Live

Get in the Vans

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Not surprisingly, a sneaker store was the meeting place for two young members of the popular East Bay hip-hop quartet the Pack, whose slow and smoldering bass-heavy runaway rap hit "Vans," about the "punk rock shoe," has the infectious hook "Got my Vans on, but they look like sneakers."

"Me and Stunna went to the same school. So we knew each other," Lil Uno said. "But one day we just both happened to be in the same shoe store … and it was sort of by accident how it all happened." That fateful day in 2005 set the stage for the formation of the four-member Wolf Pack, as they were originally called. On Dec. 19, Jive/Zomba, via the Too $hort imprint Up All Nite, released their national debut, Skateboards 2 Scrapers, an EP with seven songs that features two versions of their "My Adidas"–style sneaker hit for the hyphy age, including the "Vans Remix," featuring the godfather of Bay Area rap himself, Too $hort, plus an appearance by the "Tony Hawk of the ghetto," as the Pack call him, Mistah FAB. The disc should tide fans over until the release of the group’s full-length in April.

Speaking recently by cell phone from Berkeley, on a break from his School for the Performing Arts–tutored lessons, the now-17-year-old Lil Uno continued his sneaker-seeking tale. Stunna "had actually just bought a pair of shoes that I wanted, and I had just bought a pair of shoes that he wanted…. They ran out of his size, and they ran out of my size. So we actually ended up trading a pair of shoes for a pair of shoes." He laughed. "And then later on we end up making a song about shoes. Funny how things happen."

Indeed! But what happened immediately was Lil Uno invited Stunna to a party in San Francisco. It was at that party that he met producer-rapper Young L and rapper Lil B, who had already started recording music together. "The next day they asked me to go to the studio…. It was all four of us. And since then it’s been the Pack," Lil Uno said of the very young group (the oldest member is 19). So confident is Jive in their success that it has designed a limited edition Vans skateboard. Vans, the lucky shoe company getting all the free promotion, is planning a Pack shoe.

Meanwhile, the Pack have been busy. Since forming in 2005, the tireless group has recorded more than 150 songs; put out several regional rap full-lengths, including their Wolf Pack Musik series; been taken under Too $hort’s wing; and used MySpace to full advantage in getting heard.

"They’re inspiring because despite their young age, they are really creative and also really eager about learning about music and the music business," said Taj Mahal Pilghman, general manager, project coordinator, and engineer-producer. "And $hort has really taken the time to let them go in and do their thing and then school them afterwards."

"Vans" was just one of many songs the Pack posted on MySpace. "[‘Vans’] took off. It ran, and there wasn’t really any stopping it," Lil Uno said. His fellow band member Young L, who produced the track, added that "MySpace gets about 25 to 30 percent credit for us getting signed…. But without it, we would have had a much harder time being heard."

Regardless, Young L, now 19, is as surprised as his fellow Packers about the unbridled success of "Vans," which is currently heard in numerous amateur videotaped dance numbers posted on YouTube. "We didn’t think it would be such a hit. With that song we were just having fun, really," the skilled young producer explained. He laced up the track for the minimal hypnotic beat in no time, using Reason and ReCycle software. And the voice that recurs throughout the song saying "Young L" but sounding like "You’re new" (the phase that has become the Pack’s trademark) is a vocal he cranked out on the FruityLoops program.

For the upcoming album, however, he wants to "incorporate more real instrumentation," and at press time, he was meeting with Lil Jon, who will reportedly coproduce it.

Young L, who grew up soaking up the sounds of "Too $hort, 2Pac, the Cash Money crew, as well as Jay Z and Rock-a-fella," doesn’t think the Pack should be stuck to any one sound, as is threatening to happen. "We have hyphy songs," he said from Berkeley. "But I don’t think we are a hyphy group, because hyphy is based on high-energy, hyperactive lyrics and beats, and our sound is more varied than that." One example is the Miami bass–styled track "Candy" on Skateboards 2 Scrapers, which at times echoes 2 Live Crew’s "Get It Girl" and other Luke tunes. "We’ve always been into Miami bass, especially Lil B, who has always been into Uncle Luke," Young L added. "We just love good music!" *

The sounds of Berlin and Beyond

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Einstürzende Neubauten (Danielle de Picciotto, Germany, 2006). Perhaps appropriately, April Fool’s Day 1980 marked the first appearance of Einstürzende Neubauten, at the Moon Club in Berlin. After taking the stage frontperson Christian Emmerich (better known as Blixa Bargeld) and percussionist Andrew Chudy (N.U. Unruh), plus others, proceeded to bemuse their audience with a Dadaesque display of hammers banging on metal sheets mixed with accompanying electronic sound effects. For reasons perhaps even they can’t explain, their aggressive approach to experimental music gained an immediate following — one that has held firmer than architecture for more than 25 years. Though they announced during a 2004 tour of the United States that they would never again play live here (due to the expense of transporting their enormous, self-engineered instruments), you still have the opportunity to see them in this one-of-a-kind concert film, also from that year.

Performing in the stripped shell of emblematic East Germany eyesore (and former seat of Parliament) the Palast der Republik, Bargeld and company jump immediately into the past with “Haus der Lüge” (House of lies) from 1989 and even further back with the chilling “Armenia” from 1983. The insectile droning of Alex Hacke’s bass, Jochen Arbeit’s guitar, and Ash Wednesday’s programmed samples give way to Bargeld’s blood-curdling yowling, which rivals that of Armenian-blooded shriek chanteuse Diamanda Galás. Newer converts to the Neubauten mystique are not left adrift in a sea of nostalgia for long, though. The reason for playing at an abandoned building slated for demolition is revealed midway through the show as the Palast becomes a site-specific instrument and a chorus of 100 volunteers adds to the general clamor. Pushing the boundaries of their musicianship with seemingly infinite inventiveness, Einstürzende Neubauten signal that while their touring days may be behind them, their creative juices are in no danger of drying up. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Jan. 16, 11 p.m. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. $6–$9. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com

Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (Lucía Palacios and Dietmar Post, Germany/US/Spain, 2004). How to describe the Monks? Try atonal and angry and hard to dance to despite a tom-tom and an electric banjo keeping time. Plus, they tended to shout their lyrics, the more comprehensible of which were along these lines: “Hey, well, I hate you with a passion baby, yeah I do! (But call me!)” And that’s without even mentioning that the five-piece was composed of American ex-GIs who lingered in Germany after their early 1960s service was up. Or that they dressed in all black, with nooses for ties, and sported matching, entirely unflattering tonsure haircuts. The band name and costumes may have been artfully styled gimmicks (thanks to a pair of crafty German managers well familiar with deconstruction, minimalism, and the art of advertising), but the music was no novelty act. Some say the highly influential Monks invented feedback (widely disputed, of course); others insist their experimental, anti-Beatles sound foretold the coming of both techno and heavy metal even as it left boogie-happy fans of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” stone-faced.

Whatever you make of songs like “Higgle-dy Piggle-dy” (lyrics: “Higgle-dy piggle-dy, way down to heaven, yeah!”), there’s no denying the ballad of the Monks comes fully stuffed with rock ‘n’ roll lore. Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios’s lively doc Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback tracks down all the band members, now in advanced middle age and living quiet lives that barely hint at their prepunk pasts (drummer Roger Johnston passed away after filming his interviews). All five are given equal time to reflect as well as share impressive caches of memorabilia (especially photos with detailed captions) that suggest someone, at least, was aware that the Monks’ lightning-in-a-bottle moment would later be eagerly revisited by future devotees of incredibly strange music. A reunion concert — marking the group’s first-ever stateside show — nudges the film in a Bands Reunited direction, but for the most part Monks is propelled by the triumphs of the group’s past, which include 30-year-old tunes that still sound wholly creative (and ever so off-putting) even today. (Cheryl Eddy)

Jan. 17, 3 p.m. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. $6–$9. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com

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Private revolution

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS I found out on Christmas Day morning that I was a nihilist. Cool. I had always wondered what that meant, and now I didn’t have to wonder anymore and could move on to something else. Nihilists are witchy, weird chicken farmers who love everyone, hate every single thing that anyone believes in, and would much rather lie down in pine needles and watch the way bugs move than fight oppression.

I learned this from a real live anarchist, a kind of political hero of mine, when I tried to express my discomfort with anarchy because it has way too many rules for my liking. It was the sort of conversation that tends to end in only one way: with both parties bonking each other on the head with suitcases — generally speaking, of course. In some instances there aren’t any suitcases handy, so they have to use fireplace pokers or cookware.

So I felt astronomically lucky to be walking away from such talk with our just-friendship — not to mention my cranium — intact. Gastronomically, I was not so lucky. It was lunchtime, but it was Christmas, and I wasn’t raised by wolves, much as I might wish it otherwise, so I couldn’t help knowing that it was Christmas, and what that truly meant: restaurants would be closed.

No one was out on the streets except for homeless people and nihilists. I walked down 16th Street, lost in thought and dazzled by the abundance of available parking spots. The streets seemed surreally wide, and if my little body hadn’t been all tangled and tucked into scarves, sweaters, coats, gloves and hats, I might have sworn I was in Tucson. Instead of … what? Chicago? Cleveland?

It’s a wonder anyone ever recognizes me this time of year — I’m such an overdresser. Or maybe that’s how they recognize me. In any case, I turned the corner onto Guerrero, and there were my friends J and J, and they somehow knew me under all my Great Lakes–wear and greeted me warmly with big smiles and hugs.

"I’m a nihilist!" I said.

"We’re going to get Chinese food," they said. "Are you hungry?"

Am I hungry? Does the pope poop in the woods? I’m starving. Always. For everything. (Without mayonnaise.) Even if I’ve just eaten a whole ham by myself and am lying on the floor, comatose, I’m hungry. I just don’t know it just then is all. And another thing is that I’ve always wanted to eat Chinese food on Christmas.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"Big Lantern," they said. "It’s open."

I’d just walked past it and hadn’t noticed it was open because I was so lost in thought and clothing and deserty amazement. So I turned right around.

Big Lantern! I already knew it was my new favorite restaurant even before I bit into one of their succulent shrimp dumplings from the dim sum menu and slurped my first spicy slurp of hot and sour soup and made love to my favorite dish of all, on a table of favorite dishes: the ginger and onion lamb. I knew it was my new favorite restaurant because I was eating there. On Christmas Day! With friends.

Earl Butter gets takeout from Big Lantern, and he’d told me it was great. But J and J said you have to eat it there. They’ve gotten it to go, they said, and it sucked. So … you see why I write like this?

I don’t believe in hyperbole any more than, say, critical thinking; but I do find it a fun and friendly alternative to intelligence. And I don’t think I ever said so here, explicitly (or maybe I did), but my New Year’s resolution last year was for every place I ate at to be my new favorite restaurant. I did it!

Be warned though that 2007 is another year. If I don’t say that a place is my new favorite place, that doesn’t mean it isn’t. It just means I was distracted from food and ambiance by the bathroom.

I have learned to love indiscriminately. Now, in order to impress my fellow revolutionaries and hopefully make them love me back and let me lick them, I am going to shake off the pine needles and take an actual political stand: in the bathroom, of course. We choose our battles, and this is the one for me, because more than anything right now I need to pee.

Does your restaurant have safe, comfortable, unisex bathrooms? Big Lantern does! *

BIG LANTERN

Sun.–Wed., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Thurs.–Sat., 11 a.m.–midnight

3170 16th St., SF

(415) 863-8100

Takeout and delivery available

Full bar

MC/V

Quiet

Wheelchair accessible

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Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Every time I have a problem with my cable TV service, I’m reminded how much I hate Comcast and why the city ought to be running its own municipal cable system.

The latest saga: a couple days ago, late in the afternoon, I was hanging out with my kids, and I noticed that we’d lost the signal on the TV. Yes, I am a terrible parent — the kids don’t need to watch TV at all, certainly not in the afternoon on a weekday. But I wanted to watch a football game (which doesn’t count against the ban on weekday TV), and Vivian, who is 4, wanted to watch the cheerleaders, which is my own personal nightmare, but what can I do? The damn tube didn’t work. I called Comcast.

A service tech told me that someone needed to come out to the house and look at the connection and set up an appointment for the next day, between 4 and 8 p.m. I hate these four-hour service windows, and the repair people are badly overworked and always late, but whatever: I rearranged my entire afternoon and evening schedule and sat at home waiting for the knock on the door. It never came.

Around 7 p.m. it occurred to me to call and see what was up. A computerized voice told me there was no scheduled service appointment at my address. Three times I tried to connect to a human being; three times I heard "please wait" over and over before the line disconnected.

I finally got through to someone by choosing sales instead of service (they always come to the phone to sell you stuff), and a nice sales staffer promised to route me to a service rep. Ten minutes later the line went dead again.

Hanging up on customers is not good, and blowing off a repair call without so much as a phone call when someone is sitting at home for four hours waiting is pretty lame. I don’t give up easy, so I went to Comcast.com and found a way to get a live chat with a tech (it’s not easy to find, but it’s there). Someone named Jennifer came on, accessed my cable box remotely, and — after 30 minutes of back-and-forth — told me it was broken and that I should go get a new one. No shit. Thanks, Jen.

Even in this world of high-end broadband, live chat on the Internet is slow and clunky. Jennifer and I spent half an hour accomplishing what would have taken about 45 seconds on the phone. Why couldn’t I speak to a live human being? Why won’t anyone at Comcast answer the phone?

Comcast spokesperson Andrew Johnson told me that the storm and power outages had messed up Comcast’s call centers, which is understandable. But this isn’t the first time this has happened to me (or, judging from the sorts of calls I get, to many of you).

Meanwhile, I really look forward to dealing with EarthLink and Google over wi-fi problems (see "Free Wi-Fi — for Everyone," this page).

We don’t have to put up with this shit. Cable and broadband are rapidly merging, and they’re part of the city’s basic infrastructure. San Francisco can run its own system, make enough money to pay for the operations many times over, cut rates — and be a whole lot more accountable when things go wrong.

What are we waiting for? *

A new “golden age?”

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By Tim Redmond

The bloggers are having a bit of fun with The Chronicle’s front-page New Year’s Eve assertion that San Francisco’s Golden Age is here again. I have to agree with Beyond Chron — the story was an embarassment that quoted only conservative, wealthy San Franciscans and ignored much of the city.

Yeah, reporter Carl Nolte, who is a good guy (and my neighbor in Bernal Heights) made the point that there have always been problems in San Francisco, including today. But his overall theme — that all this new development and soaring housing costs are somehow good for the city — is a crock.

I’m always the optimist, and I think that 2006 was a great year for local politics. But a “Golden Age?” No: what’s happening in the local economy is that San Francisco is becoming a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. We are building housing for people who don’t live here, and destroying jobs for people who do.

I’ve argued in the past that in a boom-band-bust city, the busts are often better than the booms. That’s because the single greatest quality-of-life issue for most people (the non-rich) in San Francisco is the cost of housing. This boom is only golden for a very few.

Nick Coleman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune is mad as hell and won’t take it any more. He writes, McClatchy’s profit-and-loss statement: They profit, we lose

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

For months now, as the Knight-Ridder/McClatchy/Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens debacle has unfolded, I have been looking in vain to see if a staff member on any of the papers of the nation’s biggest chains (reporter, columnist, editorial writer, editor, union spokesperson, ad salesman, letter writer, blogger, anybody) would beallowed to blast away at this deal of ultimate toxicity in their papers, on their websites, or in their blogs. (Note my postscript to the newspaper unions to this effect in my previous blog.)

The closest I have seen is an excellent First Amendment column by Thomas Peele in the Contra Costa Times/Singleton, raising the right issues about why his owner/publisher had moved to seal the court records in the Reilly vs. Hearst antitrust case in federal court. (See my earlier blog.) James Naughton, former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and a K-R stockholder, and a gang of former Knight-Ridder staffers, mostly retired or off staff, also published online a sharp letter rebuke to K-R Chairman Tony Ridder and the K-R board for rolling over and refusing to fight it out with the dissident private equity stockholders.

Now, two days after McClatchy tossed the Star Tribune into the snow banks of Northern Minnesota, columnist Nick Coleman on Thursday wrote a classic column that ought to go into the journalist textbooks at the University of Minnesota and everywhere else. He lays out in a snapshot of what happens to the Twin Cities when McClatchy and Knight-Ridder conspire in a misbegotten deal that leaves St. Paul with Singleton and Minneapolis with, gulp, a one-year-old New York private equity group firm with no newspaper holdings nor experience. Ironically, perhaps the reason the Star Tribune ran his column was because McClatchy was beating it out of town, fast, at full gallop, and the paper was suddenly thrust under the new ownership of Avista Capital Partners, which hadn’t gotten the knack of monopoly press control and censorship. Chalk up one good mark for the new owner.

Coleman flashed his sword in his lead paragraphs: “When the McClatchy Co. got the keys to the Star Tribune in l998, McClatchy’s patriarch hailed the merger. James McClatchy called it a wedding of two newspaper traditions that shared “‘a deep-rooted commitment to building a just society.’

“You are now permitted to laugh derisively.

“Eight years later, hardly anyone in the newspaper business talks about anything other than building profit margins that would choke a robber baron.

“Mercifully, McClatchy passed away in May and did not live to see the Sacrmento-based company that bore his name disgrace his legacy by dumping its largest newspaper–the most important one between Chicago and the West Coast, the one that serves 5 million Minnesotans and that can be a conscience, a scold, a cheerleader and an interpreter of life on the tundra.”

Coleman ended with a scathing flourish: “McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt did not bother to come to Minnesota on Tuesday to say he surreptitously had sold the paper and to kiss us goodbye.

“But McClatchy brass gave us some nice parting shots from afar, complaining that the Star Tribune had lost value (and proving it in a secret auction at fire-sale prices), calling the flagship a drag on profits and sayiong McClatchy would have shown a one-percent increase in ad sales if the Star Tribune weren’t included. One per cent Huzzah!
Sound the trumpets!

“There’s the market for you: the Star Tribune held down ad sales one percent. So One-Percent Pruitt axed his best newspaper. Brilliant.

“‘The Star Tribune is one fo the best newspapers in this country,'” Pruitt said in l998. “‘The Twin Cities is one of the most attractive newspaper markets in the country. And it was a near perfect fit in terms of values and traditions.’

“We didn’t change. But you, Mr. Pruitt? We don’t recognize you anymore. So long.

“Don’t bother to write.”

I like that, and I’ll bet a lot of Minnesotans will like that. I can speak with authority because, as a native of Rock Rapids, Iowa, situated five miles from the Minnesota state line just south of Luverne, Minnesota, I grew up with the Star Tribune and its sister paper, the Des Moines Register, both highly respected papers who looked upon the entire states of Minnesota and Iowa as their beats. They were owned at that time by the Cowles family, who lived in Minneapolis and Des Moines, and cared deeply about journalism and Minnesota and Iowa. I spent many a Sunday morning back in the late l940s riding about town proudly delivering the Sunday Register. Everybody, it seemed, in Minnesota and Iowa, read and lived by the Star Tribune and Register. They were our friendly hometown papers.

Coleman has set the standard: The least newspaper owners can do these days of monopoly mayhem is to allow their staff members and readers to write openly and honestly as appropriate in their papers and websites about the way they and their communities are being treated by their owners and publishers. In the meantime, I toast with a Potrero Hill martini Nick Coleman and his editors who passed his story into print. Bravo! keep it up!

Lingering question: Why didn’t Tony Ridder fight like hell to keep his family heritage chain of papers? And why didn’t the Knight-Ridder board, or his key executives, push him privately or publicly to put up a fight. Every Knight-Ridder executive I run into, I ask the question: how in the world did this happen and why didn’t Tony and Knight-Riddger put up a fight? I have yet to get a satisfactory answer. I kept reading Tony’s comments at the time to the effect that he had no choice and that a sale would keep the peace and minimize the tumult in his chain papers.

How could there be more tumult and more damage than there is now? Did Tony and his board really think that McClatchy could swallow their entire chain of papers and not peddle any of them off in fire sales? Why didn’t they get solid pledges from McClatchy that would at minimum save their best papers (Philadelphia Inquirer, San Jose Mercury-News, Contra Costa Times, St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Minneapolis Star Tribune et al)? I believed then, and i believe now, that Tony and the Knight-Ridder people made a bad mistake by not putting up a big public fight and talking publicly, not just about its respectable 20 per cent profit margins, but also about its reputation for quality journalism, community involvement, the prestigious Knight Foundation, and major First Amendment and public access advocacy.

Moreover, while much of the mainstream press was marching us into Iraq and practicing stenographic reporting of the Bush administration, Knight-Ridder and its Washington bureau regularly did some of the most critical news reporting and editorial writing on Bush and the war of any of the major media. I assure you, Dean Singleton and Avista Capital partners aren’t about to pick up the slack, hit hard on Bush and the war, or even try to develop much original Washington and foreign news coverage. Alas. I hope I’m wrong. I refer you to Brugmann’s Law: once you damage quality papers like these, it’s tough as hell to bring them back. Alas. I hope I’m wrong.

Stay alert–we will keep running the major stories that the Hearst/Singleton monopoly papers refuse to print. B3

Nick Coleman: McClatchy’s profit-and-loss statement: They profit, we lose

NOISE: James Brown is dead – long live James Brown

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Whoa, I go crazy – James Brown in his casket. Who would have thought it could happen? To the hardest working of us all?

Newsday reports that a gold casket carrying the Godfather of Soul’s body, drawn by two white horses, arrived at the Apollo Theater today as thousands of fans lining the street erupted in chants.

james brown.jpg
Died on Christmas day. Courtesy of AFP

New Year’s Eve ill

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER You gotta love the Bay Area, which so often sweeps in the new year with the wet, wild kiss of stormy weather. Blecch — too much tongue. Still, I succumb to the call of fun: I can’t count how many times I’ve vaulted over gushing gutters, minced down streets that have morphed into streams, danced between the raindrops, hopped between soggy cardboard sheets in backyards that have turned into miasmas of mud, and jabbed firework gawkers with the bad end of an umbrella. Outta-hand winter waterworks seem somewhat fitting for our kooky, multitentacled, many-flavored assortment of New Year’s Eve entertainment offerings. So here’s a selected guide to live sounds for all persuasions, preferences, sizes, and sicknesses (we’re not even going to go into the sans pants warehouse show) — let’s see what’s out there on the blessed night all those in the so-called biz dub "amateur night," the evening when most everyone feels compelled to get out and brave the puddles pooling around their doorsteps.

ROCKING LIKE A HURRICANE


Don’t bother knockin’, because the yacht-rockin’ good times are sure to be had when Portland, Ore., one-man party machine Yacht meets Oakland one-man party machine Hawnay Troof at 21 Grand; Blevin Blectum, High Places, and Bronze tan it up too. Kid606 will be swinging from there to Rx Gallery, where he performs with French beat blurters DAT Politics, delay-pedal ditherers Lemonade, and Kontrol with Dirtybird. It’s not plus tard, ‘tards! After catching the LA band eves ago at the Make-Out Room and dancing our Khmers off, we’ve got a Dengue Fever for the flava of Cambodian garage rock — this year it’s at Rickshaw Stop (www.rickshawstop.com). The Lovemakers get busy with Honeycut at Great American Music Hall. At the Fillmore (www.ticketmaster.com), My Morning Jacket stoke the flames of Southern rock. Breakout ska punk critters the Aggrolites open for Hepcat at Slim’s (www.slims-sf.com). Harold Ray Live in Concert do unspeakable — and delightful — things to an organ at Annie’s Social Club (www.anniessocialclub.com). Balazo Gallery (www.balazogallery.com) finds Goldie faves Trainwreck Riders living it up with La Plebe. Birdmonster scare up the good times along with art-punk Boyskout at Bottom of the Hill (www.bottomofthehill.com). Crane your necks at the Stork Club (www.storkcluboakland.com) as bits of the Bobby Teens and Gravy Train!!!! come together and costume-ize for the customized Dinky Bits and the Lil Guys. Rube Waddell revamp their "Live at Leeds" — or shall we say "Sexy at Sketchers" — show at a wanton belly dancing, cabaret, and brass happening going down at Amnesia (www.amnesiathebar.com). And for those with hair that needs a band, there are LA Guns (playing with the curiosity-piquing Infamous Choke Chain) at Roosters Roadhouse, Alameda (groups.msn.com/roostersroadhouse). And why Y and T at Avalon, Santa Clara (www.nightclubavalon.com)? Y not?

TICK-TOCK, HIP-HOP


Zion I, Lyrics Born, and Crown City Rockers put together the rap show to beat at the Independent (www.theindependentsf.com), striking trepidation in the hearts of bouncers with no-holds-barred rhymes and an all-night open bar (line up the Henny, honey). But don’t count the Coup out: so soon after the group’s recent bus crash, in which they lost all their belongings and several members and tourmates were injured, the Bay Area band gets back onstage alongside Les Claypool and the New Orleans Social Club at Claypool’s New Year’s Eve Hatter’s Ball at Grace Pavilion, Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa (www.harmonyfestival.com/nye/nye.html). Also, booty, bass, and all the b’s will be bumpin’ back when Spank Rock boomerangs to 280 Seventh Street (upcoming.org/event/134159).

GROOVES AND ALL JAZZ HANDS ON DECK


Piano legend McCoy Tyner is the monster headliner at Yoshi’s (www.yoshis.com). Washing up on Anna’s Jazz Island, Berkeley (www.annasjazzisland.com), Yoruban priestess and Afro-Cuban soul stirrer Bobi Cespedes and her trio work their magic. Soul and funk trumpeter Oscar Myers blows out 2006 with Steppin’ at the Boom Boom Room (www.boomboomblues.com). Bimbo’s 365 Club (www.bimbos365club.com) wink-winks, nudge-nudges with the New Morty Show and Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums. Vocalist Kim McNalley urges you to party like it’s 1929 at her Jazz at Pearl’s (www.jazzatpearls.com); Jesus Diaz and his Bay Area Cuban All Stars light a fire under La Peña Cultural Center (www.lapena.org). And OK, everyone dug Eddie Murphy more in Dreamgirls — don’t x out Jamie Foxx; he attempts to fill Oracle Arena, Oakland, accompanied by Fantasia Barrino (www.ticketmaster.com).

A YEN FOR YUCKS


Our favorite unfunny funnyman, Neil Hamburger (and former SF storage container dweller, or so he says), throws pop culture on the grill, sweats profusely, and jubilantly rolls around in a trough of bad taste for two shows at the Hemlock Tavern (www.hemlocktavern.com); astrology nut Harvey Sid Fisher ushers in the ‘Burger meister. Patton Oswalt blew that whiny David Cross off the stage when he opened for him at Cobb’s way back when — now the prince of King of Queens headlines two rounds on New Year’s Eve (www.cobbscomedyclub.com).

Just remember, ya can’t stop the rain. Don’t fear the reaper. Stay metal, and be sure to strap yourself in for 2007 — because judging from the way we roll, it could be a bumpy ride. *

Johnny Ray Huston’s top 10 viewing experiences of 2006

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(1) Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) on Oct. 3 at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Yes, it dug deeper into male-male romance than any hopelessly blinkered creation made and marketed as "gay," but I wasn’t as amazed by Apichatpong’s Cannes coronation creation Tropical Malady as I’d expected to be, especially given the hypnotism of Blissfully Yours. This time, though, he’s created a masterpiece — I get misty just thinking of the mysterious shot at its very center.

(2) Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, France/Iceland). I spend spare time in a world where nicknames like Guga and Rafa and Momo and Chucho reign. I think Venus Williams’s 2005 Wimbledon final victory was opera of a kind no one has seen or heard since Maria Callas sang La Traviata at Covent Garden (not Lisbon). Sports is today’s ultimate live theater, Zidane was its most compelling star in 2006, and Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s portrait of him is a doc even better than William Klein’s look at Muhammad Ali. A big thanks to the Balboa Theater’s Gary Meyer for helping me even get a look at Zidane — knowing that Apichatpong loves Parreno’s The Boy from Mars makes me want to rocket to that planet if I have to in order to see it.

(3) The Descent (Neil Marshall, UK) at an April 29 midnight screening at the SF International Film Festival. Nothing is more fun than sharing extreme claustrophobia with a theater full of screaming horror fans.

(4) The Host (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea) and Bongmania at the Sept. 30 screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Nothing tops my Descent experience except watching a great monster movie with a theater full of fans who mobbed the director afterward.

(5) San Francisco moviemaking: Call Waiting (Cathy Begien); The Dennis Wilson Story and Leonard Cohen in Alberta (David Enos); Lot 63, Grave C (Sam Green); Lovelorn Domestic (Sarah Enid Hagey); Rumsfeld Rules (Bryan Boyce); Song and Solitude (Nathaniel Dorsky).

(6) dünya dinlemiyor video installation by Phil Collins, still on view at the SF Museum of Modern Art. A Smiths fan’s dream come true, indeed.

(7) TV Carnage’s A Sore for Sighted Eyes DVD. Long before Donald Trump foolishly challenged Rosie O’Donnell to a caged wrestling match, TV Carnage revealed just what she was capable of in this, one of the funniest and scariest things I’ve seen in my life, a video mashup that somehow makes Girl Talk’s Night Ripper seem puny and eager to please.

(8) Doomed pilgrimages: Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/Belgium/France/Germany) and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania). My favorite scene in 2006 is the subway sequence in Reygadas’s second film. The title character in Puiu’s movie never quite completes a marathon journey to the heart of the medical profession — a place called death.

(9) A Short Film about the Indio Nacional (or the Prolonged Sorrow of Filipinos) (Raya Martin, Philippines) on May 1 at the SF International Film Festival and Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland ) on Oct. 2 at the Vancouver International Film Festival. When Khavn de la Cruz’s piano score for Martin’s film broke down, the director reappeared and put on different music, and the movie took on yet another life. Costa’s film is entirely lit by mirrors and natural rays and beams — what else do you need to know?

(10) Somnambucinema. No one likes to admit that some of the best cinema being made today lulls you to or near to sleep. Why? There should be no shame in shifting states of consciousness and drifting into dreams during this panic-stricken age. Somnambucinema deserves an essay, but for now I’ll just mention a recent fave example of the form — Paz Encina’s Hamaca Paraguaya, which spends 90 minutes or so showing a hammock in sun and shade while a couple bickers about it, their son, and their country. There you have it: a critical, two-way filmic window into many people’s awareness of Paraguay and its history, if they even have one.

Monster dearest

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

Move over, matchy-matchy Faye Dunaway of Mommie Dearest and much too armed and dangerous to hug Shelley Winters of Bloody Mama (possibly the lousy dowager emeritus, thanks to Lolita). Mamma mia, was there ever a year crammed with more bad mothering run stealthily amok, far from most of the multiplexes and the real-life broodies dragging their spawn to the latest animated feature?

If you weren’t busily entertaining your offspring in the big theater, you could easily slip into a small screening room to feel either much better about your parenting skills — or much worse. No, 2006 was not kind to materfamilias — anxiety was high over nurturing yet meddling, muddling, and sometimes castrating bitches with often loved but also neglected litters. The not-quite-model matrons who stood out were flagrantly flawed hard-luck ladies, straight outta the clink, outta rehab, outta options. They were both abusers and abused, working lousy jobs, distrusted, and desperate for a second chance — Norma Raes and Erin Brockoviches sans a speck of political consciousness. Mother’s Day 2006 in the movie houses was all about evil as well as Eve’s plight: succumbing to temptation and, of course, seeking redemption. Call this gaggle of generally downbeat, self-absorbed, Dumpster-realism gals the prodigal (single) mothers.

Homemakers or home wreckers? Welfare queens or queen me’s? In Running with Scissors, Annette Bening’s med-damaged, mad housewife-poet of a mumsy was all of the above, with alimony. Meryl Streep’s cunning Lioness D’Wintour fashion editor piss-take in The Devil Wears Prada juggled career and family nastily, taking a smooth stab at working matriarchs both biological and mentor-ological. And the small-town girls and comeback kids–turned–semimythic maternal figures of Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest women’s film, Volver, take a dreamily innocent, genre-specific, less-realistic gaze at motherhood. The women in Almodóville are decent, vivid, communal, and inadvertently, invariably deadly — these bleeder-brooders with bloody "women’s troubles" live in a world almost completely free of men (the few who do pop up are incestuously abusive), somewhere on the matrilineal border of Two Women and Juliet of the Spirits.

Like Volver‘s Cruz and Maura, two other rhyming cinematic mothers — played by two Maggies, Cheung and Gyllenhaal, in Clean and Sherrybaby, respectively — believe there’s life after a loss of innocence and even death. Birthing best-actress awards and considerations, Cheung’s Emily Wang and Gyllenhaal’s Sherry Swanson are hardened but not broken junkie wild children, needle thin and barely clinging to the cracked-out, earthly pavement as they stomp through Paris and malled-over America, regretfully scraping their way back from prison after dropping their offspring like puppies and drifting off into good nods. Physically, the two cut through their landscapes like blades, antimaternal babes who happen to have had babies.

Braless, tank-topped, and jiggling through the hood, Gyllenhaal’s Sherry has a physical presence that hybridizes the inhibition-free but inappropriately hot mama and the gawky, sunken-chested teen. Slouching through motels and institutions, suburbs and ghettos alike, she’s always the riveting center, despite her love for and hunger to be loved by her daughter. Since she kicked in prison, love has become Sherry’s drug — she wants to work with kids, she’s desperate to take up mothering — and she slyly seduces her daughter with toys, praise, and her alarming, sexualized, chaotic presence from the brother and sister-in-law who raised the girl in safety and warmth. With her discomfitingly sensual singing routine and ravenous desire for attention, Sherry is every parent’s worst nightmare, yet Gyllenhaal’s emotionally and physically naked performance and Laurie Collyer’s empathetic direction etch her into reality. You want to take care of this sad, sexy mum.

On another continent and aeons away in awareness, Cheung’s Emily is also a junkie who landed in jail — after her rock star boyfriend, Lee Hauser, OD’d — but she’s now working her way back into the good graces of her child and family. Resembling a razor-sharp noirish Q-Tip with a shock of black fro, music biz hanger-on Emily evokes obvious predecessors (the derided Asian-other and band destroyer Yoko Ono, the stoned-in-love partner in crime Marianne Faithfull) and less-expected women (delicate beauty with a battery-acid rasp Hope Sandoval). The archetypal snide rock bitch at the start, Emily waxes selfish, proud, mouthy, brawling, irresponsible, bad tempered, only reflexively working her power over Lee — her real hunger is for the next fix. Cheung, however, gives Emily a heart — when her mouth twists into a dreadful pyramid upon hearing that the court has given custody of her son to Lee’s parents.

Still, throughout the process of getting clean, growing humble, and peeling away the layers of posturing, Emily exudes a resigned intelligence that the fearless but somewhat unconscious Sherry lacks. Tearful with loneliness, Emily confesses to her friend Elena (France’s favorite wild woman, Beatrice Dalle), "I don’t know if I can take care of a child." Almost everyone in Clean is smarter than they appear at first glance, even if they are embroiled in the "romantic myth of music," as director Olivier Assayas puts it in a DVD interview. Emily’s race complicates matters further, raising questions similar to those aimed at world-trawling Western adoptive parents. Are the white middle-class Hausers more entitled to raise Cheung’s son than she is? Must she become trustworthy — or assimilate — in order to be with her child?

Both Cheung’s and Gyllenhaal’s performances make one wonder why these women’s struggles are reaching the screen at this time. We continue to grapple with the question of whether single parenting translates to less-than-optimal parenting. Perhaps, as the war pigs and an archetypally male principle run rampant elsewhere, we wonder how we’re supposed to keep the home fires burning. Where are the mothers, and how does one nurture after all the high times? Can we, perpetual adolescents, ever really settle down? Who raised all these people? *

KIMBERLY CHUN’S LADY FEAST 11

• Ivana Baquero in Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Spain) and Ko Ah-sung Ko in The Host (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea).

• Clean (Olivier Assayas, France) and Sherrybaby (Laurie Collyer, US).

• The Descent (Neil Marshall, UK). A postfeminist love song to spelunking and Carrie.

• Linda Linda Linda (Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan). The Ramones would be proud.

• The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK/France/Italy), with lady-in-waiting Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, US/France/Japan). Feeling those royal pains.

• The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry, France/Italy). Charlotte Gainsbourg makes spectacles, sweater dresses, and felt-mation look trés belle.

• Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook, South Korea). Red eyeliner, exploitation glam, and that scene with the grieving, vengeful parents …

• Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain). Making us love Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, eyeliner, and push-up bras again.

A geek’s new year

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TECHSPLOITATION I’m going to spend New Year’s Eve in Berlin with a large group of hackers gathered by the venerable Chaos Computer Club. Something about the idea of going to a foreign country to celebrate the new year has made me want to do the traditional thing and make a list of resolutions. Just to be sure I follow through on them, I’m presenting to you the unexpurgated list of my top eight geeky resolutions for 2007.


Relearn French. I took French classes from eighth grade all the way through graduate school, and at one (triumphant) point I was actually able to read André Gide’s L’Immoraliste entirely in French. It probably helped that the novel was full of gay sex, which has always been one of my favorite topics. But sadly, my French has withered away — much to the chagrin of my sweetie, who speaks with an enviable accent. Next year I will relearn and go to Paris. J’ai envie de manger le brie et les baguettes à côté de la Seine! Plus, every geek should be fluent in at least two natural languages.


Share more media. I’ve got a terabyte RAID array full of music. I’ve got DVDs full of TV shows I’ve downloaded from the Interwebs. I’ve got movies and games and a disgustingly huge book collection. Next year, I’m going to create more opportunities to share them with friends, acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, whatever. Set the media free, I say.


Watch out for videomining. Now that Google owns YouTube and everybody is freaking out over video archives, I’m looking out for the ultimate videomining software. Ideally, I’d like a program that could find items in a video archive by genre (e.g., "look up all horror films") or search through them for sequences of images (e.g., "find scenes featuring dragons"). I’d also like a program that could search an individual movie for a scene or phrase (e.g., "find me a scene where Captain Kirk says, ‘Boo!’ ").


Protest the Schumer-McCain privacy-reaming bill. Senators Charles Schumer and John McCain have promised to introduce legislation next year aimed at stopping child porn and sex offenders from traipsing online. It would involve the creation of an "e-mail registry" for sex offenders and would force online service providers to police content on their sites, looking for the aliases of sex offenders and images of child porn. Not only is there a potential here for squelching free speech but also for invading privacy. Keep an eye on this one.

Laugh more frequently at the comments on my blogs. I get bizarrely bent out of shape when people make stupid comments about blog posts I’ve written. Despite the fact that blog comments as a genre are characterized by assholishness and snark, I continue to feel inexplicably wronged by them. This has got to stop. It’s time to view blog comments for what they are: comedies of the human condition.


Install Ubuntu on my desktop. I miss Linux. It just so happens that the two computers I use most are both running Windows XP, and neither is suitable for a Vista upgrade. My cute Vaio laptop has a laughable sticker that says "Vista capable," which roughly translated means "Screw you, hippie." When a friend of mine asked some of the Vista geeks at Microsoft if they’d tried the new OS on my laptop model, they apparently giggled uncontrollably. So it’s back to Linux for me, and I welcome the return of my open-source overlord.


Kill people in Halo. In my living room, nestled beneath my 50-inch plasma screen TV, are an Xbox and an Xbox 360. And yet I rarely use them to kill people. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I insane? The entire purpose of these devices is to turn myself into a cyberkiller and shoot the crap out of 13-year-olds in Singapore or Texas or some other exotic locale. Next year I will spend at least one weekend doing nothing but sitting in front of the TV and practicing my death moves. Watch out for me on Xbox Live — I’m going to hunt you down and blow your guts out. Then I’ll share some of my media collection with you to make up for it. But I will not buy a Wii. Do not try to make me buy one.


Hang out with mechanical engineers. Unlike electrical engineers and computer scientists, mechanical engineers know how to do useful postapocalyptic stuff like build bridges and generators and engines. They study extremely concrete things like, well, concrete. But they also study the way concrete shatters when hit by bombs. I want to know more about the mysterious ways of physical objects. Take me to your mechanical engineering lab. *

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who wishes all the geeks and nerds and dorks and weirdos a happy new year.

NOISE: Joanna Newsom overwhelms in SF

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Guardian contributor Max Goldberg caught Joanna Newsom‘s recent performance at Great American Music Hall. Here’s his review:

Sans bangs and decked in red, Joanna Newsom played the last of a sold-out three-night stand at the Great American Music Hall Wednesday, Dec. 20. It was a performance concentrated and sustained enough to feel like a dream: no small thing given the general crush of people.

newsomsml.jpg
Joanna Newsom in all her furry finery.

The show, with its complete performance of Ys (Drag City), didn’t feel like a revelation so much as an acknowledgment (and a celebration with many from Nevada City, Newsoms and otherwise, in attendance. Ex-boyfriend Noah Georgeson and brother Pete Newsom turned in a flimsy opening set). Part of this was due to its being the last date of a seven-week tour, and part of it was because of the classical, note-for-note nature of the performance. Joanna Newsom conceived of this suite of songs, sweated it out, and we, her fans, have listened and begun to discover its place in our lives. Last night these paths converged.

The music’s live arrangements — Van Dykes Parks’s dense orchestrations were pared down for a five-piece, Balkan-tinged band — certainly added new shades, especially in the way Neal Morgan’s thudding drums sent the climaxes marching forward, as well as the lovely steel-strung sound-textures traded back and forth by Kevin Barker (banjo, acoustic guitar) and Ryan Francesconi (tambura, bouzouki, acoustic guitar). And much as Smogster (and current Newsom beau) Bill Callahan was missed for “Only Skin”’s final summons, Morgan’s lilting voice was the perfect counterpoint for Newsom’s – his softened hers, made hers sound a bit more country. Newsom’s maturation as a singer was one way the songs from The Milk-Eyed Mender (she book-ended Ys with “Bridges and Balloons,” “The Book of Right-On,” “Sadie,” and “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie”) were recast. Her voice is still awestruck, but it’s lost some of its hiccup — smoothed out so that you can still see the folds — for Ys.

I was struck by how simple the songs from the first album seemed post-Ys, almost like little lullabies (especially closer “Clam, Crab…”). The scale of the new compositions is such that the old songs feel like a breath, something that can be plainly felt rather than fought out, gnashed, destroyed, and won over again and again. The way she so fearlessly gives herself over to soaring on the back of some emotion or image and then pulls back to take a longer view, often recalling a line and melody from earlier in the song, is frankly overwhelming. Time and time again, she plunges into a fast-moving river, all the while being extraordinarily careful not to let us let go of those movements that brought us into the song in the first place. Endurance is certainly a factor here, and when she brought the band back out in the encore for a new long song, the scales tipped: it was too much — we were spent. It’s no wonder given the way the listeners on the Great American’s upper-levels seemed to lean over the balcony’s edge. With all eyes on Newsom, the focus was at times nearly unbearable.

As always, it was a treat to see her play the harp, those spindly hands realizing the complex rhythm-melody interlays as if they were talking to one another. I caught myself waiting for the long, low strings to be plucked to see (and feel) their resonance. With Ys, she was directing as much as playing, shaping the album anew rather than running it through — she took hold of the notes and found the words, each one the right one.

Comedy Tonite!

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Intern Aaron Sankin’s take on the recent live SF appearance of Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, two of the creators of the show Stella

The first time I saw Stella I was instantly enraptured. It was clever, it was funny, and, most of all, it was zany. Zany like the old Marx brothers movies (which, for my money, are the funniest things to have ever been committed to celluloid); zany like the Animaniacs cartoons that entertained me for many a Cheerio-filled Saturday morning. Zany in a way that modern comedy no longer is. Hip comedy now days is frantic and schizophrenic but zany it is not. Family Guy, the show that is currently pushing the televised comedic envelope these days, has all the elements of zaniness—the non-stop barrage of jokes, the relative minimum of importance put things like plot and character development, pratfalls—but lacks the childlike innocence that true zaniness requires.

showalter.jpg

Get Crafty!

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› culture@sfbg.com
Each holiday the populace drones out to the local malls in search of appropriate gifts. Not that there’s anything wrong with the holiday institutions of bad parking, blasphemy, and Black Friday — they are, after all, our modern manifestations of the holiday spirit — but in the event you like the idea of giving charming gifts handmade with affection and idiosyncrasy, you have an array of clever and affordable online options at your fingertips. Largely conceived and produced by local artisans, these handicrafts play well to most audiences, offering irony for the siblings, sincerity for the grandparents, and neutrality to the ne’er-do-wells.
Before we hit the gifts, it’s worth noting that the holiday season is a time to acknowledge all the people in our lives. As nice as that is, few of these folks will actually receive gifts. Happily, the right card can take the place of a casual gift and still produce warm fuzzies the way the best wrapped packages do.
Take, for example, Motormouth Press’s ornament cards (www.motormouthpress.com). These paper fetishes are fitting mementos for those in small living spaces as they store easily, weigh nothing, and are as cute to receive as they are to hang on your space-saving tree. Motormouth’s penguin flexagon card tells a little story and ends with a seasonal greeting. In a more mixed-media vein, Notesink (www.notesink.com) builds cards using remnants of fabric, buttons, and paper and also features screen-printed, kid-themed, and, of course, holiday cards. These cards are so cute you’ll rub your eyes in disbelief — they may even inspire you with their crafty prowess. If that happens, you should look into Sideshow Stamps (www.sideshowstamps.com). A purveyor of funky stampedelica, Sideshow features pithy images such as its Leg Lamp stamp, and if you’ve seen A Christmas Story, you know that’s Xmas imagery plain and true.
The Bay Area has much to offer in the way of bath and beauty product lines. Though using soap is a personal matter, bath products make peculiarly neutral gifts. To spice up the body politic, the following kitchen chemists have put some weight into product design. Take Lizzie Sweet (www.lizziesweet.com), for example. The tangy-looking packaging is intended to make you feel as sexy about buying the bath line as using it. Presentation also matters to Aqua Energy Design Studio (www.aquaenergydesignstudio.com), whose island-inspired products include supersexy bath salts that resemble uncut diamonds. The Aromatic Way Apothecary (www.aromaticway.com) uses potent olfactory triggers to make its pragmatic products. The cold salve clears your pathways better than Vicks and without the chemical blur, while the scented shea butter sticks, packaged in deodorant twist-up tubes, are practical for the pocketbook.
Though all bath products can be hedonistic experiences, not all are. Mandrake Apothecary puts the sense into sensual. Perfect for the solstice, Mandrake’s line of sexy scents (www.mandrakeapothecary.com) is rife with plant extracts and mystical purpose. It’s genuinely magic stuff. And not like Jesus magic — like magic magic. For a more arcane approach to the sacred ritual of bathing, look to Oakland’s Pomegranate Body (www.pomegranatebody.com). Skin-nourishing shea butter abounds, and the Citrus Sun line smells like sunshine.
The Curiosity Shoppe (www.curiosityshoppeonline.com) could be San Francisco’s one-stop craft shopping mecca. With themed products for the home and the office, it has layers of quippy objets d’art that can offer petite grandeur to all the people on your shopping list. The brass bird nest (with stone eggs) is precious, and rumor has it that using the owl paperweights will make you smarter. For the “kitschen” (get it?) it’s all about Lorena Barrezueta’s ceramic takeout containers. For more gender-specific items, think about getting Conphorm’s Um Felt wool tote and carry bags, which have a durable design for the modern maiden, and Deadly Squire’s shrewd neckties — ideal for the alternadad. For other whip-smart items, look to Poketo’s intoxicating array of clever wallets (www.poketo.com) or the jocular skull patches from Krooked Stitches (gaytha.net/krooked).
Fabric always warms up the coldest of transactions, and fabric checkbook covers from Blissen (www.blissen.com) make bill paying that much sweeter. If you know someone who could use more comfort while managing their finances, throw in Sprout Studios’ cozy tea-inspired ceramics kit (homepage.mac.com/bob.jen/sprout/index.htm): it’s ideal for making your hot beverage merry and bright.
When it comes to the eenie ones, let’s be honest: you’re buying more for the parents than the kids, so why not consider adorable attire? Tiddly Toggs (408-371-7919) offers hand-knit sweaters, dresses, and hats for babies and toddlers in colors and shapes that vary with the seasons. Crafted by a British ex-nanny and seamstress (imagine Mary Poppins with knitting needles), the work features patterns both unpredictable and sedate. The three-owl pullover with buttons for eyes is a real heart warmer. The baby attire available at One Hot Tomatoe (www.onehottomatoe.com) is pretty adorable too. Tomatoe’s cheeky lobster bib could help train your favorite one-and-a-half-year-old in the ancient art of snobbery — that is, if the training isn’t already over.
If said one-and-a-half-year-old is a smart-alecky lass, you might want to drop her right into a RicRac pirate party dress from Tartlette (www.tartlette.com). Festooned with a skull and crossbones (the skull is dotted with a tiny pink bow), this dress could get your toddler into the VIP room at a SoMa club. If your fav one-and-a-half-year-old is a lad, perhaps a Mary tee from Oh Baby Apparel (www.ohbabyapparel.com) is more fitting. With a Virgin of Guadalupe patch adorning the shirt’s pocket, believers could well consider it a layer of protection (from on high!) for their bouncing boy. Complete that ensemble with high-top- or Mary Jane–<\d>style felted boots from the Clever Kitty (thecleverkitty.com) and then round out the look with a grouchy stuffed doll. The Little Gorgeouses from Little and the Girl (www.littleandthegirl.com) are sweet felt stuffed toys with an air of mystery. Lucille the French poodle carries a comforting expression, while kitten Clive is a masked avenger complete with cape. For the more acidulous, consider Scared Girl’s cunning felt Pretend Friends (www.scaredgirl.net), who live squarely on the intersection of adorable and wonky. Rectangulo’s name may give you an idea of his shape, but it says little about his demeanor. Equally emotive is poor little Grubbly, who cries perpetually, perhaps because he’s got seven appendages. He just needs a little love! (FYI, these creatures are great gifts for everyone — even the grouches who say they don’t care about local businesses or craftspeople and would rather scarf down food court junk while being crushed half to death at a mall. Maybe they too just need a little love.)

Making their lists

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PAUL COSTUROS
Total Shutdown, Death Sentence: Panda!, Murder Murder
(10) Bay Area representing and dominating at the End Times Fest in St. Paul, Minn., June 22–<\d>24.
(9) T.I.T.S., Throughout the Ages split double 12-inch with Leopard Leg (Upset the Rhythm) and live. Forest-witch psych never sounded so good.
(8) Fuckwolf CD on Kimosciotic and live. Dub done via destruction by way of swallowing glass and delay …
(7) Burmese, White (Planaria) and live. Every time I see them I feel like I’ve been transported to a Beijing opera in 1790 and forced to watch it while strapped to a chair at gunpoint.
(6) Devin the Dude, live at the Red Devil Lounge, Nov. 6. Songs about fucking, drinking, and smoking weed sung so beautifully, like an angel.
(5) “Black Panther Rank and File” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, March 18–<\d>July 2, and getting snubbed by Bobby Seale when I asked him about when he did stand-up comedy.
(4) Tracy Morgan doing stand-up live at Cobb’s, March 3.
(3) Sergio Iglesias and the Latin Love Machine at Thee Parkside, Nov. 18, and the soccer circle that followed.
(2) 16 Bitch Pile-Up, Doomsday 1999, Ettrick with Weasel Walter live, March 15.
(1) (tie) Nate Denver’s Neck at the Elbo Room, Oct. 14. I laughed, I cried, and I wanted to destroy someone for the first time since sixth grade; Skip Donahue’s new wave extravo-bonanza at Casanova, April 20; Kurtis Blow at Mighty, Aug. 12; DJ Funk at the Rickshaw Stop, July 21; and ESG at Mezzanine, Oct. 27.

ARI MESSER
Contributor
• Mountain Goats, Get Lonely (4AD).
• Beth Orton, Comfort of Strangers (Astralwerks). Shimmers with a modern kind of grace.
• Nic Jones, Game Set Match (Topic). My favorite wild-as-the-firth Brit-folk revivalist, live in the ’70s, resurrecting ballads and slapping the guitar like a preacher on a healing mission.
• Crooked Jades, World’s on Fire (Jade Note Music). Old-timey troubadours sing with fire, then stomp it out so that there’s nothing left to repent for.
• Various artists, Chrome Children (Stones Throw).
• Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, The Dust of Retreat (Standard Recording Co.).
• Sara Tavares, Balance (Times Square).
• Meneguar, I Was Born at Night (Magic Bullet).
• Mirah, Joyride: Remixes (K). The double album explores the songwriter’s expansive journal-like stories.
• Joanna Newsom, Ys (Drag City). Surpasses Cat Power in my book of 2006 for the year’s most sweetly sacrificial feline croon.

CLIPD BEAKS
Tigerbeat6 band
(1) E-40, “Tell Me When To Go” (Sick Wid It/Jive). Duh.
(2) Indian Jewelry and Celebration at South by Southwest.
(3) Lil Wayne, everything but especially “Shooter,” Tha Carter Vol. 2 (Cash Money).
(4) No Doctors — just in general.
(5) Mute Era and In Corridors. The mystic protégés of the Minnesota-Japan rock ’n’ roll exchange program.
(6) Gentleman’s Techno at the Cave — especially OonceOonce DJ sets and Black William and the Gondolier live.
(7) White Williams, “Headlines,” Let’s Lazertag Sometime (Tigerbeat6).
(8) Watching Dusty Sparkles from Glass Candy and Danava do anything.
(9) Shawn Porter, a.k.a. Bloody Snowman.
(10) Erase Errata, Nightlife (Kill Rock Stars).

SAKE ONE
Levende Lounge resident DJ
(1) A lotta ancestors: from the great J-Dilla to LA DJ and community organizer DJ Dusk to SF native and NYC staple Adam Goldstone to rebel radio pioneer Michael “Mixxin” Moore to SF DJ and youth activist DJ Domino, the sky gained a lotta bring-ass stars.
(2) The Trackademics phenomenon. Comin’ straight outta Alameda High, young Trackademics took the underground dance music world by storm, using broken beat, dance punk, and new soul sounds and smashing them into a hyphy hybrid that had kids going stewey from SF to NYC.
(3) Pacific Standard Time anniversary party. When Kool Herc stepped to the DJ booth at Levende Lounge in March, time sorta stood still for a few hours. He gave Frisco a taste of the magic that sparked a global prairie fire.
(4) Bilal, Something to Hold Onto. Probably the best major-label release of 2006 that never came out. His label blamed online leaks but probably just lacked the creative vision to market such a strange product — namely, inventive modern soul music.
(5) Tiombe Lockhart, “O Bloody Day, O Starry Night on the Bowery” (Bling47). Evil genius Waajeed and the brilliant Ms. Lockhart released the first of what should be many classic joints.
(6) GQ, “Better Must Come” (Calibud). Something about an eight-year-old having a number one hit with a conscious anthem just kinda makes me feel good about the future.
(7) Alice Smith, For Lovers, Dreamers and Me (BBE Music). Though the incredible Maurice Fulton remix of “Love Endeavor” isn’t here, this album reflected a new direction for urban music.
(8) The hyphy movement. Kinda obvious, but its impact is hard to overstate. Bay Area club music took the world by storm in 2006, leading taste-making rags and bloggers from here to Denmark scouring the Web for the latest Bay Area slang, style, and sounds.
(9) Journey into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story (Rhino). After a couple attempts, 2006 saw a definitive two-disc collection of some of the songs that trademarked perhaps the most influential DJ of all time, besides Herc.
(10) TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope). I prefer the leaked version because “Wolf Like Me” is the shit, but it’s still pretty damn good for a major-label debut, nyuk, nyuk.

GENE “BEAN” BAE
Battleship
(1) Punk section at Amoeba, SF and Berkeley. I know I work there, and this comes dangerously close to an advertisement, but isn’t it about time?
(2) Domino Records’ Sound of Young Scotland series. Lovely reissues of Orange Juice, Fire Engines, and my current fave, Josef K. Courtesy of Franz Ferdinand’s severance check.
(3) Boy, I sure picked a bad year to swear off box sets: This Heat’s Out of Cold Storage (ReR) finally makes available all the in- and out-of-print recordings.
(4) Boy, I sure picked a bad year to swear off metal: Boris, Pink and live, and collaborating with Sunn O))) on Altar (both Southern Lord).
(5) The Bay Area represents: running into fellow local bands such as the Fucking Ocean in NYC and T.I.T.S. in Leeds, England, while on a too-long tour was the salve for the weary, homesick, itinerant musician. And by the way, the Fucking Ocean’s new CD, Le Main Rouge, harks back to the heady times at the turn of the century when it seemed like every day a new band that didn’t suck crawled out of a new crack in the sidewalk.
(6) It would be irresponsible of me to not mention the midterm elections.
(7) Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man was the best music-related film of the year. And it gave me more reasons to hate U2.
(8) Coming to a curbside near you: the Bay Area’s best new venue, John Benson’s decommissioned AC Transit bus converted into a biodiesel RV and mobile venue.
(9) Billy Childish’s unplugged show, Mama Buzz Café, May.
(10) And one thing that sucked this year: Lance Hill quit booking and working the Stork Club. The man who brought you the club’s happy hour and free admission during the Oakland Art Murmur — and who let Battleship record an album at his venue — has left the building. May the East Bay rise to the occasion and continue nurturing good local music.

MATT BAUER
Singer-songwriter
(1) Mariee Sioux, A Bundled Bundle Of Bundles (self-released). So. Ridiculously. Good.
(2) Death Vessel, Stay Close (North East Indie). I’ve listened to this five billion times since I got it in October.
(3) Laura Gibson, If You Come to Greet Me (Hush).
(4) CMJ Music Marathon, accompanying Alela Diane and Tom Brosseau on banjo. When Brosseau breaks into the highest part of his range, it makes me almost believe in ghosts.
(5) El Capitan live at the Rite Spot, Oct 15. They did a medley covering and reworking other Bay Area artists’ music — one of the most creative and heartfelt things I heard all year.
(6) Last of the Blacksmiths, “And Then Some”/”You Think I’m. O.K.” 7-inch.
(7) Deerhoof, McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn, NY.
(8) Standing onstage at Carnegie Hall. OK, I was only delivering a bass amp for Smokey Robinson. But it gave me chills!
(9) Jolie Holland’s “Mexican Blue.” Maybe my favorite song of 2006.
(10) Jeffrey Luck Lucas, Bottom of the Hill, Feb. 8.

DAVE BROEKEMA
Numbers
• T.I.T.S. and Leopard Leg, Throughout the Ages/Leopard Leg split double 12-inch (Upset the Rhythm)
• Mon Cousin Belge, the Knockout, a couple weeks ago
• Bootleg of Black Sabbath Live in Paris 20 Dec. 1970
• Trin Tran (a.k.a. Trinng Tranng)
• Erase Errata, Nightlife (Kill Rock Stars)
Weasel Walter performing with Sergio Iglesias, Thee Parkside, Nov. 18
• Gay Beast, El Rio, Dec. 7
• Fuckwolf, anywhere, anytime
• K.I.T. dressed as mummies (or the Mummies)
• Halloween at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn
• Seeing The Sweet Smell of Success with Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster on PBS twice (I don’t have cable). Totally awesome creepy nastiness.

BROLIN WINNING
422 Records and MP3.com; Top 10 Hip-Hop
• Mekalek, Live and Learn (Glow-in-the-Dark). Time Machine’s DJ-producer connects with various rappers for a supremely banging compilation-style album. Rhode Island, stand up!
• Motion Man, Pablito’s Way (Threshold). Bay Area superlyricist knocks it out of the park on his second solo effort, produced by KutMasta Kurt, featuring Too $hort, Mistah FAB, and Q*bert.
• Snoop Dogg, Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (Geffen). Though a bit bloated, Snoop’s eighth album is still great, featuring bass-heavy beats and collabos with Nate Dogg, Dre, Cube, E-40, and others.
• Melina Jones, Swearing Off Busters (sampler). An immensely talented MC-vocalist from the SFC, Jones is the future. Check her out on MySpace and cop the album in early ’07.
• Dudley Perkins, Expressions (Stones Throw). Charmingly blunted soul-funk meanderings from underground icon Madlib and the artist formerly known as Declaime.
•<\!s><\i>Ghostface, Fishscale (Def Jam). The Wu’s most consistent swordsman continues to impress, with help from Dilla, Doom, and Pete Rock.
• Rakim, Slims, Sept. 10. The R may be pushing 40, but he still knows how to move the crowd, running through timeless jams with Kid Capri backing him up.
• A Tribe Called Quest, Berkeley Community Theatre, Sept. 9. Rhymefest and the Procussions were cool too, but the reunited Tribe killed it.
• Ice Cube, Fillmore, April 25. Despite cred-killing family films and uneven recent material, Cube ripped it live, drawing from a thick catalog of Westside classics.
• Kool Keith, Mezzanine, June 17. At his first local appearance in years, notorious rap weirdo Kool Keith did an amazing set with lots of Ultramag and Octagon material, plus a random topless chick.

WILL SCHWARTZ
Hey Willpower
(10) Amy Winehouse, “Rehab” (Universal/Island).
(9) Cassie, “Me and U” (Bad Boy).
(8) Brick Lane, London, on a Sunday.
(7) Hot Chip, “Over and Over” (Astralwerks).
(6) Fingered Club at Little Pedro’s in downtown LA.
(5) Final Fantasy, Bottom of the Hill, Aug. 11.
(4) Planning to Rock at Club Motherfucker, Bardens Boudoir, London, Dec. 9.
(3) Grizzly Bear, Yellow House (Warp).
(2) Lena Wolff, Needles and Pens, March 11–<\d>April 9.
(1) Field Mob with Ciara, “So What” (Universal).

LEE HILDEBRAND
Contributor
• Brett Dennen, So Much More (Dualtone). The Central Valley singer-songwriter addresses political and romantic concerns in a craggy, tear-stained tenor.
• Kelis, Kelis Was Here (Jive). Although in-your-face sexuality is the Manhattan siren’s calling card, it’s hard not to also adore the way she blurs the lines between R&B, rock, hip-hop, and pop.
• Charles Lloyd, Sangam (ECM).
• Ann Nesby, In the Spirit (Shanachie). Nesby’s glorious alto pipes often leap octaves in breathtaking bounds on this masterpiece of traditional African American gospel music.
• Joan Osborne, Pretty Little Stranger (Vanguard).
• Catherine Russell, Cat (World Village). Veteran background vocalist Russell steps to the forefront with a wonderfully eclectic set of tunes including “Back o’ Town Blues,” which her dad, Luis Russell, wrote with Louis Armstrong back in 1945.
• Candi Staton, His Hands (Honest Jons/Astralwerks).
• Irma Thomas, After the Rain (Rounder).
• Hank Williams III, Straight to Hell (Bruc). This intense honky-tonk country music is filled with visions so demented that the label’s owner, former California lieutenant governor Mike Curb, spells his own name backward.
• Mitch Woods, Big Easy Boogie (Club 88). Marin County vocalist-pianist Woods creates the hottest set of 1950s-style New Orleans R&B since, well, the ’50s.

TOM CARTER
Charalambides; Top 10 Things That Didn’t Happen in San Francisco
(1) Getting dosed at Terrastock, Providence, RI, and watching Lightning Bolt from high in the light rigging, April 23.
(2) On tour with Marcia, watching thousands of chimney swifts flocking into a smokestack during a light rainstorm in Portland, Ore., with a double rainbow to the east and a sunset to the west.
(3) Me and Natacha witnessing Comets on Fire’s chalet get destroyed at All Tomorrow’s Parties with a BBC film crew documenting the whole scene. Minehead, Devonshire, UK.
(4) Ben Chasny destroying with solo electric guitar at Arthur Nights, LA, Oct. 21.
(5) Jamming Buffy St. Marie’s “Cod’Ine” for over an hour at 4 a.m. with Matt Valentine and Erika Elder in Guilford, Vt.; also Mvee and the Bummer Road’s form-destroying set at ATP, Minehead, Devonshire, UK.
(6) Hearing the most killer noise CD-R ever in Nashville, recorded by Chris Cherry Blossoms’ Boston Terrier.
(7) Gigging with Badgerlore at the Wire festival, Chicago, and eating pizza slices the size of surfboards with Glen Donaldson, Sept. 21.
(8) Laying down thick sounds with Shawn McMillen and the Starving Weirdos in Eureka and later watching McMillen toss tennis balls to a terrier on the beach in Samoa while hearing Steve Weirdo’s roommate’s tales of Sasquatch hunting and dodging bullets in the Yuroc reservation.
(9) Ashtray Navigation’s Syd Barrett tribute at the beginning of their set, biker bar downstairs playing “Astronomy Domine” the same night in Leeds, UK.
(10) Gray-orange dust storm over the gash of the Rio Grande. Later that night, me and my girlfriend, Natacha, listen to Of’s wedding CD-R and watch dozens of shooting stars and a distant thunderstorm over the mountains, Taos, NM.
RIP Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, and whoever else I’m forgetting.

Hallelujah, more lists!

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MATTHEW EDWARDS
MUSIC LOVERS
(1) <\i>The Fall live at the Independent, May. Mark E. Smith, wife, and a band he put together the day before — classic Fall. Peerless.
(2) <\i>John Legend, Get Lifted (Sony). More ideas per song than most indie bands have in a lifetime. Stellar soul.
(3) <\i>Margaret Cho singing “Old Man’s Cock and Balls” to the tune of “Old Time Rock and Roll,” Provincetown, July
(4) <\i>D’autres nouvelles des etoiles — Serge Gainsbourg DVD. 4 hours of sin and sauce, wit and wiles.
(5) <\i>Poppy and the Jezebels, “Nazi Girls”/”Painting New York on my Shoes* (Kiss of Death/Reveal). Best young group out of UK in an age — four 14-year-old girls from Birmingham. Massive in 2007.
(6) <\i>Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, directed by Michel Gondry.
(7.) <\i>Drive-By Truckers at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. The American Smiths with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s shirts and guitars.
(8) <\i>Joanna Newsom, Ys (Drag City). So far ahead of the “new folk” pack it’s not true. A goldrush-town Kate Bush.
(9) <\i>One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found (Rhino)
(10) <\i>Borts Minorts opening for us at Amnesia.
Music Lovers play Slim’s Dec. 23.

KELLEY STOLTZ
SUB POP SONGWRITER
(1) <\i>Detroit producer-musician-good fellow Matthew Smith’s Outrageous Cherry released their umpteenth album Stay Happy (Rainbow Quartz), and it’s a fab collection of big beat Jesus and Mary Chain meets the Chills type of pet sounds.
(2) <\i>I got to play a show with Dan Sartain in Amsterdam this fall. He describes himself to the common man as Chris Isaak on acid — or was that quaaludes ? No weepy romantic, the 24-year-old hails from Birmingham, Ala., and does surf-rockabilly besame-mucho murder ballads really well. He’s a real character, too. After staying up all night he was spotted eating falafel wearing his hotel towels for socks. His new album, Join … Dan Sartain, is on Bjork’s One Little Indian label.
(3) <\i>The Muldoons are a family band composed of Hunter and Shane, about age 9 and 12, respectively, and their dad, drummer Brian, who play high energy Stoogey rock. Their first single was recorded by Jack White, no less. There were a lot of kids playing rock songs this year, but these guys are future and now, for real. Listen to their live session on www.wfmu.org for proof.
(4) <\i>As 2006 comes to a close, it is getting closer to April 2007, when Sonny Smith’s new album will finally appear. After some rewrites and a touch of hemming and hawing, my favorite SF Pro Tools hobo will release Fruitvale on a new label run by local vocalist Chuck Prophet.
(5) <\i>The Oh Sees recorded a fine new album, Sucks Blood, and that too will be coming along early next year, but since I heard it this year I can safely say it was one of the sonic highlights of the recent past.
(6) <\i>Vetiver, To Find Me Gone (Dicristina Stair). A great collection of ’70s AM radio pop magic and smart lyrical turns.
(7) <\i>Black Fiction were a force of rumbling floor toms, Casio blips, and cool tunes. The most interesting SF band playing in 4/4 time.
(8) <\i>Australia’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring channeled AC/DC, the Buzzcocks, and early Joy Division/Warsaw on their fantastic “Get Up Morning” single.
(9) <\i>How could Arthur Lee and Syd Barrett pass away within a couple weeks of each other? Similar souls departed.
(10) <\i>Sub Pop goes green and offsets their offices’ electricity usage with clean windpower churned up in the Pacific Northwest. I hope more corporate structures within and outside of the music world will take note and do a simple thing that helps a lot.

DEVIN HOFF
DEVIN HOFF PLATFORM
(1) <\i>Marisa Monte, Palace of Fine Arts, Nov. 5
(2) <\i>Deerhoof, Great American Music Hall, Sept. 5
(3) <\i>Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, solo at Prison Literature Project benefit, AK Press Warehouse, April 11
(4) <\i>Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar)
(5) <\i>Marisa Monte, Universo au Meu Redor (Blue Note)
(6) <\i>Marisa Monte, Infinito Particular (Blue Note)
(7) <\i>Caetano Veloso, Ce (Umvd)
(8) <\i>Ches Smith, Congs for Brums (Free Porcupine Society)
(9) <\i>Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone duo
(10) <\i>Iron Maiden, A Matter of Life and Death (Sanctuary)

JORDAN KURLAND
NOISE POP
(1) <\i>The Who, Endless Wire (Republic)
(2) <\i>Jose Gonzalez, Veneer (Mute)
(3) <\i>Thom Yorke, The Eraser (XL)
(4) <\i>Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat (Team Love)
(5) <\i>Cat Power, The Greatest (Matador)
(6) <\i>Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid, The Exchange Session, Volume 1 (Domino)
(7) <\i>Cursive, Happy Hollow (Saddle Creek)
(8) <\i>Long Winters, Putting the Days to Bed (Barsuk)
(9) <\i>Boards of Canada, Trans Canada Highway (Warp)
(10) <\i>Beirut, The Gulag Orkestar (Ba Da Bing)

CHRISTOPHER APPELGREN
NOISE POP, LOOKOUT RECORDS
•<\!s><\i>Colossal Yes, Acapulco Roughs (Ba Da Bing)
•<\!s><\i>Voxtrot’s cover of Comet Gain’s “You Can Hide Your Love Forever” from the band’s Web site
•<\!s><\i>Still Flyin’, Time Wrinkle (Antenna Farm)
•<\!s><\i>Peter Bjorn and John, Young Folks (Wichita)
•<\!s><\i>Primal Scream, Riot City Blues (Sony)
•<\!s><\i>Trainwreck Riders, Lonely Road Revival (Alive)
•<\!s><\i>The Tyde, Three’s Co. (Rough Trade)
•<\!s><\i>French Kicks, Two Thousand (Vagrant)
•<\!s><\i>Chow Nasty live
•<\!s><\i>Love Is All, Nine Times That Same Song (What’s Your Rupture)

VICE COOLER
XBXRX, HAWNAY TROOF, K.I.T.
•<\!s><\i>Matt And Kim, Cafe Du Nord, Aug. 19. They have been described as the “happy Japanther.” It’s true that both bands are duos and use minimal drums for their sing-along anthems. But Matt throws his hands in the air while he plays.
•<\!s><\i>My own birthday party, 21 Grand, July 15. Performances by Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Mirror Dash, Harry Marry, Dinky Bits, Always, Sharon Cheslow and Elise from Magic Markers. I felt like I had my own MTV Sweet Sixteen episode.
•<\!s><\i>Sonic Youth, Bill Graham Civic Center. Not only was I tripped beyond because they even played “Mote,” but I also got to drone on it! Thurston looked over when their never- ending outro started, smiled, and threw his guitar to me. They even gave me all of their leftover catering.
•<\!s><\i>7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Ache Horns (Free Porcupine). This is one of the best records that I have ever heard. It’s a shame that they never get to play live because it is one of the most powerful things that you will ever see.
•<\!s><\i>Xiu Xiu, The Air Force (5 Rue Christine). Does anyone else think the cover looks like Jamie Stewart as Jesus Christ?
•<\!s><\i>Macromantix at 12 Galaxies, November
This MC came straight from the Oz and killed the small crowd.
•<\!s><\i>Deerhoof live. Their free, download-only EP of covers and live tracks made it to the top of my iTunes for 2006. But seeing them go completely nuts under a public microscope has been so rad. Next time you see them look for the John Dieterich strut during “Flower.”
•<\!s><\i>Matmos, The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast (Matador). One of the best electronic -based records to come out in years.
•<\!s><\i>High Places. It’s like the Beach Boys on more drugs. But High Places don’t do drugs. Mindfuck, right?
•<\!s><\i>Quintron and Miss Pussycat at 12 Galaxies, July 14
•<\!s><\i>Barr, “The Song Is the Single” 7-inch (PPM).
Brendan Fowler plows through an enormous amount of subjects like touring, loneliness, breaking up, pop music, and his song sucking — in a mere four minutes! The crowd left with their jaws on the floor when he premiered this at the Hemlock in July.
•<\!s><\i>Peaches live and Impeach My Bush (XL)
Peaches’ live show is on fire. She is now backed by JD (Le Tigre), Sam Mahoney (Hole) and Radio Sloan (The Need), who make up the Herms, the best backing band in rock history.

SONNY SMITH
SINGER-SONGWRITER
•<\!s><\i>Edith Frost. A Chicago transplant to the Bay Area — her solo opening set for Bert Jansch was casual, personal, and real. Great American Music Hall, Oct. 25.
•<\!s><\i>Jesse Hawthorne Ficks. The guy that puts all the midnight triple-bills together at the Castro. He’ll make you realize that seeing Who Made Who when you were 12 is more important than seeing Citizen Kane in college or Cassavetes in film school.
•<\!s><\i>Alice Shaw. Few artists turn the camera on themselves so consistently and keep it lighthearted and meaningful at the same time.
•<\!s><\i>Omer. The guy that plays on Valencia. Year after year he remains this city’s most dedicated, unique, sincere, bizarre, angry, chipper, crazy, and prolific performer. If you’re intertwined with music so much that you play in the rain on the street every night then you’re operating on a whole other level.
•<\!s><\i>Bert Jansch. One nice thing about the neo-folk trend is that he’s out touring and making records. At the Music Hall, he dressed like a regular old, unassuming guy and launched immediately into a song about a friend murdered by Pinochet. True folk music.
•<\!s><\i>24th Street Mini Park. The most beautiful, selfless, and innocent piece of art this city has created that I know of.
•<\!s><\i>Packard Jennings. He exposes greed, reveals hypocrisy, uncovers lies. A rebellious social commentator, this artist is totally anti-authoritarian, so we like him.
•<\!s><\i>AM Radio. Neverending home of complete insanity. Fascists, paranoid conspiracy theorists, hate mongers, xenophobes, racists, psych-babble freaks, radical religious zealots, and right-wing patriot sociopaths. Truly the theater of the absurd.
•<\!s><\i> Dark Hand Lamp Light. One of the first times I’ve seen music and visual art melting so perfectly together to tell good old-fashioned stories.
•<\!s><\i>Sister Madalene. There is no problem she cannot solve. One visit will convince you and lift you out of sorrow and darkness.

MISSION CREEK MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL STAFF
TOP NINE PLUS FAVORITE MISSION CREEK SHOW
(1) <\i>Jeff Ray (founder/producer): Best show — The Knife at the Mezzanine. Best record — Dwayne Sodahberk, Cut Open (Tigerbeat 6).
(2) <\i>Jon Fellman (co-producer): Best show — Slits, T.I.T.S., and Tussle at Uptown. Best CD — Kelley Stoltz, Below the Branches (Sub Pop).
(3) <\i>Lianne Mueller (graphic designer): Best show — Beirut at Great American Music Hall. Best CD — Lambchop, Damaged (Merge).
(4) <\i>Moira Bartel (sponsorship): Best show — Cat Power at the Palace of Fine Arts.
(5) <\i>Ashley Sarver (programmer): Favorite show — Sprite Macon at Amnesia. Favorite album — Joanna Newsom, Ys (Drag City).
(6) <\i>Molly Merson (sponsorship): Best show — Alejandro Escovedo and Jeffrey Luck Lucas at 12 Galaxies. Favorite album — Bob Frank and John Murry, World Without End (Bowstring).
(7) <\i>Brianna Toth (publicity, programmer): Favorite show — Dead Science with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and Sholi. Favorite album — Paris Hilton, Paris (WEA).
(8) <\i>Katie Vida (arts curator): Best show — Anselm Kiefer at SFMOMA. Best album: Beirut, Gulag Orkestar (Ba Da Bing). Best man: Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006), Poet Laureate of the United States in 2000.
(9) <\i>Neil Martinson (programmer): Show — Os Mutantes at the Fillmore. Record — Winter Flowers, Winter Flowers (Attack Nine). Musical trend — Master Moth.
(10) <\i>Favorite Mission Creek show of 2006 — Silver Sunshine, Citay, Willow Willow, and Persephone’s Bees at Rickshaw Stop, May 20.
The Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival will be happening from May 10–<\d>20; go to www.mcmf.org for more information.

Eureka! More on how monopoly papers cover monopoly news

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so there it was, buried today in the business pages of the Chronicle/Hearst, the Contra Costa Times/Singleton, and the San Jose Mercury News/Singleton, the latest major development in one of the great buried stories of our time in the local daily press.

Editor and Publisher, the trade magazine for newspapers, got this major story right: Its online head read, “S.F. Judge Blocks Hearst/MediaNews Collaboration,” and its strong lead made the key point: “In a victory for a local businessman seeking to overturn a complex San Francisco Bay Area newspaper deal between Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group Inc., a federal judge Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the chains from collaborating on joint distribution or advertising sales of their papers.”

This was an important ruling in the Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto antitrust case, which stands as the only real impediment to the Hearst/Singleton deal that would destroy daily competition and impose regional monopoly in the Bay Area.
(See Guardian stories and previous blogs.)

But the ruling and the coverage by burial by the Hearst/Singleton press illustrates a major problem with the case: the publishers, who are normally hollering about the government suppression of documents and government manipulation of the news, this time got the documents sealed and so only their side of the story is getting out. Hearst/Singleton got a stringent protective order that gives them essentially unreviewable discretion to control the documents in the case. (Alioto presumably agreed to the order to get an early trial date).

Here’s how this works: Hearst/Singleton designate any document they are producing in discovery as “secret.”Alioto cannot contest that under the order, nor is there any dispute mechanism by which he can challenge it. If Alioto wants the document, he has to accept it under the protective order. Then, if he wants to file it with the court, he has to do so under seal. And, under the protective order, the judge has no discretion and must appeal the seal order. Alioto’s brief is also sealed, if it references the sealed document. This was the case with the critical April 26, 2006 letter from Hearst to Singleton that outlined an agreement to explore joint national and internet adversiting sales as well as joint distribution.

The judge has referenced and quoted the letter and stated in her preliminary injunction order that the letter “is in the form of a potentially binding agremeent” and indicates the two companies have “expressed the desire, if not the intent,” to collaborate in the Bay Area. Yet the letter is under seal, as is another letter the judge has quoted and a whole batch of obviously explosive discovery documents which Alioto got under discovery.

The letter is a publisher document and is not under seal and they can talk about it if they want to. After all, if they want to disclose their own secrets, it is up to them. Thus: the publishers have crafted a protective order that gives them control of the documents, gives the court no power to control its own filings, and no way for anyone to challenge any secret designations. The effect is that the Riley/Alioto filings are secret, the publishers filings are public, the public gets only one side of the story. And then the Hearst/Singleton papers put its side out in wimpy little stories buried in their business sections with wimpy little heads. (Example: today’s Chronicle head, “Hearst-MediaNews ruling extended.” Now there’s a rouser.) And there is no explanation of how the publishers rigged the protective order to promote their side of the story and muzzle Alioto.

All of this amounts to a terrible precedent for Hearst and Singleton and their chain allies (McClatchy, Gannett, Stephens) to be setting in federal court against the free press, the First Amendment, and open government.

Repeating: Thank the Lord for Reilly and Alioto. And where the hell are the federal antitrust attorneys (they are still mucking about, pledging folks to secrecy and then asking softball questions)? And where the hell are outgoing Attorney General Bill Lockyer (who seems cowed by the case and is busy chasing those dread pre-texters in the Hewlett-Packard board room)? And where the hell is incoming Attorney General Jerry Brown (who has announced he is going to continue to live in Oakland under the heavy thumb of Singleton’s Oakland Tribune and his galaxy of East Bay papers, without making a peep to date)? B3

P.S. l: I am not blaming the reporters nor their editors for their patriotic Hearst First and Singleton First coverage. They have the unenviable assignment of covering the monopoly moves of their publishers in New York and Denver that are aimed at savaging their own papers and their own staffs and their own communities. It is not, let us stipulate, a fun job. I hope they are keeping detailed diaries. B3

Unholy spirit

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› cheryl@sfbg.com
It was dark and stormy the night I journeyed to Oakland to meet the Saviours — a perfect weather match for their music, which I’ve had on constant ear blast since picking up their Tim Green–<\d>produced debut, Crucifire (Level Plane, 2006). These guys are fucking serious. They proffer fierce, hard-driving metal so metal you could pronounce it me-tal, spreading their gospel with lyrics such as “All crosses burn into the sky, and their ashes fall to serve as hell’s floor.” Live — forget it: heads involuntarily bang when the Saviours unleash their thunder.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I knocked on the door of the Saviours’ lair (the Telegraph Avenue digs of singer-guitarist Austin Barber, guitarist Dean Tyler Morris, and drummer Scott Batiste). A giant, fiery pentagram? A life-size diorama of Slayer’s Reign in Blood album cover?
Actually, it was a pretty normal apartment, all things considered. Barber, Batiste, and Morris were chilling around a coffee table that displayed evidence of a post-Thanksgiving weekend winding to a boozy end. (Bassist Cyrus Comiskey, the only member who doesn’t live there and who also plays with Drunk Horse, was stuck at work.) We settled in to chat about the band and expand on the latest update posted on their Web site, www.killforsaviours.com: “We’re writing new songs and partying.”
The members all have pre-Saviours history: Barber and Batiste played in screamo outfit Yaphet Kotto, while Batiste and Morris have known each other since junior high.
“Me and Scott had the idea to start the band a couple of years ago. We got together, started jamming, and we were on tour a month later,” said Barber, who at 24 is the youngest Saviour and the only one who isn’t from Santa Cruz. (He hails from Fort Smith, Ark.) “We just wanted to start a killer heavy band. Now we’re trying to chill out and write a new record — and not play very many shows until spring.”
Their music may visit dark places, but the guys share an easygoing chemistry that extends to their songwriting technique.
“Pretty much everything starts with something that Scott writes, and then everybody adds to it until we decide it’s done,” Morris said. “A lot of times he’ll do stuff musically that I would never do, so of course it makes me think about something new and forces me to figure out a way to work myself into it. Everybody does that — Austin does that with his parts, and Cyrus does that with all his bass parts, and Scott does that with the drums too. It’s very collaborative.”
Batiste added, “This band’s pretty amicable. Like, at the end of 42 days of tour, we were all hanging out and drinking and not sick of each other.”
The Saviours have also found support in the Bay Area metal scene, where peers include High on Fire and Green’s band, the Fucking Champs. Of course, they’re also fans of the genre gods: Slayer, Black Sabbath, and Metallica. The anti-Christian imagery that appears in their lyrics and album artwork is owed to Barber, who grew up surrounded by conservative types. In other words, he’s not a Satan worshipper.
Christianity, he explained, “has always been such a bummer in my life. I just always identified with the dark — partying, do whatever the fuck you want, just living your life. And they’re trying to not live life. All that shit’s representative of doing your own thing, and fuck everybody else.”
Doing their own thing is important for the Saviours, who said they’ll never hook into Ozzfest-style bullshit. They’ve just settled into a new practice space and have plans for a live album (possibly to be recorded at their upcoming Hemlock Tavern show) as well as their next studio full-length, which will be “an extension of the first album,” Barber said.
“It’s gonna sound different, though, ’cause we only have two guitar players now and we used to have three,” Morris noted. (Fifth member Mag Delana, a Yaphet Kotto vet, left the band after Crucifire was recorded.) “I think the songs are getting more intricate.”
“They’ll also stay kinda raw, though,” Batiste added. “Consciously, we try to stay simple.”
Though they joke that they only do “extreme tours,” owing to past jaunts that saw them navigating icy highways in the Midwest and sweltering in East Coast summer heat, the Saviours are eager to hit the road next year. This year they traveled across America playing songs from Crucifire and their 2005 EP, Warship (Level Plane), recorded soon after the band formed, and they’ve picked up fans everywhere.
In New Orleans, Barber recalled, “We were partying all night after the show. I’m out front eating some food, and I hear our band blasting out of some car. And it’s the sheriff — literally the sheriff of New Orleans. He’s all, ‘Fuckin’ Saviours! Aaaah!’ Just screaming at me. He was blasting our CD from the cop car. It was fucking awesome.”<\!s>SFBG
SAVIOURS
With California Love
Dec. 29, 9:30 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$6
www.hemlocktavern.com

Purple tamed?

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Ho, ho, hum. I may have to take it up with a certain chunky fellah in the red clown suit, because just between you and me, I can’t take the pressure. I’m sure you understand — the stress to plonk down the bones for the most lavish holiday booty. To have the raddest New Year’s Eve. To return or regift those less-than-apt presents in the weeks to follow. To end the year with a big bang, sinking your teeth deeply into the ass of life and emerging with stories to tell and most limbs intact.
Right up there with all of the above is the pressure to have fun in Las Vegas. I mean, you have to be a complete loser to not enjoy yourself, not eke out some happening in Vegas that had to stay in Vegas, right? After all, America’s sin city is busy recasting itself as the country’s entertainment capital, building casinos and ripping up the strip late into the night — surely they have some poison that tempts a princely palette?
Alas, Vegas can be such a tease. Exhibit one: Prince, supposedly deep into an indefinite residency at his new club, 3121 (the branding of this year’s album continues), at the Rio hotel but instead taking every weekend off till New Year’s from his Friday and Saturday gig. Caveat: don’t jingle-jangle into town expecting to see his purple highness shake it dutifully, night in and out, à la Frankie, Elvis, Wayne Newton, Barry Manilow, all the big cheeses. Admittedly, even at $125–<\d>$312 a pop, it would have been worth it — to see the larger-than-life mercurial Minneapolis mini at his relatively intimate 900-seat venue, which is said to be under the Purple 1’s sole artistic control, while the adjoining 3121 Jazz Cuisine is overseen by his personal chef. It’s the latest sign of the times: the 48-year-old was following his inclusion in an obligatory animated feature, Happy Feet, and his now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t Net presence (this year he shut down his longtime site shortly after fielding a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for being the first major artist to release an entire album online exclusively) with a distinct signifier of a rapidly settling-down showbiz icon: a stint in Vegas. Isn’t this American entertainment’s Valhalla, where major stars come to die? “Now if he gets fat like Elvis …,” opined alexnevermind319 on fan site www.prince.org. I pictured the man socking back in a beige McMansion, crusting elegantly in a La-Z-Boy, heavily partaking of TiVo, inhaling fistfuls of Corn Nuts, and wondering if he’s in danger of becoming a corn nut himself, burned out on the bright lights that mask the sun-baked void after only a mere month.
I was clearly conflicted, so I sought solace in a kicky, clean-fun but self-aggrandizing Pussycat Dolls revue at Cesar’s Pure nightclub (drinking game: take a swig every time the half-nekkid hotties urge “Sing along, ladies”) and a geriatrically inclined ’n’ reclined show by Neil Diamond impersonator Jay White, a genuine sing-alike (Diamond himself is quoted in White’s ad: “Jay, keep singing so I can stay home and relax”) who too often shatters the illusion (“Everyone got their Christmas shopping done?” the would-be solitary man queried amid his re-creation of Diamond’s July 4, 1976, Vegas show).
But what am I complaining about? History, musical or otherwise, is often reworked here, toward new, profitable, and vanity-fluffing ends. I dug the Liberace Museum — including its cranky caretakers, who forbade us from cruising through its two buildings in a mere half hour — but you don’t have to look far beyond Liberace’s chinchilla-trimmed capes and mirror-tiled roadster to glimpse the sadness beneath the flash: my partner in Vegas grime read the fine print in the trophy room and noted that many are for simply giving talks and such. Did even the highest-paid entertainer in Vegas history (Liberace took home $50,000 a week in 1955 for turning it out regularly at the Riviera) and the man who enlightened Elvis himself about the power of glitter really need to pad his brag board?
Perhaps size does matter — Las Vegas is as much about industrial-scale entertainment as it is about taking your money in a wholesale sorta way. Judging from the recent low-key array of musical offerings — Toni Braxton was Prince’s only real rival last week — the Purple Pachyderm looms large here, the one truly musically innovative performer currently ensconced in Vegas. But can we say any Vegas-level dues are getting paid at all when Prince keeps the length of his engagement foggily indefinite, the time he goes onstage set vaguely after 10 p.m. — can’t he take the heat, sweat, and slog like a regularly gigging musician? It made you respect those crack, hard-working players behind small fries like White even more. In announcing Prince’s Vegas lounge act, a rep claimed Prince “wants to bring raw, live music back to Las Vegas.” So bring it already.<\!s>SFBG
PRINCE
Fri. and Sat. (after Dec. 28, but don’t count on it), 10 p.m.
3121 at the Rio
3700 W. Flamingo, Las Vegas, Nev.
www.ticketmaster.com

Holiday Listings

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HOLIDAY
Holiday listings are compiled by Todd Lavoie. Listings for Wed/20-Tues/26 are below; check back each week for updated events. See Picks for information on how to submit items to the listings.

ATTRACTIONS
“Reindeer Romp” San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo Road, Sloat at 47th Ave; 753-7080, www.sfzoo.org. Daily, 10am-5pm. Through Jan 1, 2007. Free with paid zoo admission ($4.50-11). Here’s a chance to show the little tykes what reindeer actually look like. Take a trip to Reindeer Romp Village and admire the beautiful creatures.
“San Francisco SPCA Holiday Windows Express” Macy’s, Stockton at O’Farrell; 522-3500, www.sfspca.org. During store hours. Through Dec 26. Free. The SF Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals presents an adorable display of cats and dogs; all featured pets are available for adoption.
BAY AREA
Knight Ridder’s Downtown Ice Circle of Palms, S Market across from Plaza de Cesar Chavez, San Jose; (408) 279-1775, ext 45, www.sjdowntown.com. Dec 20-24, 26-30, noon-midnight. Mon/25, 2pm-midnight. Dec 31-Jan 1: noon-10pm. $12-14. A glide around this outdoor rink is a perfect way to ring in the holidays; price includes skate rentals.
BENEFITS
“Donna Sachet’s Songs of the Season” York Hotel, Empire Plush Room, 940 Sutter, SF; www.donnasachet.com. Wed/20, 8pm. $60. Deliciously entertaining MC Donna Sachet celebrates her 14th year of “Songs of the Season,” a variety show benefiting the AIDS Emergency Fund. Performers include Sharon McNight, T.J. and Sheba!, and Connie Champagne.
CELEBRATIONS
“A Chaos Christmas Carol with Chicken John and Friends” 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission; 970-9777. Sun/24, 9pm. $7. Proclaimed by the mighty entertainer Chicken John as “either the greatest show anyone has ever seen or the worst show on earth,” this holiday game show in which everyone wins is a sure thing when it comes to hilarity. Make sure to bring a gift to insure that everyone goes home with a prize!
“Dark Sparkle Christmas” Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market; 861-5016. Sat/23, 10pm-2am. $7. If too much holiday cheer is bringing you down, you might as well revel in it, right? DJs Miz Margo and Sage spin only the finest in dark and gloomy sounds with a goth-, new wave-, and punk-themed holiday party.
“Golden Age of Hollywood’s Central Ave Holiday Show” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa; www.oldtimey.net. Sat/23, 8:30pm-1:15am. $15. Dames and gents are encouraged to slip on their finest vintage threads and dance the night away to the sweet sounds of jazz, blues, and swing. Wax nostalgic with live music by Stompy Jones and Cari Lee and the Saddle-ites, as well as performances by the Chippenbelles and the Jitterdales. MoniKaBOOM and BeBop Becca heat things up with their Miss Sultry Claus act, and DJ Jumpin’ Jeff provides the proper martini-sipping tunes. Arrive early for Hep Jen’s helpful dance lessons.
“Latkes and Vodka Chanukah Party” Medjool, 2522 Mission; 512-6279. Thurs/21, 7pm. RSVP requested. $15. Mmmm, latkes. Sponsored by the SF Jewish Community Federation LGBT Alliance and Congregation Sha-ar Zahav, this evening of festive food and drink promises to fill the room with happy tummies and holiday cheer. Be sure to arrive early: the first 100 guests receive a free goodie bag!
“Unsilent Night” Starts at Mission Dolores Park, 18th St and Dolores; (707) 869-2778. Sat/23, 7pm. Free. New York composer Phil Kline’s free, all-volunteer outdoor boom box holiday concert and public art event returns for its fourth year of enchanting San Franciscans with glorious ambient music. Participants are invited to bring a stereo to the starting point, where Kline will hand out cassettes and CDs to be played as part of a huge, mobile sound system that will parade along a mile-long route through the Mission, Noe Valley, and Castro neighborhoods.
BAY AREA
“Russian Christmas Dance Party” Avalon Nightclub, 777 Lawrence Expwy, Santa Clara; www.novoeradio.com. Sat/23, 8:30pm-2am. $20-25. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Christmas, the words “psychedelic trance” spring to mind. NovoeRadio.com, the biggest Russian radio station in the United States, hosts a party to remember, with DJs Playdoughboy and Stranger and special guests Slon from Germany and Owonlapi from Switzerland.
“Solstice Celebration” Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo, Berk; (510) 525-5054. Sat/23, 6:30pm drum circle and potluck, 8pm concert. Free. Ashkenaz celebrates the solstice and honors founder David Nadel with an evening of food and music. The first portion of the program is a potluck dinner and drum jam; the second is a full itinerary of live performances, including the Afro-Caribbean flavors of the Sidewinders and the rollicking Balkan rhythms of Edessa.
“Telegraph Ave Holiday Street Fair” Telegraph between Bancroft and Dwight, Berk. Sat/23-Sun/24, 11am-6pm. Free. The Telegraph Business District transforms into a street party with an impressive array of live music, fine food, and unique handicrafts from area artisans.
“Winter Solstice Service and Celebration” Corte Madera Recreation Center, 498 Tamalpais Drive, Corte Madera; (415) 924-1494. Fri/22, 7-8:30pm. Free. The Golden Gate Center for Spiritual Living sponsors a family-friendly evening of celebrating new beginnings and spiritual fellowship. In addition to songs and prayers to warm the heart, there will be hot and hearty soup to warm the belly on a cold, cold night.
MUSIC
“A Cathedral Christmas” Grace Cathedral, 1100 California; 1-866-468-3399. Fri/22, 7pm; Sat/23, 3 and 7pm. $15-50. The Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, with orchestra, sings a program of holiday favorites.
“Celtic Christmas” Old First Church, 1751 Sacramento; www.oldfirstconcerts.org. Fri/22, 8pm. $12-15. Boasting a lively sound featuring fiddle, Celtic harp, tin whistle, and bouzouki, three-piece Golden Bough perform traditional and original holiday songs from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
“A Chanticleer Christmas” St Ignatius Church, 650 Parker; 392-4400. Sat/23, 8pm. $25-44. Grammy Award winners Chanticleer, a 12-man a cappella choir, sing a program of sacred and traditional holiday music. Along with holiday carols, the group performs medieval and Renaissance sacred works and African American spirituals.
“Christmas Winds” St John of God Church, 1290 Fifth Ave; 488-7632. Sat/23, 7:30pm. $15-20. Carol Negro directs the Baroque Arts Ensemble in a holiday show featuring Gregorian chants, medieval carols, madrigals, spirituals, and many other forms of celebratory music.
“Contra Costa Chorale Concert” Wells Fargo History Museum, 420 Montgomery; 396-2619. Wed/20, noon-1pm. Free. Treat yourself to an inspiring lunch break with a program of traditional and unusual Christmas carols performed by one of the oldest community choruses in the East Bay, the Contra Costa Chorale.
“Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bellringers Concert” Wells Fargo History Museum, 420 Montgomery; 396-2619. Thurs/21, noon-1pm. Free. Nothing beats breaking up your workday with an hour of festive song; the Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bellringers lift spirits with a show of seasonal favorites.
“Golden Gate Men’s Chorus Winter Concert” St Matthew’s Lutheran Church, 3281 16th St; www.ggmc.org. Wed/20, 8pm. $20. Musical Director Joseph Jennings guides the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus through a repertoire of holiday favorites and audience sing-alongs.
“Home for the Holidays” Castro Theatre, 429 Castro; 865-2787. Sun/24, 5, 7, and 9pm. $17-22. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus celebrates its 16th annual holiday show, with a segment of the program dedicated to heartwarming tunes from the movies. The chorus will be joined by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, directed by Stephanie Lynne Smith, for the 9pm show.
“Oakland Interfaith Gospel Ensemble” Slim’s, 333 11th St; www.slims-sf.com. Sun/24, 7 and 9:30pm. $15. Raise your spirits with a family-oriented holiday show bringing messages of peace, love, and joy. The soaring harmonies of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Ensemble will provide inspiration lasting well into the New Year.
“12 Bands of Christmas” 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission; 970-9777. Fri/22-Sat/23, 9pm. $8 one-night ticket, $12 two-night ticket. All caroled out? For a more amped-up Christmas concert, 12 Galaxies offers an eclectic roster including Ryan Auffenberg, Joel Streeter, and the Bittersweets.
BAY AREA
“Amahl and the Night Visitors” Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond; www.masquers.org. Dec 23, 28-30, 8pm. $10 suggested donation. Members of the Masquers Playhouse and the Joyful Noise Choir of the First United Methodist Church of Point Richmond deliver a heartwarming rendition of the Gian Carlo Menotti winter favorite.
“Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Extravaganza” Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; (650) FOX-4119.Thurs/21, 7:30pm; Fri/22, 8pm. $60-85. Swing-lovin’ rockabilly king Brian Setzer returns with his 18-piece big band for an evening of toe-tapping, poodle-skirt-twirling holiday fun.
“A Chanticleer Christmas” First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berk; 1-800-407-1400. Thurs/21, 8pm. $25-44. Grammy Award winners Chanticleer, a 12-man a cappella choir, sing a program of sacred and traditional holiday music. Along with holiday carols, the group performs medieval and Renaissance sacred works and African American spirituals.
“Expect a Miracle Holiday Benefit Concert” Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo, Berk; (510) 525-5054. Thurs/21, 9pm. $10-20, sliding scale. Reggae performances by Ras Kidus, Undah P, Hurricane, and Mcguyva heat things up this holiday season in an evening of spiritually uplifting music. Proceeds benefit the Urban Community Action Network and Roots Connection Reggae University Project.
“From the Darkness, Solace” Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 228-3207. Thurs/21, 7pm. $10-20. In honor of the darkest day of the year, more than 35 solo artists perform original music in this winter solstice celebration.
“In Harmony’s Way” Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 1111 Addison, Berk; (510) 548-1761. Fri/22, 8pm. $18.50. Renowned Irish singer Shay Black MCs a program of traditional carols, sea chanteys, folk ballads, and much more. Performers include Riggy Rackin, Pam Swan, and members of a cappella ensemble Oak, Ash, and Thorn.
NUTCRACKERS AND CRACKED NUTS
“Ronn Guidi’s Nutcracker Ballet” Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; (510) 625-8497. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 11am. $15-50. Watch the Sugar Plum Fairy and her handsome Cavalier dance along with the rest of the charming characters of the Kingdom of Delights. Members of the Oakland East Bay Symphony provide the whimsical musical accompaniment.
THEATER, COMEDY, AND PERFORMANCE
“Beach Blanket Babylon’s Seasonal Extravaganza” Club Fugazi, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St); 421-4222. Wed/20-Thurs/21, 8pm (also Wed/20, 5pm); Fri/22-Sat/23, 7 and 10pm; Sun/24, 2 and 5pm. Through Dec 31. $25-77. Sure, the label gets used a lot, but Steve Silver’s musical comedy is really and truly an extravaganza, with topical humor, dancing Christmas trees, outrageous costumes, and the biggest Christmas hat you’ve ever seen in your life.
“Black X Mass” Elbo Room, 647 Valencia; 552-7788, www.elbo.com. Mon/25, 9pm. $6.66 (of course). High Priestess Karla LaVey of the First Satanic Church hosts a variety show focusing on the darker side of things. Performers include Mongoloid, Graves Brothers Deluxe, Sergio Iglesias, Meathole Bitches, Wealthy Whore Entertainment, Theremin Wizard Barney, Tallulah Bankheist, and Ginger the Stripper. See pick box.
“Bud E. Luv Xmas Show” Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk; 921-1695. Mon/25, 8pm. $12. San Francisco’s smoothest operator, lounge lizard extraordinaire Bud E. Luv, throws a Christmas bash you aren’t likely to forget for a long, long time. Brace yourself: his disco and ’80s medleys contain artery-clogging amounts of cheese.
“A Child’s Christmas in Wales” Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon; www.exploratorium.edu. Sun/24, noon. Free with regular admission. The museum hosts a screening of the 1963 classic written and narrated by Dylan Thomas. Also showing will be the animated film The Sweater, a tale of boyhood in rural Quebec in the 1940s.
“Christmas Ballet” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, theater bldg, 700 Howard; 978-2787. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm (also Thurs/21, Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, Tues/26, Dec 28, 2pm; Dec 27, 7pm. $45-55. The Smuin Ballet offers a mix of ballet, tap, swing, and many other dance styles in a holiday performance set to music by everyone from Placido Domingo to Eartha Kitt.
“A Christmas Carol” American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. Wed/20-Sat/23, 7pm (also Wed/20, Fri/22-Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, noon. $13.50-81.50. The American Conservatory Theater presents Carey Perloff and Paul Walsh’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens holiday story, featuring sets by Tony Award-winning designer John Arnone, original songs by Karl Lundeberg, costumes by Beaver Bauer, and choreography by Val Caniparoli.
“The Da Vinci Files” Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St; 206-0577. Thurs/21, 6pm. Free. Mystery-exploring Spanish-language network Infinito hosts a celebration dedicated to the San Francisco Latino community with a free screening of its new documentary, The Da Vinci Files, which covers the myths and mysteries surrounding the master painter. Infinito will be giving away prizes at this screening.
“Holiday Animation Film Festival” Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon; www.exploratorium.edu. Dec 26-30, noon, 1 and 2pm. Free with regular admission. The Exploratorium’s McBean Theater screens a series of quirky animated shorts and minidocumentaries certain to stimulate the mind as well as tickle the funny bone.
“It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life” Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason; 820-1400. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 3pm. $20-25. Fred Raker’s laugh-filled retelling of the Christmas classic delivers a distinctly Jewish spin on the Frank Capra story.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush; 345-1287. Thurs/21, 8pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 2pm. $10-30. Joe Landry’s adaptation of Frank Capra’s classic holiday film, directed by Kenneth Vandenberg, is performed in the style of live radio broadcasts from the ’40s.
“Kung Pao Kosher Comedy” New Asia Restaurant, 772 Pacific; www.koshercomedy.com. Fri/22-Sun/24, 6pm dinner show, 9:30pm cocktail show; Mon/25, 5pm dinner show, 8:30pm cocktail show. $40 cocktail show, $60 seven-course dinner show. Celebrating Christmas with Jewish comedy in a Chinese restaurant, Kung Pao Kosher Comedy throws its 14th annual bash with hilarity from Cathy Ladman, Stephanie Blum, and Dan Ahdoot. Kung Pao mastermind Lisa Geduldig hosts the show.
“Oy Vey in a Manger” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness; 392-4400. Sat/23, 8pm. $25-35. “America’s favorite dragapella beautyshop quartet” the Kinsey Sicks leave no taboo untouched with their over-the-top drag, fierce comedy, and truly twisted renditions of holiday classics, including the perennial fave “God Bless Ye Femmy Lesbians.”
“A Queer Carol” New Conservatory Theatre, Decker Theatre, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctsf.org. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Dec 31, 2 pm. Through Dec 31. $22-40. The New Conservatory Theatre Center presents Joe Godfrey’s comedy A Queer Carol, a retelling of Charles Dickens’s classic tale with gay themes and characters.
“Santaland Diaries” Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission; 1-866-811-4111, www.theatermania.com. Dec 22-23, 27-31, 8 (also Fri-Sat, 10pm; Dec 31, 10:30pm); Sun/24-Mon/25, 7pm (also Sun/24, 3pm). Through Dec 31. $20-30. Steinbeck Presents and Combined Art Form Entertainment bring shrieks of glee with their adaptation of David Sedaris’s hilarious play featuring the comic genius of actors John Michael Beck and David Sinaiko.
“Trimming the Holidays: The Second Annual Shorts Project” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 503-0437, www.lveproductions.com. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $17-20. La Vache Enragee Productions presents a holiday-themed evening of short plays and silent films accompanied by music composed by Christine McClintock.
“A Very Brechty Christmas” Custom Stage at Off-Market, 965 Mission; 1-800-838-3006. Thurs/21-Sat/23, 8pm. $15-35. The Custom Made Theatre Co., under the direction of Lewis Campbell and Brian Katz, brings two short socially conscious plays to the stage for a bit of holiday season perspective: Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception and the Rule and Daniel Gerould’s Candaules, Commissioner.
BAY AREA
“Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XIV” Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; www.juliamorgan.org. Tues/26, 8pm. $15-17. Political satirist Will Durst is joined by a cast of barbed-tongued comics in an evening of comedy addressing the major news stories of the year.
“A Christmas Carol” Sonoma County Repertory Theater, 104 North Main, Sebastopol; (707) 823-0177. Thurs/21-Sat/23, 8pm. $15-20; Thurs, pay what you can. Artistic director Scott Phillips leads the Sonoma Country Repertory in an inventive rendition of the Charles Dickens tale.
“A Christmas Carol: A Solo Performance” Marin Art and Garden Center, Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross; (415) 226-1316. Thurs/21-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 1pm); Sun/24, 1pm. $10-25. Talk about juggling many balls at once! Ron Severdia portrays more than 40 different characters in his ambitious solo-show adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.
“Christmas Dreamland” Heritage Theatre, One W Campbell, Campbell; 1-888-455-7469. Wed/20-Thurs/21, 2 and 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 1pm. $48-73. Artistic director Tim Bair leads the American Musical Theatre of San Jose in the world premiere of its multimedia holiday showcase.
“A Christmas Memory” Berkeley South Branch Library, 1901 Russell, Berk; (510) 981-6107. Wed/20, 4:30pm. Free. Actor Thomas Lynch performs a 40-minute abridged reading of Truman Capote’s holiday favorite, A Christmas Memory. Refreshments will be served after the performance.
“Circus Finelli’s Holiday Extravaganza” Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; www.juliamorgan.org. Wed/20-Sun/24, 1 and 3pm (also Thurs/21, 9pm). $8-15. The Clown Conservatory of the SF Circus Center brings holiday cheer with a comedy stage show filled with acrobatics, juggling, dance, live music, and yes, clown high jinks.
“Freight Holiday Revue and Fundraiser” Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 1111 Addison, Berk; (510) 548-1761. Thurs/21, 8pm. $17.50. The nonprofit community arts organization Freight and Salvage hosts an evening of music, food, and Charles Dickens readings. Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum perform blazing bluegrass numbers, Cascada de Flores explore Mexican and Cuban musical traditions, and famed Dickens actor Martin Harris reads passages from the timeless classic A Christmas Carol.
“Keep the Yuletide Gay” Dragon Theater, 535 Alma, Palo Alto; (415) 439-2456, www.theatrereq.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 30. $10-25. Theatre Q presents this world premiere of its irreverent comedy about a Christmas Eve dinner party that devolves into chaos when one of the guests hires a mystic to try to make their gay friend straight for the hostess.
“A Little Cole in Your Stocking” Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 30. $25. Bay Area husband-and-wife cabaret duo Meg Mackay and Billy Philadelphia weave Cole Porter tunes and swinging holiday ditties into a mischievous, irreverent show.
TREE LIGHTINGS AND FAMILY EVENTS
“Bill Graham Menorah” Union Square; 753-0910. Sixth candle lighting: Wed/20, 5pm. Seventh: Thurs/21, 5pm. Final: Fri/22, 3pm. Observe the Festival of Lights by visiting the impressively large public menorah in Union Square.
“Boudin at the Wharf’s Old-Fashioned North Pole” Boudin at the Wharf, 160 Jefferson; 928-1849. Sat/23, 10am-5pm. Carolers, refreshments, and special visits from Santa mean family fun as Pier 43 1/2 is transformed into a wintry wonderland.
“Children’s Tea” Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel, One Nob Hill; 616-6916. Sat-Sun, noon-3pm. Through Dec 30. $39. The legendary Top of the Mark sky lounge hosts a holiday-themed afternoon tea for families. In addition to some fine views of the city, guests will be treated to a magic show.
“Young and Young at Heart Open House” Wells Fargo Museum, 420 Montgomery; 396-2619. Wed/20, 11am-2pm. Free. This family event will feature stagecoach rides, trivia treasure hunts, and many other activities with a holiday theme.
BAY AREA
“Gingerbread House Party” Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge, Berk; www.habitot.org. Wed/20, 9:30am-1pm. Free. Take your little ones, along with a bag of candy, to the museum for a chance to decorate a giant gingerbread house. Once completed, the mouthwatering creation will be donated to a local family shelter for the children to enjoy.
ARTS AND CRAFTS
Creativity Explored’s Holiday Art Sale 3245 16th St; 863-2108, www.creativityexplored.org. Regular hours: Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm; Sat, 1-6pm. Through Dec 28. Free. The nonprofit visual arts center offers works created by artists with developmental, psychiatric, and physical disabilities.
“Great Dickens Christmas Fair” Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva; 1-800-510-1558. Sat/23, 11am-7pm. $8-20. For a slower-paced shopping experience, this winter wonderland offers a range of theater and entertainment, costumed Victorian-era characters, sumptuous feasts, and gift ideas aplenty.
“Peace, Love, Joy, ART” ARTworkSF, main gallery, 49 Geary; 673-3080. Gallery hours: Tues-Sat, noon-5:30pm. Through Dec 30. Browse locally made handiworks for holiday gift ideas.
“Public Glass Artist Showcase” Crocker Galleria, 50 Post; 671-4916. Wed/20-Fri/22, 10am-7pm. Free. More than 15 local glass artists will exhibit their work, offering many one-of-a-kind gifts. Public Glass is the city’s only nonprofit center for glassworking, and this will be its sole downtown event of the year.
BAY AREA
“Berkeley Potters Guild Gallery Show and Holiday Sale” 731 Jones, Berk; (510) 524-7031. Wed/20-Sun/24, 10am-5pm. Free. Browse through the wares of the oldest and largest clay collaborative group on the West Coast.
“EclectiXmas Art Show and Sale” Eclectix Store and Gallery, 7523 Fairmount, El Cerrito; (510) 364-7261. Wed/20, noon-6pm; Thurs/21, 11am-7pm; Fri/22, 10am-7pm; Sat/23, 10am-6pm; Sun/24, 10am-2pm. Free. Nothing says “I love you” like a sculpture or painting or photograph. Browse the gallery’s group show for imaginative gifts.
“Pro Arts Holiday Sale” 550 Second St, Oakl; (510) 763-4361. Wed/20-Thurs/21, noon-6pm. Free. This nonprofit organization supporting Bay Area artists offers jewelry, glassware, ceramics, and other potential gifts.<\!s>SFBG

Breakthroughs

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com
CHEAP EATS My new favorite superheroes are my old pal Mod the Pod and her social-working podner, the Kat Attack. Together they comb the streets and psyches of the Bay Area, looking for people to help, and in many cases that turns out to be me!
If I had a nickel for every time one or the other or both of them together have untied me from figurative railroad tracks or snatched me up in midair as I was falling into snaky pits or the abyss or … well, in this case, I was bummed about having been Just-Friended, yet again, the night before. Not a lot of sleep, and morning found the chicken farmer kind of crying into her coat collar down at Java Supreme.
My coffee was this close to being cold, literally, when out of nowhere our superheroes swooped down in their superminivan, and Earl Butter helped load me into the back. Wasting no time, Mod the Pod gave me a squirt of our favorite perfume, and the Kat Attack told a great joke in which a bear walks into a bar and says, “Gimme a shot and a … beer,” and the bartender goes, “Why the big pause?”
After about a beat, I laughed real hard and rolled on the floor, mostly because there aren’t any seats in the back of this van.
Earl Butter, still choking over my squirt of perfume, was groping around like a mime in a box, trying to open real windows that didn’t really open. (Note: this seemingly innocuous detail is what we writers call “foreshadowing,” so don’t forget to remember it later, OK?)
Well, Jelly’s was “closed for the season,” whatever that means. As if San Francisco has seasons. So we had to go to the Ramp. And we had to sit outside, even though it was practically raining and cold. All the inside tables were taken.
I was thinking: coffee. Hot coffee. But before I could say so, Mod the Pod ordered us four Bloody Marys, and I went with it, reasoning: she’s the social worker.
Sure enough, the sun came out! And food! Huevos rancheros ($10.95), a bacon avocado omelet ($9.75), bacon and eggs ($8.75 times two), and more Bloody Marys (way, way too much money to even think about) … and I told my sad story, and the Attack was her supersweet self, and Earl Butter made jokes and poked me, and the Pod, you know what Mod the Pod did, being a superhero?
She gave me some of her bacon.
To think, to think that earlier in the week I’d almost killed her! But that’s another story.
Did you hear? I shattered glass during my very first session of speech therapy! We were sitting at a long wooden table, Coach Freidenberg and me, and I was saying things into a microphone and she was monitoring my pitch on a computer screen, like the opposite of the limbo: how high can you go? My eyes were mostly closed, not in concentration, but because it was of course excruciating to hear my own voice being played back to me.
“Many men making much money in the month of May,” my voice said. “The murmuring of doves in the memorial elms.”
It was worse than excruciating. It was traumatic. It was psychologically damaging. Stanley Kubrick could prop toothpicks in my ears and make a movie out of it. I was this close to losing my will to live, and then I opened my eyes to see what time it was — because it seemed like an important moment to mark, the losing of one’s will to live.
But instead of seeing clocks I saw, down below on the sidewalk outside, loitering, looking for someone to save, guess who? Mod the Pod! Me, I thought. Save me.
To get her attention, I tried to open the window, which was one of those old out-opening ones with a crank. I wanted to say, “Lunch?” That’s all. And I turned the crank ever so slightly, but it broke. At 11:41 in the morning. The window, glass, shattering, crash, bang, boom, and time stood still for idiot chicken farmers and for pedestrians pushing perambulators filled with gurgling children, and for loitering superheroes.
Would she save the day? Could she? How? With bacon? This being the story of my life and my life being basically a comic book, time stands still for you too, dear reader, until next time, while foot-long shards of glass hang in thick air like enemy arrows.<\!s>SFBG

RAMP
Mon.–<\d>Fri., 11 a.m.–<\d>3 p.m.
Sat.–<\d>Sun., 8:30 a.m.–<\d>4 p.m.
855 China Basin, SF
(415) 621-2378
Full bar
AE/DISC/MC/V
Wheelchair accessible

The next big fight

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› steve@sfbg.com
San Francisco’s eastern neighborhoods — the Mission District, Potrero Hill, Showplace Square, Dogpatch, the Central Waterfront, and SoMa — are shaping up to be a prime battleground in the fight over who will determine the city’s future.
Can city officials, working with community groups, set development standards that will create adequate housing for all income groups, protect the job-generating businesses that use light-industrial property, and include enough open space and other community benefits? Or will the community have to, for the most part, simply accept what the market forces are willing to provide?
This is the basic dichotomy at the heart of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, which has been in development for years and will be unveiled by the Planning Department sometime in 2007. In anticipation of that release, members of the Board of Supervisors are attempting a preemptive strike in the form of a resolution demanding the plan prioritize affordable housing and other public needs.
The 11-page resolution — which was sponsored by Supervisors Sophie Maxwell, Jake McGoldrick, Aaron Peskin, and Tom Ammiano — restates policies from the city’s General Plan, particularly its Housing Element, and emphasizes the need for the Planning Department to ensure those policies are reflected in land-use decisions for the eastern neighborhoods.
The problem is that the city isn’t meeting its goals, particularly in the realm of affordable housing. The resolution notes that the Housing Element calls for 28 percent of new housing to be affordable to people with moderate incomes, 10 percent affordable to low-income residents, and 26 percent affordable to those with very low incomes.
Yet the city’s inclusionary housing law calls for developers to offer only 15 percent of their units below market rate, and a study associated with that law’s recent update indicates most developers won’t build if asked to contribute more (see “Homes for Whom,” 6/18/06, at www.sfbg.com). The vast majority of what’s now being built isn’t affordable to even middle-class San Franciscans — a far cry from the 64 percent of such housing called for in city policies.
“We do not have a housing crisis in San Francisco,” Maxwell declared during a Dec. 12 hearing on the resolution. “We have an affordable housing crisis.”
Most of the progressives who constitute the board majority agree with Maxwell’s statement, which has been made before by housing activist Calvin Welch and some of the community groups pushing the resolution. They all want the eastern neighborhoods, where a disproportionate number of low-income San Franciscans live, to be where the city begins to correct its housing imbalance.
“We need land specifically set aside for affordable housing, and the best place to do that is in the eastern neighborhoods,” Maxwell said at the meeting. “Let’s make this official city policy.”
Or as McGoldrick told the Guardian, “What we’re talking about here is a paradigm shift of major proportions.” He sees the eastern neighborhoods as the ideal place to create and protect working-class housing with aggressive affordability goals, and he said, “Those developers who can’t meet those goals will have to build in other parts of the city.”
But real estate speculators and developers who have spent years waiting to move forward their projects in the neighborhoods have attacked the resolution and its goals. The stakes are extremely high. The plan will set standards for the 4,800 housing units already proposed in the eastern neighborhoods, including 11 projects in the Showplace Square area that total 1,800 units, and more on the way.
“Our projects are being held hostage,” Residential Builders Association president Sean Keighran told us, saying of his members, “They were speculators, but they were playing by the rules.”
Keighran insists RBA builders will help bridge the affordable housing gap if the city works in partnership with them and uses incentives like density bonuses and height variances rather than strict limits and set-asides. But the resolution, he said, “will be interpreted as a tool to stop market-rate housing.”
That’s something even progressive Sup. Chris Daly doesn’t want. Daly emerged as the primary critic of the resolution during the Dec. 12 meeting, blasting it as unnecessary and offering a list of confusing amendments that set the stage for Sup. Bevan Dufty to successfully continue consideration of the resolution to Jan. 9, 2007.
Welch and community leaders such as Tony Kelly of the Potrero Hill Boosters were unhappy with Daly’s maneuver. Kelly told us, “It’s the community groups of the eastern neighborhoods who pushed for this.” He felt it was important for the board to give planners specific marching orders. “It’s meant to say this is what we’ll accept.”
Daly said he supports the basic goals of the resolution — and even said at the meeting that he will ultimately vote for it — but he told the Guardian he would rather find creative ways to work with developers on increasing the amount of affordable housing than draw bright lines that might block market-rate housing.
“I’m not sure it’s the right resolution at the right time,” Daly told us.
During the meeting he also questioned city planner Ken Rich on what impact this nonbonding resolution would have and concluded that it’s merely symbolic, although Rich did say it might spur planners to investigate and present more mechanisms for meeting affordable housing goals.
Daly then suggested a complete revision of the Housing Element to overcome the “balancing act” Rich said planners must perform between competing imperatives, such as facilitating jobs, open space, and housing.
“The General Plan asks us for a lot of different things,” Rich told the board.
“If that’s a weakness in the General Plan, we need to work on that,” Daly said, making the motion that the resolution also require planners to develop a list of “contradictions in the General Plan that will require them to balance conflicting mandates.”
“That could be a thesis topic in itself,” Peskin responded.
Daly’s motion was discussed among the supervisors, clouding and sidetracking the discussion, but it was preempted by Dufty’s motion to delay the matter until the next board meeting. Maxwell said she’s not giving up on the measure, which she sees as necessary to focus planners who feel constrained by market forces.
“Affordable housing seems to be last on the list, and we want it to be a priority,” Maxwell said at the meeting.
It’s an open question whether she has enough votes to win approval and what kinds of pressures and distractions the RBA and its allies will bring to the debate. But the heated division over this simple resolution is a harbinger of what’s to come next year, when the real fight over San Francisco’s future socioeconomic makeup begins.
Or as Peskin said at the hearing, “This is just a preamble to our receipt of the plans themselves.” SFBG

Editor’s Notes

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San Francisco is spending $250,000 to create an economic development plan, and that’s probably a good thing. The city’s economy is changing; development pressure is threatening small businesses and light industry; local people can’t find jobs; and more and more residents are working out of town — it’s exactly the sort of situation that calls for some intelligent planning.
The current project, sponsored by the Mayor’s Office, is the result of a ballot measure approved two years ago that requires the city to measure the economic impact of policy decisions. For the most part, the legislation, by Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, is aimed at stopping progressive initiatives, but if it gets San Francisco headed in the right economic direction, that will be well worth a quarter million dollars.
If.
See, I’ve talked to the economist who is heading up the study and to the person in the Mayor’s Office who is coordinating it, and I’m afraid that they’re coming very close to missing the point.
The final study won’t be completed until the end of January, but the Board of Supervisors got a sneak preview a couple weeks ago, complete with a PowerPoint presentation and lots of the kind of talk that seems coherent only to academic economists. (Under “Conclusions,” the summary recommends that we “invest in and diversify the engines of innovation in the knowledge sector.” Whatever that means.)
The actual research in the preliminary documents seems fairly solid, and the evidence, while not surprising, is still alarming: San Francisco has lost thousands of families, jobs that don’t require a college degree are vanishing, and the income gap between the increasingly wealthy high end of the population and the increasingly squeezed middle and working classes is growing.
But missing from the study so far are what I consider the two most important factors in economic development in this city: housing and land use.
I work for a small business, and I have to hire people, and I can tell you that every small businessperson in this town (except the ones who have vast stores of venture capital to spend) is facing the same problem I am: it costs too much to live here. And if their businesses are operating in the eastern neighborhoods, they’re also facing the very real prospect that they may lose their leases and their places of business to make room for more million-dollar condos that their employees can’t afford, which will fill up with more people who work in Silicon Valley.
Last week I spoke with Ted Egan, the Berkeley economist who is heading up the project for ICF Consulting. He understands that locally owned businesses are the key to the local economy and that replacing imports and expanding exports is a crucial goal. But he also said that “housing outcome isn’t on our plate.”
That, I guess, is because the city defined the study that way. Jennifer Matz, who is deputy director at the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, told me that her office would be coordinating with city planners but that housing and land use were beyond the scope of this report.
If that’s the case, it won’t be a terribly useful document. SFBG

Pass Maxwell’s housing bill

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EDITORIAL Every city in California has to keep a general plan on its civic shelf, and every 10 years the plan — a detailed outline of future growth and development goals — has to be dusted off and updated. Most of the time, nobody pays much attention: when decisions on individual projects are made, conformance with the general plan means a lot less than the political connections of the developers.
But hidden in those documents are often some fascinating and potentially important bits of information — and that’s the case with the Housing Element of San Francisco’s plan.
According to that report, San Francisco has a critical need for more housing, which everyone knows and accepts. But the details matter, and in this case, the document says that all housing isn’t alike — and that, in fact, the city needs comparatively little of the sort of market-rate (read: million-dollar) condos that developers want to build. What the city’s official planning guideline actually says is that given San Francisco’s population, economy, and job mix, 64 percent of all new housing built in the city should be sold at below-market rates.
That’s right: the carefully researched conclusion of the professional city planners is that almost two-thirds of all new housing has to be affordable to working San Franciscans — which means only one-third of new housing should be luxury condos for high-end buyers.
That’s a pretty radical concept — but when you actually read the Housing Element, it makes perfect sense. Only a small fraction of the city’s current residents can afford the mortgage payments or rents required for most new market-rate units. And most of the jobs that will be created in this city in the next 10 years won’t pay enough to allow workers to afford those new condos. Instead, what San Francisco is becoming is a bedroom community for people who live elsewhere — and that’s not part of anyone’s planning goals.
So Sup. Sophie Maxwell has introduced a resolution that would make it official city policy that all new housing built in the eastern neighborhoods — ground zero for new development in the next decade — meet the goals of the San Francisco General Plan. That would mean that city planners could only approve new housing if 64 percent of the units were sold for prices that working San Franciscans can afford.
Her legislation isn’t perfect — for one thing, it’s just a policy resolution, which means that Mayor Gavin Newsom and the City Planning Commission can ignore it. But it’s a powerful statement about the extent of the city’s housing crisis, the utter failure of the mayor’s housing policy, and the complete inadequacy of virtually every new private housing development proposal now on the table.
As Steven T. Jones reports in this issue, the resolution has set off something of a furor, even on the left — and the fact that Maxwell was forced to continue it for a month is a signal that the Residential Builders Association (RBA) — which wants to turn the eastern neighborhoods into a jungle of luxury condos without strong affordable housing requirements — still has disturbing political influence.
Sup. Chris Daly, who expressed a lot of concerns about Maxwell’s resolution (and helped force the delay), argues that the measure actually calls for a total moratorium on new housing in the eastern neighborhoods, since it’s unlikely any private developer will build projects with 64 percent of the units at below-market prices.
That may be true. It’s also fine with us. San Francisco doesn’t need to build more housing that’s totally out of sync with what residents and small businesses need. And a moratorium would force Newsom, city planners, and developers to talk seriously about how to meet the affordable housing needs.
We are not convinced that building units that sell for, say, $300,000 is an impossible venture for the private sector, and we’re totally convinced that with a little vision, the city can expand dramatically its affordable housing stock. For starters, the city needs to protect its existing rental housing by making Ellis Act evictions prohibitively expensive and tightly controlling evictions and condo conversions (something Daly has called for).
Daly also says that what the city really needs is a better Planning Department and a more visionary commission and director. We agree. But the question on the table is simple: should the city, as a matter of policy, abide by the housing goals in its own General Plan? That’s a no-brainer.<\!s>SFBG

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