Kids

The personal history, adventures, experience, and observation of David Copperfuck

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What’s up with all these "fuck"-ing bands of late? I’m referencing the band name phenomenon: it used to be about being "pink" this or "black" that or "wolf" or "bear" something, but it looks like our favorite four-letter word is now reaping the benefits of name-gaming fun. "Fuck" names might be nothing new — we all recall the Matador Records’ Bay Area outfit that sported the word in its singular form during the ’90s — but it looks like being a "mountain" nowadays just isn’t as cool as it used to be.

To David Copperfuck — vocalist Molly Samuel, drummer Dean Bein, guitarist Chris Baker, and bassist Avi Klein — the so-called trend is a joke. The mere mention that their moniker snagged top billing in the Onion for an end-of-the-year poll titled "Worst Band Names of 2006" generates a round of laughter from the San Francisco punkers. Baker jokingly reveals while hanging out in Samuel’s bike-littered Mission District apartment that "it was really challenging to shoot ourselves in the foot" and that the quartet were "just fucking themselves over ahead of time" by selecting the alias.

"We weren’t trying to be clever or anything," Bein adds while lounging on a recliner. "We were just trying to capture the essence or magic of a couple of words."

But then nothing serious seems to resonate with this bunch. During our two-hour powwow, the group resembles four giddy college kids stretched out lazily on Samuel’s couches, sipping cans of beer and bullshitting about their day jobs, their obsession with the apocalypse, and various extracurricular activities.

"I’m in a play," Bein says when asked whether any of David Copperfuck’s members currently play in any other bands. "It’s called Jurassic Park 4."

"But you have a show, right?" Samuel inquires.

"Yeah, we’re opening for Japanther," Bein replies before cracking a wry smile.

David Copperfuck formed in San Francisco in the fall of 2005, but their friendship harks back to 2002, when they first met at Oberlin College. The four were actively involved in the school’s indie scene and played in two groups, Red Tape Apocalypse and Zohar.

"This band is sort of an amalgamation of those prior bands," Baker says. "RTA was like straight-up, Blatz-style punk with two singers going full throttle, while Zohar was more about going big-time, playing the long songs, and trying to do something that was beyond our technical skills."

The band members acknowledge that they found it hard to continue after graduation with the two projects, which broke up as everyone began to relocate. By August 2005, the members of David Copperfuck had all migrated to San Francisco and, according to Samuel, knew they were going to start a new group once they got here. And it looks like the Oberlin gang’s West Coast venture was a smart choice after all: in its year-and-a-half existence, David Copperfuck has immersed itself in the Bay Area’s thriving punk community and currently plays out as much as possible.

"I don’t think we’ve ever asked for a show," Klein says. "We never really campaign. That can sound really immodest, but we just have friends, and we are supportive of those people and their bands, and they return the favor, I guess."

And regardless of whether they’re sharing the spotlight with floor crouchers, basement dwellers, or bus rats, the quartet is definitely hip to the unconventional venue. So the title of David Copperfuck’s debut 7-inch, "Chalet Chalet" (Party Turtle), seems fitting. It’s a crunchy mix of three-chord guitars, bass distortion, and frantic drum noise that recalls bands such as the Germs, the Bags, and Crass. Samuel’s distraught bark adds to the fray.

"I feel like our shows are always really fun, because there’s not really any posturing," Samuel offers. "We’re pretty unassuming with the people. We set up, and then it just kind of explodes, and it’s like ‘Here we are.’"

The four hope to soon release dual split singles with Oakland’s KIT and Orinda’s ParasitesGo! and will also embark on their first West Coast tour with Connie Fucking Francis in June. They also run True Panther Sounds, a record label they started in college, which has released albums by Lemonade, Broken Strings, and Standing Nudes. So what took David Copperfuck so long when it came to documenting themselves? Bein confesses that their debut single took a while to make because of their "inexperience with the whole record recording and releasing prospect of being in a band."

"I think we are about as unprofessional as it goes," Klein says with a laugh. "Live is like the only thing we can do."

DAVID COPPERFUCK

With Didi Mau and Manhater

Thurs/31, 9:30 p.m., $5

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

(415) 626-0880

www.sfeagle.com

Return to the sixth dimension

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

It’s nearly impossible to describe Forbidden Zone to the uninitiated. It’s a musical, a surreal fairy tale, an avant-garde live-action cartoon, and a strangely alluring jab at the boundaries of good taste. It’s black-and-white and nutty all over — and has become a cult sensation since its 1980 release. A film as singularly odd as Forbidden Zone obviously has one hell of a backstory. Fortunately, I didn’t have to sneak through any basement portals to track down director and coscripter Richard Elfman. Now the editor of Buzzine — an entertainment and pop culture mag with a bustling Web site, www.buzzine.com — Elfman e-mailed and chatted with me over the phone about what’s possibly the strangest movie ever made, featuring the first film score by his brother, Danny Elfman.

Surprisingly, Richard revealed quite a few San Francisco ties; he lived in the Haight and in Berkeley in the 1960s and ’70s, playing in an Afro-Latin percussion ensemble that later gigged in Las Vegas. He also spent some time working with the Cockettes, who introduced him to Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons, a Forbidden Zone influence. A fateful trip to a Toronto theater festival introduced him to the Grand Magic Circus, a French troupe that encouraged his eclectic theatrical tastes.

SFBG How did you move from the Grand Magic Circus to form the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo?

RICHARD ELFMAN Shortly [after the Toronto festival], the Magic Circus opened a major show in Paris. I was invited to join the company, which I did, and soon brought my younger brother Danny in. I married the leading lady, Marie-Pascale — Frenchy in Forbidden Zone. The show was billed as an avant-garde musical, but in fact much of it had roots in both turn of the century absurdism and French classical comedy.

After a year of touring Europe and beyond, I, along with Frenchy and my childhood friend Gene Cunningham [Pa in Forbidden Zone], formed the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo back in Los Angeles. My brother Danny, who went from the Magic Circus to a year in the African bush — I’m not joking — joined us shortly thereafter. The Mystic Knights incorporated absurdist comedy with an eclectic mix of great older music, pieces [by Cab Calloway and others] that could no longer be heard live elsewhere, along with original avant-garde pieces by Danny. As the ’70s moved along, I went off to other projects; under my brother’s direction, the Mystic Knights were ultimately bent into a rock band, Oingo Boingo.

SFBG Obviously, several of the performers in Forbidden Zone were from the theater troupe — but how did Susan Tyrrell and Hervé Villechaize get involved?

RE Well, the film had Frenchy [who starred and was the production designer], Gene, my brother, and all of the Mystic Knights, along with Danny’s childhood friend and original Knight, Matthew Bright, who played Squeezit and René Henderson. He also cowrote Forbidden Zone and went on to write and direct films like Freeway [1996]. Matthew’s roommate at the time was Hervé Villechaize, the king. Hervé’s girlfriend was Susan Tyrrell, the queen. Et voilà!

SFBG What were some of the challenges you faced during filming?

RE I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I started, but I eventually figured things out and got — over three arduous years — something that gives the sense what our Mystic Knights shows were like. The music was easy, as I had experience staging and choreographing musicals, and my little brother is Mozart. The animation bankrupted me, however. We inked things cell by cell, the old-fashioned way. Susan and Hervé had their occasional spats, although they were both supreme troopers who kicked their Screen Actors Guild checks back into the production. Hervé even helped Frenchy paint sets on weekends.

SFBG How much of the film was scripted?

RE It was all scripted; nothing was spontaneous. In the number "Bim Bam Boom," I had a really shy guy whose lips semifroze when it came time to lip-synch the song. So I had Matthew Bright’s lips superimposed over his. I use that example even today as an admonition for actors to do as I say.

SFBG The film is now known as a stoner classic, so I feel like I have to ask if there were any chemicals involved — and if not, where’d you come up with the story? Were you inspired by other filmmakers or artists?

RE Personally, I don’t take drugs. Wine and women, or woman — I am presently remarried — are as many intoxicants as I can handle. In terms of other inspiration? Along with Max Fleischer, the Cockettes, and Jerome Savary and his Magic Circus, I was influenced by Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Latin great Miguelito Valdez, and Aaron Lebedeff of the Yiddish theater. Design style? Definitely German expressionism, which serves one well if your whole art budget is only 40 rolls of paper and 12 buckets of black and white paint.

SFBG When the film came out in 1980, what was the reaction? Did it have a regular theatrical run?

RE Well, it had a brief summer run of scattered midnight shows. It was banned from the University of Wisconsin and other institutions of higher learning. I remember there was an arson threat in Los Angeles one night. Censorship rears its head in many guises; in our case the politically correct tried to kill Forbidden Zone, although they were not entirely successful.

SFBG Did you have any idea Forbidden Zone would be a cult hit?

RE I had thought the film had totally disappeared. About five years ago, when I put my first Web site up, I received e-mails from fans from around the world. Apparently bootleg videos had been going around for years, picking up new fans. I was knocked on my ass, truly.

SFBG Forbidden Zone 2 — true or false?

RE We’re planning Forbidden Zone 2: The Forbidden Galaxy. Ma and Pa Kettle are driven from the dust bowl along with their kids — gray-haired Stinky and the slutty, lumbering Petunia — and they move to Crenshaw, down in South Central LA, only to purchase that fateful little house whose basement is connected to the sixth dimension. "Just wait until those dead babies start marching!" *

FORBIDDEN ZONE

With Richard Elfman in person

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Sat/2, 11:45 p.m., $10

Roxie Film Center

3117 16th St., SF

www.sfindie.com

Windex music

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Swooning in the aural vortex of the last How Weird Street Faire, I lean against the central shade tower — heavens, it’s hot! — as four separate whiz-bang DJ arenas writhe at my compass points like electronic eels. Psytrance, tech house, tribal, and jeep beats overlap in a fun fuzz of dissonance: a Euterpean kaleidoscope, if you will.

A shirtless Pan in crooked BluBlockers emerges from the sonic haze and politely offers a welcome quench from his Camelback. Ah, agua … that’s better. Pan hightails it back into the neon-freaky crowds, his shadow a tongue of purple flame darting through the throng. Uh oh, the colors — they’re starting to come alive. I can see the music. I am the Lizard Queen. Goddammit, I’ve been dosed unbeknownst!

Does that mean I’m still cute enough to date-rape? Whew.

There’s no real need for chemical alteration at Burner-powered musical affairs like How Weird. The beats are gleefully conservative, locking hearts and minds into a virtual retro techno shroom step of the middle–late ’90s. You can just stop dropping and roll, Siddhartha. Close your eyes, and Smurf the vibe.

The ultimate expression of this baroque kind of bubble-icious bounce back is the continued global triumph of DJ Tiësto’s 2005 Eurotrance classical gasser Adagio for Strings (Universal France) — from Barber to Burner, via Coachella, with a $50,000 light show, a Lycra Tony Montana jersey, and a passé Jesus pose. Gord lord, lady. Tone it down a little. Tiësto’s not the lowest of the low — some trancers still work bastard Carl Orff tracks — and the high’s all the dedicated protofairies making laptop tribal in their parents’ incense-clouded basements. Whether they’ll trade in the oms for Armani once they graduate to clubland is anyone’s guess. It’s become such a thin, thin line. Still, you know if you threw on some neu-rave Klaxons at the pre-Compressions, the kids would have an air-horn breakdown and an alien breakthrough.

Yep, in these fractious times, the speakers overflow with comfort food. And there’s another retro techno movement snaking its way into the clubs, a splash of cool blue against the electroshocked Day-Glo patchwork of today’s dance music: neominimal. Incubating for the past few years in art galleries like Gray Area and Rx, underground parties like Gentlemen’s Techno and Moxie, unlikely bars like Detox, 222 Club, and the Transfer, and occasional Blasthaus and Daly City Records events, neominimal techno has lately come to the official fore, with major regular parties at the Endup and Fat City taking root and sold-out one-offs at Mezzanine fierce ruling.

The neominimal kids take their cues less from ’90s London big beat and depunked Prodigy than from ’80s acid house polychromatics and the Warp Records–Sheffield bleep scene, while paying heavy dues to laser-eared Detroit techno pioneers like Kenny Larkin and Richie Hawtin, whose classic 1999 full-length Decks Efx and 909 (Mute) kick-started the original minimal movement (he’ll be at the Mighty on June 1). Hawtin told me at the time of DE9‘s release that he wanted to "cut through the clouds of contemporary techno" to produce something more loop focused, software malleable, and dynamic in terms of live manipulation. Eight years later, neominimal’s tweeter-oriented arpeggios, atonal motifs, staticky sprezzatura, and clean, focused bass lines — plus a reliance on laptop programming and a healthy nullity of bombast and breaks — bear out his intentions to the nth. It’s unimposing, almost shy music that hooks you with its lack of superstar pretense and leads you gently by your ears to the dance floor. Not that it doesn’t have soul or humor, as anyone entranced by groundbreaking neominimal releases like "The Sad Piano," by Justin Martin (Buzzin’ Fly, 2003), and "Deep Throat," by Claude VonStroke (Dirtybird, 2005), can attest. It just doesn’t wear them on its digital sleeve.

Internationally renowned local boys Martin and VonStoke spend a lot of time touring the world these days, and both are stabled at well-respected San Francisco label Dirtybird (www.dirtybirdrecords.com), but promoters here have only recently been able to convince club owners that neominimal’s a good regular bar draw. Now some much-loved AWOL promoters from the past are rising with the neominimal boat.

"I call it Windex music," promoter Greg Bird — no relation to Dirtybird, but there sure are a lot of birds in SF techno — told me over the phone. "It’s crisp and clear and a lot more funky in a kind of grown-up way." His bangin’ Saturday monthly, Kontrol — recently relocated from Rx Gallery to bigger, all-night quarters at the Endup — celebrates two years of being head above the rest June 2 by bringing in legendary tech heads Baby Ford and DJ Zip to supplement hot-topic Kontrol residents Alland Byalo, Nikola Baytala, Sammy D., and Craig Kuna.

Bird cut through the cork-popping, lounge-heavy blahs of the Internet boom club scene in 2000 with his fascinatingly minimal Clean Plate Club monthly ("clean plate" = minimal groove). "After 9/11 and the bust, I could tell the whole club scene was headed south, so I concentrated on my personal situation. But a couple years ago me, Sammy D., and the others felt the need to bring our sound back to the clubs," he says. Bird emphasizes that Kontrol is all about mixing and making music live, in both a digital and a performance context: "We like to sound immediate." He name-checks Perlon Records, Hawtin’s Minus label, and Los Angeles’s wacky Experimental Liquor Museum collective as current influences. "There’s a ton happening right now," he says. "This summer is going to blow up big for techno in SF."

Another blast from the boom — and a delight for old-school minimal and nonorchestral house fans — is the return of the Staple crew, in this iteration composed of Fil Latorre, a.k.a. Fil Noir from the early ’00s out-of-control Staple and Refuge monthlies, and Dave Javate, a.k.a. DJ Javaight, formerly of the giant Optimal techno parties. Over e-mail, both cite scene burnout and a lack of feeling from the dance floor as reasons they closed up shop, coyly proffer "ichibana, Muay Thai, and pharmacology studies" as the reasons for their absence, and say a recent sense of receptivity to techno, the trend toward live acts, and greater technological capabilities in the form of Ableton Live and Traktor software pulled them out of early retirement. Staple just launched two monthlies at Rx and Anu and brought in Kenny Larkin in May to wow sold-out crowds. "It’s like reloading on experience and refocusing creativity once again on new output," Latorre writes.

I detest it when writers hype new movements. Indeed, almost all the DJs and promoters involved in the latest scene balk at the neominimal — and even minimal — moniker, differentiating themselves from the juggernaut with alternate adjectives like "modular," "organic," and "digital live." But all agree that they’re trying to wipe the tired commercial techno slate clean — and with it, the bad taste of overworked electronica most clubbers still have in their mouths. Many admit that the minimal tag is what’s helping them most to get their music recognized on a grand scale. And there’s definitely a local groundswell of interest in techno. (We gays have forward-looking neominimal heroes too, in DJs Kendig, Nikita, Pee Play, and Robot.Hustle, who keep one ear trained on the alternaqueer retro disco scene.) So for now neominimal’s the name of the Bay techno game. And that may be one to grow on. *

KONTROL

First Sat., 9 a.m.–6 a.m., $15

Endup

401 Sixth St., SF

(415) 646-0999

www.theendup.com

www.kontrolsf.com

MINUS RECORDS SHOWCASE

With DJs Richie Hawtin and Magda

Fri/1, 9 p.m.–2 a.m., $22

Mighty

119 Utah, SF

(415) 762-0151

www.mighty415.com

STAPLE

Second Fri., 9 p.m.–2 a.m., $10

Featuring DJ Mike Huckaby, June 8th

Rx Gallery

132 Eddy, SF

(415) 474-7973

www.rxgallery.com

www.staplemusic.net

STAPLE: SABOTAGE

Fourth Thu., 10 p.m.–2 a.m., Free

Anu

43 Sixth St., SF

(415) 543-3505

www.anu-bar.com

Thwang!

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I have always enjoyed having women walk all over me with lots of stomach stomping. Shoes, boots, or barefoot, this is something that I crave daily. Now my problem is that after doing this for most of my life, I just can’t seem to find women who are cruel enough. I try to select women who are 200-plus pounds, but even they leave me needing more (though it hurts like hell). I know my body can’t take much more, but I enjoy it. I just can’t get stomped hard enough. Am I out of control?

Love,

Stomp Me

Dear Stompy:

Dude.

I’d say you were a bit out of control if I believed any of this had ever escaped the realm of fantasy and stomped its way into the harsh light of day. You "try to select" women over 200 pounds, do you? From what pool of eager applicants would you be selecting them? And why would the cruelty quotient of the available pool be diminishing?

The only way you could regularly fulfill this fantasy is by engaging professionals, not that there’s anything wrong with that. There’s no shortage of large women (or reasonable facsimiles of women) who would be willing to do this for you as cruelly as desired. If that is how you’ve been scratching your itch and it really is getting harder to scratch, then you may indeed have some sort of satiety problem. If so, you’ll have to do what anyone else who’s built up too much of a tolerance to alcohol or heroin or any other abusable substance does: cut way down or quit it until you can indulge at a reasonable dosage again.

This isn’t harmless. So if you’re really doing it and not just flapping your face, I suggest that you keep an eye on how much weight you’re taking and where. I can’t believe that a gentleman with your proclivities has never heard Kirsty MacColl’s "In These Shoes?," a song that pulls off the not-inconsiderable trick of being both seductive and hilarious:

"Oh," he said.

"Won’t you walk up and down my spine,

It makes me feel strangely alive."

I said, "In these shoes?

I doubt you’d survive."

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I’m 21 and female and have always felt kind of indifferent about sex. I can enjoy it OK. I get horny as much as other people my age, as far as I can tell. It just isn’t that interesting to me.

I thought maybe I was gay, but I’ve experimented with women and nothing changed. Then recently I watched the movie Secretary, and it was like a revelation! I want the kind of relationship portrayed in that film — loving but desperately kinky. Do you think it is possible for BDSM to be an inbuilt kind of sexual preference, as unchangeable as homosexuality? And what happens if you suggest it to a boyfriend who hasn’t expressed any previous interest in it? I don’t want to scare anyone off.

Love,

Take a Letter

Dear Letter:

Indeed, but neither do you want to commit the sin of false advertising — passing yourself off as normal so as not to frighten the boat or rock the horses or whatever, only to send a man off screaming when you finally get around to telling him what you’re really after. It’s far less comfortable and a hell of a lot more work just to try to find a compatible fellow kink in the first place, but trust me here — it’s worth it.

As for kink as an inborn tendency like (most) homosexuality: Oh, hell yes, I think it’s possible. We all know people who’ve gone freaky for a while because it seemed for whatever reason to be the thing to do and then reverted, but for every trendoid there’s an earnest freak who can remember being the kid who always wanted to be the captive princess or the cowboy tied to the fence by wild Indians and was never all that enthusiastic about being rescued when the time came. I believe a lot of people can enjoy a little role play or think it’s fun to get tied up prettily and tickled or teased, but people can enjoy a little of all kinds of things. If you see something like Secretary and feel the deep and unmistakable thwang of a chord being struck way deep in your soul, I think you can trust that that cord was there all along awaiting striking.

I can’t help wondering just how many such strikings that movie is singularly responsible for. I thought it was sizzling hot myself, but I think the writer and producers have a lot to answer for. I get the feeling there were a lot of people, young women in particular but not exclusively, who were just going about their lives, la la la, and then James Spader bent Maggie Gyllenhaal over that desk, and thwang! They’ll never be the same.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

Hole in the street

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› news@sfbg.com

It was warmer than usual that Saturday morning in Golden Gate Park. Peter Cummings woke up behind a bush, took his shirt and shoes off, put on his headphones, and staggered down the hill with a bottle of whiskey and a big smile on his bearded, dirt-stained face. He sat down on the bench at Stanyan and Hayes and greeted passersby in his usual charmingly rambunctious way. For the past seven years, this had more or less been his daily routine.

The only thing that made this day different was the food and the heroin. That morning Cummings skipped breakfast. He usually went to the corner deli to buy some bread and soup, but not this particular Saturday. Then, around 2 p.m., a couple guys walking down the hill found Cummings convulsing in a quiet nook behind a fallen log. One of them gave him CPR and a Narcan shot, and a couple others ran across the street to St. Mary’s Medical Center to get the paramedics. But it was too late.

Hundreds of homeless people die every year in San Francisco, and many of them leave our world silently and with little impact on the city. But the loss of this particular alcoholic, bipolar, homeless man changed the landscape of one San Francisco neighborhood. As Gavin Newsom’s administration aggressively pursues its 10-year plan to abolish chronic homelessness, this man’s legacy shows how someone living in the park may actually be a good thing — if not for himself, then at least for the community.

"He watched out for me," Cirrus Blaafjell, who lives in the neighborhood, told the Guardian. "Some of the guys would harass me when I came out here at night to walk the dogs, and Pete would yell at them, ‘Leave her alone. She’s a nice person!’" When University of San Francisco student Amanda Anderson was followed through the park one day by a seedy character, Cummings launched his own inquiry. "Who tried to hurt Amanda? I’m gonna beat his ass when I find him!" Cummings yelled into the trees.

Even certain city officials agree. "He did seem to keep all the other drunks in line," Officer John Andrews of the San Francisco Police Department told us. "A lot of times when we had a problem, he’d come around and say, ‘Hey, Andrews, we’re taking care of things. Don’t worry.’ If someone was really intoxicated, he’d take them into the bushes. And he never argued with anyone."

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development considers people to be chronically homeless if they’re alone, disabled, and have been sleeping on the streets or in shelters for a year straight or intermittently for three years. Newsom’s initiatives aim to put all 3,000 chronically homeless residents of San Francisco into permanent homes by 2014. "It’s a concept based on Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point," Angela Alioto, the chairperson of the 10-year plan, explained. "If you take care of those who are the most chronic and use the most resources first, you will tip the scale of the whole problem."

But the Coalition on Homelessness, a nonprofit advocacy group, disagrees. "The phrase chronically homeless is misleading," director Juan Prada told us. "Chronic makes you think of general health issues, so you create an impression that homelessness is a condition. We see homelessness as a systemic failure to address poverty and the lack of housing."

Cummings, who lived in the park for the past seven years, was definitely chronically homeless. But had he survived another seven years to see the mayor’s initiative come to fruition, he may not have ever accepted the helping hand. "I live here by choice," Cummings once told me. "I have money, I have a place to go. I just like it here."

The corner of Stanyan and Hayes is almost never quiet. Belligerent drunks, ambulances speeding to the emergency room half a block north, and road-raged drivers blaring their horns at a badly designed left turn are part of the daily ruckus. Cops show up regularly. "People would call us about trash and shopping carts or about drunks yelling and screaming and fighting each other," Andrews told us. "And you have all types of guys up there in the horseshoe pit."

Hidden amid the trees in the northeast corner of Golden Gate Park, the horseshoe pit is known as a gathering place for hardcore drug users. Nothing remains of its original incarnation except some rusty equipment and a faded life-size mural of a horse. Today it’s a haphazard jumble of used needles, sleeping bags, and seedy characters often too messed up to talk. Despite having this hub as his home, Cummings stayed relatively drug-free for the past four years. And between his Veterans Affairs and Social Security checks, he was bringing home about $3,000 a month. Instead of paying rent, Cummings used his income to buy liquor for himself and food for everyone in the park. "Where does all my money go?" he used to ask people walking their dogs as his friends munched on hot dogs and piroshkis on the grass behind him.

"He used to buy cartons of milk and leave them quietly next to people who he thought would need it," remembers Jerry, a 52-year-old chronically homeless man and one of Cummings’s best friends.

Cummings kept his past well hidden from his park friends, but when he died, dozens of people in the Upper Haight–North Panhandle area came out with stories about him from the past two decades, back to a time when he was sober, happily married, and a model member of the community.

"People used to call him the mayor of Cole Valley," said Jacob Black, a cab driver. "He knew everybody in town."

Cummings was born in Melrose, Mass., on March 11, 1954. He lived there with his parents and two siblings until his father, an engineer at a forklift company, was transferred to Oregon in 1971. "[Peter] picked on me a lot, but I always outsmarted him," younger brother Rick Cummings, who is a sales rep in the health care industry, told us. "It was a typical brotherly thing." Cummings joined the Coast Guard at age 20 and developed a lifelong love for the ocean while stationed in Hawaii and Guam. He was honorably discharged in 1978 when he injured his knee on an open hatch cover.

For the next couple years, Cummings wandered around Northern California, growing pot and mushrooms in the mountains and sleeping on the beach. "He always attacked me for my middle-class, suburban lifestyle," Rick says. "He never wanted that." For most of the ’80s, Cummings lived under a seedy bridge in downtown Portland, with a heroin addiction and early symptoms of bipolar disorder. He ended up in San Francisco, where he decided to give sobriety a shot. As Rick said, "He had it together enough mentally to know that he had to either get cleaned up or die."

Once in San Francisco, Cummings took lithium for his bipolar disorder, joined Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, and by all accounts stayed sober for almost 14 years. For the first time in his adult life, everything was going really well. He got married to a beautiful Peruvian woman, rented an apartment in Cole Valley, bought a used Jaguar and a Boston whaler, which he took out for salmon fishing in the bay, and was constantly surrounded by a solid group of friends. He even worked as a drug rehab counselor at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.

Cummings was known among AA and NA circles as a handsome, spiritual role model with a killer sense of humor who always brought fresh fish to barbecues. "When I got sober, I was living on the streets and hated life," friend Dana Scheer says. "Pete reached out to me as he did to countless people. He was like a sober guru to me — I knew him as a very stable, rock-solid person."

Then, around 1998, things started to go downhill. His AA sponsor died of cancer; his wife left him; and the VA screwed up his bipolar meds. Cummings became increasingly isolated. He stopped attending meetings and moved out of the Haight, first to work as a building manager in SoMa and then to pursue a love interest in Mill Valley. "I went over to visit him one day, and he was drinking Coors," Scheer says. "This was my mentor from AA, so it was a little bit shocking." When Scheer left that evening, Cummings gave her a few of his belongings, including a stack of blankets. "I thought that was significant, because he always took care of me," Scheer says. "Blankets symbolize warmth and comfort, and he had always given me that. That was the last time I saw him before he ended up on the street again."

Cummings returned to the Haight around 2000, but this time he was drunk and high and incoherent. "When you’re that kind of addict, you don’t just start drinking a little wine," Scheer says. Cummings eventually ended up at the horseshoe pit, where he was reunited with some old AA friends who had also relapsed. And that’s where he lived for the last seven years of his life.

Despite recent city efforts to abolish camping in Golden Gate Park, Cummings continued to live in the bushes, often changing location to avoid getting caught. "It’s completely illegal for people to live in the park," Rose Dennis, director of communications at San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department, told us. "But if you’ve been on the streets for seven years, you become resilient."

Alioto told us she has no problem with homeless people not wanting a roof over their heads. "If a person truly wanted to live on the street, there is nothing we can or should do," she told us. "They have a constitutional right to live and travel."

On the outside, Cummings the homeless guy was nothing like Cummings the sober guru, but he continued to help people with drug and alcohol problems. "Peter helped a lot of kids get out of bad situations," Jerry told us. "He was in the Coast Guard, so he knew all the vital signs. He saved a lot of lives, including mine — twice. I owe him a pair of Levi’s from the time I bled all over his after falling down a 30-foot cliff."

Cummings apparently overdosed just a few feet south of the horseshoe pit that had seduced him back into this lifestyle. The week after Cummings died, the Hayes entrance of Golden Gate Park was eerily quiet. "The park is like a cemetery," Jerry said with tears in his eyes. "Everyone’s walking around like corpses." His homeless friends scattered to mourn the loss of a friend and source of nourishment in their own way. "When you’re living on the streets, people are dying left and right," Scheer says. "And when that happens, you just want to get loaded and forget about everything."

Residents of the North Panhandle didn’t have a reason to stop here anymore either." I used to sit on the bench and just talk to him," Christian Blaafjell says. "He was crazy, but he was great. I miss him." Even Andrews is well aware of the impact Cummings’s passing will have on the community. "He was the leader of this pack," he says. "I don’t know what’s going to happen to these guys over here." He pauses. "Hopefully, they’ll leave."

The sight of Cummings limping down Hayes Street might have looked bad for the city, but the services he offered to its most fallen people were indispensable. "Maybe he was just doing his job," says James Warren, a friend from Cummings’s AA days. "Maybe what he learned from the program, he took to the streets. Pete took his legacy, generosity, love, and compassion back to the streets so that they might know that there was a better place and that he’d been there. I know I wouldn’t have made it through if it wasn’t for him." *

Peter S. Cummings died May 5 in San Francisco. He is survived by his parents, Richard and Nancy; his sister, Pam; his brother, Rick; and dozens of friends.

About those whales …

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By Tim Redmond

Yeah, I’m all for saving the whales and I even worked for Greenpeace once. But I have to say: Coast Guard boats and helicopters. Camera crews from all over. Front-page headlines. Tens of thousands of dollars, maybe millions of dollars, spent on two wayward whales that at this point will probably die anyway.

That’s a lot more attention than anyone pays to the homeless people who wander the streets of San Francisco and die just about every week of every year. Kids sicker than that whale calf could use just a tiny bit of that money we’re spending in the Sacramento River.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the whales. But let’s have some perspective here.

Holdin’ the weight of the Bay

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Still looks like slavery

But it’s the black legacy

Mistah FAB, "100 Bars"

One night last September, I hitch a ride with G-Stack of the Delinquents and Dotrix of Tha Mekanix to Dem Hoodstarz’s album release party in San Francisco. As we park outside the club, Mistah FAB rolls up with a modest posse. In contrast to his usual iced-out Technicolor clubwear, the man also known as Fabby Davis Jr. is low-key, dressed all in black, a pair of designer stunna shades supplying the main clue to his identity. He hops in Stack’s car to hear a newly laid track for the latter’s upcoming Purple Hood, then we set out for the club, a less than half block journey whose distance is lengthened interminably by a series of well-wishers and business consultations. It’s like following two CEOs across the floor of the stock exchange: Stack is on two cell phones, trying to shake hands with someone. FAB, meanwhile, handles minor transactions, poses for a photo, and takes a call, all while briefing me on the deal he had just signed with Atlantic Records for Da Yellow Bus Rydah, the much-anticipated follow-up to his 2005 disc, Son of a Pimp (Thizz Ent.).

Near the door, a man takes FAB aside. "FAB, you gotta do something about the violence," he says, meaning specifically the 141 homicides in Oakland in 2006 under former mayor and present attorney general Jerry Brown. FAB nods at what is clearly an unreasonable request, albeit one that reflects the disproportionate political burden borne by black entertainers in America. No one would turn to, say, Justin Timberlake to stop violence. Then again, I imagine no one asks Keak Da Sneak either. FAB’s position, in other words, is unique.

Though he made his early reputation as a freestyle battle rhymer and owes his success to hyphy hits like "Super Sic Wit It," FAB’s lyrics seldom stray into gangsta or pimp terrain — the title of his last album is simply literal. Yet he can get down on a track with the most thugged-out MCs. Aside from the giants Too $hort and E-40 and on par with the perpetually hot Keak, FAB is the rapper all Bay Area rappers want on their albums, because he has the biggest buzz on the radio and in the streets. His popularity gives him influence, but FAB commands respect in the hood because he’s from the hood: his compass-based hit "N.E.W. Oakland" was the first major rap recognition of his native North Oakland as a hood. This rapport with the alienated and isolated ghetto youth who constitute hyphy’s core audience separates him from the vast majority of MCs to whom the label "conscious" may be applied.

"You go up to someone in the hood and be, like, ‘Dick Cheney had a heart attack,’ they be, like, ‘Who the fuck is Dick Cheney?’" FAB says later. "But you tell him, ‘Jay-Z donated a million dollars to improve water in Africa,’ they be, like, ‘For real?’ That’s something of their world. Being a Bay Area artist, I’m of their world. So you have the opportunity to teach without them knowing."

"People who have influence," FAB continues, "have an obligation to tell people, ‘Preserve life. Save lives. Help lives.’ But it’s hard to reach people if you’re not giving them something they relate to. The hyphy movement is something they relate to. Hyphy gets you in the door, to open their ears to what I’m saying. It’s up to them to digest it."

That night at the club, FAB exerts his influence. When things get salty between security and Dem Hoodstarz’s East Palo Alto associates, the group calls FAB to the stage to perform their collaboration "Ugh." Things chill out. FAB issues an impromptu plea against violence and murders. These are problems no single person can solve, but FAB is doing his part. Yet by the show’s finale — the "Getz Ya Grown Man On" remix, on which he has a verse — Fabby Davis has left the building. Being Mistah FAB, I realize, can be exhausting.

FOLLOW THE YELLOW BUS ROAD


Mistah FAB’s deal with Atlantic is a landmark in a scene long neglected by the majors. Along with Clyde Carson’s signing with Capitol, FAB’s arrangement — including distribution for his Faeva Afta Entertainment — is the first serious acknowledgment of the renaissance Bay Area rap has undergone in the past three years. Unlike E-40, a regional star who’d already achieved putf8um sales on Jive before his push last year by Warner Bros., FAB’s an unknown quantity outside the Bay. And in contrast to Frontline or the Federation — whose deals came through the respective backing of nationally known producers E-A-Ski and Rick Rock — FAB is the first evidence for a new generation of local rappers that enough talent and dedication can get you signed. It’s another weight on the shoulders of the man born Stanley Cox Jr.

"Lots of people are putting their hopes into the album," he acknowledges. "They’re, like, ‘I hope FAB do it, because it’ll kick in the door for all of us.’ I realized when I was creating this album it’s not just something I want to do. It’s something my whole region depends on."

Da Yellow Bus Rydah‘s journey has been anything but smooth, however. Bottom line: Atlantic has postponed the album’s tentatively scheduled spring release, due to controversy surrounding the Ghostbusters-themed advance single, "Ghost Ride It." A tribute to the hood-invented practice of throwing your car in neutral as you walk alongside and steer, "Ghost Ride It" was generating a buzz through its a video on YouTube and the minor-league MTVs when a Dec. 29, 2006, Associated Press story ("Hip-Hop Car Stunt Leaves 2 Dead") linked the song with a pair of unrelated deaths: Davender Gulley, 18, of Stockton, who "died after his head slammed into a parked car while he was hanging out the window of an SUV," and an unnamed "36-year-old man dancing on top of a moving car [who] fell off, hit his head and died in what authorities said was Canada’s first ghost riding fatality." While the scant details obscure whether these incidents stemmed from ghost riding or more traditional automotive horseplay, Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes found the trend alarming enough to call FAB on the carpet in January.

"You understand that a lot of kids look up to you?" Sean Hannity accused rather than asked FAB. "They sing your songs. They dress like you. They talk like you — they wanna be you!" Aside from displaying an oversimplified sense of the relationship between artist and audience, Hannity’s remark reveals a comic lack of familiarity with hip-hop and their guest in particular: what part of "Super Sic Wit It" do you sing? Moreover, while rap fans undoubtedly draw from the same well of slang, the idea that they all talk the same — or even like FAB, for that matter — is a stereotype.

"I don’t think they expected me to be so articulate," FAB recalls with a laugh. Yet among MCs, FAB is singular interview subject. While he has a clear sense of his talent and importance, he’s more apt to discuss his personal relationship with God or how his lonely childhood as a latchkey kid inspired him to create rather than brag about how real he is. His power to articulate the struggle of urban youth — to explain the rage that motivates, say, ghost riding — is the very reason he’s often labeled the spokesperson for a hyphy movement otherwise devoted to "going dumb."

Hannity treated FAB like he’s dumb, but FAB turned the tables. Hannity’s denunciation of his effect on the "kids" prompted the rapper to question whether his influence rightly extends to a Canadian 11 years his senior, which Hannity countered by accusing FAB of wanting as much "money and controversy" as he can get. When FAB speculated on the influence of turning on the TV and seeing 3,000 soldiers die in Iraq, Alan Colmes was sent in as a balm, ending the segment.

"Both those people were adults," FAB says later of the ghost-riding deaths. "I feel bad for the families, but at the end of the day, an adult has to take responsibility for his actions."

GHOSTBUSTED


The next pothole for Yellow Bus was a late March cease and desist letter from Columbia Pictures for copyright infringement in the "Ghost Ride It" video — just as it was about to debut on MTV’s 106 and Park. "We had permission [to use the Ghostbusters van] from the man who built it and owns it," FAB explains. "But Columbia owns the logo." The video was immediately pulled from all media outlets, impairing Atlantic’s ability to market the single nationally. As a result, the Yellow Bus has been parked. The official explanation, from Atlantic VP Mike Carin, is that the label is focusing on FAB’s "artistic development." Despite the inevitable rumor that the rapper was dropped, Carin confirms that "the deal is still in place."

Still, such delays have silenced many MCs’ buzz: witness how the delay of Raekwon’s album on Aftermath has converted excitement into skepticism, or how the Team’s World Premiere (Moedoe/Koch, 2006) dropped too long after its singles had peaked, leading to lower-than-expected sales. Fortunately, the structure of FAB’s distribution deal allows him an unusual degree of freedom.

"They were willing to sacrifice certain things," he says of his initial decision to sign with Atlantic among competing offers. "They allowed me to do what I want to do — if I want to drop an independent album, I can."

ENTER DA BAYDESTRIAN


This flexibility has allowed the prolific FAB to immediately walk out another new album, Da Baydestrian, on May 15, through SMC/Fontana. Although, according to SMC cofounder Will Bronson, Atlantic has options to include as many as five of its songs on Yellow Bus, Baydestrian is an otherwise distinct project intended to satisfy the demand for a follow-up to Son of a Pimp. FAB’s also preparing a series of summer releases, including a second installment of the all-freestyle Tonite Show with DJ Fresh. (Fresh, incidentally, edited FAB’s 2005 DVD, The Freestyle King, now packaged with Baydestrian as a bonus.) With Beeda Weeda and J-Stalin, representing the East and West respectively, FAB’s formed the multihood group N.E.W. Oakland, whose mixtape is nearing completion. Prince of Da Bay (In Yo Face/Hooker Boy Filmz), a documentary on FAB by local hip-hop director Dame Hooker, should be out by press time, while FAB’s next DVD, Shoobalaboobie TV, is in the works.

"You do what you have to do to keep the buzz going," FAB says. "Also sales — on the independent level, your numbers are what’s important [to major labels]." Da Baydestrian thus has Atlantic’s blessing, but its commercial success will determine the fate of his deal.

Yet the need to appeal to the marketplace hasn’t inhibited FAB’s creativity, and Da Baydestrian refuses to play it safe. Rather than exploit the hyphy sound he helped establish, FAB only sprinkles it in, most obviously on the remix of the Traxamillion-produced "Sideshow" and the opening title track, one of six bangers produced by FAB protégé Rob-E. The young Martinez-born producer proves his versatility on tracks like the triumphant "Get This Together" and the melancholy "Life on Track," featuring Faeva Afta vocalist J-Nash, whose Hyphy Love drops in August. Another four productions by Son of a Pimp collaborator Genessee contribute to Baydestrian‘s in-house feel even as the family breaks new ground: "Can’t Wait," say, evokes Andre 3000’s explorations of go-go, filtered through FAB’s hyphy sensibility, while "Shorty Tryin’ 2 Get By" is a contemporary "Keep Ya Head Up" spiced with Bay Area R&B. The album is refreshingly free of skits, and guest stars are kept to a minimum, but Too $hort blesses the disc three times, an unambiguous stamp of approval from Bay rap’s founder.

What makes Da Baydestrian one of the most extraordinary albums since hyphy’s inception, however, is its social consciousness. "Deepest Thoughts," for example, hits out at President George W. Bush, but even more pointedly at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for expanding the prison system instead of aiding the poor. The Sean T–produced "Crack Baby Anthem" addresses teen dope dealers, seeking to uplift without castigating or glorifying their activities — for the nonghetto audience, the song connects the dots between poverty, crime, and the present political climate. FAB describes his approach as "hip-hyphy," presenting an alternative to hip-hop fans who consider hyphy juvenile or incomprehensible. Granted, the disc’s school bus and helmet imagery — referring to the hyphy concept of acting "retarded" — is hardly p.c. Nonetheless, FAB’s lunchbox-wielding Baydestrian is a welcome change from the exaltation of guns and dope adorning your average rap album.

"In no way am I trying to say I’m like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X," FAB explains. "But I realized I could create nonsense and seem to support ignorance, or I can get people to start looking at the reality of it, and the reality of it is that young blacks are dying, not only in the Bay; they’re dying everywhere. We’ve been raised in a warlike civilization. We’ve been brainwashed to accept war as the proper thing to do when things don’t go right."

"Tupac [Shakur] said it himself," FAB concludes. "He said, ‘I’m not going to be the one to change the world. But I guarantee I’ll plant a seed in the mind of someone who does.’ We’re all the Tupac generation. Pac was hyphy."

While I don’t think it’s my place to declare FAB the next Tupac, I can’t fail to be struck by his invocation of the Bay Area icon. On a superficial level, of course, with all his non-thugged-out, cartoonish imagery, FAB is nothing like Pac, just as the hyphy movement differs from the Bay’s mid-’90s sound. Yet locally, if not nationally, the two rappers occupy the same position on the map of hip-hop: like Pac, FAB has cred with nearly everyone, he has a positive message within an utterly street aesthetic, and he makes tunes everyone wants to hear. No rapper has embodied all three attributes since Pac, and that combination makes FAB extraordinary. *

09 F9

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION I have a number, and therefore I am a free person. That’s the message more than a million protesters across the Internet have been broadcasting throughout the month of May as they publish the 128-bit number familiarly known as 09 F9. Why would so many people create MySpace accounts using this number, devote a Wikipedia entry to it, post it thousands of times on news-finding site Digg, share pictures of it on photo site Flickr, and emblazon it on T-shirts?

They’re doing it to protest kids being threatened with jail by entertainment companies. They’re doing it to protest bad art, bad business, and bad uses of good technology. They’re doing it because they want to watch Spider-Man 3 on their Linux machines.

In case you don’t know, 09 F9 is part of a key that unlocks the encryption codes on HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVDs. Only a handful of DVD players are authorized to play these discs, and if you don’t own one of them, you can’t watch Spidey in high definition — even if you purchase the DVD lawfully and aren’t doing any copying. For many in the tech community, this encryption scheme, known as the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), felt like a final slap in the face from an entertainment industry whose recording branch sues kids for downloading music and whose movie branch makes crappy sequels that you can’t even watch on your good Linux computer (you guessed it — not authorized).

When a person going by the screen name arnezami managed to uncover and publish the AACS key in February, other people immediately began reposting it. They did it because they’re media consumers angry about the AACS and they wanted Hollywood and the world to know that they don’t need no stinkin’ authorized players. That’s when the Motion Picture Association of America and the AACS Licensing Administrator (AACS LA) started sending out the cease and desist letters. Lawyers for the AACS LA argued that the number could be used to circumvent copy protection measures on DVDs and posting it was therefore a violation of the anticircumvention clauses in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They targeted blogs and social networks with cease and desists, even sending notice to Google that the search engine should stop returning results for people searching for the AACS key (as of this writing, Google returns nearly 1.5 million pages containing it).

While some individuals complied with the AACS LA, in many cases community sentiment was so overwhelming that it was impossible to quell the tide of hexadecimal madness. Popular news site Digg tried to take down articles containing the number, and for a while it appeased the AACS LA. But Digg is a social network whose content is determined by millions of people, and as soon as Digg staffers took down one number, it would pop up in hundreds of other places. At last Digg’s founder, Kevin Rose, gave up and told the community that if Digg got sued, it’d go down fighting. Many other sites, such as Wikipedia and Wired.com, deliberately published the number in articles, daring the AACS LA to sue them. Sites like MySpace and LiveJournal are also rife with the number — like Digg, these sites are made up entirely of user content, and it would be practically impossible for administrators to scrub the number out.

The AACS key protests have become so popular because they reach far beyond the usual debates over copyright infringement. This isn’t about my right to copy movies — it’s about my right to play movies on whatever machine I want to. The AACS scheme is the perfect planned obsolescence generator. It will absolutely force people to upgrade their existing DVD players because soon they won’t be authorized to play new DVDs. Even worse, the AACS scheme allows movie companies to revoke authorized status for players. Already, the AACS LA has revoked the authorized status of the WinDVD media player, so anybody who invested in WinDVD will have to reinvest in a new player — at least, until that player’s authorized status is revoked too.

The AACS, more than any other digital rights management scheme, has revealed that the Hollywood studios have formed a cartel with electronics manufacturers who will do anything to suck more money out of the public. If you want to watch lawfully purchased movies, the only sane thing to do is post the number. Stand up and be counted. *

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who can’t help but notice that you’re reading this column on a nonauthorized device.

Czech, please!

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

A faltering economy is the biggest threat to most national film industries, but Czechoslovakia’s had a more distinct misfortune: it was shut down by occupation forces not once but twice. Most famously, the 1960s Czech new wave, in which talents like Jirí Menzel, Ivan Passer, Vera Chytilová, and Milos Forman first flourished, was abruptly dammed by the 1968 Soviet invasion. The type of widespread film-buff culture that brought attention to those directors scarcely existed when — before the Nazis commandeered local studios and permitted only a handful of strictly escapist films to be made for the home market — the country’s cinema had its first golden age.

Before World War II, Czechoslovakia boasted one of the most adventurous and lively — if not widely exported — movie industries in the world. Of course, this meant there was room for a lot of populist fluff. But the 12 features in the Pacific Film Archive’s new series "Czech Modernism, 1926–1949" show why Nazi invaders sensed a celluloid threat: these films are full of playful social critique as well as imaginative stylistic leaps. They assume that an audience is intelligent and that it will enjoy the subversion of authority. These films don’t provide pacification, let alone propaganda.

As playwright and Velvet Underground fan turned president Václav Havel would suggest some decades later, Czech life — at least the urban variety — has long appreciated the intersection of the avant-garde and leftist politics. The region’s geographic location, between the sophisticated capitalist West and the stylistically impoverished Communist USSR, at times seems directly reflected in these films’ colliding influences, from German expressionism to Soviet formalism to an Erich von Stroheim–esque attitude decadence.

The series’ two movies by director Vladislav Vancura apply a mad stylistic energy to subjects that might easily have been played for simple melodrama or pathos. In 1933’s On the Sunny Side, a pair of city children whose friendship bridges the class divide end up dumped in an orphanage when their parents are deemed unfit: first it’s fatherless, accordion-playing Honza, then pigtailed Babula, whose womanizing dad has just bankrupted the family. Frenetic montages contrast the adult worlds of poor and rich, cutting between breadlines and champagne-guzzling flappers. At the progressive home for foundlings, by contrast, equality is ensured by self-government — as a collective, the kids are better able to look after their own welfare than the grown-ups who’ve failed them.

Vancura’s Faithless Marijka, from the next year, is set in the Carpathian Mountains, with local nonprofessional actors as the leads. But it’s no sylvan idyll. The supposedly central tale of a lumberjack’s cheating spouse is nearly lost amid the struggles of laborers to triumph over their greedy oppressors (whose ranks include a disturbing anti-Semitic caricature).

A similar mix of poetic naturalism and Eisensteinian montage marks Karl Junghans’s 1929 silent Such Is Life. Its titular shrug downplays a vigorous look at some ordinary Prague residents, notably a put-upon laundry worker (Vera Baranovskaya, who played the title character of Vsevolod Pudovkin’s 1926 Mother), her loutish husband, and a manicurist daughter pretty enough to attract major trouble. Similar perils await two office girls lured into a lecherous nightlife in 1931’s From Saturday to Sunday, by Gustav Machatý, who would create an international sensation with Hedy Lamarr’s nude swim in Ecstasy two years later. This time romance rather than lust prevails as the more innocent secretary flees a grabby grandpa and winds up meeting her pure-hearted lower-class match.

Mistrust toward the rich and powerful was also a frequent theme in the era’s Hollywood films, in an attempt to please American audiences suffering though the Great Depression, which in turn triggered Czechoslovakia’s economic hardship. But the criticism in such films was usually glib, the solutions fanciful. Not so here. It’s eye-opening to watch a popular hit like Martin Fric’s 1934 Heave Ho!, widely regarded as the best effort from local comedy team Jirí Voskovec and Jan Werich.

Werich plays a dissolute multimillionaire informed one day that his stocks are worthless and he’s broke. Teaming with an unemployed laborer (Voskovec) who’d ranted against factory-shutting fat cats on the radio (before being dragged off), he discovers — after making a mess of various odd jobs — that he’s inherited a huge building. Unfortunately, it’s just a bunch of steel girders, so the penniless duo hit on the scheme of collectivizing construction with other indigent workers, who’ll have a home when it’s finished. Naturally, corporate types try to thwart this truly free enterprise, but they are treated to the ol’ titular gesture. A socialist semimusical with sight gags and assorted silliness, this sure ain’t Gold Diggers of 1933. *

CZECH MODERNISM, 1926–1949

Through June 24; see Rep Clock for schedule; $4–$8

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-1124

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Ends meet

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I’m married to the woman of my dreams and the love of my life. My problem is that with women in the past I’ve always really enjoyed doing it doggy-style. I find it a total visual-animal turn-on, and of course there’s the physical pleasure of the position itself … need I say more? My problem is that my wife and I have never been able to get into the position because of our configuration (I’m tall; she’s short). And though it doesn’t bother her, I definitely miss being able to do it that way. I wonder if other couples have this problem and if you have any suggestions.

Love,

Mismatched

Dear Mis:

Yes, they do (of course!), and yes, I do (likewise). Size-discordant couples are common enough — just look around you — that people make products for precisely this problem. Do your part for the economy and go buy something.

I don’t know what happened to the people who made me accept samples of the quite nicely made but incredibly bulky foam wedges and blocks (about the size of my apartment’s closet) meant to enhance one’s sex life by better aligning tab A with slot B, but there are other such products out there. I could never really get into the set I had, anyway, after we used them to prop up a massively wounded leg we happened to have in the family at the time, so I gave them away.

A search on "sex pillows" or "sex position pillows" brings up a number of products, some of them inflatable, which would solve the storage problem. Most sites advertise by draping a pneumatic blond upside down over the product so her hair responds to gravity but her breasts do not, but that can’t be helped. Well, it can, actually: the other place to get wedges, blocks, and bolsters meant to prop up body parts at particular angles is the medical supply warehouse, which is depressing in quite a different way. Your call. Either source should get you something you can work with. Good doggie! I mean, good luck.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

My boyfriend isn’t circumcised, and we can’t get a condom to stay on. It’s not for lack of trying: we went through a whole box and even consulted Internet diagrams, with no success. They just wouldn’t go or stay on. So we both got tested, and I went on the pill. While I was there, my doctor lectured me on why I should use condoms, and I explained my situation. He said any condom should fit on any penis at anytime. Are we stupid? Is there a trick?

Love,

Misfit

Dear Mis:

Does "find a new doctor" count as a trick? Anyone who’s ever been a child can remember how it felt to be lectured without being listened to and how one either tuned out ("wah wah wah," went the grown-ups in the Peanuts specials) or made sure to do whatever was exactly opposite the ordered behavior. It’s kind of funny when doctors act this way harmlessly (for example, insisting that my lesbian friend use a condom every time and take a pregnancy test before getting a new prescription), but what about when someone really might be at risk and doesn’t want to tell the doctor because he or she hates getting lectured? How about that, huh?

Anyway. Your question didn’t end up where I thought it was going, considering where it started. Most uncirc’d men who have problems with condoms either can’t get the thing on to begin with or complain of getting bits of themselves caught in a fold of the rubber and going thwap like a window shade in a Warner Bros. cartoon. I’m not even sure how, exactly, a condom is supposed to fall off of something as essentially beflanged as an uncut penis, unless … unless … it’s just too big all round.

You’ve obviously tried long and hard, as it were, and I hate not to give you credit for your efforts, but if all the condoms came from the same box, it doesn’t count. He needs to order a sampler and start trying things on. We women have to do that every time we want to buy a stupid T-shirt, and the guys have it easy with their small, medium, and large. Think of it as his turn having to mess with sizes and styles. Start with something labeled "snugger fit," which on the condom sites is always carefully couched as a matter of preference and not brute biological necessity, so it shouldn’t be too dispiriting.

Then again, counterintuitive but not out of the question: they’re not too big; they’re too tight, like a pair of ill-fitting panty hose that can’t quite make it past your hips to snug in at your waist, so they keep rolling down, and you have to spend the entire day semisurreptitiously yanking them back up. Not that such a thing would ever happen to me or, I hope, you.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

SFSYO: Celebrating 25 years of serving the community and kicking ass

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By Molly Freedenberg

It’s rare that a youth orchestra performs Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 9, the one famous for being created after he went deaf (and also for being considered one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.) But the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, who will present the symphony on Sunday, May 20, is no ordinary youth orchestra.SFSYObridge.jpg

No, this ensemble of 100 culturally diverse musicians ranging in age from 12 to 21 is considered one of the finest of its kind in the world. And that’s not just because it’s been providing tuition-free orchestral experience to youth for 25 years. It’s because the experience these kids are getting is a world-class, pre-professional caliber musical education. (After all, how often do you think youth orchestras get to work with Yo-Yo Ma and Isaac Stern the way SFSYO has? Answer: almost never.)

It’s basically a guarantee then, that Sunday’s 25th Anniversary concert will amaze and impress – especially considering the performance will include Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus and four San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows as soloists. Oh yeah, and Colin McPhee’s Tabuh-Tabuhan, a work inspired by Indonesian gamelan music (you know, more of the usual youth orchestra fare…)

SFS YOUTH ORCHESTRA 25TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT (including post-concert reception and anniversary exhibit)
May 20, 2 p.m.
$10 general, $75 reserved
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, SF
(415) 864-6000
sfsymphony.org

An American Sahara

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MEXICO CITY (May 15th) – Mexico’s arid north – 54% of the nation’s land surface – is drying out and blowing away in the wind at an alarming rate as desertification transforms this always-hardscrabble terrain into an American Sahara.

According to the National Commission on Arid and Semi-arid Lands, semi-arid land is being converted to arid wasteland at the rate of 2% a year. Fragile aquifers are sucked dry and erosion turn once-tillable land into sand dunes. Subsistence farmers abandon their plots and jump into the migration stream. Even the native peoples who have lived on this difficult land for millenniums are deserting the desert.

NASA satellite overflights of the northern states of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon, Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora and the Baja California peninsula now show spreading swatches of bone-white, waterless desert, inhospitable bad lands that can no longer support human communities.

But the North is not the only region of Mexico that is drying up. National Water Commission (CONAGUA) studies indicate that 38 Mexican cities, including the luxury resorts of Acapulco and Cancun, are running out of water and could be dry in a decade. Carlos Gay, director of the National Autonomous University Climate Study Center, anticipates a 20% decrease in rainfall by 2080 in Mexico’s two wettest states, Chiapas and Quintana Roo, on the southern border.

At the other end of the nation in the desiccated north, it hardly ever rains anymore. The Laguna region, 10 municipalities in Coahuila state and five in Durango, receives the least rainfall in the Mexico – 244 millimeters annually – and has the highest rate of evaporation. Rescued from the desert by the collectivization of the land and construction of vast hydraulic projects under depression-era president Lazaro Cardenas, the Laguna was once Mexico’ leading cotton growing region. Now, devastated by dried-up wells and soils that have been contaminated by agri-chemicals, the desert is reclaiming La Laguna.

One key reason for this tragic desertification: the re-privatization of land and water resources and their over-exploitation by Mexican and transnational Agribusiness. Perhaps the most notorious offender is the dairy giant Lala – owner Eduardo Tricio Haro’s herds of 200,000 cows exhaust the carrying capacity of this fragile land. Industry insiders calculate that it takes a thousand liters of water to concoct one liter of milk. Lala – which sells more than half its production to Liconsa, the national milk distribution agency – is the source of one out of every two glasses of milk gulped down in this thirsty nation.

For the past six years, as director of CONAGUA, Clemente Jaime Jarquez, an old crony of ex-president Vicente Fox since their days at Coca Cola (Fox was the director of Mexican operations) presided over the systematic draining of the Laguna’s aquifers to benefit Tricio Haro and Lala. Now the National Water Commission is turning its attention to the neighboring Cuatrocienegas international biosphere where Lala has been granted permits to drill 250 wells – 80 of which are already in operation. Clemente Jaime Jarquez was, of course, the former CEO of the Lala Corporation.

Cuatrocienegas water is precious. The biosphere was once under the sea and its secrets date back to the Jurassic age. Indeed, microorganisms native to the region’s land and water are so unique that the biosphere has been dubbed Mexico’s Galapagos by scientists. Last July, UNAM biologist Valeria Sauza discovered that since the water agency authorized the drilling of Lala’s wells, 70% of the aquifers in some valleys have vanished and the geology of the region, which for 35,000 years remained unaltered, is turning into desert.

Lala is certainly not the only corporate entity that is draining Mexico dry. In Sonora, a border state whose badlands blend into the brutal Arizona desert, Governor Eduardo Bours, Mexico’s chicken king, has permits that allow his Bachocho corporation (the major supplier for Pepsico’s KFC) to exploit 600 million liters annually in a largely waterless state. Fox’s old stomping ground, the Coca Cola Corporation of Atlanta Georgia, sucks up ground water that could otherwise provide two liters a day for 14.5 million Mexicans, to formulate its noxious brew. In San Cristobal de las Casas Chiapas, “La Coca” sucks up five liters every second from the Huitepec aquifer where the rebel Zapatista Army of National Liberation has installed an encampment to protest the selling off of precious water.

Big timber has so denuded northern Zacatecas with clear-cuts that the region is losing 150,000 hectares to encroaching desertification every year and another 300,000 hectares are so critically eroded that springtime “tolaveras” or whirlwinds fill the air with choking red-brown dirt. University of Zacatecas agronomists calculate that 20 tons of earth is being moved every spring and dunes now rise where once farmers eked out a living growing corn and beans.

The poor of the region have paid the price for clear-cuts and the corporate evisceration of aquifers. Marginalized desert communities wage wars over what little liquid is left in the ground – 59 out of Mexico’s poorest municipalities are located in desert zones. Emaciated kids are strung along the federal highway outside Matahualpa San Luis Potosi selling desert iguanas and begging coins from passing motorists. Farmers abandon their dying fields and flee into the cities and across the northern border, leaving behind abandoned ghost towns.

Even the first peoples to inhabit these inhospitable lands – 15 desert Indian cultures – are having a harder time surviving in an environment that is seriously out of balance. Chakoko Aniko, a 76 year-old Kikapoo Indian shaman from El Nascimiento Coahuila, rues the disappearance of his peoples’ sacred deer without which Kikapoo culture cannot continue. “When the deer dies, the Kikapoos will die too” he laments to La Jornada reporter Laura Poy.

As their habitat dries out and sacred species disappear – cactus rustling puts a big hurt on native cultures – the young men and women abandon the old ways and native speakers among the Indians of Mexico’s northern desert now number in the dozens.

Mexico’s North is just one corner of the global desert. At least 41% of the planet’s surface is now in danger of going dry – 20% is already desert – directly impacting 250,000.000 people and threatening 1.5 billion more, according to numbers presented by Doctor Zafar Abdeel at the 2005 United Nations conference on the degradation of arid lands. Some 60 million sub-Saharans will be forced off ancestral lands in the next 20 years and migrate in search of work and water as the desert takes over. Wherever they go, the desert will not be far behind.

“We have lived on these lands since history began” the Kikapoo shaman Chakoko Anika recalls plaintively, “where else can we go?”

John Ross is back in Mexico after months on the road in America del Norte. You can contact him at johnross@igc.org for further information on his comings and goings.

You are free

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kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Afraid to leave home? Worried about breaking away from the pack? Terrified of alarming the animals? Don’t be baaah’d.

Now that the few days of spring heat have descended on the Bay, baking our brains and filling our tenderized minds with thoughts of possibility, freedom, and escape, we begin to contemplate new adventures, new paths, a new life without you.

Yes, you. I’m speaking to the you perched morosely on that porcelain throne, lined up at the bus stop ready and unsteady with workaday abuse, desperately reaching for yet another Advil, another sutra, a 12th step.

What makes you make that leap from the everyday, the norm? What makes you go from belonging — being a part of the gang, a member of the band — to stepping out and up on your own: solo, al dente, au jus?

Sprinkle as much cheap restaurant Latinate on the idea as you like, but you too can break rank and make it, meaning art, on your own. You too can be free.

"If you’re sincere about being an artist, you have to follow your heart, trite as it sounds," Victor Krummenacher recently wrote me in an e-mail. The ex–Guardian art director now flies freelance — he’s still playing with his groundbreaking teen band Camper Van Beethoven and has just released his fourth solo album, The Cock Crows at Sunrise (Magnetic), a proudly "grown-up" disc of full-blown, handmade, blues-based rock songs rooted in his St. Louis family lore. But back to the solo question: "Camper is a joy because I grew up playing with those guys, and we’re very powerful together. But it is a very hard relationship and not always easy or fun. Playing solo is hard work but seldom a chore."

It can be more than OK, judging from, say, the solo debut by Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., Yours to Keep (Rough Trade/New Line), released here this spring after trying its wings overseas. It’s a fun recording, full of sweetness and light, pop hooks and happy storybook critters — and cavity-inducing ’80s rewrites such as synth pop charmer "In Transit" and the "Love Vigilantes"–cribbing "101." Those two — coupled with buoyant rhythms that sound infinitely more innocent and heartfelt in Hammond’s hands than on the Strokes’ recent albums — will make ex-cheerleaders and frustrated go-go dancers twirl around the room on the balls of their feet, bouncing to the beat and frightening the cat.

In his Manhattan digs, Hammond sounded loogey but resigned to the fate of his songs as he girded himself for his US tour, kicking off in San Francisco this week. Yours to Keep began as an attempt for Hammond to get out of his, well, home (read: his comfort zone). "It started out with me just wanting to leave my apartment and go somewhere else," he explained. He began with the album’s opening track, "Cartoon Music for Superheroes" (a lullaby, as Hammond described it, though he knows no kids to sing it to; "I’m my own child," he claimed, citing Bugs Bunny as a favorite cartoon character). Then he ventured out from there, he added: "We basically built up our confidence. You don’t just walk into Electric Lady Studios and do good work."

Still, Hammond went from almost no input on the Strokes’ songs — "I did find my own guitar tone," he confessed — to putting himself out there in a disarmingly artful, if not artless, way. As Krummenacher wrote, "You better be resolved. On a good night, I get maybe 10 to 20 percent of the crowd that Camper would get, and you have to have a certain kind of ego to try to rock out in front of 50 people when you’re used to much more."

But you listen to the songs, the spring, and you know you gotta start all over again, whether you’re 27, like Hammond, or 42, like Krummenacher, who has been playing for almost as long as the former has been alive. The fear is, of course, that you won’t find anything out there worth keeping or hanging on to and you won’t succeed in "creating your own world," as Hammond repeatedly said. All told, everything from Yours to Keep‘s title, coined from the words Hammond would write on demos, to the solid songwriting sounds like a tentative baby step from buzz-band-dom toward longevity. "Only time will tell about that," Hammond said. "And time will be able to tell about me as well, whether I create something that lasts." *

ALBERT HAMMOND JR.

Sun/20, 9 p.m., $18

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

VICTOR KRUMMENACHER

With the Knitters

Sat/19, 9 p.m., $25

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.musichallsf.com

GET A LOAD OFF

MODEST MOUSE


Who’d’a thunk that 14 years along, the band that seemed to be busy aping Built to Spill would produce its most musically intriguing recording, We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank (Epic)? With Man Man and Love as Laughter. Wed/16, 8 p.m., $35. San Jose State University Event Center Arena, S. Seventh St. and San Carlos, San Jose. www.ticketmaster.com

PETRACOVICH


Local electronics-dappled dream poppers turned out a lovely disc, We Are Wyoming (Redbuttons), a few years back. With Snowblink and the Spires. Thurs/17, 9 p.m., $8. Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. (415) 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com

SIGHTINGS


The NYC neg heads ice up our drinks, then threaten to rape our ear holes. Mon/21, 8 p.m., call for price. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com. May 23, 9 p.m., $7. Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 451-8100

The mark of Zidane

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› johnny@sfbg.com

Z marks the spot, whether that spot is the television, cinema screen, museum installation, or the memories of millions of people who’ve borne even cursory witness to the career of Zinedine Zidane, especially its instantly mythic — as opposed to merely controversial — final athletic moments. All of the above spots are touched on by the masterful Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a multiformat work at the crest of a current fascination with athletic documentary. Shadowed by Verónica Chen’s undersung swimmer drama Agua (2006), Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s project reveals sports’ potential as a source for pure cinematic dynamism. Moreover, it taps into a famous athlete’s tremendous resonance as a subject of artistic portraiture.

The presence of the word Portrait in Zidane‘s English title is an important one. The film’s codirectors (the latter of whose recent installation The Boy from Mars is a favorite of filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul) shot only one match, from Real Madrid’s 2005 season. But they are portraying both Zidane and this century. If ever there was a solitary — if team-playing — figure up to the task of embodying or at least evoking a universe, Gordon and Parreno have chosen him. To use the vintage words of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Zidane’s actions have transcended the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.

Zidane makes its public SF debut at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, thanks to film curator Joel Shepard. (One can always dream of a future screening at the Metreon, where its Kevin Shields– and Bay Area–influenced sound design, Mogwai score, and panoramic scope would be ideally realized.) Because I’ve only seen it on DVD, in lieu of writing a review, I recently spoke with Gordon. The Turner Prize–winning native of Glasgow, Scotland, began our talk while looking at a Neil Young record in a bookstore, before grabbing a cup of tea, and maintained his casual good humor whatever the topic.

GUARDIAN What led you to choose Zidane as the film’s subject? Were you a fan?

DOUGLAS GORDON Yeah. The first time we met Zidane, it was difficult to try and behave like adults. I can speak French OK, but I tried to introduce myself and sounded like a girl meeting John Lennon in 1960. I fell to pieces.

SFBG The George Best movie Football as Never Before (1971; directed by Hellmuth Costard) has been cited in relation to Zidane. But it comes from a different era, and Best is a different kind of subject or icon, and you’re using different equipment.

DG We developed our idea in blissful ignorance of Costard’s movie. But when we were having trouble figuring out how to deal with portraying the halftime period, someone mentioned [it] to us. At that point it wasn’t available on DVD, so Philippe actually flew from Paris to Berlin to go to the National Film Archive in Germany.

Later, we watched it together and looked into Costard’s practice. Obviously, he didn’t want to engage with the industry of cinema or the vocabulary of cinema — it was almost antithetical to his practice — whereas we wanted to play with the idea of a star and how a star is mediated, to see if we could get under the skin rather than stay on the surface.

SFBG Can you tell me about your tactics in using 17 cameras within one game to capture Zidane? To me, television hasn’t figured out how to present soccer. Some sports translate intimately to television, but soccer is often held at a distance.

DG Most televisual representations of football are based on a kind of theatrical convention of only shooting from one side — you have an entrance-left-exit-right type of motion. By breaking that down, you actually break up the architecture of the stadium. It’s no longer rectangular; it’s become circular in a way.

We wanted to make a portrait of a man: a working man who happens to be Zinedine Zidane, and the work happens to be football. It wasn’t a particularly good day at the office for him — he didn’t score any goals, and he got red-carded. But we wanted what we did to be along the lines of a Robert Bresson picture; to capture the honesty of the everyday.

Kon Ichikawa’s 1965 Tokyo Olympiad was a reference, and — more for me than for Philippe — the NFL. I wasted my youth watching 16mm, fantastically well-photographed NFL [footage]. Beautiful stuff, [shot by] cameramen who’d just come back from the war [in Vietnam]. Seagulls might flap by in front of them, and it wouldn’t be edited out. There was something rough about the NFL stuff that we wanted. There’s a couple of scenes in Zidane where the camera drifts up. That was deliberate, but it’s a reference to the sort of accidental beauty that can happen in that type of footage.

SFBG One thing that the film brings across is that there are long periods of the game when Zidane is meditative and literally just standing. Then when he does move, it’s incredibly sudden and really focused.

DG Some people have said that it’s a little reminiscent of nature programming. He’s definitely on the hunting side of things rather than the hunted.

It’s an exercise in one man’s solitude, though. There happen to be 80,000 people in the stadium, and he’s part of a team of 11, but there are huge periods where he’s completely alone.

Before shooting, we went to about 15 or 16 games and sat on the pitch. One of the big differences about the way we shot the film is that, apart from one camera, everything was on his level. There’s only one aerial camera that we used very sparingly as a backup. We knew the way he would walk around and that he’d pace himself during the game, so when we talked to the [project’s] producers, another reference we used was the corrida. You just don’t know if he’s the bull or the bullfighter.

If you were inside the head of Zinedine Zidane, you wouldn’t see him at all, which would sort of defeat the purpose of the film. But we did want to give his point of view, and there are specific passages where you see him move his head as if he’s a little disoriented. At points like those you don’t really know if you’re looking at the world through his eyes or looking at him.

SFBG What was his response to your portrait?

DG He’s not a man of many words, but he got pretty animated [when he saw it].

We kept him informed. We knew it was going to be a fairly hardcore exercise and that it was better to tell him how we were approaching it step-by-step rather than just turn up after a year’s worth of editing and hit him with [the finished work].

There were a couple of times [during the process] where he was really surprised and said, "That doesn’t look like me, this is not how I look on TV, this is not how I look in a newspaper — this is how my brother looks late at night talking to my mother."

We were nervous about how he felt he was portrayed because of the red card and the violence [in the match]. But he said, "I would do it again. The guy was an asshole."

SFBG That brings me to an inevitable question: what was it like to see things play out somewhat similarly in the final match of the 2006 World Cup?

DG I was in the stadium, and I couldn’t believe it. Of course, you couldn’t see what was going on because as usual there were another couple of Italians lying down feigning injury.

I knew we’d obviously stumbled upon something when, even before I’d seen the incident, people in the English press were quoting our film to make Zidane out to be a baddie.

SFBG Was that frustrating?

DG I think [Zidane]’s been sent out [of matches] more times than anyone else who wore the number 5 in the history of football. He’s a real person; he’s volatile.

It doesn’t really matter what [Italian player Marco] Materazzi said to him; what matters is that he said something to one of the greatest footballers of this generation. There’s five minutes left to go in [Zidane]’s career, and you want to taunt him about his wife?

SFBG How did you come to collaborate with Parreno?

DG Philippe and I have had mutual friends since the early ’90s. We’d pop up in the same group exhibitions around 1990 and 1991. He made a film with Rirkrit Tiravanija and Carsten Höller in 1994 called Vicinato, and then I got involved — along with Liam Gillick and Pierre Huyghe — in [1996’s] Vicinato 2. We’d spent a long time together talking about the script, and we shot it together down in Monaco. We watched a lot of football during that period as well.

But the genesis for the project really happened in Jerusalem, of all places. Philippe and I happened to be in a group exhibition ["Hide and Seek," curated by Ami Barak] there in 1996, and it just so happened the exhibition was under a football stadium, the Teddy Kollek Stadium. We finished our installations very early, and since Jerusalem isn’t a place to go idly wandering, we bought a football and played Keepy Uppy for about a week. During that time we spoke of what we remembered about being kids playing football, watching football, and what we aspired to [achieve]. Then we spoke about cinema and the fact that people had been waiting for us both to make a movie.

We chose Zidane partly because — and I think it’s the same after our film — he’s an incredibly enigmatic character. He has this absolutely impenetrable facade. He’s Zinedine Zidane.

Every time we met him, there was some other family member with him, and they’re all bigger than him. When he’s off the pitch, he’s not as big as he seems when he’s on the field. It’s incredible what happens to his physiognomy and physicality when he’s playing.

He was won over because during the first meeting we had with him, we said, "We want to work with you because, looking back over the past few generations, you represent something more than just another football star, something deeper than [Diego] Maradona or more complex than [David] Beckham." We had reedited some footage of [Manuel dos Santos] Garrincha, the old South American player, from a beautiful film [Garrincha, Joy of the People, directed by cinema novo pioneer Joaquim Pedro de Andrade] shot in the early ’60s. I think the fact that we’d chosen Garrincha and not Pele or Maradona, for example, really struck a chord with [Zidane].

SFBG What you’re saying goes back to the fact that Zidane both triggers and reframes issues of race and nationalism because he’s so powerful as an athlete and individual.

DG Someone told me that in France during the recent election there was a lot of graffiti over campaign billboards for [Nicolas] Sarkozy and Ségolène Royale saying, "Zidane, Zidane." I wish someone had taken a fucking photograph for me, but I could probably restage it somewhere.

Sometimes I think it even comes down to the Z. There’s something about it, like the mark of Zorro.

SFBG What have you thought about the art world response to Zidane?

DG We’ve spoken to a lot of people about sports, and about cinema. People have had a tendency to forget that Philippe and I used to say that we’re trying to drag people from the white cube [of art spaces] to the black box and from the black box to the white cube.

We didn’t lose sight of this, but it got lost along the way that Philippe and I knew [that] by choosing a subject or model like Zidane, we had the opportunity to really mix things up in terms of the audience. Kids could, in years to come, in turn take their kids to see it at the National Gallery in Scotland or the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. For kids who have the DVD, that can work the same way that it does when kids who maybe have a postcard of a painting can see the real thing — they’ll have an affiliation with it.

SFBG How does the installation version of Zidane differ from the cinematic presentation?

DG It’s two projections — the cinematic one, plus one of the cameras. It seems like a glib deconstruction, but when you see it, it’s a different experience, much more demanding. It’s almost a forensic detail of how we made [it]; if you troll around to 17 different museums all over the world, you’ll see there are 17 different points of view.

Of course, when the one camera is the camera used in the cinematic version, you get this bifocal effect.

SFBG For you to have mentioned Bresson earlier while discussing Zidane is interesting, because the setting and subject matter are not what one would connect to Bresson. Usually when film directors mention him, their work is stylistically aping or imitating him.

DG The cinematography of [1966’s Au Hasard] Balthazar was influential. But more so, there’s a book Philippe sent to me [Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer, most recently published in English by Green Integer] that had an impact, in the way he talks about the difference between the model and the actor. This was really clear to us when we were trying to speak about Zidane. People would say he’s an actor, and we’d say, "No, he’s not, he’s a model." He’s not playing a role. He’s doing his job, but with the awareness of being looked at, and that’s very different from the way the actor performs. Some of what Bresson says in his notes almost could have been written specifically for the Zidane film. It’s nice to quote Bresson, because he’s so unfashionable.

SFBG And so great! Some of the best current movie directors also produce work for art spaces. You’ve given a lot of thought to the specificity of DVDs and cinemas and gallery or museum installations, so I wanted to ask you about those distinctions.

DG One of the things that Philippe and I were constantly asked [at Zidane‘s film premiere] was "Were you excited to be working in the cinema?" We weren’t more excited than we would be [working] anywhere else. If there’s anything that would identify a certain practice of our generation of artists, it is that most of us are working with the exhibition as a format, and the context informs the format while the format interferes with the context. A lot of people don’t get that at all. I’m not trying to blow an intellectual trumpet here, but there is a certain amount of practice necessary to understand that. This is why when someone like David Lynch tries to move out of the cinema or TV screen into the gallery, it doesn’t work sometimes. The filmmaker might not do enough with the gallery or the museum. *

ZIDANE: A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT

Thurs/17–Sun/19, 7 p.m.; Sun/20, 2 and 7 p.m. (all screenings sold out except for Sun/20, 2 p.m.)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening Room

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.zidane-themovie.com

Vote or die

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Now that the wave of Asian horror films (and subsequent American remakes) seems to have crashed under the weight of too many spooky kids and ladies with long, wet hair, are Asian gangster flicks the new hotness? Practically everyone in the United States has now seen a Hong Kong cops ‘n’ robbers thriller or at least a film once removed from such, thanks to Martin Scorsese and his Best Picture–winning Infernal Affairs remake. But while The Departed pilfered from director Andrew Lau (this fall look for his English-language debut, the Richard Gere–starring crime drama The Flock), HK’s most exciting director, Johnnie To, remains largely unknown stateside.

For now, that is: with films such as 1999’s The Mission and 2001’s Fulltime Killer, To earned notice among genre buffs. Last year’s Exiled screened at the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and is due for local theatrical release this summer; I think it’s the film poised to earn To a fan base beyond the cinema-geek crowd. But until Exiled emerges, there’s Triad Election, a.k.a. Election 2, which offers enough stylish direction and underworld shenanigans to tide over the To faithful — and maybe snare a few new devotees along the way.

Haven’t watched the first Election? Me neither, so rest assured that you don’t need to have seen it to follow Election 2. HK’s oldest triad, Wo Sing, puts the organized in organized crime, holding elections for chairperson every two years. Current boss Lok (Simon Yam) doesn’t want to step down, especially for front-runner Jimmy (Louis Koo), whose lucrative ventures in mainland China have left him yearning to leave HK’s crime biz behind. Trouble is, the crooked higher-ups in China won’t let Jimmy continue his dealings unless he becomes head of his mob family; they see his cooperation as an asset they can exploit to everyone’s advantage. So the race is on, and it’s way dirtier than anything Karl Rove could dream up. Campaign strategies include kidnapping, double-crossing, limb severing, and putting assorted hired killers on the payroll.

To aligns the viewer’s sympathies with Jimmy, but he’s as morally ambiguous as they come, as movie mobsters tend to be. And on that note, a few delicious torture scenes aside, there’s not a lot going on here that hasn’t appeared in gangster dramas past. But even if its themes are familiar, Triad Election does feature one particularly unusual element: no gun battles whatsoever. Exiled is as bullet-riddled as the films of John Woo’s late-’80s prime, but Election‘s characters dole out their punishments with an array of blades.

It’s actually appropriate, since you really have to get right up on someone to stab ’em good. This visceral, intimate choice raises the stakes of Election‘s all-in-the-family violence. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer indeed. *

TRIAD ELECTION

Opens Fri/18 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

Sweet and lowdown

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Scattered throughout Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep are shots in which the camera recedes from the street action — kids throwing rocks, blundering thugs stealing a television — to the yearning treble of the blues-spiritual soundtrack. There are many examples of patterned poetry in Burnett’s 1977 debut, but none are so affecting as these elisions, which literally pull at the viewer, casting the pall of memory over bittersweet scenes of life among the Watts working poor.

This retrospective vision seems all the more acute for the circuitous path Killer of Sheep has taken to a theater near you. Burnett produced the film as his master’s thesis during the heyday of UCLA’s film program, shooting it in his native Watts part-time and, without thought of distribution, artfully arranging his slice-of-life narration over tracks from his rich record collection: selections ranging from Paul Robeson to Earth, Wind and Fire. Word began to spread about Burnett’s lyrical neorealism, but the essential soundtrack proved a sticking point for a commercial release, with licensing costs being prohibitively expensive — a very modern problem that more recently affixed itself to Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation. The film never really went away, winning a major award at the 1981 Berlin Festival and getting selected for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, but theatrical distribution remained elusive until a coalition of backers came through to ensure that UCLA’s recent 35mm restoration (in its earlier incarnations the film was shown in 16mm, befitting its film-school origins) could tour the country’s big screens.

Thirty years later the film sings. The plot, such as it is, mostly follows Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a broad-shouldered, kindhearted husband and father of two who works long shifts at a slaughterhouse (hence the plainly descriptive title). The family struggles, but not in any particular direction: which is to say, they live. The episodic narrative is borrowed from the Italian neorealists and Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, but the sensuous film style is Burnett’s own. His framing techniques — close-ups cut off at the head are thick with characters’ midsections — emphasize physicality, while the use of natural light sends shots into a free-floating daydream. There is always this give-and-take between the earthy and the ethereal, never more so than in the digressions of children playing, in which Watts simultaneously seems depressingly abject and dreamily beautiful: a fragile balance, again suggestive of memory.

It is, after all, important to remember that if Killer of Sheep feels timeless, it’s probably because Burnett made it that way. The film was produced in 1977, but it frequently seems as if it had been made decades earlier: it’s the soundtrack, of course, but also the compositions styled after Walker Evans portraits, the camera movements evoking city symphonies, and the dissolving montage sequences, which link the film to the purest strains of silent cinema.

What makes Killer of Sheep frankly overwhelming is the way Burnett brings this evocative style to every part of his narration — a scene in which two hoods try to involve Stan in a murder gets the same attention as one in which two boys see how long they can stand on their heads. Off-the-cuff humor cuts against plaintive despair, one deepening the other. Aestheticized poverty is always a risky proposition, but Killer of Sheep is miles from style for style’s sake: its nebulous, contradictory beauty reaches out to touch the full variety of experience, leaving the audience to feel everything at once.

In the film’s centerpiece (strikingly paralleled in Lynne Ramsay’s memory of underdevelopment, 1999’s Ratcatcher), Stan and his wife rock in each other’s arms to Dinah Washington’s exquisite "This Bitter Earth." It’s a scene of stark relief and a perfect summation of the smoky mix of emotions everywhere apparent in Killer of Sheep. "And this bitter earth," Washington intones, "may not be so bitter after all." As with the great blues singers, so too with Burnett — the lyrics tell the story, but it’s the voice that makes you cry. *

KILLER OF SHEEP

Opens Fri/18

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

Newsom’s huge housing failure

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EDITORIAL The single biggest issue facing San Francisco today is affordable housing. Nothing else even comes close. Housing costs are displacing, at a rapid pace, the people who make San Francisco such a great city — artists, writers, musicians, small-business owners and employees, families with kids, blue-collar workers, municipal workers, service-sector workers … basically, anyone who isn’t rich. And the vast majority of the new housing that’s getting built is selling at such high prices that it does nothing to help the situation.

That’s why it was crazy for Mayor Gavin Newsom to refuse to sign a modest $28 million affordable-housing allocation — and why the supervisors need to pursue this, push back, demand that the money be spent, and make it clear that Newsom’s budget proposals will be in trouble if it isn’t.

And this veto ought to be a huge issue in the mayor’s race.

It’s also why progressives need to start thinking big about how to address the housing crisis.

Let’s start with a simple fact: Newsom has done next to nothing for affordable housing in this city. All the important initiatives have come out of the Board of Supervisors and the nonprofits. He’s been willing to let private for-profit developers get away with giving the city only a pittance of affordable units in exchange for immensely valuable project approvals; only because the supervisors forced the issue has the city increased the inclusionary housing requirement. And it’s still way too little.

In fact, linking all affordable-housing money to market-rate projects is a losing game for San Francisco. Even if the city forced developers to make half of their new units affordable, that wouldn’t meet the current need as laid out in the city’s own documents. San Francisco’s General Plan states that two-thirds of all new housing built in this town needs to be below market rate.

Every time the city approves a major new project that’s (at best) 20 percent affordable, that ratio gets worse. If city officials keep approving projects with small set-asides, the city will continue to get richer, whiter, and more boring; the end game — a city population inching close to 80 percent millionaires — isn’t something anyone should consider acceptable.

The allocation Sup. Chris Daly proposed wouldn’t put more than a dent in the problem. But it would be money coming from the city’s General Fund, not money tied to more luxury condos — and that’s an important step. It reflects how the city needs to be thinking over the next few years.

Redevelopment money has funded affordable housing in the past, but much of that will run out soon. Finding other sources for the hundreds of millions of dollars San Francisco needs every year to even begin to keep pace with the need has to be a top priority — and Newsom and his opponent (and we’re convinced there has to be and will be a serious opponent) need to tell us where that money’s going to come from.

Meanwhile, San Francisco activists need to start looking at long-term planning priorities for housing that include some tight limits on how many new market-rate units can be built. Combining a cap on luxury condos and a new source of affordable-housing money can change the entire development equation in San Francisco.

And if Newsom won’t go along, then the supervisors need to make very clear that his budget is dead on arrival. *

Robin Williams on Fire can TOO open up for Fall Out Boy

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Guardian contributor George Chen writes in: So Fall Out Boy is holding a contest to have people open for them when they are on tour. Robin Williams on Fire is vying for that honor. The idea of these kids opening for a ridiculous pop punk band is too funny to pass up.

falloutboy.jpg
Fall Out Boy won’t know what hit ’em.

Make the Bay Area band’s dreams come true! Go to www.mylocalbands.com/promos/fobcivic/vote.asp# and select Concord, Calif., and vote for Robin Williams on Fire. You’ll be glad you did.

robinwilliamsonfire2.jpg
Robin Williams on Fire wants to light one under a certain Boy’s bee-hind.

Now with reel cheese!

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

By the time you read this, Spider-Man 3 will have already raked in approximately a kajillion dollars. But in a summer packed with superheroes, pirates, robots, and teen wizards, only one selection is destined to be the Best. Movie. Ever. (Hint: it’s animated, smells like a steak, and seats 35!) Still, what are you gonna do at the multiplex — or the rep house — on every other day that isn’t July 27? Arrange your vacations, hot dates, and Sno-Caps binges according to my highly biased, by no means complete guide to this season’s cinematic selections. All release dates are subject to change.

May 11 28 Days Later didn’t exactly have a happy ending — I’d call it ambiguous at best — and 28 Weeks Later explores what happens more than six months after the initial outbreak of “the rage.” Who’s the real villain in this one, zombies or the US Army? This sequel features a new director (Spain’s Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) and apparently an all-new cast, including Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, and The Wire‘s Idris Elba.

May 18 Who’ll be the next ruler of Far, Far Away? Shrek the Third investigates. New voices include Justin Timberlake (as a prince) and Ian McShane (as Captain Hook). And yes, your beloved Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) returns.

May 19 Prefer your movies under the stars? Film Night in the Park (www.filmnight.org) kicks off with The Graduate in Washington Square Park. Screenings continue through October at various locations in San Francisco and Marin County, with something for everyone — from kids (Happy Feet) to thirtysomething nostalgics (Sixteen Candles) to campaholics (The Bad Seed) — on the schedule.

May 25 You think your job sucks? Check out Severance, which is surely the raddest office horror–comedy–satire–gorefest ever. Also today: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End attempts to outgross 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, which scored the biggest opening weekend of all time en route to a $423 million total haul. That’s a lotta eye patches.

June 1 From Russia — with vampires — came 2004’s Night Watch; the sequel, Day Watch, looks to be the same kind of darkly cool supernatural noir. (Coming soon: director Timor Bekmambetov’s English-language debut, Dusk Watch, the third in the series.) I also wanna see Knocked Up, the latest sex-centric comedy from The 40 Year-Old Virgin‘s Judd Apatow.

June 8 If Eli Roth’s faux trailer for Thanksgiving in Grindhouse wasn’t enough to get you excited about Hostel: Part II, well, there’s no hope for you — except to see this tourists-in-trouble follow-up and add a little more sleaze to your diet. Ocean’s Thirteen, a.k.a. George Clooney Would Like You to Please Pretend Ocean’s Twelve Never Existed, also opens today.

June 15 Experimental filmmakers, stop hiding your masterworks (and masterworks in progress) and share ’em with a supportive crowd at the San Francisco Cinematheque’s No Frame Cinema: Open Screening Event (www.sfcinematheque.org). Films and videos of 10 minutes or less will be compiled into a two-hour program on a first-come, first-served basis. Also today: did anyone really like Fantastic Four enough to necessitate Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer?

June 22 Dear Steve Carell, You are already a god to me, so I am all over Evan Almighty. Your pal, Cheryl.

June 27 McClane rules! Stop acting like you don’t want to see Live Free or Die Hard and like you don’t love the shit out of that ridiculous title.

June 29 John Dahl (Red Rock West) directs Ben Kingsley as a redemption-seeking hired gun in You Kill Me. Supposedly, there’s a Guardian cameo in this one. We’re famous, bitch!

July 13–14 Ain’t really summer till Peaches Christ (www.peacheschrist.com) says it is. Her Midnight Mass kicks off this weekend with screenings of Desperate Living (with Mink Stole in person!) and Female Trouble (with John Waters in person!); the series continues through Sept. 1 with more special guests, live performances, and after-dark cult film madness.

July 4 Scoff if you will, but Transformers appeals to the tiny parts of me that have seen Independence Day and Starship Troopers approximately 567 times (each). You can be certain director Michael Bay ain’t gonna give us a quiet, subtle, thought-provoking film about war in the time of Decepticons. You can be certain there will be many, many explosions.

July 13 I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book. I have, however, seen and enjoyed all the films. Which means I’ll eagerly line up for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but while you’re camping out at Border’s to buy the final book in the series, I’ll be watching Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, in which POW Christian Bale grabs a snake off the jungle floor and eats it raw, without the benefit of any magic powers whatsoever.

July 20 I’m on bridesmaid detail in Lake Tahoe this weekend, so I have an ironclad excuse to skip Hairspray (apologies to John Waters — but none to John Travolta) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Whew.

July 27 All of summer is a vortex, whirling around the only spool of celluloid that truly matters. It’s The Simpsons Movie. If you care to argue otherwise, I will choo-choo-choose to ignore you.

Aug. 3 Gadgets? Jason Bourne don’t need no stinkin’ gadgets. He’ll kill you with a rolled-up magazine, motherfucker. The new, improved James Bond was cool, but the secret agent movie I most want to see is The Bourne Ultimatum.

Aug. 10 Apparently, Rush Hour 3 is due today. I suggest mashing up Friday and Drunken Master II and getting your Chris Tucker–Jackie Chan fix thataway instead.

Aug. 16 The King is dead — long live the King! Swingin’ cat Will the Thrill hosts Thrillville’s 30th Anniversary Elvis D-Day Party, at the Cerrito Speakeasy (www.cerritospeakeasy.com; www.thrillville.net), featuring a screening of 1964’s Viva Las Vegas (one of Presley’s best films — with probably his best-ever costar, Ann-Margret), PB and banana sammies, and a live performance by Cari Lee and the Saddle-ites.

Aug. 31 Yeah, Michael Myers is back — again — but this Halloween is directed by Rob Zombie. Zombie’s previous films (The Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses), proved fondness for horror themes in everything from music to home decor, and the mere fact that he changed his name to Zombie bode well for his reverence for the series. John Carpenter’s 1978 original is scary-movie perfection, but I’m ghoulishly curious to see what Zombie’s gonna do with ol’ Shatner-face. Werewolf Women of the SS forever! *

Summertime … and the swimmin’ is easy

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By Sam Devine


› culture@sfbg.com

It just doesn’t feel like summer without a trip to the pool. Marco Polo, chips and soda, suntan lotion on your face, pushing your brother in the deep end — it’s all a part of your balanced, nutritious summertime experience. But don’t fret if you don’t happen to have a lap pool on the roof of your railroad apartment. If you’re looking to splash it up, get the kids some swim lessons, or just do a few laps, there are plenty of great, inexpensive opportunities at one of your municipal aquatic chill spots — made by the people, for the people. Here are some of our favorites.

San Francisco

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s Aquatic/Swimming Programs (www.sfgov.org) have a life’s worth of swimming activities just waiting for you. The city’s nine pools offer pregnant and senior swim programs, lessons for infants, competitive workouts, and even synchronized swimming lessons with the SF Merionettes. And SF community pools are cheap: $1 for children 17 and under, $4 for adults, and $20 for a 10-swim scrip ticket for seniors and those in economic need.

BALBOA POOL


If you’re using public transit, Balboa Pool is the most easily accessible. It’s walking distance from Balboa BART, the J line, and the 26 Valencia, 9 San Bruno, and 43 bus lines.

51 Havelock, SF. (415) 337-4701

GARFIELD POOL


Families going for the first time may be tempted to stop by the hugely popular (and busiest) Rossi or Sava pools. But we like Garfield best — it’s not as crowded as those two, and parking is easy.

1271 Treat, SF. (415) 695-5001

MISSION POOL


Little known to most folks, Mission Pool is the last outdoor community pool in San Francisco. This is the place to get that stereotypical pool day: swim in the open air, grill BBQ in the park, and soak up the Mission District sun. The pool is only open during the summer, but last year Supervisor Bevan Dufty was able to get a grant that extended operations through October.

19th St. and Linda, SF. (415) 695-5002

NORTH BEACH POOL


North Beach Pool, near the Joe DiMaggio Playground, actually has two pools: one cold (for lap swim only) and one heated to 85 degrees for recreational swimming.

651 Lombard, SF. (415) 391-0407

Bay Area

KING POOL


Berkeley’s Aquatics Program (www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/recreation) runs four community swim centers, with rates similar to those of San Francisco’s pools (except kids cost $2). Of them, King Pool is recommended for public transit riders. It’s just a short AC Transit No. 7 or No. 9 ride from Downtown Berkeley BART. Wondering why a city slicker would want to cross the bay for a pool? King offers one thing SF pools don’t: a five-day junior lifeguard program, which teaches kids first aid, CPR, and life-saving rescue techniques for $68.

1700 Hopkins, Berk. (510) 644-8518

RINCONADA POOL


If you’ve got young tots, though, and can drive to Palo Alto, the misty water play area at Rinconada is what you want. There’s a waterslide, squirting toys, fountains, and several kiddie pools, plus a blissfully ho-hum adult pool for when you need to escape the color and excitement.

777 Embarcadero, Palo Alto. (650) 463-4914

More pools

BERKELEY

www.ci.Berkeley.ca.us
BHS Warm Pool 2246 Milvia, Berk; (510) 644-6843
King Swim Center 1700 Hopkins, Berk; (510) 644-8518
West Campus Swim Center 2100 Browning, Berk; (510) 644-8520. Closed until April 30. Outdoors.
Willard Swim Center 2701 Telegraph, Berk; (510) 644-8519. $3-5. Closed until April 30. Outdoors.

OAKLAND
www.oaklandnet.com/parks

Castlemont Pool 8601 MacArthur Blvd, Oakl; (510) 879-3642. Outdoors.
deFremery Pool 1269 18th St, Oakl; (510) 238-2205
Fremont Pool 4550 Foothill Blvd, Oakl; (510) 535-5614
Lions Pool 3860 Hanly Rd, Oakl; (510) 482-7852. Outdoors.
Live Oak Pool 1055 MacArthur Blvd, Oakl; (510) 238-2292
McClymonds Pool2607 Myrtle St, Oakl; (510) 879-8050. Outdoors.
Temescal Pool 371 45th St, Oakl; (510) 597-5013. $3-5.

OTHER BAY AREA POOLS

Brisbane Community Swimming Pool 2 Solano Street, Brisbane; (415) 657-4321, www.ci.brisbane.ca.us . $4-6. Outdoors.
Emeryville Community Pool 1100 47th St, Emeryville; (510) 596-4395, www.ci.emeryville.ca.us . $5 passes ($1/rec swim, $3/lap swim). Details may change – call for updates.
Mill Valley Communitty Center 180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley; (415) 383-1370, www.millvalleycenter.org . $3-8.
Terra Linda Community Pool 670 Del Ganado Rd, San Rafael; (415) 485-3346. $4-9.
Kennedy High School 4300 Cutting Blvd, Richmond; (510) 235-2291. Richmond’s natatorium, the Plunge, just received $2 million grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment and is therefore being refurbished.Swims and classes have been moved to Kennedy High School. For more info, call the Richmond Swim Center at 510-620-6654 or the Richmond Recreation Division office at 510-620-6793.

Summer 2007 fairs and festivals guide

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ONGOING

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

MAY 8–20

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

MAY 10-20

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

MAY 12

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

MAY 13

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

BAY AREA

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

MAY 16–27

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

MAY 17–20

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

MAY 18–20

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

MAY 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

MAY 19-20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MAY 20

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

BAY AREA

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

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

MAY 24–27

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

MAY 25–28

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

MAY 26

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

MAY 26–27

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

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

BAY AREA

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

MAY 26–28

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

MAY 26–JUNE 30

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

MAY 27

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

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

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

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

MAY 28

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

MAY 29–30

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

MAY 31–JUNE 3

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

JUNE 1–10

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

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

JUNE 2

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

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

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

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

JUNE 2–3

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

JUNE 3

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

JUNE 6

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

JUNE 6–AUG 29

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

JUNE 7–17

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

JUNE 8–10

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

JUNE 9

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

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

JUNE 9–10

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

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

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

JUNE 9–24

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

JUNE 14–16

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

JUNE 14–17

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

JUNE 14–24

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

JUNE 15–17

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

JUNE 16–17

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

JUNE 17

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

JUNE 17–AUG 19

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

JUNE 20–24

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

JUNE 22–24

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

JUNE 22–JULY 8

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

JUNE 23

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

JUNE 23–24

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

BAY AREA

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

JUNE 23–25

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

JUNE 23–30

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

JUNE 23–AUG 4

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

JUNE 23–SEPT 8

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

JUNE 29–JULY 1

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

JUNE 30–JULY 1

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

JUNE 30–JULY 4

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

JULY 1

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

JULY 3–4

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

JULY 4

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

JULY 5–8

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

BAY AREA

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

JULY 6–SEPT 29

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

JULY 10–21

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

JULY 12–15

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

JULY 13–15

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

JULY 14-15

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

BAY AREA

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

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

JULY 19–29

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

JULY 19–AUG 6

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

JULY 21–22

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

JULY 27–29

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

JULY 29

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

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

AUG 3–5

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

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

AUG 4–5

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

AUG 9–12

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

AUG 10–12

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

AUG 11

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

AUG 11–12

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

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

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

AUG 18–19

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

SEPT 1–2

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


SEPT 8–9

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

SEPT 9

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

SEPT 15

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

SEPT 22

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

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

Don’t Trash California

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By Sarah Phelan

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Slow is how I was feeling in all this heat, as I drove towards the Bay Bridge, direction San Francisco, and maybe it was because I was driving slowly, too, that I saw the huge illuminated “Don’t Trash California” sign that’s been newly installed on the approach to the toll gates.
Brought to us by Toll Roads, an Orange County and SoCal-based organization that has partnered with Caltrans, the sign is obviously intended to stop people trashing our state (at least physically, if not verbally).
Nice touch, I thought, as the driver in front of me tapped cigarette ash out of his window, and a plastic bag flew across six lanes of freeway traffic. It’s time people stopped dumping shit out of car windows. Maybe if they could see where their shit ends up, they’d give more of a shit about their shit.Maybe we need Al Gore to make another documentary, following the path of a fast food wrapper from your car and into someone else’s lneighborhoods and into the waterways that lead to the giant silver mobius that is the World’s Ocean.
Or maybe we could just use our friggin’ imaginations. The kids in West Oakland WON’T enjoy finding your beer can in their back yard. Nor will the sea lions at Pier 39. And it won’t help feed the starving polar bears.
And if the California Department of Transportation, Division of Maintenance, didn’t have to spend more than $40 million just to clean up litter on freeways and highways, maybe they’d have more dough for fixing the pot holes that drivers are always complaining about.
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Crawling through Coachella, chapter 1

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Yep, this was the year I finally stopped pooh-poohing, scoffing, scorning, and smugly hrumphing in the delightful cool of the Bay Area and caught the traffic jam heading from LA to Indio for Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, expanded to three days for the first time. Of course, lucky me, I also got to make the traffic snarl from the freeway exit to the parking lot entrance, and then the teeming mass from the entrance to the ticket taker…you get the picture.

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Spidey 3: Hazy days, much music, as Michael Christina’s three-legged I.T. overlooks it all. Photos by Charles Russo.

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Way too much going on in that headdress, dancing queen: a member of Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque.

Was it worth the cross-stage cacophony, exploding shampoo bottles, the tent city filled with philosophical quasi-frat boys and random ravers that go bump and then, “WHOOO!” at 5 in the morning? You tell me. My brain underwent a major meltdown. Here’s a free-associatin’ “review”-slash-overview of the Coachella, to be continued with more wonderful photos by Guardian contributor Charles Russo. And gripes — err, I mean, critiques — from yours truly.

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Zacky, can you hear me? No, ’cause the Lemonheads are threatening to drown the main stage out.

Everyone was obviously there for the Rage Against the Machine reunion, a first since the band went dormant about seven years ago – which explains the major bro-down going on everywhere you looked. The final headliner on the last night, Sunday, April 29, of the three-day fest, they were definitely doing their best to power past the hype and bring the rock with such modern rock staples as “Killing in the Name” and “Bulls on Parade.” The scruffily bearded Zack de la Rocha bounded about, blissfully ignorant of the hordes heading toward the exit, hoping to get a jump on the truly terrifying traffic tangle expected on the way back to LA.

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Killing in the name of guitar hero Tom Morello.

“My mind has been completely blown!” raved one woman at the campground’s Cybercafe after Bjork, who gave everyone a good preview of her new album, Volta, backed by a womanly chorus and band in brightly hued new wave, Polyphonic Spree-goes-to-the-Acropolis Grecian gowns. Brass, strings, vibes, Lemur, the works – and some inspiring costume changes from the Bjorkly one.

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One thing we can count on: Bjork pushing the fashion envelope; here, she channels a voodoo priestess June Allyson.

Another artist that got the buzz around the polo grounds and tent city was the Bay’s own DJ Shadow. As we melted in our Tevas, we overheard kids talking up Shadow, who headlined the second largest stage the opening night, Friday, April 27. Sounded tops. Shadow would helpfully step up to the mic to remind everyone that all the tracks that night were his own – if they weren’t recognizable they were brand spankin’. Color splashed videos flickered overheard on a massive screen as Keak groused about those freaks.

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Shadow wonders if the audience would take it the wrong way if he blurted, “Talk to the finger.”

The Roots sounded tight, hitting it hard midday Sunday. We wandered away midway through a Tarantino-esque

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“Can we take quirkily punctuated names to a nutty new level?” the Roots ponder.

I do love me some Jarvis Cocker. Guess I just have a weakness for snide, brainy Brits who like to chatter on about imaginary rain storms and apologize – sorta – for their tardiness on stage. Pulling feel-good tracks from his new solo album, Jarvis, the forgotten son of Joe Cocker (not!) let the healing begin with “Fat Children” and “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time.” Too bad we couldn’t get a little of that fabled Anglo rainy-day action, he hinted, introducing “Heavy Weather.”

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Jarvis, don’t let your fresh witticisms grow up to be dried-up curds of embittered alcholism.

Wild Tigers, Painted Bird

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COSTUME One gray Garfield sweatshirt; a blue wool sleeveless sweater with little birds and a white sheep stitched on it; clean Chuck Taylor high-tops; an orange Kawasaki motorcycle T-shirt; a little red hoodie; a beige suede vest with tassels. These are some of the clothes sported by Logan (Malcolm Stumpf), the gender-jumping cusp-of-teens boy at the center of Cam Archer’s debut feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known.

"At that age you aren’t concerned with what other people think. You choose what [clothing] appeals to you – you’re just going for it," says Stephanie Volkmar, the film’s costume designer, as cars whiz by on Guerrero Street. "Logan’s outfits are sometimes outrageous, or some might say a little risque. Cam has an obsession with short-shorts and tank tops. He’ll be mad if that makes it into print, but it does help express the character’s vulnerability. We wanted Logan to wear things that would make him seem awkward and different."

One reason I’m asking Volkmar about her no-budget costume work for Wild Tigers is that she works at the store we’re sitting next to, Painted Bird. Over the past two years, I’ve assembled a Painted Bird wardrobe about as expansive as Logan’s, though riddled with the occasional label (Dior, Gucci, Adidas – all cheap), thus proving Volkmar’s point that in comparison to adults, kids just don’t care.

It turns out that Painted Bird’s connection to Archer’s movie – which, after debuting last year at the Sundance Film Festival, plays as part of the Mission Creek festivities – is also familial. The director’s brother, Nate, who did the movie’s layered, impressionistic sound design, is (along with Sonny Walker) one of the shop’s co-owners. "Nate is good at finding [music] that blows me away," Volkmar says. He certainly succeeds in Wild Tigers, braiding everything from the hand claps and "oo-oowoh" ‘s of the Michael Zager Band’s disco classic "Let’s All Chant" to the drowsy, faraway loneliness of Laura Nyro’s "Desiree" and the Langley Schools Music Project around Logan’s daydreams.

According to Volkmar, both Wild Tigers and Painted Bird emerged from family or familylike bonds formed in Santa Clara, where she met Cam Archer and worked on about 10 other short projects with him. Judging by the many five-star reviews for Painted Bird on sites such as Yelp, I’m not the only one who wants to rave about Walker and Nate Archer’s shop while also being protective of it. Why? It avoids the kitsch pitfalls and the overdressed look favored by SF vintage and secondhand places, and most important, its low prices correspond with a friendly atmosphere. Keeping an eye out for quality moderate vintage labels as much as typical high-end names, the Painted Bird folks are in the clothing biz because they like clothes, and they have a definite, yet easygoing, sensibility.

In Wild Tigers, Logan has a unique sensibility too, but his run through lust is a mostly solitary one. Though its conflation of the titular animals with desire might be a nod to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady (as well as drawn from Santa Clara’s untamed suburban terrain), Archer’s movie emerges from the still too-small genre of US queer kids’ films that includes Todd Haynes’s Dottie Gets Spanked, Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and SF director Justin Kelly’s new Cannes-bound short, Front. (Also, one of Wild Tigers‘ executive producers, Darren Stein, was behind the pre-Tarnation queer childhood doc Keep the Camera on Me.) Without a doubt, Volkmar’s costumes have a role in some of the movie’s best scenes, such as when Logan’s friend Joey (Max Paradise) – complete with a golden bowl cut and a striped shirt buttoned all the way up to its collar – tries to get him to contribute to a "ways to be cool" list.

A cynic might point out that there isn’t a huge gap between the outfits sported by the children of Wild Tigers and the clothes favored by San Francisco’s eternal youth of today. (I stand semiconvicted.) In fact, Volkmar drew extensively from the shop where she works while dressing the movie’s primarily preteen and teen characters. But the spirit of Painted Bird’s staff is a lot like Logan from Wild Tigers: not too cool for school, just – as Volkmar says – going for it. (Johnny Ray Huston)

WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN

Wed/16, call or see Web site for time, $4-$8

Roxie Film Center

3117 and 3125 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

www.paintedbird.org

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