Local

Drills, baby, drills

David Talbot
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2
Drills, baby, drills

rebeccab@sfbg.com

The disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should be viewed as a wakeup call for the San Francisco Bay Area, Pacific Environment’s Jackie Dragon noted at a May 11 forum on oil spill preparedness and prevention.

The forum was planned even before the April 20 explosion of BP’s rig, triggering the onset of an out-of-control oil spill that has continued to wreak havoc in the Gulf for nearly a month. Up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day could be gushing from undersea pipeline, according to the highest estimates, which would dwarf the damage caused by the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Investigative reports in the New York Times in the wake of the spill revealed that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had issued deep water drilling permits in the Gulf without obtaining permits from a federal agency that assesses threats to endangered species — in violation of federal law — and that MMS routinely overruled staff biologists’ safety concerns. The reports suggest the failure of not only a mechanical device, but an entire regulatory system, in which oil company interests appeared to take precedent over public safety and environmental concerns.

Here in California, environmentalists breathed a sigh of relief when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew his support for Tranquillon Ridge, a controversial offshore oil drilling project planned off the coast of Santa Barbara. Yet the governor’s change of heart doesn’t safeguard California’s coastal territories from a spill. Millions of gallons of oil are transported in and out of the ports every year, and refinery infrastructure dots the coastline.

“It’s all about the initial timeframe,” noted Fred Felleman, an environmental consultant who spoke at the forum. Shaken by BP’s colossal blunder and wary of the string of failures that led up to last year’s Dubai Star oil spill, environmental groups are now pushing for legislation they hope will slash response time by requiring ships to deploy protective boom before pumping fuel, so potential spills could be sopped up immediately.

The precaution would do little to remedy a major spill, however, and it’s just a small piece of a wider response puzzle that entails coordination among volunteers, community groups, and multilevel government agencies to accomplish everything from containing the slick, to cleaning beaches, to caring for impacted wildlife.

Although established protocols and a chain of command are in place for responding to oil spills, several speakers at the forum noted that vigilance tends to wane between these catastrophes. The environmental devastation in the Gulf could prove to be a catalyst for investing more energy and resources into safeguarding against the worst.

 

LESSONS LEARNED?

Fortunately, the Bay Area has been spared from the sort of devastating blow that is blackening Gulf of Mexico waters, crippling fisheries, and sending tar balls ashore. However, the bay has weathered two comparatively minor oil spills in the last three years, which could be viewed as learning experiences for a bigger incident.

The Cosco Busan spill occurred in late 2007, when a cargo ship hit the Bay Bridge under foggy conditions and released 58,020 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay. According to a detailed account of the incident response, the vessel collided with the Bay Bridge at 8:30 a.m., and the fuel leaked out in a matter of minutes. Two hours later, the estimated amount spilled was reported at 10 barrels (420 gallons), and hours passed before the actual quantity was revealed. The state official who determined how much had leaked arrived at Yerba Buena Island at 9:45 a.m. to perform an assessment but had to wait more than two hours to be transported to the ship.

Speaking at the forum, Zeke Grader, of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said fishing boat captains with vessels at Fisherman’s Wharf were ready to be deployed instantly to help contain the spill — but the Coast Guard initially turned them away. “This was a relatively minor spill in a bay, and we were totally unprepared to deal with it,” Grader charged. “That is really egregious.” Commercial fishing vessels were finally deployed to help with efforts, most venturing out on day five — long after the damage had been done.

San Francisco Baykeeper, a pollution watchdog group, was inundated with thousands of phone calls from volunteers, but the lack of an overarching volunteer coordination plan between governmental agencies and community organizations made it difficult to plug people in, executive director Deb Self noted. The Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) is the state agency under the Department of Fish and Game that works in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard and the financially responsible polluter to react when a spill occurs. Carol Singleton, an OSPR spokesperson, acknowledged that better communication during the Cosco Busan would have made the response more effective.

The spill affected the Bay Area’s biologically rich ecosystem. Just 421 of the roughly 1,000 oiled birds recovered by volunteers were successfully rehabilitated and released back into the wild, according to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, while nearly 7,000 are estimated to have died. Even a small drop of oil on the feathers of a bird can destroy the animal’s natural insulation, resulting in hypothermia.

Singleton said a well-established oil-spill response strategy is in place. “Every vessel and every facility has a contingency plan,” she noted. “We’re constantly practicing.” Since the Cosco Busan, a volunteer coordination plan has been crafted, she said. Ecologically sensitive areas are mapped out and prioritized, and a network of wildlife care facilities stand ready to take in oiled animals.

Following the Cosco Busan spill, members of the Legislature put forth a suite of proposals that came to be known as the “spill bills,” resulting in a few stronger protections such as spill-response equipment stationed and ready for deployment in high-risk areas, enhanced funding to care for oiled wildlife, and grants to local governments for oil-spill response tools. However, some ideas for stronger protection got killed by Schwarzenegger’s veto pen.

Former Sen. Carole Migden proposed a mandatory spill response time of two hours, but that was vetoed. Sen. Loni Hancock proposed beefing up the state’s Oil Spill Prevention Administrative Fund, which is derived from fees on barrels of oil transported into California ports, by upping the charge from 5 cents to 8 cents per barrel. That was also struck down, as was Sen. Mark Leno’s proposal to establish grants to develop better containment and cleanup technology.

As the disaster in the Gulf continues to unfold, Dragon of Pacific Environment said grassroots environmental organizations might renew pressure for stricter regulations on some of these fronts.

 

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Another piece of legislation, inspired by the Dubai Star oil spill, is expected to go before the Senate Environmental Quality Committee in early June. The Dubai Star mishap occurred last October when at least 400 gallons of bunker fuel was released into open water near Alameda.

Far smaller than the Cosco Busan incident, the Dubai Star spill still resulted in the deaths at least 100 shorebirds. It happened at Anchorage 9, two miles south of the Bay Bridge, during a fuel transfer — a routine fill-up that occurs roughly 800 times per year.

The official investigation report hasn’t been released, but U.S. Coast Guard Captain Paul Gugg noted that a faulty valve was to blame. Some 2,000 gallons of oil overflowed, but went unnoticed until someone aboard a tugboat pointed it out, according to Gugg’s account. Most of the oily mess was contained on board, but between 400 and 800 gallons spilled over the port side, instantly creating a toxic plume.

“This particular vessel is equipped with high-level alarms, and high high-level alarms, which did not activate,” Gugg noted.

Under state regulations, vessels are required to respond to spills by deploying 600 feet of boom within 30 minutes, and 600 more feet more within one hour. In the case of the Dubai Star, that didn’t happen, a report released by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership noted. Instead, the slick was allowed to spread.

Assembly Member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) introduced AB 234 to establish a requirement for vessels to deploy boom before beginning a fuel transfer, so that a spill could be contained without losing time. The state of Washington has a similar law, noted legislative aid Paige Brokaw, “and their current conditions are pretty similar to our current conditions.” Booming is only effective at slower currents, which makes things difficult since a fuel transfer can take more than eight hours, and currents may shift in that time.

Huffman’s office received a letter of opposition to the bill from OSPR. “Booming is a good method to contain a spill, but it’s not a foolproof method,” said Singleton, the OSPR spokesperson. “To use that one method, it just may or may not work in certain circumstances.” Nonetheless, proponents of the bill say that even partial oil containment in higher currents is better than having no precautionary measures at all.

While the lessons of the past can be instructive, forum participants noted that continuous coordination, communication, and vigilance is the surest path to being able to respond if another oil spill occurs in the Bay Area. Grader, meanwhile, said he knew the best solution of all. “The ultimate prevention,” he said, “is basically getting off our oil addiction.”

Film listings

David Talbot
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0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. The film intern is Peter Galvin. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

OPENING

The City of Your Final Destination In James Ivory’s latest literary adaptation, Omar (Omar Metwally), an Iranian American graduate student of Latin American literature, precipitously descends on a rural estate in Paraguay, hoping to petition the relatives of deceased writer Jules Gund for authorization to write his biography. Numbering among the somewhat complicated ménage are Gund’s widow, Caroline (Laura Linney), his mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), their child, Portia (Ambar Mallman), the author’s brother, Adam (Anthony Hopkins), and Adam’s lover, Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada), a household that the film depicts as caught in a sedative isolation obstructing any progress or flourishing or change. But where Gund’s violent suicide has failed to produce a cataclysmic shift, the somewhat hapless Omar manages to interrupt their idle routines and mobilize them, stirring up sentiment and ambition. The notion of redirected fate is telegraphed by the title, but what the film does best is show the calm before the storm (really more of a heavy downpour) — and showcase the fineness of Hopkins’s and Linney’s dramatic abilities. In the final act, we see the characters being moved about rather than moved, and the sound of screeching brakes applied as the film reaches its conclusion undoes much of the subtlety invested in their performances. (1:58) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

*Dirty Hands The 1990s-ish iconoclastic, workaholic breed of Asian hipster is obsessively worked by David Choe in Dirty Hands. Exhaustively documenting the Los Angeles-born artist for eight years as he matures before our eyes, director Harry Kim charts the growth spurts: from mischievous tot to shoplifter and graf artist to porn illustrator to street-art superstar to spiritual penitent after a stint in a Tokyo jail. The filmmaker doesn’t seem to know quite when to stop, but then neither does his subject: an obviously intelligent, playful talent who specializes in compulsively analyzing himself and pushing himself to the limits of the law, his work, and his own (r)evolution as a human being. So driven in his pursuit of edge-skating experiences that he comes off as less hipster than haunted, Choe and his Bukowskian tendencies, Vice aesthetics, and "deep" thoughts rivet long after the bodily fluids and sensory overload murals congeal. (1:33) Roxie. (Chun)

Kites This Bollywood action-romance is "presented by" Brett Ratner (apparently, he helped re-edit this English version). (1:30)

MacGruber Will Forte’s bemulleted, MacGyver-biting Saturday Night Live character gets his own movie. (1:39)

Paper Man Though certainly offbeat enough to fall into the quirky indie category, Paper Man reminds us that weird is not always good. There’s very little original about the main conceit: plagued by writer’s block, Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels) rents a house in Montauk where he befriends outcast Abby (Emma Stone), a teenage girl with a tragic past. The film’s unique addition is Richard’s imaginary friend Captain Excellent, played by Ryan Reynolds in full-on superhero attire. But Captain Excellent is so absurdly campy that he’s almost too much to take — which wouldn’t be such a problem if Paper Man weren’t asking us to take it seriously. The wacky superhero scenes are mostly out-of-place, and all the heavy drama moments fall flat. But even without the muddled tone, Paper Man is riddled with clichés. We’ve seen enough of the zany manchild learning valuable life lessons, and the troubled teen forming an unlikely bond. At this point, there’s nothing super about it. (1:50) Lumiere. (Peitzman)

Shrek Forever After 3D Mike Myers has sure gotten a lot of longevity out of his Scottish accent. (1:33) Four Star, Presidio.

ONGOING

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) SF Center. (Eddy)

*Babies Thomas Balmes’ camera records the first year in the lives of four infants in vastly different circumstances. They’re respectively born to hip young couple in Tokyo’s high-tech clutter; familiar moderately alterna-types (the father is director Frazer Bradshaw of last year’s excellent indie drama Everything Strange and New) in S.F.’s Mission District; a yurt-dwelling family isolated in the vast Mongolian tundra; and a Namibian village so maternally focused that adult menfolk seem to have been banished. Yes, on one level this is the cutest li’l documentary you ever saw. But if you were planning to avoid thinking that is all (or most) of what Babies would be like, you will miss out bigtime. Void of explanatory titles, voice-over narration, or subtitle translations, this is a purely observatory piece that reveals just how fascinating the business of being a baby is. There’s very little predictable pooping, wailing, or coddling. Instead, Balmes’ wonderful eye captures absorbing moments of sussing things out, decision-making, and skill learning. While the First World tykes firstborns both — are hauled off to (way) pre-school classes, the much less day planned Third Worlders have more complex, unmediated dealings with community. Those range from fending off devilish older siblings to Mongol Bayarjargal’s startlingly casual consorting with large furry livestock. (Imagine the horror of parents you know were their baby found surrounded by massive cows — a situation that here causes no concern whatsoever for adults, children, or bovines.) So accustomed to the camera that it doesn’t influence their behavior, the subjects here are viewed with an intimacy that continually surprises. Babies is getting a wider-than-usual release for a documentary, one cannily timed to coincide with Mother’s Day. But don’t be fooled: this movie is actually very cool. (1:19) Albany, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Back-Up Plan (1:40) SF Center.

*Casino Jack and the United States of Money Casino Jack is big-budget documentary filmmaking, glossy and prone to expensive music cues, but I suppose you get a license to be flashy when you’ve proven to be as good at it as Alex Gibney. The director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and Academy Award winner Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Gibney sets his sights on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff with an abundantly in-depth exploration of government greed and fraud. Investigating Abramoff’s indiscretions, from his introduction as chairman of the College Republicans, to his illegal selling of House votes for sweatshops in the Mariana Islands and over-billing of numerous Indian casinos, Gibney solidly serves Abramoff his just desserts. The director is equally interested in questioning the kind of government America has fostered that turns a blind eye to this sort of behavior. (2:02) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Galvin)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a "love child" before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Clash of the Titans The minds behind Clash of the Titans decided their movie should be 3D at the last possible moment before release. Consequently, the 3D is pretty janky. I don’t know what the rest of the film’s excuse is. Clash of the Titans retreads the 1981 cult classic with reasonable faithfulness, though Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects have been (of course) replaced with CG renderings of all the expected monsters, magic, gods, etc. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes — as other reviews have pointed out: Schindler’s List (1993) reunion! — glow and glower as Zeus and Hades, while Sam Worthington (2009’s Avatar) once again fills the role of bland hero, this time as a snooze-worthy Perseus. You might have fun in the moment with Clash of the Titans, but it’s hardly memorable, and certainly nowhere near epic. (1:58) SF Center. (Eddy)

Date Night By today’s comedy standards, Date Night is positively old-fashioned: a case of mistaken identity causes a struggling married couple (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) to be tangled in a ransom plot for a stolen flash drive that belongs to a local mob boss. Unfussy plots are par for the course for films belonging to the all-but-lost "madcap all-nighter" genre, and in this case the simplicity of the set-up becomes Date Night‘s greatest asset, allowing Carell and Fey free reign to joke and ad lib lines. Like it or loathe it, the pair’s trademark senses of humor are the movie, and they arrange some pretty gleefully entertaining bits on the fly. Toss in a bunch of cameos from the likes of Ray Liotta and Mark Wahlberg and you’ve got yourself a bona fide movie-film, but it’s difficult not to see what Date Night might have been with just a smidge more effort. (1:27) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Galvin)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, "the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art," as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his "art" is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

Furry Vengeance (1:32) SF Center.

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) Opera Plaza, Presidio. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Greatest Lofty title aside, there’s nothing particularly extraordinary about The Greatest. In many ways, it’s your standard grief porn, in that it focuses on a group of characters mourning a dead teenager for an hour and a half. On the other hand, the cast is tremendous — Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan are solid as the parents of the broken Brewer family, but the young actors give the most memorable performances. Fresh off her Oscar nomination for An Education (2009), Carey Mulligan continues to mingle precociousness and naiveté. The Greatest also showcases the very talented Johnny Simmons, whose past films — Hotel for Dogs (2009) and Jennifer’s Body (2009) — haven’t exactly earned him exposure. For its genre, then, The Greatest is actually quite good. It has plenty of charm mixed with moments of genuine emotion, often marked by much welcome restraint. But even with a slight twist on the convention (Mulligan’s Rose is pregnant with the dead kid’s baby), it’s still just a well-made tearjerker. (1:36) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Harry Brown Shades of Dirty Harry (1971) for the tea cozy and tweed set: elegantly rendered and very nicely played, Harry Brown might be the dark, late-in-the-day elder brother to 1971’s Get Carter, in the hands of eponymous lead Michael Caine. He’s a pensioner mourning the passing of his beloved wife, his mysterious life as a Marine stationed in Northern Ireland firmly behind him. Then his chess-playing pal Leonard (David Bradley) is terrorized and killed by the unsavory gang of heroin dealing hoodlums who lurk near their projects in a tunnel walkway like gun-toting, foul-mouthed, sociopathic trolls. Harry Brown is, er, forced to forsake a vow of peace and go commando on the culprits’ asses, triggering some moments of ultraviolence that are unsettling in their whole-hearted embrace of vigilante justice. Like predecessors similarly fixated on vengeance in their respective urban hells, a la Hardcore (1979) and Taxi Driver (1976) (Harry Brown echoes key moments in the latter, in particular — see, for instance, its keenly tense, eerily humorous gun shopping scene), Harry Brown is essentially an arch-conservative film, if good looking and even likable with Caine meting out the punishment. The overall denouement just might make some seniors feel very, very good about the coiled potential for hurt embedded in their aging frames. (1:42) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

How to Train Your Dragon (1:38) 1000 Van Ness.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) Director Tom Six had a vision, a glorious dream of surgically connecting three human beings via their gastro-intestinal systems, or as Kevin Smith would say — "ass to mouth." When two girlfriends on a road trip across Europe get a flat tire, they stumble upon the home of a mad doctor (Dieter Laser) with a similar dream, who drugs them and ties them up in his basement laboratory. The Human Centipede is an entry into the torture porn arena, but it feels especially icky because you just know that the girls have zero chance of escaping the "100 percent medically accurate!" surgery. Once hooked up, there’s nowhere for the film to go and two out of three actors can’t talk because they are sewn to someone else’s anus. Still, as one-note as The Human Centipede is, I think we’d do well to encourage more films to be as batshit insane as this one. (1:30) Bridge. (Galvin)

*Iron Man 2 Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns, just as rich and self-involved as before, though his ego his inflated to unimaginable heights due to his superheroic fame. Pretty much, he’s put the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing on the back burner, exasperating everyone from Girl Friday Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow); to BFF military man Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing the first installment’s Terrence Howard); to certain mysterious Marvels played by Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson; to a doofus-y rival defense contractor (Sam Rockwell); to a sanctimonius Senator (Garry Shandling). Frankly, the fact that a vengeful Russian scientist (Mickey Rourke) is plotting Tony’s imminent death is a secondary threat here — for much of the film, Tony’s biggest enemy is himself. Fortunately, this is conveyed with enjoyable action (props to director Jon Favreau, who also has a small role), a witty script (actor Justin Theroux — who knew? He also co-wrote 2008’s Tropic Thunder, by the way), and gusto-going performances by everyone, from Downey on down. Stay for the whole credits or miss out on the geek-gasm. (2:05) California, Castro, Empire, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Just Wright (1:51) 1000 Van Ness.

*Kick-Ass Based on a comic book series by Mark Millar, whose work was also the model for 2008’s Wanted, Kick Ass is a similarly over-the-top action flick that plays up its absurdity to even greater comedic effect. High school nerd Dave (Aaron Johnson) decides to become the world’s first real superhero. Donning a green wetsuit he bought on the internet and mustering some unlikely courage, he takes to the streets to avenge wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, Dave is immediately beaten almost to death because he’s just a kid who has no idea what he’s doing, but Kick-Ass‘ greatest achievement is knowing exactly how to subvert audience expectations. Scenes that marry the film’s innocent story with enormously exaggerated violence enhance the otherwise Superbad-lite high-school comedy unfolding around them, and a parallel plot-line involving Nicolas Cage instructing his 12-year-old daughter to commit grievous murders will probably end up being the most gratifying aspect of the film. Though too much set-up and spinning gears mars the middle act, it’s hard to fault the film for competently setting up one of the most crowd-pleasing endings in recent memory. (1:58) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Galvin)

Letters to Juliet If you can stomach the inevitable Barbara Cartland/Harlequin-romance-style clichés — and believe that Amanda Seyfried as a New Yorker fact-checker — then Letters to Juliet might be the ideal Tuscan-sunlit valentine for you. Seyfried’s Sophie is on a pre-honeymoon trip to Verona with her preoccupied chef-restaurateur intended, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who’s more interested in sampling cheese and purchasing vino than taking in the romantic attractions of Verona with his fiancée. Luckily she finds the perfect diversion for a wannabe scribe: a small clutch of diehard romantics enlisted by the city of Verona to answer the letters to Juliet posted by lovelorn ladies. They’re Juliet’s secretaries — never mind that Juliet never managed to maintain a successful or long-term relationship herself. When Sophie finds a lost, unanswered letter from the ’50s, she sets off sequence of unlikely events, as the letter’s English writer, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), returns to Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), in search of her missed-connection, Lorenzo. Alas, Lorenzo’s long gone, and the fact-checker decides to help the warm-hearted, hopeful Claire find her lost lover. Unfortunately Sophie’s chemistry with both her matches isn’t as powerful as Redgrave’s with real-life husband Franco Nero — after all he was Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s Camelot and the father of her son. Still, Redgrave’s power as an actress — and her relationship with Nero — adds a resonance that takes this otherwise by-the-numbers romance to another level. (1:46) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Little Traitor Lynn Roth’s film is set in 1947 Palestine, shortly before Israel became a state. Young Proffi Liebowitz (Ido Port) wasn’t yet born when his parents fled the Holocaust in Poland, but he’s politically tuned-in enough to form a mini-resistance group with his neighborhood pals, who plot against the occupying British forces (sample act of rebellion: "British Go Home" graffiti). Caught one night scampering home after the citywide curfew, Proffi meets Sergeant Dunlop (Alfred Molina), whose kindness makes the boy realize his black-and-white view of the enemy might have some room for color after all. Of course, Proffi’s friendship with the Brit, who teaches him to play snooker and pronounce complicated English words like "flatulence," is not received well by his community (see: film’s title). Despite its political undertones, this is a pretty standard coming-of-age tale (including the de rigueur "peeping on the sexy neighbor" subplot). Too bad the director decided to film so much of it in English — kid actor Port is far less cloying when he’s speaking his native Hebrew. (1:29) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*Mid-August Lunch Gianni Di Gregorio’s loose, engaging comedy is about an aging bachelor still living with his ancient mum in their Rome flat. When his landlord offers to forgive some debts in return for briefly taking in his own elderly ma, Gianni (played by the director himself) soon finds himself in cat-herding charge of no less than five old ladies who delight in one another’s company while running him ragged. Gomorrah (2008) screenwriter Di Gregorio used nonprofessionals to play those parts in this semi improvised miniature, which is as light and flavorful as a first course of prosciutto and mozzarella. It’s a solid addition to the canon of palate-pleasing culinary flicks such as Big Night (1996) and Babette’s Feast (1987), as opposed to the repulsive ones like Super Size Me (2004) or Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). (1:15) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

La Mission A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, fortysomething Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place. (1:57) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, SF Center. (Harvey)

Mother and Child Adoption advocates who railed against Orphan (2009) should turn their sights on Mother and Child, a ridiculous melodrama with a thoroughly vile message. I’d wager writer-director Rodrigo García didn’t set out to make an anti-adoption film: this is a movie about the relationship between mothers and daughters. But the undertones are impossible to miss. Annette Bening plays Karen, a miserable woman consumed by regret for putting her daughter up for adoption 37 years ago. That biological daughter is Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), who — despite having been adopted at birth — speaks dismissively of her "adoptive" parents as though they were never really hers. She’s cold and manipulative, sleeping with her boss and married neighbor because she can. Mother and Child offers no real explanation for why these women are so unpleasant, so we’re forced to conclude it’s the four decades-old adoption. Despite a stellar cast, which also includes Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and S. Epatha Merkerson, the film’s misguided politics are too distracting to ignore. (2:06) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

A Nightmare on Elm Street I’ll say this about the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street: it could have been worse. Yes, it’s pointless and unimaginative and producer Michael Bay should still be ashamed, but I didn’t hate every minute of it. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is not good. It’s not terrible, if only because it has a few decent scares — all of which are, of course, shamelessly lifted from the original. Mostly, however, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a waste of time, updating Freddy Krueger with an icky twist (which I won’t spoil here) and culling together more jump scares than should ever be shoved into one film. The cast is passable, with relative newbie Rooney Mara taking on Nancy — she’s fine but forgettable. Jackie Earle Haley does a solid job with Freddy, but he was doomed from the start, just by virtue of not being Robert Englund. This Freddy is more brutal, to be sure, but he’s also far less fun. One pun in the entire movie? He might as well be Jason Voorhees. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*October Country In taking on the subject of family in the documentary October Country, co-directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher face some imposing specters, and I’m not just talking about the varied stories of the Mosher family. If there’s any micro-genre within documentary that has become embattled over the past decade, it’s the family portrait, thanks to controversial or contentious works such as Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans and Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (both from 2003), son-of-Grey Gardens freakouts which incited claims of exploitation and sensationalism on their paths to a larger public profile. Palmieri’s and Mosher’s movie is a quieter work, yet it isn’t folksy in a complacent Sundance manner, either. The list of the maladies plaguing the Mosher clan — physical abuse, drug abuse, war trauma, custody battles, and abortion, to name a handful — would provoke an ambulance-chasing impulse in some filmmakers, blood ties be damned. But Palmieri (who edited and did cinematography) and Mosher (a former San Francisco resident whose photo essays on his family were shown at Artists’ Television Access) realize these are common American problems, and their treatment of them is at once deeper and more ephemeral. They use the passage of a year from one Halloween to the next to reveal the changes wrought — or evident — on a person’s face, and when they can, a person’s life. (1:20) Roxie. (Huston)

*OSS 117: Lost in Rio The Cold War heated up a public appetite for spy adventures well before James Bond became a pop phenomenon. In fact, Ian Fleming hadn’t yet created 007 in 1949, when Jean Bruce commenced writing novels about Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a.k.a. Agent OSS 117. This French superspy was ready-made to join the ranks of umpteen 007 wannabes, appearing in somewhere between six and 11 films (it’s unclear whether all involved de La Bath, or were just Bruce-based) through 1970, played by at least four actors. The series remained well-known enough to get a new life in 2006 when director Michel Hazanavicius and top French comedy star Jean Dujardin sought to spoof 1960s espionage flicks a la Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). That was a big hit, so now we’ve got a sequel. OSS 117: Lost in Rio isn’t as fresh or funny as the preceding Cairo, Nest of Spies. But it’s still a whole lot fresher and funnier than Austin Powers Nos. two (1999) and three (2002). Dujardin’s de La Bath is the very model of jet-set masculinity, twisting the night away at a ski chalet with umpteen soon-to-be-machine gunned "Oriental" lovelies in the opening sequence. Of course such pleasure pursuits take place strictly between car chases, shootouts, and karate fights. Agreeably silly, Lost in Rio doesn’t go for Hollywood-style slapstick and grossout yuks. Instead, its biggest laughs are usually droll throwaways, as when 117 explains a shocking sudden costume change with the unlikely declaration "I sew," or during an LSD-dosed hippie orgy proves quite willing to go with the flow — even when that involves another guy’s groovy finger breaching security up the pride of French intelligence’s derriere. (1:37) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Please Give Manhattan couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are the proprietors of an up-market vintage furniture store — they troll the apartments of the recently deceased, redistributing the contents at an astonishing markup — and they’ve purchased the entire apartment of their elderly next-door neighbor (Ann Guilbert). As they wait for her to expire so they can knock down a wall, they try not to loom in anticipation in front of her granddaughters, the softly melancholic Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and the brittle pragmatist Mary (Amanda Peet). Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has entered this territory before, examining the interpersonal pressures that a sizable income gap can exert in 2006’s Friends with Money. Here she turns to the pangs and blunderings of the liberal existence burdened with the discomforts of being comfortable and the desire to do some good in the world. The film capably explores the unexamined impulses of liberal guilt, though the conclusion it reaches is unsatisfying. Like Holofcener’s other work, Please Give is constructed from the episodic material of mundane, intimate encounters between characters whose complexity forces us to take them seriously, whether or not we like them. Here, though, it offers these private connections as the best one can hope for, a sort of domestic grace accrued by doing right, authentically, instinctively, by the people in your immediate orbit, leaving the larger world to muddle along on its axis as best it can. (1:30) Clay, SF Center, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Princess Kaiulani Well-meaning and controversial (the independent’s first title, Barbarian Princess, and the tragic events it depicts has distressed some native Hawaiians) in its own inoffensive way, Princess Kaiulani is unfortunately overshadowed by star Q’orianka Kilcher’s first film, 2005’s The New World, in which she portrayed Pocahontas. The Hawaii-raised Kilcher appears to be getting typecast as a tragic, romanticized native royal. Still, if you can get past director Marc Forby’s weak attempts to match New World director Terrence Malick’s searingly poetic montages and the clunky History Channel-by-the-numbers screenplay, you might give a little credit to the makers for bringing to the screen the tale of Hawaii’s last intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished princess — a young woman determined to fight an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and battle its annexation against the white land owners and descendents of missionaries who tried to block the voting rights of native Hawaiians. Kilcher possesses some of the noble charisma claimed by the real Kaiulani, but the obligatory romance superimposed on the narrative and the neglect of some of genuinely promising threads, such as Kaiulani’s friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson, make Princess Kaiulani feel as faux as those who pretended to Hawaii’s rule. (2:10) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Robin Hood Like it or not, we live in the age of the origin story. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood introduces us to the outlaw while he’s still in France, wending his way back to Albion in the service of King Richard III. The Lionheart soon takes an arrow in the neck in order to demonstrate the film’s historical bona fides, and yeoman archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) — surrounded by a nascent band of merry men — accidentally embroils himself in a conspiracy to wrest control of England. The complications of this intrigue hie Robin to Nottingham, where he is thrown together with Maid Marion (Cate Blanchett), a plucky rural aristocrat who likes getting her hands dirty almost as much as she likes a bit of smoldering Crowe seduction. A lot of hollow medieval verisimilitude ensues, along with a good bit of slow-mo swordplay, but the cumulative effect is tepid and rote. (2:20) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Richardson)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Albany, Embarcadero.

Touching Home Hometown boys (Logan and Noah Miller) make good in this based-on-a-true-story tale of identical twins who must divide their time at home between training for major league baseball and looking after their alcoholic father. The brothers, who also wrote and directed the film, aim for David Gordon Green by way of Marin, but fall short of mastering that director’s knack for natural dialogue. Ed Harris is, unsurprisingly, compelling as the alcoholic father, but the actors in the film who are not named Ed Harris tend to contribute to the script’s distracting histrionics. Touching Home has some amazing NorCal cinematography, and I could see how family audiences might enjoy its "feel bad, then feel good" style of melodrama. But while it’s awkward to say that someone’s real-life experiences come off as trite, there are moments here that feel as clichéd as a Lifetime movie. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

Vincere Given the talent involved, Vincere should be a better film that it is. Director Marco Bellocchio has a lengthy track record of successes, and star Giovanna Mezzogiorno is one of the biggest names in contemporary Italian cinema. The based-on-a-true-story plot is certainly worthy of being filmed: Mezzogiorno plays Ida Dalser, secret wife of Mussolini and mother of the dictator’s first-born son. When Ida begins to make trouble for Il Duce by publicly proclaiming their marriage, she is locked away in a mental hospital. But while Vincere‘s subject is compelling, the film as a whole falls flat. Moments of greatness are few and far between, and the rest of the movie gets by on mediocrity. It’s likely the fault lies with the script, which is too scattered and unfocused to maintain an audience’s focus. Why after almost two hours of watching Ida’s struggle are we suddenly left with her son’s descent into madness? How depressing that a film about a woman forgotten by history is, itself, mostly forgettable. (2:02) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

On the Cheap Listings

David Talbot
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0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THURSDAY 20

Open Show #13 Rayko, 428 3rd St., SF; (415) 495-3773. 7pm, free. Attend this interactive art salon and social mixer where five curated presenters will showcase a 20 image story or a 4-7 minute multimedia/video project. The audience is encouraged to engage presenters with questions and feedback.

FRIDAY 21

Bead and Design Show Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market, SF; (530) 274-2222. Fri.-Sun. 10am-6pm; $10, good for all three days. Visit more than 150 artists and artisan exhibitors displaying and selling precious stones, jewelry, vintage and contemporary beads, metalwork, cloisonné, ceramics, handmade clothing, and more. You can also check out workshops and demonstrations in techniques such as jewelry design, metal work, bead making, found object jewelry, and more.

Fourteen Hills San Francisco Motorcycle Club, 2194 Folsom, SF; http://14hills.net. 7pm, free. Get a taste of new work by emerging and established writers at this Spring 2010 release of Fourteen Hills, San Francisco State University’s international literary magazine featuring poetry, fiction, short plays, literary nonfiction, and art. The release party to feature readings, art, DJ music, food, and great raffle prizes.

BAY AREA

Skank Bloc Bologna Number Four Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Bancroft, Berk.; (510) 642-0808. 7:30pm, $5. Attend the release party for Anne Colvin’s Skank Bloc Bologna, a looseleaf collection of works from an international cast of artists, writers, and poets, featuring a duet of music and verse with artist William Wiley playing the didgeridoo and poet Michael Hannon reciting.

SATURDAY 22

Harvey Milk Day Various locations throughout the Castro, SF; visit www.milkday.org for more info. 8am-2am, various prices. Celebrate the Castro neighborhood and its vibrant culture and history on the first ever Harvey Milk Day, a day of recognition for civil rights activist Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. Events and activities to include a milk and cookies street fair, a free screening of “Milk” at the Castro theater, a Tour de Castro Tricycle race, a dedication of a new Civil Rights mural, and much more.

Open Gardens Angle of Repose, 1625 Plymoth, SF; Boyd’s Passage to India, 2619 Baker, SF; Live Oak Garden, 106 Collins, SF; Playful Pines Street Gardens, 2418 Pine, SF; Sea Cliff, 4 Sea Cliff, SF; Urban Labyrinth Garden, 1620 Plymouth, SF; 1-888-842-2442. 10am-4pm, $5 per garden. Take a stroll through some of San Francisco’s private gardens and help support the Garden Conservancy’s work to preserve exceptional American gardens.

BAY AREA

Slicing the Budgetary Pie Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk.; www.notmypriorities.org. 7pm; free, donations encouraged. Discuss the U.S.’s budget priorities and the militarism of our society with the group Not My Priorities while sharing some delicious pie. If you’d like to donate a pie, email office@bfuu.org.

SUNDAY 23

All You Can Dance Day Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, 5th floor, 26 7th St., SF; (415) 863-3040. 1pm, $5. Sample half hour dance classes geared towards adult dancers of all levels including hip hop, ballet, jazz, and more.

Capsule Design Festival Octavia between Fell and Grove, SF; http://uniondesignsf.com. 11am, free. Celebrate Bay Area fashion, accessory, and house wares designers at this all day outdoor street fair featuring 140 independent designers, music, food, and a special section of SF couture.

Sunday Streets Bayview 3rd St. and King to Terry Francois to Mariposa, 3rd St. from Mariposa to Carroll (Bayview Playground), SF; sundaystreetssf.com. 10am-5pm, free. Stroll, skate, cycle, people watch, or participate in activities and events spaced out along the car-free route at this Bayview Sunday Streets celebration coupled with the Bayview Festival. Meet up with the San Francisco Bike Coalition at Illinois and 3rd St. at 3pm for a tour of some of the newest bike lanes in town.

MONDAY 24

Make My Monday Fort Mason Center Firehouse, Laguna at Beach, SF; www.fortamson.org/mmm. 6:30pm, free. Support the local art community at this art-making party featuring music, cocktails, and freshly made art for sale for $5-$50. Watch at artist Rebecca Peters hand-colors linocuts and Robert Harris creates triptychs, while DJ Fingersnaps will set the mood.

Sheryl WuDunn Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon, SF; (510) 786-2500, ext. 226. 6:30pm, free. Hear Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist and co-author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Sheryl WuDunn, in conversation with Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, as they discuss how to empower women worldwide with financial resources.

BAY AREA

Chill with the Union Night Bay Area IWW Office, 2022 Blake, Berk.; bayarea.iww.org. 7pm, free. Find out more about the Industrial Workers of the World Union (IWW), network, and socialize at this event featuring a talk about green-worker alliances with Judy Bari, Darryl Cherneym and Earth First.

TUESDAY 25

Bishop Christopher Sanyajo LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market, SF; www.clgs.org. 6pm, free. Attend this public forum featuring Bishop Christopher Sanyojo, a Ugandan voice for equality, in conversation with Rev. Roland Stringfellow.

For Lit, Talks, and Benefits listings, visit the Pixel Vision blog at www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision.

Loving LaHood

David Talbot
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Loving LaHood

By Jobert Poblete


news@sbg.com

GREEN CITY U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wowed urban cycling advocates at the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C., in March when he climbed atop a table to praise them for their work promoting livable, bike-friendly communities. LaHood followed up that connection with a blog post in which he announced a "sea change" in federal policy, declaring: "This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized."

The groundbreaking post was accompanied by a DOT policy statement urging local governments and transportation agencies to treat walking and bicycling as equal to other modes of transportation. The statement concluded that "increased commitment to and investment in bicycle facilities and walking networks can help meet goals for cleaner, healthier air; less congested roadways; and more livable, safe, cost-efficient communities."

Since then, LaHood has come under fire for his pro-bike statements. The National Association of Manufacturers’ blog said that the policy would result in "economic catastrophe." At a House hearing, a representative implied that the secretary was on drugs.

But bike advocates, who were initially wary of having this key post occupied by one of the few Republicans in the Obama administration, have rallied to LaHood’s defense. In San Francisco, bike and livability advocates are optimistic that LaHood’s statements will be backed up with meaningful action.

"LaHood is not just talking the talk," San Francisco Bicycle Coalition program director Andy Thornley told the Guardian. "He seems to be actively moving federal transportation policy toward a broader, more sustainable program."

As DOT secretary, LaHood has enormous influence on how federal money is spent and on the Obama administration’s transportation policies. Thornley is hopeful the new policy direction will free more money for bikeways and other alternatives to the automobile. The federal government doles out billions of dollars for transportation, and beyond some direct funding of bike and transit projects, removing conditions that have forced recipients of federal transportation dollars to spend it on roads and highways could have a big impact on bike and pedestrian-friendly regions like the Bay Area.

"We’re already doing a good job regionally of prioritizing how we spend our money," Thornley said. "But on the federal end, the money comes out already conditioned and has to be spent on highways."

Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, echoed Thornley’s enthusiasm for the DOT’s new policy direction. "If livable, walkable communities become a priority of the federal government, that could be really revolutionary," he said.

But Radulovich acknowledged that much of this depends on the outcome of a new surface transportation bill being drafted in Congress. The bill would allocate hundreds of billions in federal transportation dollars, and bike and transit advocates are already mobilizing to make sure it’s written in a way that promotes livability and sustainability. Transportation for America, a national coalition that includes a number of Bay Area groups, is lobbying Congress and the Obama administration to create a "21st century transportation system" that supports walking, biking, and sustainable development.

To succeed, advocates will have to overcome a number of other challenges. Thornley pointed out that outside of urban centers like the Bay Area and Seattle, bikes aren’t taken seriously as a form of transportation. He also warned that the industries that benefit from automobiles will be pushing back and telling the public that more bikes and transit will cost their industries jobs.

But Thornley is hopeful that other industries are getting the message that sustainable development is good for business. He said people are returning to cities and developers are taking note. "Developers are casting positive votes by investing in the city, building up residential options, and recognizing that the market wants these choices."

If new bike-friendly and pro-livability policies are to gain traction, Thornley said, "it will be about showing folks that spending money on transit, biking, and walking is just as productive for jobs and building communities. In the long run, it’s a much better investment."

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19

Solutions for Survival

Empower young people, support vivacious media, and support work on climate justice at this launch/fundraiser for this global youth media program that aims to uncover local, equitable solutions for climate change. Featuring guest speakers, food and wine, DJs, a silent art auction, and more.

7:30 p.m., free

Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

www.projectsurvivalmedia.org

THURSDAY, MAY 20

"Stand-In" for Safety


Protest the proposed "sit/lie" ordinance, which would make it illegal to sit or lie on SF sidewalks. The law would target sex workers, homeless people, youths, and immigrants, pushing them further underground and into more isolated, dangerous situations and areas.

Noon, free

Corner of Polk and Sutter, SF

www.allwomencount.net

FRIDAY, MAY 21

Rally for Peace


Say no to the war in Afghanistan, where deaths of U.S. troop Afghan civilians continue to rise. Demand that we bring our troops home now.

2 p.m., free

Corner of Acton and University, Berk.

(510) 841-4143

Berkeleygraypanthers.mysite.com

SATURDAY, MAY 22

Live in Peace March


Join KIPP Bayview Academy (KBA) students and community members for this peace march through the Bayview neighborhood to promote peaceful resolutions to social issues culminating in a scholarship ceremony. The Live in Peace March offers students and community members the opportunity to take a public stance against issues plaguing southeastern SF and attempts to ignite social change from within neighborhoods.

Noon, free

KIPP Bayview Academy

1060 Key, SF

www.kippbayarea.org

Walk to End Poverty


Help raise awareness about poverty at this walk around Lake Merritt followed by a multicultural family party featuring jazz, dance, kids activities, a community awards ceremony, and more.

10 a.m. walk, 11 a.m. party; free

Lake Merritt Bandstand

666 Bellevue, Oakl.

(510) 238-2362

SUNDAY, MAY 23

Beach cleanup


Celebrate World Turtle Day by removing plastic litter and garbage from Ocean Beach to help endangered leatherback sea turtles. The waters off San Francisco are popular with leatherbacks looking to feed on jellyfish, but ingesting plastic bags and other human garbage is known to kill leatherbacks worldwide.

10 a.m., free

Meet at north Ocean Beach

1000 Great Highway, SF

www.seaturtles.org

Rally against the pope


Join San Francisco and East Bay atheists in a call for a transparent investigation into the policies of the Catholic Church, which have perpetuated the sexual abuse of children all over the world. Demand the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

9:30 a.m., free

St. Mary’s of the Assumption Catholic Church

111 Gough, SF

www.atheists.meetup.com

Save the Whales


Show your opposition to the International Whaling Commission’s proposal to remove the ban on commercial whaling at this rally featuring SF Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and others.

Noon, free

Steps of San Francisco City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

www.greenpeace.org 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

East Bay endorsements

David Talbot
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0
East Bay endorsements

EDITORIAL There’s not a lot to bring voters out to the polls in Berkeley and Oakland, but two important races deserve attention. Proposition C, a bond act to replace the city’s aging public pools, has widespread support, but needs two-thirds of the vote to pass. And in a race for an open judicial seat, Victoria Kolakowski has the opportunity to become the first transgender person to serve on a trial court in the United States.

OUR ENDORSEMENTS


YES ON PROPOSITION C


Berkeley has four public pools, three outdoors and the indoor Berkeley High School Warm Pool. All four are badly in need of repair, but the Warm Pool faces imminent closure. That would primarily affect the disabled and senior communities, who use the pool for exercise, recreation, and therapy. It’s not a wealthy group overall, and having a place to go year-round to swim (or in some cases, just do physical therapy in the water) is a big deal.

The remaining pools are used by kids, adults, local swim clubs, and Berkeley residents who can’t or don’t want to spend the money on private gyms. Prop. C would provide the money to build a new Warm Pool and fix the cracks and do seismic upgrades and needed repairs on the other facilities. It’s the kind of measure that’s hard to oppose (it would cost the typical homeowner less than $100 a year in increased taxes) and every member of the City Council has endorsed it.

But with no major local issues on the ballot, progressives may not turn out in large numbers, which means the more conservative voters (who tend to dominate low-turnout elections) could account for enough votes to deny Prop. C a two-thirds majority. So Berkeley residents need to get out and vote — yes on C.

KOLAKOWSKI FOR JUDGE


Three people are contending for Seat No. 9 on the Alameda County Superior Court. It’s a rare open seat, and all three candidates have strong legal records and appear to be qualified for the job. But Kolakowski is our pick, in part because she’d make history — but more so because of her long history of public service and her progressive values.

John Creighton, a career prosecutor, has 25 years experience in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. He has the support of a lot of local law enforcement groups and a long list of judges. Louis Goodman, a defense lawyer, also served as a deputy D.A. before going into private practice. All the judges who haven’t endorsed Creighton are backing Goodman. We have nothing against either candidate — except that the bench is already full of former prosecutors.

Kolakowski is a different type of candidate. She’s spent much of her career as an administrative law judge, and for two years she helped the state try to recover some of the money that private utilities and energy traders stole during the 2000-01 energy crisis. She also has been deeply involved in community activities, serving as chair of Berkeley’s Human Welfare Commission, working with the city’s Police Review Commission on LGBT sensitivity training for police officers, and sitting on Oakland’s Budget Advisory Committee. She’s been on the Board of San Francisco’s Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center and is currently co-chair of the Transgender Law Center Board.

She’s an advocate for openness in the courts and wants to push for more transparency in how the Administrative Office of the Courts spends its budget. She also wants to make the courts more accessible to people who can’t afford lawyers.

Her election would be more than an historic statement — it might help change the way courts deal with transgender people (who often wind up in court, either for what ought to be simple things like identification changes or for the more serious problems facing a marginalized community with high unemployment). She has the support of Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, Oakland City Council Member Rebecca Kaplan, and many other progressive leaders. Vote for Kolakowski.

ENDORSEMENTS

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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ENDORSEMENTS

Our endorsements  for the upcoming election were originally published on April 27. We’re republishing them here for the benefit of absentee voters. Our clip-out guide to take to the polls will appear in our June 2 issue and online.

On the eve of the June 8 election, we’ll be publishing our handy clip-out guide for you to take to the polls. Before then, however, take a minute to read about our decisions — and why they’re important for the future of the country, the state, and San Francisco.

ENDORSEMENTS:

>>NATIONAL AND STATE RACES

>>STATE BALLOT MEASURES

>>SAN FRANCISCO BALLOT MEASURES

>>JUDICIAL RACES

 

Pictured above: 

OUR CHOICES FOR DCCC

We’ve already endorsed candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee (see “Our endorsements for DCCC,” 3/30). We’re listing them again here for easy reference — in the order they will appear on the ballot. (Since it’s unfair to present candidates in a crowded field in alphabetical order, the state every year does a random alphabetical drawing to set the order in these races.)

The election is crucial — DCCC controls the local Democratic Party endorsements, which can make a huge difference in district supervisorial contests.

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 13

Debra Walker

Aaron Peskin

Eric Quezada

Joe Julian

Alix Rosenthal

Michael Goldstein

David Campos

David Chiu

Rafael Mandelman

Kim-Shree Maufas

Carole Migden

Robert Haaland

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 12

Chris Gembinski

Connie O’Connor

Michael Bornstein

John Avalos

Hene Kelly

Melanie Nutter

Sandra Lee Fewer

Eric Mar

Milton Marks

Jane Morrison

Jake McGoldrick

Larry Yee

 

Supes to SF: Let’s opt out of ICE’s automatic fingerprint referral program

Mary Magee
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Supes to SF: Let’s opt out of ICE’s automatic fingerprint referral program

Just two weeks before a controversial collaboration between local police and ICE is set to get switched on in San Francisco, Sups. Eric Mar, John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly and Sophie Maxwell are introducing a  resolution that calls on the city to opt out of a program that could undermine public safety and threaten innocent community members with deportation.

Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who blew the whistle on this program, and Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson will join the supervisors May 18,  9 a.m. on the steps of City Hall. The resolution will be formally introduced at the Board’s afternoon meeting.

Sup. Mar’s legislative aide Lin-Shao Chin told the Guardian that it looks like an opt-out option is possible.
“It’s very vague, the way it’s written,” Chin said, referring to the contract that the Department of Homeland Security has drafted and that cities are required to sign onto, via a statement of intent.”So, while it doesn’t say you can opt out, it’s very vague, and from what we’ve heard, so far it’s all just been verbal communication between the law enforcement agencies.”

The fed’s proposed Secure Communities Initiative (SCI) has been criticized by civil rights experts.They say the program causes immigrants to be reported for deportation without due process and that it destroys trust between the police and immigrant communities.

The program seeks to check the immigration status of anyone whose fingerprints are taken by law enforcement personnel by cross-checking fingerprints through a federal database. They warn that  immigrants who are simply charged with very  minor charges – such as selling ice cream bars without a permit– or those who are overcharged on arrest–could end up torn from their families without due process and reported for deportation.
 
Advocates see similarities between the program and Arizona’s SB1070, since SCI gives discretion to individual police officers, who may mistakenly arrest or overcharge innocent immigrant residents, thereby triggering their deportation. 

“ICE’s own statistics, cited in news reports, indicate that some 88 percent of the 33,000 immigrants deported to date under the program had committed non-violent offenses or no offense at all,” community advocates note.

“Five percent of people tagged are actually documented, and only 10 percent are actually felons,” Chin claimed, warning that there is also, “the  potential for a whole bunch of databases, including those containing information on legal citizens, to be hooked together in ways that pose civil liberty concerns.”

Earlier this month, Washington, DC’s City Council unanimously introduced legislation that would prohibit local police from sharing arrest and booking information with ICE. But the Board’s resolution will be the first in the nation to urge an opt-out.

“The feds didn’t present opting-out as an option, they made it sound compulsory, but immigrant groups who met with ICE were verbally told the could opt out,” Chin claimed.
“Immigrant advocates in Contra Costa and Alameda counties didn’t even know their cities had opted into the program, until folks were referred to ICE. The good news is that we are touching this before we have been hooked into the program.”

Chin said it seems the SFPD CHief George Gascon’s office is “under the impression that the program is mandatory, but that’s not the impression we get from ICE.”
Chin also noted that the SCI is an “unfunded mandate,” since there could be costs to cities and municipalities who have to hold folks in jail longer than usual, while they wait for the feds to come and pick them up.

“From what we have heard, these [SCI] contracts are negotiated at the state level,” Chin added, suggesting that the ball on this issue in California lies within Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown’s court.
 

What happens when Lennar doesn’t have a say

Mary Magee
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What happens when Lennar doesn’t have a say

Today the Planning Commission holds a hearing about Lennar’s massive development plan for Candlestick and Hunters Point Shipyard, a plan the Guardian has been critically tracking for years, but the Mayor’s Office and a non-profit called the Center for Creative Land Recycling have been busily promoting (check out the above video clip). But one thing they won’t be talking about is the Alternatives For Study that Arc Ecology proposed, Bionic developed and Urban Strategies reviewed two years ago, in an effort to improve the developer’s otherwise Foster City-like vision for the heart of District 10 in the city’s southeast sector.

And that’s ironic, because the AFS proposal just received an honor award.(Scroll to bottom of AFS proposal link to see award.)

Saul Bloom, Arc Ecology’s excutive director, explains why Bionic got the award, and who was involved in the AFS proposal.
“Bionic is our landscape architectural and planning consultant,” Bloom said. “We do the conceptual planning and they do the detail, design and associated planning work. So in AFS, I worked with Bionic to develop the land use plans and analysis. I conceptualized where they would put various features of the plan, they either agreed, offered alternatives, or argued why I didn’t know what I was talking about. It was then my decision as to what went forward to the draft document.Once the draft document was produced Eve Bach [recently deceased], Ruth Gravanis, Arthur Feinstein, Junious and Anne from Urban Strategies and a number of other folks reviewed the materials and edited text. Bionic then finalized the design, I gave final approval and the document was published.  As such it really was a team planning effort.However because Bionic is the landscape architecture firm – they get the fame.  Because of Arc’s karma we get the infamy.”

So, is it fair to say that none of the AFS proposal are in the plan that will be the subject of today’s hearing, which promises to focus on the below-market rate housing plan, the community benefits plan, workforce development and local hiring policies?

 “Not entirely,” Bloom quipped. “They have been integrated into the study in order to reject them.”

Director Travis Mathews makes gay porn intimate, cuddly, relatable

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Travis Mathews is quickly making a name for himself in the San Francisco film scene. A short film culled from his In Their Room series earned him top honors at the Good Vibrations’ Independent Erotic Film Festival last year. Now he’s working on I Want Your Love, a full-length scripted feature. Although Mathews has only completed one demo scene, the project is already generating online buzz. I spoke to Mathews about his inspiration for I Want Your Love and how the short scene fits into the bigger picture.


San Francisco Bay Guardian: The last time I interviewed you, we were talking about In Their Room. What brings you back to erotic film?
Travis Mathews: I have always liked to see people be really candid, honest, raw, intimate, vulnerable. And I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can show that and reveal that in movies, and one of the ways you can do it is through sex. But strangely, I think that’s what’s missing in a lot of porn, is that all of those things that I just mentioned are missing from porn. Instead, it’s just the very carnal “money shot” where it seems often divorced from feeling, from interpersonal relationships, and then all those other things I mentioned, like intimacy, vulnerability, honesty. I consume porn like most people do, and I myself feel disconnected from it, and I don’t really feel engaged with it and I don’t expect much from it. And I hear a lot of other people complaining or echoing similar thoughts. It just seems crazy to me that there aren’t more depictions of real people—whatever real people means—but not chiseled, “I go to the gym four hours a day, six days a week” people, having sex in a believable scenario that doesn’t seem stagey or ridiculous.

Jesse in I Want Your Love

SFBG: The scenario you present in this scene from I Want Your Love is definitely relatable—two friends who haven’t had sex with each other but are thinking about giving it a try. It’s something that many gay men have experienced. What brought you to that scene?
TM: It’s a scene that’s been stretched for the demo for a feature that I wrote. So it’s one of among a lot of other things going on, a lot of scenes and a lot of other mini-dramas. It goes back to the original thing I told you: I want to write stuff and I want to show stuff that people can respond to that feels honest to them, even if they don’t totally relate to it. Like, maybe someone hasn’t had that same experience, but it is an experience that a lot of gay men have had. I think a lot of people can make that leap, that like, “I get that. I think that’s probably something that really happens.” I’m not interested in creating big dramas that overshadow the intimacy and the more nuanced stuff.
 

SFBG: One thing I really liked about the scene is how natural it felt. Was everything there scripted or was there improvisation as well?
TM: That was all scripted. The only thing that was improvised is when they’re having sex—there’s lines when they have sex that are scripted, but the only thing that’s improvised is, there’s a moment when they’re having sex when Jesse says, “Oh, this feels so good. Oh, I like it so much.” And then he checks in with Brenden, and says, “Are you OK? Do you want more?” And Brenden says, “Yeah.” Like, really soft, and I like that a lot. But everything else was scripted. So I gave them the script for the scene and they basically memorized it, and they knew about it, and we had talked about it. During our first rehearsal, it was more of a workshop. I told them from the beginning, “I’m not so married to this script that we can’t deviate from it. I want you guys to bring parts of your real self to it, and I also want you to give me feedback on whether this feels like something you or your character would say.” So we massaged it together as a team and it was definitely at that point a collaborative effort. It was very democratic at that point. Me, Jesse, and Brenden, and my DP/producer Keith sat together and went through the script and tried out lines that I had written to see how they worked.

Jesse from “In Their Room”

SFBG: It’s impressive to me that it’s scripted, because it does feel so real. You don’t really get the sense that they’re acting.
TM: That was at the top of my list of things that I really wanted to keep an eye on, is bad acting. I feel like there’s a lot of other things that you can massage or you can hide or you can choose not to include and insert something else. But if you’ve got bad acting, it’s really hard to recover from that, I think. Because as a viewer, when I see something that’s poorly acted, I lose interest and I just don’t believe it. And I feel disengaged from it, which goes back to the problem of so much porn that tries to be cinema or tries to be like a regular movie.

SFBG: So let’s talk about casting. I know you worked with Jesse on In Their Room, but how did you decide on these guys?
TM: The first time I met Jesse was when I basically knocked on his door and went to shoot him for In Their Room. And then, we had a mutual friend in common, and then we had other friends in common, and we became friends. And I also really liked the way Jesse looked on the camera. Not necessarily physically—although I think that he’s really a sexy, handsome guy—but how the camera would catch his eye, or I would be able to catch him doing something really small that seemed to say a lot more. He’s really good at just leaning into really quiet moments that we all engage with when we’re by ourselves. He’s a performance artist, so I think that’s part of it. I also think that there’s a comfort level that goes along with that. He does it in a way that’s so natural. He knew from the beginning—we talked very little about, with In Their Room, what my intention was, but he knew what I was getting very quickly. And with his own work, he deals with issues of masculinity and things like that, so it’s not like what I’m doing is divorced from the stuff he’s doing. So he got it right away, and that was really refreshing. So I knew I wanted to work with him again, and I was starting to write this feature toward the middle of last summer, and I definitely knew that I wanted him in it in some capacity. When we went forward to do the demo, I told him about the project, I told him I wanted him in it as this character, and he was enthusiastic about it and wanted to be involved.

So then it was a process of finding the person who was going to play opposite to him. We had a casting call on Butt Magazine’s blog, and I put the word out there among boys in San Francisco. We probably had less than a dozen serious contenders, and we auditioned a bunch of people. Brenden was actually the first person that we auditioned. I had seen Brenden out and told him I was interested in having him audition again, and he did. He and Jesse have really, really good chemistry together. They can be playful and sexy together, and that was key for me. A lot of these other guys would have been great, I’m sure, some of them, but it needed to feel like—because they were supposed to be old friends or best friends—it needed to feel like they were comfortable inhabiting each other’s space, and that it was a familiar thing for them to be doing that. So that’s what I was looking for. If it felt like these were two people who had just met each other yesterday, and now they’re pretending to be close friends, it wouldn’t have worked.

SFBG: So the movie extends past these two friends, then. Can you talk a little about what’s going on in the full feature?
TM: What’s potentially confusing, I think, to people is that, you don’t have any sense in just watching the demo, you don’t have any real sense of what this whole feature is about. Or I think people think they do. But the basic log line for it is, Jesse’s character has been living in San Francisco for a decade, and for reasons I’m going to leave a little bit vague, there’s money issues and he has to leave the city. He can’t afford to live here anymore, and he’s moving back to the Midwest to live with his dad. So it’s kind of an opposite Tales of the City story where he’s not coming bright-eyed and bushy-tailed into this Emerald City where everything’s new and he’s going to experience everything for the first time. It’s like he’s done it and the thing that he’s grappling with is how much he’s failed this experiment of moving to San Francisco, or how much the city’s failed him. And the movie takes place in the last 24 hours before he leaves San Francisco. There’s a party that happens the night before he leaves, so there’s all these opportunities for these friends that are interconnected and then with himself to have a lot of quiet moments and reflection and introspection and things about what it’s been like living here, and what it means to be leaving it. There’s also a lot of opportunities for playfulness and sexy times.

SFBG: There’s a thin line between “porn” and “erotic film,” if there is one. I wanted to ask you about your reaction to the term “porn,” and also some of the more recent variations, like “hipster porn” and “mumblecore,” which are kind of contentious.
TM: Honestly, I’m kind of entertained in hearing different people label it different things, and I’ve decided—before I even released this—to not get engaged with debates or arguments or getting in a place where I’m being defensive about what it is. I feel like, I’m going to hopefully get to make the movie that I want to make, and there’s going to be sex in it, and yes, it’s going to be produced by a porn company. If people want to stop there and just label it porn, they’re going to do that. I can’t control how people are going to respond to it, so I’ve kind of let go of that. Some of these terms, I think are funny. Like, “hipster porn,” I know that that has a—what did you say, “contentious”?

SBFG: Just because a lot of people immediately reject the term “hipster.”
TM: Sure. Yet at the same time, I think if you’re somebody who’s well-tuned with the word “hipster” and you heard “hipster porn,” I think your interest would be peaked and you would be like, “What is that? I want to see that.” Although, you know, you might have a knee-jerk reaction and be like, “Ugh, hipster porn.” So I don’t think it’s as simple as it being a pejorative thing. And “mumblecore,” I love Funny Ha Ha (2003). I think it’s amazing, and I actually think “mumblecore” is a funny term. I like it. I know the guys that are sort of spearheading that whole scene kind of hate that they’re reduced to that. I like the intention of mumblecore movies. I think that they’re often really poorly executed, but I think Humpday (2009) was a good movie. I think the dialog was fantastic and it seemed real. And I also think that about Funny Ha Ha. But I mean, you go further: sort of the grandfather of mumblecore movies is Cassavetes. He would shoot things in this cinema verite style and get people to bring their real selves to their performances.

SFBG: You said in another interview that you’d like I Want Your Love to feel very San Francisco, and I was hoping you could elaborate. Why is that important to you?
TM: I come from the country, Ohio—I’m a country boy from Ohio. I don’t mean that I’m a country bumpkin, but I still feel wide-eyed and really grateful for the fact that I live in San Francisco, and that I’m able to survive here. The city has its problems, but I love living here. For a long time now, I’ve wanted to do something that was, in some ways, a tribute to the city without being cheeseball or so obvious but more nuanced. But then, I also felt that there’s a particular brand—there’s a regional gay in San Francisco. I wanted to document the people that I know in San Francisco in a way that felt authentic to me. Not in a way to be like, “Look at us, we’re so cool!” But in a way to show these guys—and there will be women in the feature, too—in the most candid way that I can show. The more I do the In Their Room stuff, or after having done that, I realized how much the guys I shot for the most part and the spaces that they inhabit just ooze San Francisco, without me trying to do that. So that was part of the momentum as I was writing the feature. I was realizing that without really doing a lot of work or without really trying to do this explicitly, I was going to be able to showcase San Francisco in a very nuanced kind of way.

You can view the demo scene from I Want Your Love free of charge at Naked Sword. Perhaps needless to say, it’s NSFW. For more information about Travis Mathews, check out his Web site.

Consumer Watchdog launches air strike against Prop. 17

Sasha Cuttler
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For decades, respected consumer advocate Harvey Rosenfield has been battling Mercury Insurance and other corporations that have sought to undermine Proposition 103, the landmark car insurance regulatory measure that he wrote and California voters approved in 1988. But he’s never felt the need to advertise on television, until now.

Today in San Francisco, Rosenfield and the organization he founded, Consumer Watchdog, unveiled a 15-second commercial urging voters to reject Proposition 17, an effort by Mercury Insurance to overturn part of Prop. 103 to allow big surcharges on new drivers or those who have let their coverage lapse for even one day.

Mercury has spent more than $10 million and counting to blanket the media with its messaging, while Rosenfield has scraped together just $250,000 for a one-week Bay Area ad buy.

“We’ve never done this before, but given that Mercury Insurance is carpet bombing the airwaves with 30-second lies all over the state, we thought we’d do the equivalent of David’s slingshot,” Rosenfield told the Guardian.

Most newspapers, consumer groups, and other public interest entities have come out strongly against both Prop. 17 and Prop. 16, an effort by Pacific Gas & Electric to consolidate its monopoly and stop local governments from doing clean energy projects. But these two corporations are expected to spend about $35 million to fool Californians into voting against their interests and to increase corporate profits.

For more, read “Buying Power,” our recent investigation into these companies and their deceptive tactics.

Quick Lit: May 12-May 18

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: May 12-May 18

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Norris Chruch Mailer, Daniel Clowes, real live magic, authors on immigration, the urban farming movement, and more.

Wednesday, May 12

Cakewalk
Hear author Kate Moses disuss her new memoir about being a self-taught baker whose appetite for sugar helped her to survive a tumultuous sixties-era childhood and the friendships she forged with famous authors while working in the editorial department of the North Point Press in Berkeley.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Chronic
Hear D.A. Powell read from his new book of poetry.
6 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
www.universitypressbooks.com

“Urban Farming Movement”
Join leaders of the urban farming movement as they discuss their aspirations to shift our culture away from chain grocery stores in favor of local urban businesses. Featuring Jason Mark, manager of Alemany Farm and editor-in-chief of Earth Island Journal, Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, and Christopher Burley, founder of Hayes Valley Farm.
6:30 p.m., $20
Commonwealth Club
595 Market, 2nd floor, SF
www.commonwealthclub.org

Thursday, May 13

Daniel Clowes
Enjoy a visual presentation and conversation with Oscar-nominated screenwriter and award-winning cartoonist, Daniel Clowes, about his new graphic novel, Wilson.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Jamy Ian Swiss
Enjoy some live magic and conversation with slight-of-hand artist Jamy Ian Swiss, author of Shattering Illusions and The Art of Magic. In conversation with Adam Savage.
8 p.m., $20
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.cityboxoffice.com

Saturday, May 15

Unbound: A true tale of war, love, and survival
Hear author Dean King discuss his new book about 30 women who participated in China’s Long March in 1934.
2:30 p.m., free
San Francisco Public Library
Chinatown Branch
1135 Powell, SF
www.shanghaicelebration.com

West Coast Live
Attend this live radio broadcast with host Sedge Thomson and guests Norris Church Mailer, author of A Ticket to the Circus, Eric Puchner, author of Model Home, Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting Stone, and more.
10 a.m., $18
Freight and Salvage
2020 Addison, Berk.
www.wcl.org

Monday, May 17

Authors on Immigration
Hear Peter Schrag, author of Not Fit for Society, discuss the modern immigration controversy within the context of three centuries of debate and Tyche Hendricks, author of The Wind Doesn’t Need a Passport, talk about her experience in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the ordinary Americans and Mexicans who live there.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Counselor: Life at the Edge of History
Hear author Theodore Sorensen recount his experience as former Special Counsel and Advisor to President John F. Kennedy, including his significant input into JFK’s most important speeches.
6 p.m., $20
Commonwealth Club
595 Market, 2nd floor, SF
www.commonwealthclub.org

The Frugal Foodie Cookbook
Learn some tips on “Frugal Beauty” from author Lara Starr like how to make “sugar-free spa candy” and “wake up and smell the coffee scrub” as she discusses her new book, The Frugal Foodie Cokbook: Waste not recipes for the wise cook.
7:30 p.m., free
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck, Berk.
www.pegasusbookstore.com

Norris Church Mailer
Hear Norris Church Mailer discuss her new memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, that depicts the evolution of her marriage to Norman Mailer, as well as her early years in Little Rock Arkansas, where she was a young beauty queen who dated Bill Clinton.
8 p.m., $18-$20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF
(415) 292-1233
www.jccsf.org/arts

Tuesday, May 18

Point Dume
Hear author Katie Arnoldi talk about her new novel set in Malibu where she takes on the death of surf culture, human trafficking, drug cartels, and the environmental devastation caused by illegal pot farms on public lands.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Wordcatcher
Hear Phil Cousineau discuss his new book, Wordcatcher: An odyssey into the world of weird and wonderful words.
6 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
Room 406
57 Post, SF
www.milibrary.org

Benefits: May 12-May 18

David Talbot
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Benefits: May 12-May 18

Ways to have fun while giving back this week

Wednesday, May 12

Eat Drink Change
Enjoy some of the best Peruvian food in the Bay Area while helping to raise money for Small Schools for Equity (SSE), an organizing project that implements innovative education reform policies and programs to help diverse urban youth achieve their full scholastic potential and develop socially just communities. The June Jordan School for Equity, the pilot school for this project, boasts a 75% college acceptance rate for it’s graduates, ninety-nine percent of which are minorities. So raise a glass of sangria for social justice and 25% of the proceeds will benefit SSE and the leaders of tomorrow.
5:30 p.m., free admission
Mochica
937 Harrison, SF
(415) 278-0480
Piqueos
830 Cortland, SF
(415) 282-8812
www.jjse.org
www.smallschoolsforequity.org

Thursday, May 13

The Arc of San Francisco
Celebrate disability, diversity, and pride at this LGBTQQ community fundraiser for the Arc of San Francisco, a non-profit that serves adults with developmental disabilities. Featuring circus performers, cocktails, a drag show, and a special guest San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty.
7 p.m., $100
Cirque de l’Arc
1500 Howard, SF
www.thearcsf.org/cirque

Bubbles and Bivalves
Learn more about native oysters while helping to support the Oysters on the Half Shell program and efforts to restore the critical underwater ecosystem of the San Francisco Bay. Featuring emcee Wendy Tokuda, CBS 5 news anchor, oysters, hors d’oeuvres, champagne, and libations from regional sustainable restaurants.
7 p.m., $50
The Aquarium of the Bay
Pier 39, SF
www.thewatershedproject.org

Rendezvous of Victory
Attend this benefit for the Middle East Children’s alliance featuring historian Norman Finkelstein, author of This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, and a performance by Iraqi/UK hip hop artist Lowkey.
7:30 p.m., $15
Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School
1781 Rose, Berk.
(510) 548-0542
www.mecaforpeace.org

Friday, May 14

Inside/Out #20
Attend this issue release party and fundraiser for Hyphen, a volunteer-run non-profit magazine that focuses on the Asian American community, including cultural trends, art, and politics. Featuring DJs Franchise, Esquire, and Citizen Ten, a food cart appearance by Adobo Hobo, live art, and more.
9 p.m.; $10, $20 with subscription
Som. Bar
2925 16th St., SF
www.hyphenmagazine.com

Marin Services for Women Benefit Dinner
Attend this dinner themed “Celebrating Strong Women,” featuring Emmy Award winning actor Mariette Hartley, Jan Wahl, live music, a delicious meal, live and silent auctions, and more. Marin Services for Women is a non-profit that provides a full continuum of alcohol and drug treatment programs specifically designed for women, their children, and their families.
6:30 p.m., $150
Mill Valley Community Center
180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley
(415) 924-5995, ext. 128
www.marinservicesforwomen.org

Saturday, May 15

Beautiful Dreamers
Help keep art alive in Alameda at this benefit for Autobody Fine Art Inc., a non-profit that helps emerging and mid-career artists from the East Bay and surrounding areas, featuring a silent auction, a raffle of art related gifts, services, and local restaurants, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, and live music.
5 p.m., $15
Autobody Fine Art
1517 Park Street, Alameda
(510) 865-2608
www.autobodyfineart.com

Paul “The Lobster” Wells’ Birthday Bash
Enjoy readings, a silent auction, rare rock n’ roll memorabilia, and live entertainment with David Denny, Barry “the Fish” Melton, Joli Valenti, Mitchell Holman, Carlos Reyes, Mindy Canter, Thrasher, Jamie Clark and the Players, and more. Proceeds to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
8:30 p.m., $30-$50
Broadway Studios
435 Broadway, SF
(415) 291-0333‎

Petchitecture 15
Attend this auction of dog houses and cat condos, created by San Francisco architects and designers, to benefit Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS), a non-profit that helps people with illnesses keep their pets. Featuring food, drinks, pups, and live and silent auctions of unique pet habitats. Fully licensed and vaccinated pups on leash are welcome.
6:30 p.m., $150
Palace Hotel
2 New Montgomery, SF
www.pawssf.org

Sunday, May 16

Lagunitas Beer Circus
Attend this fundraiser for the Petaluma Music Festival featuring carnival games, aerialists, contortionists, sideshow freaks, great food, beer from ten local breweries, live music, and more.
1 p.m., $35
Lagunitas Brewery
Parking lot and beer sanctuary
1280 N. McDowell, Petaluma
(707) 769-4495

Monday, May 17

Spelling “Bee-In”
Attend this spelling bee to benefit Small Press Distribution (SPD), a non-profit distributor of small press books, featuring local literati attempting to show off their spelling acumen.
7:30 p.m., $75
Crown Point Gallery
20 Hawthorne, SF
www.spdbooks.org/bee

Court to Chevron: consider climate change

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Court to Chevron: consider climate change

By Adam Lesser

news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY When a California appellate court rejected Chevron Corporation’s attempt to expand its Richmond refinery without clarifying whether it intends to process heavier, more polluting crude oil two weeks ago, planetary concerns loomed even larger than local impacts.

Environmental and local groups celebrated a ruling against a project that would have fouled Bay Area air, but legal experts have pointed out that the long-term impact of the ruling may have less to do with crude oil refining and more to do with global warming.

Justice Ignacio John Ruvolo took nine pages of the 35-page decision specifically to address the fact that the environmental impact report (EIR) failed to outline how Chevron was going to mitigate the approximately 898,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions the refinery expansion would create. The Richmond refinery is already the largest emitter of CO2 in California, clocking in at just under 4.8 million metric tons annually.

The appellate court’s ruling is the first to state that it is illegal under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to defer to a later date the mitigation of greenhouse gases. Ruvolo, representing the 3-0 ruling, wrote “incremental increases in greenhouse gases would result in significant adverse impacts to global warming, the EIR was now legally required to describe, evaluate, and ultimately adopt feasible mitigation measures that would ‘mitigate or avoid’ those impacts.”

Ruvolo goes on to point out that if the greenhouse gas mitigation is worked out later, the public wouldn’t have a chance to comment on how best to offset those emissions. Or worse: maybe adequate mitigation isn’t even possible. An amicus brief filed by the Center for Biological Diversity pointed out that mitigating 898,000 tons of greenhouse gases is equivalent to taking 160,000 cars off the road. That’s a tall order, and the appellate court wants a better EIR that lays out adequate measures to offset the added emissions.

“There was absolutely no specificity on whether the mitigation could be accomplished,” said Matt Vespa, who wrote the amicus brief. “There needs to be a clear road map of what will happen.”

Possible mitigation measures include internal efficiencies at the refinery, ranging from improved heat exchangers to carbon sequestration. But Vespa and Earthjustice attorney Will Rostov, who argued the case, are hopeful that a plan could include measures that would aid the Richmond community, such as retrofitting low income homes or installing clean sources of energy like solar panels.

The issue of mitigating greenhouse gases comes as Democrats in the U.S. Senate prepare to introduce a cap-and-trade bill. Rostov expressed concern that mitigation could occur far away from Richmond, where residents could suffer environmental harm and receive no benefits from Chevron.

Chevron has not yet said what its plans are, only that it is reviewing its options. They include cooperating with a new EIR, halting the expansion, or appealing the ruling to the California Supreme Court. On the possibility of appealing, Vespa commented, “I certainly don’t think the decision was a stretch in terms of the law.”

For now, the community waits. Richmond has a 19 percent unemployment rate and there have been mixed reactions to the project ever since a Contra Costa Superior Court halted the expansion last summer. The project had support from trade unions in need of jobs, although many residents are fearful of more pollution from a corporation it views as a bad and untrustworthy neighbor.

The political fight between the city and Chevron got worse this year as a battle over how much utility tax Chevron should pay became irresolvable. The situation is heading for a showdown in November, with both sides authoring competing ballot measures and the potential for the city to lose $10 million in revenue. A proposed 15-year agreement recently has been outlined.

The conflict over taxes is another milestone in a difficult relationship between Chevron and the citizens of Richmond. The near-term victory for those living in Richmond is a legal framework for holding Chevron responsible for pollutants it puts in the air Richmond citizens breathe.

“CEQA has been around for 40 years and it’s been protecting air and water,” Rostov told the Guardian. “This case shows that CEQA is going to protect the public health from greenhouse gases.”

Democratizing the streets

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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26
Democratizing the streets

steve@sbg.com

It’s hard to keep up with all the changes occurring on the streets of San Francisco, where an evolving view of who and what roadways are for cuts across ideological lines. The car is no longer king, dethroned by buses, bikes, pedestrians, and a movement to reclaim the streets as essential public spaces.

Sure, there are still divisive battles now underway over street space and funding, many centered around the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which has more control over the streets than any other local agency, particularly after the passage of Proposition A in 2007 placed all transportation modes under its purview.

Transit riders, environmentalists, and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors are frustrated that Mayor Gavin Newsom and his appointed SFMTA board members have raised Muni fares and slashed service rather than tapping downtown corporations, property owners, and/or car drivers for more revenue.

Board President David Chiu is leading the effort to reject the latest SFMTA budget and its 10 percent Muni service cut, and he and fellow progressive Sups. David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi have been working on SFMTA reform measures for the fall ballot, which need to be introduced by May 18.

But as nasty as those fights might get in the coming weeks, they mask a surprising amount of consensus around a new view of streets. “The mayor has made democratizing the streets one of his major initiatives,” Newsom Press Secretary Tony Winnicker told the Guardian.

And it’s true. Newsom has promoted removing cars from the streets for a few hours at a time through Sunday Streets and his “parklets” in parking spaces, for a few weeks or months at a time through Pavement to Parks, and permanently through Market Street traffic diversions and many projects in the city’s Bicycle Plan, which could finally be removed from a four-year court injunction after a hearing next month.

Even after this long ban on new bike projects, San Francisco has seen the number of regular bicycle commuters double in recent years. Bike to Work Day, this year held on May 13, has become like a civic holiday as almost every elected official pedals to work and traffic surveys from the last two years show bikes outnumbering cars on Market Street during the morning commute.

If it wasn’t for the fiscal crisis gripping this and other California cities, this could be a real kumbaya moment for the streets of San Francisco. Instead, it’s something closer to a moment of truth — when we’ll have to decide whether to put our money and political will into “democratizing the streets.”

 

RECONSIDERING ROADWAYS

After some early clashes between Newsom and progressives on the Board of Supervisors and in the alternative transportation community over a proposal to ban cars from a portion of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park — a polarizing debate that ended in compromise after almost two acrimonious years — there’s been a remarkable harmony over once-controversial changes to the streets.

In fact, the changes have come so fast and furious in the last couple of years that it’s tough to keep track of all the parking spaces turned into miniparks or extended sidewalks, replacement of once-banished benches on Market and other streets, car-free street closures and festivals, and healthy competition with other U.S. cities to offer bike-sharing or other green innovations.

So much is happening in the streets that SF Streetsblog has quickly become a popular, go-to clearinghouse for stories about and discussions of our evolving streets, a role that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition — itself the largest grassroots group in the city, with more than 11,000 paid members — recently recognized with its Golden Wheel award.

“I think we are at a tipping point. All these little things have been percolating,” said San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association director Gabriel Metcalf, listing examples such as the creative reuse of San Francisco street space by Rebar and other groups (see “Seizing space,” 11/18/09), experiments in New York and other cities to convert traffic lanes to bicycle and pedestrian spaces, a new generation of more forward-thinking traffic engineers and planning professionals working in government, and more aggressive advocacy work by the SFBC, SPUR, and other groups.

“I think it’s all starting to coalesce,” Metcalf said. “Go to 17th and Valencia [streets] and feel what it’s like to have a sidewalk that’s wide enough to be comfortable. Or go ride in the physically separated bike lane on Market Street. Or take your kids to the playground at Hayes Green that used to be a freeway ramp.”

Politically, this is a rare area of almost universal agreement. “This is an issue where this mayor and this board have been very aligned,” Metcalf said. Winnicker, Newsom’s spokesperson, agreed: “The mayor and the board do see this issue very similarly.”

Mirkarimi, a progressive who chairs the Transportation Authority, also agreed that this new way of looking at the streets has been a bright spot in board-mayoral relations. “It is evolving and developing, and that’s a very good thing,” Mirkarimi said.

Both Winnicker and Mirkarimi separately singled out the improvements on Divisidero Street — where the median and sidewalks have been planted with trees and vegetation and some street parking spaces have been turned into designated bicycle parking and outdoor seating — as an example of the new approach.

“It really is a microcosm of an evolving consciousness,” Mirkarimi said of the strip.

Sunday Streets, a series of events when the streets are closed to cars and blossom with life, is an initiative proposed by SFBC and Livable City that has been championed by Newsom and supported by the board as it overcame initial opposition from the business community and some car drivers.

“There is a growing synergy toward connecting the movements that deal with repurposing space that has been used primarily for automobiles,” Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King told us.

Newsom has cast the greening initiatives as simply common sense uses of space and low-cost ways of improving the city. “A lot of what the mayor and the board have disagreements on, some of that is ideological,” Winnicker said. “But streets, parks, medians, and green spaces, they are not ideological.”

Maybe not, but where the rubber is starting to meet the road is on how to fund this shift, particularly when it comes to transit services that aren’t cheap — and to Newsom’s seemingly ideological aversion to new taxes or charges on motorists.

“We’re completely aligned when it comes to the Bike Plan and testing different things as far as our streets, but that all changes with the MTA budget,” said board President David Chiu, who is leading the charge to reject the budget because of its deep Muni service cuts. “Progressives are focused on the plight of everyday people who can’t afford to drive and park a car and have to rely on Muni. So it’s a question of on whose back will you balance the MTA budget.”

 

WHOSE STREETS?

The MTA governs San Francisco’s streets, from deciding how their space is allocated to who pays for their upkeep. The agency runs Muni, sets and administers parking policies, regulates taxis, approves bicycle-related improvements, and tries to protect pedestrians.

So when the mayoral-appointed MTA Board of Directors last month approved a budget that cuts Muni service by 10 percent without sharing the pain with motorists or pursuing significant new revenue sources — in defiance of pleas by the public and progressive supervisors over the last 18 months — it triggered a real street fight.

The Budget and Finance Committee will begin taking up the MTA budget May 12. And progressive supervisors, frustrated at having to replay this fight for a second year in a row, are pursuing a variety of MTA reforms for the November ballot, which must be submitted by May 18.

“We’re going to have a very serious discussion about MTA reform,” Chiu said, adding, “I expect there to be a very robust discussion about the MTA and balancing that budget on the backs of transit riders.”

Among the reforms being discussed are shared appointments between the mayor and board, greater ability for the board to reject individual initiatives rather than just the whole budget, changes to Muni work rules and compensation, and revenue measures like a local surcharge on vehicle license fees or a downtown transit assessment district.

Last week Chiu met with Newsom on the MTA budget issue and didn’t come away hopeful that there will be a collaborative solution such as last year’s compromise. But Chiu said he and other supervisors were committed to holding the line on Muni service cuts.

“I think the MTA needs to get more creative. We have to make sure the MTA isn’t being used as an ATM with these work orders,” Chiu said, referring to the $65 million the MTA pays to the Police Department and other agencies every year, a figure that steeply increased after 2007. “My hope is that the MTA board does the right thing and rolls back some of these service reductions.”

Transit riders have been universal in condemning the MTA budget. “The budget is irresponsible and dishonest,” said San Francisco Transit Riders Union project director Dave Snyder. “It reveals the hypocrisy in the mayor’s stated environmental commitments. This action will cut public transit permanently and that’s irresponsible.”

But the Mayor’s Office blames declining state funding and says the MTA had no choice. “It’s an economic reality. None of us want service reductions, but show us the money,” Winnicker said.

That’s precisely what the progressive supervisors are trying to do by exploring several revenue measures for the November ballot. But they say Newsom’s lack of leadership on the issue has made that difficult, particularly given the two-third vote requirement.

“There’s been a real failure of leadership by Gavin Newsom,” Mirkarimi said.

Newsom addressed the issue in December as he, Mirkarimi, and other city officials and bicycle advocates helped create the city’s first green “bike box” and honor the partial lifting of the bike injunction, sounding a message of unity on the issue.

“I can say this is the best relationship we’ve had for years with the advocacy community, with the Bicycle Coalition. We’ve begun to strike a nice balance where this is not about cars versus bikes. This is about cars and bikes and pedestrians cohabitating in a different mindset,” Newsom said.

Yet afterward, during an impromptu press conference, Newsom spoke with disdain about those who argued that improving the streets and maintaining Muni service during hard economic times requires money, and Newsom has been the biggest impediment to finding new revenue sources.

“Everyone is just so aggressive on trying to raise revenue. We’ve been increasing the cost of going on Muni the last few years. I think people need to consider that,” Newsom said. “We’ve increased the cost of parking tickets, increased the cost of using a parking meter, and we’ve raised the fares. It’s important to remind people of that. The first answer to every question shouldn’t be, OK, we’re going to tax people more or increase their costs.

“You have to be careful about that,” he continued. “So my answer to your question is two-fold. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily tax increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily fine increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily parking meter increases. We’re going to look at new strategies.”

Yet that was six months ago, and with the exception of grudgingly agreeing to allow a small pilot program in a few commercial corridors to eliminate free parking in metered spots on Sunday, Newsom still hasn’t proposed any new revenue options.

“The voters aren’t receptive to new taxes now,” Winnicker said last week. Mirkarimi doesn’t necessarily agree, citing polling data showing that voters in San Francisco may be open to the VLF surcharge, if we can muster the same kind of political will we’re applying to other street questions.

“It polls well, even in a climate when taxation scares people,” Mirkarimi said.

 

BIKING IS BACK

It was almost four years ago that a judge stuck down the San Francisco Bicycle Plan, ruling that it should have been subjected to a full-blown environmental impact report (EIR) and ordering an injunction against any projects in the plan.

That EIR was completed and certified by the city last year, but the same anti-bike duo who originally sued to stop the plan again challenged it as inadequate. The case will finally be heard June 22, with a ruling on lifting the injunction expected within a month.

“The San Francisco Bicycle Plan project eliminates 56 traffic lanes and more than 2,000 parking spaces on city streets,” attorney Mary Miles wrote in her April 23 brief challenging the plan. “According to City’s EIR, the project will cause ‘significant unavoidable impacts’ on traffic, transit, and loading; degrade level of service to unacceptable levels at many major intersections; and cause delays of more than six minutes per street segment to many bus lines. The EIR admits that the “near-term” parts of the project alone will have 89 significant impacts of traffic, transit, and loading but fails to mitigate or offer feasible alternatives to each of these impacts.”

Yet for all that, elected officials in San Francisco are nearly unanimous in their support for the plan, signaling how far San Francisco has come in viewing the streets as more than just conduits for cars.

City officials deny that the bike plan is legally inadequate and they may quibble with a few of the details Miles cites, but they basically agree with her main point. The plan will take away parking spaces and it will slow traffic in some areas. But they also say those are acceptable trade-offs for facilitating safe urban bicycling.

The city’s main overriding consideration is that we must do more to get people out of their cars, for reasons ranging from traffic congestion to global warming. City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey said that it’s absurd that the state’s main environmental law has been used to hinder progress toward the most environmentally beneficial and efficient transportation option.

“We have to stop solving for cars, and that’s an objective shared by the Board of Supervisors, and other cities, and the mayor as well,” Dorsey said.

Even anti-bike activist Rob Anderson, who brought the lawsuit challenging the bike plan, admits the City Hall has united around this plan to facilitate bicycling even if it means taking space from automobiles, although he believes that it’s a misguided effort.

“It’s a leap of faith they’re making here that this will be good for the city,” Anderson told us. “This is a complicated legal argument, and I don’t think the city has made the case.”

A judge will decide that question following the June 22 hearing. But whatever way that legal case is decided, it’s clear that San Francisco has already changed its view of its streets and other once-marginalized transportation choices like the bicycle.

Even the local business community has benefited from this new sensibility, with bicycle shops thriving around San Francisco and local bike messenger bag companies Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bags experiencing rapid growth thanks to a doubling of the number of regular bicyclists in recent years.

“That’s who we’re aiming at, people who bike every day and make bikes a central part of their lives,” said Mike Waffenfels, CEO of Timbuk2, which in February moved into a larger location to handle it’s growth. “It’s about a lifestyle.”

For urban planners and advocates, it’s about making the streets of San Francisco work for everyone. As Metcalf said, “People need to be able to get where they’re going without a car.”

Vandalism Manifesto

David Talbot
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1
Vandalism Manifesto

Editor’s note: An earlier edition of this manifesto was scrawled onto the walls of an abandoned underground Muni tunnel somewhere in the Sunset District.

STREETS ISSUE The magic of the word — VANDALISM — is terribly offensive. Vandalism offends all the right people and launches an offensive against all the wrong people. Wait, vandalism converts our doublemoralspeak to honesty. Vandalism affirms a number of precarious values: freedom, justice, the art of unmediated living, etc.

Vandalism is not just a word. It’s a gaseous engine powering subversion, all saturated in viscous honey. A lifestyle set on boundless hope. A toy monkey you can buy on Haight Street. A self-imagined adventure ride in your Disneyland theme city of choice. A movement determined to strategically undermine deceptive imagery in favor of immediate experience — the sort of primitive amoebic goo that inspires the gorgeous muck of truthfulness. Vandalism lives in dirt and filth — the only organic material left unadulterated.

Vandalism has a healthy diet: iIt devours the monopoly on spectacle and excretes into the vast wastelands of intergalactic oil spills. Vandalism likes thrills: It’s a hyperdérive on the brink of the familiar, gathering as much intensity as possible before fluxing the rules of the game into a vortex of momentous vision. Vandalism wants to hold your hand. Vandalism is so charged that you might already feel an electric rage surging forth while reading this. If you don’t, you will. Does it burn and singe and bend and twist into the antennae of your fingertips? Channel that rage into acts of vandalism.

Vandalism is an awfully new phenomenon. It takes up arms all over the world: in big cities like New York and London, and in not-so-famous towns like Bakersfield and Danville. Well, maybe not Danville. Just wait, Danville.

Vandalism is an awfully old phenomenon. You can see nature desecrated, I mean subliminally mysticized, in the caves of Lascaux. Since we no longer live in pure nature but in concrete labyrinths built on top of iron cage islands, we must bring the caves of Lascaux and beaches of Eden and tornados of Jupiter to bear on today’s jungle city. We must subliminally mysticize the streets. Cue air horn.

Vandalism is so important that there are white wall guardians who repress it with nervous glances and waving arms. Byzantine policies regulate it. Laws have been established to punish transgressors. Yet vandalism doesn’t go away. Too many dreams fuel it. Too many imaginations keep it vital. Word on the street is that Werner Herzog is making a movie about it.

Vandalism doesn’t insist on art. It doesn’t get involved in arguments about whether something is or isn’t art. That conversation is terribly boring. Have you been to a modern museum lately? Didn’t you get the joke? OK, I admit, that conversation is irresistible. Here’s a clarification: Vandalism is an art form even if the graffiti itself is not artistic — a shrouded word meaning ultimately, technically savvy, or educated and properly executed. To this, I summon the ghost of a severe-faced vandal, Norman Mailer: Art is not peace but war! And war ain’t always pretty, or concerned with legality, soljah.

Vandalism would prefer to mark its ephemeral existence on the city skin, gushing down the fermented joys of unsanctioned life, mummifying itself in the cold caverns of a culture mausoleum. It would prefer to make you smile and laugh and wonder mercilessly to what happens in galleries: first confusion, then self-consciousness, and finally, the lingering pain of feeling slightly cheated. (Confession: I kinda stole that from Banksy. VANDALIZED!) No, vandalism doesn’t demand legitimacy in order to die in a sea of sterilized artifacts — all rotten fish skins and busted gall bladders in excessive frames. Museums sanctify the past. Vandalism prophesies the present.

History lesson: Street kids baptized vandalism in the slums, reconfiguring our country’s criminal policies of benign neglect into an acrobatic dance. They spun windmills into the future and set their gaze on the heavens. Among buildings reduced to rubble — a bombed out third world — they flipped the script and defined vandalism as bombing. The kids crucified monotony and sacrificed the crushing industrial rhythm of authority. They called themselves writers and painted their neon-tinted altar egos onto the shining armor of the behemoth subway trains and all over the walls. The names projected a faith in identity among the noise of polluted prayers.

Writers became pseudonymous in an abysmal well of city hustlers trying to make a legacy for themselves — billboard important and newsworthy. Writers preferred this life, fleeting and necessary and beautiful in the quixotic eternity of the now. The indifferent had no choice but to reckon with the writers.

Over 40 years strong, the writers still scour the marrow of their bones to re-enchant the lifeblood of the city. They craft enigmas out of the geometric lines and curves of the alphabet, making ferocious animals out of huge letters, feral and gunning in the jungle. The animals promulgate like bacteria, spawning writers-turned-shamans who cast spells of cryptic iconography wherever they go. Mummies, giraffes, and spaceships populate the jungle. An aura of prophecy emerges in the streets.

Writers wage war against the ubiquitous icons of worship mounted across the empire: those branded images manufacturing a spectacle of insurmountable desire and Sisyphean frustration. The marketers might have the money to buy permission to assault your eyes and make you feel bad about yourself; writers have the courage to forgo bureaucratic approval, stake claim on what rightfully belongs to all of us and conjure up a moveable feast. We believe in innocent pleasures, impulsive and vibrant, in order to dismantle the tyranny of monotony! More air horn, please.

Vandalism is degenerate. It’s not here to promote cleanliness and genteel manners of etiquette. Vandalism will replace honorifics with its own stamp of affirmation: Vandal Basquiat, Vandal Futura 2000, Vandal Taki 183, Vandal Debord, Haring, Burrows and Proudhon. But more than any of that, all the lower-case vandals on Muni set to burn their names on your retina.

Vandalism doesn’t care about rights to property. Vandalism stands by this ancient principle: property is theft. Vandalism doesn’t care about copyright. Copyright smacks of self-indulgence and greed. Quote me on that. Vandalism is universal and limitless, unwieldy and unbalanced, completely unhinged and frighteningly beautiful. It’s dangerous but welcoming. Come on. Give vandalism a try. Vandalism is the new gentrification; everyone’s doing it. It’s pushing emptiness and dullness out of the city and raising the quality of life to unpredictable heights of magnanimity. Your neutral walls do violence to our integrity. Whatcha got against color?

How does one live well and good? By doing vandalism. How does one become anonymously famous? By doing vandalism. With a flick of the wrists and a swagger of the step. Til’ one can’t stop and certainly won’t stop. It’s a terrible habit, an awfully time-consuming obsession. How can one get rid of everything grotesque and in bad taste? Vandalism. How do we reassert ourselves in the midst of corporate homogeny and increasing pressure to normalize? Vandalism. By what means do we establish our will to communicate freely and openly in the public sphere? Vandalism.

Vandalism cannot be bought or sold in your local Walgreens (maybe in Giant Robot, though). No no, vandalism is a nebulous thing, an utterly cosmic thing, dirty and scurrilous and always operating in the shadows, always slipping away from sterilization and appropriation like a rat with rabies on the run. What a charming nuisance. What a credible way to live! Street credible. The streets is a mother, and good ol’ vanguard vandalism — the first lesson.

Vandalism once brought down the Roman empire. We have yet to rebuild the world in its depths. (Wooley Van Dahl)

Goat news

Mary Magee
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4
Goat news

City Grazing, the adorable weed-eating goat herd in Bayview, has a ton of upcoming events, starting tomorrow, May 12, at 6 p.m., when City Grazing founder David Gavrich will talk at a community forum on the urban farming movement at the Commonwealth Club.

Other speakers include Novella Carpenter (author of Farm City), Jason Mark, manager of Alemany Farm and editor of Earth Island Journal. Tickets are $20 and the price includes local, sustainable food. 

On Sunday, June 20, City Grazing’s ambassador Momma Goat will be at the Giants County Fair with her two 3-month-old kids as part of CUESA’s Urban Eats program

And on Sunday June 27, City Grazing will make goat history by providing the first goats ever to join the SF Pride Parade!  So, keep an eye out for their Goat Float.

The organization is also finalizing its new state of the art goat shelter design, redesigning its website, and looking for volunteers. Maa!

Time travel

David Talbot
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0
Time travel

arts@sfbg.com

LIT Sometimes when I’m bored walking around Union Square, I wonder how many of the well-heeled white guys heading toward the Financial District are really criminal types who should be followed. Say, maybe some higher-up at Wells Fargo or Citigroup who helped rip off thousands through subprime loans before getting a nice slice of that sweet Wall Street bailout money.

When I’m feeling that way, I’m under the influence of a seminal 20th century writer who spent his most productive years in San Francisco. Here’s a passage that sends me there:

She walked on down Post Street to Kearny, stopping, stopping every now and then to look — or to pretend to look — in store windows; while I ambled along sometimes beside her, sometimes, almost by her side, and sometimes in front.

She was trying to check the people around her, trying to determine whether she was being followed or not. But here, in the busy part of town, that gave me no cause for worry. On a less crowded street it might have been different, though not necessarily so.

There are four rules for shadowing: Keep behind your subject as much as possible; never try to hide from him; act in a natural manner no matter what happens; and never meet his eye. Obey them, and, except in unusual circumstances, shadowing is the easiest thing that a sleuth has to do.

The narrator so hep to the ways of the tail is Dashiell Hammett’s “Continental Op,” an operative for the fictional Continental Detective Agency, whose adventures in print include some of Hammett’s finest San Francisco tales.

Don Herron’s walking tour of landmarks associated with Hammett’s time in San Francisco is well worth making for anyone curious about the history of the author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, who helped create hardboiled crime fiction and was one its greatest practitioners. At three to four hours of often hilly trekking, it’s a bit of a commitment, but at $10, it’s an affordable way to engage in the next best thing to time travel.

Herron, author of books about pulp actioneer Robert Howard and noir craftsman Charles Willeford, has been informally conducting the tour for three decades. It started in 1977 as part of a “free college” known as Communiversity. The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook (2009), which updates earlier versions, is a nifty package that belongs on the shelf of any self-respecting San Francisco denizen with a passion for our city’s often twisted past. It’s a lively combination of biographical material about Hammett, assorted related trivia that never seems trivial, and Herron’s memories from 30 years of accompanying a broad spectrum of writers, fans, and eccentrics through the former stomping grounds of Hammett and his fictional creations.

The tour starts near the former site of the San Francisco Library Main Branch, now the Asian Art Museum. In an era of economic collapse papered over with massive subsidies to the same financial entities that brought us to collapse in the first place, lessons from earlier belt-tightening eras are useful. Hence it’s only appropriate to tip our fedoras to the memory of an autodidact left-winger who never finished high school but, by devoting years to reading in public libraries, got a better education than most who did. Though Hammett was making good money from writing crime fiction by the late 1920s, when he lived at 620 Eddy St. in the early 1920s, he couldn’t afford books and the library was a lifeline. The 1923 photo on page 66 of the guidebook, of what Heron calls “Hammett’s Reading Room” in the old main library branch at 200 Larkin St., is a beaut.

When Hammett and his family lived at 620 Eddy, their landlady was a bootlegger. Hammett’s wife later recalled cops rousting people in front of their window to the street. As Herron notes, today’s prohibition on hard drugs is about as effective at deterring users as the earlier one on alcohol, and equally effective at creating endless business opportunities for motivated entrepreneurs. If you’re not legally blind and are paying any attention at all, it’s likely you may see one or two such enterprising businesspeople on the streets of the Hammett tour. It’s also a safe bet they might bear a resemblance to the Continental Op’s self-description: “My face doesn’t scare children, but it’s a more or less truthful witness to a life that hasn’t been overburdened with refinement and gentility.”

The 1920s in San Francisco were wild, wide-open years full of fast living and dodgy characters. The late venerable columnist Herb Caen wrote of the period: “The Hall of Justice was dirty and reeked of evil. The City Hall, the D.A., and the cops ran the town as though they owned it, and they did … You could play roulette in the Marina, shoot craps on O’Farrell, play poker on Mason, and get rolled at 4 a.m. in a bar on Eddy.”

Hammett toiled on his used Underwood typewriter late into the night, creating characters and stories based on what he’d seen in that milieu. During World War I, he contracted both Spanish influenza and tuberculosis. When his TB got so bad that it was hazardous to the health of his wife and baby to maintain a family abode, he moved out and lived in a succession of apartments, including one up the hill from Eddy Street at 891 Post St., at the corner of Hyde. In a corner apartment on the fourth floor of that building, Hammett pounded out his first three novels. If you’re lucky, on Herron’s tour you’ll be buzzed in and get to see where Hammett typed, ate, drank, and smoked furiously — and sometimes pulled down the Murphy bed to sleep. The apartment of The Maltese Falcon‘s tough detective Sam Spade was based on the snug little dwelling.

The current occupant is Bill Arney, an architect and Hammett fan. When he showed the tour I was on around the small one-bedroom unit, I noticed a great compilation of “crime jazz,” soundtrack music from black and white crime movies and TV shows, on top of a pile of CDs. Appropriate, since Arney serves as announcer for the Noir City film festival local mover and shaker Eddie Muller puts on at the Castro Theatre every January.

Hammett left a permanent mark on San Francisco. Specifically, on the block-long street that used to be called Monroe, which runs south off Pine in the block between Powell and Stockton. From what is now called Dashiell Hammett Street, walk east on Bush and on the right, at Burritt Street, just before the Stockton tunnel overpass, ponder the plaque that reads: ON APPROXIMATELY THIS SPOT/MILES ARCHER,/PARTNER OF SAM SPADE,/WAS DONE IN BY/BRIGID O’SHAUGHNESSY.

We are lucky to be in a city that commemorates one of its most accomplished past local residents with a plaque honoring a killing that was a product of that writer’s imagination. *

MORE ON SFBG.COM: Johnny Ray Huston’s illustrated look at the Vertigo tour

 

Our Weekly Picks

David Talbot
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0

WEDNESDAY 12

MUSIC

Fishtank Ensemble

It takes more than a swift set of strings or a Balkan backbeat to be able to stake a claim on the Gypsy music bandwagon, but the Bay Area’s Fishtank Ensemble slides smartly into what basically amounts to an ephemeral category by embracing its wider implications. From sinuous, sepia-toned swing to muscular gitano Flamenco to Serbian drinking standards, Fishtank Ensemble’s new CD Woman in Sin highlights their flexible musicality. Its tightly-knit collaborative compositions evoke both the roving influences of the Roma, and their far-flung connectivity. Skillfully balancing the talents of an operatic saw-playing chanteuse, Romani-trained violinist, slap-happy Serbian bassist, and Andalusian-inspired ax man, their endless variety leads to sublime cohesion. (Nicole Gluckstern)

8 p.m., $18.50–$19.50

Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse

2020 Addison, Berk.

(510) 548-1761

www.thefreight.org

THURSDAY 13

EVENT

A Fundraiser for the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair

Bands will battle, cars will crash, people will rage — tonight is not for the faint of heart. Join five Bay Area bands as they duke it out on stage to win the headlining slot at the 33rd annual Haight-Ashbury Street Fair. The contestants are the Jugtown Pirates, the Tell-Tale Heartbreakers, Project Pimento, Franco Nero, and the Swamees. All proceeds benefit the street fair, a cultural celebration for San Francisco that spotlights emerging and established bands and artists. The night concludes with a crash-up derby contest. (Lilan Kane)

9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), $7

Paradise Lounge

1501 Folsom, SF

(415) 252-5017

www.paradisesf.com

FRIDAY 14

FILM

The Big Surf Weekend

Despite the fact that the ocean in these parts scares the shit out of me, I harbor a dreamy fondness for surfing. Tan boys with nice upper backs, VW vans — oh, and the zen of riding the waves, obviously. Viz Cinema’s surfing film festival provides an excellent reason to paddle out to Japantown — they’ll be showing a double header of the first two Endless Summers, and a unique triple feature of Japanese shorts. It includes the daredevil beach bums of Monster Wave in Cape Ashizuri, and Glacier Diary, which is not about surfing, but as the Viz Cinema website assures us, employs “similar filming techniques used to capture waves.” Pretty sure they mean the film crew pulled a wake and bake, and used “brah” as endearment while filming. (Caitlin Donohue)

Various show times (through Sat/15), $10

Viz Cinema @ New People

1746 Post, SF

(415) 525-8000

www.newpeopleworld.com

SATURDAY 15

EVENT

Tejiendo Justicia en Chiapas

Chiapas, Mexico is home to some of the most badass populist activists the world has ever seen. Merely witness the Zapatistas 1994 takeover of San Cristobol de las Casas City Hall when NAFTA took effect (you can, too — the Zapatistas’ skilled use of media marked them as early freedom fighters of the information age). But resistance takes less combative forms in the state, also. This free bilingual presentation highlights the efforts of Tzotzil and Tseltal indigenous women who have formed an artisan co-operative in their villages to autonomously improve their economic circumstances, preserve artistic heritage, and remain independent from domestic servitude and forced matrimony. Co-founder Celia Santiz-Ruiz is ready to teach. ¡Viva la lucha! (Donohue)

2 p.m. and 4 p.m., free

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

2868 Mission, SF

(415) 821-1155

www.missionculturalcenter.org

PERFORMANCE

Kevin Simmonds’ MASS (Making All St. Sebastian)

Next to a crucified Christ, the most prolific image of Christian martyrdom is St. Sebastian. Sebastian was led by soldiers to a stake in a field, whereupon they “shot at [him] till he was as full of arrows as an urchin.” For artist Kevin Simmonds, Sebastian’s arrow-laden body — which healed completely, hence the saintliness — is a sex symbol and a reason for “celebrating and recasting male sexuality.” Simmonds has gathered over 25 men and had them pose as the hapless holy and hole-y figure in MASS (Making All St. Sebastian), a multimedia work that updates the martyr and culminates with a quasi Catholic mass. That’s good blasphemy right there. (Miller)

7–8:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

LIT

Naked Girls Reading: The Wild Party

The Wild Party by Joseph M. March is a narrative poem that has to be read to be believed. Banned in 1928, the story captured the decadent age of prohibition and has called forth the wild and wicked natures of readers for nearly 100 years. William Burroughs claimed it as “the book that made me want to be a writer.” Could there be anything more alluring than an all-female cast reading this smoky, gin-soaked homage to lust, kink, and betrayal? How about if they’re naked? Founded one year ago in Chicago by burlesque queen Michelle L’Amour, Naked Girls Reading has inspired franchises all over the world, including this inaugural event in San Francisco organized by “Queen of the Fire Tassels,” Lady Monster. The regular readers on board tonight are Dottie Lux, Isis Starr, Kimberlee Cline, Lady Monster, Ruby Vixen and special guest Carol Queen. See you there. (Paula Connelly and D. Scot Miller)

7 p.m., $15 ($20 for the front row)

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

www.nakedgirlsreading.net

EVENT

SF Vintage Paper Fair

Encompassing a vast array of what was at one time considered disposable paper products — now beloved as archival gems by those in the know — the ever-growing ephemera market places great value on artifacts. Revealing a sizable portion of our culture’s history, a treasure trove of these goods will be available at this weekend’s annual Vintage Paper Fair, be they original pin-up calendars by artists such as Alberto Vargas, historic post cards of places long gone, timetables of discontinued railways, or posters for classic films. Discerning collectors and amateur hobbyists alike are bound to find a priceless paper gem. (Sean McCourt)

10–6 p.m. (also Sun./16), free

Hall of Flowers, SF County Fair Building

Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, SF

(415) 668-1636

www.vintagepaperfair.com

DANCE/EVENT

Hip-Hop 4 Hope Dance Competition

If you like America’s Next Best Dance Crew, then tune in to this event. The Asian American Donor Program (AADP) is presenting the first Hip-Hop 4 Hope Dance Competition, a showcase for Bay Area dance crews with special guest judges. The crews include Soulidified Project, For the Cause, FUSION, FMC, VIP Vallejo, Alliance Streetdance, Eight Count, and Hydef. They’ll compete for a chance to win a $1,000 grand prize, while the rest of the proceeds will benefit AADP. You can purchase combo tickets for the after party at Suite 181 online. (Lilan Kane)

7 p.m., $15

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon , SF

(415) 567-6642

www.palaceoffinearts.org

FOOD/EVENT

SF Oysterfest

Oysters have long been associated with stout — when the dark beer was first emerging in the 1700s, the tasty bivalves were common food in pubs. Presented by O’Reilly’s, one of the city’s favorite Irish pubs, the 11th annual Oysterfest brings great food — there are plenty of other options besides the briny treats of the sea — and voluminous drink together, once again. Along for the ride is this year’s impressive live music lineup, including Cake and the Raveonettes. There will be cooking demos. (McCourt)

11 a.m., $30 (14 and under free)

Great Meadow at Fort Mason Center

Laguna and Bay, SF

www.oreillysoysterfestival.com

SUNDAY 16

EVENT

Forbidden Island’s Luau

If you can’t make it to Hawaii this year, you can still get leied by a native on the exotic island of Alameda, during Forbidden Island’s third annual Luau. Tiki lovers have suffered some setbacks lately with the closing of the San Francisco Trader Vic’s, and the rumored closing of the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel to make way for some (gag) condos. But local tiki culture is far from dead: there’s a hot new tiki bar in Hayes Valley called Smuggler’s Cove, and Forbidden Island continues to celebrate the tiki spirit, with a straw thatched interior, giant statues, and a long cocktail menu of scorpion bowls, flaming drinks, and other rum-based, fresh-squeezed fruity surprises. So don your best Hawaiian shirt and haole smile and head to the, um, island for some live hula and fire dancing, Hawaiian BBQ, and live surf music by the Faux Hawaiians and Drifting Sand. (Connelly)

2 p.m.–10 p.m., free

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

1304 Lincoln, Alameda

(510) 749-0332

www.forbiddenislandalameda.com

FOOD/EVENT

SF Food Wars: Amuse Brunch (Brunch in a Bite)

Food culture in San Francisco is always changing. Whether it involves downing tasty treats from the Crème Brulée Cart, eating $50 truffle hamburgers, or spending $11 on a cocktail from Bourbon and Branch, foodies are on the scene. So whenever SF Food Wars has a new event around the corner, tickets sell out — fast. With past installments revolving around mini cupcakes, gourmet macaron and cheese, and chocolate cookies, the savory food competition has built a reputation. This time, competitors are crafting up unique brunch dishes capable of bringing your grandma’s frittata recipe to its knees. Warning: this event is not for tiny appetites. (Elise-Marie Brown)

12 p.m., $15

Thirsty Bear Brewery

661 Howard

(415) 974-0905

www.sffoodwars.com

EVENT

Bay to Breakers 2010

It’s been a long time since 1912, the year the first Bay to Breakers took place, raising the city’s morale after the big quake in 1906. Ninety-eight years later, the tradition lives on, as drunken debauchery specialists, nudists, and people in eccentric costumes all strive forward with one goal in mind — making it from one end of the peninsula to the other without passing out. So pull up that gorilla suit, pump the keg, and lace up those Asics, because running outside with your San Francisco brothers

and sisters beats a boring day inside watching reruns of Entourage. (Brown)

8:00 a.m., $39–$50

Steuart and Howard, SF

(415) 359-2800

www.ingbaytobreakers.com

TUESDAY 18

MUSIC

Shout Out Louds

In 2005, the world was introduced to Stockholm quintet the Shout Out Louds, thanks to their upbeat debut album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff. After worldwide success, tours and two successful records, these indie darlings decided to hide away and record their third album Work in a barn on the outskirts of Seattle. The results, as ever, are melodious and danceable and worthy of praise. (Brown)

8 p.m., $17

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

 

Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

David Talbot
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Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

By Angela Chan


Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera have publicly opposed the anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, in Arizona. A diverse coalition of civil rights organizations — including the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Asian Law Caucus, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, Central American Resource Center, Community United Against Violence, Equal Justice Society, La Raza Centro Legal, National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, POWER, and Pride at Work SF — applauds both city officials for taking a strong stand against the Arizona bill. At the same time, we urge Newsom and Herrera to firmly and unequivocally support the implementation of a local policy that protects the due process rights of immigrant youths in San Francisco.

As with SB 1070 in Arizona, the mayor’s policy of requiring juvenile probation officers to report young people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they receive due process has opened the door to racial profiling and torn many innocent youth from their families.

Since July 2008, pursuant to Newsom’s draconian reporting policy, more than 160 youth have been reported to ICE right after arrest, before they even have had a chance to be heard in juvenile court. That means that youth who are completely innocent of any crimes and youth who are overcharged have been reported to ICE.

Despite the veto-proof passage of a policy by the Board of Supervisors last fall that moves the point of reporting from the arrest stage to after a youth is found to have committed a felony, Newsom has insisted on ignoring the new city law. Herrera, in turn, has yet to advise implementation of the new law.

Like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy requires reporting to ICE when local officials — in this case juvenile probation officers — merely have "reasonable suspicion" that an individual is undocumented. The factors that probation officers are required to use to determine reasonable suspicion have come under fire for codifying racial profiling into law.

In March, a year and a half after the mayor’s policy went into effect, Chief Probation Officer William Siffermann admitted before the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors that the latter factor could lead to racial profiling. A few days later, Herrera stated that this factor had been removed from the policy. However, if any changes have been made to the written policy, they have not been made available to the public.

Another similarity with the Arizona bill: probation officers in San Francisco have not been properly trained and do not have the expertise in immigration law to accurately determine which youth are actually undocumented. Rather, these officers rely on race, ethnicity, language ability, surnames, and accent as a basis for assuming immigration status.
Much like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy goes well beyond any obligations under federal law by requiring that probation officers report suspected undocumented youth to ICE. Finally, as with the Arizona bill, the mayor’s draconian policy only compounds the harm to immigrant families caused by an already flawed federal immigration system, which is in drastic need of comprehensive reform. We need humane reform at the federal level. But in the meantime, Newsom and Herrera need to take swift action to restore due process and protect family unity by ending San Francisco’s draconian policy. *

Angela Chan is a staff attorney with the Juvenile Justice and Education Project at the Asian Law Caucus.

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