Kids

What’s wrong with America, in one simple stat

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By Tim Redmond

The New York Times reported yesterday that the 25 top hedge fund managers in the United States earned a combined $14 billion last year — “enough to pay New York City’s 80,000 public school teachers for nearly three years.”

Think about it. Twenty-five people earned in one year almost three times as much as every public school teacher in New York, put together.

And thanks to Bush’s tax cuts, those 25 people, all of whom took home at least $240 million in compensation last year, wil pay about one-thrid as much tax as they would have paid under such radical left-wing presidents as Richard Nixon.

This is why the public schools are in bad shape, the streets are filled with homeless people, poverty is on the rise across America, a growing number of qualified kids can’t afford to go to college … the list is endless.

And so far, I haven’t heard a single leading Democratic candidate for president talk about raising taxes (not just letting the Bush cuts expire, but actually raising taxes) on the people who “earn” obscene amounts of money.

This is, in my mind, the single most important problem in the nation. It makes me sick.

On tone’s tail

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> a&eletters@sfbg.com

With that inimitable San Franciscan condescension toward anything too popular, various eyes rolled skyward when the SF Film Society announced the tributees at the 50th SF International Film Festival would include the two most famous Hollywood-type people who live hereabouts, George Lucas and Robin Williams. Like a canyon-echoed foghorn, bass exhalations of "borrrrrr-ing" filled select pockets of local airspace. But really, wouldn’t those same naysayers be wondering aloud whether the fest lacked sufficient clout if it hadn’t pulled such big guns for its 50th anniversary?

Intellectual purists might think fondly of the SFIFF’s 1987 tribute to Hungarian Gyorgy Szomjas or of 2004’s ahead-of-the-cusp Malaysian cinema showcase, but the festival has always courted and attracted celebrities. If inventors could perfect a time machine, there’d be a huge queue to revisit some of its earliest stellar events.

World cinema giants passed through the SFIFF’s gates from its beginning in 1957, when it was local theater owner Bud Levin’s all-volunteer baby and veteran Hollywood star Franchot Tone played the role of MC. But the press was naturally always more intrigued by visiting stars, nubile starlets, and what designer couture socialites wore to gala events. Indeed, as the ’60s evolved, fashion and the bountiful femininity it decreasingly cloaked often overshadowed public discussion of Luis Bunuel, Jean-Luc Godard, and John Cassavetes. A near-topless North Beach dancer known as Exotica riveted attention in 1964, the same year several Playmates of the Month attended. Actress Carroll Baker’s see-through ensemble did the trick in 1966, while the suicidally plunging neckline of uninvited guest Jayne Mansfield meant she was asked to leave. The same year, festival chairperson Shirley Temple Black quit to protest the inclusion of the Swedish feature Night Games, which she considered pornographic.

In 1965 the late SFIFF program director Albert Johnson commenced an extraordinary series of epic afternoon tributes to Hollywood legends. No one else was doing such events, so he got the cream of the back-harvested crop: Gene Kelly, Lillian Gish, Howard Hawks, Henry Fonda, Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire, Bette Davis, John Huston, Frank Capra, and more. Soon everyone began imitating Johnson’s clips-and-chat template.

But the SFIFF was hardly done with lassoing big names both nostalgic and current. The 1975 festival featured the strange-bedfellow roll call of Shelley Winters, Dyan Cannon, Natalie Wood, Jack Nicholson, Robert Evans, Burt Lancaster, Roger Vadim, Gale Sondergaard, and Merv Griffin. In 1979, Sir Alec Guinness, still basking in Lucas-bestowed glory, was honored in the festival’s first (and last, to date) opening-night tribute. Among the glittering attendees were O.J. Simpson and then-girlfriend Nicole Brown. How sweet.

Due in part to an increasingly cutthroat festival landscape, in recent years the SFIFF has tilted toward sober rather than silly celebrity visitors. Tabloid types now need it even less than it needs them. Still, there have been felicitous highlights among latter-day tributes: Fillmore resident Winona Ryder’s refreshing public dis of one local print gossip hound as "a parasite"; Clint Eastwood’s lovely penchant for crediting collaborators whenever he was faced with a direct compliment; Annette Bening shouting anecdote prompts to onstage spouse Warren Beatty; Geena Davis admitting that unlike most self-conscious actors, she loves to watch herself onscreen.

Less ingratiating moments are often memorable for what they reveal about a beloved (or not) figure. Dustin Hoffman’s bizarre ramblings in 2003 reminded me of the tribute to a ditzy Elizabeth Taylor that I’d witnessed at a festival in Taos, NM, a couple years earlier. I’ve never felt such pained sympathy for an interviewer as during Harvey Keitel’s curt cutoff of every respectful Q&A path during a 1996 event. Then there was the time Sean Penn’s ever-so-rebellious cussin’ before a full house at the Kabuki Cinema sent Robin Wright storming out with kids in tow just minutes into his 1999 tribute.

The SFIFF is never going to be the kind of festival Paris Hilton feels she need attend. But even the talented are capable of charmingly awkward – and just awkward – moments. The SFIFF’s awards often cast unexpected light on professionals we’d hitherto identified by their roles; this can make for lurid fun. Still, I prefer it when talents I admire keep their personality flaws off my windshield. Once those bugs get embedded, it’s hard to enjoy a clear view again. *

FILM SOCIETY AWARDS NIGHT May 3, 7:30 p.m., $500-$25,000. Westin St. Francis Hotel. 335 Powell, SF. (415) 551-5190

FILM SOCIETY DIRECTING AWARD: AN EVENING WITH SPIKE LEE May 2, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Castro

FIVE-O: STORIES AND IMAGES FROM 50 YEARS OF THE SF INTERNATIONAL May 8, 6:30 p.m., $9-$12. Kabuki

FOG CITY MAVERICKS With George Lucas and others. Sun/29, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Castro

PETER J. OWENS AWARD: AN EVENING WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS May 4, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Castro

Take 50

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TAKE 50: SF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

THURS/26

*Golden Door (Emanuele Crialese, Italy/France, 2006). Epic in scope, playful in its stylistic shifts and tonal splices, and sumptuous in its painterly framing and use of light, Golden Door looks on an age-old American saga – an immigrant family’s crossing from the Old World to the new – with startlingly fresh, impassioned eyes. Director Emanuele Crialese (Respiro) turns his sometimes wry, sometimes tender focus on a band of illiterate Sicilian peasants drawn from their dirt-poor village by pre-Photoshop pictures of giant chickens and trees laden with enormous gold coins. Led by an intrepid yet ignorant patriarch (Respiro‘s Vincenzo Amato) and a comical spiritual fixer of a grandmother (Aurora Quattrocchi), the group is joined in steerage by a cryptic gentlewoman (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Ellis Island and its proto-eugenic experiments await – along with dream sequences that fluidly transmit the otherworldly magic of the villagers’ forthcoming American mystery tour. (Kimberly Chun)

7 p.m., Castro. Opening night film and party at City Hall, $85-$125

FRI/27

Black Sheep (Jonathan King, New Zealand, 2006). Something is going baaaaaad in Lord of the Rings country. The usual science experiment-gone-wrong results in the usual creature rampage, as sheep go George Romero on humans at a rural New Zealand ranch. This jolly, diverting, ultimately too-silly horror comedy from neophyte writer-director Jonathan King is duly funny. Still, it overstays its one-joke welcome by a bleat or three. (Dennis Harvey)

10:45 p.m., Kabuki

*A Few Days Later … (Niki Karimi, Iran, 2006). Already a star from her appearances in Tahmineh Milani’s overwrought – but much beloved – melodramas, Iranian actress Niki Karimi looked to the grand master, Abbas Kiarostami, for directing inspiration. In this, her second feature, she beautifully captures a specific brand of avoidance and understatement. She plays Shahrzad, a mousy graphic designer who becomes distracted at work. At home her answering machine constantly squawks about her family’s health and well-being, and her annoying neighbor (Behzad Dorani, from Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us) keeps parking his giant SUV in her space. To her credit, Karimi never shows the expected hospital scenes, tearful good-byes, or tense confrontations that seem to be looming. Instead, she retreats inside the character’s head and brings the film to a stunningly private conclusion. (Jeffrey M. Anderson)

7:15 p.m., PFA. Also Sun/29, 12:15 p.m., Kabuki; Mon/30, 6:45 p.m., Kabuki

Murch (David and Edie Ichioka, England/US, 2006). Codirector Edie Ichioka is a disciple of legendary film and sound editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient), so you know this doc will be nothing less than a glowing portrait. But instead of a simple glorification, it is more an embellished interview (complete with jump cuts during the talking head portions), with Murch using an astounding array of metaphors – besides the obvious "editing is like putting together a puzzle," he also works in painters, sock puppets, kidney transplants, and dream therapy, among others – to explain his approach to his craft. As Murch proves, a talented editor can make a good film great and a great film a masterpiece; it all comes down to an intangible combination of technical skill, sense of rhythm, and artistic instinct. (Cheryl Eddy)

9 p.m., SFMOMA. Also Sun/29, 4:15 p.m., Castro; Tues/1, 1 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 3:30 p.m., PFA

*Slumming (Michael Glawogger, Austria/Switzerland, 2006). Two arrogant yuppie pranksters (August Diehl and Michael Ostrowski) cruise around verbally pigeonholing others, making playthings of them. Meanwhile, a drunken, derelict poet (Paulus Manker) wanders the streets alternately cajoling and ranting at people. When the pranksters find the poet passed out on a bus station bench, they decide to transport him to a similar spot across the border, without a passport. Director Michael Glawogger (Workingman’s Death) and cowriter Barbara Albert achieve a pleasurable quirky quality with their black comedy, carefully guiding it between the precious and the preachy; they sometimes amusingly present a joke’s payoff before the setup. The film passes easily between immaculate cafes and slush-covered highways, but at its center is Manker’s wonderfully cantankerous performance. (Anderson)

9:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also Sat/28, 1:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 8:30 p.m., SFMOMA; May 7, 6:30 p.m., Aquarius

SAT/28

*All in This Tea (Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht, US, 2006). Tea still has an effete connotation in this country, but David Lee Hoffman is an adventurer of the old order. An unabashed partisan of the fair drink, he regularly travels to China to ferret out farmers and distributors, sampling and savoring the Old World leaves. His dedication is total; we’re hardly surprised when Werner Herzog drops by Hoffman’s Marin home for a spot of tea, because the director is a connoisseur of aficionados, explorers, and cranks. Hoffman is capably eccentric but also unassuming, making All in This Tea a friendly primer. Codirectors Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht bring their usual ethnographic grace to this 10-years-in-the-making project. (Goldberg)

1:30 p.m., PFA. Also Sun/29, 4:45 p.m., Kabuki; May 2, 4 p.m., Kabuki

*At the Edge: New Experimental Cinema (various). Experimental showcases are always an Achilles heel for film festivals big on narrative. They’re often shoehorned with tepid concessions to so-called innovation, although sometimes they yield moments of genuine surprise. This showcase has a bit of both. Paul Clipson’s Super 8 trip of blurred urban lightscapes looks through Stan Brakhage’s kaleidoscope but can’t see beyond it. On the other hand, the sleep of reason produces monsters (slavery, social Darwinism) and some beautiful animation in Atlantis Unbound, in which Lori Hiris morphs her black-and-white charcoal sketches – evoking the mystical art of William Blake or Austin Osman Spare – of 19th-century scientists into slaves, merfolk, and other beings from beyond the pale of the Enlightenment. The banality of evil is also evoked in Xavier Lukomski’s static shots of the serene Drina River Bridge, where, as the voice-over informs us, Bosnians dredged up the victims of genocide. When viewed through a long shot, the horrors of history become more pronounced, given their calm surroundings. (Matt Sussman)

8:30 p.m., PFA. Also Tues/1, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki

*Carved Out of Pavement: The Work of Rob Nilsson On the brink of 70, longtime SF filmmaker Rob Nilsson is astonishingly prolific. No less than four work-in-progress features will be excerpted in this tribute program, including some from the nearly completed "9@Night" series of interwoven fictions made with the Tenderloin Action Group. For all his invention and industry in production, Nilsson hasn’t exactly worked overtime getting his movies seen – except at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where you can count on one or two premiering each fall. The MVFF is copresenting this special show, which will have the filmmaker reviewing a career that stretches back to the mid-’70s SF CineAction collective and 1979’s Cannes Camera d’Or-winning Northern Lights, as well as discussing latter-day digital projects with numerous current collaborators, also present. Excerpts from "9@Night" will also be projected on the SFIFF’s Justin Herman Plaza outdoor screen May 1 to 3. (Harvey)

7 p.m., Kabuki

Fabricating Tom Ze (Decio Matos Jr., Brazil, 2006). Though typically grouped with the explosive Brazilian Tropicalismo movement, Tom Ze has always been too much of an eccentric to fall properly into line. It’s a point made abundantly clear in Fabricating Tom Ze (I still haven’t figured out the title), a generally awestruck doc that makes up for its thin content with plenty of Ze’s indefatigable, abundant speech. Between the interruptions, self-mythologizing, and creative suggestions for the film’s director (all of which Decio Matos Jr. takes), Ze spills over with quixotic, brilliant epigrams on creativity and authenticity. "I have to make a small invention every time I have an idea worthy of becoming music," he reports – as if there were any doubting his inventiveness. (Goldberg)

1 p.m., SFMOMA. Also Tues/1, 8;30 p.m., El Rio; May 6, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 9, 6:30 p.m., Aquarius

*Hana (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2006). Hirokazu Kore-eda’s gentle deconstruction of that venerable institution of Japanese film the samurai movie isn’t too much of a departure from his previous features. Hana also focuses on the small, unexpected sense of community that arises out of idiosyncratic responses to tragedy or, in this case, the public’s hunger for it. It’s 1702, and like other underemployed samurai during peacetime, Sozaemon Aoki (Okada Junichi) is restless, as is the general population, which gorges itself on violent revenge plays and romanticized notions of honor. The pensive Sozaemon is bent on carrying out his duty to avenge his father’s death, even if he seems more at home tutoring the kids in the hardscrabble but lively tenement where he lives. His neighbors, who initially tease him about his lack of guts, eventually rally round his failures – and their own lowly status – and celebrate the humble resolve. To paraphrase resident dimwit Mago (Kimura Yuichi), when life gives you shit, make rice cakes. (Sussman)

4:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 2, 6:45 p.m.; and May 5, 5:45 p.m., PFA

*The Island (Pavel Lounguine, Russia, 2006). Not to be confused with Michael Bay’s jiggly, blow-’em-up, organ-harvesting gesture toward Logan’s Run. If Andrei Tarkovsky’s movies were lit by God, then The Island sets God to work creating an austere black-and-white landscape of unforgiving snow, rocky shores, hills of coal, and blighted driftwood. By all appearances a mad monk but in this reality a truth-talking, faith-healing saint of sorts, Father Anatoly is doing penance on the island for a wartime act that most reasonable deities would excuse. No such luck for this Russian Orthodox overseer – wearisome monastery politics and the teary negotiations of the sick and injured occupy the sooty savant in this elegantly wrought parable, which puts cheesy stateside Biblesploitation big-budgeters such as The Reckoning to shame. (Chun)

4:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 2, 6:45 p.m., Kabuki; May 3, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki

Once (John Carney, Ireland, 2006). A genuine sleeper at Sundance, this small Irish indie charmer will be spoiled only if you swallow all advance hype about its purported brilliance. Sometimes nice is quite enough. Real-life singer-songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova play struggling Dublin musicians, one a native busker still living above Da’s vacuum repair shop, the other a Czech emigre supporting her family by selling flowers on the street. Their slow-burning romance is more musical than carnal, climaxing in a studio recording session. Writer-director John Carney’s film manages to play like a full-blown musical without anyone ever bursting into song. Instead, the appealing original folk rock tunes played and sound-tracked here come off as vivid commentary on a platonic (yet frissony) central relationship. (Harvey)

7:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 6, 9:30 p.m., Clay

Protagonist (Jessica Yu, US, 2006). Jessica Yu, the Oscar-winning director of the 1996 short documentary Breathing Lessons (she also made 2004’s In the Realms of the Unreal, a haunting look at outsider artist Henry Darger), returns with Protagonist, an initially confusing but ultimately fascinating doc about four men who couldn’t be more dissimilar on the surface. How can the themes of classical Greek tragedy link a Mexican bank robber, a German terrorist, a reluctantly gay Christian, and an aggro martial artist? Yu uses puppet interludes, revealing interviews, and a keen eye for detail as she traces their shared stages of provocation, rage, doubt, catharsis, and so on – proving the journey of an antihero has little to do with setting, be it ancient or modern. (Eddy)

6:15 p.m., SFMOMA. Also Mon/30, 4:15 p.m., Kabuki; Tues/1, 9:15 p.m., Kabuki

*Strange Culture (Lynn Hershman Leeson, US, 2006). The duly strange, as yet unresolved case of SUNY Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz has spurred local filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson’s best feature to date, a documentary-dramatization hybrid. With the man himself still legally restrained from discussing his circumstances, Thomas Jay Ryan plays Kurtz, who as a founding member of the multimedia Critical Art Ensemble had long made work focusing on social justice issues and the intersection between science and government. To create an exhibition on biotechnology, he acquired for carefully safety-measured display some bacteria samples readily available online. When wife of 27 years Hope (played by Tilda Swinton) unexpectedly died of heart failure in her sleep, emergency medical personnel grew suspicious of these unusual art supplies. Soon FBI personnel evicted the distraught widower from his home, quarantined the entire block, and accused him of possessing bioterrorist weapons of mass destruction during an incredibly cloddish investigation. Kurtz’s real-life colleagues and friends were interviewed in a free-ranging yet pointed feature whose actors also step out of character to articulate their concern about the government’s post-9/11 crackdown on dissent, even the rarefied gallery kind. (Harvey)

6 p.m., Castro. Also May 4, 8: 45 p.m., SFMOMA; May 8, 7 p.m., PFA

SUN/29

The End and the Beginning (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2006). Picking a small town at random and making a film about its residents can be brave filmmaking. It can also be plain lazy, as is the case with Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho’s directionless profile of rural Aracas, in the state of Paraiba. Unsurprisingly, people being people, he finds great interview subjects, but he doesn’t bother to connect them to one another or to the town. Only their highly region-specific Catholicism provides any unifying thread. And though Coutinho’s not exactly condescending (beyond some slight Kids Say the Darndest Things baiting of his loonier interviewees), there’s an unspoken mandate to keep things simple: his response to one woman’s enticing hint at her failed law practice is to ask about her sewing. (Jason Shamai)

7:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also Tues/1, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 3, 4 p.m., Kabuki

*Singapore Dreaming (Yen Yen Woo and Colin Goh, Singapore, 2006). With their second feature, Yen Yen Woo and Colin Goh have their hearts in the right place while their eyes are on the prize of capturing a postcolonial city-state clutching at the global economy. The gently humorous, humanist realism of Edward Yang comes to mind while watching this husband-and-wife directorial team’s warm, witty depiction of the everyday lives of a working-class Singapore family who live, dream, bicker in pidgin English and Mandarin, and inhale vast quantities of herbal tea in their high-rise project. Pops buys lottery tickets, hoping to move into a slick new condo. Back from his studies in the States, the pampered son is discovering that in go-go Singapore his degree isn’t quite as covetable as it once was, and the beleaguered daughter is in her final trimester, coping with a demanding yuppie boss and a slacker hubby who yearns to be in a carefree rock band and pees in his father-in-law’s elevator. When disaster strikes, no one is thinking about the matriarch, whose only seeming desire is to properly feed and water her brood, but she ends up providing some unexpected feminist substance, rather than sustenance, under the movie’s wise gaze. (Chun)

8:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 4, 1 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 3 p.m., Kabuki

12 Labors (Ricardo Elias, Brazil, 2006). Part Black Orpheus, part 400 Blows, 12 Labors is a Brazilian feature that revisits the myth of Hercules through the story of a motorcycle messenger’s rehabilitation. A kid from a rough part of Sao Paulo, Heracles gets out of juvie and tries to start a new life. To land a job as a motorcycle messenger, he has a trial day with (you guessed it) a dozen jobs to complete. An artist who never knew his father, he also writes origin stories in comic book form, which mystify his coworkers. Though Heracles’s experiences seem tinted with divinity, he inspires worry on the part of the viewer. Since all good myths have moral purpose, this one finally addresses the very current social issue of juvenile delinquency and rehabilitation in urban Brazil. (Sara Schieron)

9:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also Mon/30, 7 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 7, 9:15 p.m., Aquarius

MON/30

*Broken English (Zoe Cassavetes, USA, 2006). "I don’t think Hollywood knows what to do with me," Parker Posey recently opined, despite having a prominent role in Superman Returns. Fortunately for us, Amerindie cinema does still know what to do with her. The SFIFF is hosting a double bill of the pushing-40 actor’s latest, reprising the title figure in Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool sequel Fay Grim and starring in Zoe Cassavetes’s feature debut. Posey is perfect as director-scenarist Cassavetes’s superficially cheery but highly insecure NYC hotelier. Some may think this low-key seriocomedy paces pat single-gal-searching paths – from Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl to Sex and the City – but in its thoughtful nature and serious treatment of a clinical-depression interlude it roams well outside stock terrain. Even if the fade-out waxes a tad improbably happily-ever-after, Posey’s nuanced performance will make you root for it. (Harvey)

6:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 2, 2 p.m., Kabuki

Fay Grim (Hal Hartley, USA/Germany, 2006). A decade ago Hal Hartley made his best movie, the practically epic – by this miniaturist’s standards – Henry Fool. By most estimates it’s been downhill ever since. They love him in France – but perhaps he should never have left Long Island. So it was heartening news to hear he was returning to the world of Henry Fool, better still to know the sequel would revolve around the title character’s scrappy, vulnerable abandoned wife, Fay, who provided one of Parker Posey’s finest hours. She’s still good here, natch, but Fay Grim is all over the map – literally. The convoluted story line journeys from a mild farcical take on espionage thrillers to a murkily serious commentary on world politics. It’s watchable, but once again one gets the sense that with Hartley, the wider his focus, the blurrier it gets. (Harvey)

9:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 3, 9:10 p.m., PFA

TUES/1

Congorama (Philippe Falardeau, Canada/Belgium/France, 2006). Quebec writer-director Philippe Falardeau’s story of a revolutionary electric car and a sticky-fingered inventor is part of that ever-widening army of films that plant fairly obvious and poorly integrated details into the first act so that later, when the story is retold from another perspective, they reappear with more context to click Aha!-ingly into place. Though some of the big, unwieldy reveals are a lot of fun in a Lost sort of way, they distract from the more prosaic but more satisfying concerns of the film’s smartly drawn characters. The inventor, for instance, is a not particularly likable person who still has a believably loving, humor-filled relationship with his family. Now talk about a novel concept! (Shamai)

6 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 2, 9:15 p.m., PFA; May 6, 6:30 p.m., Aquarius

Private Fears in Public Places (Alain Resnais, France/Italy, 2006). Alain Resnais’s 17th feature is dreamy and sometimes enchanting, though it doesn’t warrant comparison to the knife-sharp moral plays made during his prime, such as Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad. Adapted from a play by Alain Ayckbourn (the two previously collaborated on Smoking and No Smoking), Private Fears in Public Places weaves the love(less) stories of a half dozen Parisians; plotlines intersect, but in light brushes rather than the solemn collisions of Babel and Crash). The artifice Resnais imposes on his film is poetic in miniature – the camera, for example, periodically floats above the set, filming actors as if they were in a dollhouse – but the sum total is stultifying, unhinging an already-adrift narration and making Private Fears in Public Places seem needlessly opaque. (Goldberg)

7 p.m., PFA. Also May 3, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki; May 7, 4 p.m., Kabuki

*Rocket Science (Jeffrey Blitz, USA, 2006). Promising to be the next best coming-of-age cultie with its sure-handed, sharp performances and Freaks and Geeks-like sobriety, Rocket Science finds new agony and indie rock-laced ecstasy in one miserable adolescent’s progress. Or to be specific, one stuttering, 98-pound weakling’s marked, often laugh-out-loud funny lack of progress. The high school years for Hal Hefner (compulsively watchable frail cutie-pie Reece Thompson) seem to be going from bad to sexy once he gets recruited for the school debate team by scarily driven, Tracy Flick-esque champ Ginny (Anna Kendrick). But his travails never quite end even as he attempts to extract nerd revenge and literally find his voice, accompanied by vintage Violent Femmes and hand-clapping quirk pop by Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide. Tapping memories connected to a speech impediment, Spellbound codirector Jeffrey Blitz turns tongue-tied prince Hal’s articulation struggles into the perfect metaphor for every awkward teen’s gropes toward individuation. (Chun)

4 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 4, 6:15 p.m., Clay

Mi viva loca

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Viva Pinata

(Microsoft; Xbox 360)

GAMER When I grabbed Viva Piñata at the store, I hoped the game would inspire my Xbox 360 to a greatness beyond its current status as a sleek, expensive bookend that plays DVDs. Viva Pinata’s premise might be described as Pokemon: Capitalist Edition — you are a pinata farmer in charge of creating a garden that will attract a multitude of brightly colored pinatas, which you will have to tend and breed in a totally G-rated way. You make money from selling the rarer, more valuable piñatas.

I’ll be honest: my interest in this game was piqued when someone told me you could whack the Whirm pinatas with a shovel and feed their candy viscera to the Sparrowmint pinatas. We need more of that sort of content in children’s games.

The game play is most reminiscent of SimCity: you must satisfy the requirements of your potential citizens to entice them to move in and stay. Once your population gets large, chaos ensues. You plow your garden, and once you have nice soil, a Whirm pinata moves in. These are soon followed by Sparrowmints. But why doesn’t my bird pinata eat my worm pinata? After about five tries, my Sparrowmint flew off toward my worm and ate it. This lack of responsiveness sadly plagues Viva Pinata. Actions fail and give you no indication why. At other times the game generates an ominous err-err noise and doesn’t indicate why it made the sound or refocus on the problem piñata. You have to search over your large garden of piñatas to find the one that was poisoned or got in a fight.

When your pinatas inevitably start fighting, you’ll find there’s no way to break them up except to whack or spray them. Your pinatas sicken if they lose a fight, get wet, or are smacked. If you don’t build fences, you’ll spend most of your time calling the doctor, yet building fences is nearly impossible. The analog control is terrible — it will fail to fence areas such as untilled land but won’t tell you why. Getting your pinatas behind the fence is another trial — there aren’t any gates, and the game doesn’t pause while you’re fencing. You have to herd them into the area you want to fence, and half the time they wander off while you’re building.

After about two days of playing this game, I got frustrated and sold it. The controls were awkward and unintuitive — reprehensible in an adult game but inexcusable in a kids’ one. The game play felt buggy and broken. Since this is the only real children’s title for Xbox 360, I can’t completely dis it. But your kids, being smarter and more patient than both you and me, will probably enjoy it a lot more than you will. (Kea Johnston)

Resurrection blues

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

Sure it’s all about puppy love, music-geek boners, and clean-cut strangers offering to be their dog now, but as Iggy Pop declared during a crowded onstage interview at this year’s South by Southwest fest in Austin, Texas, back when the once-decried Stooges first burst blown-out, bratty, and oozing monosyllabic menace, bristly distortion, and snotty attitude from Ann Arbor, Mich., "the two things were, ‘They can’t play.’ " He gestured toward the two other surviving original Stooges, guitarist Ron Asheton and his brother, drummer Scott, then nodded almost imperceptibly toward himself. "And ‘We hate him!’ "

Thirty-four years after the Stooges called it quits the last time around, that animosity was absent the next night as the Stooges packed the dirt expanses of Stubb’s in Austin. The Stooges’ first two albums, 1968’s self-titled debut and 1970’s Fun House (both Elektra), left an indelible, grotesque yet groovy, brutal bruise on rock’s flower-power posterior with the most proudly primal and corrosive art rock ever generated by smarter-than-they-looked-or-sounded troglodytes enamored of the dirty blues, garage rock, and free jazz. And now it looked like the surprisingly mixed mob at Stubb’s of T-shirted record collectors, black-garbed rockers, shaggy hipsters, gray-haired codgers with pasteled wifeys, buttoned-down frat boys, and straightened-haired patrician blonds was all in on the joke and the joy of still-powerful songs such as "1969" and "TV Eye." A deeply tanned, limber Pop undulated above the mass, flailing and bounding like a bronze lizard made of bubble gum and Motor City tire rubber, seemingly swallowed by the crowd, then spat back out while the Ashetons, Mike Watt on bass, and Pacifica resident Steve Mackay on sax punched through bleeding, blighted versions of "No Fun" and "Loose."

Still, you couldn’t help tearing your peepers away from arguably the finest rock combo ever to roll off Detroit-area assembly lines to wonder who were all these people? Deeply closeted Stooges fans who wore out the grooves of their gatefold Fun Houses in the dark beside dank jocks and dusty sneaks? Surely there were more Three Stooges Usenet newsgroups than Stooges message boards? If you weren’t even born when a band first came around, does the connection you forge with the group and its work still count as nostalgia?

What does someone in the middle of the Stooges reunion storm, such as Ron Asheton, feel about the newbs and the love lavished even as the band fails to gather enough votes to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame despite multiple nominations?

"It’s the best time. It’s superfine," the 58-year-old Asheton says from Ann Arbor. "Especially since the audiences are more receptive than they’ve been in the past. They know the songs. It’s kind of like the world has caught up with the Stooges."

Between playing with bands such as Destroy All Monsters and acting in low-budget horror flicks such as Mosquito, Asheton — a born raconteur given to wicked, basso profundo Pop impersonations and swoopingly dramatic vocal flourishes — has been holding down the inherited Asheton family homestead as the only remaining Stooge left in Michigan while Scott and Pop spend most of the year in Florida. He was prepping for the start of the reunited Stooges’ first full US tour and looking forward to working on the 30 or so additional songs written during the making of The Weirdness.

SFBG Why do you still live in Michigan?

RON ASHETON I love it. It’s a beautiful state. I love the Great Lakes, and I have a place on Lake Heron that I get to go to infrequently. When I was younger, we moved so much that when I finally got to Michigan, I said when I was 14, [miming a pouty teen] ‘I’m never moving again!’ Though I did live in California for six years when Main Man Management took the Stooges to LA — being here was like being in the backwater rather than being close to the action when you’re young and stupid!

SFBG How do you feel about The Weirdness?

RA When I listen to it, I can’t just listen to it once — I really do, it’s true! — I listen to it twice, and I picture people in the summertime, riding in the cars or sitting by the campfire on the beach or having a backyard party.

It was really fun to do it differently than in the past, where with the first record, we had one week. I never heard the record till it was actually in the stores. The second, Fun House — I heard the acetate shortly before it was released, and that only took two weeks. This one took three weeks, and I got to be one of the producers.

SFBG Why weren’t you able to listen to The Stooges before it came out?

RA That’s the way record companies dealt with things. It was just taken out of our hands after we were done — "You kids are dismissed! Leave the room!" The producer [John Cale] and the owner [Jac Holzman] of the record company took the record, and they got a new toy! "Yeah, I paid for it! I can do whatever I want with it!" So it was very smart of Iggy to want to have control of the new record.

SFBG The Stooges always wrote songs based from the start on your guitar riffs. How did you develop the songs this time?

RA We did it on this also. The only difference now was it was concentrated — going down to Florida and me walking in the building, plugging in my guitar, and starting to play. Iggy lurking about — same thing. Coming up with things just off the top of my head, and Iggy saying, "Hey, I like that!"

SFBG How would you describe the Stooges’ dynamic, writing and playing together?

RA I think part of it is we actually grew up together. Being teenagers and deciding to get a band house and getting that first summer sublet and finally getting kicked out of there and moving on and getting another place, that common bond of doing everything together. We literally ate dinner together, went out, cruised the town, went to parties, knowing we were part of the birth of that ugly baby the Stooges! *

STOOGES

Thurs/19 and Sat/21, 8 p.m., $39.50–$45

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 775-7722

For more from Ron Asheton, go to www.sfbg.com/blogs/music.

Go green!

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PARTIES, EVENTS, AND BENEFITS

"Arcadia: 2007" California Modern Gallery, 1035 Market; 821-9693, www.fuf.net. Mon/23, 6pm, $125-$350. This soiree and art auction — featuring work by more than 100 artists and hosted by Jeffrey Fraenkel, Gretchen Bergruen, and Thomas Reynolds — will benefit Friends of the Urban Forest, a nonprofit organization that provides financial, technical, and practical assistance to individuals and neighborhood groups that want to plant and care for trees.

"Away Ride Celebrating Earth Day" Meet at McLaren Lodge, Golden Gate Park; (510) 849-4663, www.borp.org. Sun/22, 1:30pm, free with preregistration. The SF Bike Coalition and the Bay Area Outdoor Recreation Program join forces to host this moderately paced ride open to all levels of riders. They provide a helmet and a handcycle or tandem bike. You bring a sack lunch and water. Kids also get to decorate their wheels — bike, wheelchair, or skate.

"Biomimicry: The 2007 Digital Be-In" Mezzanine, 444 Jessie; www.be-in.com. Sat/22, 7pm-3am, $15 presale, $20 door, $100 VIP. Turn on, tune in, log out. In the spirit of the 1967 human be-in that epitomized San Francisco’s hippie generation and made Haight Ashbury famous, counterculture artists and activists have been hosting "The Digital Be-In" for 15 years. This year’s combination symposium-exhibition-multimedia-entertainment extravaganza focuses on Biomimicry as it relates to technology, urban development, and sustainability. There’ll be no Timothy Leary here, but the event will feature live music, DJs, projections, and appearances by modern hippie celebs such as Free Will astrologer Rob Brezsny and Burning Man founder Larry Harvey. Or join in the simultaneous virtual be-in in the Second Life online world. The revolution will be digitized.

"Earth Day Fair" Ram Plaza, City College of San Francisco, 50 Phelan; 239-3580, www.ccsf.edu. Thurs/19, 11am-1:30pm, free. View information tables set up by the CCSF and citywide environmental organizations, as well as a display of alternative fuel vehicles.

"EarthFest" Aquarium of the Bay, 39 Pier; 623-5300, www.aquariumofthebay.com. Sun/22, 12-4pm, free. View presentations and engage in activities provided by 20 organizations all dedicated to conservation and environmental protection, with activities including live children’s music, a scavenger hunt, and giveaways.

"McLaren Park Earth Day" John McLaren Park’s Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, 40 John F. Shelley; www.natureinthecity.org. Sun/22, 11am-7pm, free. What would Jerry do? Commemorate the park’s 80th anniversary with an all-day festival featuring birding hikes, habitat restoration projects, wildflower walks, tree planting, an ecostewardship fair, food booths, a live reptile classroom, puppetry, performance, music, storytelling, and chances to make art.

"$1 Makes the World a Greener Place" Buffalo Exchange local stores; 1-866-235-8255, www.buffaloexchange.com. Sat/21, all day, free. Buy something, change the world. During this special sale at all Buffalo Exchange stores, proceeds will benefit the Center for Environmental Health, which promotes greener practices in major industries. Many sale items will be offered for $1.

"People’s Earth Day" India Basin, Shoreline Park, Hunters Point Boulevard at Hawes, SF. Sat/21,10am-3pm. What better place to celebrate Earth Day than with a community of victorious ecowarriors? Help sound the death knell for the PG&E Hunters Point power plant with events and activities including a community restoration project at Heron’s Head Park, the presentation of the East Side Story Literacy for Environmental Justice theater production, and a display about Living Classroom, an educational and all-green facility expected to break ground this year. Want to get there the green way? Take the no. 19 Muni bus or the T-Third Street line.

BAY AREA

"Berkeley Earth Day" Civic Center Park, Berk; www.hesternet.net. Sat/21, 12-5pm, free. Earth Day may not have been born in Berkeley (it was actually the idea of a senator from Wisconsin), but it sure lives here happily. Celebrate at this community-sponsored event, which features a climbing wall, vegetarian food, craft and community booths, valet bike parking, and performances by Friends of Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble, Alice DiMicele Band, and Amandla Poets.

"Earth Day Celebration" Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds, Sausalito; 339-3900, www.baykidsmuseum.org. Sat/21, 10am-5pm, free with museum admission. Happy birthday, dear planet. This Earth Day connect your family to the wonders of &ldots; well &ldots; you know, with a variety of special activities, including seed planting and worm composting, birdhouse building, a bay walk and cleanup, and presentations about insects from around the planet. For a small fee, also enjoy a birthday party for Mother Earth with games, face painting, crafts, and cake.

"Earth Day on the Bay" Marine Science Institute, 500 Discovery Parkway, Redwood City; (650) 364-2760, sfbayvirtualvoyage.com/earthday.html. Sat/21, 8am-4pm, $5 suggested donation. This is the one time of year the institute opens its doors to the public, so don’t miss your chance for music, mud, and sea creatures — the Banana Slug String Band, the Sippy Cups, fish and shark feeding, and programs with tide pool animals, to be exact. You can also take a two-hour trip aboard an MSI ship for an additional $10.

"Earth Day Restoration and Cleanup Program" California State Parks; 258-9975 for one near you, www.calparks.org. Sat/21, times vary, free. The best way to celebrate Earth Day is to get involved. Volunteers are needed at California State Parks throughout the area for everything from planting trees and community gardens to restoring trails and wildlife habitats, and from installing recycling bins to removing trash and debris. All ages welcome.

"E-Waste Recycling Event" Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton, Pleasanton; 1-866-335-3373, www.noewaste.com. Fri/20-Sun/22, 9am-3pm, free. The city of Pleasanton teams up with Electronic Waste Management to collect TVs, computers, monitors, computer components, power supplies, telephone equipment, scrap metal, wire, and much more. There is no limit to how much you can donate, and everything will be recycled.

"The Oceans Festival" UC Berkeley, Upper Sproul Plaza (near Bancroft and Telegraph), Berk; Fri/20, 5pm-7pm, donations accepted. This event, sponsored by CALPIRG, Bright Antenna Entertainment, and West Coast Performer magazine, is meant to bring awareness to the problem of plastic in our oceans and to raise money, through donations and food sales, for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Featuring music and dance performances, as well as presentations by a variety of environmental organizations.

"People’s Park 38th Anniversary Celebration" People’s Park, Berk; www.peoplespark.org. Sun/22, 12-6pm, free. Celebrate the park with poetry, speakers, music, art and revolution theater, political tables, a Food Not Bombs lunch, clowns, puppets, and activities for children.

LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, AND WORKSHOPS

"Green Capital: Profit and the Planet?" Club Office, 595 Market; 597-6705. Wed/18, 6:30pm, $8-15. Can sustainable business renew our economy and save the planet? Can activists ethically exploit market systems? Environmental pioneers, from corporate reps to conservationists, will bust the myths and reveal realities of profitable environmental solutions at this panel discussion cosponsored by INFORUM; featuring Peter Liu of the National Resource Bank, author Hunter Lovins (Natural Capitalism), Steven Pinetti of Kimpton Hotels, and Will Rogers of the Trust for Public Land; and moderated by Christie Dames.

"An Inconvenient Truth 2.0 — A Call to Action" California State Bldg, 455 Golden Gate. Thurs/19, 6:30-9pm, $5 suggested donation. An updated version of Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation will be screened by Sierra Club director Rafael Reyes, then followed by a discussion of the impact of global warming and a progress report on national legislation by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

"The Physics of Toys: Green Gadgets for a Blue Planet" Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon; 561-0399, www.exploratorium.edu. Sat/21,11am-3pm, free with admission. The monthly event focuses on the earth this time around, giving children and adults an opportunity to build pinwheel turbines and other green gadgets. Materials provided.

BAY AREA

"Agroecology in Latin America: Social Movements and the Struggle for a Sustainable Environment" La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 847-1262, www.mstbrazil.org. Wed/18, 7:30pm, donations accepted. Get an update on Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, the alliance between environmental and social justice movements in the Americas, struggles for Food Sovereignty, organized peasant response to global agribusiness, opposition to genetically engineered crops, and more. Featuring guest speaker Eric Holt-Gimernez, executive director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy.

ART, MUSIC, AND PERFORMANCE

"Bio-Mapping" Southern Exposure Gallery, 2901 Mission, SF; (415) 863-2141, www.sf.biomapping.net. Sat/21, 6:30pm, $8-15. Everyone says going green feels good — here’s the chance to prove it. Participate in Christian Nold’s social-art project by strapping into a GPS device and skin censors. Then take a walk or a bike ride while the sensors record your feelings and location. Nold uses the data to make an "Emotion Map" of the city, which you can check out online. (Can’t make Saturday? Nold’s also there Thursdays and Fridays through April 28).

"ReCycle Ryoanji" San Francisco Civic Center Plaza; blog.greenmuseum.org/recycle-ryoanji. Thurs/19, 4-6pm, free. Judith Selby Lang, local students, and visitors to the Asian Art Museum have sewn together thousands of white shopping bags to make their own version of Japan’s most famous and celebrated garden as both an art exhibition and community education project. The 18-foot-by-48-foot scale replica of the raked sand and rock garden can be seen at this reception for the project and on display across from City Hall until Tues/24. (Take that, American Beauty.)

"Green Apple Music and Arts Festival" Venues vary; www.greenapplefestival.com. Fri/20-Sun/22, prices vary. Green Apple combines fun and education with a three-day, ecofriendly music festival in cities across the country. San Francisco’s festival includes shows by Yonder Mountain String Band, New Mastersounds, Electric Six, Trans Am, and others at venues across the city, as well as a free concert at Golden Gate Park. Green Apple provides venues with environmentally friendly cups, straws, napkins, paper towels, and compostable garbage bags, as well as doing its best to make the entire festival carbon neutral.

UPCOMING EVENTS

"San Francisco New Living Expo" Concourse Exhibition Center, Eighth Street at Brannan; 382-8300, www.newlivingexpo.com. April 27-29, admission varies according to day and event. Touting 275 exhibitors and 150 speakers (including Starhawk, Marianne Williamson, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and ganja-guru Ed Rosenthal), the sixth annual version of this event promises to energize, educate, awaken, and expand consciousness. You won’t want to miss the environmental activism panel discussion April 28 at 3pm — or the exhibition hall’s special crystal area.

BAY AREA

"Harmony Festival" Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. June 8-10, $125 plus $50 per car camping pass. This festival is so green it’s almost blue — in fact, its tagline is "promoting global cooling." There’s a waste diversion effort, a whole Green Team monitoring the EcoStation, compost cans, and tips on how to be an ecofriendly attendee. Plus, it just looks like fun. With Brian Wilson, the Roots, and Common performing and Amy Goodman and Ariana Huffington speaking, how can you miss it?

"Lightning in a Bottle" Live Oak Campground, Santa Barbara; 1-866-55-TICKET, www.lightninginabottle.org. May 11-13. $95-120. It ain’t just a party. It’s a green-minded, art-and-music-focused campout in a forest wonderland. Organized by Los Angeles’s the Do Lab with participation from tons of SF artists, this three-day event is powered by alternative energy, offers ecoworkshops in everything from permaculture to raw foods, and encourages rideshares — including a participant-organized bus trip from San Francisco. Also featuring performances by Freq Nasty, Bassnectar, Vau de Vire Society, El Circo, and other DJs and artists from San Francisco and elsewhere, LIB attempts to change the precedent that festival fun has to be ecologically disastrous.

"Sierra Nevada World Music Festival" Mendocino County Fairgrounds, Boonville; www.snwmf.com. June 22-24, $125 plus $50 per car camping pass. Peace is green, right? I mean, what about Greenpeace? And peace is what this festival, which promotes "conscious" music, is all about. Plus, a range of representatives of environmental and social issues will be tabling at the festival — and registering voters.

BEYOND

"Burning Man" Black Rock City, Nev.; (415) TO-FLAME, www.burningman.com. Aug 27-Sept 3, $250-$280. With its Leave No Trace philosophy and its hippie roots, Burning Man has always been greener than most. But this year it’s getting even more explicitly so with the theme the Green Man, focusing on humanity’s relationship to nature (even though there is no nature on the dry lakebed surface). A pessimist might suggest this year’s theme is just another excuse to waste resources on leaf-themed art cars and that "Leave No Trace" usually translates to "Leave Your Trash in Reno." But an optimist might say this is Burning Man acknowledging and trying to address such issues. Either way, air out your dust-filled tent and pack some chartreuse body paint — it’s going to be an interesting year in Black Rock. *

Hot Lex

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Lesbians: is there nothing they can’t do? They can run a contemporary art gallery in thigh-baring Versace, tossing back their Paul Labrecqued locks as they leap from their roofless 330Ci. They can go from homeless crack addict to nude Hugo Boss model without gaining a single ounce. They can be a smokin’-hot Latina named Papi, a sassy, brassy canoodler who just happens — surprise! — to be a whiz at hoops. Astonishing lesbians!

Oh, wait. That’s The L Word — about as far from the real world of gloriously rambunctious, wild San Francisco dykes as you can get without scarfing down a gift sack of MAC Pervette lip frost, doing Pilates to Ashlee Simpson ("I am me!"), and microwaving Cheeto, your stump-tailed calico cat. Yes, yes, I know the writhing isle of televised lesbos that L makes LA out to be is one big, fat, easy, anorexic target. Don’t get your Mary Green panties in a bunch, Caitlyn. Just lie back, relax, and think of Joan Jett and Carmen Electra. It’s OK. But just as Chuck D. once bemoaned the fact that most of his heroes don’t appear on no stamps, so my homo heroes don’t appear on no Showtime.

Case in point: Lila Thirkield, the superhumanly vivacious owner of SF sapphic outpost the Lexington Club. When I first moved here in the early ’90s, I almost turned straight or something. The San Francisco my naive dreams envisioned was full of hot, scruffy, tattooed boys into hip-hop and punk, all of them on goofy, gleaming bicycles, occasionally in drag. What I got were mostly overgymed proto–circuit queens in pink spandex thongs and cracked-out twinks you could practically see through. Great if I needed to floss, but … And while all the cute ex–ACT UPers were somewhere adrift — busy shearing sleeves off flannels, maybe — it was the rough-and-tumble sistas who really dotted the t’s on my fanboy résumé. Dykes ruled it.

That was back when wallet chains were radical and FTMs were the new It girls. I’m dating myself, but who wouldn’t, hello? Alas, despite all those Sister Sledge–soundtracked strides up the rainbow of equal signs, women could still get kicked out of bars for making out. Wha? It was a gay man, man, man’s world, and the few lesbian watering holes hewed strictly to the old-school standards: alternadykes, calm down.

Thirkield, a spiky-souled kid at the time, stepped up and opened the Lexington in 1997 to give dykes of a different stripe a dive of their own. Like all bars clever enough to fill a cultural gap, the Lex galvanized its community and reinforced the new, boisterous lesbo aesthetic that combined street activism, machismo appropriation, punk rock attitude, and a winking yen for girly pop culture. And hot sex, of course.

"It seemed so important to have a space where we could be creative, where artists, street kids, and young people could hook up and express themselves," Thirkield says. "It was my first time running a bar, but it was like the whole community was running it with me."

Over the past decade the Lex has persevered in the same spirit. "The economics of the city have really changed," Thirkield says. "Our crowd has a really hard time living here now — that’s why we never charge a cover and we always support other things going on. But really, we’re doing better than ever."

The young drinking dyke crowd has also expanded, finding homes over the years in such spaces as the Phone Booth and Pop’s, as well as legendary joints such as Sadie’s Flying Elephant and the Wild Side West. New bar Stray is catering to a mostly female clientele, and, although lesbian spaces Cherry and the old Transfer have succumbed, a slew of roving dyke dance parties have taken root.

"The dyke scene has changed in the past 10 years too," Thirkield says. "It’s more diverse. Certain aspects of it are more visible in the media — some people expect different things. We get a lot more complaints from people coming in for the first time, saying things like ‘It’s such a dive!’ Well, yes, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, it’s great that lipstick types exist. I hope they find a place that makes them happy. But if you want to flick your lighter and sing along to old Journey songs with a roomful of babes from around the world — like during Pride last year — this is the place."

And what about that pesky L Word? "We get a big crowd to watch it on Sunday nights — mostly because they can’t afford cable. Then they stay for an hour afterward, drinking and bitching about it. So it’s great for business!" *

LEXINGTON CLUB 10TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Sat/14, 8 p.m.–2 a.m., free

3464 19th St., SF

(415) 863-2052

www.lexingtonclub.com

Crime-free creativity

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› culture@sfbg.com

A couple dozen of San Francisco’s best young graffiti artists, many dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and baseball hats, huddle around long tables littered with markers, blank books, pens, and stickers. The artists crowded around the white paper–draped tables do a little talking and joking, but mainly they’re drawing and writing, some at a fever pitch. Bright colors and stylish lettering abound. There is a sense of concentrated creativity in this large studio space — something rare in classrooms these days. But this not your run-of-the-mill art class. This is Streetstyles, a free course that focuses on the misunderstood medium of graffiti and street art. Its aim is multifaceted, concentrating on the production and repercussions of urban art. The class attempts, as instructor Dave Warnke explains, "to separate the art from the act." He is interested in what motivates these artists: Why are they writing graffiti? What do they want people to see? What do they want people to feel?

Some kids, Warnke admits, "get into [graffiti] for the criminal mystique." But inclusion has been a key principle for Warnke and his art lessons. Although Streetstyles does not turn away any young artists, new students to the course are always pulled aside for a little one-on-one. "I ask them, ‘Do you do it for the crime? Or do you do it for the art?’ " he says. "If you don’t want to do art, then you might as well go piss on the sidewalk." The number one rule in Warnke’s class is respect. Respect for the art. Respect for one another. And respect for oneself.

"I try to give them the respect that I don’t think they get other places," he says. "I engage them, let them know that this is art. I’ve had some of these kids for years. I can help them by exposing them to different styles and by challenging them. I push them, and I’m not sure how many other people in their lives are doing that."

Originally from New Jersey, Warnke has two art degrees from Dún Laoghaire College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, but he says his early experiences in art education were a bit rough, as he bounced around art schools before finally settling in the Bay Area. "I had no skills except drawing silly faces," says Warnke, who’s been an active street artist for more than 10 years. "My art didn’t have a place. It’s kind of like propaganda."

He figured he’d become an art teacher, then quickly realized that schools in the area were firing — not hiring — art teachers. He finally applied for a position at James Lick Middle School in Noe Valley, carefully leaving his street art out of his portfolio, which was composed of mainstream art and design work.

"I wanted to get the job," Warnke admits. "I thought I was going to teach watercolors or something. You know, bowls of fruit and stuff." But faculty members had already heard about Warnke’s back-alley and rooftop endeavors, and they were not offended. As a matter of fact, they were impressed. They offered him an opportunity to teach a class on his kind of art, street art. Thus, the first Streetstyles program was born.

After a stint at City Arts and Tech High School, Warnke decided to take Streetstyles out on its own. Starting last October — thanks to financial backing from Youth Speaks and Mark Dwight, CEO of Timbuk2 — Warnke started teaching his independent class twice a week at Root Division, a 7,200 square foot building founded in 2002 where resident artists receive subsidized studio space in exchange for their service as art instructors.

"Root Division is a great place to do it," Warnke says. "They are very accommodating." In addition to hosting Streetstyles, Root Division provides San Francisco youth with free art classes and after-school programs, hosts events, and has adult programs designed to make art more accessible to the community at large.

Streetstyles was rounded out by the addition of San Francisco graffiti legend and Root Division resident artist Carlos Castillo. Castillo, under the alias Cast, is a first-generation West Coast graffiti artist who started writing on the streets of San Francisco around 1983. Now a professional artist, sculptor, California College of the Arts graduate, and occasional graffiti art teacher for his son, Castillo edifies students about old-school styles and the history of the movement. "We balance each other out," Warnke says.

The core curriculum doesn’t stray far from that of a conventional art class. Every session starts with a stealthy lesson plan in which Warnke and his staff attempt to sneak in a little formal education. There is study of color, composition, and form. The students study typography, entertain guest speakers, and examine street art from around the world. At Streetstyles purpose, placement, and permission replace reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Warnke is aware of the criminal aspect of his passion and understands how some, particularly opponents of street art at large, might think his work empowers vandalism. There are students in his class who have been arrested, suspended from school, and even jumped for their love of graffiti. Many are doing community service for vandalism, and some have prior records for crimes unrelated to street art. Warnke counters, "I’m not a cop, and no, I’m not going to snitch. I understand [these kids’] passion, and when you compare writing graffiti to what’s going on in the schools these days and in the streets with the violence and drugs, I just want to give them even more markers. Some of these kids don’t know about anything much past 23rd Street. I provide these kids with a place that’s safe. And yeah, I let them get up. For four hours a week, they are not getting in trouble, getting in fights, doing drugs, or whatever. While they are in my class, they will all be safe, creative, and respectful."

Many of the students’ parents are supportive of the class. Warnke boasts, "I got my first ever real fruit basket from a parent, and it was a damn nice one too." He adds, "I want these kids to do something they can be proud of. Something they can take home to mom."

"You can have street art hanging at the [Yerba Buena Center for the Arts], but if you go outside and start writing on a wall, you’ll be arrested," he says. It’s an interesting paradox in his class, just as it is in the larger world of street art.

As for Warnke’s own urban artwork, these days he focuses mainly on trading homemade stickers — his and his students’ — with other street artists from around the world. "What I like about it is that it’s a different form of getting up. Some people claim all-city — well, we’re trying to claim all-world," he says. "I’m up more in Brazil and Portugal than I am here in the States."

But is Warnke still writing on walls?

"I’m semiretired," he says, smiling shyly. "I used to be invisible. Now it’s too easy to find me." *

For information on Streetstyles, visit www.rootdivision.org. Check out Dave Warnke’s professional art and design work at www.davewarnke.com.

Don’t miss "New Growth: An Exhibition of Artwork from the Root Division," part of Root Division’s Second Saturday series, which will feature work by students from Buena Vista Elementary, Fairmont Elementary, and Hoover Middle School and youth from the Streetstyles class. The event will feature free interactive art projects and musical performances by Paul Green’s School of Rock (including tributes to the Grateful Dead, Southern rock, and Frank Zappa).

May 12, 4–8 p.m., $5 suggested donation. Root Division, Gallery 3175, 3175 17th St., SF. (415) 863-7668, www.rootdivision.org

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Going mobile

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

On a recent sunny afternoon in Berkeley, the head-nodding rhythms of Barrington Levy’s ’80s dancehall hit "Here I Come" could be heard wafting down Telegraph Avenue. As the outdoor reggae mix continued, the music’s mysterious source soon became evident. Right off the ave on the corner of Haste were two chunky 10-inch JBL speakers, booming. They were attached to the back of what resembled a Mexican ice cream bike painted in bright Rasta colors, which was in fact a unique mobile record store, complete with turntables and a mixer and boasting a selection of CDs, 7-inch records, DVDs, and even T-shirts dangling from hangers hooked on a nearby metal fence.

Propped against the three-wheeler’s saddle and mixing reggae 45s behind the wheels — the turntables, that is — was the pedal store’s owner: longtime Bay Area DJ and former independent music store owner Riddm. Since his retail shop, once a few short blocks away on Bowditch, went out of business after five years, he has taken his vinyl to the streets, where he has successfully eliminated overhead and increased profits. "I definitely make more money on the street than I used to in the store," Riddm said with a smile between cuing up a single of Freddie McGregor’s "Roots Man Skankin" and taking $8 for a local DJ’s mix CD from one of this afternoon’s many customers. "And it makes me feel much better … to be out here … not having the confinement of walls," he said before quickly adding, "Of course, I couldn’t but feel a sense of defeat when I had to close the store."

A well-established Bay Area record collector, Riddm, whose gigs include Tuesdays at Farmer Brown and whose current popular mix CDs are Living in Love and Can’t Get Me Down, is known for such things as compiling the Bay Area Funk collection of local rare grooves for Luv N’ Haight and, of course, for his defunct shop.

On Sept. 1, 2000, Riddm did what most music fanatics only dream of: he opened his own record store, Funky Riddm Records, which was stocked with reggae, funk, and hip-hop and located a few blocks from the UC campus. And there he stayed until December 2005, followed by an immediate additional six months in a cheaper, more out-of-the-way space on Ashby. Running a retail business is always hard, but starting a music store in the first half of this decade had to be one of the hardest challenges anyone could take on. "A year into my business, 9/11 happened, and that really affected the whole mood of retail," Riddm said.

Then came the flood of reissues and bootlegs, which directly cut into Riddm’s collectors’ niche. "I wanted to be the East Bay Groove Merchant to some extent, as far as rare hip-hop was concerned. And I really did have the hookup on original hip-hop," he said. Digital file sharing and free MP3s didn’t help. "It would get a bit frustrating when kids would come in and say, ‘Hey! What’s the name of what you’re playing?’ and then write it down and leave," he explained.

By last summer Riddm had fully accepted that the traditional retail music store model was economically defunct and decided to take it to the streets, or rather first to the Berkeley Flea Market at the Ashby BART station. But he figured he needed something unique. "I wanted to have some kind of sound station where I could play records and CDs. So I hit the drawing board … and went from a wheelbarrow to all kinds of things," he said. One lucky day he "heard the guys from Critical Mass roll by with this big sound system towed on a bike." Riddm was impressed. "So I went to their headquarters or where they used to have meetings at PedEx, or Pedal Express, a green-powered delivery service out of Berkeley, and they were really supportive."

After he saw his inspiration’s old-fashioned three-wheel bike with two wheels in the front, he decided that would be the basis for his new shop’s design: "My main idea was to have the turntables right in front of the steering so that the second you stop steering you can start spinning. You are right in position. You don’t have to go around the back." Over a couple months he designed it and with help from his friend Steve from clothing company Rasta Boom Box successfully built the 250-pound mobile system, 300 with inventory. The mix CDs are the most popular, and Riddm sells CDs and DVDs for $10 or less, 45s for $3, and the T-shirts he designs himself for $15. You can find him at the Ashby flea market on weekends and on Telegraph during the week — sunshine prevailing, he noted.

And what about the future? "I want to get a better van to take it out on the road to more reggae festivals," Riddm said. He was very successful last year when he hit Reggae on the River, among other fests. "What I really love about this now is that I can set my own hours. People always ask me, ‘When will I be out again?’ " he said with a smile. "And I say, ‘When the sun shines!’ … You don’t feel the Jamaican vibe when it’s gray or raining!" *

RIDDIM

Tuesdays, 6–11 p.m., call for price

Farmer Brown

25 Mason, SF

(415) 409-FARM

www.myspace.com/funkyriddms

>

Stand up for immigrants, Mr. Newsom

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OPINION President George W. Bush’s war on immigration is wreaking havoc on San Francisco’s immigrant community. Across the Bay Area and in San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have been carrying out raids at homes and workplaces, near schools, and, in broad daylight, on the streets. Hundreds of immigrants have been deported, devastating families, separating parents from United States–born children, and leaving entire neighborhoods in a state of fear.

There are few other neighborhoods that feel the ICE war more than the Mission District, the Latino heart and soul of San Francisco. So it was especially painful to sit through a two-hour town hall meeting orchestrated by Mayor Gavin Newsom on March 26 at César Chávez Elementary School in the Mission. Never once did he acknowledge vocal community members’ concerns over ICE sweeps and civil rights abuses. Instead, as predicted, he kept to the script, selecting two dozen questions out of 70 that were submitted by more than 250 attendees. Despite the loud chants, luchadores dressed in capes and masks, and bold visuals that called for a stop to the ICE raids, the mayor continued to talk and talk and talk some more about the health care access initiative.

Health care access is an important issue — residents and workers throughout the city appreciate the mayor’s efforts and welcome any relief for the thousands of uninsured, low-income, and undocumented residents of San Francisco. But right now the streets of the city are hot, and immigrant families are scared to leave their homes, send their kids to school, go to work, or even seek medical care at General Hospital for fear of being swept up, displaced, and deported.

Fortunately, there are some protections in the city. In 1989 the immigrant-rights movement, with the support of elected officials, established the sanctuary ordinance, which bars city officials, the Police Department, and other city agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officials. But in light of the most recent aggression, the time has come for our mayor and our elected officials to do more.

In 2004, in a rightful act of civil disobedience, a defiant Newsom stood up for justice by marrying same-sex couples, a landmark event in US civil rights history. It’s time for the mayor to once again stand up for justice by supporting the immigrants who make great contributions to this city and the nation.

Mayor Newsom, show us that your stance on civil rights has no limits and is inclusive of immigrant workers and families. Show us that you were not just currying favor or seeking votes but are truly committed to all civil rights issues.

Join with us:

• March with the immigrant community to protest the ICE raids.

• Convene a meeting with ICE officials, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and community members.

• Increase city resources for legal and educational services that help immigrants get on the pathway to legalization.

• Support the current day-laborer center and use day laborers’ input in the future expansion and creation of worker centers.

• Support the immigrant-led planning process in the Mission District, which calls for more affordable housing and jobs. *

Oscar M. Grande

Oscar M. Grande is a community organizer with PODER, People Organized to Demand Employment Rights.

From cabin to castle

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› news@sfbg.com

San Franciscans love Camp Mather just the way it is, if its popularity is any indicator. They love the stuffy dining hall, the rustic wooden cabins, murky Birch Lake, and the basic layout of a camp established in the 1920s for the workers who built the nearby Hetch Hetchy dam.

Families are eagerly awaiting the reservation notices being mailed out this week by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department telling them if and when they’ll be spending seven days there this summer. But the Friends of Camp Mather have been less than pleased with other news about their favorite vacation spot.

Persistent fears that Rec and Park intends to privatize the camp — which started in 2003 when the department asked for a study on the subject — led to a Board of Supervisors resolution in January declaring that the city “opposes working with private sector property developers on any plans for Camp Mather in the future.”

Rec and Park head Yomi Agunbiade told the supervisors the department “has no plans to sell or contract the camp at this point” and “there is no proposal to fully privatize Camp Mather now.” Such qualifiers were hardly comforting to the Friends of Camp Mather, who have been having a hard time getting straight answers from the department about its current financial situation and its plans for the future.

We now understand their frustration. Last month the Guardian made a Sunshine Ordinance request of the department to get documents that break down the $20 million figure Rec and Park has been using publicly to quantify the current capital needs at Camp Mather.

In our back-and-forth with department spokesperson Rose Dennis, we learned the department is now estimating that Camp Mather needs closer to $36 million. And she told us that “if we don’t get this money, we will have to shut it down, and then the kids won’t have a place to go.”

Yet the department is unable to provide a basic account for its claimed capital needs, except for a database filled with numbers for which there appears to be little support. Many of these numbers seem wildly inflated and are contradicted by other Rec and Park documents.

It’s unclear exactly what’s going on here. Maybe the big numbers are scare tactics or inflations designed to push the $150 million general-obligation bond that the department hopes to send to voters next year. (In the bond, Rec and Park claims to need a staggering $1.7 billion.) Or maybe, as Dennis said, they are “preliminary numbers” that are likely to be pared back and shouldn’t have been made public in the first place.

But whatever the case, it’s understandable that some Camp Mather regulars are freaking out and fearing their favorite vacation spot is in jeopardy. And this whole episode raises questions about what’s going on at Rec and Park.

It should have been a simple request to have a public agency break down the millions of dollars it says it needs. But that didn’t prove to be the case either for us or for the Friends of Camp Mather, despite city laws that require full disclosure of all public documents, whether the agency wants to oblige or not.

“At this time we have not wanted to provide detailed information on each property, but we have provided the ‘overview’ information (tab 1) to the Friends of Mather as per their request (which may have led to the questions). The Comet data is being reviewed right now and is not finalized,” Rec and Park planner Karen Mauney-Brodek wrote in a March 8 e-mail to Dennis, which we obtained with our Sunshine request.

That attachment includes five capital-need figures: $9.4 million for all cabin buildings, $7.8 million for all other buildings, $16.2 million for the park site, $2.6 million for bathing facilities, and $479,971 for storage structures — a total of $36.6 million. It also includes a second column with “facility value” figures, which differ little from the first column, but it does not include an explanation of the numbers or what they’re derived from, other than “COMET data,” which stands for Condition Management Estimation Technology.

We pushed for and ultimately received a fuller account of that data and a spreadsheet assigning repair and replacement costs to facilities all over Camp Mather. But that only raised more questions for which we still haven’t received good answers.

The COMET data indicated that some of the simple wooden cabins, which are essentially shacks with no foundation or plumbing, would cost up to $199,068 to replace, more than the price of building a large single-family home. This is in stark contrast to a 2003 study the department commissioned from Bay Area Economics, which estimated the cost of each cabin at about $16,000. There was no explanation in the document for such astronomical figures.

“Most campers would be distressed to come to camp and find all the historic cabins completely revamped,” Robin Sherrer, president of the Friends of Camp Mather, told the Guardian.

When asked to justify and explain the numbers, Dennis talked about “escautf8g contingency factors” and used other bureaucratic jargon but was unable to simply say why a $16,000 cabin would suddenly cost $200,000. But we did learn the COMET data had come from a study by the local firm 3D/I.

We asked for that study, but Dennis said the department didn’t have it. Any day now, Dennis said, 3D/I will be giving the department “10 huge binders” of data it developed for various Rec and Park properties from November 2006 to January 2007. Officials will then process that data to present to the Rec and Park Commission in May or June. It is interesting to note that 3D/I also computed the data for a long list of Rec and Park projects, not just Camp Mather.

Among the other capital needs the department is claiming: almost $100 million for the yacht harbor, $102 million for a recreation center, $150 million for playgrounds, and a whopping $572 million for Golden Gate Park.

That list was scheduled to go to the Recreation and Park Commission on March 15 to support a discussion of the $150 million general-obligation bond that the department is seeking, but the list was pulled at the last minute because it needs more documentation.

As Dennis told us, “The president of the commission had it pulled because it was a little sparse.” *

 

Balazo KO?

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kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Once upon a time in the Mission, there was a gallery named Balazo. Not quite old enough to know better and a ways from 18, or 18th Street, the little walk-up art space that could blasted into many a local indie fan’s existence in the early ’00s with wall-rattling, hot ‘n’ clammy punk jammies overlooking the 24th Street and Mission BART station. From the beginning, this space was anything but Snow White pristine: noise kids littered the pavement outside with butts, and upstairs the humidity was high and the audience shank-to-elbow deep, packed into a onetime living room for bands like the Mae-Shi and the Lowdown who made it way loud for the crowd. Trailing into adjacent rooms were beer drinkers and art lovers, gazing at massive blowups depicting disappearing SF industrial buildings or paintings praising pubic pouches. Peddling metal too raw for larger stages, punk en español, and local ear bleed avant-gardians, Balazo proved the prince of the underground, Latino-run and Mission-bred, sweeping in on its black charger after Epicenter and Mission Records packed it in and keeping it all relatively under the radar, even as it hauled its bad self down the street to a space at Mission and 18th streets still greasily redolent of the past Chinese chop suey tenant. Rechristened Balazo 18 Art Gallery, the joint has hosted bands ranging from Beijing punkers Brain Failure to SF indie rockers Caesura, and artists including Michael Arcega and Liz Cohen — opening its doors to parties of all flavors.

But every fairy tale has an ending — whether Balazo 18’s is happy or not remains up in the air.

Guardian ears pricked up when we heard the gallery was forced to cancel an event planned for the relaunch of GavinWatch.com. Further, Guardian reporter G.W. Schultz obtained a letter sent to acting director Amy Lee of San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection from a resident living on Dolores Street who complained of "drug sellers and prostitutes hanging around all day and night" in the area. Though the author seemed to be attributing the activity to the general vibe of the hood, she did bemoan a "torn canopy" and "boarded up windows" at Balazo’s current 2183 Mission location.

Records show the city opened a file in mid-March, but an inspector noted the building’s "sign appears safe," and no apparent building violations were found. But we continued to scratch our collective heads, since Balazo’s online events calendar only lists dates through February. Was San Francisco about to lose one of the remaining all-ages venues for emerging hardcore, metal, and rock acts?

We finally got a hold of Juan Villanueva, who runs Balazo along with founder Txutxu Pxupxo, for a lowdown on the laid-low gallery. On his way to the first in a series of benefits for Balazo at Dolores Park on April 1, Villanueva explained that a neighbor had been complaining about the murals and denizens on the street, claiming the space was "bringing property valuation down," but it’s unclear whether that brought building inspectors to the gallery to check on the renovations that had been going on to make Balazo’s entrance and restrooms wheelchair accessible.

Unfortunately, at the same time the police began visiting Balazo, asking for an entertainment license, which Pxupxo and Villanueva don’t possess but have subsequently applied for. The $1,500 permit cost, the more than $2,000 needed for the construction, and the required month needed to post the permit application sign have caused the venue to cease shows for fear of incurring thousands in fines.

It sounds like a case of when it rains, all hell breaks loose. "Yeah, it’s a hassle," Villanueva agreed. "We pay rent from shows that come in. But right now we’re desperately in need of funds." Contrary to popular belief, Balazo is not a nonprofit, regardless of its work establishing a DIY community space in the area. Villanueva hopes that favorable letters will be sent to the Entertainment Commission by April 25 supporting Balazo’s application and that the community turns out for the May 1 entertainment-license hearing. But the gallery also has to find a way to pay its monthly $8,200 rent.

Perhaps the villagers will step up to rescue the hero this time around: Villanueva says bands such as La Plebe and Peligro Social have already volunteered to play benefits and the 924 Gilman Street Project has offered to host a throwdown. But we in the peanut gallery are all hoping other, more stealthy forces don’t snatch this independent space away. "Time influences our capability of whether we can make it," Villaneuva warns. "If it takes three months and we can’t get three months’ worth of rent, that would really affect us." *

www.myspace.com/balazo18gallery

Additional reporting by G.W. Schulz.

DON’T BOTHER KNOCKIN’

THREE LEAFS, ASCENDED MASTER, AND MODULAR SET


Something ecstatic this way comes from the synth eccentrics of Modular Set, the electric bongo beaters of Ascended Master, and the free-psych natureniks of Three Leafs. Thurs/5, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

CASS MCCOMBS, ARBOURETUM, AND DAVID KARSTEN DANIELS


Making music that can be startling sublime, Scorpio McCombs plays tag with the golden, Will Oldham–esque Arbouretum and Fat Cat experimental roots wrecker Karsten Daniels. Fri/6, 9:30 p.m., $10. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

LIGHTNING BOLT


Mind-frying volume, a frenzied punk psych attack, much spilled sweat, and a whirlpool of quasi moshing made up the scene at the last Lightning Bolt show at Verdi Club a few years back. The Brians have been busy since then, generating a split import CD, Ultra Cross V. 1 (Sony), with Guitar Wolf. Brian Chippendale pulls out percussion on the next Björk disc, kept up his Black Pus side project, and whipped up a book of eye-blisteringly bright Ninja comics for Picturebox. And Brian Gibson recently birthed Barkley’s Barnyard Critters: Mystery Tail, an animation DVD. But résumé builders aside, you really must sink your teeth into LB’s ass live. Mon/9, 9 p.m., $7. LoBot Gallery, 1800 Campbell, Oakl. www.lobotgallery.com. Also Tues/10, 9 p.m., $8. 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF. (415) 970-9777 *

FEAST: 6 delicious desserts

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Adult life can be overwhelming: taxes, traffic, parking tickets, deadlines … and city living can be particularly frenetic. You know by now that when it comes to navigating your increasingly complicated life, there is no high road, fast track, or slow lane, and that it really is the road less traveled that brings the greatest pleasure — or, more important, the sugary, chocolaty, gooey goodness you consume on your journey. What better way to escape the rat race than to indulge in the culinary ecstasy of a luscious dessert? Read on to discover where to get some delectable desserts that will transport you back to the sweet, gentle, and unhurried time of your fast-disappearing youth. And the good news is, now that you’re all grown up, you’re welcome to have your pudding first, whether or not you’ve eaten your meat. (Cara Cutter)

BI-RITE CREAMERY AND BAKESHOP


Admit it. It’s not just the kiddies who find ice cream irresistible. Yes, the mere mention of the food to a minor can ease pain, stop tears, and miraculously get the house picked up in short order. But cold, creamy goodness can also melt the iciest of adult hearts. So indulge in one of your childhood favorites — vanilla? chocolate? mint chip? — at this Mission creamery. Or, if you want a real treat, try the butter pecan — it probably wasn’t your top pick as a tot, but after one taste of Bi-Rite’s, you’ll be hard-pressed to remember the others. The coconut macaroons also offer a taste of nostalgia too good to miss.

3692 18th St., SF. (415) 626-5600, www.biritecreamery.com

HOME


This dual-locale eatery is named for its down-home cooking style, of which the black-and-white molten chocolate cake with homemade cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream is exemplary. The flavors are simple and rich, just like those of Dad’s ice cream sundaes. The cake is fresh and warm, and its bittersweet flavor is perfectly balanced by the vanilla bean ice cream drizzled down its sides. This is family-style yumminess at its pinnacle, and it doesn’t stop at cake. You can also give Grandma’s recipes a run for their money with peach shortcake, banana bread pudding, sorbet with shortbread cookies, or Dutch apple pie. For those big kids who simply can’t choose from such a tempting array, there’s a dessert trio option for $18.

2100 Market, SF. (415) 503-0333; 2032 Union, SF. (415) 931-5006. www.home-sf.com

COSMOPOLITAN


If you don’t seem to be scoring with the chic SoMa sweeties at the bar, you’re still bound to hit a home run with the sweets, as this Rincon Center restaurant offers a surprising and playful dessert menu. Childhood favorites such as cinnamon churros and snickerdoodle cookies come complete with adult garnishes. But the best (and most popular) bit of nostalgia is the warm-baked Scharffen Berger chocolate-chunk cookie with a Tahitian-vanilla malted milkshake. That’s right: a genuine malted milkshake. In fact, this contemporary twist on an old classic might be just the thing you needed; try ordering two straws and inviting one of those trendsetters to the drive-in. How could anyone resist?

121 Spear, SF. (415) 543-4001, www.thecosmopolitancafe.com

BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE CAFE


Curl up in this Fillmore Street café and drink in the flavors of the best hot chocolate you’re ever likely to have. Imagine a liquid brownie, and you’re getting close. These drinks are so rich and thick you’ll be forgiven for using a spoon. For adventurous chocoholics, there’s the Bittersweet, a nondairy "drink" that should come with the warning "may induce comalike pleasure period followed by dizzying sugar high. Do not attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery for at least 30 minutes following consumption." Or, if you’re more of a milk-chocolate lover, try the Classic. And of course, there’s chocolate milk for kids of all ages (including the one living inside your psyche).

2123 Fillmore, SF. (415) 346-8715; 5427 College, Oakl. (510) 654-7159. www.bittersweetcafe.com

TARTINE BAKERY


Unless you grew up in Paris, this bakery-café might not evoke your typical Norman Rockwell nostalgia. It is highly likely, however, that after a quick glimpse of the whipped, frosted, and glazed goodies behind the glass, you’ll feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store. Due to the extreme popularity of these pastries, expect a long line on weekend mornings. However, once you’re sinking your teeth into a lightly sugared cinnamon and orange morning bun, time will seem meaningless — and it won’t just be your inner child doing somersaults of pleasure.

600 Guerrero, SF. (415) 487-2600, www.tartinebakery.com

LUNA PARK


This Mission restaurant and bar has an incredible list of postprandial delights. For the 35-year-old kid in your party, there’s a "make your own s’mores" option. For the weight watcher, there’s an apple-huckleberry crisp. But the culinary pleasure that’s earned Luna Park a spot on our list is its deadly coconut cream pie — a confection so unexpectedly delicious you won’t dare to share, no matter what you learned in kindergarten.

694 Valencia, SF. (415) 553-8584, www.lunaparksf.com *

Dust still settling

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› sarah@sfbg.com

A racially charged lawsuit by a trio of Lennar Corp. employees accuses the developer of exploiting and endangering Bayview–Hunters Point residents. It also offers an inside look at how the company responded to an asbestos dust scandal first reported by the Guardian ("The Corporation That Ate San Francisco," 3/14/07) and raises questions about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s plan to give Lennar more control over the toxic Hunters Point Shipyard.

The suit was filed by three prominent African American community members — Clementine Clarke, Gary McIntyre, and Ceola Richardson — whom Lennar, a Florida-based megadeveloper, hired as liaisons to the community and its subcontractors. They are represented by attorney Angela Alioto, a former supervisor and mayoral candidate. The lawsuit alleges racial discrimination and harassment (mostly by local Lennar vice president Paul Menaker), retaliation for whistle-blowing, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The plaintiffs allege that Menaker, who is white, made disparaging comments about African American workers and community members. "Menaker frequently yells at Plaintiff and other African-American employees, but does not yell at non African-Americans," alleges the lawsuit, which also accuses Menaker of delaying payments to African American clients but not to those of other races.

The plaintiffs also claim that after Minister Christopher Muhammed of the Muhammed University of Islam, which sits adjacent to the Parcel A site where Lennar is working and was exposed to dust from the project, brought his students to Redevelopment Agency meetings and asked that construction cease until the school was permanently relocated, Menaker referred to him as a "shakedown artist."

Perhaps of greater concern to the public are the lawsuit’s allegations that Lennar executives ignored McIntyre’s warnings that Lennar subcontractor Gordon Ball was neglecting to control dust at the site and that Lennar employees were ordered to maintain a "code of silence" about subcontractor CH2M Hill’s failure to monitor asbestos, for which Lennar was cited by local and state officials. McIntyre claims that after blowing the whistle on Gordon Ball, he was demoted and denied further information on how the company was handling dust, even as he was expected to tell the community that Lennar was taking all the necessary steps to protect public health.

Lennar spokesperson Sam Singer told the Guardian the lawsuit contains "numerous false allegations" — then pointed the finger at McIntyre.

"Gary McIntyre was in charge of overseeing contracts," Singer told us. "It was on his watch when incidents of dust occurred, and members of the black community called up and complained and demanded that he be replaced. Were there some violations? Yes. Were they disastrous? No. People in the community didn’t want Gary in that position. Numerous dust mitigation workshops were held by Lennar and Arc Ecology, and in September we held a special meeting to discuss the violations."

Clarke, a Newsom-appointed fire commissioner and Lennar’s community benefits manager, told us she felt "stuck between a rock and a hard place" when Menaker told her and McIntyre not to mention the asbestos dust monitoring had been botched. By then, Clarke recalled, McIntyre had already been demoted for criticizing subcontractor Gordon Ball.

"Gary had been complaining to Paul Menaker that the leadership at Gordon Ball was not following the dust control policy," Clarke said. "Gary was constantly trying to get Gordon Ball to do what was right. After Gary was demoted, he was placed on Porta-Potty and Baker Tank duty."

"It was done to make me quit," McIntyre told us of his demotion. "Before that, I was told that I need to back off subcontractor Gordon Ball, then I was deliberately taken out of the loop."

The allegations cast a new light on Lennar’s claims to us that it volunteered the information about the faulty asbestos monitoring, suggesting the company might have been concerned about McIntyre blowing the whistle to city officials who were already asking questions about dust and asbestos levels.

The day after McIntyre’s Aug. 1, 2006, demotion, Menaker told Clarke and McIntyre the asbestos monitoring data could not be verified.

"I would have liked to see a report from CH2M Hill on what exactly happened," McIntyre told us. "First I heard it was record falsification, then human error, then a problem employee, then battery malfunction. I complained to my manager, Paul Menaker, but I never saw a report."

Clarke and McIntyre said Lennar’s code of silence left them in an awkward position within their community.

"When the community was asking, ‘What’s up with asbestos and dust?’ Gary was to go out and explain," Clarke told us. "So when Gary was taken off the project but his name was kept in the community as project manager, I said, ‘Y’all have cut this man’s testicles off by taking him off this site.’ "

"How can you go out and talk to the community about dust if you’re not in the loop?" McIntyre asked us. "But it wasn’t just a code of silence. It was also that we were blind and deaf, since we couldn’t see reports or attend meetings."

All three say they began to feel like Lennar was hurting their community.

"To me," McIntyre told us, "Minister Muhammed represents the African American community. When I looked his schoolkids in the eye, I thought these kids are thinking that I’m the one who is doing this to them."

Things came to a head for McIntyre at Newsom’s Feb. 10 town hall meeting in Bayview.

Observing that Lennar had been issued with notices of violation and that public health concerns had been raised, Newsom asked, "Is someone from Lennar here to secure my confidence?"

"I waited for Kofi [Bonner, president of Lennar Urban] and Paul to say something, but they didn’t even show up," McIntyre recalled. "So I took the mic, looked the minister in the eyes, and said, ‘We have carried out an investigation, placed additional monitors in the community. We’re trying to keep you and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency up to date.’ "

When someone in the town hall audience accused Lennar of "harming a community that’s already been harmed," McIntyre said. "We’re taking the most aggressive steps we could."

But inside he felt that he had been made into Lennar’s scapegoat. "I wouldn’t have taken this job if I’d known," McIntyre said.

Clarke agreed. "All you’ve got is your name. The corporation tried to take all that away. At least now I can sleep at night."

Six days after the meeting, Newsom proposed accelerating the transfer of the shipyard from the Navy to the city and Lennar in order to facilitate construction of a new stadium for the 49ers. Newsom’s spokespeople did not return calls for comment. *

Super Index: The Bay Area by the numbers

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Total acreage of San Francisco: 30,080

Estimated number of people in San Francisco: 739,426

Ratio of dogs to children in the city, give or take 10,000 kids: 1:1

Ratio of acres for off-leash dog play to those of children’s playgrounds: 7:1

Approximate percentage of San Francisco Department of Recreation and Park land considered natural areas: 25

Number of acres managed by Rec and Park versus number of acres of parking space (on and off the streets) managed by the city: 3,480:1,291

Number of cars in San Francisco, as represented by the number of registered automobiles in 2005: 373,115

Total number of city-managed parking spaces: 334,625

Number of temporary art parks created in empty parking spaces during 2005 for PARK(ing) Day: 18

Month in which the next PARK(ing) Day event will take place: September

Ratio of the size of a city parking space for a compact car to the Dark Room SF stage: 1:1

Estimated number of homeless people in San Francisco versus total number of shelter beds: 6,248:1,514

Estimated number of shelter beds that go empty every night: 100

Decline in the number of homeless people in the city, based on 2003 and 2005 volunteer city-run counts: 2,392

Areas not included in the volunteer counts: the beach, the Presidio, railroad encampments, Golden Gate Park, Stern Grove, and the Sunset District

Projected release date of the numbers from the 2007 homelessness count: March 30

Number of public garbage cans unbolted and stolen from Oakland sidewalks in the past year: 75

Cost of each can: $1,500

Number of feet of freeway guardrail stolen in the Bay Area in the past year: 32,000

Total cost to replace the aluminum: $86,000

Number of bars in San Francisco versus number of independent bookstores selling new books: 2,870:33

Rank of San Francisco among cities for most bookstores per 10,000 people: 1

Rank of the city by the bay for most drunk metropolitan area: 20 (tied with Oakland)

Rank for most literate, in comparison with New York City: 10 versus 49

The index was compiled by Chris Albon, Angela J. Bass, Deborah Giattina, Christopher Jasmin, and Elaine Santore. For sources, see www.sfbg.com.

Super List Index Sources:

(1) and (2) US Census Bureau

(3) Dog Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and US Census Bureau

(4) and (5) San Francisco Recreation and Park Department

(6) San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority

(7) California Department of Motor Vehicles

(8) San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority

(9) and (10) The REBAR Group, www.rebargroup.org

(11) San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority and Dark Room Theater

(12)–(14) and (16) San Francisco Department of Human Services

(15) "Green and Red Apples: The 2,392 Disappeared Homeless in San Francisco," by Matt Gonzalez, San Francisco Bay View, 2/23/05

(17) and (18) "Oakland Trash-Can Bandits Nab 75th ‘Fancy Trash Can’," by Momo Chang, Oakland Tribune, 8/9/06

(19) and (20) California Department of Transportation

(21) California Alcohol Beverage Control

(22)–(24) University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, Marketing and Media Department

(23) "America’s Drunkest Cities," by David M. Ewalt, Forbes, 8/22/06

Superlist No. 828: MMA fight clubs

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› superlists@sfbg.com

You’ve seen them on cable reality shows or pay-per-view: muscle-bound men with the temperament of abused pit bulls smashing and kicking each other into bloody pulps while the crowd roars with approval. It might be the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Pride Fighting Championship, Vale Tudo, or a host of other names given to the brutal — and increasingly popular — realm of mixed martial arts (MMA).

A combination of standard Western boxing, traditional Thai boxing known as Muay Thai, jujitsu, and other fighting techniques, MMA has only been legal in California for one year, a selling point for many local martial arts schools. Some of the competition’s brightest stars hail from Bay Area clubs. A course in MMA is a serious exercise in masochism. Could you be the next champ?

Twenty-four-year-old Gilbert Melendez, last year’s winner of the Pride FC held in Nagoya, Japan, trains exclusively at Fairtex Muay Thai Fitness (132–140 Hawthorne, SF. 1-888-324-7839, www.fairtex.com). The vast gym holds heavy bags for striking, a full-size boxing ring, ample floor space for grappling and yoga, a full range of free weights and machines, and an almost constant feed of fighting competitions on the facility’s numerous wide-screen televisions.

Eduardo Rocha Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy (3600 Grand, Oakl. 510-207-6640, www.cateambjj.com) trains students in grappling fundamentals, but Rocha and some of his advanced students spend a lot of time training for competition. The training atmosphere is intimate, and Rocha’s students took top honors at the 2006 Pan-American Jiu-Jitsu Championships.

Located in the Dogpatch, Universal Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (2572 Third St., SF. 415-282-5700, www.ubjj.com) offers classes in MMA on Wednesday nights.

While Ralph Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (www.ralphgracie.com) has two locations, one in Berkeley (1500 Ashby, Berk. 510-486-8000) and the other in San Francisco (178 Valencia, SF. 415-522-477), Gracie and his brothers have been opening new academies around the world every month. Gracie, himself a champion, retains black belts who trained under him to run his academies. Kurt Osiander, nicknamed the Rhino, heads the San Francisco academy; Carlos "Sapoa" Oryzune instructs at the Berkeley academy.

One of a few schools that split from Fairtex a few years ago after the 2003 shooting death of Fairtex San Francisco founder Alex Gong, Fight and Fitness (734 Bryant, SF. 415-495-2211, www.fightandfitness.com) can be found in SoMa about a block away from the Hall of Justice. Inside the small and musty gym, fighters train at all levels with instructors such as Bunkerd Faphimai, a three-time world champion in Muay Thai. A row of championship belts hangs from a 20-foot rafter.

Another Fairtex offshoot lies back across the bridge near downtown Oakland. Pacific Ring Sports (659 15th St., Oakl. 510-444-5269) offers many of the same classes as Fight and Fitness. The facility is about twice the size, however, and its boxing classes are among the most popular in the Bay Area. The room has a large weight room, a boxing ring, wrestling mats, and a bunch of punching bags. MMA classes are taught twice a week, while Muay Thai, jujitsu, and boxing remain mainstays of the curriculum.

World Team USA (2575 Ocean, SF. 415-333-3496, www.worldteamusa.com) claims to train MMA fighters, but its strong suit is Muay Thai. The MMA classes are a little more than an hour long, much shorter than at some of the other gyms, but this school offers a good base for someone who might not be looking to fight professionally — and lots of kids’ classes too.

Open Door Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (2935 Chapman, Oakl. 510-532-3803) is very close to I-880 and about a 15-minute walk from the Fruitvale BART Station. The style of jujitsu taught here is meant for total-body strangulation, so it isn’t the place to learn some mean-ass strikes. Kids can take self-defense classes here too. *

NOISE: Oh! OOIOO!

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Oooooh, here comes Japanese all-femme Thrill Jockey band OOIOO, playing Monday, March 26, alongside with Neung Phak at the Independent. Here’s more of an e-mail interview with honchette Yoshimi (also of the Boredoms), translated by Hashim Bharoocha.

yoshimisml.jpg

Guardian: How did this tour come about? OOIOO seems to rarely tour internationally.

Yoshimi: The tour came about simply because Thrill Jockey in the US also released Taiga, and I had a vague idea from about last year that I wanted to tour the US around March. There are three people with children in the band, so it is difficult to make arrangements with each of the mothers and their families to tour. I don’t feel it is necessary to separate small children from their mothers just to tour. So we are taking our kids with us. We will also be taking either babysitters or the fathers with us and touring together. But there is no one in the US that wants to pay for additional family members, so it is difficult to work that out. We mostly have to pay for that ourselves.

SxSW rocking, mocking

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Every spring I wing toward Austin, Texas, and the South by Southwest conference and music fest like some PBR-swilling, Lily Allen–aping mockingbird, in the hope of getting my imagination kick-started by some mysterious band of outsiders from Leeds, Helsinki, or Cleveland, armed with only guitars, samplers, or taste-testing facial hair. Little did I realize I’d be clocked in the noggin instead by This Moment in Black History’s Chris Kulcsar at the Blender Balcony at the Ritz. Last I recall, the spazztastic singer had just dashed up the stairs into the audience, nodding approvingly at TMIBH’s righteous thrash. I felt the heel of his kicks against my skull moments later. "Did he just jump over me?" I asked a bespectacled Joe Indie Rocker beside me. "Well, actually, he kicked you in the head," he answered. Glad to be a part of the spectacle — spare me the head trauma next time.

Oh South by — more than 10,000 participants strong, more than 1,400 acts bringing their all and driving $24.9 million in revenue to the self-proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World." Oh me (oh my) — little slumber, one missed jet, a new zit every hour (just call me Stresstradamus), and drawn by the promise of cool sounds, cold beer, hot barbecued pork and brisket-taco brunches by the cold, gray light of a hangover, industry hugging and mugging, wheeling and dealing, and special guests who just might not be that, er, special at this point ("Every time you see those words on the schedule, just insert ‘Pete Townshend,’ " one wag claimed after Townshend dropped in at both his girlfriend Rachel Fuller’s acoustic show and a Fratellis gig). Oh, the rumored celeb-actor sightings — Kirsten Dunst, Owen and Luke Wilson, Michael Pitt doing a Keanu with his neogrunge Pagoda. Oh, the surreal parties — bunnies getting jiggy with indie at the eighth annual Playboy "Rock the Rabbit" after-hours wingding with bunnies, Ghostland Observatory, and popscene’s Omar, as well as the usual Blender (showing "the stupidest rock movies ever" at its slick, MTV-ish clubhouse), Spin, Jane, Filter, and Fader fort exclusivity rites, filled with guest-listlessness, Fratellis performances, and gratis Absolut peartinis, Heinekens, and mini–Vitamin Waters. If you’re a glutton for hard-drinking pleasure or heavy metal punishment (see the free Mastodon by the Lake show, the Melvins’ Stubbs-packing powerthon, and some two dozen Boris performances), then SXSW is for you.

But for a three-time SXSWhiner like myself — and a very random sampling of festgoers accustomed to challenging Elijah Wood to rasslin’ matches — the fest generally underwhelmed this year. It’s still the biggest cross-the-board overview of the music biz around. But demanding party people with insectlike attention spans wanted to know, where were the Bloc Parties? (Oh, naturally they were there, playing oodles of shows, but did anyone give a bloc?) Tellingly, the Horrors were here, but where were the thrills (and I don’t mean the Irish combo)?

Yesteryear’s exciters such as the Gossip and Hella showed, and Spank Rock, Girl Talk, Simian Mobile Disco, and Flosstradamus repped, yet seriously, is Amy Winehouse all that? Sure, she could croon a ’50s R&B-inflected pop tune and rock a Ronettes-style beehive, but her performance was more memorable for the number of times she hiked up her low-riding jeans than her songs. "I’m dwunk," she slurred during her packed show at La Zona Rosa. "It’s not funny." Are Razorlight and Albert Hammond Jr. truly godhead? Caveat: I caught neither, but fess, when thin-blooded popsters like Peter, Bjorn, and John and Pete and the Pirates are vaunted as the hottest shit to stream from the cultural Sani-Jons, then something is very wrong. The fact that the Black Lips were on so many lips is perfectly understandable: they’re a fine garage punk band — onstage heaves or no — and worthy of the humps they’re getting years along, but we all know that. I wanted my mind blown as well as punted.

Barring that, where were Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio, Deerhoof, OOIOO, and so many others currently touring — but perhaps too sensible or established to play a seemingly requisite dozen times? Whither MIA, the Hives, Queens of the Stone Age, Feist, Marilyn Manson, and others with anticipated 2007 albums to hawk? Are Coachella and its Rage Against the Machine reorientation giving SXSW a run for the splashy reunion buck (sorry, RATM guitarist Tom Morello’s Nightwatchman show with Slash, Perry Farrell, etc., doesn’t cut it)? Are SXSW’s sideshow and party scenes undercutting the panels and showcases? Perhaps the coastside cynics are spoiled because we think a Hoodoo Gurus gathering just doesn’t measure up to recent no-shows like Whitehouse.

Still, the ole rocks do get off, if when you least expect it, wandering past a bar, ears caught by some new emanation. That happened to me, when I stumbled on inspired, powerful performances like those of Toronto’s stunning, vibes-focused Hylozoists at Habana Calle and the Björkish–Kate Bushy lady band Bat for Lashes. And then not so unexpectedly, when you brave the puke and garage smells of the Beauty Bar Patio for an all-Bay hyphy throwdown with an energized Federation, packing their stunna glasses at night, an ebullient Saafir, and a speaker-mounting Pack. The fact that you have to go all the way to Texas for the latter makes SXSW the beloved monster that it is — it’s just getting harder to cut through the noise.

Back in black: Black Lips, Black Angels, This Moment in Black History, Black Fiction.

Some words never stop being fun: Holy Fuck, Holy Shit!, Shitdisco, Fucked Up, Psychedelic Horseshit.

All ze buzz: Paolo Nutini, Earl Greyhound, Pop Levi, Albert Hammond Jr., and Cold War Kids. *

For more on South by Southwest, click here.

State of the metal address

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If gnashing guitars, thundering drums, and growling vocals are suddenly silenced, will faces still find places to melt? It’s been five months since Pound-SF closed, after reportedly being evicted by the San Francisco Port Authority. (As early as May 2006, owner Tony Carracci spoke at a San Francisco Entertainment Commission meeting about his frustration at not being able to obtain a long-term lease for the space.) The all-ages club, tucked into San Francisco’s industrial bayside, hosted a large portion of the city’s metal shows during its five-year lifespan. The music may be thriving without the Pound, but what’s up with the local metal scene now that it has no sprawling, single venue at its hub, one that booked major metal touring acts and budding local bands, in addition to the occasional hip-hop or indie group?

Matt Shapiro, head booker at the Elbo Room and founder of metal club night Lucifer’s Hammer, has noticed a few changes. "Since the Pound closed, other people have had to step up. I was hoping that Slim’s would really pick up on it, and they’ve taken some of it," he says, adding that venues such as the Oakland Metro, Bottom of the Hill, and the Great American Music Hall have also begun booking more metal shows. However, he continues, "I’ve noticed that we’ve lost a lot of [metal shows], because a lot of the tours are skipping over the Bay Area now."

Leila Rauf, vocalist and guitarist for Saros, agrees that certain venues have increased their metal bookings to make up for the Pound’s demise. On the other hand, though, "places like Slim’s and the Great American aren’t going to book a band unless you draw at least 300 people," she says. "For smaller bands, that’s not really doable. There’s Balazo [18 Art Gallery] — we just played there are few weeks ago. But I definitely think we need another all-ages venue for smaller bands that’s organized and in a convenient location, because the Pound was kind of in the middle of nowhere."

Feo Berumen, vocalist from Arise, points out that other key metal venues — including the Maritime Hall and the Cocodrie — have shut down in the past and the scene has continued to flourish, though at a certain price. "It’s almost like the only people you’re cutting out is the underage crowd, which sucks," he offers. "The all-ages shows that Arise predominantly plays are up north, past Petaluma."

If the audience demands a Pound equivalent, it’s likely one will eventually emerge. Pete Ponitkoff, formerly of Benumb and now the vocalist for Agenda of Swine, has a suggestion: "I’m surprised somebody doesn’t take Broadway Studios and start having [metal] shows there again. That place would be an awesome replacement for the Pound."

No matter what happens, local metal hardly seems in danger of dying out. Rob Cavestany, lead guitarist of the influential Bay Area thrash band Death Angel — and a former Pound employee — has seen the scene change a lot over the past 25 years, with one proud constant. "The Bay Area metal scene is legendary in the metal world. Any metal fan, all over the world that we go, knows straight up, ‘Bay Area! You guys are from the Bay Area!’ They know it’s the scene that spawned Metallica, Exodus, Testament — some of the hardest-hitting thrash bands."

PLAY AT HIGH VOLUME: A SELECTED GUIDE TO BAY METAL


Agenda of Swine "The new big shit," Berumen declares.

Arise "As of recently, I’ve seen an influx of new, Bay Area thrash," Shapiro says, and Arise is one of his favorites.

Asunder From Oakland, this band got props from Shapiro, Ponitkoff, and Saros drummer Blood Eagle.

Dekapitator Witness the truth of their MySpace headline: "Head-splitting metal!!!!!"

Hatchet On Ponitkoff’s list of new favorites; bands like this make him say of the Bay Area, "We’re the thrash capital of the frickin’ world."

Ludicra Hammers of Misfortune’s John Cobbett plays guitar in this black metal band, guided by Laurie Shanaman’s eerie vocals.

Saros In an interview with Thrasher magazine, Rauf described her band’s music as "simultaneously complex and cyclical." And it rocks.

Saviours "Saviours are really making a name for themselves and touring constantly," Blood Eagle says. See their killer live show, and you’ll see why.

Watch Them Die "The band," Berumen says. "By far one of the best bands out of the Bay Area."

Wayward Son "Young kids who play some of the best goddamn thrash on the face of the planet," according to Berumen. (Cheryl Eddy)

Imitation of Kubrick

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

John Malkovich dominates Colour Me Kubrick in much the same way a poodle might lift its pampered leg to claim each stationary street object with its personal scent. He’s offensive, oblivious, frilly, absurd — all in service to a character’s refined self-preservative instinct, of course.

This happens from his first seconds onscreen, when he’s just a background form moving blurrily down a rear staircase while we’re supposed to be focused on an attractive young foreground figure — who turns out to be the focus of Malkovich’s attention too. As late real-life Stanley Kubrick impersonator Alan Conway, the actor sashays toward us and his prey with such louche, pervy, fagalicious focus that he immediately becomes a deluxe comic creation who transcends offensive stereotypes.

Malkovich is such a mannered thespian and a weird cultural icon that Being John Malkovich (1999) could count (and base itself) on his amused participation. How many contemporaneous Hollywood stars would consent to pomo ridicule of themselves? He is so frequently wrong-but-interesting (in 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons, for starters) that one tends to forget the times he’s been brilliantly apt, as in The Sheltering Sky (1990) and Ripley’s Game (2002). He’s peculiar enough to almost always feel like stunt casting — akin to a CGI effect, vivid yet not remotely natural.

This is one reason he’s so perfect for Kubrick, drawn from one of those stranger-than-fiction news items in which everyday humanity’s vulnerable trust in itself is laid bare by some con-artist freak with delusions of grandeur. For a spell in the 1980s, middle-aged London dole queue yobbo Conway, no stranger to pulling scams, hit on a great one: impersonating Kubrick, the expat American considered by many the world’s greatest director, whose famous reclusiveness ensured that very few knew how he actually looked and sounded (i.e., nothing like Conway).

Conway used the starry-eyed glaze prompted by this sham identity to cadge free drinks and dinners from strangers (after all, would a wealthy celebrity like Kubrick bother carrying vulgar cash?), seduce young men (gay and straight — a promised career boost from cinema’s master proves to be major psychological lube), and generally act like the flaming fountain of specialness Conway thought he was. Several gullible real folk fell hard for this ruse, coughing up cash or freebies to buy favor from the "genius." In the film, they include fictive comedian Lee Pratt (Jim Davidson), posh restaurant owner Jasper (Richard E. Grant), even a heavy metal band. They were hoodwinked despite Conway’s not even bothering to research his role — he knew only superficial facts about Kubrick and often made pronouncements that would strike anyone with half a brain as ludicrous. (At one point he announces his next project will be 3001, with "Elizabeth Taylor as Mission Control.") Eventually Conway’s reputation (and embittered victims) hit the public radar, ending his game.

Malkovich is the whole show here. He’s fearlessly willing to play the fool — several times Conway’s chunky ass occupies center screen, underlining not just the protagonist’s but the actor’s ignorance of the concept behind a Stairmaster. Conway dons a steady stream of fashion don’ts (minikimono, anyone?), imbibes beaucoup vodka, and sobs so hysterically when his latest hot young lover storms out that you might think these histrionics are genuine at last. But that too is an act. Gloriously indulged, Malkovich revels in the role of a self-loathing wannabe narcissist who may not possess one genuine bone in his unlovely body.

Kept afloat by one spectacularly good performance and a delightful premise, Colour Me Kubrick is otherwise a somewhat leaky boat. First-time director Brian W. Cook suggests this may not be his ideal career role. His movie often haplessly jumps from one incident to another, as if connective scenes were axed by either budgetary or intellectual limitations. It relies too heavily on music cues from Kubrick flicks (such as the Moog classicals of 1971’s A Clockwork Orange) and in-joke cameos (Marisa Berenson, Ken Russell). Still, Cook’s earned the brownie points and then some necessary to make this film: he was Kubrick’s assistant director from 1975’s Barry Lyndon through the posthumously released Eyes Wide Shut (1999). (Scenarist Anthony Frewin also worked as Kubrick’s researcher, from 1968’s 2001 on.) Cook’s résumé is juicy with stellar successes, famous flops (Orca: Killer Whale, 1977), and cult flicks (1973’s original The Wicker Man, 1980’s Flash Gordon, the 1979 Who documentary The Kids Are Alright). He’s worked for Michael Cimino (1980’s Heaven’s Gate onward), occasional auteur Sean Penn, Brian de Palma, and Mel Brooks.

The world may not suffer greatly if Cook never directs another movie again. But if he doesn’t eventually write a tell-all professional biography, I will cry. I nearly cried during Colour Me Kubrick — but only because John Malkovich was almost too funny to bear. *

COLOUR ME KUBRICK

Opens Fri/23 at Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

www.colourmekubrick.com

>

Tale of two Valley Girls

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THE ORIGINAL It starts as a joke, but it rarely ends well. You pick up a piece of slang to make fun of it and then, at some point far too late down the line, realize you are physically incapable of putting it down. Who knew — I didn’t in seventh grade, when I first started using the word “like” as an irritating placeholder for nothing in particular — that Moon Unit Zappa and her dad’s joke, a song mimicking a youthful subculture’s garbled tongue, was also on me and my friends, 3,000 miles distant from Sherman Oaks, or that 24 years later I would still sound vaguely like a character from Martha Coolidge’s film Valley Girl?

My community of incoherents is a large one. The syntax has stuck around, and so has the film at least partly responsible for it — not to mention the threads sported on both sides of the film’s Hollyweird-Valley divide, which have now cycled back into fashion at least twice in the past decade. The streets of San Francisco are filled with stripy-shirted hipsters, Valley Girl is still being paid tribute at events such as Midnites for Maniacs at the Castro, and now the admirers who packed that house can even troop down to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for a screening that pairs OG VG with a low-budget homage directed by Michele O’Marah.

If you’ve seen the original, and I’m so sure you have, you know exactly why a crazed fan would undertake such an endeavor. Starring Deborah Foreman as Julie, the titular Valley girl, and Nicolas Cage as Randy, her tubular, dreamy-eyed swain from the wrong side of the Hollywood Hills, Valley Girl managed to gently send up a vapid ’80s mall culture while at the same time treating its viewers to a torrid new-romantic love story fueled by worlds colliding, the Plimsouls, and a song about getting it on mid–nuclear holocaust (Modern English’s “I Melt with You”).

Building on the can’t-fail tale of R+J, the film cruises the Hollywood club scene and sneaks into the tract homes of Tarzana and Van Nuys, coolly siding against a brand of teen robotics and materialism epitomized by middle-class girls running loose in the Galleria with their parents’ credit cards — yet admitting that they look “truly dazzling” in their string bikinis at the beach. Fittingly, or fitting-roomly, a shopping montage supplies the footage for the opening credits. But if shopping’s not your bag, try the “I Melt with You” montage, or the Randy-stalking-Julie montage, or lines like Randy’s “Well, fuck you! No, fuck off, for sure! Like, totally!” — an utterance whose consummate blend of anguish and hilarity never fails to secure viewer forgiveness for the admittedly shocking sight, early on, of Cage’s saltwater-slicked V-shaped chest hair. (Lynn Rapoport)

THE REMAKE When she was a teenager, Michele O’Marah’s favorite movie was Valley Girl — reason enough, as an adult, to mount a remake of what’s probably the most popular teen love story of the 1980s (non–John Hughes division). Or was affection the only reason? According to an August 2006 interview O’Marah did with the Web site Austinist, she created her homage as “a serious piece of artwork to be viewed in a gallery” addressing the film’s “serious issues — how a teenage girl thinks about herself, and how she thinks about men and how they should treat her.”

Whether or not this intention comes through is debatable. Fact is, the audience that goes to see a Valley Girl remake (even when it’s showing in a museum) is going to be largely composed of Valley Girl fans, who might let things like O’Marah’s charmingly homemade sets slide but will mutter among themselves when key details are altered. Why didn’t O’Marah direct the guy playing Tommy to make that crazy arm gesture after he knocks back a drink at Suzi’s party? Why are certain crucial lines jumbled beyond recognition?

The disconnects are all the more puzzling when you consider all that O’Marah gets exactly right. Her tweaks can be incredibly winning: Julie’s dad’s broken sandals — the “Water Buffalos” — are made of cardboard; a bewigged Plimsouls cover band offers excellent coverage during the Hollywood bar scenes.

O’Marah was clearly operating with a budget one-zillionth the size of the original’s, itself a cheap film by Hollywood standards. But if her lo-fi Valley Girl is to be taken as serious artwork, it raises a serious question: why remake something you love only to emphasize subtext over joy? In the 1980s a group of junior high kids devoted endless summers to a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They had the same flagrant disregard for copyright laws as O’Marah but no pretensions whatsoever. Their product may have been technically rough, but it was also energetic and enjoyable. Thing is, when you start putting quote marks around quote marks, fun becomes work. To the max. (Cheryl Eddy)

FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL: VARIATIONS ON THE REMAKE — VALLEY GIRL

Thurs/22, 6:30 p.m. Valley Girl (Michele O’Marah) and 8:30 p.m. Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge)

Sun/25, 2 p.m. Valley Girl (O’Marah) and 4 p.m. Valley Girl (Coolidge)

$5–$7

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Phyllis Wattis Theater

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

>

Dance dance revolution

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"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution" is a club-friendly sentiment traditionally attributed to estimable anarchist Emma Goldman. But even if she didn’t put it in quite those words, the message is clear: changing the world doesn’t have to be a grim slog. Why struggle at all if it doesn’t result in a world we can actually enjoy? That’s where these benefit-hosting, rabble-rousing, community-oriented bars, clubs, cultural centers, and performance spaces come in. Like the spoonful of sugar that masks the medicine, a nice pour and a few choice tunes can turn earnest liberation into ecstatic celebration.

DANCING QUEENS


Billing itself as "your dive," El Rio defines "you" as a crowd of anarchists, trannies, feminists, retro-cool kids, and heat-seeking salseros as diverse as you’re likely to find congregating around one shuffleboard table. Whether featuring a rawkin’ Gender Pirates benefit show or a rare screening of The Fall of the I-Hotel as part of radical film series Televising the Revolution, El Rio encourages an intimacy and camaraderie among its dance floor–loving patrons less frequently found these days in an increasingly class-divided Mission.

3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SANITIZED


Although it’s really an aboveground Mission storefront, Balazo 18 has a great "in the basement" underground vibe, and within its gritty labyrinth, upstart idealists lurk like scruffy Minotaurs. The low overhead and inclusive ambience has proven fertile ground for local activist functions such as the recent Clarion Alley Mural Project fundraiser and December 2006’s Free Josh Wolf event (freedom still pending). The dance floor’s generous size attracts top-notch local bands and sweaty, freedom-seeking legions who love to dance till they drop.

2183 Mission, SF. (415) 255-7227, www.balazogallery.com

STARRY-EYED IDEALISM


Applause for the Make-Out Room‘s green-minded stance against unnecessary plastic drink straws (it doesn’t serve ’em), its championing of literary causes (Steven Elliott’s "Progressive Reading" series, Charlie Anders’s "Writers with Drinks"), and its calendar of benefit shows for agendas as diverse as animal sanctuary, tenants rights, and free speech. Plus, not only are the (strawless) drinks reasonably priced, but the wacked-out every–day–is–New Year’s Eve disco ball and silver star decor hastens their effect.

3225 22nd St., SF. (415) 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com

STOP IN THE NAME OF ART


The Rickshaw Stop hosts progressive literary luminaries by the library-load, raising the roof and the funds for programs such as the 61-year-old San Francisco Writer’s Workshop and the reading series "Inside Storytelling." Other beneficiaries of the Rickshaw’s pro-arts programming include SF Indiefest and Bitch magazine, and the club calendar is filled with queer dance parties, record release shows, and even an upcoming "Pipsqueak a Go Go" dance party for l’il kiddies with the Devilettes and the Time Outs. If teaching a roomful of preschoolers the Monkey isn’t an act of die-hard, give-something-back merrymaking martyrdom, well …

155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS


A dancer- and activist-run performance incubator, CounterPULSE hosts a diverse collection of cutting-edge artistes ranging from queer Butoh dancers to crusading sexologists to mobility-impaired aerialists. It’s also home to the interactive history project Shaping San Francisco and a lively weekly contact jam. But it’s the plucky, DIY joie de vivre that pervades its fundraising events — featuring such entertainment as queer cabaret, big burlesque, and an abundance of booty-shaking — that keeps our toes tapping and our progressive groove moving. Best of all, the "no one turned away for lack of funds" policy ensures that even the most broke-ass idealist can get down.

1310 Mission, SF. (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org

MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS


Sometimes a dance club, sometimes an art gallery — and sometimes not quite either — 111 Minna Gallery is pretty much guaranteed to always be a good time. Funds have been raised here on behalf of groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the West Memphis Three, and Hurricane Relief as a plethora of local and big-name artists and music makers — from Hey Willpower to Henry Rollins — have shown their stuff on the charmingly makeshift stage and the well-worn walls.

111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com

THE HUMAN LAUGH-IN


It’s true — the revolutionary life can’t just be one big dance party. Sometimes it’s an uptown comedy club adventure instead. Cobb’s Comedy Club consistently books the big names on the comedy circuit — and it also showcases some side-splitting altruism, such as last month’s THC Comedy Medical Marijuana benefit tour and the annual "Stand Up for Justice" events sponsored by Death Penalty Focus. Even selfless philanthropy can be a laughing matter.

915 Columbus, SF. (415) 928-4320, www.cobbscomedyclub.com

OLD FAITHFUL


The headless guardian angel of cavernous, city-funded cultural center SomArts has been a silent witness to countless community-involved installations and festivals, such as the "Radical Performance" series, a Day of the Dead art exhibit, the annual "Open Studios Exhibition," and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. And plenty of fundraising celebrations have been hosted beneath its soaring rafters on behalf of organizations such as the Coalition on Homelessness, Survival Research Labs, and the Center for Sex and Culture. We’ve got to admit — nothing cries "community" like a space where you can drink absinthe and build misfit toys one night, dance to live salsa the next, and attend a sober seminar on pirate radio the following afternoon.

934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-2131, www.somarts.org

STORMING THE CASTLE


Even if the Edinburgh Castle were run by community-hating misanthropes, we’d come here for the craic and perhaps a wistful fondle of the Ballantine caber mounted on the wall. But general manager Alan Black has helped foster a scene of emerging and established writers, unsigned bands, and Robbie Burns lovers in the lively heart of the upper TL. The unpretentious, unflappable venue also hosts benefits for causes such as breast cancer research and refugee relocation. And the Tuesday night pub quiz, twice-monthly mod-Mersybeat dance nights, and annual swearing competition keep us coming back for more (except maybe the haggis).

950 Geary, SF. (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com

SHAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT


Turning martini shaking into charitable moneymaking, Elixir has been the go-to drinks dispensary for fundraisers of all varieties since it launched its unique Charity Guest Bartending program. The concept is simple: the organizers of a fundraising effort sign up in advance, beg or bully a hundred of their best buddies to show up early and stay late, get a crash course in mixology, and raise bucks behind the bar of this green-certified Mission District saloon (the second-oldest operating bar in San Francisco). Did we mention it’s green certified? Just checking. Barkeep, another round.

3200 16th St., SF. (415) 552-1633, www.elixirsf.com

SPACE IS THE PLACE


A 2006 Best of the Bay winner, CELLspace has weathered the usual warehouse-space storms of permit woes and facility upgrading, and yet it continues to expand its programming and fan base into some very far-flung realms. From roller disco to b-boy battling, hip-hop to punk rock, art classes to aerial performances, the CELL has been providing an urban refuge for at-risk youth, aging hipsters, and community builders since 1996. Though we mourn the loss of the Bike Kitchen, which moved to its new SoMa digs, we’re glad to see the return of the Sunday-morning Mission Village Market — now indoors!

2050 Bryant, SF. (415) 648-7562, www.cellspace.org

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The dreaded school letters

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By Tim Redmond

The letters go out today assigning kids to SF public schools, and often there is wailing and gnashing of teeth when parents don’t get their very first choice. I agree, the system isn’t perfect, but my advice, as someone who went through it and though he’d been utterly screwed, is: relax. There are a lot of good schools in SF; you don’t have to be in Rooftop or Clarendon.

We visited all the supposedly top schools, applied for seven of them, and got none of our choices. Then on the second round, we discovered McKinley — and we couldn’t be happier.

So don’t freak if you don’t get Clarendon. I complain about the administration all the time (well, not so much now that Arlene Ackerman is gone), but the truth is, the district has come a long way, is improving, and there are lots of great places to send your kid.

So don’t panic.

A scary school poll

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By Tim Redmond

Kim Knox at leftinsf has posted the minutes of the Community Advisory Committee looking for a new SF school superintendent. Mostly pretty predictable stuff — except for a poll commissioned by a business group that has some really scary results:

To the question, is SF Unified School District going in the right direction or the wrong track:
Right Direction-22%
Wrong Track-54%

To the question, how would you rate the quality of the education provided by SFUSD:
Good to Excellent-28%
Not So Good to Poor-54%

To the question, how well do you think SFUSD manage its funds:
Excellent 20%
Not So Good to Poor 53%

One leftinsf commenter, Nakayama, concluded:

What ignorance. Anybody keeping a close eye on our public schools in SF –whether parent, student or administrator–can readily see that the schools are much better now than they were five or 10 years ago.

Why the misconception?

Because very few San Franciscans have children, and they have no idea what is happening in our schools.

I agree with the first part — I have a kid in the public schools, I’m really happy about his school (McKinley) and I think the public schools have improved dramatically in the past few years. But I don’t think the misconception is entirely due to the fact that most people in SF don’t have kids.

Let’s remember: Of the two superintendents who have been in charge since the 1990s, one ran an administration riddled with corruption; the other, while a talented educator, was arrogant, vindictive and disdainful of the community. That sort of thing doesn’t help with the perception of the district.

The second problem is that the district has spent a lot of money on a public-relations office whose chief job in the past has been to protect and promote the superintendent — so not a lot of effort has gone into promoting the schools in general. That’s changing now, under Acting Superintendent Gwen Chan, who seems to be doing a great job so far — and with a little effort, SFUSD could (and should) organize a major advertising and public-relations campaign to promote the quality and importance of public education in the city. That would help a lot.

Because those numbers really suck. And we all have to work to change them.

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