettable, do not constitute a shocking total for a four-year period.” That point of view was echoed on CBS Evening News by correspondent Lara Logan:

Well, the issue of civilian casualties is a major one. And the U.S. has taken a lot of criticism because of this. However, what’s interesting to note is that according to the documents, 195 Afghan civilians have been killed. But also according to the documents, 2,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by the Taliban, which is more than 10 times the number said to be killed by U.S. and NATO forces. And very little is being made of that. If the coverage would indicate that it’s more of an issue for the U.S. to kill Afghan civilians than it is for the Taliban to do so.

The suggestion that this tally of 195 Afghan civilian deaths is comprehensive is absurd on its face, given that the WikiLeaks documents are in no way at all a comprehensive account of any aspect of the war. As the Guardian noted, that number “is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.” Estimates of civilian casualties vary, but several thousand noncombatant Afghans were killed by U.S. and coalition forces during these years of the war. As for Logan’s point about who bears more responsibility for civilian killings, there have been various attempts to make such determinations. In 2008, for instance, U.N. monitors counted over 2,000 civilian casualties; when responsibility could be determined, 41 percent of the deaths were attributed to U.S./NATO forces.

On the same broadcast in which Logan offered her critique, CBS reporter Chip Reid stressed that civilian deaths would remain a potent issue for the White House. Reid feared that the Obama administration

may be underestimating the problems here because, yes, people were aware and certainly the president was aware of the problem with civilian casualties, but if we’re now going to be bombarded for days on end with a long series of specific examples, that’s going to make it more difficult for both the Afghan people and the American people to support this war.

It is difficult to imagine that corporate media would be “bombarding” anyone “for days on end” with stories of dead Afghan civilians. Liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson (7/27/10), for instance, downplayed the importance of WikiLeaks‘ information about civilian deaths:

We already knew that U.S. and other coalition forces were inflicting civilian casualties that had the effect of enraging local villagers and often driving them into the enemy camp. The documents merely reveal episodes that were previously unpublicized–an October 2008 incident in which French troops opened fire on a bus near Kabul and wounded eight children, for example, and a tragedy two months later when a U.S. squad riddled another bus with gunfire, killing four passengers and wounding 11 others.

Old news, in other words–albeit news about which we were unaware.

Post columnist Anne Applebaum struck a different note (7/29/10), congratulating the media for already thoroughly documenting the sorts of events described in the WikiLeaks documents: “If you don’t know by now that the ISI helped create the Taliban, or that civilian casualties are generally a problem for NATO, or that special forces units are hunting for Al-Qaeda fighters, all that means is that you don’t read the mainstream media. Which means that you don’t really want to know.” (It’s true that regular readers of outlets like the Post may be under the impression that Afghan civilian deaths are more of a problem for NATO than they are for Afghan civilians–FAIR Blog, 5/7/09.)

In the new issue of Time magazine (dated 8/9/10), managing editor Rick Stengel notes that WikiLeaks “has already ratcheted up the debate about the war,” and that Time is trying “to contribute to that debate.” They do so with a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The clear implication is that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. It is difficult to imagine the magazine proposing the opposite: a headline like “What Happens If We Stay in Afghanistan,” accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.

Stengel argues, “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” adding: “What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.”

The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities committed by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. And it’s also more propaganda than it is journalism.

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.

Restore Hetch Hetchy throws another curveball

Zelda Bronstein
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Restore Hetch Hetchy throws another curveball

It would be lovely to be able to talk seriously about removing the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley, to restore John Muir’s “holiest temple” and expand hiking and camping areas in Yosemite. But I’m not ready to go there right now — and to claim that giardia in the water is a good reason to dynamite O’Shaugnessy Dam is a bit beyond silly.


The Chron writes about the Restore Hetch Hetchy movement every now and then, and there’s always a lot of talk about the water system. But the paper never seems to mention the other part of the dam — it generates electricity. And it was, and remains, the lynchpin of what’s supposed to be a public power system in San Francisco.


Congress would never have allowed San Francisco to build the dam if it was just for water. The whole deal, memorialized in the Raker Act of 1913, hinged on the city using the dam for both water and power, and using the power to establish a public-power beachead in Northern California to compete against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Tear down the dam and the city loses not only a pristine water supply but enough non-fossil-fuel electricity to power a significant part of its electricity needs.


I know that there’s a lot of controversy about large hydro as renewable power, but the dam’s already there, and I think everyone agrees that existing hydro is a better source of electricity than coal, oil, natural gas or nukes.


In a perfect world (and we’ll get there one day), San Francisco would have a municipal power system that relied entirely on solar, wind, and tidal energy. And we’d have a Bay Area water system that reduces use dramatically, recycles gray water, shifts agriculture to drought-resistant sustainable crops, replaces lawns with native ground cover and requires far less fresh-water input every year. At that point, the dam will be redundant and pointless. Bombs away.


But until we no longer rely on a privately-controlled electrical grid based on fossil-fuel and nuclear generation, we just can’t afford to lose the dam. Why the Chron never talks about that side of the equation remains one of the great mysteries of local journalism.


 

The martyrdom of Mooney and Billings

David Talbot
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Dick Meister , former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

It was an unusually hot July day in San Francisco.   There was a parade on that day in 1916 – a “Preparedness Day” parade organized by local Republican businessmen. It was intended to drum up support for U.S. entry into World War I and embarrass Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, who was running for re-election on a platform that stressed,  “He kept us out of war!”

A lot of people supported neither the war nor the parade, however. The opponents particularly included the union organizers who were the radicals of that period – “reds” who were trying to establish the right of unionization in the face of often violent opposition from the business interests who controlled the city and who most assuredly supported the war.

Many thousands of spectators, as many as 100,000 by some accounts, lined the parade route down Market Street, cheering and enthusiastically waving American flags. At precisely 2:06, less than a half-hour after the parade of more than 25,000 marchers had begun, just as contingents from the Grand Army of the Republic and Sons of the American Revolution were passing the crowded corner of Steuart and Market  streets. . . Boom!

It was the thunderous blast of a bomb that had either been thrown into the crowd or planted there.  The horrific explosion killed 10 bystanders and seriously wounded 40 others.

Within a few hours, the authorities had their culprits. Not surprisingly, all of those arrested as suspects were union organizers. Among them were two men who were especially despised by the city’s virulently anti-labor business establishment — Tom Mooney, 34, a burly Irish-American organizer for the International Molders Union who was one of San Francisco’s most prominent labor activists, and his close friend, slim, short, boyish Warren Billings, a 23-year-old shoe factory worker.

Mooney and Billings were San Francisco’s “most notorious reds,” declared the SF Chamber of Commerce in one of its typically frenzied assessments of those who dared challenge the status quo in which workers were treated as mere chattel.

The others who were arrested were soon freed, but Mooney and Billings were put on trial and eventually found guilty. Mooney was sentenced to death by hanging, Billings to life imprisonment.

There’s absolutely no doubt Mooney and Billings were framed. Federal investigators, investigative newspaper reporters and others proved that beyond any doubt.  The city’s famously corrupt district attorney, Charles Frickert, was found to have suppressed evidence that proved the pair’s innocence, joining with corrupt policemen to fabricate evidence that supposedly proved their guilt, and failing to call witnesses who, as he knew, had solid evidence that they were not guilty. Frickert hired other witnesses and coached them to give perjured testimony implicating Mooney and Billings.

Eventually, every major witness confessed to lying to the juries at both the Mooney and Billings trials. Some of them claimed to have seen the men plant the bomb on the day of the explosion, although it turned out the supposed eye-witnesses hadn’t even been in the city at the time.

Some gave their perjured testimony in exchange for such favors as the parole of relatives who were serving prison sentences, others for the pay District Attorney Frickert offered them. All were after the $17,500 reward posted for evidence leading to the conviction of Mooney and Billings.

 The judge who presided over Mooney’s trial told California’s governor he had determined through personal investigation that “every single witness who testified against Mooney had lied.” Mooney’s lawyer declared them “the weirdest collection of God-damned liars” he’d ever seen.

 A federal fact-finding commission concluded that “there was never any scientific attempt made by either the police or the prosecution to discover the perpetrators of the crime. The investigation was in reality turned over to a private detective, who used his position to cause the arrest of the defendants.” 

Fremont Older, the crusading editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, concluded that the authorities “conspired to murder a man with the instruments that the people have provided for bringing about justice. There isn’t a scrap of testimony that wasn’t perjured.”

The cases quickly drew widespread national attention, right up to the White House. President Wilson argued against Mooney’s hanging on grounds that there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support his guilt.

It was obvious that the Chamber of Commerce’s so-called Law and Order Committee had played a major role in framing Mooney and Billings as part of the chamber’s drive to change San Francisco’s status as one of the country’s most heavily unionized cities. 

Mooney and Billings, of course, had been attempting to enhance that status, in part by helping wage major organizing drives among the city’s vital transit workers and the equally vital employees of the company that supplied the city’s gas and electricity. Which was a very good reason the utility company – Pacific Gas & Electric – hired the private detective cited by federal fact-finders to help District Attorney Frickert and the police fabricate evidence against Mooney and Billings.  Not incidentally, Frickert was backed financially by Pacific Gas & Electric in his election campaigns for district attorney.

 The convictions prompted protests across the United States and worldwide, much like those raised five years later in behalf of two other union radicals, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vinzetti, who were executed in Massachusetts for a murder they clearly did not commit.

The Mooney and Billings case was dubbed internationally as “America’s Dreyfus Case,” a comparison to the famous French case that also drew worldwide protests. The protests stemmed from the rigged conviction of Jewish French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1894 for allegedly attempting to turn over secret military documents to the German government. Although the “Dreyfus Affair,” as it was called, was based on another issue – anti-Semitism – it similarly involved the use of false evidence against an innocent man by powerful authorities.

 Protestors in the United States and abroad quickly formed a network of defense committees in behalf of Mooney and Billings, and mounted rallies and other noisy and highly visible public demonstrations. 

 Freeing the two men became labor’s cause célèbre. Unions everywhere voiced loud and frequent protests, as did all other segments of the left, ranging from liberal to Communist. Eventually, they helped force California authorities to reduce Mooney’s death sentence to life imprisonment, ironically on the basis of evidence that should have freed him.

 President Wilson’s request that Mooney be spared was probably the main reason his sentence was commutated, but the heavy pressures of the Mooney-Billings defense committees and the American Federation of Labor, which Wilson most certainly felt, also had much to do with it.
   
Mooney finally was freed in 1939, twenty-one years later. Culbert Olson, California’s first Democratic governor in 44 years, granted him a full and unconditional pardon. Mooney, said Gov. Olson, was “wholly innocent,” and his conviction  “wholly based on perjured testimony.” 

Mooney’s release sparked great celebration among his supporters, who had fought so long for his freedom. Thousands paraded up Market Street behind Mooney shortly after his release, the street cleared for them by police, past the site of the explosion 23 years earlier that had sent Mooney to prison.

The next day, Mooney joined a picket line of striking department store employees on Market Street and donated to their cause half of the $10 the state had given him on his release from San Quentin Prison. Mooney sent the other half to Newspaper Guild members who were waging a major strike in Chicago.

Tom Mooney hadn’t much time to enjoy his freedom. His health had been broken in prison and he soon was hospitalized with a serious stomach ailment. He remained in a hospital bed until his death at age 60, less than two years later.

Billings got his freedom a few months after Mooney left San Quentin. Gov. Olson commutated his life sentence to time served – 23 years for a crime that no one really believed he or Mooney had committed.  Finally, in 1961, Gov. Edmund G. Brown granted Billings a full pardon. But, as Billings complained, it was granted on grounds that he had been “rehabilitated” rather than because he was innocent.

After leaving prison, Billings married and settled down in San Mateo, working in  San Francisco as a watch repairman, a trade he had learned in prison, and later set up his own repair business at home.  Billings quickly resumed his labor activism, as a member of the Watchmakers Union executive board and delegate to the San Mateo Labor Council. He was active as well in the anti-Vietnam War movement and various other political, economic and social causes. 

I interviewed Billings just before his death in 1972 at age 79. I expected to encounter a bitter, angry old man. Yes, he was old, but his spritely manner belied that basic fact of his life, and he showed absolutely no bitterness over the great injustice that had been done him – none! He talked instead of injustices that were being done to others, and of joining in efforts to help overcome them.

“I don’t have anything against anybody about anything,” Billings told me. “The people who testified against me were after that reward, but it all went to the police who arrested me. I’ve never felt any bitterness, but the fact that the witnesses against me didn’t get any of the reward money should make them bitter.”

Warren K. Billings was a great inspiration to me and others who knew him, and to many who just knew of him. He was a man possessing a spirit that could not be broken by circumstances far more severe than most of us have ever had to endure.  A man who would not even raise his voice in anger or bitterness against the terrible injustice that was done him. A man who maintained his convictions through it all. A strong and courageous man, but kind and gentle, and possessed of an incredible measure of tolerance and understanding.

The Preparedness Day bombing has never been solved.

NOTE: For more on the Mooney-Billings case, See “Frame-up” by Curt Gentry, an extraordinary work of investigative journalism book covering all aspects
of the case.

Dick Meister , former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

Undertaker in reverse

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Undertaker in reverse

A window in Sean Smith’s apartment looks across the street at the park. To the left of this window, inside the room, there’s an old sign that says Undertaker.

Smith is the kind of devoted undertaker who finishes what he starts. He’s a reverse undertaker: the kind that brings things to life, instead of escorting them through death. In recent years, he’s released solo albums of instrumental guitar music, and he’s also put together a pair of compilations devoted to guitarists of the Bay Area. Smith’s dedication to the instrument and its myriad possibilities isn’t selfish. Through 2006’s Berkeley Guitar and this year’s Beyond Berkeley Guitar (Tompkins Square), he’s helping to shine a light on fellow talents like Ava Mendoza, whose new album Shadow Stories (Resipiscent) can turn from Sonny Sharrock-caliber noise to skipping melody at the drop of a dime.

Smith’s own musical ability is vast and alive. He recently finished recording an impressive pair of albums with Tim Green. At a time when designer reissue labels like Numero Group are spotlighting guitar instrumentals, there should be room on a label of note for Smith’s commanding new albums, which stretch from solo interiors to epic band sounds while maintaining the same purity and high intensity. This week, at the Mission Creek Music Festival, Smith will emphasize his quieter, solo side. I recently talked with him about music.

SFBG   Sacred Crag Dancer, Corpse Whisperer (Iota, 2006) veers toward improvisation, while Eternal (Strange Attractors, 2007) has more of an ensemble quality. How was putting them together different?

SEAN SMITH I had a lot of energy towards improvisation at the of Sacred Crag Dancer. My dad bought me a guitar. He’d been wanting to contribute for a while. I found one I wanted and he bought it for me and as soon as I got it I went home and would hit ‘Record” and play. I recorded 3 hours of music and pared it down to 34 minutes.

SFBG What was the process of paring it down like?

SS It was easy. We were quick to hear what worked and what didn’t work in the improv. It’s more like spontaneous composition. I’d try to repeat things or make compositions, cohesive journeys from A to B, rather than fuck around.

There were three levels of editing: first, there’s immediate editing while you’re playing, when you just stop and say “This sucks”; second, there’s determining what works and what doesn’t; and third, determining what works to make a cohesive album that reflects the span of the work.

SFBG In terms of coming up with titles, you’re different from some instrumental artists, who will keep things stark. Some people will pour all their heart into a work and then leave it untitled. Your titles are striking, not throwaway.

SS Well, I hope none of my work is throwaway.

There’s a lot of variation and possibility in titling. You might have your own idea that you start with before the music comes to you.

With Sacred Crag Dancer, the music came first, it was sprouting forth from nothing, and titles had to be created to fit it.

“Extrance” is an exit and entrance — you’re leaving your world and entering a world where the character (of the album) dictates your experience.

SFBG There is a lot of deathly imagery in that album’s titles.

SS “Sacred Crag Dancer, Corpse Whisperer” comes from something I thought I heard Daniel Higgs say one time when I saw him play. The energy of the album was definitely inspired in part by him. I was moving in that [improvisational] direction and then I saw him play for the first time and everything just shifted.

It seems like each of my albums has a character creating the environment. The Sacred Crag Dancer Corpse Whisperer is a conjurer of a weird spiritual realm.

The title “Some Men Are Born Posthumously” is a line from Nietzsche. He was talking about how no one would understand his work during his lifetime.

SFBG I like “Jeweled Escapement.”

SS I’m sure as a journalist you have typed on a typewriter — my typewriter’s escapement key has a jewel on it. All the titles of the album are typed on that typewriter.

FBG Making the kind of music you’re making, which isn’t tied to a particular trend, I figure you probably get responses from all kinds of people —

SS Or nobody.

SFBG Yes. In a sense doing the Berkeley Guitar and Beyond Berkeley Guitar compilations is work on your part to counter that lack of a profile, and perhaps hint at a movement. It’s almost like journalism in a way.

SS It’s been a general problem in the world of solo guitar that most of the people in that world squander their talents in obscurity.

Some people who end up on these collections won’t necessarily do anything else. Adam Snyder (from Berkeley Guitar) is a brilliant musician. He’s written hours and hours and hours and hours of music. He’s obsessed. When we lived together he couldn’t hold a job because all he wanted to was be at home playing. Yet he hasn’t made a record. I don’t know if he ever will, but I’m sure he’s still obsessively playing music.

I’m more into documenting music.

SFBG Do you like Harry Smith?

SS Yes. My mentality stems from that, from thinking, “Wow, thanks to this guy, we have all of this music,” a document of a time, of people, and of culture. If it wasn’t for him, those songs would have remained on back porches. He was able to capture something so the rest of the world could hear.

SFBG It’s a generative thing.

SS And the music becomes more generous to the listeners in the process. It becomes potentially influential.

SFBG What has it been like to work with Tim Green?

SS Great. He doesn’t say a damn thing unless it’s really important, so when he does, it means something.

I’m bummed that the (Fucking) Champs disbanded — that music is like from my dreams or something, instrumental music that powerful. With music like that, no one ever says, “When are you going to start singing?” I haven’t gotten there yet — people still ask me.

This newer music I recorded with Tim is being met with a lot of confusion. Eternal was, too. People are like, “Wait, it’s not solo guitar, but it’s instrumental, and there’s solo guitar and crazy electric guitar on it.” It doesn’t fit neatly into that finger picking American primitive thing.

SFBG Will you always be shifting in relation to that sort of traditionalism?

SS Absolutely. There’s no one way for me. There never has been.

The finger picking or instrumental thing has just been a means of expression.

When I was in 4th grade, I wanted to play saxophone, really badly. They wouldn’t let me, they wanted me to play clarinet. I tried it out for a couple of weeks and didn’t like the tone of it. But I always say that if they’d have let me play the saxophone, I’d probably be a saxophone player right now.

When I found the guitar, I realized I could express myself with it. If I didn’t have a guitar I would find a way to express myself. I’m not just in some pop band. I’m never going to break up with myself. I’m always going to be making music because I’m compelled to.

I particularly don’t want to write lyrics. I’m not interested in singing, because that’s not my instrument. The guitar is my instrument and I struggle enough with that, trying to progress and expand and play authentically.

That’s a huge part of music, too — playing authentically, playing genuinely.

SFBG Figuring that out when making music is difficult. There are different challenges that sort of have to converge. There’s the struggle to make music that to you — to your hearing and intuition — sounds good so that you like it. And at the same time, you have to do that without killing it by trying to make it too good. You have to allow it to be alive.

SS A lot of that is lost simply due to the ways in which things are recorded today.

Everything is AutoTuned. Now, in pop music if it isn’t AutoTuned, people are thrown off by it.

Even more intensely, when it comes to playing honestly, my song on Beyond Berkeley Guitar is called “Ourselves When We Are Real.” That comes from Mingus’ solo piano album [Mingus Plays Piano, 1963] — the first song on it is called “Myself When I Am Real.” When I heard it, it was so disturbing, because it’s so honest. It sounds like all these little thoughts in your head, your inner monologue mixing with the outside world, the way you look at yourself in the mirror and the way your voice sounds.

I wanted to shift that title, and I wanted to call [the composition] that because it was the most authentic piece of music that I had ever written.

SFBG Is that what you were striving for with Tim Green?

SS It’s your own process. He’s not interested in telling you what to do. His question is, “What are we doing today?”

He has tons of old funky gear to work with. He prefers to record to tape, and so do I. He sleeps until around 1 in the afternoon. You never start before 2 or 3 p.m. He likes to go late, and he’s the most patient person in the world.

For the most part, if I don’t get something by the second take I move on, because I don’t want to do it to death. But there was one time when I was playing a guitar line, and I realized I’d been playing it for two hours trying to get it right, and it was making me crazy. Tim was sitting there reading a magazine and never getting frustrated. He’d say, “That one sounded alright — do it again.” He was hearing things.

There’s a drawing in the studio that someone did of Tim sitting at the board. He’s always got a leg kicked out with his black Samba Adidas, and he’s drawn so that he has these huge elephant ears.

SFBG Have you listened to (the Numero Group compilation) Guitar Soli?

SS I haven’t heard it yet. I looked at the track listing and was vaguely familiar with most of the people on it. Even though it’s super obscure I’ve spent the last ten years of my life digging around for solo guitar records. I play a George Cromarty tune, “Topinambour.” Eternal starts with it.

SFBG There are a fair amount of reissues connected to solo guitar as of late — people like Sandy Bull are getting a new surge of attention.

SS This is the age of reissues and revisiting.

I’m in a Black Sabbath cover band with three members of Citay. I find it’s probably the most rewarding band I’ve ever played in. A friend was saying that a cover band now isn’t like this 1986 cruise ship playing Top 40 hits now, it’s a legitimate type of music.

SFBG This might be overstating, but maybe it’s like a spiritual pursuit. If you decide you’re going to cover Sabbath, you know you’re going to go deep into Sabbath.

SS For me, I want to play in a relevant way, so I want to bring the experience of seeing Black Sabbath at their prime to the audience.

SFBG What’s the band called?

SS It’s called Bob Saget.

 

SEAN SMITH

as part of the Mission Creek Music Festival

with Howlin Rain, 3 Leafs, DJ Neil Martinson

Sat/17, 9 p.m., $8

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.mcmf.org

An online defense of print—and a plug for the Public Press’ first print edition

Mary Magee
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2
An online defense of print—and a plug for the Public Press’ first print edition

I spent my lunch hour yesterday indulging in what media critics say could soon be a lost experience: reading the first print issue of a newspaper.

As I turned the pages of a pilot print edition of the San Francisco Public Press, which has been in existence online since March 2009, I was surrounded by folks who were tapping out messages on plastic coated cell phones or sitting scrunched at table trying to read stuff on laptops.

And I began to wonder, will there be a print renaissance in my life time as upcoming generations begin to feel the impacts of too much screen and keyboard time? And begin to realize the benefits of having a print presence in this increasingly digital world? Or is print really going to go the way of the dinosaurs?

Maybe it’s because I’m old school, but I actually believe there’s a future for print journalism, though it may be a limited one. To my mind you can’t beat the sensation that comes from leafing through a newspaper, while sipping morning coffee, or the welcome relief of reading the news in hard copy, after staring at computer screens all day. And then there’s the fact that I’m never going to get mugged, or have my car broken into, because someone wants to steal a newspaper–something that can’t be said if you leave your Kindle or Blackberry or fancy laptop around.

Yeah, I never have to worry about sand at the beach, or water in the bath, when I read a print newspaper. And I can rest assured that when I am done with my paper, and leave it in a coffee shop, someone else can read it, or recycle it in their blue bin or reuse it as the proverbial bird cage liner or fish wrap.

Now, what’s especially interesting about the San Francisco Public Press—and distinguishes it from most other print newspapers currently available—is that it’s free of advertisements. Or, as the folks at the Public Press like to say, it’s “ad-free news in the public interest.”

    “Why no ads?” the Public Press asks. “As the newspaper advertising market has drained to Internet competitors, we need to search for other sources of income to support quality journalism. Advertising has also warped the content of the newsroom, both explicitly and subtly, encouraging newspapers to shift their coverage to topics of interest to businesses and wealthy readers—the target of ads. Noncommercial news, while often less lucrative, has the luxury of independence.”

The Public Press also devotes some wordage to explaining why they have turned to ink:
    “Newspapers help bridge the digital divide,” they state, noting that San Francisco’s 2009 City Survey showed that more than 34 percent of households with income under $50,000 cannot access the Internet at home via personal computers.
    “Newspapers serve as communal touchstones,” they continue, observing how isolating digital widgets can be, compared to reading a print newspaper in public.
    “We want to pay our hardworking staff for the work they do,” they add, reminding us that folks buy 50 million newspapers everyday in the US, but are still averse to paying for news online.
    “People use paper and electronic devices differently,” they conclude. “There are times and places when even the most tech-savvy Bay Area digerati enjoy some screen relief.”

I got my hands on a copy of the San Francisco Public Press’ first print edition, because Lila Lahood, SFPP’s director of operations, and SFPP contributor Christopher D. Cook, who wrote a timely piece about Lennar using federal taxpayer funds to balance its books, stopped by the Guardian with a stack of papers.

And while they were in newspaper delivery mode, Lahood and Cook also shared their thoughts on “Lessons Learned” from their first foray into print.

“We missed our deadline,” Lahood admitted, observing how, in future, the Public Press plans to focus less on breaking news and more on timely features to avoid deadline stress. The plan going forward, Lahood said, is to publish a print edition on a quarterly basis, with the hope of becoming a monthly print publication at some point next year.

“Some of us we stayed up the whole night, filings our full package at 6 in the morning,” Lahood added, tipping her hat to the “strong and committed core” of Public Press workers that made this first print edition possible.

‘Though most of us are journalists, we worked for publications that were already in existence before we arrived,” Lahood continued, acknowledging that the team had much to learn about putting out a print edition from start to finish this first time around.

‘But we showed it could be done,” Cook added.  “There is a solid professional publication now in the public sphere, making a dent in the San Francisco community.”

Available in 35 bookstores and newsstands in the Bay Area, the Public Press’ print edition is also available on the street for $2 a pop—an exercise in sales that isn’t as easy as the guys who peddle the Street Sheet (a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people) make it look.

“It’s hard to sell newspapers on the street,” Cook acknowledged. “We knew it was going to be challenging. When you are out there, standing on the corner in the urban crunch, no one has an interest, but the minute you connect to folks, on an individual level, it changes.”

On June 22, the Public Press’s first pilot newspaper hit the streets. At 28 pages long, it includes two sections, three investigative reports, a full-page graphic novel and 50 articles from staff members and a broad spectrum of public media and civic groups, including KALW, KQED, Commonwealth Club, World Affairs Council, California Watch and Consumers Union.

I found the Public Press’ special section on Treasure Island intriguing and informative—the kind of in-depth investigation that’s hard for one journalist to pull off, but is crucial if the city of San Francisco and all its many residents are going to make informed planning and development decisions.

I appreciated the wide-range of articles in the Public Press’ main section, including items on the ongoing battle over the future of the open-air sewage digesters that have been stinking up the Bayview for decades now.

I loved the “Sit, Lie, Get Deported” comic strip that merges photos with hand-drawn illustrations and uses the actual words of politicians, city officials, activists and gadflies to help illustrate its point.

And I’m still trying to finish the crossword. In fact,  I plan to read the SFPP’s first printedition from front to back over the July 4 holiday weekend, when I’ll have the time to really absorb and enjoy it.

“Ideally, news will appear in print first, then online, so there’s interest in seeking out the print edition,” Lahood told me, noting that the Public Press’ first edition amounts to about 70,000 words. “So, it a novel, in length,” Lahood laughed. “People are, if not starving, at least very hungry for news analysis and investigative reporting. There are a lot of online sites that aggregate other publications content, and then there’s the corporate model of the Chronicle, but while there is some good reporting in town, there are fewer reporters.”

No kidding. All the more reason for this reporter to write an online defense of print, in the hope that you rush out to secure your copy of the Public Press’s first print edition and evaluate this new model of journalism. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Why McChrystal had to go

Zelda Bronstein
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1
Why McChrystal had to go

Respect for civilian control over the military chain of command. That’s what Obama talked about in his comments on “accepting the resignation of” (that is, firing) Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And it was the right point to make. The president noted that McChrystal’s conduct “doesn’t meet the standard of a commanding general,” and I think what he was really saying was this:


I may be a Democrat, and I may be (something of) a liberal, and I may never have served in the armed forces, and the military officer corps tends to be overwhelmingly Republican and conservative, but guess what: I’m still the boss. Don’t forget it.


I still think the real issue here isn’t McChrystal — it’s the fact that the war in Afghanistan was and is a mistake, and we can’t possibly win, and the president can shuffle the generals around all he wants, but it won’t change the doomed nature of this pointless mission.


But it seems pretty clear from the tone of Obama’s remarks that he saw a need to remind the military about respect for the commander in chief. And that’s a good thing: When the military starts getting uppity, and the senior officers start acting as if they know more about running things than the elected leaders, you plant the seeds for some very nasty trouble.


And by the way: What a coup for Rolling Stone, for Michael Hastings and for the world of in-depth reporting. It took Hastings more than a month to get this story; without the support of a magazine that could pay for that kind of work, we never would have learned how the military leadership in Afghanistan feels about the president. A reminder that despite the light-speed pace of modern journalism, paying writers to take the time they need to get big stories is still central to democracy. 

Memorial Day in Rock Rapids, Iowa, circa 1940s-50s

David Talbot
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3

When I was growing up in my hometown of Rock Rapids, Iowa, a farming community of 2,800 in the northwest corner of the state, Memorial Day was the official start of summer.

We headed off to YMCA camp at Camp Foster on West Okiboji Lake and Boy Scout camp at Lake Shetek in southwestern Minnesota. The less fortunate were trundled off to Bible School at the Methodist Church.

As I remember it, Memorial Day always seemed to be a glorious sunny day and full of action for Rock Rapids. The high school band in black and white uniform would march down Main Street under the baton of the local high school band teacher (in my day, Jim White.) A parade would feature floats carrying our town’s veterans of the First and Second World wars, young men I knew who suddenly were wearing their old uniforms. And there was for many years a veteran of the Spanish American War named Jess Callahan prominently displayed in a convertible. Lots of flags would be flying and the Rex Strait American Legion Post and Veterans of Foreign Wars would be out in force. We never really knew who Rex Strait was, except that he was said to be the first Rock Rapids boy to die in World War I and the post was named after him.

After the parade, we would make our way to our picture post card cemetery, atop a knoll just south of town overlooking the lush green of the trees and the fields along the lazy Rock River.

A local dignitary would give a blazing patriotic speech. A color guard of veterans would move the flags into position and then at the command fire their rifles off toward the river. I remember this was the first time I ever saw a color guard in action, with a sergeant who moved his men with rifles into position with strange “hut, hut, hut” commands.

After the ceremony, everyone would go to the graves of their family and friends and people they knew and look at the flowers that would be sitting in bouquets and little pots by the headstones. The cemetery was and is a beautiful spot and many of us who are natives have parents, friends, and relatives buried here. It is one of the wonderful things that connects us to the town, no matter where we end up.

And so this year I got my annual telephone call from the Flower Village florist in Rock Rapids, reminding me two weeks ahead of Memorial Day about the flowers I always place on the graves of my relatives in the Brugmann plot. I always get a kick out of doing business with Flower Village, because it once was in the Brugmann Drugstore building on Main Street that had housed our family store since l902. It later moved across the street to the building that once housed the Bernstein Department store.

I always ask for the most colorful flowers of the moment and the Flower Village people always put them out on the headstones in the Brugmann plot a couple of days ahead of Memorial Day. Then I call Janice Olsen Friedrichsen in Rock Rapids, a second cousin and my date to the junior high school prom, to remind her to pick them up later and use them at her home.

Ours is an unusual plot, because it holds the graves of my four grandparents, my parents, my aunt and uncle and someday my wife and I. My grandfather C. C.Brugmann and my father C.B.Brugmann spent their entire working lives in Brugmann’s drugstore, which my grandfather started in l902. My father (and my mother Bonnie) came into the store shortly after the depression.

My grandfather A. R. Rice (and his wife Allie) was an eloquent Congregational minister who had parishes throughout Iowa in Waverly, Eldora, Parkersburg,  and Rowan. He retired in Clarion. My aunt Mary was my father’s sister and her husband was her Rock Rapids high school classmate, Clarence Schmidt. He was a veterinarian and a reserve army officer who was called up immediately after Pearl Harbor and ordered to report to Camp Dodge in Des Moines within 48 hours. He did and served in Calcutta, India, as an inspector of meat that was flown over the hump to supply the Chinese forces under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek.

Through the years, Elmer “Shinny” Sheneberger, the police chief when I was in school, would say to me, “Well, Bruce, you and I have to get along. We’ll be spending lots of time together someday.” I never knew what he meant until one day, visiting the Brugmann plot, I noticed that the Sheneberger family plot was next to ours. Every Memorial Day, Shinny took  pictures in color of the flowers on the Brugmann and Sheneberger family graves and sends them to me. I send them on to my sister Brenda in Phoenix and the families of the three Schmidt boys John in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Conrad and Robert in Worthington, Minnesota.Well, Shinny died this year and so I won’t be getting his annual batch of pictures. But he was right. We will be together for a long, long time.

Every year the rep from our American Legion Post puts a small American flag on the grave of every person buried in the cemetery who served in the Armed Forces. Chip Berg, who was three years ahead of me in school, performs this chore every year. My uncle gets one. And, Chip assures me, I will get one someday. I earned it, I am happy to report, as a cold war veteran in 1958-60, an advanced infantryman at Ft. Carson, Colorado, a survivor of two weeks of winter bivouac in the foothills of the Rockies, and bureau chief in the Korea Bureau of Stars and Stripes, dateline Yongdongpo. I am proud of the flag already. B3, who never forgets how lucky he is to come from the best small town in the country.

P.S. As the years went by, I became more curious about how my uncle Schmitty, as he was known, could leave his three young boys and his veterinary practice in nearby Worthington, Minnesota,  and get to Camp  Dodge so fast and serve throughout the entire war. I asked him lots of questions. How, for example, did he handle his veterinary practice? Simple, he said, “my partner just said let’s split our salaries. You give me half of what you make in the Army and I’ll give you half of what I make in veterinary practice.” And that’s what they did and that’s how the veterinary practice kept going throughout the war. Schmitty returned to a healthy practice, retired in the 1960s, and turned it over to his second son Conrad.

P.S. 1: Confession: I was not drafted. I enlisted in the federal reserve in the summer of 1958, which amounted to the same thing. Two years of active duty, two years of active reserve, and two years of inactive reserve. I did this maneuver so that I could formally say that I beat Elmer Wohlers. Elmer was the local draft board chief who had spent a little time in World War I, “the big one,” as he would say. The word around town was that he never got out of Camp Dodge in Des  Moines. He had a bit of black humor about his job and we had a running skirmish for years.

Whenever he would see me on the street in Rock Rapids, he would say, ” Bruce, I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you.” And I would reply, “No, no, Elmer, you’ll never get me.”  I think he was particularly annoyed when I escaped his grasp and went off for a year to graduate school at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. I would send him cards through the years, from an ATO  fraternity party at the University of Nebraska, or from my hangout bar  in New York City (the West End Bar, across from the Columbia Journalism building.) I would write in effect, but with elegant variations, “Elmer, having a wonderful time. Keep up the good work. Wish you were here.” And so I joined the federal reserve and ended up with the initials FR instead of  US on my dog tags that hung around my neck for two years. I was officially FR17507818 and rose from recruit in the 60th infantry at Ft Carson  to E-5 in the Stars and Stripes bureau in Yongdongpo.  But my big accomplishment  was that Elmer didn’t get me. I still feel good about beating Elmer at his own game.

P.S. 2: Here’s how things work in Rock Rapids.  I mentioned my annual Memorial Day drill in an email note to Rock Rapids alumni of my era. I recounted the Shinny anecdote and placed the Brugmann and Sheneberger plots in the southeastern corner of the cemetery. I promptly got an email note back from Joanne Schubert Vogel (class of ’49). She wrote that she had sent my note to her brother Dale Schubert in Rock Rapids (class of ’55, who was a halfback when I was a quarterback on the celebrated Rock Rapids Lions football team.) Dale called her and said that I had made an error and that the Brugmann and Sheneberger plots were in the southwestern corner of the cemetery, not in the southeast corner. Amazing.  He was right and I was wrong. Joanne softened the blow by saying she was sure that this was the first error I had ever made.

FCC seeks input on new media ownership rules

Sasha Cuttler
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0
FCC seeks input on new media ownership rules

By Kaitlyn Paris

The Federal Communications Commission filed a Notice of Inquiry on May 25 asking for public input on its changing media ownership rules. Citizens concerned about proposals to expand corporate control of local television, radio, and print should submit their views within 30 days via the FCC website. The list of 107 topics can be found here, along with Commissioner’s statements outlining the intent and scope of the rules and comments.

The request for public opinion is aimed at gaining information on almost every aspect of media for the purpose of shaping laws that encourage competition, localism, and diversity. In the last two reviews, however, the FCC decided to relax ownership rules across media platforms, giving corporations more leeway in acquiring multiple outlets and triggering an overwhelming backlash from the public.

“I have many times expressed my displeasure with the way this review was handled in its previous two incarnations,” wrote Commissioner Michael Copps in his inquiry statement. “Hopefully, the third time is the charm.”

The deregulation initiatives proposed in 2003 and 2007 were blocked by lawsuits, but with this Notice of Inquiry the process has officially begun anew even as the 2007 decisions are contested in court. “We want to finish this proceeding by the end of the year, but from my experience, it is a very hot button political issue,” FCC Media Bureau staffer Krista Witanowski told the Guardian. “It could take a year to two. The goal is to finish it within the year.”

After the time for comments has lapsed, the Commissioners will review them and issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. “We’re trying to get more concrete information,” Witanowski said. “But that doesn’t mean that when this gets going people won’t make a push for all intensive meetings with Commissioners.”

In preparation for its mandatory four year review, the FCC hosted the last of three cross-country “workshops” at Stanford on May 21. Since 1975 the FCC has banned a single entity from owning both television, newspaper, or radio in one local market. The possibility of increased corporate conglomeration of various media outlets brought together concerned citizens and a mix of panelists for discussion and public comment.

The Internet, big business interests argued, provides sufficient alternative news to avoid monopolization of editorial views and broadcasting resources. Ruth Robertson, a member of the Raging Grannies who protested with signs and cookies outside the workshop, is concerned about the digital divide and its effects on already marginalized groups. “It’s easier for someone younger than me to say the Internet is a whole new world,” said Robertson, citing the ease with which her children learned to use computers and the high proportion of seniors who don’t use the web. “Big media tries to make the case that ‘oh well there’s the Internet so there’s this great variety.’ In actuality you can search a certain topic but you’ll see the same quote over and over again.”

Ravi Kapur, panel member and vice president of KAXT-CA Channel One, contends that current news practices ignore the needs and concerns of Bay Area communities. If deregulation occurs, Kapur is worried that smaller frequencies like his will be quieted. “We’ll be wiped out and the corporations will do the same stuff. You’re not going to get Vietnamese newscasts or newscasts in Tagalog and that’s what we’re doing. Other broadcasters could easily do it but they choose not to, that’s why they complain and say they need to streamline their costs. Why don’t they innovate? I don’t want to encourage competition, but they have more resources than us.”

No Commissioners were present at the conference, though it was moderated by staffers from the Media Bureau. Public opinion weighed heavily on the side of upholding regulations. Tracy Rosenberg, a member of Media Alliance (a group involved in the lawsuit blocking the previous FCC decisions) described the concerns she and other attendees voiced: “As members of the public I think mostly their concerns were previous media consolidations. People anecdotally have seen more wire coverage, more repetitive stories, less independent investigative reporting in their neighborhoods.”

If you didn’t hear about the workshop, you’re not alone. Only one network, KGO 7, turned up to cover it. In the weeks leading to the meeting little was done to draw attention and public participation. Tiffiniy Ying Cheng, panelist and co-founder of the Participatory Culture Foundation, thought the FCC could have reached out to the Palo Alto community. “There were very few students and very few people in general, especially for public comments,” she wrote.

With the Notice of Inquiry the public now has a short chance to submit their opinions online without taking the time to attend a workshop. Even without wading through the 35 page inquiry, most Bay Area community members have some input on the current state of local news, issues surrounding consolidation, big media mergers, or net neutrality. Now is the chance to give the FCC a piece of your mind.

The Bay Citizen makes a strong debut

Sasha Cuttler
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2

The Bay Citizen, a well-funded newsroom that is the most anticipated of several new media experiments in San Francisco, officially launched today with some solid, interesting stories that include an investigation of toxic pesticides being illegally applied to local marijuana crops and a look at how Prop. 13 has obscenely benefited the wealthiest San Francisco residents.

The organization also announced today that it has raised an additional $3.5 million in donations to supplement the $5 million in seed money that local investment banker Warren Hellman provided to the start-up. Meanwhile, another new media start-up that we profiled this week, SF Streetsblog – one of The Bay Citizen’s many local partners — has issued a fundraising plea for $50,000 that it needs by July 1 to continue its award-winning coverage of local transportation issues.

But today is a day for The Bay Citizen to bask in its initial success, which it will do tonight starting at 7:30 with a launch party at the Great American Music Hall. And then tomorrow, once the hoopla is over and the stories that have been in development for weeks or months are replaced by fresh content, San Franciscans will begin to learn whether The Bay Citizen represents a new journalistic powerhouse or just a well-funded website with some powerful friends.

I’ve heard some detractors in the local media grumble that their presentation seems “banal” and unworthy of their big budget, but I don’t agree. Personally, I think The Bay Citizen strikes the right tone and balance, emphasizing solid journalism rather than flashy gimmicks, while also drawing on multimedia tools such as the video of yesterday’s protests against President Obama’s visit to SF.

San Francisco needs relevant, well-presented, serious journalism more than the snarky, juvenile stories we see in design-heavy local start-ups such as The Bold Italic, where The Bay Citizen’s culture writer came from, or the often out-of-touch, sneering, or self-important stories that we see in corporate-run papers like SF Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Examiner.

Instead, our first peek at The Bay Citizen seems to show that it might just be up to the important task of providing relevant content for the New York Times’ twice-weekly Bay Area section – which has also demonstrated a tin ear for San Francisco values since it launched last year – providing an important new forum for those who believe in speaking truth to power.

Infectious

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Infectious

arts@sfbg.com

VIDEO What brings down a presidential campaign, makes Stephen Colbert break out his lightsabers, and inspires protest in Oakland and Tehran? The alpha and omega of online video: YouTube and my camera phone equal a jillion eyeballs and our itchy mouse finger clicking “Play” and passing it on. All those moments, all those sticky little memes, are now forever linked and embedded in the cultural fabric, touchstones certain to become engrained in our collective unconscious as the grainy image of the Beatles playing Ed Sullivan or the Challenger exploding on camera.

At all of five years old, YouTube can claim more than 2 billion views a day. Twenty-four hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute and admittedly few of those snippets find traction in the stream of life. Yet the evolution of online video is just beginning. So say knowledgeable observers like Jennie Bourne, author of Web Video: Making It Great, Getting It Noticed.

“Viral has become a dirty word in Web video because people’s concerns in going viral tend to be linked to trying to monetize a web video, and very often a video that’s getting a lot of views is not making a lot of money,” Bourne explains. And while the rise of citizen broadcast journalists and DIY documentarians is laudable, she adds, “I have to say the flip side of that — people walking around with cameras on their foreheads all the time video blogging — can get a little boring without a structure and style. I think there will be a shakeout at one point, and Web video will mature. It’s not there yet — it’s effective as a distribution medium and effective as a social medium but still developing as a commercial medium.”

For now, what do some of the last five or even (gasp) 10 years’ most widely distributed viral videos say about this generation’s particular sickness?

With the advent of camera phones, the revolution will be webcast Is it any surprise that moving images activate us more than words? The outrage over the BART station shooting of Oscar Grant was fueled by the sights captured by viewers with camera phones. Six months after Grant’s death, the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan during the Iranian election protests was captured by multiple observers, causing it to become a flashpoint for reformists and activists. The videos depicting what one Time writer described as “probably the most widely witnessed death in human history” ended up winning last year’s George Polk Award for Videography.

Pre-online video, the mainstream news media likely would have shielded the public from these images in the interest of so-called public decency. But the availability of these videos online — and the reaction they generated — triggered a rethink. The shadowy online presence of the beheading videos made by Islamist terrorists following 9/11 might have prepared some for the horrors of the very real faces of death, but obviously the intent behind more recent spontaneous acts of DIY documentation has been radically different. Consider this the nonviolent, amateur response to Homeland Security-approved surveillance — a quickly-posted flipside to the filter of traditional journalism.

We appreciate raw talent There’s the professional article, like the demo tape of Jeremy Davies’ lengthy Charles Manson improvisation. But viewers often prefer to feed on more unvarnished talent-show-esque efforts: the stoic, high-geek style of Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain,” or Eli Porter of “Iron Mic” infamy. As one aficionado said of the latter, Porter is an “enigma, for no one knows where the FUCK Eli is! His battle was done in 2003, and he sort of vanished, leaving legions of fans wanting more.” The invisible — both the private ritual and the would-be performer striving for a public — is made visible. This is why recent clips such as a little girl dunking through her legs or the “Dick Slang” video of circle-jerking hip-hoppers shaking their penii like hula hoops are so wickedly sticky.

The reveal can’t be concealed You can’t hide your anger management issues, whether you’re a Chinese woman punching and kicking on Muni or Bill O’Reilly flipping out about getting played out with a Sting song (“We’ll do it live! Fuck it!”). Nor can you forget that pesky Katie Couric clip if you’re Sarah Palin: the notorious snippet of the wannabe vice president attempting to explain her nonexistent foreign policy experience lives on in a YouTube feature box. If you decide to get more than 1,000 prisoners in the Philippines to replicate the “Thriller” video, rope a slew of tarted-up tots to do the “Single Ladies” routine, or organize a flash mob of dancers for your (500) Days of Summer-cheesy proposal in New York City’s Washington Square Park, you can bet it won’t stay a secret. Especially when a good portion of the bystanders blocking your shot are hoisting up cameras and phones of their own.

We like to play with our food and gobble pet vids The dancing fountains of “Diet Coke and Mentos” and the elegiac meltdowns of so many innocent, candy-colored sundaes and ‘sicles in “The Death & Life of Ice Cream” rock our pop, though they’re no match for sneezing baby pandas, dramatic chipmunks, very vocal cats, and dogs either verbalizing, skateboarding, or balloon-munching.

Passion counts Especially when it comes to Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone” protestations, Obama Girl’s undulations, the kakapo parrot shagging a hapless nature photographer’s skull, and Zach Galifianakis’ hilariously bad “Between Two Ferns” interviews. Even Soulja Boy’s vlogs, in which the pop tell-’em-all cranks the virtues of the Xbox, seem obsessed — with getting the viewer’s attention. That also goes for the “Numa Numa” xloserkidx singing along to O Zone’s “Dragostea Din Tei” and the twirling, ducking, and capering Canadian high-schooler in the “Star Wars Kid” video, which marketing company the Viral Factory estimates has been viewed more than 900 million times.

Just gird yourself for the edit “Star Wars Kid” is one primo example: it inspired Stephen Colbert to kick off a viral loop of his own, challenging viewers to edit and enhance the green-screen video tribute of his own lightsaber routine. No one is exempt from a little creative tinkering, an inspired tweak or 2,000, be it “Longcat”; Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs; or pre-YouTube animated vid “All Your Base Are Belong To Us,” the classic mother of all video hacks, where images ranging from beer ads to motel signs are Photoshopped with the Zero Wing Engrish subtitle. And you thought the remix was dead.

King Z

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
King Z

FILMMAKER INTERVIEW In the event of an actual zombie outbreak, legendary horror director George A. Romero would no doubt survive. For one thing, he stands an imposing six-feet, five inches, and happens to maintain an anti-zombie stronghold — er, getaway — in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he’d just been vacationing before the press tour for the sixth film in his "Dead" series, Survival of the Dead. Plus, Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968, meaning Romero has more than 40 years of experience wrangling the undead. I asked him about that, and more, on his recent visit to San Francisco.

SFBG Did you ever think in 1968 that you’d still be making zombie movies in 2010?

George A. Romero Never. And I never thought of it as a series — it was a film. I didn’t want to make another one, especially after [Night] got "discovered." I said, I really can’t do another one unless I have a strong idea. Ten years later, I knew the people who were developing the first indoor shopping mall that any of us had ever seen, near Pittsburgh. I went out to visit it before it was even open, and the trucks were bringing in all this stuff, and I said, "Jesus Christ, it’s like this Taj Mahal to consumerism" — and then I said, "Ok, this might serve."

Completely serendipitously, I got a call from [Italian horror filmmaker] Dario Argento, and he said, "George, please, you must make another." He flew me over to Rome, stuck me in a little apartment, and told me to write the script [for 1978’s Dawn of the Dead]. That’s when I first started to think, "Boy, I could have fun with this." I could express myself, express my politics a little bit, poke a finger at society, and bring the zombies out every once in a while. The first four [Dead movies] were more than 10 years or more apart from each other. And I liked the idea that they were snapshots of different decades, stylistically and everything else.

After Land of the Dead (2005) — which was the first sort of big one, and I’m not sure I should have studio’d it up, if you know what I mean — I wanted to do something about emerging media and citizen journalism, so I had this idea to go back to Night [for 2007’s Diary of the Dead], go back to the roots, do it real guerrilla-style. Just like with Night, I thought it would be a one-shot deal: "I’m gonna take this little sidebar now, and try to have fun while I’m at it." [The company that financed the film] gave me final cut, creative control — first time since the very early films that I made — and [since] I stayed within a certain budget range, even though it had a limited distribution, it wound up making a lot of money. That’s why [Survival of the Dead] is here.

SFBG Survival of the Dead spins off a minor character from Diary of the Dead. Did you have that story line in mind while you were making Diary?

GAM When [the financers] said, "Well, we made so much money, we gotta do it again," I said, "OK, what if we do it again, and it makes a lot of money? You’re gonna want to do it again. So why don’t we go in thinking of a plan? I could take these characters from Diary, I had ’em all picked out — we could make three films, and I know exactly where they’re gonna go. And I will interweave the stories and introduce plot elements that recur, and characters that meet each other again." Which is something I always wanted to do, but I couldn’t with the first four films because they’re all owned by different people. So I said, we’ll take a broader topic like war, enmities that don’t die, and do this sort of structured set piece. Small budget but bigger scope. Then I thought, well, let’s play around with style too. So I got the idea for doing it like a Western, which came from an old William Wyler film called The Big Country (1958) — it’s the same two old farts shooting at each other. The next one, if we do it, I’d love to do it noir.

SFBG The zombie attack is already underway when Survival begins. The human survivors are almost jaded by their presence — the undead take a back seat to the human conflict more often than not.

GAM Yes, in this film, more than any of the other ones that I’ve done. In a way, if you think of it, my stories are all about the humans, because the zombies could be almost any disaster — it’s just that zombies are more fun for me and for horror fans. But in this one, they’re almost just an annoyance, like mosquitoes. Also, except for Night and Diary, they’ve always started with the thing well underway. I think there’s also a horror tradition there, too — from the second Godzilla movie on, it’s, "Oh, it’s just Godzilla."

SFBG Zombies seem to be enjoying a particularly high pop culture profile these days. What do you think is the reason behind their neverending popularity?

GAM I think video games really popularized them. There’s only been one real blockbuster zombie film, Zombieland (2009), and that’s very recent. It started with Resident Evil, House of the Dead. Now there’s this huge thing, Left 4 Dead. Zombies are perfect targets for a first-person shooter — they’re like the coyotes of monsterland. It’s fun to see them eat a stick of dynamite. But zombie walks — I’ve had my voice piped into Budapest for a zombie walk. What? Thousands of people coming out and doing this. It’s sort of a happening — go out and get drunk. It’s cheap costuming — smear up your clothes, slap some goop on your face, and go stumbling out. Even if you’re drunk, you can still stumble.

SFBG Do you watch the new zombie movies, like Zombieland?

GAM I don’t like them very much. As I said, I think it all started with video games — they have to move fast in video games to make the game fun. So filmmakers like Zack [Snyder], when he did the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), made the zombies run. I thought that was crazy. That whole evolution seems to have just warped it. To me, zombies should be like my guys, kind of stupidly stumbling along, and only have power in numbers or when people make mistakes.

SFBG Final question. Do you ever get tired of talking about zombies?

GAM [Laughs] Yeah! *

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD opens Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.

Media experiments

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Media experiments

news@sfbg.com

With traditional journalism outlets still struggling through the Great Recession and into an uncertain future, some interesting new media experiments have been popping in San Francisco, including much-anticipated The Bay Citizen, an initially well-funded newsroom that launches this week.

It will join a media landscape filled with a wide range of new ventures: general news websites ranging from the nonprofit SF Public Press to the theoretically for-profit SF Appeal; niche sites such as the popular SF Streetsblog; the Spot.us media funding experiment; and the MediaBugs accountability project. And it isn’t all online — McSweeney’s magazine put out the one-time San Francisco Panorama newspaper in December and SF Public Press plans to print a similar demonstration newspaper next month.

But for all the high hopes and talk of using strategic partnerships and new funding models to overcome economic and readership trends that have hobbled the San Francisco Chronicle and other big media companies, those who run The Bay Citizen and other start-ups still need to prove their worth and sustainability.

Whatever The Bay Citizen becomes, it will break new ground — nobody has ever put this level of money into creating a nonprofit, online-only daily newspaper in a major market, or had such significant media partners, ranging from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism to The New York Times, which will run the newsroom’s content as its twice-weekly Bay Area section.

Some people think this is the future of journalism; San Francisco-based financier Warren Hellman, who provided the seed money, thinks it’s worth $5 million or more to get the project off the ground. But since there’s no model out there, the crew at The Bay Citizen will be making it up as they go along. And at this point, even with what most Web publications would consider a huge amount of money, it’s clear that The Bay Citizen will not be replacing the Chronicle any time soon.

Jon Weber, the publication’s editor, knows the world of mainstream daily journalism (he was a writer for the Los Angeles Times); the world of high-paced big-money startups (he ran the Industry Standard); and the world of low-budget fledgling operations (he founded the small online magazine New West). And the first thing he had to figure was exactly what this new online daily was going to look like.

With a staff of just six news writers — and a regional focus — The Bay Citizen can’t try to cover breaking news the way the Chronicle, Examiner, or even Bay City News Service do. So the publication will be different from a traditional daily, with more enterprise reporting and less of the types of features dailies typically offer.

There will, for example, be no daily sportswriter. “There won’t be stories on every game, every day,” Weber told me. “We’ll pick our spots with enterprise reporting.” The Bay Citizen won’t try to compete with the Chronicle on national or international stories, either: “It’s a Bay Area focused site,” Weber said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t cover national stories when they impact the Bay Area. But that’s not part of our beats.”

The reporters will cover land use and environmental issues; health and science; education and social issues; business and finance; crime; and government and politics. The politics reporter won’t be able to cover San Francisco City Hall every day, either — he or she (that’s the one slot still open) will have to stay on top of local and statewide issues.

But what could make the Bay Citizen truly unusual is the extent to which Weber plans to partner with existing local bloggers and nontraditional news outlets. “We hope we can be a supporter of the local media ecosystem,” he said.

That could eventually set The Bay Citizen apart — and provide a new model for daily journalism. The publication has pending agreements with a dozen local Web sites and bloggers, some of them well-established and funded, and some more homegrown efforts. It’s also working with New American Media, which for many years has represented and encouraged ethnic news outlets.

Yet this isn’t exactly a new idea. SF Gate, the Chronicle’s Web site, has been running content from local blogs, including SF Streetsblog, for more than a year. But it doesn’t pay for that content and so far there have been few discernible benefits for either side of the equation.

“That’s been an experiment for us, but I’m not sure we see much of a return,” Streetsblog SF Editor Bryan Goebel told us. “The question is how you make these partnerships sustainable.”

That’s a question he’ll continue to explore with his newest partner, The Bay Citizen, which is promising to pay bloggers $25 for each post they run and to partner with them on larger projects. Although he’s still waiting to see a contract from Weber, Goebel said, “The model Bay Citizen is using could potentially work.”

Goebel needs something that will work. After 16 months in business, he said SF Streetsblog has 14,000 weekly readers and a loyal following among those interested in transportation and urbanism, but it’s funding (primarily from two rich individuals) has dried up to the point where he’s worried about the site’s future.

“I was hired to be the editor, but now the onus is on me to also keep it going,” Goebel said. “If the community likes this valuable resource … then the community needs to step up and support it.”

The Bay Citizen is also relying on that community-supported paradigm, using a four-part plan to pay the bills. At first The Bay Citizen will be heavily dependent on big donations. But Weber wants to see the operation transition to a more independent program that will rely on public broadcasting-style memberships (small donations), sponsorships (read: ad sales), and the sale of original content (syndication).

There’s already been some grumbling in the local blogosphere about Bay Citizen, from noting the outsized salary of the project’s president and CEO Lisa Frazier (a media consultant who led the search and then took the job at a reported $400,000 per year) to concerns about this big venture exploiting small local partners.

Frazier answered the salary question by noting that she has been working on the project for 14 months and emphasizing her business development experience. “This is a difficult problem we’re taking on and we need to put together a sustainable business model,” she told us. “It’s about results and our fundraising response has been fantastic.”

Another eyebrow-raiser is the background of The Bay Citizen’s Chief Technology Officer Brian Kelley, founder of the Web site ReputationDefender, which promises to remove negative items from the Internet searches of its paying clients — an antithetical mission for news organizations that expose the misdeeds of powerful figures.

Kelley downplayed his former company’s role in countering good journalism, telling us, “I do intend to take that knowledge here to promote our online content.”

Weber said the new venture won’t use its considerable initial resources to try to steal the show, and they’re bringing something truly valuable to the local media scene: a paid staff of journalists to counter the steep declines in local news-gathering.

“Listen,” Weber told us, “I was there for five years. I was running a little start-up with no resources. The last thing I want to do is hurt the smaller outfits. We think we can work together in ways that benefit everyone.”

SF Public Press has pursued a model like Bay Citizen’s for two years. But without millions of dollars in seed money, it’s still hobbling along as basically a volunteer newsroom despite getting around $35,000 from San Francisco Foundation, another Hellman-funded enterprise. “It’s an uncertain model. It’s a leap of faith for the writers to get involved with this,” said project manager Michael Stoll.

Yet Public Press is still moving forward with a newspaper (due out June 15) featuring content culled from a wide variety of local partners ranging from the Commonwealth Club and World Affairs Council to local public radio stations, local blogs, and The Bay Citizen. “We’re calling it both a pilot and a prototype,” Stoll said. “We want to get people’s reactions.”

Weber says he’s also eager to see how people react to The Bay Citizen when it launches May 26, because it will need to quickly establish itself. At the rate The Bay Citizen is spending, Hellman’s money won’t last more than a couple of years, and the financier told us he may be willing to put in a bit more, but he’s going to want to see a plan for financial stability that doesn’t involve him underwriting operations forever. It’s an experiment, but one most observers say is worth trying.

“We need to keep experimenting,” Goebel said, “because not every experiment is going to work.”

Moyers: Plutocracy and democracy can’t co-exist

Sasha Cuttler
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Moyers: Plutocracy and democracy can’t co-exist

The great public-interest journalist Bill Moyers, 75, ended his long-running Journal program on Friday with a warning: Plutocracy and democracy don’t mix. And these days, it appears that the former has all but destroyed the latter, turning American democracy into a cruel and deceptive farce. The fact that many readers will need to scramble to their dictionaries or computers to look up “plutocracy” is a good sign of how unaware the average citizen is of what ails this country and keeps them down. So let me save y’all the trouble, it means rule by the rich, and it’s what we now have in this country.

I got a lot of criticism last week when I raised the issue of how Meg Whitman, Goldman Sachs, and the other scions of our plutocracy have fatally undermined our democratic values, which used to involve taxing the rich adequately enough to fund our infrastructure, alleviate poverty, and protect the planet. So rather than repeating that point, I thought I’d just let Moyers carry the argument, as he did so effectively on his final Journal broadcast, calling for a kind of public-interest journalism, biased in favor of the people and the planet, that I firmly believe in. He’ll be missed, and we would all be wise to heed his words and his warning.

Moyers said: 

You’ve no doubt figured out my bias by now. I’ve hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.

Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don’t try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don’t mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.

Plutocracy is not an American word but it’s become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly “bang the drum on plutonomy.”

And bang they did, with an “equity strategy” for their investors, entitled, “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer.” Here are some excerpts:

“Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper…[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years…”

“…the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US– the plutonomists in our parlance– have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US…[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor.”

“…[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [Because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact.”

And so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. And so they are, today, after the fall. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street.

Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to “market-friendly governments” on their side? It hasn’t mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street’s bidding.

Don’t blame the lobbyists, by the way; they are simply the mules of politics, delivering the drug of choice to a political class addicted to cash — what polite circles call “campaign contributions” and Tony Soprano would call “protection.”

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. According to a study from the Pew Research Center last month, nine out of ten Americans give our national economy a negative rating. Eight out of ten report difficulty finding jobs in their communities, and seven out of ten say they experienced job-related or financial problems over the past year.

So it is that like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy.

Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs.

So along with Jim Hightower and Iowa’s concerned citizens, and many of you, I am biased: democracy only works when we claim it as our own.

Events listings

David Talbot
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Event Listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 28

Phases Full Moon Celebration McLaren Park, 2100 Sunnydale, SF; (415) 468-9664. 8pm, free. Join in on this celebration of the passing of the Moon Phases with people from different spiritual traditions and walks of life featuring dancing, drumming, singing, readings, performances, and more.

FRIDAY 30

Journalism Innovations University of San Francisco, Fromm Hall, Golden Gate at Parker, SF; (415) 738-4975. Fri. 1pm-7:30pm, Sat. 8:30am-7:30pm, Sun. 9am-12:30pm; $15-$75 sliding scale. Join over 600 journalists, educators, advocates, and citizens for this conference on shaping the future of journalism featuring workshops, expositions, and showcases of new projects, practices, and ideas. Presented by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Nor Cal.

Poems Under the Dome North Light Court, San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF; www.poemdome.com. 5:30pm, free. Celebrate the last day of National Poetry Month by reading a poem of your choosing at City Hall. Space is limited, so readers are selected by lottery and limited to three minutes per poem. Readings will begin with a poem by Maxine Chernoff.

BAY AREA

"Are We Alone?" UC Berkeley, Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, Hearst at LeRoy, Berk.; (510) 642-8678. 7:30pm, free. Attend this debate where Dan Werthimer, UC Berkeley SETI Program Director, and Geoff Marcy, Professor, UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, will present convincing arguments both for and against the existence of technological life elsewhere in the galaxy. Either the Milky Way is teeming with life or it isn’t; decide who’s right.

SATURDAY 1

May Day Dolores Park, 18th St. at Dolores, SF; www.uainthebay.org. 3pm, free. Celebrate May Day with the anti-authoritarian community at this family friendly event featuring food, drink, activities, speeches, reenactments, and information tables from organizations like Bound Together Books, Homes Not Jails, Indybay, International Workers of the World (IWW), and many more.

National Free Comic Book Day Comic book stores throughout the Bay Area, visit freecomicbookday.com for a list of stores near you. All day, free. Special edition comics from top publishers, like Marvel and DC, will be given away all day. Participating stores include Isotope, Jeffery’s Toys, Caffeinated Comics, Japantown Collectibles, Neon Monster, Comix Experience, and more.

Roots and Culture Shelton Theater, Pier 26, The Embarcadero, SF; (415) 665-8855. 8pm, $2-20 sliding scale. Attend this May Day event that promises to shake loose all the dampness from the rain and economic struggles featuring COPUS, a spoken word, bass, and percussion ensemble, and Heartical Roots, a song-writing collaborative including bass, drums, keyboards, guitar, and Nyahbinghi drums.

Russian Hill Stairways Meet at Hyde and Filbert, SF; www.sfcityguides.org. 10am, free. Learn more about San Francisco history, architecture, legends, and lore on this SF City Guides walking tour featuring magic staircases, gardens, views from 345 feet above the Bay, and stories about the former haunts of writers and artists.

Spring Plant Sale SF County Fair Building, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, 9th Ave. at Lincoln, SF; (415) 661-1316. 10am-2pm, free. Learn about and purchase rare and unusual plants not found at other regional plant stores at this giant sale featuring over 4,000 different kinds of plants, plant related books, treasures, garden gifts, and more.

SUNDAY 2

Art in the Alley Kerouac Alley, Columbus and Broadway, SF; (415) 362-3370. Noon – 6pm, free. Attend this open air art gallery, where over 25 emerging and established artists will showcase their work, including painting, printmaking, glass art, books, photography, jewelry, and more, and celebrate this fabled neighborhood and its artistic roots.

Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon Race begins and ends at Marina Green, Marina at Fillmore, SF; www.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com. 8am, free. Watch as more than 2,000 amateur and professional athletes compete in a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, followed by an 18 mile bike ride out to the Great Highway through the Golden Gate Park, and concluding with an 8 mile run through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The finish is at The Marina Green.

BAY AREA

Go Expo Day Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Suite 290, Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 9th St., Oak.; (510) 501-2701. 1pm, free. Learn about the game "Go," which originated in 4,000 years ago in China. Get free lessons, participate in game sets, and get instructional booklets so that you too can one day compete for some big prizes.

Women Entrepreneurs Showcase David Brower Centre, main lobby, 2150 Allston, Berk.; (510) 809-0900. 10:30am, $4 includes light lunch and raffle ticket. Show your support for local, women-owned businesses of all types, listen to live music, and enjoy some food samples.

TUESDAY 4

Beers, Brats, and Bikes Gestalt Haus, 3159 16th St., SF; www.gestaltsf.com. 7pm, $1 suggested donation. Drink beer, eat delicious sausages (veggie options available and also delicious), and commune with other bike lovers at this fundraiser for Hazon, a non profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable food.

Warriors, come out and play! (with this squeaky mouse)

Andrew Lam
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Warriors, come out and play! (with this squeaky mouse)

Blossompaw jumped down from the wall and headed past the plants Jayfeather had carefully nurtured. The scent of them made Ivypaw’s mouth water, but she knew the warning given to every Clan cat: Stay away from the catnip.

Worry not for our youth in the post-Harry Potter era; there’s a new line of young adult fiction that’s got all the kids a’ reading. And it’s about fighting clans of kitties — my favorite! The Warriors, a series which to date includes over thirty titles, is a lot like Brian Jacques’ Redwall books — a small universe of carefully plotted minutiae following the escapades of animals in epic form.

But we’re going to the next level here.The Warriors see the Redwall sci-fi/fantasy nerd love of quests, battles, and prophecies, then raises it an all kitteh cast of characters. Oh yes, whiskers and all.

Warriors’ slightly confusing authorship (the books’ byline, Erin Hunter, actually refers to four women, none of them named Erin) begins each book with a comprehensive listing of each kitty in all four of the forest’s clans. Kits to clan leaders, pelt and eye colors included. For example, Dovepaw, one of the protagonists of Fading Echoes (book number two in the Omen of the Stars sub-series), is an apprentice of Shadow Clan, “a pale she-cat with blue eyes,” who is mentored by Lionblaze, “a golden tabby tom with amber eyes.” Leaving aside the complex belief structure and social hierarchy of the Warriors’ world, with 113 cats in the four mortal (oh yeah, it goes there) clans alone, it’s important to keep track of these details.

And readers do. Oh, but they do! A quick foray to The Warriors website reveals the true depths of fandom the kitties muster. Message boards require one to select a kitty avatar  to chat with the other kitties.

Which I did, all in the name of journalism of course (a golden she-cat with yellow eyes I named “Quillpaw”), and regardless of the fact that many of the conversation threads were a bit beyond my reckoning, most having to do with complex spoiler theories and desperate purrs for a single tom to mate with. Scandalous!

I meowed at my kitty friends online about why they liked this magical, mystical world of claws and fresh-kill, and I found Twilightfoot (who appears to be a fan fic writing, gender neutral black deputy cat with green eyes from he/she’s profile picture)’s answer to be the most endearing. I quote:

What do I like about Warriors?:

They are VERY interesting, and have a good plot that I can relate to.

It is NOT a G-rated series, which I <3!

I get very, um, connected with the characters, which I can rarely do with a book.

In this day and age, connection is really the pith of the matter, isn’t it? Cheers to you, Twilightfoot. And cheers to you, Warriors books — I never really liked reading about people, anyway.

PBS’s Frontline edits out single payer

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Documentary misrepresented advocates as supporters of a public option
4/23/10

Silencing supporters of single-payer, or Medicare for All, is a media staple, but PBS’s Frontline found a new way to do that on the April 13 special Obama’s Deal–by selectively editing an interview with a single-payer advocate and footage of single-payer protesters to make them appear to be activists for a public option instead.

The public option proposal would have offered a government-run health insurance program to some individuals as an alternative to mandatory private health insurance. Not only is this not the same thing as Medicare for All, it’s an idea many single-payer advocates actually opposed, arguing that it would leave the insurance industry intact as dominant players in the healthcare business (PNHP.org, 7/20/09).

In the report, Frontline explained that insurance industry lobbyists pushed a bill in the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Montana) “that would include the mandate to buy insurance and kill the public option.” That “didn’t sit well with the president’s liberal supporters,” the Frontline narrator told viewers. After a clip from public-option supporter Howard Dean, a full minute and a half focused on protests: “The left counterattacked in May…. Liberal outrage arrived in Baucus’ own hearing room as healthcare activists, one after another, shouted him down.” Several of these protesters are seen in action, with a clip of an interview with Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) saying that these were members of her group shut out of the hearings.

Now, Flowers and PNHP are leading single-payer advocates–but you’d never learn that from watching the Frontline program, which never mentions the single-payer concept. Instead, viewers were left to assume that Flowers and the protesters were public-option proponents, since that was the only progressive proposal that had been discussed. As Flowers explained (Consortium News, 4/15/10):

When the host, Mr. [Michael] Kirk, interviewed me for Obama’s Deal, we spoke extensively of the single-payer movement and my arrest with other single-payer advocates in the Senate Finance Committee last May. However, our action in Senate Finance was then misidentified as “those on the left” who led a “counterattack” because of “liberal outrage” at being excluded.

Viewers saw more footage of protesters being handcuffed and led away, with an unidentified voiceover from Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! describing the arrests, and finally a voice was heard saying: “This option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong.”

The audience could only conclude that “this option” referred to the public option, but this conclusion would be incorrect; this voice was actually MSNBC host Ed Schultz, a single-payer supporter, and a fuller version of his quote (5/7/09) would have made it clear that he was complaining about single-payer being excluded from the hearing:

Now, let me explain single-payer for just a minute. The money comes from one source, the government. Now, you and I pay taxes, OK. The government pays the bill. It’s that simple. Patients are not caught in the middle between doctors and insurance companies, no game-playing here. There’s no middleman. You know? There’s no decision-makers between you and your doctor. It’s a clean deal.

So what Chairman Baucus has decided, this option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong. I don’t think it’s fair.

Frontline’s editors responded to Flowers’ complaints, saying that they “understand the frustration of Dr. Flowers and others in what she calls the ‘single-payer movement,'” but that “it’s the work of journalism to report widely on a topic, then find the sharpest focus for the reporting, unfortunately leaving out much strong material along the way to shaping the clearest communication possible in the time or space allowed.”

The statement also argued that

the section that included Dr. Flowers was focused on the power of the insurance lobby and showed how activists like Dr. Flowers were excluded from the debate over the bill. The protesters themselves said they were protesting the fact that they had been excluded from the debate, so we believe we presented the protests in the proper context.

But in Frontline’s presentation, “activists like Dr. Flowers”–that is, single-payer advocates–didn’t even exist. Having itself excluded their perspective from the debate–and even misrepresented them as supporters of a position that many of them actually oppose–there’s some irony in Frontline claiming to have put this exclusion in the “proper context.”

This is not the first time that Frontline has decided that a conversation about healthcare reform should exclude single-payer (FAIR Action Alert, 4/7/09). The March 31, 2009, Frontline special Sick Around America avoided discussions of national healthcare plans. This omission led Frontline correspondent T.R. Reid–who had hosted a previous Frontline special (4/15/08) that examined various public healthcare models–to withdraw from the project.
When Frontline pushed single-payer out of the debate last year, PBS ombud Michael Getler (4/10/09) weighed in on the side of critics, calling it a “missed opportunity.” Getler today (4/23/10) published a column about the latest Frontline omissions, once again finding that ignoring a popular policy like single-payer is problematic:

It seems to me that to ignore something that was out there and popular with millions of people and thousands of healthcare professionals, but not really on the table, was a mistake. Although obviously tight on time, the producers should have found 30 seconds to take this into account, because many Americans support it, yet the deal makers never mention it, nor is the politics of discarding it addressed.

We’re thankful that Getler has once again taken this view and encouraged a more inclusive discussion of healthcare on PBS. However, his criticism misses the critical journalistic fact that single-payer advocates were not only marginalized by Frontline–they were misrepresented.

ACTION:
Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.

CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org

You may also want to write to PBS ombud Michael Getler (ombudsman@pbs.org).

    
TAKE ACTION!

ACTION:

Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.

CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org

The inside angle

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The inside angle

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Josh Wolf’s second spell in the hot seat — and other penalties brought down against independent journalists documenting California’s defiant student movement — raise some important questions about the freedom of the press at civil disobedience protests.

Wolf, a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, faces a possible academic suspension for violating the student conduct code during a Nov. 20 student occupation of a campus lecture hall. But Wolf says he was there to document the moment as a reporter.

Brandon Jourdan, an independent journalist who was also inside the hall with Wolf, now faces his own set of misdemeanor charges after capturing footage of a March 4 student protest that broke onto a West Oakland freeway. And David Morse, a journalist and Indybay collective member who reported on a raucous Dec. 11 protest at the UC Berkeley chancellor’s residence, is now fighting the seizure of his camera and a search warrant issued by UC police for his unpublished photographs — something the First Amendment Project maintains is in violation of state law.

The footage that Wolf and Jourdan took on Nov. 20 and March 4 captured police use of physical force against protesters and documented the widely publicized actions from unique perspectives. The reports were broadcast on Democracy Now!, a popular independent news program that airs nationally on satellite television stations, public access channels, and online.

The gutsy camerapersons aren’t the first to face criminal charges. After nine reporters followed several hundred protesters seeking to block construction of the Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant onto private property in June 1979 and were arrested, an Oklahoma court of appeals ruled the First Amendment guaranteed them no immunity from prosecution for trespassing.

“That makes the position of a journalist very difficult, in areas where demonstrators are essentially exercising civil disobedience to make a point,” notes Terry Francke, executive director of Californians Aware, a watchdog organization focused on First Amendment issues. “There’s no free pass for journalists in the crowd recording what’s going on. Their principled position would presumably be yes, like [protesters] risk arrest and consequences for the greater good, they’d risk the same for the sake of giving the public … a close-up picture of what it’s like to be in those circumstances.”

Without that journalistic witness, “When you hear stories about what went on in the middle of a police and demonstrators’ confrontation … you’ll have two irreconcilable versions, from only directly interested parties,” Francke points out.

There’s been no shortage recently of civil disobedience on California college campuses, where operations have been ravaged by budget cuts. The Nov. 20 occupation was staged early in the morning at Wheeler Hall, when students barricaded themselves inside to protest a 32 percent fee hike imposed by the UC Board of Regents. While most reporters gathered outside the building or flew over in helicopters, Wolf was inside, and he’s the only student to claim being there in a journalistic capacity. He says he wore a police-issued press badge.

Wolf, a video journalist, enjoys a sort of celebrity status because he spent 226 days in jail after resisting a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury. It started when he shot a film of a 2005 protest in San Francisco, which police tried to obtain because they believed it could help them pinpoint demonstrators who vandalized a police car and injured an officer. Since the case was pursued at the federal level, he was unable to invoke California’s shield law protecting journalists from being compelled to reveal unpublished material.

Democracy Now! aired a lengthy report of the Nov. 20 occupation featuring footage that the two embedded reporters had captured from the interior of Wheeler, coproduced by David Martinez. Show host Amy Goodman specifically named Wolf as a co-contributor when the report aired.

Now Wolf is facing a possible seven-month suspension by the campus Center for Student Conduct, which charges him with violating the student conduct code on multiple counts. “Their perspective is that I am a student and that I am a journalist,” Wolf explained. “My responsibility is no different from anyone else’s in there, and therein, my punishment should be reflective of that of everyone else.” Wolf said he had the backing of the journalism school, which confirmed to the Guardian that the dean wrote a letter of support for Wolf.

David Morse, 42, is a journalist who has covered hundreds of Bay Area protests on Indybay, an online news site that spotlights grassroots movements and protests. In a motion filed against UCPD, the First Amendment Project charges that Morse was arrested and had his camera seized Dec. 11 despite repeating six times that he was a journalist and displaying a press pass. “They told me, ‘You have a camera, we want your camera,'<0x2009>” Morse recounted. The next morning, as reports of angry, torch-wielding students storming the chancellor’s home and smashing windows made headlines, Morse was still sitting in jail in Santa Rita. “My voice as an eyewitness was completely silenced,” he said. His charges were dropped, but now he is challenging the search warrant to get his memory discs back.

When the police department sought a search warrant for Morse’s unpublished photos, they didn’t mention that he had identified as a journalist, the FAP charges. The legal nonprofit filed a motion to quash the warrant on grounds that it violates a provision in the penal code barring search warrants for journalistic work products, invoking the state shield law.

Jourdan, meanwhile, faces five misdemeanor charges after filming the March 4 freeway protest and subsequent police response, which many have characterized as excessive. (In one clip, an officer can be seen striking an individual who doesn’t appear to be resisting with a baton.) He was arrested along with two other videographers who also face criminal infractions. Footage Jourdan and Martinez captured from March 4 aired on Democracy Now!, and Jourdan’s report was also featured as a lead story on the Huffington Post. Jourdan says he wore press credentials.

“It’s unfair for them to file charges against me when they’ve dropped charges against others,” Jourdan said. The Oakland Police Department confirmed to the Guardian that Jourdan had been charged with crimes such as unlawful assembly and obstruction of a thoroughfare, but did not respond to a message asking what set him apart from other reporters.

Jourdan, who has also contributed to Reuters, The New York Times, and other outlets, has managed to capture a variety of similar events on film, including Amy Goodman’s arrest during protests outside the Republican National Convention in 2009. “Barely a month goes by that some lawyer isn’t calling me up trying to get footage of some one getting beat up,” he said. But he maintains that documenting these intense moments is crucial, not for resolving disputes, but to document these moments in history.

Reporters from mainstream television news programs toting bulky cameras were also filming on the freeway, but were allowed to leave. Guardian news intern Jobert Poblete and multimedia producer Cameron Burns with UC Berkeley’s Daily Californian were arrested on the freeway too, but their charges were later dropped after state Sen. Leland Yee intervened. “Journalists are generally provided greater access to cover news stories than other members of the public,” Yee wrote in a letter to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. “Unfortunately, law enforcement did not provide such leeway in this case.”

Adam Keigwin, Yee’s chief of staff, said the senator’s office got involved on behalf of the Guardian and the Daily Cal because he knew those publications. “We just need to know more about this,” Keigwin said. “Once credentialed media is present, it’s the senator’s perspective that journalists should have the right to cover these things and should not be charged.”

But when asked if there is a deficiency in state law since that right doesn’t technically exist, Keigwin responded, “This may be something we should consider.”

The Daily Blurgh: Gaga pops, unsavory whiskers

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Gaga pops, unsavory whiskers

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Oaktown Art (via Eye on Blogs) takes us on a tour of “one of the largest rooftop gardens in the world” paid for with insurance premiums (we’re only kidding with that last bit).

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“Talk about defining deviancy down. What beige days we live in, when mentioning Rilke, Warhol, and David Bowie are proof positive of edgy intelligence. Rilke isn’t exactly obscure, and Warhol and Bowie are two of the best-known brands in pop history. Gaga isn’t all that weird, despite her revisionist accounts of growing up feeling “like a freak,” as she told Barbara Walters.” Thank you, Mark Dery, for articulating (albeit, rather longwindedly) my 99 problems with Lady GaGa.

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 William T Vollmann as a lady. ‘Nuff said.

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Never trust anyone over-beardy? (h/t The Slog)

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“Performance journalism” isn’t Anderson Cooper flexing his biceps in a hurricane. In fact, it happened just this last weekend here in SF when Pop-Up Magazine presented its third, live “issue” at the Herbst Theater for a sold-out audience. Boing Boing’s Elisabeth Soep attended, and took away “five things Pop-Up does better than print.” Now, I’m all for Pop-Up’s attempts to invigorate journalism by thinking beyond the written word by reconfiguring the “publication” as an actual salon. And Soep has a point. Print media has often had difficulty putting across the qualities she admired about the event – its ephemerally, spontaneity, draftiness (a slightly awkward word choice which describes how some presenters shared works in progress or pieces that had been rejected by other publications, not the temperature in the Herbst), and its seamless, thematic segue into the after-party – relying on online content, blogs (heeeey!), coordinated parties or tie-in events, and a whole bunch of other Web 2.0 tricks to offset the time lag inherent to old school publishing. However, I would counter that the flipside to Pop-Up’s in-the-moment uniqueness is its lack of accessibility. Not everyone who is interested in “reading” Pop-Up is able to. Would recording the proceedings and putting them up on online really ruin the moment? I don’t think that the “unexpected shift from media to live” Soep recounts as being a highlight of one the presentations would lose all of its unexpectedness if I were able to watch it at a remove. Besides, most people know that watching a concert on Youtube isn’t the same as being there. But more to the point: I want to hear the stories that are being told at Pop-Up. Would I love to hear Aimee Mullins speak in person? Of course. But I’m grateful that TED made what she had to say at their fancy thinking fest available to the public. Also, regarding “draftiness,” all I will say is that sometimes all one wants for dinner is a delicious stir fry, and that, at other times, only a slow-roasted pork shoulder will do.

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And speaking of local journalism: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Happy day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6rHRpuWz4

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