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Why people get mad at the media (part ll) Why won’t the New York Times/Santa Rosa Press Democrat run the Project Censored stories when it continues to use anonymous sources to push the Bush line that Iran is providing “lethal support:” to Iraq Shiites?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

As attentive Bruce blog readers recall, I raised the issue in previous blogs why the New York Times and its sister paper in Santa Rosa (the Press Democrat) has for 30 years refused to run the local Project Censored story from the local Sonoma State University.

I pointed out that the issue was particularly timely because on Sept. l0, 2003, while the Times and the PD and affiliated papers were running the disgraced Judith Miller’s stories making the case for the Iraq War and then seeking to justify it, the Guardian published the annual Project Censored list of censored, or underreporterd stories in the mainstream press. I further pointed out that our front page had a caricature of Bush, standing astride the globe holding a U.S. flag with a dollar sign, and a headline that read, “The neocon plan for global domination–and nine other big stories the mainstream press refused to cover in 2002.”

And I noted that our introduction to the timely censored package made the critical point: “If there’s one influence that has shaped world-wide politics over the past year, it’s the extent to which the Bush administration has exploited the events of Sept. ll, 200l, to solidify its military and economic control of the world at the expense of democracy, true justice, and the environment. But President George W. Bush hasn’t simply been responding to world events. The agenda the administration has followed fits perfectly with a clearly defined plan that’s been place for a decade.”

I noted that the neocon story, and the many other such stories that Project Censored put out during the war years and again this year, laying out the dark side of the Bush administration and the drumbeat to war in Iraq, got no play in the Times or the nearby PD and very little play in the rest of the mainstream media that helped Bush march us into war–and now is keeping us there.

Not once, in all of the past three decades, has the Times nor the PD run the Project Censored story nor explained why. And they refused to respond to my repeated questions on this point.

That was the backdrop for the Feb. l0 Times lead story, :”Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says.”
I was astounded when I read the story because it made the most serious and incendiary charges without once naming a source by name. Fair, the media group for fair and accuracy in reporting, said in a Feb. l6 report that
“In the wake of its disastrous pre-war reporting on Iraq, the New York Times implemented new rules governing its use of unnamed sources. Its lead story on Feb. l0, promoting Bush administration charges against Iran, violated those rules.”

Fair said that reporter Michael Gordon cited a “one-sided array of anonymous sources charging the Iranian government with providing a particularly deadly variety of roadside bomb to Shia militias in Iraq: ‘The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.'” Fair goes on, and even quotes Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine, as saying that Gordon “aimed to quiet the skeptics, cited only the following sources: ‘American officials’…’one military official’…military officials’…’American officials’…American military officicials.,'”

FAir also made the critical point about the similarity between current times reporting hyping the Iran threat and the paper’s “credulous” prewar Iran reporting are not coincidental. Gordon, Fair pointed out, was the co-author, along with Miller, of two of six stories singled oiut in the paper’s May 26 2004 apology for faulty Iraq reporting, including the Times story that falsely touted the now-famous “aluminum tubes” as components of an Iraqi nuclar weapons program.

The critical questions: why in the hell, after all that has gone down on Iraq and Times reporting, has the Times violated its own rules on anonymous sources without explanation and without apology?
I have often wondered through the years how Guardian could be right on Vietnam and right on Iraq, without any hotshot sources or intelligence reports, and the New York Times and other mainstream media were so wrong for so long and are still wrong (we can’t pull out now, chaos will occur, Iran is the problem, etc.) Every time I read stories like these, I know why.

For starters, if I were responsible for Times coverage, I would tell my reporters to refuse to attend a “press conference” or “press briefing” mandating anonymity. Instead, I would tell them to stay away and to interview the reporters and principals later and do a full story with full identification and make the critical Project Censored type points. Or do a Fair type critique after the fact. So what if you miss yet another self-immolating Iraq weapons story. If I ran an alternative paper in Washington, D.C., I would cover all those anonymous briefings and press conferences by not going and then reporting on who did go, who wrote what, what it added up to, and then put it in the context of non-embedded and non -mission accomplished reporting. I would concentrate on the stories the Times/PD and other mainstream press censored.

Fair’s concluding point: In his original February l0 report, Gordon wrote, “‘Administration officials said they recognized that intelligence failures related to prewar American claims about Iraq’s weapons arsenal could make critics skeptical about the American claims. While ‘critics’ are surely skeptical, shouldn’t reporters for the New York Times, given their recent record on similar matters, be even more so?”

Further questions: shouldn’t the Times/PD, given its wartime record, publish the Project Censored story and its prescient group of stories that happened to be largely on target year after year? Shouldn’t the Times/PD explain to the Censored director and to the Guardian why it refuses to do so? Repeating: neither the project directors (founder Carl Jensen, current director Peter Phillips) have ever been given a reason and I cannot get one either.

Fair recommends action: contact Times public editor Byron Calame and urge him to look into why the paper’s rules about anonymity are not applied to Michael Gordon–especially considering how Gordon’s pre-Iraq War reporting embarrassed the Times. And: from the Guardian and me: ask Calame, as I have in vain, why the Times/PD won’t run Project Censored and won’t say why?

New York Times: Byron Calame, public editor, public@nytimes.com, phone: (2l2) 556-7652. Good luck, let me know what happens. B3

Bruce B3: The Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times “censors” the annual Project Censored story.

Bruce B3: The Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times: still no answers on why…

Bruce B3: The new media offensive for the Iraq War. Why the Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times…

Lemongrass and old grease

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› paulr@sfbg.com

The Bad Planner’s Guide to the Galaxy is a little thin in the Valentine’s Day section. It could be that the Bad Planner isn’t very romantic, or it could be that the Bad Planner just isn’t a very good planner — doesn’t get on the stick weeks or months in advance to make restaurant reservations the way our society’s many compulsive, air-traffic-controller types do. The result is often, on the enchanted evening in question, an interlude of sweaty panic: Where to go? Who will have us at the last minute? Or should we just go out for burritos or order a pizza to be delivered in a cardboard box stained by grease and possibly eaten from same?

Yet bad planners are people too. People with feelings. People who deserve to eat out on occasion. And now there is room for them in the hallowed dining halls of Valentine’s Day. The room is at Rasha, a Thai restaurant that opened in November 2006 in the former Kelly’s Burger’s space near the Roxie Film Center, 16th Street near Valencia, center of the galaxy, if not the known universe, for our local cohort of the hungry hip, as well as for interlopers of the bolder sort from farther afield.

There are so many restaurants in this area now, so many of them unusual and worthy, that opening yet another one could be seen either as an act of superfluousness or unimpeachable business logic. (One of my New Year’s resolutions was to use the word impeach in every one of these pieces for a year, and while I have already crashed, it’s still fun to try.) Because places to eat abound, the need for a newcomer is no better than marginal, but — on the other hand — since the sidewalks are filled with hungry prowlers looking at menu cards, the chances seem pretty good that sooner or later they’re going to look at yours.

So far the ravenous classes don’t seem to have taken much note of Rasha ("Business is slow," our server confided to us one arctic evening, and he could only have confided to us, since the place was otherwise empty), but when they do, they are likely to be pleasantly surprised. Yes, the setting still smells of grease, of the ghosts of countless burgers past; and yes, the bordello-red paint job does lack a certain subtlety. But the space itself is quite nice, with a long run of windows down a narrow lane, Albion; and there is good neon signage that shouts out into the night.

Then there is the food, which is quite good and affordable across the spectrum, from familiar to un-. Crowded near the former’s end of the spectrum, we find such crowd-pleasers as larb ($6.75), minced chicken tossed with cabbage shreds in a potent dressing of lime juice, fish sauce, and chiles; and fresh spring rolls ($3.95), chubs of rice paper stuffed with rice noodles, bean sprouts, lettuce, mint, and tofu.

Other comfy favorites include tom yum ($6.95), a gigantic hemispherical bowl filled with a lime- and lemongrass-scented broth, mushrooms, chunks of chicken, and rice noodles. If you’re hungry and need aromatherapy or steamy relief from cold symptoms, you will find much to like here; among other things, tom yum is less rich than its coconut milk–spiked cousin, tom ka. And only slightly novel is duck curry ($9.95), a coconut-milk red curry sauce laden with chunks of roast duck (skin still attached), cherry tomatoes, and cubes of pineapple for some fruity contrast. A word of caution here: we ordered medium spicy and found the dish verging on too hot, and we like spicy food. Proceed to spicy spicy AYOR.

Kee mao ($5.95) is another one of those possibilities most of us have seen somewhere, but not everywhere, before. The dish’s foundation, as with its marginally better-traveled near relation, pad see ew, is a broad, flat rice noodle — a kind of Thai tagliatelle — tossed with a spirited combination of garlic, chiles, basil, and shrimp. Kao soy ($7.95), on the other hand, I’d never seen before: another huge hemispherical bowl, filled this time with fine, crispy noodles, like a bedding of hay in a barn, and finished with a mild yellow coconut-milk curry laced with potatoes, chicken shreds, and slivers of red onion. As a little boy, I feared and hated my mother’s rare forays into Chinese cooking even though her attempts always included crispy noodles — but then, she did not have access to, and had probably never even heard of, coconut milk and yellow curry and the magic that occurs when you mix the two together.

Like most restaurants these days, Rasha features a bar, and like most bars in restaurants (except the very busiest ones), the bar seems to be uninhabited much, if not most, of the time. This despite the flat-screen television mounted high on the wall behind the bar (flashing rather male-oriented programming — ESPN and Spike) and a selection of affordable little bar snacks such as chicken wings, edamame, and wasabi-roasted peas ($2). We found these last to be slightly sweet and also much hotter than the Trader Joe’s kind; if you eat more than one at a time and do not pace yourself, you are likely to find your nostrils on fire — not the prettiest picture on Valentine’s Day or indeed on any day you happen to find yourself seated across from someone you’re hoping to impress. Plan accordingly. *

RASHA RESTAURANT

Mon.–Sun., noon–11 p.m.

3141 16th St., SF

(415) 437-4788

Full bar

AE/DC/DISC/MC/V

Somewhat noisy

Wheelchair accessible

>

Chasing my stolen bicycle

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› news@sfbg.com

I stalked across the parking lot of the Mission District’s Best Buy. Like the hordes of people that streamed into the store, I was there to do a little shopping, but it wasn’t for a flat-screen TV or an iPod. I was in the market for a stolen bike.

I bypassed the aisles of buzzing electronics and headed around the back of the store to a trash-strewn alley. It was empty except for a beat-up white van with its side door ajar. I took a nervous breath and knocked on the side.

A blond man in a sweat-stained undershirt threw open the door to reveal what looked like an upended Tour de France chase car: piles of tire rims, gears, and bike frames were scattered everywhere. The powerful stink of unwashed bodies stung my nostrils. A man in a tracksuit slumbered on a seat. The blond man looked sleepy and annoyed but waited for me to speak.

My $600 bike was stolen — the third in five years — from my Mission garage the night before, and it’s here I was told by a bike messenger that I might find it. These guys were rumored to be bike thieves operating in the Mission.

"Hey man, have you seen a black and gray Fuji Touring?" I asked, employing a euphemism.

"No, we don’t steal bikes," the man said, catching my drift. "We collect bikes off the street, repair them, and then sell them. We’re like independent businessmen."

Interesting way of putting it, I thought, as I glanced at the "businessman" slumbering on a van seat. I glanced around the van half expecting to see my Fuji, but it wasn’t there, so I left.

As I trudged home I stewed. I had lost more than $1,000 worth of bikes in San Francisco. Bike theft is a virtual right of passage for most cyclists in the city, and the city’s thieves seem to operate with ninjalike stealth and efficiency. One cyclist told me how a thief stole his locked ride while he picked up a burrito from a taquería. He wasn’t away from the bike for more than five minutes.

The city’s thieves have even won a silver medal for their efforts: in 2006 the lockmaker Kryptonite ranked San Francisco as the nation’s second worst city for bike theft, behind New York.

Gradually, my anger hardened into resolve, or more precisely, a mission. It would be virtually impossible, but I would set out to find my bike. The thought that my life would mirror the plot of a Pee-wee Herman movie was more than a little amusing, but I had a job to do.

In my months-long quest I crisscrossed the city, chasing down Dickensian thieves, exploring the city’s largest open-air market for stolen goods, and finally landing in the surprising place where hundreds of stolen bikes — perhaps yours — end up. Unwittingly, I pedaled right into San Francisco’s underworld.

THE GURUS OF GREASE


Bike theft may seem like petty street crime, but it’s actually a humming illegal industry. Consider this: thieves steal nearly $50 million worth of bikes each year in the United States, far outstripping the take of bank robbers, according to the FBI. And in San Francisco’s rich bicycling culture, thieves have found a gold mine. About 1,000 bikes are reported stolen in the city each year, but the police say the actual number is probably closer to 2,000 or 3,000, since most people don’t file reports.

"It’s rampant," Sgt. Joe McCloskey of the San Francisco Police Department told the Guardian.

I sought out McCloskey, the SFPD’s resident expert on bike theft, and another man, Victor Veysey, to give me a wider view of San Francisco’s world of bike thieves and possibly a lead on where I might find my bike. Several cyclists had recommended Veysey, saying he could provide a "street level" view of bike theft.

Veysey is the Yoda of San Francisco’s bike world. For more than a decade, the 39-year-old has worked on and off as a bike messenger, mechanic, and member of the city’s Bike Advisory Committee. He also ran the Bike Hut, which teaches at-risk youth how to repair bikes. And he’s in a band that plays a tune called "Schwinn Cruiser."

Despite their different perspectives (the city’s police and biking communities are not the best of friends), McCloskey and Veysey painted remarkably similar pictures of San Francisco’s black market for bikes.

In the wide world of illegal activity, bike thievery seems to occupy a criminal sweet spot. It is a relatively painless crime to commit, and city officials do little to stop it. As McCloskey readily admitted, bike theft is not a priority for law enforcement, which he said has its hands full with more serious crimes.

"We make it easy for them," McCloskey said of bike thieves. "The DA doesn’t do tough prosecutions. All the thieves we’ve busted have got probation. They treat it like a petty crime."

Debbie Mesloh, a spokesperson for District Attorney Kamala Harris, said most bike thieves are not prosecuted, but that’s because they are juveniles or they qualify for the city’s pretrial diversion program. The diversion program offers counseling in lieu of prosecution for first-time nonviolent offenders. Bike thieves qualify for it if they steal a bike worth $400 or less. Mesloh said the District Attorney’s Office prosecutes felony bike thefts, but it doesn’t get very many of those cases.

"The DA takes all cases of theft seriously," Mesloh wrote in an e-mail.

As for the police, McCloskey was equally blunt. "You can’t take six people off a murder to investigate a bike theft. [Bike theft investigations] are not an everyday thing. No one is full-time on bike theft. As far as going out on stings and operations, I haven’t heard of one in the last year. Bike theft has gone to the bottom of the list."

McCloskey’s comments were particularly interesting in light of the conversation I had with Veysey, whom I met at the Bike Hut, an off-kilter wood shack near AT&T Park that appears as if it might collapse under the weight of the bicycle parts hanging on its walls. Veysey has a loose blond ponytail and greasy hands. He wields a wrench and apocalyptic environmental rhetoric equally well.

"Bikes are one of the four commodities of the street — cash, drugs, sex, and bikes," Veysey told me. "You can virtually exchange one for another."

Veysey believes bike thefts are helping prop up the local drug market. It sounds far-fetched, but it’s a notion McCloskey and other bike theft experts echoed. The National Bike Registry, a company that runs the nation’s largest database for stolen bikes, says on its Web site, "Within the drug trade, stolen bicycles are so common they can almost be used as currency." Veysey believes the police could actually take a bite out of crime in general by making bike theft a bigger priority in the city.

Perhaps bikes are so ubiquitous in the drug trade because they are so easy to steal. McCloskey and Veysey said thieves often employ bolt cutters to snap cable locks or a certain brand of foreign car jack to defeat some U-locks. The jack slips between the arms of the U-lock and, as it is cranked open, pushes the arms apart until the lock breaks. A bike-lock maker later showed me a video demonstrating the technique. It took a man posing as a thief less than six seconds to do in the U-lock.

As with any other trade, McCloskey and Veysey said there is a hierarchy in the world of San Francisco bike thieves. At the bottom, drug addicts (like the one Veysey believes stole my bike) engage in crimes of opportunity: snatching single bikes. At a more sophisticated level, McCloskey said, a small number of thieves target high-end bikes, which can top $5,000 apiece. In 2005 police busted a bike thief who was specifically targeting Pacific Heights because of its expensive bikes. The thief said he wore natty golf shirts and khaki pants to blend into the neighborhood.

The Internet has revolutionized bike theft, just as it has done for dating, porn, and cat videos. McCloskey said thieves regularly fence bikes on eBay and Craigslist. In August 2004 police busted a thief after a Richmond District man discovered his bike for sale on eBay. Police discovered more than 20 auctions for stolen bikes in the man’s eBay account and an additional 20 stolen bikes in a storage space and at his residence.

When bikes aren’t sold outright, they are stripped, or in street vernacular, chopped, and sold piece by piece or combined with the parts of other bikes, Veysey said. He said people occasionally showed up at the Bike Hut trying to sell him these Frankenstein bikes. But by and large, McCloskey and Veysey said, bike stores are not involved in fencing stolen bikes. However, McCloskey said bikes stolen in the city often are recovered at flea markets around the Bay Area. He believes thieves ship them out of the city to decrease the chance of being caught. The National Bike Registry reports bikes are often moved to other cities or even other states for sale.

The idea of Frankenstein bikes was intriguing, so I told Veysey I was going to look into it. He suggested I make a stop first: Carl’s Jr. near the Civic Center. I was slightly perplexed by his suggestion, but I agreed to check it out.

FAST FOOD, HOT BIKES


"Welcome to the San Francisco Zoo — the human version," said Dalibor Lawrence, a homeless man whose last two teeth acted as goalposts for his flitting tongue. His description of the place was brutally apt: a homeless man banged on one of those green public toilets, shouting obscenities; a woman washed her clothes in a fountain; and several crackheads lounged on a wall with vacant stares.

I was at the corner of Seventh and Market streets. City Hall’s stately gold dome rose a short distance away, but here a whole different San Francisco thrived. Men slowly circulated around the stretch of concrete that abuts UN Plaza. Every so often one would furtively pull out a laptop, a brand new pair of sneakers, or even — improbably enough — bagged collard greens to try to sell to someone hustling by.

Seventh and Market is where the city’s underground economy bubbles to the surface. It’s a Wal-Mart of stolen goods — nearly anything can be bought or, as I would soon find out, stolen to order. McCloskey estimated as many as three in seven bikes stolen in San Francisco end up here. The police periodically conduct stings in the area, but the scene seemed to continue unabated.

I made my way to the front of the Carl’s Jr. that overlooks an entrance to the Civic Center BART station. I didn’t know what to expect or do, so I apprehensively approached three men who were lounging against the side of the restaurant — they clearly weren’t there for lunch. I asked them if they knew where I could get a bike. To my surprise, the man in the center rattled off a menu.

"I’ve got a really nice $5,300 road bike I will sell you for $1,000. I’ve got another for $500 and two Bianchis for $150 each," he said.

I told him the prices he listed seemed too good to be true and asked him if the bikes were stolen. People gave them to him, he explained dubiously, because they owed him money. I asked him about my Fuji, but he said he didn’t have it.

I walked around until I bumped into a woman who called herself Marina. She had a hollow look in her eyes, but I told her my story, and she seemed sympathetic. She sealed a hand-rolled cigarette with a lick, lit it, and made the following proposition: "I have a couple of friends that will steal to order — bicycles, cosmetics, whatever — give me a couple of days, and I will set something up."

I politely declined. McCloskey said steal-to-order rings are a common criminal racket in the city. Police have busted thieves with shopping lists for everything from Victoria’s Secret underwear to the antiallergy drug Claritin. In one case, McCloskey said, police traced a ring smuggling goods to Mexico.

A short time later a man rode through the plaza on a beat-up yellow Schwinn. He tried to sell the 12-speed to another man, so I approached him and asked how much he wanted for it. He told me $20. With a modest amount of bargaining, I got him down to $5 before telling him I wasn’t interested.

Just before I left, two police officers on a beat patrol walked through the plaza. Sales stopped briefly. As soon as the officers passed out of earshot, a man came up to me. "Flashlights," he said, "real cheap."

INSIDE A CHOP SHOP


After striking out at Seventh and Market, I figured it was time to investigate the chop shops Veysey mentioned. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) reports bicycle chop shops operate all over the city. Thieves strip bikes because the parts (unlike the frames) don’t have serial numbers and can’t be traced as stolen once they are removed from a bike. The parts can be sold individually or put on another stolen bike to disguise it, hence the Frankenstein bikes that show up at the Bike Hut.

When Veysey told me about bicycle chop shops, I pictured something from a ’70s cop movie — a warehouse in an industrial district populated with burly men wielding blowtorches. But the trail led me somewhere else entirely: Golden Gate Park.

SFBC officials said they had received reports from a gardener about chop shops in the park. When I called Maggie Cleveland, a Recreation and Park Department employee responsible for cleaning up the park, she said they do exist and would show me what she thought was one if I threw on a pair of gloves, grabbed a trash bag, and joined one of her cleanup crews. I agreed.

Shortly before 8 a.m. on a foggy, chilly morning, the crew and I picked up mechanical grabbers and industrial-size trash bags and then climbed a steep hill near 25th Avenue and Fulton Street on the Richmond District side of the park. We plunged into a large camp in the middle of a hollowed-out grove of acacia bushes.

The camp looked like a sidewalk after an eviction. Books and papers vomited from the mouth of a tent. Rain-soaked junk littered the camp, including a golf bag filled with oars, an algebra textbook, a telescope, and a portable toilet. A hypodermic needle stuck in a stump like a dart and a gaudy brass chandelier swung from a branch. Amid the clutter was one constant: bicycles and their parts.

A half dozen bikes leaned against bushes in various states of repair. There were piles of tires and gears scattered around. The noise of the crew had awoken the residents of the camp. A man and two women sprung up and immediately tried to grab things as the crew stuffed the contents of the camp into trash bags. They grew more and more agitated as two dozen bags were filled.

Cleveland said the group may have been operating a chop shop, but she didn’t have definitive proof, so they were let go with camping citations. I asked one of the campers if their bikes were stolen.

"We find this stuff in the trash. There’s an economy here. We exchange stuff for other stuff," he said.

Cleveland said the camp was typical of what the crews find around the park. One of the most notorious campers goes by the name Bicycle Robert. Cleveland said park officials have found a handful of his camps over the past couple years. One contained more than two dozen bikes, but Robert himself has never turned up.

Occasionally, cyclists will get lucky and find their bikes at a chop shop. Max Chen was eating dinner in North Beach one night when his Xtracycle, a bicycle with an elongated back for supporting saddlebags, was stolen. Chen didn’t hold out much hope of getting it back, but he put up flyers around the neighborhood anyway.

The next day Chen got a call from a friend who said he saw a portion of the distinctive bike behind the Safeway at Potrero and 16th streets. Chen went down to the spot and found a group of guys with an RV, a handful of bicycles, and a pile of bike parts. His bike was there — sort of.

"The frame was in one place, and the pedals were on another bike. Other parts were on other bikes. I pointed to all the stuff that was mine and had them strip it. My frame had already been painted silver," Chen told me.

Not surprisingly, one of the men said he had bought Chen’s bike from someone in the Civic Center. Chen just wanted his bike back, so he forked over $60. The guys handed him a pile of parts in return.

WHERE BIKES GO TO DIE


A few days after the trip to Golden Gate Park, I finally got around to doing what I should have done when my bike was stolen: file a police report. Frankly, I waited because I held out little hope the police would be of any help.

It’s true few people get their bikes back through the police, but that’s in part because most people don’t try. In fact, the police are sitting on a cache of stolen bikes so big that it dwarfs the stock of any bike store in the city.

SFPD Lt. Tom Feney agreed to show it to me, so I trekked out to Hunters Point. The police stolen property room is located in an anonymous-looking warehouse in the Naval Shipyard. Feney ushered me through a metal door to the warehouse and then swept his hand through the air as if pointing out a beautiful panorama.

"There it is," he said.

Behind a 10-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, row upon row of bikes stretched along the floor of the warehouse. There were children’s bikes with hot pink paint, $2,000 road bikes, and everything in between. In all, the police had about 500 stolen bikes in the warehouse. The bikes are found abandoned on the street, recovered from stings on drug houses, and removed from bike thieves when they are busted. Many of the bikes aren’t stolen — they’ve been confiscated during arrests or are evidence in various cases. The department can’t return the stolen bikes because the owners haven’t reported them stolen. After holding them for 18 months, the police donate the bikes to charity.

I intently scanned up and down the rows looking for my bike. I didn’t see it. My last, best chance for finding it had disappeared. My heart dropped knowing my Fuji Touring was gone. Feney ushered me out the door, and I began the long, slow walk back to the bus stop.

The most frustrating part is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Police and bicycle groups said there are some simple steps city officials could take to cut down on bike theft, but the issue has long slipped through the cracks.

Officer Romeo de la Vega, who works the SFPD’s Fencing Unit, said he proposed a bike registration system a few months ago, but it was shot down by the police brass. De la Vega said he was told there simply weren’t enough officers available to staff the system. Under his plan cyclists would register their bike serial numbers with police. In return the cyclists would get a permanent decal to place on their bikes. De la Vega said this would discourage thieves from stealing bikes since it would be clear they were registered, and it would speed bike returns.

With police officials claiming there are few resources to combat bike theft, it seems logical they might reach out to the community for help. But officials with the SFBC report just the opposite.

"In the past we’ve tried to connect with the police to jointly tackle the problem, but we haven’t had much luck. We don’t even know who is handling bike thefts," Andy Thornley, the SFBC program director, said.

Thornley said the coalition is willing to use its membership to help police identify chop shops and fencing rings around the city. He said the police need to do a better job of going after the larger players in the bike theft world and the District Attorney’s Office needs to take a tougher stance on prosecution.

Ultimately, Thornley said, enforcement is not the key to reducing bike theft. He said the city must make it easier for cyclists to park their bikes safely. The coalition is crafting legislation that would require all commercial buildings to allow cyclists to bring their bikes inside — something many currently prohibit. The coalition would also like to see bike parking lots spring up around the city, with attendants to monitor them.

Supervisor Chris Daly, who is an avid cyclist and has had six bikes stolen, said he is willing to help.

"It’s clear we are not doing very much," Daly said. "I think if there were a push from bicyclists to do a better job, I would certainly work toward making theft more of a priority." *

Bush and the Hetch Hetchy mystery: Who do you suppose put that mysterious pro-PG&E line in Bush’s $2.9 trillion budget?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Well, there it was in the Chuck Squatriglia story in the Feb. 7 Chronicle: the mystery story with the mystery headline: “Hetch Hetchy line in Bush’s budget blasted.”

The lead continued the mystery story with a mystery lead: “A single line deep within President Bush’s $2.9 trillion federal budget has renewed the debate over draining the Hetch Hetchy Valley and returning it to its natural state.”

The second paragraph added some mysterious detail to the mystery: “The president set aside $7 million within the National Park Service budget to ‘support Hetch Hetchy restoration studies’ that would explore the environmental and recreational benefits of draining a reservoir that provides water for 2.4 million Bay Area residents.”

In the second to last paragraph in the story was yet another mysterious paragraph that added to the mystery: “No one at the Department of Interior or within the Park Service or the Office of Management and Budget, which compiles the president’s budget proposal, could say who included the Hetch Hetchy item in the spending plan or why.”

Gosh, golly, gee: How in the world did a line asking for funds to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley get into the federal budget of one of the most anti-environment presidents of all time? The Chronicle and everyone else who covered the story without gulping, including the Sacramento Bee/McClatchy papers and their self-immolating tear-it-down-and-damn-the-consequences position. could not come up with the answer. Nobody even seemed to try or disclosed who they called or what anybody told them or indicated how hard the papers tried to tackle this tough Washington story with a big local angle. Nor did the papers call anybody from the public power forces to see if they had a clue or a comment.

Well, we have a clue. Bush is no sudden born again environmentalist and he doesn’t really give a damn about opening up a dammed up valley in a national park. “But,” as our Wednesday editorial states, “he’s a hell of a privatizer, and supports almost anything that shifts public resources into the hands of profit-making companies. And blasting the city’s water and hydropower dam into dust would be a huge favor to one of the nation’s largest private power companies–and a huge blow to public-power efforts in San Francisco.”

The federal Raker Act that allowed San Francisco to dam Hetch Hetchy Valley for water also mandated that the dam generate electricity, and that the cheap power be sold to the residents and businesses of the city as a public alternative to PG&E’s private monopoly. Thus, PG&E would be the biggest beneficiary of any restoration project.

Once again, I am curious why the restore Hetch Hetchy forces are so adamant on restoring Hetch Hetchy, but seemingly not as interested in other major environmental issues. Why do they not put at least comparable energy into saving and taking back the Presidio? Or properly funding the other major longtime maintenance problems at Yosemite? Or helping stop the moves to privatize the national park system and other public assets? Or moving to stop and/or criticize and confront the many moves of the Bush administration to turn back the clock on the environment and environmental protections?

All of these issues, let me emphasize, are not important to PG&E and its allies except to help PG&E’s astroturf green campaign to stop the inroads of public power and enforcement of the Raker Act to bring our own Hetch Hetchy public power to our own people in San Francisco. Repeating for emphasis: PG&E would be the major beneficiary of any restoration project. Anybody have any other suggestions or ideas? B3

Professional note to Hearst corporate in New York via Chronicle/Hearst publisher Frank Vega and Editor Phil Bronstein: Isn’t it about time, after all these decades of abject Hearst obeisance to PG&E, to allow your reporters and editors in San Francisco to tell the truth and do the real story about the PG&E/Raker Act scandal. (See Guardian stories and editorials going back to the pioneering story of Professor Joe Neilands in the l969 Guardian). B3, who is for restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley only after public power and real environmental reform come to San Francisco under the public power mandates of the Raker Act and a U.S.Supreme Court decision, much more to come, stay alert

P.S. Ever wonder why the Washington press corp and the mainstream media couldn’t figure out what Bush was up to with his propaganda march into Iraq? And why they now are having so much trouble with those anonymous military sources who are now beating the tom toms about Iran influence in Iraq? Go back and read this story again and follow our coverage on what we consider to be the biggest scandal in U.S. history involving a city. The PG@E/Raker Act scandal is also, let me emphasize, one of the most censored stories in U.S. history. Details to come.

Idle question: do you suppose those “competitive” Dean Singleton papers down the Peninsula, in the East Bay, in Marin, all over the place, will pick up on the mystery and figure it out?

SFBG ONLINE: Bush’s big favor to PG&E

Modesto Bee-Hetch Hetchy Editorials

SUNDAY

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FEB. 11

MUSIC

Ettes

Stick this one in your pocket flask and suck it: the holy trinity of badassedness sport the names Coco, Poni, and Jem, and together they carry enough swagger to send you running home to Mama, red faced and yowling. This LA trio – known collectively as the Ettes – slashes out leather jacket heroics in floorboard-punishing bursts lasting three minutes or less, and their strain of garage punk paints flaming visions of Nancy Sinatra (or, better yet, Holly Golightly) drag racing with the Sonics. Their latest release, last year’s Shake the Dust (Sympathy for the Record Industry), sets the record straight once and for all: three-chord rock ’n’ roll has plenty more to say. (Todd Lavoie)

With Masmelo
9:30 p.m., $6
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com

DANCE

Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now

This is the week when African American dance kicks into high gear: the third annual two-weekend “Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now” gives a local perspective to contemporary dance by African American and diaspora artists both experienced and emerging. (Rita Felciano)

7 p.m., $20
Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts
1428 Alice, Oakl.
(415) 863-9834
www.bcfhereandnow.com
Also Feb. 15-17, 8 p.m.; Feb. 18, 7 p.m.
ODC Theater
3153 17th St., SF
See Web site for more information

FRIDAY

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FEB. 9

MUSIC

Top 10 DJ Dreamteam

Within San Francisco’s DJ dynasty, house DJs and breaks DJs have long battled for clubgoers’ absolute allegiance, with house maintaining a strong lead. But the decks have turned, if Nitevibe’s Top 10 DJ Dreamteam 2007 is any indication. After polling thousands of night crawlers, the online publication assembled a showcase of top 10 favorite local DJs, which places breaks masters Bassnectar, Smoove, and Syd Gris alongside house heavyweights David Harness and Miguel Migs. (Joshua Rotter)

With Taj, Mancub, Dirtyhertz, and Seven
10 p.m., $15
1015 Folsom
1015 Folsom, SF
(415) 431-1200
www.djdreamteam.com

FILM

“Midnites for Maniacs:
So Straight, It’s Gay”

Freddy Krueger’s bent in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. In the 1985 sequel the knife-fingered one possesses the body of fey blond twink Jesse, played by Mark Patton. When he isn’t performing dance routines to hi-NRG in his bedroom, he’s prone to fits of hysteria. But who wouldn’t be after slapping an S-M gym teacher’s ass raw and red with hot wet gym towels? Directed by Jack Sholder, it shares a “So Straight, It’s Gay” Midnites for Maniacs bill with the Patrick Swayze beefcake vehicle Road House and Top Gun, which, face it, looks exactly like a Falcon video with all the fuck scenes cut out. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Road House 7:30 p.m.
Top Gun 9:45 p.m.
Nightmare on Elm Street 2:
Freddy’s Revenge 11:59 p.m.
$10 for all three films
Castro Theatre
429 Castro, SF
(415) 621-6120
www.castrotheatre.com

Splendor in the ass

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365 NAKED DAYS I didn’t care if 2006 was half over when I discovered artist Sara Thustra’s poster-size, silk-screened and stitched butcher-paper calendar last year. Stuffed with a zine and riddled with mythical critters, a hairy hippie Adam and Eve, and a monstrous Paul Stanley–esque rock ‘n’ roll hydra head, it was so handsomely handmade — the paper-ephemera equivalent of a fun-loving, snaggletoothed boy toy with dirty locks who sews his own clothes — I had to have it anyway. Despite the handful of calendars dangling on my walls, I’m always late. So I seemed to be the last to discover the almanacs Thustra — also known as Z and notorious for his polemical posters, Gay Shame actions, and graf artifacts — has been whipping up over the past few years.

This time, however, Thustra has outdone himself. "Ten Pictures and Two Pin-Ups," the anarcho-artist and Brande Blah’s 2007 porn calendar, is chockacock full of hard-ons, pendulous boobies, and orifices that are fully open for business (and pleasure), along with a soupçon of hardcore still imagery. Writer Lorelei Lee distills life as a local porn talent in the episodic, dryly humorous centerfold text, but the real stars here are the gay/straight/whatev, proud, whimsical, body-painted, greased, Mohawked, skanky, scraggly, and beautiful sextivists, posed before a sweetly kicky and kinky colorful backdrop, as if crust punks were out to replicate a Laugh-In set, equipped with only childhood sheets and tube socks. Why does that down-home DIY flava continue to tantalize so many years after the advent of amateur vids and Calvin Klein ads? It works, and Thustra and Blah preface the affair with a manifesto of sorts: "We hope you look at these images with sweetness and kindness…. We live in a world where it is unsafe to be sexual. We think that this reality holds us back from honest communication between friends, family, and other communities. Most of all it holds us back from lots of fun, self exploration, and of corse [sic] … lots of fucking." Are those the creators themselves posing as December’s pinups? Are those dimples I spy with my little third eye? Nice knee-highs! (Kimberly Chun)

Calendar ($20) available at Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St., SF. (415) 255-1534, www.needles-pens.com

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Sex on wheels

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FIXED-GEAR FIX Mr. July, bare chested, coyly toys with a Rubik’s Cube, the waistband of his Champion boxer-briefs just visible above his brown leather belt with a "Philadelphia Freedom" buckle. Mr. November, sandwiched between two Muni cars, has his T-shirt pulled up to just above his nipples, revealing washboard abs and a plethora of tattoos. Mr. February gazes longingly over the Mission rooftops, one slippered foot swinging like a come-on over the edge.

What do they have in common besides month-based nomenclature? They’re all local bike messengers who were lustily photographed by Svet, Laura Downey, Peter Taylor, and Kevin White for the 2007 "At Your Service" bike messenger calendar.

If you’re a big gay like me, you spent most of the post–Chili Peppers, pre–Warped Tour ’90s playing not fantasy football but fantasy bike squad, dreaming of scruffy, rough-and-tumble boys like the ones pictured in the calendar streaking over hill and dale on their FrankenTreks to deliver their special package to you (insert back-door delivery joke here). A few years and several actual messenger scores later (yep, that was me on Craigslist) brought the reality that fantasy is best savored virtually — but that doesn’t mean I had to quit looking.

The calendar, shot by Bay Area photogs and laid out by local gear-queen designer Downey, brings a breath of sweaty, last night’s beer–scented air to any cubicle or bathroom. Indulge yearlong in the grungy goodness! (Marke B.)

Calendar available ($10) at Box Dog Bikes, 494 14th St., SF. (415) 431-9627, www.boxdogbikes.com; and Refried Cycles, 440 Haight, SF. (415) 621-2911, www.refriedcycles.com; or by e-mailing Laura Downey at blueakira@gmail.com

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Love rebuff

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SONIC REDUCER Hey, subliminal kids, watch out for those Music and Lyrics billboards all over town — they’re as deadly as Pretty Ricky’s between-the-sheets crunk, chased by Justin Timberlake covers such as the Klaxons’ strings-laced "My Love" and Rock Plaza Central’s mead-soaked "Sexy Back." The poster pic is so mundane that it catches then holds your attention: Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore shyly demur from meeting the viewer’s, and each other’s, eyes, choosing instead to moon over — what? Music, lyrics, Craigslist casual encounter ads, old mug shots? With Valentine’s Day shuffling furtively around the corner, I’d venture that it’s best Hugh and Drew weren’t out bonding over some cozy Cattle Decapitation appearance, because as all we brave, San Francisco live-music lovers know, hot hookups and cool shows don’t necessarily mix.

Unspoken rule number 14 of San Francisco rock, according to your cruise director on the Glumboat: don’t hit on the local wildlife at shows. San Francisco’s SFMFs (single female music fans, for all you acronym haters) know, Joe. Single is an increasingly obsolete format in vinyl, CD, and skin and bones — consider it a mission impossible to meet nonattached men, women, or potted plants at shows. I don’t care which way you swing (if — caveat — you’re not in the band itself), you’re more likely to have a close, personal relationship with the bouncer who’s forcibly removing you from the club than someone you’d potentially want to date. You have a better chance meeting some fast ninetysomething at a retirement home than at a show.

If you’ve just moved to town: so sorry to bust up your illusions of glam romance, but concerts here are simply not pickup scenes — for anyone other than the guys and girls in the band. Hip-hop, folk, C&W, blues, pop, and rock lovelorns — you’re all outta luck, though indie rock is the absolute worst. You know that cute, floppy-haired, gangly boy rocker in a polo shirt and Converse by the side of the stage? He may be by himself (and likely he has a futsy partner tucked away at home), but that doesn’t mean he actually wants to talk to anyone — let alone get a phone number.

All this is what I’ve gathered during my many years of showgoing — and a quick, extremely unscientific poll of singletons in Guardian editorial bears me out. Sample responses: "Everyone’s all cliqued up at shows." "You go with your friends, find your spot, and you don’t talk to other people. Ever." "At dance clubs you meet other people because you’re actually dancing with each other. At live shows everyone’s looking at the stage." "It’s too loud to talk." "San Francisco has a reputation of being aloof." "Maybe you can talk to someone when you’re standing in line at the bar?"

"Either it’s all guys or the one girl you want to hit on will be someone in the band’s girlfriend," said calendar editor Duncan Scott Davidson, who’s also clocked time as a doorguy at Slim’s, the Endup, and 111 Minna. "The only time I ever tried to pick up someone was at a Bomb show, and she turned out to be Bomb drummer Tony Fag’s girlfriend." Irony abounds.

He’s actually seen guys trying to hit on women at shows, he added, "But what do you say? ‘This band really rocks, huh?’ "

My favorite answer is "People are just there for the music," which does say something about our fair scene’s integrity if you believe music lovers are simply there to see and hear, not to hook up. And perhaps it imparts even more about the nature of local original music, which is less about the damsels than going dumb, less about the sex than the noise sax solos — with the Lovemakers in the horny minority. Chalk it up to the Bay Area’s feminist legacy and the p.c. ’90s, but on the plus side of the non-meat-market music scene, I’ve often felt as safe and unpressured while checking out music solo as any hulking dude in a black hoodie at a Mastodon show. Perhaps our live scene is thriving on that focus and the passion we have for the music — and lyrics — itself.

Ahem. I don’t know about you, horndogs, but pure intentions certainly get me all hot and bothered, though they don’t help when we’re sulking alone in the corner at the Husbands’ Valentine hoedown. If ya got a problem with that, prove me wrong. *

SWINGING SOUNDS O’ THE STRATOSPHERE

BLOODY HOLLIES


A question for the ages: Who to Trust, Who to Love, Who to Kill — and the title of the fierce San Diego blues punks’ new Alive disc. Wed/7, 9 p.m. Annie’s Social Club, 917 Folsom, SF. $5. (415) 974-1585

KINGS AND QUEENS


Nevada City homegrownies make haunting pop prog. P.S. K&Q’s Rich Good once teamed with Joanna Newsom in the Pleased. Thurs/8, 9:30 p.m. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $6. www.hemlocktavern.com

MIRAH


Recently remixed up with Mt. Eerie and Anna Oxygen on Joyride, the K artist is too cute for her horn-rims. Little Brazil and the Affair also play. Fri/9, 10 p.m. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $8–$10. (415) 621-4455

RED THREAD


The moody Oaklanders are stitching up new songs for a summer album. Fri/9, 9:30 p.m. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $7. www.hemlocktavern.com

TYVA KYZY


Riot rrroar — the all-female Tuvan throat singers wrap their power pipes around lullabies and tunes about tea. Sun/11, 8 p.m. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. $21. (415) 885-0750

ZS


The NYC chamber noise–niks sit down with Death Sentence: Panda! and Sword and Sandals. Sun/11, 9 p.m. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $8. (415) 621-4455

San Francisco lovin’

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Valentine’s Day date ideas
V-Day shopping guide
Complete V-Day events listings

› culture@sfbg.com

Oh! What a web of tangled flesh we postbohemian, rapidly gentrifying, pandemic-aware, pre-spray-on-condom and mint-flavored chewable RU-486 San Francitizens weave! Folks still trot out the ol’ misty-eyed cynicisms: romance is dead, sex is boring, love is impossible, "I’m too fat"…. But that doesn’t stop ’em from doing it until their knees ache when they get the winky come-on (or hoping for Mr. or Ms. Right to ease the tax burden). Sure, in the age of the Internetz, sex is now a shopping trip — just log on for huge fake tits (aisle four), smart-mouthed ghettosexuals (aisle six), muffin tops gon’ wild (aisle nine), or guys who inject a gallon of saline into their shaved balls (clean up, aisle five). No need to be a bitch or a ho — you’re already both on the webcam, dude. Don’t forget your password.

But still. Love exists, right? Christina Aguilera tells us so. And love leads to sex. Or to real sex. Or the other way around. Something. And don’t even ask about the whole monogamy thing! Can’t it all be easier? Aren’t we robots yet? No, not yet. For good or ill we live in a magical place where impulse meets emotion in technology’s dark corner and heads upstairs with it to a small room marked "free love" ($29 an hour) — leaving behind a trail of used rubbers, hopefully. Below we delve into the sex-and-romance pros and cons of some especially San Franciscan things. Maybe it’ll help make things a little clearer. Maybe!

BEING A STRAIGHT GIRL


Carrie Bradshaw, Marissa Cooper, and Dr. Meredith Grey have their trumped-up Trumps, Shin-die schlubs, and Doc McDreamys, but what do so many straight, single women get in the Bay bohemia otherwise known as America’s gay mecca? Commitmentphobic Peter Pan–ders, crusty granola cronies who only cruise twentysomethings, workaholic geeks who seldom see the light of day (apart from the blazing orbs of Burning Man), and windburned adventurers with a never-ending thirst to mountain bike, lick that downward dog, and hike the closest REI. Face it: single straight sistahs have the toughest lot in this town. A 2004 San Francisco magazine story estimated that unmarried straight 20- to 44-year-old SF men outnumbered their female counterparts by about 12,000. But I bet most eligible gals feel — nay, know — that the ratio is weighted in the dudes’ favor. It doesn’t help that years of STD- and AIDS-inspired social conservatism seem to have spurred peeps and perps to hook up early and less often — despite our fair city’s freewheeling rep when it comes to sex roles, relationships, and gender politics. San Francisco’s single chicks sometimes find themselves wondering, "Whatever happened to dating? Where did everyone go? Is it my breath?" When one male friend told me his ex’s claim that she’s dating multiple fellahs in various NorCal cities, my bullshit detector started honking. Tell it to all the attractive, smart, independent, and nubile femme singletons I know who are sitting home Saturday nights.

Pros: Never having to worry about getting macked on at guycentric sports events, shows, and construction sites. Women are always free at the Power Exchange. There’s sisterhood in desperation. You can always join a girl gang and accost hapless men walking alone in dark parking lots. That yawning bore across the table is looking better every sec.

Cons: Dating. Shooting down poseurs who are into shopping for the pick of the litter. Resigning yourself to your anemic online-dating shopping options. And how depressing is it to go to a sex club by yourself? That yawning bore across the table is looking better every sec. (Kimberly Chun)

BEING A STRAIGHT GUY


I worked security at the Endup for four years. As a straight guy, I found myself jealous of my gay compatriots out there on the dance floor, nuts to butts, letting it all hang out. Obviously, gay men have committed, complicated, and drama-filled relationships too. But boys will be boys, and it seemed things were so much simpler and, pardon the pun, more straightforward for gay guys in San Francisco. Less of a mating ritual and more mating. It’s the classic straight guy’s lament: if women acted like dudes, I’d be getting laid right now. Or, as Michael Dean once said in a Bomb song, "The girl that I miss is just me in a dress." Still, after 15 years in San Francisco, I’m starting to see the bonuses of being single, straight, and not so young in a city known worldwide for Rice-a-Roni, sourdough bread, and buffed-out, hunky young gay guys.

Pros: At 35, I may actually be starting to enjoy dating. No one’s lugging around that "my heart was broken, and I can’t go through that again" cross anymore. We’re all adults here, and like the young, restless, and gay, we’ve gotten in touch with our biological needs. Thirtysomething Bay City rollers know they need to get off and they don’t have to meet their soul mate to do it. Sure, the roller coaster of love is one hell of a ride, but sometimes it’s enough to get Indian food, hit a bar with a good jukebox, rent a movie, go home, and fuck.

Cons: People really do get married. Which means the thirtysomething dating pool shrinks and you can end up dating someone younger. This might seem like a pro, until you try to make a pop culture reference on a date and hear crickets chirp. There’s not a lot of eye-to-eye going on when your love interest ejects Mania, by the Vibrators, to put on Green Day. (Duncan Scott Davidson)

BEING A QUEER


Oh, the burden! Straight guys think you get laid more than them. Straight girls think you get laid more than them. Both of them think you like turtlenecks and cologne. It’s horrifying! And history! Here you are over the rainbow, in the fiercely romantic-looking burg all those haters in high school screeched at you to move to, and you’re scrounging for any bit of affection you can find among the forest of online profiles and the coral reef of lopsided haircuts. Plus you’ve got billboards screaming "AIDS!" in your face on every corner. It’s enough to drive a lonely fag to the gym or a dyke to the (one) bar, if that weren’t just as fucked-up a defense mechanism as huddling with your old Smiths EPs and a tankard of Merlot in your cubby. But c’mon, at least you can walk home from your trick’s house….

Pros: Be all you can be! Journey of discovery! There’s a new opportunity around every corner. The hottest FTMs on the face of the planet. Boys aren’t wearing so much product as in 2002. Being the envy of the gay world. Invisible lipstick lesbians. Trash drag. Crystal meth played out (pretty much). Domestic partnership laws (if only …). Gay love is real (ask your serial monogamous friends). Hey, at least it’s not Chelsea!

Cons: Too many to choose from. No need to grow up. Too many bottoms. Ever-present feeling you should get more tattoos — or is that trying too hard? Everyone wants to be your fag hag. Monogamous or "negotiated"? Holier-than-thou activists, hotter-than-thou street life. "What if I’m really straight?" Knowing everyone’s as shy as you but not being able to do anything about it. (Marke B.)

OUR PLAYBOY MAYOR


What a difference a few screaming headlines make. Throw in a Scientology siren, underage cocktail gulpers, and a couple plowed society babes with fiercely straightened fright wigs and outta-hand cheekbones — and ya got yerself a mayor! All we need are some flesh-eating pigs and anesthesia-free surgery to dub this the return of the wild, wild, perhaps very wild, especially when tanked, west — a Deadwood of sorts, if that didn’t imply a kind of flaccid fumbling. Nonetheless, let’s call it the latest in a grand tradition of San Francisco’s romantic and sexual politico-explorers from days of yore — from Harvey Milk to Willie Brown — that we have Mayor Gavin Newsom finally unchained from his legal-eagle Victoria’s Secret model missus and free to allegedly cruise Cow Hollow’s finer drinking establishments after hours, as rumor has long had it. Oh, the list is long and ever growing: encompassing the CSI: Miami starlet and the city mag editor eager to vet her boy’s cover pic alike. Now comes the real test of testosterone: whether Newsom can summon that ironclad Clintonesque charm to weather the latest scandal. My question for the Gavinator: what are you doing for Valentine’s Day?

Pros: The ever-changing cast of hotties at parties and photo ops sure dresses up society pages. No more tacky Harper’s Bazaar fashion spreads. Plenty of heavily gelled, aerodynamic-looking helmet hair. The notion of a Scientologist mayor clears rooms. We can now use that hallowed line, "Is that your Plump Jack — or are you just excited to see me?" Feeling privy to the secret life of frat boys. He’s never boring.

Cons: Kennedy comparisons are starting to grate. Clinton comparisons are starting to chafe. And there’s too much chafing in general. The ever-changing cast of hotties is starting to resemble a sale crowd riding the revolving door at Neiman. Paris Hilton?! And we won’t be shocked to see Britney Spears stumbling out of a mayoral Four Seasons suite next. He’s so predictably not boring that it’s starting to get tiresome. (Kimberly Chun)

OLD HIPPIES


You see them everywhere but mainly on the Muni and at medical marijuana rallies. Some of them look saintly but a little crazed, as if they see a spaceship in your hair. Others resemble your sexy-yet-matronly high school French teacher, smiling indulgently but always ready to rap your knuckles with a day-old baguette if you get your future perfects wrong. Still others seem like they can’t wait to explode with rage at … well, anything, really. All of them are lovable in a historical light. When they’re off their meds — not so much. They’re living monuments to the golden age of free love, and, as medical science advances and rent-control laws stand, they’re not going away anytime soon. (Can young people afford to move here anymore anyway?) They also have a world of sensual knowledge to impart.

Pros: Mother figures, father figures, lusty lovers, spiritual guides — these Baudelairean kickers against the pricks can do it all — and they bake a mean hash brownie to get it all started. Plus: years of experimentation have made them freaky. You may have to crank up the solar defibrillator, but they’re experts in how to "get your motor running."

Cons: Occasional bad-trip flashbacks. Always slightly wary. Strawberry-scented oxygen tanks. Pillow talk = Allen Ginsberg stories. Hairy. Half tantric. Forgot if they put out candles. Ponytail or braid can get caught in teeth. (Marke B.)

BURNING MAN FLINGS


Burning Man is a sexual and emotional cauldron. Liberally mix together a world of sensory delights, a spirit of reckless abandon, beautiful exposed bodies everywhere, sudden sandstorms that send you scurrying into the nearest tent or trailer, countless peak experiences, exposure to a myriad of lifestyles and communities, and 40,000 people with time on their hands, goodwill in their hearts, and lust in their loins, and it’s no surprise that people end up hooking up left and right. This place oozes sexual energy while stripping away our emotional defenses and leaving us exposed to Cupid’s arrows.

Pros: Whatever you want, it’s here, often with no strings attached. When people come back from the playa all blissed-out and saying how it changed their lives, that’s usually not just the drugs talking. People do things they wouldn’t do in the everyday world — and then they do it again and again. And if you follow the sound advice of veteran burners to leave your expectations at home and just be open to the experience, then you’re also in the ideal place to not just get laid but truly find love. Believe it or not, I know of lots of lasting, loving marriages between people who met on the playa.

Cons: All the things that make Burning Man so conducive to sex and romance can also create problems. People get emotionally splayed by the often overwhelming nature of daily life on the playa. They’re vulnerable to everything from small slights that get exaggerated to the predators who invariably exist in any town. Couples get tested. Singles can at times feel lonely and desperate. Everybody has a few hard mornings after. And as a practical matter, dust gets everywhere — and I mean everywhere. (Steven T. Jones)

LUSTY LADIES


The Bay has a long and luxuriously twisted history of female sexual empowerment, full of Brights, Queens, Dodas, Califias, Blanks, Chos, and other sparkling heroines of don’t-do-it-and-die philosophy — some of whom have gone on to become heroes, even. The two major, classic phalanxes of gyno-horno-positivism to have arisen from the mists of all that groundwork are the Lusty Lady and Good Vibrations. The Lady, currently a worker-owned stripper co-op, has been baring a broad variety of intelligent, worldly-wise physical types for almost 30 years, and Good Vibrations, a women-centered chain of erotica shops that offer a plethora of workshops and training sessions for both women and men, has helped make vibrators the Tupperware of the new millennium. Despite the ubiquity of silicone enhancements and Girls Gone Wild antics in today’s culture, the Lusty Lady and Good Vibrations try to keep it real by focusing on the pleasures inherent in strong, natural femininity. In an era when guys are being forced like never before to question their physical attributes and sexual virility, thanks to size-queen porn and erectile dysfunction spam, the gals — who’ve had to deal with that kind of shit forever — may have a bit of an upper hand, self-image-wise, thanks in part to these two affirming San Francisco institutions. Not that it’s a competition.

Pros: Lusty Lady’s the best place to take your gay friends for a fabulous girls’ night out. Everything I know about labias I learned from Good Vibrations.

Cons: I have to hand-wash all my plates because my dishwasher’s usually full of Good Vibrations dildos. I have to hand-wash all my clothes because I spend all my quarters in the booths at the Lusty Lady. (Marke B.)

PORN AND TECHNOLOGY


Right up the Peninsula from Silicon Valley, we find ourselves in techie heaven. Most of the global advances in online technology burst first and foremost from our fertile area. The bust and boom that locked the Bay in a violent coital grasp in the early ’00s exhausted us, but Web 2.0’s got us all atingle again. This time we’re sure we won’t make the same mistakes. We’ll keep it social, we’ll keep it personal. Most of all, we’ll keep it sexual. Thanks to advances in digital production and online distribution — and our wondrously pervy nature (not to mention our desirable market) — the porn industry in San Francisco has exploded. The city is now home to a majority of the biggest gay porn companies and quite a few straight and fetish ones.

The most barefaced manifestation of the lucrative intersection of porn and technology is the purchase of the ginormous Armory in the Mission by fetish header Kink.com to house its offices, studios, and online operations. (Personally, I can’t wait for them to open a Kink Café in there as well. St. Andrew’s croissandwich, anyone?) This may be a harbinger of things to come. We’re not exactly holding our collective breath for Bang Bus to take over the LucasArts HQ in the Presidio or for the former Candlestick Park to be rechristened Naked Sword Arena — but hey, it could happen. Alas, the fortuitous marriage of porn and technology may be about to hit the skids. Hi-def can reveal a whole lot of ass pimples and nipple lifts — Blu-ray killed the porn star? Then again, it might just provide more employment opportunities for digital touch-up artists. "Hey, man, what’s your new gig?" "I’m rastarizing Busty Fillips’s underarm stretch marks — full-time, plus benefits." Local HMOs are lining up.

The ever-rising tide of digital wonders raises more sensual — and sensitive — boats than porn, however. While no one’s yet perfected the vibrator–cell phone (what ringtone would I put on that? Oh yeah, Beyoncé), rest assured that some little tech elf is working fiendishly away in his or her bright pink laboratory to bring that dream to fruition. Which brings us to the new iPhone. It may not be dildo-ready, exactly — watch that touch screen! — but some of its romantic applications were immediately apparent on its unveiling here in January. What other piece of handheld technology allows a person to be rejected in so many different medias at once? Now when you want to break up with someone, you can call them, text them, and e-mail them all at the same time. Plus, you can share a break-up song on iTunes with them and even throw in a YouTube clip of yourself gently weeping to show how torn up you are inside (clip must be less than 10 minutes in duration and not imitative of copyrighted material). Send a slide show! Skype an e-card! Use PayPal to buy them a "Just Got iDumped" mug on eBay! The possibilities are infinite.

Now if only there were software that could mend a broken heart. Sigh.

Pros: Online hookups? No problem: anywhere, anytime. You don’t have to be physically present to enjoy an entire relationship. Everyone’s a winner: people unable to afford the latest gadget or upgrade get to feel more real. Soon everyone in the city will have a job at Kink.com.

Cons: Much of the Bay population is more interested in staying up all night with a two-liter of Coke, a cold pizza, and a roomful of servers than a warm body. Web 2.0 has brought a horny flood of freshly flush Googlers, Tubers, Diggers, ‘Spacers, and Mac heads on the make to already packed and overpriced Mission bars (watch for those hybrid Tundras parked on the median). You will literally go blind if you jack off to video iPod porn in the bathroom stall at work — that screen’s so small! Soon everyone in San Francisco will have a job at Kink.com. (Marke B.)

Valentine’s Day events

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PARTIES, EVENTS, AND BENEFITS

"Amor del Mar" Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39, Embarcadero at Bay; 623-5323, www.aquariumofthebay.com. Wed/14, 7pm, $125 single, $200 couple. Support the nonprofit Aquarium of the Bay Foundation during this romantic evening featuring cocktails, culinary delights, and a live salsa band.

"Cupid Stunt — Club Neon’s Third Annual Valentine’s Day Underwear Party" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.neonsf.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $10. A chance to dance with no pants, featuring DJs, a lingerie fashion show and trunk sale by designer Danielle Rodriguez, and Valentine’s visuals by Chris Golden.

"Isn’t It Romantic: New Connections Valentine’s Day Benefit Concert" Castro Theatre, 429 Castro; www.newconnections.org. Wed/14, 7:30pm, $20. Local chanteuse Nancy Gilliland sings love songs from the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s to benefit New Connections’ HIV/AIDS healthcare services. Tickets available via www.ticketweb.com.

"Love Your Way to Abolition: Party with Saint Valentine" El Rio, 3158 Mission; www.elriosf.com. Thurs/15, 6pm, $5-50. This benefit for Justice Now, an organization that works with incarcerated women and local communities to build a safe, compassionate world without prisons, will feature speakers and live music.

"Pink’s Valentine’s Party: Cupid’s Back" 296 Liberty; www.pinkmag.com. Sat/10, 8pm, $25. This party will raise funds to support the GLBT Historical Society’s world-class archives of queer history. Romance tips given by Clint Griess, life coach on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and an open bar provided by Bulldog Gin and Peroni Beer. Space is limited.

"Randall Museum Presents a Valentine’s Day Sex Tour" Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way; 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org. Thurs/15, 7:30pm, free, donations encouraged. Guest speaker Jane Tollini of the San Francisco Zoo leads an entertaining and educational romp through the wild kingdom, featuring fairly explicit photos and her own blend of knowledge and humor.

"Sea of Love Scavenger Hunt" California Academy of Sciences, 875 Howard; 321-8000, www.calacademy.org. Sat/10-Thurs/15, 10am-5pm, free with museum admission. Embark on a self-guided scavenger hunt to find the museum’s most amorous creatures and earn fun prizes. G-rated tours available for children.

"The Sweet Cheat Gone — a Free Public Street Game" Meet at corner of Steuart and Market; www.sfzero.org. Sat/10, 7pm, free. Participants take sides in the prosecution of a defendant accused of committing a crime. Teams will travel by foot, bike, or Muni (no cars or taxis) to various San Francisco locations, competing with each other to collect or destroy evidence and prove their case.

"Valentines, Fashion, and You" Nordstrom San Francisco Center, 865 Market; 243-8500, ext 1240. Sat/10, 12pm, free. Event features live models, the hottest fashions in lingerie, refreshments, and prize drawings. Space is limited to the first 100 who RSVP to the number listed above.

"The Vampire Tour of San Francisco" Meet at corner of California and Taylor; (650) 279-1840 (reservations), www.sfvampiretour.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $15-20. Spend Valentine’s Day in the company of a vampire, and take an amorous walk through beautiful Nob Hill. A few special guests are dying to meet you.

"Woo at the Zoo" San Francisco Zoo; Sloat Blvd at 47th St; 753-7263, www.sfzoo.org. Sun/11, 12pm, Tues/13-Wed/14, 6pm, $70. This new and dynamic multimedia event provides an entertaining approach to the erotic life of animals, including how they choose their mates and raise their families. The 90-minute tour features up-close animal encounters and romantic refreshments. Admission includes presentation, refreshments, parking, and zoo admission.

BAY AREA

"Have a Heart" MOCHA — Museum of Children’s Art, 528 Ninth St, Oakl; 510-465-8770, www.mocha.org. Sat/10-Sun/11, 1pm-4pm, $5 per child. Make a papier-mâché heart sculpture or a lacy wire heart mobile and design unique cards for your loved ones.

"Nils Peterson’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading" Le Petit Trianon Theatre, 72 N Fifth St, San Jose; www.pcsj.org. Wed/14, 5:30pm, $10 includes glass of wine. The Poetry Center San Jose presents Nils Peterson, whose long literary career includes a 30-year tenure teaching creative writing at San Jose State University. Also featuring Sally Ashton.

"Saint Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading" Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru, Alameda; (510) 523-6957, www.frankbettecenter.org. Wed/14, 7pm, free. Alameda’s poet laureate Mary Ridge and others will read about people they have loved and welcomed.

"Week of Valentines at Habitot Children’s Museum" Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge, Berk; (510) 647-1111, www.habitot.org. Wed/7-Wed/14, $6 per child and $5 for accompanying adult. Add your unique artistic touch to a large heart sculpture and create handmade Valentine cards for your family and loved ones using recycled materials at this award-winning discovery museum for young adults.

FILM, MUSIC, AND PERFORMANCE

"BATS Improv Special Valentine’s Day Performance" Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, bldg B, Marina at Laguna; 474-8935, www.improv.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $10 advance, $15 at the door. In the first half of the show, audience suggestions will spark scenes and improv games that illustrate the humor in romance. In the second half, the audience will supply a title and a theme for an improvised story that will be created on the spot by BATS’s improv troupe.

"Club Chuckles Presents: Soft Rock vs. Smooth Jazz Valentine’s Day Bash" Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk; 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $5. A battle of the bands that pits the forces of soft rock against smooth jazz, as played by bands Cool Nites and the Sound Painters, respectively. Moderated by comedy duo Carole Murphy and Mitzi Fitzsimmons, who will also dispense advice to the lovelorn and romantically challenged.

"Love Bites the Hand That Feeds It" Theatre Rhinoceros, 2940 16th St; 861-5079, www.therhino.org. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm, $15-$30. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco presents its annual anti-Valentine’s Day cabaret. Both evenings feature a variety of solo, duet, and group performances and will include a fifty-fifty raffle. The Feb. 10 event features a live auction.

"The Love Show by the Un-Scripted Theater Company" Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; www.un-scripted.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $15-40. "The Love Show" will feature songs, scenes, and love-themed fun, all completely improvised. Couples and singles are encouraged to come. (There will even be a "quirky alone" seating section.)

"Mortified: Doomed Valentine’s Show" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; www.makeoutroom.com. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm, $12. Frequently featured on This American Life, Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, and home movies), as shared by their original authors. More information at www.getmortified.com.

"Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk; www.nicejewishgirlsgonebad.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $12. Featuring comedy, music, spoken word, and burlesque from performers seen on Comedy Central, HBO, and MTV. These girls thrill everyone but their mothers.

"Valentine’s Day Film Program: Labor of Love" Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon; www.exploratorium.edu. Sat/10, 2pm, free with museum admission. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, the Exploratorium presents a program of short, expressive films about people who love what they do.

BAY AREA

"Comedy Night in Novato" Pacheco Playhouse, 484 Ignacio Blvd, Novato; 883-4498, www.pachecoplayhouse.org. Wed/14, 6:30pm and 8:30pm, $15. Local comics bring levity to this most romantic of nights. A champagne celebration will close the evening.

"Valentine’s Day Comedy with Johnny Steele and Pals" Village Theater, 223 Front, Danville; (925) 314-3400; www.johnnysteele.com; Wed/14, 8pm, $18. Winner of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, Johnny Steele has been plying his trade for nearly 20 years. A cavalcade of comics joins him for the third annual event.

ART SHOWS

BAY AREA

"All Heart" Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby, Berk; (510) 644-4930, www.expressionsgallery.org. Fri/10, 6pm, free. A collaborative art show with Children’s Hospital Oakland and Art for Life Foundation. The show runs through March 9. Presenting the work of patients participating in Art for Life programs as part of their care and rehabilitation. *

Believe the buzz

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Signed to Frenetic Records and publicized by Fanatic Promotion, local boys–made–groovy the Makes Nice are surprisingly mellow. Perhaps they’ve been consorting with a resurrected British freakbeat muse — it’s been "more relaxed than you’d think, given the name and all," vocalist-guitarist Josh Smith writes via e-mail, discussing the group’s deal with Frenetic. The San Francisco label — also home to releases by one of Smith’s previous bands, the Fucking Champs — is proving an ideal base for these kind and raucous rockers. Their debut, Candy Wrapper and 12 Other Songs, is a head rush without the dizziness. Think honey versus synthetic sweeteners, Tartine Bakery’s shimmering morning buns versus Costco’s limp croissants.

Throughout Candy Wrapper there’s a certain calm — call it the clarity that comes with good ole musicianship. Phil Manley of Trans Am expertly engineered the album at Lucky Cat, and he emphasized how the jazzlike rapport among the players helps the ripping guitar solos become play-it-again hooks, while the drum beats groove like funky piano solos. "I always know that your opinions are stale / When you say fresh, I know it’s fucking stale / And it don’t mean nothing at all," the boys harmonize smoothly over staccato syncopation on the title track. On "As Long As I Can" a crowded drumbeat that could throw off lesser percussionists dances in the agile hands of Jack Matthew (also a member of Harold Ray Live in Concert). When I compare the vocals on "Anna Karina" to those of punk groups on Fat Wreck Chords, Smith responds, "They were supposed to have been stolen from Les Fleur de Lys, Powder, SRC, and maybe the Everly Brothers." The members of the Makes Nice don’t have SRC’s fantastic hair, but the Mothballs’ Aaron Burnham plays bass that would stand strong in any decade of rock.

But how to describe the nature of this superfun trio? A mandolin is subtle and effective because of its double strings. So maybe we could label the Makes Nice a double trio, though they would prefer either a ragingly ridiculous moniker or none at all. "If it’s cool, I would prefer to call my songs post-techstep neofreakbeat," Smith jokes. "I’d call Aaron’s songs anachronistic Spartacus watchband croon-wop. I’d consider Jack’s songs to be hybrid vapor-wetware tragicomedy…." Maybe they play un–surf rock for those who don’t like genre surf rock and don’t know how to surf. "I wish we could play surf music," Burnham writes, pretending to brood. "We sorta tried and failed."

I like to blame the vicious surf gangs in Santa Cruz for stymieing my surfing education. But honestly, I was just as happy to bodysurf in safer spots and then — sunned, exhausted, and deliriously happy (remember that time before laptops?) — find a big smooth rock and rest on it, reading comics. Eventually, I added a Walkman to this scene, then a lover. The Makes Nice capture such windswept feelings in the tunes "She Don’t Ever Let Go" and "California Sun."

Talented local artist Hellen Jo (www.helllllen.org — that’s five l’s) designed Candy Wrapper ‘s cover, an eye-grabbing minicomic depicting a terrible car accident. "I met Hellen about five years ago while we were both students at UC Berkeley, and we’ve pretty much been friends and mutual fans ever since," Burnham writes. "We sent her a few songs with lyrics and asked her to choose one to depict with a minicomic for the cover. And she did, exceeding all of our expectations. We emptied out the band piggy bank for her, of course."

Likewise, Candy Wrapper speaks clearly to a graphic-novel generation that sees stories in everything. Along with such similar punky doo-woppers as the Tralala, the Makes Nice are building a bridge recalling the missing link that the original freakbeat bands provided to psych rock in the 1960s. A bridge to what? Duh, to whatever is next. *

MAKES NICE

With the Moore Brothers and Miguel Zelaya

Feb. 14, 9 p.m., $8

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

(415) 647-2888

www.makeoutroom.com

www.myspace.com/themakesnice

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Just bounce to this

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

While the majority of techno and house music producers have been obsessed recently with exploring their genre’s ’80s and ’90s origins via time-warp disco maneuvers, a select few dance connoisseurs have been making great leaps into the future. London artist Dave Taylor, who records as Switch for Freerange Records and his own Dubsided imprint, is at the forefront of pogoing, digitally chopped-up house music that sounds more like 2080 than 1980. Taylor makes electrifyingly twisted house tracks, tunes that mercilessly slice samples into slivers and glue them together with a torrent of liquid bass. This is not your daddy’s house music, but it could be a robot society’s soundtrack. Taylor’s currently constructing tracks for M.I.A.’s new album and remixing Diddy, but this lunatic’s music roots go back further.

Taylor burst onto the underground dance charts in 2003 under the alias Solid Groove with his 3-Stylin’ EP for occasional collaborator Graeme Sinden’s Loungin’ Recordings. The disc’s title would prove descriptive for Taylor’s hybrid broken beat–techno–house grooves, which were fleshed out on the singles and remixes that followed. In 2004 and 2005, Taylor went into warp speed, catching the global DJ community off guard with innovative productions for Freerange such as "Get Ya Dub On" and "Get On Downz."

These singles sounded like no others at the time, taking the meticulous hyperedit philosophy of glitch techno and souping it up with bouncy bottom-end bass influenced by Taylor’s sound system–rich Ladbroke Grove, London, surroundings. Today Taylor leads the ranks of a growing British house revolution that includes wild innovators such as Jesse Rose, Trevor Loveys, Jamie Anderson, and Will Saul.

It hasn’t take long for others in his native city to take notice. Freerange founder Jamie "Jimpster" Odell thinks Taylor is the hardest-working producer he knows and also an anomaly: an artist able to make fucked-up and twisted tracks accessible to the masses. Obviously, the assessment is accurate, judging by the volumes of DJ mix compilations and remix credits (Busta Rhymes, Basement Jaxx, Chemical Brothers) Taylor has racked up in the past three years. Odell also thinks Taylor’s success is instinctive, noting that "he [knows] what makes people freak on the dance floor but listens to so much different stuff all the time, he’ll never get stuck in a rut."

Solid Groove numbers such as "This Is Sick" and Switch tracks like "Just Bounce to This" are propelled by low-slung kick drums; thick, wobbly bass frequencies; and a blender full of chopped vocal samples that reference everything from Timbaland-style hip-hop to the sonic expanses of digital pop culture. Taylor’s sounds pan across the audio spectrum and rebound in your head like bingo balls in a tumbler. It’s easy to get worked up by a Switch set on the dance floor and wonder where three hours just went. But how do you sell Switch to a skeptical Bay Area audience?

Local DJs Qzen (née Susan Langan) and Bryan James of Moxie Musik recognized Taylor’s appeal and arranged to bring Switch to Mezzanine. The former describes Taylor’s recent remixes of the Futureheads and Lily Allen as twisted, jackin’ house that will drive a floor mad if dropped at the right time, and although she’s pioneered Switch and similar artists on her West Add Radio show (Sun., 9–11 p.m., 93.7 FM, westaddradio.com), she says she has a hard time finding words to describe his signature clatter. James chimes in that Taylor makes cut-up house loaded with quirky samples and boombastic bass, which is about as accurate a narrative portrait as you’ll get. Switch makes music you have to experience rather than talk about. *

SWITCH

With Claude VonStroke

Feb. 15, 9 p.m., $10

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

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Strive for More Music Showcase

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LOCAL LIVE The art of soul singing is far from dead, even if it’s taken a backseat to hip-hop. The current chart successes of R&B singers such as Akon and Mary J. Blige surely provide proof of soul’s vitality, as does the fact that most of the strongest contestants on American Idol, both black and white, are immersed in the tradition. Used to be, however, that budding Bay Area soul singers had plenty of clubs at which to hone their skills in public. Such opportunities have largely vanished, and today many singers perform only inside recording studios while working on landing deals. A few get their contracts, but if the product fizzles, no one is likely ever to hear them, aside from friends and family.

Maxwell’s Lounge, a downtown Oakland supper club with a predominantly upscale African American clientele, is one of the few venues now presenting live R&B vocalists once a week. Local favorites such as Maya Azucena and Michael Cheadle appear at "R&B Fridays," booked by Kerry Fiero, whose Strive Management has worked in the past with R&B divas Ledisi and Goapele. On Jan. 26, Fiero presented the first of a projected quarterly showcase featuring three Northern California vocalists who had impressed her at a music camp in Los Angeles last summer.

Neither Rozzi Crane nor Taylor Thompson had ever performed in a club, which is understandable since both are 15. Crane, a Christina Aguilera–inspired siren from San Francisco, hit the stage first with a three-song set predominantly of oldies: Gladys Knight’s "If I Were Your Woman," Brandy’s "Baby," and the blues standard "Call It Stormy Monday." She was solidly backed, as were the other participants, by Clear Soul, a jazz-imbued quartet that is especially distinguished by member Quetzal Guerrero, who alternates between acoustic guitar, congas, and electric violin. Though her cadenza on the blues was overwrought, Crane has alto pipes that are remarkably pliant, and her phrasing at times suggested an Anita Baker influence. She shows much promise and is currently working on a demo with Sundra Manning, Ledisi’s former musical director, now Prince’s organist.

Fairfield resident Thompson followed, singing R. Kelly’s "I Believe I Can Fly" and two other numbers in a chilling high tenor that could have been mistaken for a falsetto if his speaking voice weren’t in the same register. Unfortunately, as Randy Jackson might say, Thompson was rather "pitchy." Not so for 31-year-old Nikko Ellison. The Suisun City vocalist, who regularly performs as a member of the United States Air Force Band’s rock and jazz ensembles, effortlessly moved between a soaring falsetto and a ringing lower tenor during a set of songs associated with Usher, Stevie Wonder, Robin Thicke, and Brian McKnight, as well as one of his own. Spine-chilling melismata and Sam Cooke–like yodels were employed in service of the material, never ostentatiously, and Ellison worked the crowd like a pro, falling on his knees at one point to croon to a group of women at a front table. It was a most auspicious club debut. (Lee Hildebrand)

STRIVE FOR MORE MUSIC SHOWCASE April 27, 8 p.m. Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakl. Call for price. (510) 839-6169, www.maxwellslounge.com

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Kids get Addicted to War

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› amanda@sfbg.com

It’s a lucid time line of 230 years of American wars and conflicts. It’s a well-researched text, footnoted from sources as varied as international newspapers, Department of Defense documents, and transcripts of speeches from scores of world leaders. It’s been endorsed by such antiwar stalwarts as Susan Sarandon, Noam Chomsky, Helen Caldicott, Cindy Sheehan, and Howard Zinn, who called it "a witty and devastating portrait of US military history."

And it’s a comic book that’s going to be available for 10th-through-12th-grade students in San Francisco’s public schools. Four thousand copies of Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism, by Joel Andreas, have been purchased and donated to the San Francisco Unified School District using contributions gathered by local peace activist Pat Gerber.

Gerber came across the book at a rally about a year and a half ago and, inspired by the compelling display of such heavy content, presented it to the Board of Education’s Curriculum and Program Committee, where its use as a supplemental text was unanimously approved last fall. The book will be distributed to all high school social studies teachers for review, and those who opt in will be given copies to use as supplemental texts to their already approved curriculum.

Many peaceniks may be familiar with the 77-page comic book that was originally conceived in 1991 to highlight the real story behind the Gulf War. With spare wit and imagery, Andreas plainly outlines how combat is the very expensive fuel that feeds the economic and political fire of the United States.

In outlining this history, Andreas doesn’t gloss over the lesser-known and oft misunderstood conflicts in Haiti, the Philippines, Lebanon, and Grenada. He draws on multiple sources to portray America’s purported need to overthrow foreign governments and establish convenient dictators, including Saddam Hussein, in order to fill the pockets of the most powerful people and corporations in American history. Andreas also includes the blinded eyes of the mainstream media, whose spin and shortcomings keep this business rolling.

The current publisher, Frank Dorrel, came across the book in 1999. "This is the best thing I’ve ever read," the Air Force veteran told the Guardian. "I’ve got a whole library of US foreign policy, but this puts it all together in such an easy format. Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti — they’re all [authors of] great books, but they aren’t easy reads." When Dorrel first discovered the book, he contacted the original publisher to order 100 copies to give to all his friends.

"They didn’t even have 10," he said. "It was out of print."

Dorrel was disappointed with the news and thought an updated text was overdue. With the use of a private investigator, he tracked down Andreas, who happened to live in the Los Angeles area just a few miles from Dorrel.

Andreas agreed it was time for a new edition. Addicted to War now includes Kosovo, Sept. 11, Afghanistan, and the current quagmire in Iraq. Over the years, 300,000 copies have been distributed in English, Spanish, and Japanese. Many of those copies have been distributed to teachers and students through the Books for Schools program, but San Francisco Unified is the first entire district to approve use of the book. Dorrel encourages others to follow suit by deeply discounting the $10 price for school districts to as little as $2.50 a book plus shipping. He seems unconcerned with making a profit and said, "It’s all done to get out the information."

For San Francisco, he discounted the price even further, and the costs were met by donations from local peace activists. No taxpayer or school district funds were involved in the purchase, and Gerber and Dorrel are still accepting donations to defray some costs. (Contributions may be sent to Frank Dorrel, PO Box 3261, Culver City, CA 90231-3261.)

The district teachers’ union, United Educators of San Francisco, expressed unanimous approval of the book, and it sailed through the board’s bureaucracy. But it is not without its critics.

Sean Hannity of Fox News slammed the book for, among other things, illustrations of President George W. Bush wearing a gas mask and a baby holding a machine gun. Hannity invited Sup. Gerardo Sandoval to his Jan. 12 show, introducing him as "the man who doesn’t think we need a military" in a distorted reference to something Sandoval said in a previous appearance.

This time Hannity asked Sandoval, "Do you support this as propaganda in our schools?"

To which Sandoval responded, "It’s not propaganda. But I do support having alternative viewpoints, especially for young people about to become of military age…. I think it provides a balanced approach to history. Some of the actions that the US has taken abroad in our 200-year history have been less than honorable."

To which an aghast Hannity countered, "It encourages high schoolers to kick the war habit. It is so unbalanced and one-sided…. You’re entitled to your left-wing ‘we don’t need a military’ views … but leave our children in school alone."

Strangely, images of the book shown during the Fox segment bear little resemblance to those in the actual text. The news channel flashed to a picture of a thick, hardbound book with a dust jacket of the cover illustration, though as far as Dorrel and Gerber know, it has never been published in hardcover and never with a dust jacket. Gerber thinks the cover image and some internal cartoons were printed from the Web site www.addictedtowar.com and faked into a book that the news channel didn’t have a copy of and had not actually read.

The SFUSD was invited by Fox News to speak on behalf of the book but declined. "We decided we didn’t want to debate in that forum," district spokesperson Gentle Blythe told the Guardian.

Blythe said the district has been contacted mostly by people in support of the work and the only criticism has come from its coverage in the conservative media. She stressed that the use of the book is optional, at the discretion of each teacher, and the Office of Teaching and Learning is researching other texts that offer another perspective but has not settled on anything yet.

"If a teacher agrees with the content, they love the book," Dorrel said. "This is really the history. We’ve been going around in the name of liberty, and it’s not that. It’s a business. It’s really bad when war is your business."

Dorrel said that since he’s been distributing the book, which has all his contact information on the first page, he’s only received a couple of nasty phone calls. "The phone rings every day. Every day there are e-mails, and mostly I just get praise because they’ve never seen anything like this. *

The straight story on the armory

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The sale of the former National Guard armory on Mission Street has caused a flurry of concern about the plans for the site of the new owner and developer, Kink.com. Most of the columns and editorials in the San Francisco Chronicle, Examiner, and BeyondChron.com have been reactionary and politically opportunistic. It has given the cheerleaders of runaway market-rate development a new reason to knock affordable housing advocates in general and the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition in particular.

For the past six years, MAC, with the participation of hundreds of Mission District residents, has been developing a vision for the neighborhood, called the People’s Plan, which confronts the gentrification pressures of new development and sets out policies for a healthy, sustainable community. Our approach is not that of knee-jerk NIMBYs mindlessly opposing any proposed change in our community. We are in favor of affordable housing, good-paying jobs for immigrants and working-class families, and sustainable economic development.

However, immediately after the Kink.com story broke, writers such as Ken Garcia blamed MAC for directly causing the sale to what other papers are calling a “porn production company.” It’s true that MAC has opposed the previous three development proposals, but the developers themselves, responding to the ups and downs of the market, ultimately dropped the projects for financial reasons. Here’s a brief review:

In 2000 a multimedia office complex proposal was approved by the Planning Department and later dropped. The armory was then going to be a server farm. The server farm was approved by the Planning Department again (contrary to what Garcia has written), but the company went under. A local financier retained control and proposed an outlandish and financially risky housing proposal.

The luxury housing proposal went into the planning process, and an environmental review had begun, but instead, the owner sold the site to Kink.com

MAC didn’t know the owner was secretly negotiating the sale of the armory. Had the financiers been honest with the community, perhaps the city or some other entity could have come forward and put the armory to better use. But at this point, the sale of the armory is complete, and there’s no further process necessary for the new owners to set up shop. That means it’s difficult for the community or city to stop the proposed use.

Now the community finds itself responding to this purchase and to opportunists who are taking advantage of this situation to use the current plan as a wedge issue to attack MAC and other affordable housing activists who have had concerns about high-end market-rate housing development in the Mission. The Mission is both the heart of the Latino community in San Francisco and home to other communities. For a healthy and sustainable community, a measuring stick for a development project is whether it will lead to displacement of residents and community-serving businesses and contribute to gentrification.

MAC will continue to fight for equitable development through the People’s Plan and the Mission rezoning process and will continue to challenge all projects that have the potential to negatively impact our community. *

Eric Quezada and Nick Pagoulatos

Eric Quezada and Nick Pagoulatos are Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition activists.

 

Brown must fight the media monopoly

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EDITORIAL The evidence is now clear and compelling: the two biggest newspaper chains in the Bay Area have been plotting for years to eliminate local competition. The details that have come out of the Clint Reilly lawsuit point to almost textbook antitrust violations, the exact sort of behavior that state and federal laws prohibit. (See "What We Know Now," page 13.)

The public had no knowledge of how MediaNews Group and the Hearst Corp. were conspiring to join ad sales and distribution deals. But the federal and state regulators knew all about it; the records show that Hearst executives laid out the entire plan back in early 2006.

And yet the deal that allowed MediaNews to buy up every major daily in the region except the San Francisco Chronicle won approval from both the California and the US attorneys general — in part on the grounds that Hearst’s Chronicle would remain as a serious competitor in the market.

Which leads to some pretty obvious questions: What were the investigators and lawyers in Sacramento and Washington, DC, doing? And now that this is all out in public, will California’s new attorney general, Jerry Brown, put a stop to it?

When the McClatchy company sold the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News to Dean Singleton, who already owned the Oakland Tribune and the Marin Independent Journal, critics immediately began to cry foul. Singleton’s strategy has always been to buy up adjoining media properties, combine as many of their assets as possible, share reporters and stories, and improve the bottom line through deep cuts. Suddenly, instead of four reporters covering events in the Bay Area, there would be just one, with one perspective and one story running in all four papers.

The same would go for advertising — instead of having several options in the region, businesses could wind up having to deal with one centralized agency that sets prices and sells ads for all four big dailies (and a bunch of smaller ones that Singleton also owns).

Still, the federal and state regulators declined to challenge or block the deal. If Reilly hadn’t sued to stop it, the machinery would already be in motion for what could be a single company, or a partnership that operates like a single company, controlling all of the daily newspapers from San Jose to Marin County, from San Francisco to Contra Costa County.

But now this is all open and visible. We don’t have much faith in the Bush Justice Department, but the new California attorney general has a history (at some moments) of showing the willingness to stand up to powerful interests and take strong political stands. This is his first and perhaps most important test. Brown needs to go into court immediately and file to block the entire deal. *

More than the affair

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EDITORIAL OK: let’s put this all in perspective.

Gavin Newsom did something almost unbelievably, incalculably stupid. He’s in a lot of political and possibly legal trouble.

He has just admitted to having a drinking problem and is going to seek "treatment" — although it’s not clear at all what that means, except that he won’t be entering a residential center.

The heart of the scandal was just an affair — yes, an affair with a subordinate, which is a real problem (and something most of corporate America put an end to 20 years ago) — but nobody’s dead, he hasn’t started a war, the city isn’t about to collapse, and the world will keep turning. It seemed silly to us to call on Newsom to resign over that, just as it was silly for the Republicans to impeach Bill Clinton over an Oval Office blow job.

But there’s a much bigger problem here.

For months, long before this tawdry story made the front pages, it’s been clear that the mayor of San Francisco isn’t focused on the job. For whatever reason (and there may be many), Newsom has been checked out for quite some time now. As we reported in "Mayor Chicken" (1/10/07), he never attends public events that haven’t been carefully scripted. His relations with the Board of Supervisors are damaged beyond repair. He’s offering absolutely nothing in the way of leadership on the murder epidemic, the housing crisis, Muni’s meltdown, or much of anything else. He’s had plenty of time for glamour and glitz, movie stars, rides on the Google corporate jet, and the glitterati at Davos, Switzerland — but not much energy for the gritty reality on the streets of his city.

He is, we noted in our Jan. 10 cover story, "the imperious press release mayor, smiling for the cameras, quick with his sound bites, and utterly unwilling to engage in any public discussion whose outcome isn’t established in advance."

And whether we like it or not, this latest "lapse in judgment" — and Newsom’s embarrassing failure to deal with it properly — is only going to make things worse.

To be blunt, for a lot of reasons that have little to do with this tabloid sensation, we don’t see how Newsom can effectively run San Francisco for another four years. The mayor’s latest mess isn’t a scandal as much as a symptom of his shaky grip on the frighteningly tricky world of high-stakes politics. He’s acting like a dizzy kid at a rock star party who doesn’t have the maturity to handle what’s coming at him. Even his close allies have warned us that the wheels are coming off his administration. It’s not even clear that he wants to be mayor.

We wish Newsom well in his battle with alcoholism. But for the good of the city (and the causes he claims to care about), he’d be better off announcing he isn’t going to run for reelection now.

That wouldn’t be the end of his political career — plenty of people (John Burton comes to mind) have taken some time off from politics to deal with their personal lives and come back much stronger. It might be the best thing Newsom could do for himself.

Newsom says right now that he’s staying in the race, but he’s clearly wounded; that air of political invulnerability has taken a hit. When a local politician is looking bloodied, the sharks typically start to circle. That hasn’t happened yet; if anything, over the past few days, the highest-profile potential contenders have been pretty quiet about taking Newsom on.

But somebody has to do it. That’s never been clearer.

Running for mayor is serious business, and if there’s going to be a strong candidate challenging Newsom on the issues, the left needs to think about who it ought to be. Who has the experience and skills to take on the campaign? Who can appeal to a wide enough group of voters to win? Who has the sort of record and platform that progressives can support and unite around?

Those discussions need to start soon. But they need to be deliberate and thoughtful. Newsom’s political (and yes, personal) failures have given progressives an opening. There’s a chance to elect a mayor who really represents San Francisco values in deeds as well as words. Let’s take it seriously. *

More than the affair

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OK: Let’s all stop and take a deep breath.

Gavin Newsom did something almost unbelievably, incalculably stupid. He’s in a lot of political and possibly legal trouble. But in the end, it was just an affair – yes, an affair with a subordinate, which is a real problem, but nobody’s dead, he hasn’t started a war, the city isn’t about to collapse and the world will keep turning. It’s silly to talk about Newsom resigning over this, the same was it was silly for the Republicans to impeach Bill Clinton over an Oval Office blow job.

Besides, there’s a much bigger problem here.

————————————————

For months, long before this tawdry story made the front pages, it’s been clear that the mayor of San Francisco wasn’t focused on the job. For whatever reason (and there may be many reasons) Newsom has been checked out for quite some time now. As we reported Jan 10, he never does public events that haven’t been carefully scripted. His relations with the Board of Supervisors are damaged beyond repair. He’s offering absolutely nothing in the way of leadership on the murder epidemic, the housing crisis, Muni’s meltdown, or much of anything else. He’s had plenty of time for glamour and glitz, for movie stars, rides on the Google corporate jet and the glitterati at Davos – but not much energy for the gritty reality on the streets of his city.

He is, we noted in our cover story, “the imperious press release mayor, smiling for the cameras, quick with his sound bites and utterly unwilling to engage in any public discussion whose outcome isn’t determined in advance.”

And whether we like it or not, this latest “lapse in judgment” – and Newsom’s embarrassing failure to deal with it properly – is only going to make things worse.

To be blunt, for a lot of reasons that have little to do with this week’s tabloid sensation, we don’t see how Gavin Newsom can effectively run San Francisco for another four years. This latest mess isn’t a scandal as much as it’s a symptom of Newsom’s shaky grip on the frighteningly tricky world of high-stakes politics. He’s acting like a dizzy kid at a rock-star party who doesn’t have the maturity to handle what’s coming at him. Even his close allies have warned us that the wheels are coming off his administration. It’s not even clear that he wants to be mayor.

For the good of the city (and the causes he claims to care about) he’d be better off announcing now that he isn’t going to run for re-election.

That wouldn’t be the end of his political career – plenty of people (John Burton comes to mind) have taken some time off from politics to deal with their personal lives, and come back much stronger. It might be the best thing Newsom could do for himself.

——————————————————

If Newsom stays in the race, he will quickly (and for perhaps all the wrong reasons) be seen as deeply politically vulnerable. And when a local politician is looking bloodied, the sharks start to circle. The potential for a feeding frenzy – with half a dozen or more politicians who suddenly see City Hall Room 200 beckoning starting to jockey for support and stab each other in the back – is all too real. That’s a bad way for progressives to proceed.

Running for mayor is serious business, and if there’s going to be a strong candidate challenging Newsom on the issues, the left needs to think about who it ought to be. Who has the experience and skills to take on the campaign? Who can appeal to a wide enough group of voters to win? Who as the sort of record and platform that progressives can support and unite around?

Those discussions need to start soon. But they need to be deliberate and thoughtful. Newsom’s political (and yes, personal) failures have given progressives an opening. There’s a chance to elect a mayor who really represents San Francisco values, in deeds as well as words. Let’s take it seriously.

Smoove and Patricio bring the Love

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By Steven T. Jones
Someone has posted a video on You Tube of DJs Smoove and Patricio (two rocking local DJs who also happen to be good friends of mine) dropping the bass at the Anon Salon float at last year’s Love Fest. Happy people, fun times, City Hall in the background…nice! Bonus points to readers who can find me in the clip.

Pillow talk

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The cold air these last weeks has played foul-weather friend to a couple chilling stage stories about serial child killers — one of them is even called Frozen. Both were recently toasts of Broadway too, though only one includes scary little apple men (not to mention the titular figure of a giant fellow made of soft cushions). This latter would be The Pillowman, of course, by Irish wunderkind Martin McDonagh (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lieutenant of Inishmore), which makes its local debut at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in a very strong, utterly engaging production directed by Les Waters.

The theme of child murders aside, the two plays (which opened on consecutive nights) couldn’t be further apart. In fact, that very theme is a source of dispute and humor in McDonagh’s hilarious, eerie, and strictly macabre comedy set in a gritty police station–cum–torture chamber in an unnamed totalitarian country (the fine set, a simple but highly atmospheric take on old-world contemporary, is by Antje Ellermann, with sharply complimentary lighting by Russell H. Champa). Here a prolific but largely unrecognized writer named Katurian Katurian Katurian (Erik Lochtefeld) — a stubbornly emphatic name that’s like an engine that won’t turn over and maybe a bit sinister too, like the clang of a railway car with no windows — has been hauled in for some very rough questioning following a string of child murders whose gory details mimic the content of several of his generally ghastly stories.

Katurian and older brother Michal (Matthew Maher) — whose mental disability keeps him squarely in the role of Katurian’s charge and whom the police keep initially in a separate room down the hall for some questioning at the hands of a bulldog cop named Ariel (Andy Murray) — find themselves in a ghastly little story of their own, threatened with impending execution should the interrogation, led by the somewhat wry Inspector Tupolski (Tony Amendola), not go in their favor. But then, their backstory is, we learn, already quite ghastly, making the writer’s ghoulish tales seem all the more meaningful as a necessary escape from childhood horrors and the inevitable vehicle of the Katurian brothers’ worming segue into adulthood.

The Pillowman, however, ultimately has nothing to do with the kind of social, psychological, moral, and forensic themes brought up by Frozen playwright Bryony Lavery in her secularizing examination of sin and forgiveness. (Frozen runs through Feb. 11 at the Marin Theatre Company; see stage listings for information and the review). Instead, it has everything to do with the art, the incandescent allure, even the vital necessity of simply telling stories for their own sake. As such, its primary purpose is to grip the audience by the story-hungry throat, a feat it manages expertly and with a dreamlike complexity, merging one story into another.

Life and art come hopelessly entangled here, though just which is imitating which is hard to say. After the wily Tupolski (played by Amendola with wonderful humor and nuance like a Stalinist version of Barney Miller) synopsizes one of Katurian’s bleak parablelike tales, for instance, a self-satisfied Katurian savors it by absently applying the term "somethingesque" to its construction. Sure enough, our own Mr. K’s story is strikingly Kafkaesque, and so is the predicament such tales have landed him in.

These ironies and nuances come over without the least bit of pretension, however. They’re just part of the grimly comic nightmare director Waters and his cast unfold with unflinching panache. As Katurian, Lochtefeld (last seen at the Berkeley Rep in another memorable turn as a tortured writer, in The Glass Menagerie) delivers a cannily offbeat, charismatic performance, convincingly mixing bottomless artistic pride with obsequiousness before authority, sibling angst, and a gently subversive humor. Maher’s deft turn as Michal, meanwhile, is an equally riveting combination of utter ingenuousness and playful mischief.

If storytelling seems to be a double-edged sword and maybe even a sword of Damocles, its "spirit" (to borrow from Katurian’s exquisite final line) emerges immaculate in the end as a kind of joyful seduction by the master storyteller, the playwright himself, whose intoxicating yarns remain a boon for all concerned. *

THE PILLOWMAN

Extended through March 11, $45–$61

See Web site for dates and times

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage

2025 Addison, Berk.

(510) 647-2949

www.berkeleyrep.org

>

Les goofballs

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO How many calories in a Quaalude? Who’s the secretary of the interior? The sexy nurse’s tits pop out of her too-snug latex uniform, a lewd sneer twisting her face, and my mind begins to wander gloriously — up past the ass-licking performance artiste, his cheesy beret slipping sideways as he rapidly splashes acrylic down a huge vertical canvas; over the heads of the middle-aged guys dressed as pirates, ecstatically frugging to a bebop reverb saxophone solo; quick left at the grope-a-clown booth; and through the ceiling of DNA Lounge, into a nighttime of odd ruminations. This is probably dangerous. As leapfrogging fire twirlers quickly suck the oxygen from the club, I realize that I’d simply die if my last, strangulated thought was: wow, the more we upload exotic animals onto digital film, the more they seem to disappear from the earth.

Ladies and gentleman, a bohemian rhapsody.

Appropriate, since me and Hunky Beau are at Bohemian Carnival, the breathtaking, burner-inflected monthly hosted by Boenobo the Klown, ringmaster of local audio headtrippers Gooferman, and Mike Gaines, director of the erotically acrobatic Vau de Vire Society. You want trapezes? They’ll give you trapezes.

Through a series of regular off-the-wall club nights, DNA Lounge has transformed itself into a weekend costume party — goth kids in Doom-era gamer kilts one night, mashup sluts in Santa suits another — and Bohemian Carnival hews to that theme: it looks like Costumes on Haight exploded in here. I’ve never been a fan of store-bought transgression — I’m allergic to polymer pink bobs and rainbow boas, or rainboas. Still, hey, it’s probably really hard for straight people to get freaky and still look cool, so go for it! At least it’s not a bunch of prissy gays in $400 jeans or North Beach guys in swirly shirts with moulding mud-stained collars. Thank goddess for cheap dyna.

The whole vaudeville-circus club thing — a stunning contortionist here, a bearded lady go-go dancer there, bared cleavage everywhere — has blown up big-time. One might even posit that its moment has passed as an underground trend (the $15 cover charge at DNA could be evidence of this if the night weren’t such an expensive-looking spectacle), but since it all sprang from two of our native mainstays, Burning Man and burlesque, it’s not tanking any time soon in San Francisco — and I’m glad for that, ’cause it’s kind of freakin’ fascinating.

Sure, as the carefully staged bacchanal spins before me and the day-job techies get wild, there are the usual thoughts to fixate on: How Burning Man drops the spirituality and focuses on the crudely sexual when translated into a night club. How stereotypes of gender and race — if not necessarily class — collapse and re-form in a swirl of burlesquing desire. How people with amazing muscular tricks can finally find an appreciative audience. How flammable my dress was…. But there are some surprises here too. Imagine my shocked tingle when, on entering, I was greeted by an extended slam-poetic freestyle from MC Jamie De Wolf, hooted on from the sidelines by a crew of suburban-looking gangsters. Has hip-hop — albeit white hip-hop (an upcoming Bohemian Carnival features heartthrob beat-boxer Kid Beyond) — finally entered the Burning Man vocabulary? And a bubbly house set by DJ Smoove brought quite a bit more soul to the dance floor than I ever thought possible at such events. Nice.

Another surprise: more Las Vegas connections on the 11th Street corridor. While uppity clubs like Loft 11 unabashedly pimp Vegas show–style rock nights, Bohemian Carnival’s concept sprang from the legendary 2005 Vegoose Festival, where Boenobo and Gaines hosted VdV’s Twisted Cabaret for 80,000 people. Vegas, hip-hop, house — I guess I should have known. Burning Man’s prime notion is to filter the far-flung fabulosities of pop culture through X-ray goofy glasses; clubs like Bohemian Carnival reduce them to a steamy spot of light. Well, goof on, say I. *

BOHEMIAN CARNIVAL

Third Sat., 9 p.m.–4 a.m., $15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

www.bohemiancarnival.net

www.dnalounge.com

www.gooferman.com

www.vaudeviresociety.com

www.djsmoove.net

>

Between the sheets

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

The changes are already well on their way. Dozens of layoffs have occurred. Offices are being consolidated. Fewer reporters are writing stories, which appear in several local newspapers under the single corporate byline "MediaNews Staff."

A few more details have since leaked out: the Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, has talked about joint advertising sales with its supposed competitor, Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group, which owns almost all the other big dailies in the Bay Area.

Some sources predict Hearst may share printing facilities with Singleton. The two might ultimately divide the entire Bay Area into isolated markets and avoid one another’s turf. The Singleton papers could even scrap their Sunday editions, leaving that market entirely to Hearst.

Nobody outside the corporate suites of the nation’s top newspaper barons knows exactly what’s true and what’s speculation right now. But it’s clear there’s a move afoot to end all daily newspaper competition in the region — and the public hasn’t been privy to any of it.

That may be about to change.

An order by Federal Judge Susan Illston handed down Jan. 24 has opened up key company records that will likely further confirm how Hearst, Singleton, and some of the nation’s biggest media players are conspiring to turn the Bay Area into a homogenized news market.

The records — which will likely be released shortly after the Guardian‘s press deadline — are part of a lawsuit filed by local real estate investor Clint Reilly, who wants to block the deal that allowed Singleton to control the Contra Costa Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal, and the San Mateo County Times, along with a bunch of other smaller papers.

There have been hints that some of the documents filed as part of that suit portray a plan by Hearst and Singleton to form some sort of alliance. But since almost everything in the case has been filed under court seal, it’s hard to tell exactly what the truth is.

The Guardian, along with the East Bay nonprofit Media Alliance, intervened in the case in December, asking Illston to open documents in the suit. The publishers, who had initially insisted nearly every scrap of paper was some sort of protected trade secret, quickly backed down, agreeing to release much of the information. And last week Illston ordered them to release some of the rest.

In the end, Jim Wheaton of the First Amendment Project, who represents the Guardian and Media Alliance, says 90 percent of the key material in the suit will be made public.

The documents that are set for public release still need to be refiled, a process that’s under way. They’ll be posted at www.sfbg.com the moment they’re available.

Already, the news coverage of this case has demonstrated how bad journalism would be if the Bay Area had no daily competition.

When Illston released her decision, two headlines appeared on the Chronicle‘s Web site, www.sfgate.com. One, from the Associated Press, announced, "MediaNews, Hearst Lawsuit Documents Remain Sealed." The Chronicle‘s own staff reported, "Some MediaNews Data Released — Judge Says Other Documents in Reilly Suit to Stay Sealed."

The conclusion of both stories was the same: the Guardian and Media Alliance had essentially lost. Very little material would be unsealed.

And despite the different perspectives in the headlines, neither story got it right.

"MediaNews Group and Hearst were asked by Media Alliance and the Guardian before they intervened to unseal everything. They declined to unseal anything," Wheaton said. "But as soon as Media Alliance and the Guardian moved to intervene and unseal, MediaNews and Hearst surrendered on almost all the sealed documents. They fought only to keep some parts of five exhibits and one brief sealed, which comprised 19 separate excerpts [of which six were duplicates, leaving only 13 distinct items]."

And all but a few pages of those documents will now be released to the public. They will almost certainly offer a broader picture of the relationship between the Bay Area’s top media bedfellows.

Wheaton has asked both the Chron and the AP for a correction. Mark Rochester, assistant bureau chief for the AP in San Francisco, told Wheaton by e-mail that a clarification would not be "useful to member news organizations." We’re waiting to hear from the Chron. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, Dean Singleton is slated to take over as chair of the AP this spring.

Illston also agreed to allow the Guardian and Media Alliance to remain as interveners, or parties to the suit, giving the two organizations the right to challenge any future secrecy.

For example, the interveners might seek to unseal the depositions Reilly attorney Joe Alioto took of top executives at the companies last week.

Hearst and MediaNews have claimed they need to protect some records to avoid giving competitors access to proprietary financial information. But the chains are hardly normal competitors.

Singleton reached a secret agreement with Hearst in 1995 to shutter the Houston Post and sell its assets to Hearst for $120 million, for instance. The deal gave Hearst’s Houston Chronicle significant control over the southern Texas metropolis and its sizable suburbs before the two companies continued their westward expansion hand in hand.

In a downright hilarious side note, attorneys for the Chronicle managed to convince a Santa Clara County superior court judge in January to open confidential court documents in a shareholder suit filed against Silicon Valley–based Mercury Interactive, one of the first companies rocked by allegations that it had improperly backdated stock options for some of its top executives.

Chronicle attorney Karl Olson at the time righteously denounced attempts by attorneys for Mercury and its former executives, three of whom were fired during the height of the backdating firestorm, to seal court records detailing one of the more lurid executive-enrichment scandals to hit Wall Street in recent years (see "Off the Record," 1/10/2007).

Calls to seven people up and down MediaNews and Hearst, from attorneys to executives, weren’t returned. We’ve even tried to reach CoCo Times executive editor Kevin Keane on his cell phone, but he wouldn’t comment for us despite complaints he’d made about the East Bay Express not giving him a chance to respond to similar stories. *

Burning Man goes green

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Burning Man founder Larry Harvey chooses the theme for each year’s event — such as 2002’s the Floating World and last year’s Hope and Fear — but it usually doesn’t have much impact on the basic character of the event. This year’s theme, Green Man, is different.

"It’s the first theme that has any kind of practical, political character," Harvey told the Guardian, noting that Green Man has sparked big changes in how the event will be staged, a campaign to improve burners’ environmental practices, and a new way of reutf8g to the outside world.

"We’re looking at every aspect of the event: solid waste, energy, and materials," said Tom Price, who has filled the newly created full-time position of environmental director, which was a natural offshoot from his previous work as Burning Man’s lobbyist and the founder of Burners Without Borders, which formed to do Gulf Coast cleanup after Hurricane Katrina hit (see "From Here to Katrina," 2/22/06).

Harvey said it was the good that burners did in Mississippi that started him thinking about the green theme and the idea that Burning Man needed to start turning its energies outward at a time when global warming and other environmental problems are growing public concerns.

"We’re working our way back into the world. Maybe not the mainstream but certainly onto Main Street," Harvey said. "There’s a lot out there that needs reform. The time of the reformer is at hand, I believe."

Among the projects Price is now working on are expanding the already large recycling effort at the event, finding ways to use more solar panels and fewer generators, coordinating theme camps to share power sources, using the purchase of emissions credits to offset the greenhouse gases created by Burning Man, and creating incentives for art projects to use alternative fuels.

"The whole process is being driven by the community," Price said.

Ramping up Burning Man’s environmental activism and commitment has been the goal of several movements within the larger event, such as Cooling Man (www.coolingman.net) and Greening the Burn (tribes.tribe.net/greeningtheburn), as well as being a priority for many Burning Man employees, such as technology dominatrix Heather Gallagher, a.k.a. Camera Girl, and facilities manager Paul Schreer, a.k.a. Mr. Blue.

"We’ve been hippie busybodies pushing for this on the inside," Gallagher told us. "And when [Harvey] announced the theme, I was, like, ‘Yesss!’ "

"What’s exciting about the Green Man theme and this year’s event is it’s a perfect illustration of the power of community," Price said, noting that networking and experimentation have always been hallmarks of the event. "Going back 10 years, Burning Man has been a place for early adopters who are on the cutting edges of a lot of disciplines."

That makes it a good place to experiment with new technologies and evangelize those that work well.

"I’ve always believed Burning Man would eventually partner in some way with the environmental movement," Harvey said. "It’s almost a historic inevitability."

Since the theme was announced, the organization has been overwhelmed with offers from individuals and groups that want to help green the event, from someone who donated $350,000 worth of solar panels to power the eponymous man and surrounding activities this year to artists such as Jim Mason, who has developed a gasification system he wants to use to turn center camp coffee grounds and other waste into fuel that would in turn power his machine (and probably shoot fire as well).

"So I’m proposing drag racing to a more responsible environmental future. As usual, the ravers are not going to save the world. But at least they can power their indulgent disasters with the fuel the local gearheads turned reluctant environmentalists have made for them," Mason, the controversial artist who helped spearhead the Borg2 revolt a couple years ago, wrote by e-mail to the Guardian.

Price said he’s excited by the implications of Mason’s project, noting that it simultaneously addresses energy issues and waste disposal.

"If he can do this, he will have solved two problems," Price said. "Our relationship to nature on the playa is very intimate. Just being at the event, we’ve learned in a way those in the city haven’t what it means to deal with your garbage and to provide your energy."

Harvey sees this year’s theme as a turning point.

"In some ways, we hope this year will be an environmental and alternative energy expo," he said, although he expects it to resonate on an even deeper level that participants will carry back into their communities. "It’s a much broader thing than environmental politics. It’s about our relationship to nature." (STJ)

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