Labor

Urban man

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steve@sfbg.com

Maybe Burning Man can’t save the world, but its leaders and participants are increasingly focused on using the models and principles involved with building and dismantling Black Rock City in the Nevada desert every year to help renew and restore urbanism in the 21st century.

The arts festival and countercultural gathering that was born in San Francisco 23 years long ago defied the doomsayers and became a perpetual institution, particularly here in the Bay Area, where it has become a year-round culture with its own unique social mores, language, fashion, calendar, ethos, and infrastructure.

Now, the SF-based corporation that stages the event, Black Rock LLC, has set its sights on taking the next big steps by trying to create a year-round retreat and think tank on a spectacular property on the edge of the playa and by trying to move its headquarters into a high-profile property in downtown San Francisco — perhaps even the San Francisco Chronicle Building.

Complementing those ambitions is the art theme that Burning Man honcho Larry Harvey recently announced for 2010 — "Metropolis: The Life of Cities" — which seeks to connect the event’s experiments in community and sustainability with the new urbanism movements in places like San Francisco and New York City. Harvey told us the idea came to him earlier this year as he attended the Burning Man regional event called Figment and toured some of New York’s efforts to reclaim public spaces from automobiles.

"I found that inspiring," Harvey said of the recent changes to Times Square, marveling at the conversation circles people set up in the gathering spaces that used to be traffic lanes. "Here we have New York City creating a civic space that works like the city we create. It would be even better if they’d put up some interactive art."

In a video segment on the 2009 event by Time.com entitled "5 Things Cities Can Learn from Burning Man," Harvey spelled out some key urban living principles cultivated in Black Rock City: ban the automobile, encourage self-reliance, rethink commerce, foster virtue, and encourage art.

"It’s become a better and better social environment," Harvey said of Black Rock City, the population of which peaked at about 43,000 this year, down slightly from last year. "People have come to respect its urban character, so we’re ready for a discussion like this."

As part of next year’s theme, Harvey said he plans to invite urban planners and architects from around the world to come experience Black Rock City and share their ideas about encouraging vitality in cities, before and during the event. Cultivation of the vast interdisciplinary expertise that creates Burning Man each year is also why the organization is seeking to buy Fly Hot Springs on the edge of the Black Rock Desert.

"That’s what the think tank is about: Let’s get together and think about the world and use Burning Man as a lens for that," Harvey told us. "I think art should imitate life, but I’m not really happy until life imitates art."

Harvey is reluctant to talk much about his plans for the property until they can seal the deal — something the attorneys are now actively trying to hammer out — but he said the basic idea is to create "a laboratory for ideas." To try to raise capital for the project, Burning Man bused 100 rich burners — including Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Laura Kimpton of the Kimpton Hotel chain — to a dinner at the site on Aug. 27.

Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, where Black Rock LLC was earlier this year forced to move from its longtime Third Street headquarters because of plans by UC Mission Bay to build a hospital on the site, Burning Man and city officials are collaborating on plans for a showcase space.

"While all this is going on, we have been talking to the city about moving downtown. They really want us there," Harvey said.

The organization came close to landing on a big space in the Tenderloin, but that fell through. Recently, Harvey and city officials even toured the San Francisco Chronicle building at the corner of Mission and Fifth streets, which Hearst Corporation has had on the real estate market for some time, exploring the possibility of it becoming the new Burning Man headquarters.

For that site and other high-profile spots around downtown, city planners and economic development officials are actively courting significant tenants that would bring interactive art and creative vitality to street life in the urban core. "Well, that’s like a theme camp," Harvey said. "That’s what we do."

In recent years, Black Rock LLC has expanded what it does through Black Rock Arts Foundation (which funds and facilitates public art off the playa), Burners Without Borders (which does good works from Hurricane Katrina cleanup to rebuilding after the earthquake in Pisco, Peru), Black Rock Solar (which uses volunteer labor to do affordable solar project for public entities), and other efforts.

But simultaneously creating a think tank, retreat, and high-profile headquarters — with all the money that would require — could reshape the institution and its relationship with San Francisco in big and unpredictable ways. Harvey describes it as entering a new era, one he says he is approaching carefully and with the intention of maximum community involvement in key decisions: "You want to build trust and enthusiasm as you go along."

Liverpool

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REVIEW Liverpool may belong to the slow club of cinema — long takes, downcast eyes, and monumental landscapes — but the friction between its patient formalism and wild terrain is anything but staid. As with Werner Herzog, Lisandro Alonso sites the existential condition in plainly inhospitable ecologies. But whereas Herzog paradoxically employs grandiloquence to remonstrate the folly of human pomposity, Liverpool‘s withdrawn narration moves with the stealth purpose of a folk tale. The story is unavoidably mythic — a sailor’s return home — but we’re liable to forget this as Alonso’s camera travels to the vanishing point of landscape and labor.

We begin inside a hulking container ship with features indistinguishable from its cargo. Perhaps it’s just the frequent nips of vodka Farrel (Juan Fernandez) takes once he’s left the ship to visit his ailing mother, but non-actor Fernandez imparts a human rawness the hollowed role might not otherwise suggest. After announcing his plans to the captain in a brief strip of exposition, he docks in dirty snow and sets off across mountainous Tierra del Fuego for a home which appears anything but.

Alonso establishes the everyday reality of the sawmill outpost with a few spare strokes, crystallizing a portrait of hardship and taciturnity that outmatches Carlos Reygadas’ similarly remote Silent Light (2007). If that film’s magical realism was self-consciously steeped in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet (1955), then perhaps Liverpool is under the sign of John Ford. Farrel echoes John Wayne’s famous Searchers (1956) slouch in the doorway at a crucial moment: a classic outsider pose turns in on itself as the film shifts from portraying the individual solitude to communal isolation. When Farrel disappears into the yonder, Liverpool stays behind. The remainder is both epilogue and revision, with 80 minutes of vast extrication finally condensed into a surprisingly intimate token of distance.

LIVERPOOL runs Thurs/17–Sat/19, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Dick Meister: The union makes us strong

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It’s for very good reason that San Francisco has long been considered a premier “labor town.”

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, former San Francisco Chronicle labor editor and labor reporter for KQED-TV’s “Newsroom, ” has covered labor issues for a half-century as an author. reporter, editor and commentator.)

The 75th anniversary of the San Francisco general strike this year should remind us of the key role that organized labor has played in the city’s economic and political life, through good times and bad – often despite fierce opposition, sometimes despite the reluctance of unions to adjust to changing circumstances.

Local labor history is full of dramatic events. But none have been more dramatic than the general strike that brought the city to a standstill for four days in July of 1934 during a time of economic troubles even greater than we’re facing today. People in just about every occupation walked off the job in support of longshoremen who had struck on their own to demand an end to their truly rotten working conditions.

Dick Meister: Labor Day: Hold fast!

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Labor’s message to its friends is clear: hold fast!

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and labor reporter for KQED/TV’s Newsroom, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator.)

U.S. unions marked Labor Day this year with greater challenges than they’ve faced in many years ­ but also with unusually high expectations of success.

Looming above all is the Employee Free Choice Act ­ the long-pending legislation that would open the way to significant expansion of the labor movement by denying employers the underhanded tactics they’ve used to block workers from unionizing.

The growth of unions, which now represent little more than 10 percent of U.S. workers, would benefit all Americans, union and non-union alike. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich notes, “The way to get the economy back on track is to boost the purchasing power of the middle class, and one major way to do this is to expand the percentage of working Americans in unions.”

Sonic Reducer Overage: AC/DC, Japanther, Invisible Ocean Gathering, White Buffalo, and more

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By Kimberly Chun

Relaxing too hard this Labor Day weekend? Get the blood moving at these musical happenings – so much more than we could fit in print.

AC/DC
The Aussies are slipping on Black Ice and into the record books as the fifth best-selling band in US history. With Answer. Wed/2, 8 p.m., $92.50. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.livenation.com

Werk

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Things I’m loving so much lately, besides the way your new used shoes go with your new used hair: The awesome trip-disco movement, with the Lamb + Wolf and Soul Clap duos in the lead — dig Soul Clap’s "Great White Hope IV" mix at www.wolflambmusic.com — which fills out classic soul and R&B slabs with subtle, supple laptop hijinks. Young SF queen Chastity Belle wholeheartedly reviving old-school Liza, Sondheim, and Showgirls drag histrionics — frighteningly accurate! The new Spanish-German techno, revealed by the likes of Edu Imbernon, Coyu, and Niconé, which harnesses minimal techno and microhouse knob-tweaks to ethereal samba and salsa beats. And my favorite thing ever? BART runs all night on Labor Day weekend, so we can work it out on both sides of the Bay quickly, tipsily, and conveniently. Tube it, baby.

STUDIO SF

Two of our loveliest parties, Look Out Weekend and Go Bang!, combine their electro and disco spirits to update the future sounds of yesteryear for right now, with White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and the always perky Sergio of KALX.

Thu/3 and every first Thursday, 9 p.m., $5. Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF. www.triplecrownsf.com

AGNÈS

Swiss decks heartthrob expands his ravenous-eared range from dubby minimal tech to roots house for a set that’s guaranteed to be full of audio Alpine peaks. He’ll be joined by Jan Kreuger of Berlin’s delicious Panoramabar.

Sat/6, 10 p.m.–6 a.m., $15/$20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.theendup.com

BLESSED

A truly spiritual monthly Oakland affair, from the soulful house sounds of residents Rafriki, Discaya, and Kimani — plus special guest (and personal crush) DJ Ellen Ferrato — to the blessed out crowd of get-downers.

Sat/5, 9 p.m., free. Somar, 1727 Telegraph, Oakl. www.somarbar.com

GEMINI DISCO

It’s been three wild years for the beautiful-yet-intellectual disco kids of mad monthly Gemini, and this champagne celebration with DJs Nicky B. and Derek Love should be a real corker. Lovely Le Dinosaur hosts.

Sat/5, 10 p.m., $5. UndergroundSF, 424 Haight, SF. www.geminidisco.com

DUB MISSION

Woah — DJ Sep’s groundbreaking dub and raga weekly is now officially a classic, celebrating 13 years, and untold influence on the current SF sound, by hosting a rad "dub summit" that includes Twilight Circus Dub Soundsystem and Yossi Fine.

Sun/6, 9 p.m., $15. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

LABOR D’AMOUR

Funky house and techno party mainstays Sunset and Stompy get wild in their inimitably sunny style at Cocomo, filling the giant patio with, yes, "all styles and smiles" — plus the sounds of Sascha Funke, David Harness, and a dozen more.

Sun/6, 2 p.m.–2 a.m., $10/$20. Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.pacificsound.net

PARADISE LIVES!

Even more disco! Honey Soundsystem name-checks the mother of them all, Paradise Garage, with this special installment of its weekly party, calling down the spirits with legendary Trocadero Transfer master DJ Steve Fabus.

Sun/6, 10 p.m.-3a.m., $2. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. www.paradisesf.com

SIXXTEEN

I’m totally wetting my petite BVDs about the glorious return, after a decade’s absence, of DJs Jenny and Omar’s raucous rock debauch. Peaches Christ hosts, FLAWK hands out drink tickets to flashiest thrashers and best-dressed punk ‘n’ roll runaways.

Sun/6, 10 p.m.–3 a.m., $10. Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF. www.sfcatclub.com

I heard a tumor

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

INTERVIEW Sacramento quartet Ganglians daydreams blissed-out harmonies — ones made hazy by distortion. As its sun-kissed psych-pop sounds become garbled, the band creates a prismatic realm, a sonic state of being somewhere between waking and dreaming. This polychromatic province, where myoclonic twitches and hypnotic jerks occur, is conjured by variations between fuzzy, thermal jams and abstract, pensive chants.

Vocalist-guitarist Ryan Grubbs grew up in Bozeman, Mont. In 2006, he moved to Sactown after visiting the state capitol with his grandfather, who was attending a big horn sheep convention. Guitarist Kyle Hoover, drummer Alex Sowles, and bassist Adrian Comenzind all grew up in Sac and jammed together in Comenzind’s attic.

"Ryan worked down the street from that attic and when he’d walk home, he could hear us playing," says Sowles, explaining the band’s serendipitous formation. "Ryan had a show lined up and he asked us if we wanted to play with him. It just kinda worked out." After a pause he adds: "And then there was a car crash right in front of the venue that we played at …" Hoover, Grubbs, and Sowles rally back and forth about the group’s chemistry, which "wasn’t actually all there at first," before concluding that "the chemistry was there, but we weren’t exactly sure how to pull it off."

In biology, clusters of cells perform the same function within a ganglion — for instance, dorsal root ganglia relay sensory information from the skin to the spine. This process is a metaphor for the band’s rapid maturity: progressing from the first show, which was an interpretation of Grubbs’ solo work, to the chemistry-click when the members began writing songs together (and finishing each other’s sentences).

It all makes sense, except: the plural of ganglion is ganglia, and the band’s choice of name has nothing to do with the neurological term. Instead, Ganglians is a haphazard smooshing together of words. "Mostly I just liked aliens, and a gang of aliens, so I thought of ganglians," says Grubbs. "I had never heard of it before, so it sounded really cool, mysterious and iconic. I found out later it was a cyst or something, spelled a little differently, which is cool because that’s kinda weird and it’s like a bundle of nerves, and nerves are all about perceiving things and stuff. It worked out perfectly, I guess."

Ultimately, the randomness of Ganglians’ name, and how it came into being, is probably a much better metaphor for how the band operates. Its two releases to date, a self-titled EP (Woodsist) and Monster Head Room (Woodsist/Weird Force), were released almost simultaneously. The EP came out first, but features many songs written after those on Monster Head Room. The latter "was more of a production thing," says Sowles. Or as Grubbs put it, "It was a labor of love, we really nourished it." Monster Head Room‘s relative polish is illustrated by re-recordings two tracks of "The Void" and "Candy Girl" from Ganglians’ self-titled release.

Ganglians usually build songs around a melody. Grubbs often finds his during a "mindless" and "routine" job as a busser/server at a sushi restaurant. "I just go into this trance, " he says. "Then I’ll run into the bathroom and record a little snippet off of a melody on my phone."

After piecing together Grubbs’ cell phone recordings, the band jams for a while, with each member contributing different ingredients for the song. Most contributions are based upon a theme or an idea, such as sounding like a forest, or like being underwater, or trying to conjure the feeling of a journey.

Grubbs’ lyrics spring forth from themes and sounds, as in "Valient Brave," from Monster Head Room. "From its rhythm-guitar," says Grubbs, "I knew it was going to be a war chant." Grubbs also builds lyrics around vowel sounds, as is evident in his use of slant rhyme: the same album’s "Cryin Smoke," for example, pairs "pasture" with "bathroom."

The idiosyncratic moments in Ganglians’ music express a randomness but also reflect an increasing attention to detail. These particulars are most easily perceived while listening to Monster Head Room on headphones: the back-and-forth thumps that begin "Valient Brave," the UFO blast-off in "The Void" (produced via an oscillator and space echo), and the field recordings of crickets, frogs, and wood crackling that permeate "To June." There is a charm in not knowing whether these moments were fortuitous, like the band’s formation and name, or calculated. The ambiguity only heightens Ganglians’ ability to bring its listener into its half-dream sphere.

GANGLIANS

With Wavves

Sun/6, 7:30 p.m., $10–$12

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

Music listings

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

WEDNESDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Boylion, Shovelman, James Michael and the Lower Case Letters Hotel Utah. 8pm, $7.

Bye Bye Blackbirds, Rhubarb Whiskey, Billy Boys El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Davila 666, Mannequin Men, No Bunny, Bridez Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Mike Donovan, Douglas Armour, Banaya Papaya Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Enforcer, Slough Feg, Cauldron, Holy Grail Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $10.

*Al Green, Orgone Warfield. 8pm, $56-85.

Derick Hughes Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Eric Lindell Coda. 9pm, $20.

Mitchel Musso, KSM, Jimmy Robbins Slim’s. 7pm, $20.

Nels Cline Singers, Ava Mendoza Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $14.

Papa Grows Funk Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $15.

Shakewell, Paula O’Rourke and the Scarlett Bellows, SugarButtTiger Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Skeelo, Paulie Rhyme, Bonus Traxx Elbo Room. 9pm, $20.

BAY AREA

Def Leppard, Poison, Cheap Trick Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 7pm, $55.50-131.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

8 Legged Monster Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait and Switch, John Shiurba’s 5×5 Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St, SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15.

Shotgun Wedding Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10pm, $14.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Country Jam Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

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

Los Diablos de Amor Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Hump Night Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. The week’s half over – bump it out at Hump Night! Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Answer, Sticks and Stones Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Black Quarterback Coda. 9pm, $7.

Blue Rabbit, Kirk Hamilton Group, Conspiracy of Venus Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Brave Combo, Pine Box Boys Slim’s. 8:30pm, $15.

Heather Combs, Austin Willacy, Walty, Welcome Matt Hotel Utah. 7:30pm, $8.

Greyhounds, Anthony Ferrell Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $8.

Jonesin’, Sandwitches, Hanni el Khatib Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Jucifer, Grayceon, Flood Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $10.

Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Jay Electronica Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.livenation.com. 7:30pm.

Nels Cline Singers, Ava Mendoza Café du Nord. 8pm, $14.

Scene of Action, Fighting the Villain, Robots of Fury Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

This is My Fist!, Airfix Kits, Robocop 3, Gunner Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

Unauthorized Rolling Stones Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

BAY AREA

Deadbolt, Chop Tops, Thee Merry Widows, Switchblade Riot, DJ Wednzdai Uptown. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Eric Benet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

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

"Full Moon Concert Series: Harvest Moon" Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $6-10. With RTD3 and Gino Robair.

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Dark Hollow Band Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Flamenco Thursday Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8 and 9:30pm, $12. With Carola Zertuche and Company.

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro. Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St., SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

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

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

Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and Sergio.

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

FRIDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Café R&B Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Division Day, Bad Veins, LoveLikeFire Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

*Drunk Horse, Green and Wood, Sea of Air Knockout. 5-8:30pm, $7.

Foxtail Somersault, Color Turning, Tomihira, Tracing Figures Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Hatchet, Havoc, Brocus Helm, Laceration, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

DJ Lebowitz Madrone. 6-9pm, free.

Mew, Funeral Party Independent. 9pm, $18.

Neville Brothers, Dr. John Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $50.

Outrageous Cherry, Devon Williams, Thee Makeout Party Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Punchface, Triple Cobra, Chop Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

SMP, Stiff Valentine, Slave Unit Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $10.

Alexander Spit, Overview, Trackademicks, J-Billie, MC Hopie Spitshard, DJ Ant-1 Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Tinted Windows, Magic Christian Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

White Buffalo Hotel Utah. 9pm, $12.

Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates, James Pants, Odd Nosdom Elbo Room. 10pm, $12.

BAY AREA

Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Jay Electronica Paramount Theatre. 7:30pm, $39.50-79.50.

Wallpaper, Battlehooch, Somehow at Sea, Suicidal Barfly Uptown. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Eric Benet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

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

Miss Faye Carol and Her Trio Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $20.

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

Strong Move Quartet Coda. 10pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15. With Fito Reinoso, and Eddie and Gabriel Navia, and Latin dancing Buena Vista style.

Jeremy Serwer and Courtney Robbins Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Matthew Dear, Alland Byallo Mighty. 10pm, $12. Spinning electronic pop, minimal house, acid techno, and more.

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

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

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

Laila Ruby Skye. 9pm, $20. An international sound experience.

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

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

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm-2am, $2-4. Doo-wop, one-hit wonders, soul, and more with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Popscene vs. Loaded Presents Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With Twelves, Tenderloins, and more DJs Omar, Aaron, and Sleazemore.

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

Strangelove Cat Club. 9pm, $6. Sisters of Mercy tribute with DJs Tomas Diablo, Fact50, Justin, and Prince Charming spinning dark electro, new wave, industrial, and goth.

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

SATURDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

B-Cups, Sweet Revenge, Smokejumper, Air Show Disaster Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Detonize, Vivid Sekt, Corpus Knockout. 4-7pm, $5.

Rick Estrin and the Night Cats Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

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

Hightower, Emeralds, Bogus Tokus, Space Vacation Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

Magic Bullets Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

New Radiant Storm King, Faking Your Own Death, Vir Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Nico Vega, Dirty Sweet, Gringo Star Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Stockholm Syndrome, Bret Mosely Independent. 9pm, $25.

Tubes, Cat McLean Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Wire Train, Translator, Debora Iyall, Benjamin Bossi, DJ Choice Slim’s. 9pm, $26.

BAY AREA

*Jucifer, Ferocious Few Uptown. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

Four Freshmen Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $24.

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

Steppin’ featuring Oscar Myers Coda. 10pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Thorny Brocky Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

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

Kit and the Branded Men with Emith Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Debaser Knockout. 11pm, $5. Wear your flannel and get in free before 11pm to this party, where DJ Jamie Jams and Emdee play alternative hits from the 1990s.

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

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

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

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

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

Moped Amnesia. 10pm.

Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-7. A sexylicious dance party of girrrs, bois, and their friends with DJ China G.

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

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

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

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

SUNDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Guitar Shorty Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

In n’ Out Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $5.

Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam, Rob Drabkin Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Adam Marsland, Adrian Bourgeois Union Room (at Biscuits and Blues). 8pm, $10.

Midnight Stranglers, Tough Luxury, Cons Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Old Grandad, Floating Goat, Pins of Light, Aerial Ruin Annie’s Social Club. 7pm, $8.

Maia Sharp Café du Nord. 8pm, $15.

Stockholm Syndrome, Stone Foxes Independent. 9pm, $25.

Wavvs, Ganglians Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $12.

BAY AREA

John Legend, India.Arie, Vaughn Anthony Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $39.50-89.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Four Freshmen Yoshi’s San Francisco. 2 and 7pm, $5-24.

Lucid Lovers Harris’ Restaurant, 2100 Van Ness, SF; (415) 673-1888. 6:30pm.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

George Lammam Ensemble Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 9pm; $10.

Mucho Axe Coda. 8pm, $7.

Quin and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

"Songwriter Sundays" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $3. With Francesca Lee, Jennifer Faust, and Weather Pending.

Tippy Canoe Velo Rouge, 798 Arguello, SF; (415) 752-7799. 2pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission 13th Anniversary Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Yossi Fine, and Twilight Circus Dub Sound System with Ryan Moore.

45Club’s Soulful Labor Day Funk Fest Knockout. 9pm, $2. With Dirty Dishes, English Steve, and dX the Funky Granpaw.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SupaStar Sunday Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.myspace.com/citypage. 10:30pm. Hosted by SupaStar City with DJ Rick Lee.

MONDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cold Cave, Crocodiles, Best Coast Knockout. 10pm, $5.

Little Cow Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Belleville Outfit Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $10.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Israel Vibration, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad Independent. 9pm, $25.

Songs of Sea Labor Ferryboat Eureka, Hyde Street Pier, SF; (415) 447-5000. Noon, $5. With Salty Walt and the Rattlin’ Ratlines and Holdstock and Macleod.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Black Cobra, 16, Serpent Crown, DJ Rob Metal Knockout. 10pm, free.

Karl Blau, Neal Morgan, Casual Fog Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Michael Burks Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

David Cook Fillmore. 8pm, $32.50.

Laura Cortese and Jefferson Hamer, Anne Heaton Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

JL Stiles, Sean Garvey, Quinn Deveaux Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Spencer Day Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $30-37.50.

Eric McFadden Union Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10pm, $14.

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

Ralph Carney’s Serious Jass Project Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kitten on the Keys Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St, SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15.

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

DANCE CLUBS

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Weekly guest DJs and Hamm’s for a buck.

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

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

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

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

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

Meister: Baseball – More than a man’s game

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Why bar women from playing baseball? Baeball officials have never even bothered to explain.

By Dick Meister

Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based freelance columnist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator.

Another season of professional baseball is upon us, another season of a sport that’s billed as the “National Pastime,” yet bars half the population
– the female half – from the playing field.

Major and minor league teams, as well as most amateur and semi-professional clubs, have kept the game largely what it has been since its beginnings: a chewing, spitting, macho game reserved for men. Women are allowed to watch, but only rarely have they been allowed to come out of the stands and play.

Major League Baseball made it official in 1952, when teams were banned from signing major or minor league contracts with women.

Autumn with Xbox

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GAMER The fall release schedule lacks the marquee names and rabid hype that defined the previous year in gaming, but thumb-callused consumers everywhere should have much to look forward to following a summer of ho-hum titles.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision), PS3, Xbox360, PC After farming out a by-the-numbers semi-sequel, Call of Duty: World at War, to developers Treyarch, Infinity Ward has redeployed. Bridging the treacherous divide between immaculately choreographed single-player campaigns and frenetic, repayable multiplayer, Modern Warfare the first was a smash hit and remains an XBox Live staple. Activision will count on its tent pole FPS to hit another one out of the park, with the help of snowmobile chase firefights and all manner of shit that goes "boom!" (Nov. 10)

The Beatles: Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV Games/EA), PS3, Xbox360, Wii Not just another rhythm game; more like a labor of love. Unlike, say, "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" (Activision), the Fab Four’s name comes first for this title. Early reviewers have heaped praise on Harmonix, honing in on the attention paid to visual detail. Beyond recreating the band’s distinctive instruments and best-known gigs, the developers worked closely with Apple Corps. to animate "dreamscape" sequences that will set the scene for the group’s late-period, psychedelic tunes. Three-part harmonies and the ability to download the Liverpudlian quartet’s entire catalog (which is still not possible on iTunes) are just gravy. (Sept. 9)

Borderlands (Gearbox/2K Games), PS3, Xbox360, PC Gearbox’s twitch-based postapocalpytic RPG made early headlines by effecting a complete change in art direction, resulting in its idiosyncratic, cel-shaded look. More important is the promise of a huge open world, four-player co-op, and the Diablo (Blizzard)–baiting siren call of procedurally generated loot. (Oct. 20)

Brütal Legend (Double Fine/Electronic Arts), PS3, Xbox360 The long-awaited masterpiece from San Francisco’s resident game royalty, Tim Schafer. The Grim Fandango (Lucasarts) creator and his team at Double Fine have ridden a rollercoaster to get this game in stores, but a bevy of celebrity voice talent, a head-banging soundtrack, and Schafer’s boundless imagination are sure to make it worth the wait. Also enticing are Ocarina of Time (Nintendo)-style spellcasting via electric guitar, a so-crazy-it-just-might-work RTS option for multiplayer, and enough heavy metal-themed mayhem to fill a few hundred macabre record sleeves. If you can only slay $60 worth of bloodthirsty demon between now and the holiday game glut, this is your surefire pick. (Oct. 13)

Fall fairs and festivals

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AUG 28-30

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfoutsidelands.com. 12-10pm, $89.50-$225.50. SF’s best alternative to That Thing in the Desert is back for its second year, with headliners Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, and Tenacious D playing for you and two thousand of your closest friends.

BAY AREA

Eat Real Festival Jack London Square, Oakl; eatrealfest.com. Fri, 4-9pm; Sat, 10am-9pm; Sun, 10am-5pm. Free. Buy from your favorite street food vendors, sample microbrews at the Beer Shed, or shop in the market for local produce at this sister event to La Cocina’s Street Food Festival.

AUG 29-SEPT 20

SF Shakespeare Festival Presidio’s Main Post Parade Ground Lawn, between Graham and Keyes; www.sfshakes.org. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2:30pm, free. The genius of Shakespeare in SF’s most relaxed setting.

SEPT 1-30

Architecture and the City Times, locations, and prices vary. www.aiasf.org/archandcity. The American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter and the Center for Architecture + Design host the sixth annual fest, featuring home tours, films, exhibitions, dining by design, and more.


SEPT 5-6

BAY AREA

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway Avenue between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.antiquesbythebay.net. 10am-5pm, free. The Big Easy comes to Millbrae for this huge Labor Day weekend event.

SEPT 6

BAY AREA

Antiques and Collectibles Faire Alameda Point, Alameda; www.antiquesbythebay.net. 9am-3pm, $5. California’s biggest and best antiques and collectibles extravaganza is back with 800 outdoor booths, with something for everyone.

SEPT 9-20

Fringe Festival Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; 931-1094, www.sffringe.org. Times and prices vary. An ever-changing collection of unusual and lively experimental theater pieces will be showcased over the course of 18 days.

SEPT 12-13

Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square; www.ghirardellisq.com. 1pm, free. Indulge in chocolate delicacies, sip wine, and enjoy chocolate-inspired family activities at this annual event benefiting Project Open Hand.

Power to the Peaceful Festival Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park; www.powertothepeaceful.org. 9am, prices vary. Michael Franti and Guerrilla Management present the 11th annual festival dedicated to music, arts, action, and yoga. With Alanis Morrisette, Sly & Robbie, a special after party at the Fillmore, and workshops all day Sunday.

BAY AREA

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro Street between El Camino Real and Evelyn Ave, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. More than 200,000 art lovers will gather for the 38th installment of one of America’s top art festivals, featuring crafts, live music, food, and drink.


SEPT 13

Brews on the Bay Jeremiah O’Brien at Pier 45; 929-8374. Times, locations, and prices vary. www.aiasf.org/archandcity. The American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter and the Center for Architecture + Design host the sixth annual fest, featuring home tours, films, exhibitions, dining by design, and more.


SEPT 17-21

BAY AREA

Symbiosis Gathering Camp Mather, Yosemite; www.symbiosisgathering.com. $180, includes camping. This synesthesia of art, music, transformational learning, and sustainable learning is quickly becoming one of NorCal’s favorite fall festivals. This year’s headliners include Les Claypool, Yard Dogs Road Show, Bassnectar, and the Glitch Mob.


SEPT 19-20

Autumn Moon Festival 667 Grant; 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm, free. Chinatown’s annual street fair features continuous Asian entertainment, lion dances, costumed artisans, cultural demonstrations, arts and crafts, and food vendors.


SEPT 27

Folsom Street Fair Folsom Street between Seventh and 12 St; www.folsomstreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. The world’s largest leather event covers 13 city blocks with entertainment, vendors, and plenty of spectacle.


OCT 2-5

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park; www.strictlybluegrass.com. Check website for times. Free. Natalie MacMaster, Emmylou Harris, Aimee Mann, Neko Case, and many more perform for free in Golden Gate Park.

OCT 3

LovEvolution Civic Center Plaza; www.sflovevolution.org. 12pm, free. The event formerly known as Love Parade may have a new name, but the music, color, and fun remains.

OCT 3-4

World Veg Festival San Francisco County Fair Bldg, Lincoln and Ninth Ave; 273-5481, www.sfvs.org/wvd. 10am-6pm, $6. The San Francisco Vegetarian Society and In Defense of Animals present the 10th annual award-winning festival featuring lectures, cooking demos, vegan merchandise, and entertainment.

OCT 4

Castro Street Fair Castro at Market; www.castrostreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. The festival founded by Harvey Milk returns with the theme "Come Get Hitched in the Center of the Gay Universe," in an effort to keep the embers burning in the fight for equal rights.

OCT 9-17

Litquake Locations vary; Times vary, most events free. To commemorate its 10-year anniversary, the storytelling festival kicks off with the "Black, White, and Read" ball and continues with nine days of lit-themed programming.

OCT 11

San Francisco Decompression Indiana Street; www.burningman.com. Break our your still-dusty Burning Man costumes and welcome hard-working BMORG staff back to "Real Life" with this BRC-themed street fair and festival.

OCT 15

West Fest Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park; www.2b1records.com. 9am-6pm, free. 2b1 Multimedia Inc., the Council of Light, and the original producer of Woodstock 1969 team up to celebrate Woodstock’s 40th anniversary with a free show featuring Country Joe, Denny Laine, Alameda All Stars, Michael McClure, and tons more.

OCT 16

WhiskyFest San Francisco Marriott, 55 Fourth St; 896-1600, www.maltadvocate.com. 6:30-9:30pm, $95. America’s largest whisky celebration returns to SF for the third year with more than 200 of the world’s rarest and most expensive whiskies.


OCT 17

Potrero Hill Festival Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro. 9am-5pm. This benefit for the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House features a jazz brunch catered by students of The California Culinary Academy and continues with a street fair along 20th Street between Missouri and Arkansas.


OCT 17-18

Treasure Island Music Festival Treasure Island; www.treasureislandfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 11am. $65-$249. The Bay Area’s answer to Coachella (minus the camping, heat, and Orange County douchebags) is back, this year featuring The Flaming Lips, The Decemberists, Yo La Tengo, The Streets, and about 100 other indie favorites and up-and-comers.

BAY AREA

Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival Main Street at Highways 1 and 92, Half Moon Bay. 9am-5pm, free. Jim Stevens and Friends will return to the world famous festival featuring music, crafts, parade, and children’s events.

OCT 23-24
Exotic Erotic Expo Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva; www.exoticeroticball.com. Fri, 2-10pm; Sat, 12-6pm; $20. Part Mardi Gras, part burlesque, and part rock concert, this two-day fest is a celebration of human sexuality and freedom of expression, with its crowning event the Exotic Erotic Ball on Saturday night.
NOV 2
Day of the Dead Starts at 24th and Bryant, ends at Garfield Park; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 7pm, free. Celebrate this traditional Latin holiday – and SF institution — with a procession and Festival of Altars.
NOV 13-15
SF Green Festival San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St; www.greenfestivals.org Fri, 12-7pm; Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 11am-6pm. $15-$25. A joint project of Global Exchange and Green America, this three-day event features the best in green speakers and special events.
NOV 27-DEC 20
Great Dickens Christmas Fair Cow Palace Exhibition Halls, 2600 Geneva; www.dickensfair.com. Fri-Sun, 11am-7pm. Check website for ticket prices. Channel Charles Dickens’ Victorian London with this 90,000 square-foot theatrical extravaganza.

Campos invites Newsom to support due process for all youth

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Text and images by Sarah Phelan

Camposredux.JPG
Sup. David Campos addresses the crowd before introducing legislation to restore due process to undocumented youth.

Yesterday’s rally at City Hall in support of Sup. David Campos’ resolution to restore due process to immigrant youth was a who’s who of all the movers and shakers within the local immigrant reform community.

mujeres2.JPG
Members of Mujeres Unidas y Activas led the crowd in chants of “Si se puede!”

Dozens of community groups, half a dozen supervisors, a representative for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Mission High school teacher Derrylyn Tom,, Kate Kendall of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Patti Lee of the Public Defender’s office, Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center, Lateefah Simon of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council and Rev. Charles Kullmann of the SF Interfaith Coalition were in attendance, to name a few of the hundreds who showed up.

Chiuredux.JPG
Board President David Chiu told the crowd that the city needs to “strike the right balance” and ensure public safety and the rights of immigrants.

Noticeably absent were Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sups. Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier, none of whom have signed on in support of Campos’ resolution to date. And it seemed like a missed opportunity for Newsom, who needs all the support he can get if he is going to have a chance of winning the governor’s race.

Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center told the crowd that soon after Newsom’s revised sanctuary policy was implemented last summer, 50 prominent Latino leaders sent Newsom a letter asking him to amend the policy so that immigrant youth would be guaranteed due process.

“California has always been a leader on social issues,” Perez said, as she thanked Campos and the seven other supervisors who are co-sponsoring his resolution to restore due process. ” We have been dismayed by San Francisco’s decision and its current policy which destroys families.”

Made in USA

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

DRUG LIT You can go to these places. Reading Righteous Dopefiend (University of California, 392 pages, $24.95), I kept trying to pinpoint, via clues in the text, where on "Edgewater Blvd." — Bayshore — the homeless heroin addicts whose lives the book chronicles were encamped. You want to know if you’ve walked by them. Because what pulls you through this often dense ethnography are finely drawn portraits of the brutal lives of individuals.

Philippe Bourgois, a professor of anthropology and medicine who taught for a while at UCSF (he’s now at the University of Pennsylvania) and Jeff Schonberg, a photographer, spent nearly 12 years with a core group of 10 homeless drug addicts in and around the Bayshore area. In Righteous Dopefiend they’ve created a devastating, blow-by-blow indictment of the countervailing forces that conspire to keep these people — Hank, Petey, Tina, Carter, Felix — on the margins.

Of course, the authors recognize that the members of the group they’re following bear some responsibility for the day-to-day atrocity their lives have become. But they track these lines back carefully, conducting extensive interviews with family members, former employers, and ex-spouses who live more (or at least much less precariously) in the "mainstream." Part of what’s revealed in these back stories reminded me of William T. Vollmann’s argument, in his book Poor People (Ecco, 2007), about "accident prone-ness": that the cultures of poverty, addiction and marginalization have a snowball effect within individual lives. Meeting medical — or court — appointments becomes impossible without transportation; sores and open-container tickets turn into abscesses and bench warrants.

The book is divided into nine parts, each detailing an aspect of the everyday lives of the homeless addicts. In "Falling in Love," over the course of interviews, monologues, and Schonberg’s overwhelming black and white photographs, we watch the trajectory of Tina and Carter’s on-again, off-again romance. The chapter is bracketed by "Intimate Apartheid" and "A Community of Addicted Bodies," which illustrate the particulars of the group’s estrangements (from within and without) and its focal, primary romance — with heroin, crack, and alcohol.

In "Making Money," the few legal, and many more illegal, means of getting enough cash to fix are catalogued and considered. Bourgois considers the obsolescence of blue-collar manufacturing jobs, nationally and particularly in rapidly gentrifying cities like San Francisco. What interests the authors here, as elsewhere, are the ambiguously symbiotic, even parasitic relationships employers have with the homeless. One boss who relies on a member of the group pays him exactly enough for a bag of heroin, ensuring that he’ll be at work again first thing the next day.

Throughout the first-person narratives, Bourgois threads his argument: that the institutions, ostensibly set up to serve this body of addicts (from the police-state to community clinics) are, like the employers, both dependent on them (for government funding, menial labor, etc.) and ultimately at cross-purposes with them. The services senselessly undercut one another, forming a no-place for the homeless to barely survive in, characterized by the either/or of living purely by chance, in extreme squalor, or in a permanent maze of bureaucracy. So the Edgewater homeless carve out a life in between, under the freeways but with methadone treatment or an SRO perpetually on the horizon. It’s a shell game where the addict always loses.

There are plenty of good reasons to get this book and read it. If you’re interested in homelessness, addiction, or in the public health issues surrounding IV drug use, this is an excellent source of information. The authors treat their subject brilliantly and with great compassion. It is also a hell of a story, and it’s local. These people walk by you every day and should not remain invisible.

This land is ‘Methland’

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DRUG LIT Books claiming to be about drugs in some way — whether nominally fiction or nonfiction — all run up against the same problem: pharmacodependency is already culture. Or, as the literary theorist and academic Avital Ronell puts it in her brilliant, uncategorizable tract, Crack Wars (University of Illinois Press, 1993), drugs articulate "a quiver between history and ontology."

Put another way, drugs aren’t everything, but rituals of self-maintenance and care, from vitamins to exercise and so on, are built on addictive structures. Isoutf8g a drug as a singularity — as Nick Reding only apparently does in Methland (Bloomsbury USA, 272 pages, $24.95), a sort of informal case study of the effects and causes of the meth epidemic in the Iowa town of Oelwein — is a dicey proposition. It calls for a kind of Puritan monomania that might capture some of the lucidity of being on drugs but does so at the price of insight, a deductive rather than inductive logic.

It’s easy to claim that drugs are culture if we limit ourselves to the black-light poster canon of drug lit from Baudelaire’s Les Paradis Artificiels (1860) to Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1959) and Bret Easton Ellis’ coke-benumbed Less Than Zero (1985). In their time, those books appeared as threatening as their subject matter because they revealed associations between addiction and literature — a notion that seems rather quaint now. Nobody’s launching hysterical campaigns against toxic literature. Today, video games are the new objects of moral panic. Perhaps as books quietly got subsumed into the category of self-improvement, video games took on the cast of a potentially ruinous pursuit of unproductive labor.

In this context, meth is an oddly positioned drug: since its first large-scale use among soldiers on both sides during World War II, speed has been associated with hard work, endurance, and elevated mood over more abstract qualities. Whether prescribed for slimming down or perking up during its brief tenure as a licit drug, amphetamines have always tended to banal, everyday worry. As Reding writes in his book’s introduction, the U.S. meth epidemic is set apart not only because meth can be synthesized cheaply and discreetly at home, but because the drug’s main constituency is working-class, rural whites. Reding’s take on his subjects is compassionate but not treacly: a significant portion of the book links increased meth use with the effects of globalization upon the blue-collar job markets in small towns.

One of the Oelwein residents Reding profiles, a notorious crank addict named Roland Jarvis, went from earning $18 an hour with full union membership and benefits to $6.20 an hour without benefits or union membership after Gillette and later Tyson took over the company where he worked, Iowa Ham. Jarvis used meth to help pick up extra shifts even in the halcyon days of a livable wage, but it’s difficult to imagine how one could make do on $6.20 an hour without tweeking — Reding claims local meth production increased by 400 percent around the same time. Jarvis’ narrative arc culminates when his home explodes as he attempting to dismantle his basement meth lab. The descriptions that Reding shares — of how Jarvis’ skin proceeded to slough off in sheets, revealing the muscle below, for example — make for a kind of rural Grand Guignol, otherwise held in check by structural explanations.

The author gives the sense of a slightly distracted but pleasant dinner party host — wary of lingering on any subject too long, he returns cyclically to the nonaddicts who form the moral core of the story. Clay Hallberg, Oelwein’s high-strung general practitioner, and Nathan Lein, the assistant Fayette County prosecutor, are the book’s through-lines: their tentative redemption is the town’s, and the book’s conclusion plays out with a Midwestern brand of reticence. But Reding’s attempts to connect Oelwein’s story with his own family history cause the book to lose focus, particularly as it concludes. To his credit, this feels like the result of keeping an over-cautious distance from mom-baiting newsmagazine templates. Ironically, though, some of Methland‘s descriptions of meth-fueled psychosis — an elaborate fetish for enemas; frozen pigs in a blanket used as butt plugs — are far-out enough to be at home in the "Drugs" episode of Channel 4’s satirical documentary program Brass Eye.

Methland also tracks the paths of the meth trade, illustrating how early routes were established by out-migration from the corn belt to labor markets in Southern California, then were consolidated into an empire by Lori Arnold, and finally transformed into a decentralized system in which Mexican traffickers use illegal immigrants employed in the meatpacking industry as mules. By following both federal meth legislation and news coverage of the epidemic, Reding emphasizes meth’s functions and reputation within society. He links the drug to an incredible depression of wages and standard of living by corporations threatening to move operations offshore should they be forced to enact worker protections.

Meth is a drug with no celebrities, and Reding treats his subjects with respect, despite close calls with former addicts who play disc golf with him one minute and threaten his life the next. But even beyond a standard litany of reservations about nonfiction — that the author’s voice is too intrusive or not intrusive enough, that there are chunks of undigested research — Methland’s attempt to combine personal reflections on identity and place with an examination of the drug’s role in a small town’s economic struggles seems formally stale.

Perhaps this approach is more truthful, though: meth in Oelwein offers little in the way of rausch, which Ronell defines as the "ecstasy of intoxication," but can be everything when it comes to making do as agribusiness exerts its downward pressure on communities that had previously survived on small-scale farming and small business. Though he might not be able to keep his readers fully invested in his book’s characters, Reding illuminates how meth flows along the same lopsided trajectory of so-called development for which globalization is a handy catch-all. Meth lit is a distant prospect, and as Ronell reminds us with respect to crack, it’s because these drugs don’t have the veneer of moral defensibility. A writing more appropriate to the subject might put forth a louder call for justice for the future. Methland does an able job for now.

Hard-headed

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS The wheel came off the shopping cart and the whole thing went over. Cans clanged and rolled. Plastic milk jugs bounced, and the toddler in the kid seat crashed down with them, helpless, tangling with cereal boxes and plastic bags of produce.

Her mom, who was also holding a baby, had the look of a mom who was watching her two-year-old fall on her head. In between the bonk and the scream, there was that split second where question mark and exclamation mark meet. And stare at each other. While tumbleweeds roll silently by like a lone little wheel down Aisle 7. The sun moves a little. There’s so much space in that flat, hard moment that you could land an airplane on it.

Then: the long, loud, first breathless wail, like being born all over again. In automatic sympathy, everyone else holds their breath too, thinking: Breathe, kid! Breathe! But I know how hard kids’ heads are, compared to their mothers’ hearts. I’m more worried about the mom. In the time it took her to drop to the grocery store floor, still cradling her baby in one arm, and gathering up her now bawling toddler in the other, a crowd had formed.

Two store managers, displaying athleticism rarely seen outside track meets, were first on the scene. Before all the cans had even stopped rolling, they were offering the hurt and/or scared shitless child Popsicles and juice boxes. But the kid was inconsolable. "I’m not feeling well," she said, between wails.

For the next 15 minutes, nothing changed. The kid cried. The baby, heroically, stayed calm. While the mother, squeezing and rocking and there-there-ing, checked her older child’s head for bumps, or worse.

While the two store managers divided their labor, one serenading the mom with an endless stream of apology, the other scrambling for still brighter colors of Popsicles. While a couple of the bystanders, in a desperate attempt to be byuseful, bytapped the scattered groceries into a pile with their feet. While the woman in the business suit said, "You need to take her to see a doctor, right now."

To her credit, at least she said this just once. Whereas the woman who wasn’t in a business suit, speaking on behalf of all the rest of Berkeley, Calif., where this happened, would not stop repeating one word, "Arnica."

So, then, the song goes like this:

"Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. There, there, sweetie. Show mommy where it hurts."

Crying crying. "I’m not feeling well." Crying.

"How about purple?" Crying.

"Arnica."

"Ma’am, do you want me to hold the little one for you? We’re so sorry. Does she need ice, ma’am?"

"How about green? Do you like green?"

"Arnica." Crying.

"Sweetie, sweetie, it’s OK sweetie." Crying. "Mommy’s here, sweetie. It’s all right."

"Arnica."

"Ma’am." Crying. "If there’s anything at all." Crying. "We can do, Ma’am."

"Arnica."

And on and on and onica, until finally the mother, briefly wondering why she lives where she lives, pried her attention away from her crying child to look this woman in the eye and say, "Will you please go away?"

Which is where I, in the spirit of Lou Reed singing, "I’m just the waterboy<0x2009>/the real game’s not over here," admit that I wasn’t there. I’d hear all about it … how they escaped to the parking lot, to their car, only to find the store managers, through the miracle of pole vaults and sheer speed, had collected, bagged, and long-jumped their groceries to the parking lot, to their car, ahead of them. And free! I’d help put those groceries away. But I wasn’t there. I was in San Francisco, in a swirl of pain and fear all my own, eating duck soup by myself at my new favorite restaurant.

THE OLD SIAM

Daily: 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

201 Ellis, SF

(415) 885-5144

No alcohol

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Hines spy?

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By Rebecca Bowe

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Here’s the latest twist in the fight over 113 Steuart Street, a shuttered two-story building on the city’s northern waterfront that high-profile developer Hines Interests wants to raze and replace with a tall, shiny green building called 110 The Embarcadero. A committee that’s pushing to landmark 113 Steuart is claiming that Hines has used “industrial espionage” to try and thwart their efforts.

On Aug. 4, a group called the 113 Steuart Street Landmark Committee — comprised of preservationists, historians and labor union members — held a meeting at the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 34 Hall to chart their strategy for landmarking 113 Steuart, which would preclude demolition. The site is historically significant, committee members argue, because it served as the labor hall where International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) leader Harry Bridges and the Maritime Strike Committee organized the Waterfront Maritime Strike of 1934. (The ILA was the predecessor to the ILWU.)

The meeting attracted a newcomer. Committee members Ralph Schoenman and Bradley Wiedmaier told the Guardian that Daniel McGill introduced himself to the rest of the group as a “student of urban planning interested in the field” who professed a “deep interest” in the effort to preserve the building. Throughout the planning meeting, Wiedmaier said, McGill was “feverishly taking notes on everything anyone said.”

If McGill really was there as a Hines spy, we doubt he’d last a day as an FBI informant. As any good spy should know, giving your real name makes it much easier for your foes to denounce you as an infiltrator. Suspicions raised, Weidmaier consulted Google the next day and found McGill listed as an Assistant Project Manager at Hines Interests – the very development firm that aims to tear down 113 Steuart.

Hotel workers strife returns to SF

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By Steven T. Jones
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Image from SF Chronicle

San Francisco hotel workers plan to demonstrate in the streets tomorrow afternoon, the day that UNITE-HERE Local 2’s contracts with the major San Francisco hotels expire, launching what could well be another pitched labor battle with larger political implications.

In 2004, shortly after Gavin Newsom became mayor, a standoff between the union and the coalition of corporations that own the city’s biggest hotels resulted in strikes and lockouts that were San Francisco’s most significant labor fights of the new century. Newsom tried to mediate the conflict and when the hotels (which had back him for mayor) defied his demand to end the lockout, he walked the picket line with workers.

That moment and Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples that same year were arguably the high water marks for his standing with progressives. After that, he checked out, moved to the right, and began to pursue celebrity and the governor’s office.

Now, with hotels apparently using the economic downturn as an excuse to cut their workers’ numbers and benefits, the union gearing up for the fight of its life, and Newsom more focused on running for office than city business, this one might just get ugly. The fun begins at 4 p.m., near the Four Seasons Hotel, Market between 3rd and 4th streets.

Moving backward

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s city budget was signed into law Aug. 4, but a group of city workers is pushing the Board of Supervisors to reverse a cut that they say reflects a giant step backward for progressive San Francisco values.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021, about 18,000 strong in San Francisco, has launched a campaign to restore pay cuts to certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and unit clerks who staff the city’s medical facilities, arguing that the demotions reverse a decades-old commitment pay equity between men and women.

Proposition H, approved by voters in November 1986, enshrined the principle of comparable worth in San Francisco. It required the city to ensure that municipal jobs dominated primarily by women provided wages on par with male-dominated jobs that have similar qualifications.

Jobs held by mostly female employees also tend be staffed by people of color, so the move to create equity in pay was meant to address systemic sexism and racial discrimination. Unit clerks and CNAs seem to fit the bill, and their salaries were gradually increased after 1986.

As part of the midyear budget cuts, 88 CNAs who work at SF General Hospital were laid off and simultaneously rehired as patient care assistants, a job with similar responsibilities but only 79 percent of the salary (from an average annual salary of $56,589 down to $45,032). Another group of CNAs is scheduled for similar demotions in November. Cuts to clerical workers’ wages are also pending and most will be reclassified with 15 percent less pay (from $52,845 to $45,266).

"It wipes out the advantage that they had," says Local 1021 health care industry chair Ed Kinchley. "Group by group, they’re wiping out the pay differential."

"This is the first wave of an overall effort to undermine comparable worth," union organizer Robert Haaland charged in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. "We ask you to join with progressives to defend the principle of equal pay for women and minorities."

SEIU held an Aug. 7 forum to discuss the cuts at SF General, with Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi in attendance. CNAs and unit clerks packed the audience — a crowd that was indeed made up of many women of color.

One was Theresa Rutherford, a CNA at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center. "We’re the first ones to note when a patient is not doing well," Rutherford explained to the supervisors. "It’s a job that requires a lot of commitment." She described the long hours and the bonds that develop with patients, saying CNAs are counted on by "the person who has no family members left — so you become the family member."

"Best-quality care costs," Rutherford added. "It’s not cheap."

Avalos, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was infuriated by the pay cuts. He spoke about a possible supplemental appropriation to address the issue. "We have to find the revenue for that to happen," he said. "Push as hard as you can on City Hall, and I’ll fight as well."

Tom Jackson, there representing Sup. Chris Daly, also urged the workers to apply pressure. "As far as labor practices go, this is a test," he said. "You’ve been fighting for decades [for pay equity] … and they’re ready to wipe it away because we have a bad economy."

Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass responded to SEIU’s charges by telling the Guardian: "We disagree with the SEIU comparable worth argument. Further, SEIU was not able to get member approval of a tentative agreement that might have prevented layoffs and position conversions during last fiscal year."

Supervisors added $500,000 back into the final budget to stave off some conversions. SEIU members contend that the add-back was supposed to retroactively restore cuts to the 88 CNAs, but Sass told us, "I am not aware of any action at the [Board of Supervisors] to that effect."

A memo that DPH Director Mitch Katz sent to Board President David Chiu noted that "difficult decisions had to be made to reach the financial target," and said the CNA conversions were made "following discussions with the city’s Department of Human Resources and SEIU."

At the forum, Halaand pointed to a report from the Controller’s Office revealing a 20 percent growth in management positions under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration. "There’s a lot of padding of their wallets at the top. At the bottom, they’re devaluing," he told the workers. "There seems to be money out there, but it’s just not for us."

Campos told us he plans to request a hearing to examine managerial promotions as well as the ethnic and gender makeup of the city’s highest-ranking positions. As for whether some of these cuts might be restored, he told us, "I think that’s a real possibility. I am hopeful it will happen."

A study released this year by San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women compares women’s median salaries to average men’s earnings. According to the report, the median annual wage for Latina women is 52 percent of men’s earnings; African American women earn 58 percent; Asian women 63 percent; and white women 88 percent.

Another round of pink slips go out Sept. 16, so SEIU is planning a rally at City Hall that day to demand that the city uphold comparable worth.

Sound of vertigo

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Music can teleport you to far-off lands and spark nostalgia for distant times. It might elicit lost memories or even summon illusions. You may have never visited Istanbul or São Paulo or lived in the 1960s, but music infects the imagination with a visceral experience of the unknown. The effect is uncanny, mesmerizing, beautiful, and even therapeutic.

But what happens when music pushes its ability to displace to an extreme? When music annihilates your familiar sense of space and warp holes your usual expectations of time? Can listening to music transform you? Los Angeles-based beatsmith and DJ the Gaslamp Killer certainly thinks so. "The music I’m looking for is the stuff that will cut through your brain and just make you feel … almost overwhelmed," Gaslamp slowly explains whether arranging cosmic abyss mixtapes like I Spit On Your Grave (Obey, 2008) or crafting his own twisted productions, including his just-released debut solo EP My Troubled Mind (Brainfeeder), Gaslamp displays a developing genius for charting hallucinatory odysseys into vertigo. His haunted, cinematic music unhinges the listener, approaching a surreal dissociation and restoration of the self.

William Benjamin Bensussen didn’t identify as the Gaslamp Killer until some time after moving to Los Angeles three years back. He grew up in another troubled Southern California paradise cloaked in its own rusted mythology: San Diego. There, a restless Bensussen was already broadening his musical horizons in the fifth grade, listening to Too Short, Jimmy Hendrix, and Dre. A few years later he attempted to satiate his curious, nearly frantic energy by freestyle dancing at raves and in b-boy circles — to electronic and hip-hop music respectively. But it was DJ Shadow who bridged those fractured worlds for Bensussen and ignited a desire to dig into jazz, funk, and psychedelic crates. "I started on this frenzy trying to find all the originals. And then I realized that Shadow had sampled half of his stuff, and he wasn’t as much of a genius as I thought he was," Gaslamp recalls, laughing. "That’s when I started looking for older records and thinking, well, maybe I could do this."

Bensussen’s dark nom de plume is a bittersweet tribute to his unlikely origins. As a 19-year-old college dropout, he flipped wax in San Diego’s glittery Gaslamp District to a sometimes hostile crowd. Bensussen remembers bitterly a particular confrontation with a vindictive listener. A strikingly beautiful woman — who intimidated the then-teenage DJ — queried him angrily why he wanted to ruin her time with his fucked up music. Why? Dumbfounded, wounded, and angry, Bensussen drew sadistic nourishment from the provocation. It helped inspire his first mixtape project, the circa-2000 Gaslamp Killers, a lo-fi guzzling of psychotic drums and horror sonic bits. Recently, Bensussen decided to rename himself in light of this original labor of love.

Gaslamp has yet to settle down. He helped found L.A.’s monolithic weekly showcase for uncut beat-driven tracks, the Low End Theory, in the fall of 2006. And he’s secured a close affiliation with Flying Lotus’ bubbling imprint, Brainfeeder. But Bensussen’s troubled mind still wanders, like his music and his words, in perpetual hunger for the rawness of life. "[My music] comes from more of a vicious area," Gaslamp explains, searching for the right words. "Not angry, just passion — but a passion that can’t be sugar-coated."

This unmediated passion takes Gaslamp into many dangerous and strangely ethereal caverns. It also jettisons him to the homes of foreign musicians marked by the same shattered pathos. My Troubled Mind gathers its influences from all over the globe — Turkey, India, Russia, Mexico, Germany, and Italy. But the way Gaslamp employs samples from these regions defies their idiosyncratic place of origin. He has a rare skill for extracting universal otherworldliness from regional sounds. And he implements their fiercely destructive yet uplifting spirituality into his mind-melting compositions. His music and DJ sets become performances, elusive experiences leaving you charred and fiending for more of their ineffable allure. "I’m glad people can’t describe it," Gaslamp says, nearly yelling into the speakerphone. "Once they are able to describe it, that’s when they chew it up, spit it out, and leave it behind. The more indescribable and amazing it is, the more you’ll hold on to your people, your listeners."

Variety lights

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

If Jean-Luc Godard is right that film history is the history of the 20th century, the film preservationist surely occupies a privileged seat of knowledge. Steve Erickson implied as much in 2007’s Zeroville, his surrealist novel centering on a "cineautistic" film editor who gives new meaning to Freud’s concept of "screen memories." But by and large the preservationist’s labor is beyond public view. UCLA’s prestigious moving image archive is trying to change that with a touring program of highlights from its biannual Festival of Preservation. In an e-mail exchange with Jan-Christopher Horak, the archive director wrote that "When I became director 19 months ago, it seemed that all the work was wasted if we only showed the films in our theatre in Los Angeles."

The Pacific Film Archive screens 14 of these restorations during August, one of which showed at the Castro Theatre in May. Head archivist Ross Lipman reintroduced the eager crowd to John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (1974), veering comfortably between technological details and dishy anecdotes. Several of Cassavetes’ original collaborators were in attendance, and it was clear that Lipman had joined their ranks in his material intimacy with the film. I was fully expecting to be wowed by seeing Mabel and Nick Longhetti’s tumult splayed across the big screen, but the revelation was in the soundtrack: the dynamic see-sawing between nonsense whispers and splitting screams made the film a physical experience.

Restorations can bring our attention to previously unseen (or unheard) aspects of a film, making it more complex than we first realized. Dial the formal elements up too much, though, and you have the aesthetic equivalent of a juiced ballplayer — many critics felt this line was crossed in the brightening of R.W. Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and the soundtrack facelift performed on Orson Welles’s Othello (1952). Nitrate is time-sensitive and costly to preserve, and since the number of titles is so great, the choice of which film to preserve is bound to be polemical.

"While UCLA has traditionally focused on Hollywood films, given our geographic location, we have become increasingly interested in independent and avant-garde work," Horak explained. This shift has resulted in its tremendous success with restorations of Killer of Sheep (1977), The Exiles (1961) and the early films of Kenneth Anger — a set of work that, when taken together, brings wider attention to Los Angeles’ rich tradition of what scholar David E. James calls "minor cinemas."

The PFA picks are delightfully eclectic, but the common thread of this mostly American set is independence. From early avatars like Edward Curtis (1914’s In the Land of the Head Hunters) to Poverty Row auteurs like Edgar Ulmer (1948’s Ruthless), political outliers like Joseph Losey (1951’s The Prowler) to those filmmakers who gave indie cinema a name of its own (Cassavetes and John Sayles), "Secrets Beyond the Door" weaves a multitude of independent traditions. *

SECRETS BEYOND THE DOOR: TREASURES FROM THE UCLA FESTIVAL OF PRESERVATION

Aug. 7–30, $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Best of the Bay 2009: Sex and Romance

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>>CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS LIST ON ONE PAGE
>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME

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Editors Picks: Sex and Romance

BEST FAIR THAT’S UP YOURS

While the Folsom Street Fair has grown into an international destination for kinksters and the tourists who ogle them, the Up Your Alley Fair has become increasingly important as a more intimate oasis for local leatherheads who remember the scene’s old days. The fair — better known as Dore Alley Fair, though the event was named when it started in 1985 on a different street — has brought much-needed attention to the oft-overlooked SoMa neighborhood. We love the organization’s dedication to supporting groups and charities like the Episcopal Community Services, AIDS Emergency Fund, and Transgender Law Center. What we don’t love is that this event may be the next target on the Police Department’s Death of Fun Crusade. Show your support this year so that Up Your Alley doesn’t go the way of Castro Halloween.

Last Sunday in July, Dore Alley, between Folsom and Howard. www.folsomstreetevents.org/alley

BEST SEX AND SERVICE

Having sex doesn’t take much: a partner (or not), a place, a modicum of desire. But feeling sexy isn’t always so easy — especially if you’re in a relationship that has reached the sweatpants, TV–dinner, oral-sex-what? stage. Enter Intima Girl, the Marina’s boudoir of a boutique. The small, upscale shop stocks a variety of items meant to up the ante in the bedroom, from sex toys to lotions to lingerie, most geared toward girls (and their partners) who want a little class in their kink. Think sleek vibrators, high-end candles, silk bondage ropes, and sex books that could sit on your coffee table. But Intima Girl doesn’t skimp on the fun. Adventurous types can head home with an edible candy bra, assless panties, and metallic condom compacts for stylish safe-sex on the go. Best of all, the owner and staff are as knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful as you always wished your big sister would be.

3047 Fillmore, SF. (415) 563-1202, www.intima-online.com

BEST SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

Dim, crimson lighting. The Stones on the sound system. Attractive youngsomethings lounging languidly on plush couches. And there, across the room, a tall, lean brunette, sipping a PBR, staring through the haze. Will Amber, the worker-owned watering hole with stiff drinks and legal cigarette smoking (thanks to labor law loopholes), be the setting of your "How We Met" story? Are those the tears of love at first sight? If you’re not a smoker, your eyes might just be irritated or you might be frustrated knowing tonight’s bar clothes will smell when you wear them to work tomorrow. But for those brave (stupid? nah) few who still toke the tobacco stick, this Duboce Triangle destination is a sexy, sultry, smoky oasis in a world that’s become increasingly cold (literally) to the dwindling minority. Just for this moment, in this beautiful bar out of time, nothing exists but you and your beloved. Not work. Not cancer. Maybe not even a future for your relationship. But what does it matter? Since the first release of studies on the dangers of smoking, people who continue to puff have lived in the here and now. And at Amber, there’s no better place to be now than here.

718 14th St., SF. (415) 626-7827

BEST WEDDING SINGERS WHO AREN’T ADAM SANDLER

You’re getting married to the love of your life, and every member of your extended families will be in attendance, including your Aunt Jolene, who lives in an RV in the Nevada desert and talks to inanimate objects, and your future spouse’s Harvard-educated litter, all flying in from Martha’s Vineyard. How are you going to pick a wedding band that will get everyone — from your lumpy litigator father-in-law-to-be to your own Crazy Uncle Cletus — on their feet dancing? Tainted Love, the best ’80s tribute band since The Wedding Singer, is the answer. This talented seven-piece act regularly draws sold-out crowds to venues like Bimbo’s and Red Devil Lounge, while also happily playing private parties, corporate events, and, yes, weddings. Now that ’80s music is almost the golden oldies, you can count on the fact that Love’s renditions of "Purple Rain," "Sweet Child o’ Mine," and, of course, "White Wedding" will appeal to all the guests on your list — no matter how far they traveled (or how much they put in for the ceremony).

(510) 655-7926, www.taintedlove.com

BEST COCK RING FOR THE CREATIVE CLASS

What’s wrong with loving a product for its design? That’s really why Apple fanatics love all things "i." And that’s why we lust after sex toys from Jimmyjane, the Potrero Hill pleasure purveyors whose vibes, games, and accessories would look as natural in a museum gift shop as they would in your minimalist, modern bedroom. The Form 6 vibrator looks like a cross between a stylized pen and a high-end electric toothbrush, while the Little Chromas model has the sleek grace of a bullet, or a small cigar (we refuse to make that joke). And Jimmyjane’s Usual Suspects line is nothing short of inspired — celebrating both form and function by interpreting classic toys, in flawless white. Yes, the company does seem to cater to Audi drivers and iPhone users — collaborating on expensive special editions with well-known designers and bragging about appearances on cable TV shows. But we can’t argue with the nontoxic materials and the unprecedented one-year warranty. And the fact that they just look so cool.

www.jimmyjane.com. Available at Good Vibrations, various locations. www.goodvibrations.com

BEST QUEER PORN

The problem with mainstream porn is that most of it is made in the San Fernando Valley by brainless douche bags and lazy ex-cheerleaders looking for a quick buck. But this is San Francisco. This is the art capital of the world, the home of the free thinker, the land of the awesome. Can’t we get some porn made for us? Yes, we can! Yes, we can! If you’re as sick of Barbie Doll smut as we are, then you should know about local filmmaker-producer-writer-artist Courtney Trouble. Trouble is the founder of a queer porn site called Nofauxxx.com ("queer" as in not just homo, but alternative as well). She’s the final word when it comes to smut with attitude, character, and soul. Not only is No Fauxxx the oldest running queer porn site on the Internet, it’s also the only spot that mixes alt, gay, lesbian, straight, trans, kink, and BBW content. It’s sexy, artsy, entertaining, all-inclusive, and totally DIY. In a word: ours.

www.nofauxxx.com

BEST CONTEST FOR WANKERS

The Masturbate-a-thon is an annual pledge drive for the Center for Sex and Culture during which people gang up in a hot and sweaty room to watch each other jerk off for an entire day. Sounds like fun, right? But what if you’re not an exhibitionist? No worries. The whole show (held in May, which is Masturbation Month) is broadcast live on the Internet so that shy people can join in too. Categories include "Most Money Raised," "Most Orgasms," and "Longest Squirt," and the winners in each division receive sexy prizes from Good Vibrations (and perhaps a lifetime of wishing Google and YouTube were never invented). Score! Exhibitionists, porn addicts, and the rest of us are encouraged to ogle, vote, and even participate alongside certified wank-masters such as Dr. Carol Queen, Fellatio Brown, and Masanobu Sato, a Japanese toymaker who holds the world record for "Longest Time Spent Masturbating" (to be fair, it should be noted that his company, Tenga, makes masturbation cups for men). The time to beat next year is nine hours and 58 minutes, so fire up Fleshbot.com now and start practicing. You can be sure that’s what Masanobu is doing.

www.masturbate-a-thon.com

BEST PLACE TO PARK WITH YOUR PARAMOUR

The place where Broadway meets Lyon and dead-ends into the edge of the Presidio is almost always empty. Here, the steep angle of the land affords swoon-inducing vistas of the Marina, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the bay, and tranquility hovers amid the perfectly manicured gardens and the improbably large and ornate houses to which they are attached. The drawback? If you’re not in the mood for a workout on the Lyon steps, there’s not really anything to do here except park, which, if you’ve brought an attractive friend along for the ride, is no drawback at all. If there’s an ounce of chemistry, the solitude and stunning view will have you two making out in the backseat of your car. In fact, come here with someone for whom you have feelings that run deeper than lust, and you may just be inspired to make things official. There are few better spectacular, proposal-inducing viewpoints in our spectacular, proposal-inducing city that haven’t been completely co-opted by tourists. Relationship-phobes and impulsive romantics, consider yourself forewarned.

Broadway at Lyon

BEST TASSELS WITH TALENT

Burlesque is bawdy. It’s lowbrow. It’s often political, and always boundary- pushing. But sexy? Not necessarily. As the new burlesque movement merges with circus and performance arts, it sometimes sacrifices the delight of the tease in favor of mere shock and awe. But Rose Pistola knows how to balance her solo performances so they get your panties wet and in a bunch. The classic beauty has graced stages in an octopus skirt, an Elvis costume, a mullet, a Victorian mime outfit, and a full tulle gown (that she rolled out of) — always mastering a blend of humor and class. But it’s not just her performances at places like Hubba Hubba Revue and Bohemian Carnival that rev our engines — Pistola also designs costumes, including tiny hats, vinyl corsets, and almost all of her fabulous stage get-ups. What could be sexier than a woman with pasties and a pincushion? How about one who plays with fire? Oh yeah, Pistola does that too.

www.myspace.com/rosepistola

BEST MEETING GROUND FOR SWINGERS

Not big on commitment? At Lindy in the Park, the weekly swing dance party that’s been uniting partners with fancy footwork since 1996, change companions as often as you change your mind. With free lessons starting at 11 a.m. and open to the public, it’s the perfect place to flirt with fellow Lindy Hop fans and then flee. But this outdoor event near the de Young Museum isn’t just for eternally happy singles. Couples know the best thing about the swingout is the swing-back-in. And once you’ve seen your honey doing the sugar push, you might just find that your hip-to-hip leads to lip to lip.

JFK Dr. (between 8th and 10th avenues), Golden Gate Park, SF. www.lindyinthepark.com

BEST PLACE TO PICK UP CHICKS (WHO LIKE CHICKS)

Whatever your definition of cockblocking — whether it’s using a friend to pose as a lover to deter unwanted advances, or stopping a fellow suitor from stealing your paramour with their charm and free drinks — the idea is clear: there’s a third-party penis, and its plans must be thwarted. What better name, then, for a dance night geared toward girl-on-girl love? But it’s not just clever nomenclature that fuels our love for Cockblock, the monthly lesbian dance party at the Rickshaw Stop. It’s the fact that these get-togethers feature infectious music, cheap drinks, good vibes, and that rare chance for girls-who-like-girls to get together without sweaty heteros trying to get in the way (or cast them in their personal porn fantasies). Plus, queer ladies should have at least one surefire place other than the Lex to scope out a hottie.

Second Saturdays, Rickshaw Stop,155 Fell, SF. www.cockblocksf.com

BEST CIRCLE TO JOIN AND JERK

Masturbation need not be a covert mission reserved for solo artists behind bedroom doors or within shower stalls. If you’re the type who is more of a team player, you might like SF Jacks, a group of like-minded men who appreciate a good circle jerk. The group has been perfecting its "loose and goofy environment" for 26 years, regularly drawing as many as 70 Jacks and Joes who want to lose their clothes — and their inhibitions — together. Meetings are held every second and fourth Monday at the Center for Sex and Culture, where lube and refreshments are provided. Just show up with your $7 donation (though no one’s turned away for lack of funds), ready to do the hand jive. But just remember to follow the rules. You can touch your dick, but don’t be one.

Second and fourth Mondays, 7:30-<\d>8:30 p.m. $7. Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission, SF. (415) 267-6999, www.sfjacks.com

BEST WAY TO GET YOUR DATE SWEATY

Dinner and a movie, a night at the bar, a drive down the coast — all these date options have their merits. But when you’re trying to plan a partner activity that’s off the beaten path, consider renting bikes from Golden Gate Park Bike and Skate and exploring less charted territory (especially on Sundays, when Golden Gate is closed to car traffic). For just $5 an hour, you can check out hidden trails, watch the legendary bison do whatever it is bison do, and take a breather by the ocean. Not only will you get beautiful views (of park and partner), but the chemicals you release while exercising will bring you and your paramour closer together. This is an especially good thing if you’re looking to take your relationship to the next level, because producing endorphins together might just lead to … uh … producing endorphins together.

3038 Fulton, SF. (415) 668-1117, www.goldengateparkbikeandskate.com

BEST PLACE TO PARTY LIKE A PORN STAR

Unbeknownst to pretty much everyone, Dogpatch Studios, the nondescript warehouse on Tennessee Street marked by a benign and vaguely cutesy flag featuring a black Labrador, is where the Mitchell Brothers filmed Behind the Green Door, the first feature-length hardcore porn film to be widely released in the United States. Today, with enough green of your own, you can host a private event inside this historic sex landmark. While the venue still welcomes movie shoots, your options are unlimited. Dogpatch Studios will provide you with flexible floor plans, kitchen facilities, wireless internet, lighting services, staffing, and just about anything else you require, whether it’s for a sedate corporate retreat, a no-holds-barred bacchanal, or even a wedding. Because nothing says everlasting love quite like tying the knot where Marilyn Chambers (R.I.P.) filmed money shots.

991 Tennessee, SF. (415) 641-3017, www.dogpatchstudios.com

BEST XXX XX IN THE CASTRO

Remember when the Castro was just a big boys’ club? That’s changed somewhat, thanks in no small part to Femina Potens, the nonprofit art gallery dedicated to women, transgendered folk, kink, and the sex worker community that anchors the corner of Market and Sanchez. Cofounded by renaissance porn star and queer BDSM queen Madison Young, the cozy spot has been hosting exhibits, workshops, spoken word performances, film screenings, and readings by queer literary and artistic legends like Michelle Tea, Annie Sprinkle, and Inga Muscio since 2001 — and recently has added health and wellness programming into the mix. With showcases tackling topics from body image to safer sex, suicide prevention, and breast cancer awareness, there’s no question that what Femina Potens does is important. But we think art shows about bondage and performances about breasts are also just damn sexy. Plus, it’s about time the Castro got a little more double-X (chromosome) action.

2199 Market, SF. (415) 864-1558, www.feminapotens.org

BEST KINKY DINNER

Dark Tasting is the most unintentionally kinky thing to happen to dining since the invention of the hot dog. The very concept sounds like something out of a Marquis de Sade novel. The San Francisco group believes that sight deprivation heightens the sensory experience of having a meal, from the taste, smell, and feel of your food, to the sound of your company’s voices. Before the meal is served, diners are blindfolded and rendered submissive. (Doesn’t that alone sound like something out of a deliciously depraved Japanese bondage flick involving nyotaimori?) Sponsored by TasteTV and held at a different venue once every two months, Dark Tasting events offer gourmet multicourse meals with wine parings, with the caveat that you have to pay $95 per person and can’t see what you’re eating. Events are described as a "sensual dining experience," and given that no one can see what a pervert you are, you can freely grope your partner under the table without eliciting "Get a room!" remarks from fellow diners. If you’re into BDSM, we highly recommend Dark Tasting as a romantic prelude to being hog-tied in a cage (where the real fun begins).

www.darktasting.com

———-

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>>LOCAL HEROES

How healthy is Healthy SF?

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0

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco is getting national attention for its attempt at universal health care. President Obama even applauded the city’s efforts in a speech: "Instead of just talking about health care, [San Francisco has been] ensuring that those in need receive it."

But Healthy San Francisco — a pioneering effort to do at the municipal level what the federal and state governments won’t — is running into some troubling problems, made worse by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget cuts.

The program was initiated by Tom Ammiano, now a state assemblymember, with backing from organized labor. Ammiano’s goal was to provide easy access to affordable health care for all of S.F.’s 60,000 uninsured. A local version of a single-payer program, he argued, could provide accessible primary and preventative care, alleviating the need for indigent patients to use the overcrowded and expensive San Francisco General Hospital emergency room as their primary medical provider.

Healthy San Francisco was launched on July 2, 2007, at two Chinatown clinics. It has grown dramatically, and now provides services to more than 34,000 residents at 27 clinics.

Although Newsom sat on the sidelines while Ammiano pushed the legislation, the mayor has now unashamedly claimed the program as his own to promote his gubernatorial campaign. On his Web site he boldly declares that "he’s created the only universal health care program in the country" — with no mention of Ammiano.

The $200 million-<\d>a-<\d>year program is partially funded by an employer-mandate requiring businesses with more than 20 employees either to provide health insurance or pay a fee to the city. The fees are broken down according to the size of the business; as of January 2009, employers pay between $1.23–<\d>$1.85 for every hour an employee works.

Like any traditional health insurance program, Healthy SF has annual fees and point-of-service charges paid by participants. The remainder of the program is funded through state grants.

Opposition to HSF surfaced immediately. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association sued the city even before the program started, alleging that the employer-spending mandate is a violation of federal law.

Kevin Westlye, the association’s executive director, claims his beef is not with the health care system, just with the employer mandate. He suggested that the city raise its sales tax to pay for the program — or that the financial burden should fall on the backs of the billionaires that run privatized health care and pharmaceutical companies.

But the city has only a limited ability to raise taxes, and any tax hike would require voter approval. The employer mandates and fees were much more politically feasible.

Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria, who is representing the city on the case, argues, "It is difficult to imagine, in these budget times, that San Francisco could provide universal coverage without employer health care spending requirements."

Federal courts sided with the GGRA initially, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the employer-spending mandate was legal. The GGRA appealed to the United States Supreme Court; the court will announce Oct. 5 whether it will hear the case.

That’s not the only litigation facing HSF. A group of low-income residents are suing the city, saying that the system’s annual fees and co-pays are too high. The program’s fees are scaled to the federal poverty level, which is currently set at an annual income of $10,830. A single person making between 101 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level — that is, between about $11,000 and $20,000 a year — pays $180 a year for HSF membership. People earning between $40,000 and $50,000 pay $1,350 a year.

There are also co-pays of $10 for medical visits and $5 to $25 for prescriptions — again, typical of health insurance plans.

Bay Area Legal Aid and the Western Center on Law and Poverty are representing three San Francisco residents who say those fees violate federal and state mandates, which stipulate that the city must provide free health care to those who can’t afford to pay. Healthy San Francisco is only one element of the lawsuit; it also claims that San Francisco General Hospital charges low-income people too much and that the city’s medical bills and collection practices aren’t fair.

One of the plaintiffs is Robyn Paige, a San Francisco resident with spine, foot, and hip injuries. Paige contends that she can’t afford the co-payments on her multiple medications each month and must either go without pain medication or borrow money. Lisa Qare, 21-year-old resident with MS, had to wait three weeks for medication for an eye condition that developed as a result of her condition.

A $10 co-pay may not seem like much, but when a patient needs several doctor visits a month and must pay $5 to $25 each for multiple prescriptions, it adds up. "As a result," Michael Keys, a Bay Area Legal Aid lawyer, told us, "those who can’t afford the charges are falling into medical debt or skipping services or medication."

And, not surprisingly, the cash-strapped city is having trouble finding enough staff and facilities to meet all the needs. Nancy Keiler, a Mission District resident and HSF participant, complains that clinic visits are too short, and that "the doctor is too hurried and has too many patients." (That’s a common complaint about private health plans, as well.) After waiting three hours, another HSF participant had to leave without her prescription to get back to work on time.

The long lines and waits will only get worse in the face of budget cuts. Pink slips were already handed out to several hundred San Francisco health care workers and 1,000 more may be laid off this fall.

Robert Haaland, who works with the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, told us the staffing cuts will make the situation much worse. Martha Hawthorne, a public-health nurse, said she thinks that there won’t be enough providers to provide good care — and that many health care workers losing their jobs will have to enroll in HSF themselves, putting even more strain on the system.

Ammiano, the author of the plan, is concerned too. "I’m very worried about it," he said. "It seems to me now that if there’s this budget pain, there will be impacts to San Francisco."

Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary, tersely denied that HSF will feel any budget pain. Asked about critics’ allegations, he said, "They’re wrong. We are going to expand Healthy SF this year."

Earlier this month, insurance giant Kaiser Permanente joined HSF — meaning that the health care giant will now participate as a provider in the program. Haaland voiced concern about that move, calling it "privatizing through the back door."

Mitch Katz, the city’s public health director, agrees there are flaws to the system, but defends its success. "It is by no means a perfect program," he said, "but we’ve made a big impact." With national health care costs rising three times faster than wages (some believe that health care costs are rising five times faster than wages) the nation is starting to seriously talk about overhauling the entire system. San Francisco is being considered as a model for national health care reform.

Labor leaders have lauded the basic formula of HSF and pushed for the federal reforms to use it as a model. As San Francisco Labor Council executive director Tim Paulson said in a prepared statement, "In San Francisco we demonstrated that legislation providing public health access and corporate participation creates a real path to universal health care coverage."

Research assistance by Gabrielle Poccia

Bitter medicine

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0

news@sfbg.com

The Democratic Party has been promising a major overhaul of the health care system for a generation or more. Now, with President Barack Obama and his party’s congressional leaders in a strong position to finally reach that elusive goal by next month, this should be a momentous time for the reform movement.

So why are so many health reform advocacy groups unhappy?

The answer involves policy and process. Rather than pushing for the single-payer system that many progressive groups demand and say is needed, Democratic leaders immediately opted for a compromise plan they hoped would be acceptable to economic conservatives and the insurance industry.

But Republicans are still calling them socialists for doing it, while the insurance industry — which loves the portion of the legislation that requires everyone to buy coverage — is still spending $1.4 million a day to either kill the complicated bills or turn them to its advantage.

When congressional Democrats unveiled America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (HR 3200) on July 14, many reformists thought a long-awaited, dramatic overhaul to a broken system was close at hand. The insurance companies would finally be made to adhere to ethical practices, and the Democrats would defend their plan to establish a government-run health insurance option that could compete with private insurers and keep them in check.

“American families cannot afford for Washington to say no once again to comprehensive health care reform,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who chairs the crucial House Education and Labor Committee.

The Democrats’ bill does address some critical flaws in the health care system. It would greatly expand Medicare to ensure coverage for low-income individuals, and would subsidize coverage for those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, defined as $43,320 for an individual and $88,200 for a family of four. The bill would forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to patients based on a preexisting condition, age, race, or gender. It would eliminate co-pays for preventative care and establish a cap on annual out-of-pocket expenses. To pay for it, the proposal would create a graduated tax on households earning more than $350,000 a year, with the top bracket being a 5.4 percent levy on incomes of more than $1 million.

Progressive members of Congress threw their support behind the bill because — and only because — it included the public option. “The public option is central to our support of health care reform,” read a statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), who chairs the CPC, was quoted in the Huffington Post as saying, “We have already compromised. More than 90 percent of the progressive caucus would vote today for a single-payer system. And so for us to compromise and get behind a really good strong public plan, I mean that’s as far as we’re going.”

While that statement indicates the precarious nature of the current legislation — which will likely be weakened further as it works its way through the process and merges with legislation from the more conservative U.S. Senate — many progressive groups aren’t even willing to go that far.

 

COVERAGE ISN’T CARE

Many single-payer supporters say some reform is better than none, and that the passage of HR 3200 would represent a major win. “We can advance many of the principles that we support with the House bill,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California and an organizer for the national reform advocacy group Health Care for America Now. The nation, he believes, needs to endorse principles such as universally covering Americans and making sure patients aren’t left alone “at the mercy of the private insurance industry.”

Yet other groups fear this cure would be worse than the disease, sending millions of new customers into a private insurance system that simply doesn’t work, and compounding existing problems.

“We’re still pushing for a national single-payer bill,” Dr. James Floyd, a health reform researcher with the nonprofit group Public Citizen, told the Guardian. “While we’re open to other options, we haven’t seen anything [in proposals by Democratic congressional leaders] yet that is acceptable.”

That position has plenty of support among the general public and reform-minded organizations, for whom single-payer continues to be the holy grail.

The current proposal “doesn’t change the system one bit,” said Leonard Rodberg, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, who works in health policy. “These bills are requiring that people buy insurance, but there are no numbers about how much the insurance would cost. And if the cost of the insurance is still too high, you can remain uninsured.”

And as negotiations center on the government-run insurance option, the concept of scratching the status quo and offering free Medicare-like health care to every American instead has fallen to the wayside.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) got 84 co-sponsors for his single-payer bill, HR 676, and hearings were held in June to explore the option. But congressional leaders then took it off the table. The reasons why seem to be as much about political will as they are about campaign contributions from the insurance industry. As one high-level congressional staffer told us, many lawmakers won’t back a single-payer system in part because they “don’t want to have to respond to being accused of being a socialist by the right wing.”

Then there’s the insurance lobby. “They spend hundreds of millions,” the staffer said. “They lobby Congress, and they provide millions to campaigns. They have Fox News. But the single-payer movement is growing leaps and bounds.”

Rodberg said the insurance industry would love to see a mandate to buy insurance approved at a time when insurers are losing customers because the economy is shedding thousands of jobs each month. “This is a bailout for the insurance companies,” Rodberg told us. “But there’s absolutely nothing in this legislation that will control costs, because it just leaves it to the insurance companies and the market.”

Dr. Jim G. Kahn, president of the California Physicians’ Alliance and a professor at UCSF with expertise in health policy, told us he believes the proposed bill falls short of the goal of comprehensive, universal coverage. “‘Universal’ was recently redefined by [Montana Sen. Max] Baucus as 95 percent — i.e., 15 million uninsured,” Kahn told us via e-mail. “Reaching even that level will be hard, due to the complexity of enforcing an ‘individual mandate’ on families with only modest income (and hence no subsidies). And in eagerness to reach that level, more and more people will become underinsured, with inadequate coverage and a further boost in already high medical bankruptcy.”

Medical debt contributed to nearly two-thirds of all bankruptcies in 2007, according to a study in the American Journal of Medicine. The majority of those afflicted were solidly middle-class homeowners at the start of their illness, and most had private health insurance.

Health Care Now, a hub for single-payer grassroots groups, is planning a large rally in Washington, D.C., for July 30, the anniversary of the founding of Medicare, on which many single-payer plans would be based. “Single-payer is the only plan that would truly be universal and contain costs,” said Katie Robbins of Health Care Now, arguing that the current plan pushed by congressional leaders “doesn’t protect us from the ills of the insurance-based system as we know it.”

Other progressive groups are withholding judgment for now, hoping the good aspects will ultimately outweigh the bad. “We’re digging through them now. We support a bill that has a true public option, and the House bill has that,” said Consumer Watchdog’s Jerry Flanagan. “But we really dislike the individual mandate [to purchase health insurance]. The insurance companies really don’t want the public option, but they really want the mandate.”

 

LEAVING OPTIONS OPEN

Even if single-payer isn’t going to be the national model yet, advocates say it’s crucial that states such as California be allowed to experiment with the option anyway. Single-payer advocates in Congress have insisted the health care legislation be amended to explicitly allow states to do single-payer (otherwise, federal preemption laws and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act might prevent states from doing so).

On July 17, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) successfully inserted such an amendment into the bill that cleared the House Committee on Education and Labor with a 25-19 vote, which included significant Republican support. The amendment was opposed by Miller, indicating Democratic Party leaders oppose the change and may ultimately succeed in stripping it from the bill.

“George Miller is a longtime supporter of a national single-payer plan and health care reform. The truth is, however, there are not enough votes in the House or the Senate to pass a final bill that contains single-payer language. That is unfortunate but it is also the truth,” Miller spokesperson Rachel Racusen told the Guardian.

California is a hotbed of single-payer activism. Even a leading candidate for state insurance commissioner, Assemblymember Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) — who appeared on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on July 15 to receive the endorsements of a long list of local elected officials — has made single-payer advocacy a central plank in his campaign.

The movement is so strong in California that it actually had legislators vying for who would get to carry its banner. San Francisco’s own state senator Mark Leno, a longtime single-payer supporter, was selected this year to take over the landmark single-payer legislation previously sponsored by termed-out legislator Sheila Kuehl, which has passed twice, only to be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“The more I dive into this issue, the more convinced I am that the answer has to be single-payer,” Leno told us. “The only reform that truly contains costs is single-payer.”

Leno doesn’t fault Obama for taking a more cautious stance — but he does believe the federal government shouldn’t block states like California from creating single-payer systems. “States should be incubators of trying different proposals. We have a great history with that,” Leno said.

But even with a Democratic governor, there’s no guarantee that single-payer would be approved. Mayor Gavin Newsom is running for governor, featuring health care reform in his platform. He chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors National Health Care Reform Task Force, which is pushing for approval of the Obama plan. But even Newsom won’t promise to back the Leno plan.

“He doesn’t think single-payer is the best option now,” Newsom’s campaign manager Eric Jaye told us when asked whether Newsom would sign the legislation as governor. “He hopes and believes that as governor he will be supporting a national public option.”

But in the end, the governor may not matter. Leno said the political reality in California is that voters, rather than legislators, will need to approve the single-payer system. The funding mechanism for any ambitious health care plan would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature, a political impossibility.

“The difference in California is the voters will have the final say. And I’m excited about that. The voters of California will be able to say to the insurance companies, ‘We’ve had enough, now go away,'” Leno told us. He said he expects a ballot campaign in 2012.

Of course, it won’t be that simple. Leno knows that the insurance industry will spend untold millions of dollars to defend itself and a “status quo that is only working for them, not for anyone else. This is an enormously powerful industry and they control the debates.”

“Our effort here in California is an educational one. We have from now until the election in 2012 to make the arguments,” Leno said.

 

THE COST OF INSURANCE

Testifying at a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee in June, Geri Jenkins, a registered nurse and the co-president of the California Nurses Association, related the story of Nataline Sarkisyan. The 17-year-old girl needed a life-saving liver transplant, Jenkins explained to Congress members. “But CIGNA would not approve it,” she told them, “until I, and hundreds of others, protested. During one of the protests, I was with Hilda, Nataline’s mother, when she got the call of approval.”

Hilda’s relief didn’t last long. By the time the hurdle had been cleared, Jenkins testified, “it was too late. Nataline died an hour later.”

Nataline’s story sparked national outrage, and it has since become a flagship tale highlighting all that is wrong with this country’s health care system. But as the debate about health care reform continues inside House and Senate committee chambers, discussion about “universal health care” — a phrase with a simple ring to it — has grown murkier.

“We have a universal health care system now,” Flanagan said, referring to how all Americans with serious medical conditions have a right to treatment — even if that treatment comes with great expense in an overcrowded public hospital emergency room. “It’s just the most inefficient system imaginable.”

With the August congressional recess coming up fast and Obama leaning on Capitol Hill to shift into high gear on an issue that was a hallmark of his campaign, the pressure is on to vote on the historic health care reform legislation within weeks.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed a health care reform bill July 16 that is similar to the House bill, with the vote split along party lines. Now, national attention has turned to the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Baucus, which continued its efforts last week to achieve a bipartisan bill.

Many of progressive reform advocates simply don’t trust the players in Washington, D.C., to get this right, particularly Baucus. “He’s the voice of the insurance companies in the Senate,” Flanagan said.

A recent article in the Washington Post estimated that the insurance industry is spending an estimated $1.4 million per day to influence the outcome of the health care legislation, and pointed out that many of the lobbyists were Washington insiders who had previously worked for key legislators, such as Baucus.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit research group that tracks money in U.S. politics and operates the Web site opensecrets.org, launched an intensive study of health care sector lobbyist spending, including cataloguing industry contributions to individual candidates from 1989 to the present. Baucus received more industry campaign contributions in that time than any other Democrat, the CRP study reveals, with a total of $3.8 million. Henry Waxman (D-<\d>Los Angeles), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, received a total of $1.4 million in that same time, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) received $1.2 million.

Starting in the 2008 election cycle, the health sector gave more to Democrats than to Republicans, according to the CRP’s analysis.

To overcome that kind of money and influence, advocates say it was crucial to wield a credible single-payer option — a sort of death penalty for the insurance industry — for as long as possible.

“Having single-payer discussions on the table really informs the debate over the public option,” Flanagan said. “But by removing single-payer, it made the public option the left flank.”

Flanagan, like many, is worried about how a 900-page bill will turn out. “There are a thousands ways to get it wrong,” he said. “An easy way to get it right would be to just do a single-payer system.” ————

HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS

• Uninsured Americans: 47 million

• Uninsured Californians: More than 6.7 million (about one in six)

• African Americans without health insurance in California: 19 percent

• Latinos without health insurance in California: 31 percent

• Whites without health insurance in California: 12 percent

• San Franciscans without health insurance: 15.3 percent

• Rise in health-insurance premiums from 2000 to 2007 in California: 96 percent

• Projected rise in health care costs per family without reform: $1,800 per year

• Percentage of bankruptcies attributed to an individual’s inability to pay medical bills: 62 percent

• Percentage of Americans who skip doctor visits because of the cost: 25 percent

• U.S. rank of 19 industrialized nations on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions: 19

• Jobs that would be created by extending Medicare to all Americans: 2.6 million

• Annual U.S. spending on billing and insurance-related administrative costs for health care: $400 billion

Sources: Health Care for America Now, American Journal of Medicine, Physicians for a National Health Program

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