Local

Live Shots: US Air Guitar SF Regional

Tony Robles
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2

The US Air Guitar Championships held their SF Regionals at the Independent Saturday night. As such, a sold-out crowd of air-thusiests and the competitors’ family members gathered to see who would be crowned the SF champ and be given the opportunity to participate at Nationals in Denver.

As it was the final regional stop and only a matter of time before a 2012 Air Guitar World Champion would be crowned at the end-all event in scenic Oulu, Finland, “master of airemonies” Bjorn Turoque opened the night with a performance of “The Finland Countdown” (including the timely addition of a bit of “Zou Bisou Bisou”), accompanied by 2008’s World Champion, Hot Lixx Hulahan.

Hulahan would also judge the night’s competition – along with comedian Caitlin Gill and the Mr.T Experience’s “Dr. Frank” Portman – on the basis of technical merit, stage presence, and, of course, airness.

And the competition – full of requisite punny names, terribly great outfits, and ridiculous faces – was fierce, particularly the local rivalry between former SF regional champs Alex “Awesome” Koll and Matthew “Cold Steel Renegade” Feldstein.

As the event went on, it felt as though the faux-guitarists were going to attempt almost anything to up the take their performance to 11, particularly when Texan (and Jack Black/Norman Reedus love child) Taylor “Brock McRock” Fullbright precariously wobbled on a stage speaker only inches above my head.

Overcoming out-of-town disadvantage, NYC’s Justin “Seth Leibowitz” Hypes won the night, making a strong start with a heavy metal rendition of “Call Me Maybe” before seemingly levitating over the crowd in the final round. It was an impressive night, particularly if you followed Turoque’s advice at the start: “Don’t be sober, otherwise it’s just going to look kind of stupid.”

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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0

Use a selection of mixtapes as a base crust, add a pinch of sweet Young Magic, some crunchy Grass Widow(s), extract of Phono Del Sol and warm Summer Soul, along with a creamy dollop of pastoral My Best Fiend. What have you got? The week in San Francisco sound pie. Stick a fork in it.

Unfortunately, that recipe was supposed to include two spicy shakes of the flamenco passion of Charo, but she had to cancel her Yoshi’s shows this week due to illness. Here’s wishing her a speedy recovery. Check out this sexy video to see what we’ll be missing. Heartbreaking, really.

But don’t let it bring you down. Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Young Magic
Last time Australian electronic-psych trio Young Magic swung through town, then opening for Youth Lagoon, we declared them a band to watch. Here’s your chance, don’t blow it.
With Quilt, Shock
Tue/17, 8pm, $10-$12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ydYhTG4LbI

Churches
Local power-pop trio Churches (with members of Rogue Wave, Port O’Brien, and Grand Lake) channels reflections of the past, those rough, alienating, fresh hell years of high school in the loud grunge angst of the ’90s.
With Waters, Tijuana Panthers, Chasms
Wed/18, 9pm, $10-$12
Brick and Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dztzf2Z8Nw8

Mixology, Mixtapes and Remixes
More of an event than a straight-forward show, Mixology, Mixtapes, and Remixes does still have a rough sonic edge: music swapping, DJs, live music. The San Francisco Mixtape Society (recently profiled in SFBG) is hosting a swap, so bring a mixtape, CD, or USB stick inspired by the creepy/sensual theme of “night creatures.” There’ll be DJ remixing by Friendzone, Yalls, and Giraffage; along with performances by ethereal Heathered Pearls and Gorillaz co-founder Dan the Automator.
With Push the Feeling (epicsauce DJs and YR SKULL) 
Thu/19, 6pm, $10-$12
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse, SF
(415) 379-8000
calacademy.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKw58G4APDc

Grass Widow
Its been called out here before as an absolute must-see, apologies. However this is the official album release party, so…go, celebrate Internal Logic with this harmonizing local post-punk trio. And read our interview with the band in this week’s issue.
With American Splits, Wax Idols, the Worlds Longest Guitar Solo with Breaks
Fri/20, 9pm, $10–$12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meCV2sfThYA

Summer Soul Friday Night
San Francisco has a way of letting us float through a teenage Shangri-La, well into adulthood. Summer Soul Friday Night, hosted by the Bold Italic and Dusty Stax, sounds as though it will vibe like the Enchantment Under the Sea meets Motormouth Maybelle’s record store. There’ll be sharp-dressed young men in ties and ladies in skirts or dresses (as required) swaying to the soulful punch of the Gold Star Band, lead by Quinn DeVeaux and featuring guest star crooners Carletta Sue Kay, Paula Frazer, Tahlia Harbour of Sonny and the Sunsets, and Freddie Hughes, among others. Also included: Dick and Sama of Rooky Ricardo’s spinning vinyl, and a summer cocktail by Templeton Rye.
Fri/20, 8pm, $30
Verdi Club
2424 Mariposa, SF
summersoulfridaynight.eventbrite.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRHgav4AoCc

Phono Del Sol Music and Food Festival
Phono Del Sol returns this weekend, and the price is still right:  just $7 to $10 max (unless you go VIP) for the pleasure of chilling in the grass with pals while rollicking locals Fresh & Onlys, sincere globe-trotters Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Santa Barbara synth-and-flute freaks Gardens & Villa fill the park with sweet music. Produced by the Bay Bridged blog, this year’s curated lineup also includes Vivian Girl Katy Goodman’s shimmery solo effort La Sera, along with Northern California bred acts such as Dominant Legs, Sea of Bees, and Mwahaha.
Noon-6pm. $7–$10.
Potrero Del Sol Park
25th Street at Utah, SF
www.phonodelsol.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUDCpTxmj4

My Best Fiend
“My Best Fiend cranks out pastoral ballads of human frailty that mutate slyly into psychedelic, space-bound epics. The Brooklyn outfit’s debut full-length, In Ghostlike Fading, emanates a distinctly ’70s vibe, recalling the heady propulsion of Pink Floyd’s looser, slower jams; the stoned disillusionment of David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name; the sun-drenched melancholy of Neil Young’s Harvest.”  — Taylor Kaplan
With White Cloud
Sat/21, 9pm, $10
Brick & Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P61iJ_I4i8

Like an Eric Andre in a china shop

Tony Robles
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4

What’s to be anticipated when Adult Swim’s most degenerate program hits the road? On Monday night, a sold-out crowd filled the Rickshaw Stop, ready for just about anything short of a Mitt Romney endorsement.

A love letter to the Reddit-surfing, bong-ripping, Flying Lotus-bumping demographic, The Eric Andre Show stampedes through its weekly, 15-minute time-slot with reckless abandon and utter perversity, hanging onto its “talk-show” descriptor by a single Funyun. If Pete & Pete, Hype Williams, and Gary Busey invested in a sleazy public-access channel, transmitted from the bowels of Suave Ben’s house in Blue Velvet, The Eric Andre Show would be its flagship broadcast.


MF Doom’s Special Herbs played over the soundsystem as the doors opened, aptly reflecting the intoxicated, Bohemian crowd shuffling in. The show kicked off with three stand-up routines, starting with co-host and Andre-sidekick Hannibal Buress, followed by local comics Stroy Moyd and Chris Garcia.

Buress was by far the funniest, transitioning from scrambled eggs to Eddie Griffin without the slightest thread of contrivance. Moyd’s set, while mostly successful, was hindered by a sense of forced confrontation, while Garcia uncannily recalled every schtick-dependent, guitar-equipped comedian you’ve ever seen on Comedy Central at 1am.

After a short break, Andre stormed the stage impolitely and unapologetically, ketchup and mustard bottles in hand, dousing the feverish crowd in red and yellow corn-syrup sludge, with GWAR-like contempt for social etiquette. After plopping down behind his big-kahuna desk, Andre invited Buress on stage, trading quips like Letterman and Paul Shaffer all fucked up on Ween’s Scotchgard.

Despite its chaotic pretense, the show barreled forward with an astute sense of rhythm and timing, flipping between stand-up bits, video clips, live music from the delightfully inept house band, and fake celebrity appearances, in a fast-paced spectacle, tailor-made for the goldfish-like attention spans of Adult Swim’s viewership.

The audience was treated to guest appearances from Tatyana Ali (Will Smith’s little cousin from Fresh Prince, remember?) and a very fake Russell Brand. Counterfeit TV commercials were shown, the most memorable of which involved Andre, dressed as Ronald McDonald, slamming whiskey and sobbing uncontrollably. In the most gut-bustingly hilarious moment of the night, a clown of the childrens’-parties variety took the stage, fashioning balloon animals with Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” playing seductively in the background.

After the unrestrained, brain-frying energy of Andre’s set, acclaimed Oakland hip-hop duo Main Attrakionz cooled things down beautifully with their balance between rugged, hard-boiled lyricism and luminous, electronic soundscapes. Taking the stage with great authority, Squadda B and Mondre delivered a steadily compelling set that, at a short-and-sweet 30 minutes, never overstayed its welcome.

Sauntering back onto Fell Street, with mustard-caked belongings, the audience was visibly gratified, and for good reason. Given the scarcity of live events that merge stand-up comedy, live hip-hop, and whatever the hell Eric Andre does, Monday night’s show was as satisfyingly complete as it was totally unpredictable.

Guardian Voices: The case against RCV

Zelda Bronstein
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88
Guardian Voices: The case against RCV

“The Cure for the Ills of Democracy is More Democracy”
                                 — old Progressive Party slogan

My friends here at the Guardian have elevated support for ranked choice voting to a defining requirement for being considered a progressive. This is not only historically incorrect,  it is actually politically silly. There are many progressive reasons to oppose RCV — not the least of which is the undeniable fact that it overwhelmingly favors incumbents, has failed to deliver on the 2002 ballot promises, and now poses real threats to progressive political advancement in key supervisor districts. 

First, a little history. 

The two greatest national political victorys  of the Progressive Era were the 1913 adoption of the 17th Amendment of the US Constitution, which required direct elections of US Senators, and, at the tail end of the era,  the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Both expanded people power in elections, curing the ills of democracy by more democracy.

Historically, to be a Progressive is to favor MORE elections, MORE political opportunities for more people at the local level.  How can it be that it is now progressive to favor FEWER elections at the local level?

In the March, 2002 Voters Handbook, ballot arguments against RCV were authored by several progressive activists (Sue Bierman, Jane Morrison, David Looman, Larry Griffin, David Spiro and me, to name a few). We argued then that replacing local elections with a mathematical formula that few understand and even fewer could explain was political foolishness. While were outvoted, I think we were right a decade ago.

Left-liberals do very well in run-off elections in San Francisco — from 1975, when Moscone beat Bargbagalata in a December run-off, to the run-off victory of the more liberal candidate for City Attorney, Dennis Herrera, over Chamber of Commerce functionary Jim Lazarus in 2001. The reason is that in low-turnout elections, left-liberals vote more heavily that do conservatives, and that’s a verifiable San Francisco political fact.

But it was the 2000  supervisors races that showed just how well left-liberal forces did in run-off elections at the district level: Jake McGoldrick, Aaron Peskin, Matt Gonzales, Chris Daly, Sophie Maxwell, and Gerardo Sandoval, the very heart of the progressive majority, were elected in December run-off elections.

In 2002, three arguments were made for RCV: first, that it would reduce negative campaigning; second, that it would increase turnout in local elections and third, it would reduce costs by eliminating the run off election. Of the three  arguments only the last has been met, a dubious achievement in that even more such savings could be made by eliminating ALL elections.

Can anyone actually claim that last year’s mayoral election, the first contested one conducted under RCV, was anything but a negative free-for-all? Or, how about the 2010 D6 race between Debra Walker and Jane Kim, or the D8 race between Mandelman and Weiner? Or the 2002 D4 Ron Dudum – Ed Jew race? RCV did not end negative campaigns.

How about turnout?  Last year’s mayoral race had the lowest turnout in a contested race for mayor in the modern history of San Francisco. Every supervisorial race in 2008 had a lower turnout than  the citywide average. Turnout in 2010 was below citywide levels in the RCV supervisor races in D4, D6 and D10.

No, the record is clear RCV has not resulted in higher turnout, either.

RCV creates a political system in which candidates make deals with other candidates, behind closed doors, before the voters vote.  Runoff elections result in a system in which voters make deals with candidates AFTER they vote in the polling booth. What’s wrong with giving voters two choices in two elections instead of three choices in one election? Oh, that’s right, we save money by giving voters fewer elections.

Left-liberals tend to field fewer candidates for races than do moderates and conservatives because, especially in San Francisco, left-liberals simply don’t know how to raise political money, while moderates and conservatives do. RCV elections reward multiple candidates of the same political persuasion as these candidate can agree to appeal to their similar voters to vote for them as a block.  Thus, RCV will always favor, in an open contest in which there is no incumbent, moderate to conservative candidates because there are  usually more of them running.

That’s what happened to Avalos in last years mayoral election: he picked up nothing as the moderate candidates’ second and third votes went to the moderate Lee. The same happened in D10 two years ago: moderates voted for multiple moderate candidates and the only real left-liberal in the race did not pick up any of these votes and lost — although he outpolled the eventual, moderate winner.

RCV favors incumbents, and that’s why at least two of the Class of 2000 progressive supervisors told me they voted for it. Lets see how well it works to defeat Sup. Scott Wiener, who is far to the right of the average voter in D8, or Supervisor Malia Cohen in D10 who was supported by less than 30 percent of the election day vote.

What seems to be going on here is an incredibly silly political association game.  Because repealing RCV is supported by conservative supervisors and the Chamber of Commerce we should be opposed since they are for it. Haven’t we seen this year conservative Republicans make one self defeating political move after another?  When your enemy is threatening to shoot himself in the heard why are we trying to pull the gun away? It time to pull the trigger on RCV.

Olague’s antics on RCV alarm her progressive supporters

Sasha Cuttler
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61
Olague’s antics on RCV alarm her progressive supporters

As Sup. Christina Olague was being appointed to the District 5 seat on the Board of Supervisors by Mayor Ed Lee in January, we noted how difficult it might be to balance loyalty to the moderate mayor with her history as a progressive and someone running for office in one of the city’s most progressive districts.

By most indications, Olague doesn’t seem to be handling that balancing act — or the pressure that goes along with it — very well at all, to the increasing frustration of her longtime political allies. And that’s never been more clear than on the issue of repealing the city’s ranked choice voting (RCV) system.

As you may recall, earlier this year the board narrowly rejected an effort by its five most conservative, pro-downtown supervisors to place a measure repealing RCV on the June ballot. So chief sponsor Sup. Mark Farrell tried again in March with a ballot measure for November, this time just for citywide offices, and Olague surprised progressives by immediately co-sponsoring the measure, giving it the sixth vote it needed.

Since then, she’s offered shifting and evasive explanations for her actions, telling RCV supporters that she would withdraw her support then going back on her word. Sources close to Olague say that she’s been taking her marching orders on the issue directly from the Mayor’s Office, even as she tries to appease her progressive supporters.

Even trying to get a straight answer out of her is difficult. Two weeks ago, as the Farrell measure was coming to the board for a vote, I called her on her cell phone to ask whether she still supported the measure, and she angrily complained about why people care about this issue and said “you’re going to write what you want anyway” before abruptly hanging up on me.

I left her a message noting that it was her support for repealing RCV that had raised the issue again, that I was merely trying to find where she now stood, and that we expect accountability from elected officials. She called back an hour later to say she was still deciding and she denied hanging up on me, claiming that she had just run into someone that she needed to talk to.

At that week’s board meeting, she offered an amended version of Farrell’s proposal – which would replace RCV with a primary election in September and runoff in November for citywide offices – repealing RCV only for the mayor’s race. She has not directly addressed the question of why she supports a September election, which is expected to have even lower voter turnout than the old December runoff elections that RCV replaced.

So RCV supporters worked with Board President David Chiu to fashion an third option, this one maintaining the ranked-choice election for all offices in November, but having a December runoff between the top two mayoral finishers.

Going into this week’s board meeting on the issue, nobody was quite sure where Olague stood on that proposal or the overall issue, again because she’s been making different statements to different constituencies. And as the issue came up and various supervisors stated their positions, Olague stayed silent, as she has remained since then, refusing to return our calls or messages on the issue.

But because of technical changes to the three measures requested by the City Attorney’s Office – which Farrell made to Olague’s option, which he said he would support if his is defeated – consideration was delayed by a week to this coming Tuesday.

RCV supporters and Olague’s progressive allies didn’t want to speak on the record given that she is still the swing vote on the issue, but privately they’re fuming about Olague’s squirrely temperament, lack of integrity, and how she’s handling this issue (as well as her bad votes on the 8 Washington high-end housing project and her role in the Lee perjury scandal).

But rival supervisorial candidates like Julian Davis – who came to the hearing at City Hall Tuesday and proclaimed his unqualified support for RCV – are less reticent.

“Silence or avoidance are not acceptable, so we’re calling for her to explain why a low-turnout, plurality election in September is good for San Francisco. Help us understand,” he said, noting that such a election especially hurts minority groups and other progressive constituencies that don’t vote as reliably as conservatives. “Why should Christina Olague have anything to do with it? You and the rest of San Francisco deserve an answer.”

Meanwhile, Davis recently won the endorsement of local Democratic Party Chair Aaron Peskin, while fellow progressive candidate John Rizzo announced his endorsement by Assembly member Tom Ammiano. And there are rumors that some prominent progressives who have already endorsed Olague are considering withdrawing their endorsements because of her recent behavior.

All of which make for some interesting dramas going into Tuesday’s RCV vote.

Batman approacheth…but what to see THIS weekend?

Sue Vaughan
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Batman approacheth…but what to see THIS weekend?

You already have your tickets for The Dark Knight Rises (opens July 20) — if not, you might want to get on that — but there’s an entire week between then and now. Parental types are already locked into Ice Age: Continental Drift, which, in addition to Ray Romano and company, features teenage mammoths voiced by Nicki Minaj and Drake and a baboon pirate captain voiced by Peter Dinklage. So there’s that. Cineastes won’t want to miss the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (check out Dennis Harvey’s tribute to featured filmmaker William Beaudine here).

The best of the rest includes an eye-opening doc about teen athletes being groomed for MLB in the Dominican Republic; a doc about a rebellious Tibetan Buddhist; a lush Marie Antoinette drama; a family drama set against the backdrop of a kite festival in India; and an Australian import about a dog whose scruffy brio united a hardscrabble community. Which one made me sob like a tween Belieber? Hint: its star has four legs and very pointy ears.

Ballplayer: Pelotero With upbeat music, slick editing, and narration by John Leguizamo, Ballplayer: Pelotero is an entertaining, enlightening investigation into exactly why the Dominican Republic produces so many baseball stars. Comparisons to acclaimed sports doc Hoop Dreams (1994) are apt, as filmmakers Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin, and Jonathan Paley travel to the DR to follow a pair of teenage baseball players dreaming of big-league stardom (and big-league paychecks). But the Hoop Dreams kids weren’t being confronted by the shady, sinister, bottom-line-obsessed recruiters working for Major League Baseball, which maintains a pee-wee farm system of sorts in the country to train young prospects — the best of whom are snapped up at the magic age of 16 for bargain-basement (relatively speaking) prices. And in this environment, questions about numbers reign supreme: how much with each kid be signed for? And, more intriguingly, is either kid lying about his true age? (1:12) SF Film Society Cinema. (Cheryl Eddy)

Crazy Wisdom Not exactly your average Buddhist leader, Chogyam Trungpa was one part monk to two parts rock star. Recognized as a reincarnated master while still an infant, he left Tibet behind to flee Chinese government forces in 1960, eventually landing in the UK, where he founded its first Buddhist center. A decade later he’d move to the US, founding its first Buddhist university. Amidst all that achievement and enlightenment-spreading, however, he also found time to marry a 16-year-old upper-class Brit, have myriad affairs with students, partially paralyze himself driving a car into a shop front, frequently get drunk in public, and so forth — even though, incongruously, he frowned upon marijuana (and rock music). All this made sense in a tradition of Tibetan Buddhist “crazy wisdom” — or so his supporters would (and still) claim in his defense. Having left this life at age 48, his body exhausted by decades of hedonistic excess, he still has a powerful hold over diverse, multi-faith followers and acquaintances who recall his extraordinary spiritual-personal magnetism. Johanna Demetrakas’ entertaining documentary gathers up testimony from a gamut of them, including Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Thurman, and Anne Waldman. (1:26) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu95AAbj7bE

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, France, 2012) Opening early on the morning of July 14, 1789, Farewell, My Queen depicts four days at the Palace of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, as witnessed by a young woman named Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who serves as reader to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Sidonie displays a singular and romantic devotion to the queen, while the latter’s loyalties are split between a heedless amour propre and her grand passion for the Duchess de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). These domestic matters and other regal whims loom large in the tiny galaxy of the queen’s retinue, so that while elsewhere in the palace, in shadowy, candle-lit corridors, courtiers and their servants mingle to exchange news, rumor, panicky theories, and evacuation plans, in the queen’s quarters the task of embroidering a dahlia for a projected gown at times overshadows the storming of the Bastille and the much larger catastrophe on the horizon. (1:39) (Lynn Rapoport)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8dH2BEj5Os

Patang (The Kite) Loving memories tethered to a place (Ahmedabad, India), moment (the city’s kite festival, the largest of its kind in the country), and season (according to the Hindu calendar, the event coincides with the day that wind direction shifts) beautifully suffuse this first feature film by director and co-writer Prashant Bhargava. Certainly Patang (The Kite) is the story of a family: Delhi businessman Jayesh (Mukund Shukla) has returned with his freewheeling, movie-camera-toting daughter Priya (Sugandha Garg) to his majestically ramshackle family home, where he supports his mother, sister-in-law (Seema Biswas of 1994’s Bandit Queen), and nephew Chakku (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). He’s come to indulge his childhood love of kite flying and to introduce Priya to Ahmedabad’s old-world sights and ways. Entangled among the strands of story are past resentments —harbored by Chakku against his paternalistic uncle — and new hopes, particularly in the form of a budding romance between Priya and Bobby (Aakash Maherya), the son of the kite shop owner. Above all — and as much a presence as any other — is the city, with its fleeting pleasures and memorable faces, captured with vérité verve and sensuous lyricism on small HD cameras by Bhargava and director of photography Shanker Raman. Their imagery imprints on a viewer like an early memory, darting to mind like those many bright kites dancing buoyantly in the city sky. (1:32) (Kimberly Chun)

Red Dog Already a monster hit in Australia, provenance of the Babe movies, this animal-centric charmer comes to the Bay Area as part of the Windrider Bay Area Film Forum in Atherton. It’s based on Louis de Bernières’ collection of tales (and tall tales) about a legendary canine that roamed the country’s Northwestern wilderness in the 1970s. Director Kriv Stenders centers his film in the mining burg that erected a statue to the animal after its death — an event that serves as the movie’s starting point, as the townspeople gather to toast Red Dog’s many contributions to the community (in addition to providing a much-needed source of amusement in a bleak, barren place, he also became a mascot for the local union, match-made multiple couples, prevented a suicide-by-shark attempt, and engaged in epic brawls with his arch-nemesis, Red Cat). It’s a shaggy, sentimental story elevated by some appealing human performances — Josh Lucas is the token American star, though Aussie film fans will recognize Noah Taylor and Keisha Castle-Hughes — and, of course, one very charismatic pooch. If you can’t make the trek down the peninsula for the screening, Red Dog will be available On Demand starting August 14; the DVD will be out September 4. (1:32) Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center. (Eddy)

Churches wants you to sing on its LGBT anthem

Tony Robles
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0
Churches wants you to sing on its LGBT anthem

Caleb Nichols is impatient. Long part of the Bay Area music scene in bands such as Port O’Brien and his own Grand Lake, he’s perhaps forgotten that his new project with Rogue Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon and bassist Dominic East, Churches, is still in its infancy.

That restless feeling might come from the initial burst of interest in the act when its first song, chilling power-pop anthem “Save Me,” went up on Bandcamp. Recorded with close Nichols pal Van Pierszalowski of Port O’Brien and Waters at Tiny Telephone, the song was just the seedling of a new project Nichols came up with while on tour with Waters.

Nichols long knew he wanted to work with East Bay-based Spurgeon, but the drummer was often too busy with Rogue Wave. With that band on hiatus (though now, excitingly, back in the studio), Churches formed at the beginning of 2012. It was the positive response to “Save Me” that spurred Nichols and Spurgeon to put together a live show, hooking in East on bass and cementing the trio by February of this year.

“I’ll be like ‘why aren’t we doing this and this already?’ and then be like, ‘oh, because we’ve only been playing shows since February,” Nichols laughs over the phone from his apartment in Santa Cruz. “We’ve played like 10 shows, chill out.” The trio adds another show to that list next week opening for Waters at Brick and Mortar Music Hall.

Nichols adds, “We’ve all been in bands for so long, it’s hard to remember that this particular band is brand new.”

Despite its newness, the act already put up a free six-song EP on Bandcamp in April (which includes “Save Me”), and entered the 48-hour music video race in May. It also is about to get working on yet another EP, this time at the Hangar in Sacramento with Bryce Gonzalez. This next one will be “a little darker., more cynical…a little more aggressive” Nichols says, a bit more raw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dztzf2Z8Nw8

But before that, and currently at the forefront of their collective mind, is the Kickstarter project with a goal of $3,000 that ends July 19. If the goal is met, the project will fund the vinyl recording of a song called “LOVELIFE” that the band hopes will become something of an anthem for the LGBT community.

I’ll let the Kickstarter description do the explaining here: “It’s a song about the important issue of marriage equality. We believe in this song and its message so strongly that we’ve decided to launch this Kickstarter campaign to help the song get properly recorded and pressed on 7″ vinyl…As a gay Californian, and American, I find it increasingly disturbing that so many people in my home-state and country have gone to their polling places and voted against my right to marry whomever I choose – voted against my right to fully participate and engage in a meaningful relationship – voted against my right to have the same rights as everybody else.”

The kicker: at the $100 level, donors will be able to come to the studio and contribute their voice to the chorus of the song. Said chorus goes, “Some folks think it’s not right / That I should have the right / To love my man and marry him / And live out in the light / Well I think that it’s a sin / To hate your kith and kin / I was born this way, now hear me say / I am just what I am.”

The chorus was written during a long drive back to Santa Cruz after an awkward dinner in Oakland.

Nichols says they added that bonus of bringing in funders to sing as a way to get the community involved – and as a way for him to personally connect more with the gay community. “I’m not a famous person, so it probably doesn’t carry as much weight as like, Anderson Cooper or Frank Ocean. I respect those people for coming out…just from where I’m at, in my career, I feel like it’s good to be very loud about these kinds of things. I’m tired of our personal lives being subject to political whims.”

He adds, “I don’t write a lot of political music…but this song has a purpose, it has a point for me.”

Nichols may not often write expressly about politics, but he is often writing from a highly personal place. Churches channels reflections of the past, those rough, alienating, fresh hell years of high school in the loud grunge angst of the ’90s. Growing up in tiny Los Osos, Nichols struggled with isolation, and “general outcastishness” – and he says these feelings have persisted into adulthood, though far less intensely. Still, thankfully, he can tap into those dark emotions to write the passionately distorted music of Churches.

Musically, he first picked up bass in early high school – he says another testament to his impatience as he thought it’d be easier than guitar – and played in Nirvana-esque bands in a local San Luis Obispo County music scene that included Van Pierszalowski and Myles Cooper, who were both in other nearby bands back then and have of course gone on to form SF projects.

When Nichols eventually moved to the Bay Area, he joined Port O’Brien, later forming Grand Lake in Oakland with his soon-to-be boyfriend, John Pomeroy. They just celebrated their three-year anniversary in Santa Cruz, where Pomeroy is going back to school and Nicholas occasionally works at the local record store. Pomeroy has slowly and steadily been making his new own music while Nicholas works on Churches, yet to show any to the public. “He’s the opposite of me, I do things really quickly but he takes his time,” Nichols laughs, forever a teenager at heart.

Churches
With Waters, Tijuana Panthers, Chasms
Wed/18, 9pm, $10-$12
Brick and Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Localized Appreesh: Sun Hop Fat

Tony Robles
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Localized Appreesh: Sun Hop Fat

Localized Appreesh is our weekly thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

Sun Hop Fat is a local 12-piece inspired by the ecstatic late 1960s Swinging Addis period of Ethio-pop, which itself was at least partially inspired by James Brown. The modern band lays out that inspiration groundwork in each track, building off the legacy and adding its own grooves, coming off like a jazzy Ethio-pop orchestra.


Fronted by vocalist-flautist Krystal Nzoiwu and Bay Area native Daniel Silberstein, Sun Hop Fats’ silky flow, joyously booming brass, and funky rhythm section create naturally bopping underground jazz club atmospheres, and are said to inspire a live dance experience. One might assume a hindrance to on-stage movement given their sheer quantity, yet they do indeed incite the party promised.

The East Bay band brings that raucous party west this weekend for a headlining Slim’s show alongside some psychedelic soul bands traveling up the coast from Santa Cruz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBH8syvmwo

Year and location of origin:  2008 in the Belly of the Vulcan Lofts, Fruitvale.

Band name origin:  Taken from a market near our practice space. We liked the sound and the fact that we could buy gummies and live animals there.

Band motto: Put your faith in the Red Chair of Doom.

Description of sound in 10 words or less: Mulatu Astake inspired dark jazz and soul from Ethiopia’s Swinging Addis period.

Instrumentation: Horns: Krystal Nzoiwu (flute and vocals) Dan Sarna (trumpet) Scotty Maxx (trumpet) Nicholas Gyorkos (trombone), Ryan Morgan (trombone) Jeremy Greene (tenor sax). Rhythm section: Harrison Murphy (keys), Reese Bullen (drums) Jesse Toews (bass) Theo Winston (guitar) Daniel Silberstein (Percussion and vocals).

Most recent release: The Fernet Suite on Electric Sparkyland Records.

Best part about life as a Bay Area band: Great venues, great friends, strong dancers, good drinks.

Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: Public transportation system in the East Bay. No 24/7 BART trains.

First album ever purchased: Theo, Appetite for Destruction by Guns ‘N’ Roses;  Daniel:  3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of… by Arrested Development.

Most recent album purchased/downloaded:  Theo: Queen “A Day at the Races,” waiting for the new Dirty Projectors album;  Daniel : Blue Mitchell “Booty” and Takamba.

Favorite local eatery and dish: Theo: The El Gordo taco truck on International Blvd. Al parstor tacos!; Daniel: Phnom Phen House, I have been eating BBQ chicken there since I was 10.

Sun Hop Fat
With Harry & the Hit Men, On the Spot Trio
Fri/13, 9pm, $13
Slim’s
333 11 St., SF
(415) 255-0333
www.slimspresents.com

Oakland councilperson responds to Harborside Health Center targeting by feds

Andrew Lam
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Have you heard the news about our most Hollywood dispensary getting put on notice by the feds? Harborside Health Center staff, stars of everyone’s favorite marijuana reality show Weed Wars, arrived to work July 9 to a letter from US Attorney Melinda Haag.

She’s no one’s favorite pen pal in the medical cannabis industry these days. (xoxo) In the letter, she filed civil forfeiture actions against Harborside, despite the fact that unlike most of her office’s previous targets, the two Harborside dispensaries are not within 1,000 feet of a school or park. After the federal raid of educational institution Oaksterdam University in April it seems that now, all dispensaries are fair game for federal targeting. This could be curtains for patients’ safe and easy access to cannabis. 

Haag explained her office’s reasoning in a statement released yesterday.

This office has used its limited resources to address those marijuana dispensaries that operate close to schools, parks and playgrounds. As I have said in the past, this is a non-exclusive list of factors relevant to whether we should commence civil forfeiture actions against marijuana properties, and circumstances may require us to address other situations. 

I now find the need to consider actions regarding marijuana superstores such as Harborside. The larger the operation, the greater the likelihood that there will be abuse of the state’s medical marijuana laws, and marijuana in the hands of individuals who do not have a demonstrated medical need.

The filing of the civil forfeiture complaints against the two Harborside properties is part of our measured effort to address the proliferation of illegal marijuana businesses in the Northern District of California.

Basically, no rationale for targeting Harborside besides the fact that it’s a big operation (probably the largest in California.) The situation echoes the recent federal raid of cannabis educational institution Oaksterdam University. Harborside has struggled in the past with castigating audits by the IRS, which declared that the collective was unable to claim simple business expenses on its taxes. 

Oakland city councilperson Rebecca Kaplan recently released a statement in response. Here is the full text:

We are disappointed to learn that yet another licensed, legal and locally regulated medical cannabis facility has come under federal attack.

The last time that the federal government used its resources to go after a permitted facility with no history of crime or violence, there was a school shooting taking place across town while federal agents tagged and bagged medical marijuana plants.

We can’t let this happen again.

The Justice Department has said in the past that it wouldn’t target medical marijuana.

They went back on their word – starting to target medical cannabis facilities allowed under California law.  Then, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said they are specifically targeting cannabis facilities located within 1,000 feet of parks and schools.

Let’s be clear: Harborside Health Center is in compliance with our democratically-enacted laws – and is not near either a park or a school.

During the raid on Oaksterdam University, the federal government used cops – this time they’re using lawyers.

If federal prosecutors have extra time available, I ask – on behalf of my constituents all across the city – that they instead prosecute the illegal gun dealers who are the source of death and violence in Oakland.

Federal agents have worked successfully with local law enforcement this year to go after guns and violence – and we are deeply thankful and appreciative of that help.

That’s what we need more of.

If there are federal resources available, we need them directed against the violent perpetrators and co-conspirators of the senseless gun violence on our streets. 

Local news media reported recently that, on the day of the federal raid and the school shooting, local law enforcement said the federal raid against Oaksterdam University ‘drained the vast majority of [the department’s] west-end staffing thus resulting in several priority calls being stacked — something that might have [been] prevented.

Wasting resources going after legal, licensed and locally regulated medical marijuana facilities is not only inappropriate, but directly harms our ability to fight crime and respond to violence in our city.

We respectfully ask the Justice Department to devote any available resources to fight gun crime and stop the interstate flow of illegal guns into our city.

Thank you.

Guardian Voices: My San Francisco

Zelda Bronstein
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Guardian Voices: My San Francisco

I’ve spent the last 12 years learning to love and sometimes hate San Francisco, and I’ve made it my home. A few months after my 31st birthday, I drove out here from the midwest to contribute to social change in a place where I could be Black, LGBT, and a community organizer – and not be forced to have my dyke identity matter quite so much. (More on that history somewhere else…) While doing grassroots community work in this city, I found love, made life-long friends, started a family and developed an incredible multi-ethnic community that has deeply enriched my life. Over the years, we’ve shared moments of tragedy and the sweetness of victory, and all of it together has defined a “San Francisco experience” quite different from what I expected. And quite different from what the tour guides sell.

Over these years, I developed an analysis of the political, economic and cultural life of this incredibly contradictory city. I’ve come to understand the structural roots of gentrification, the nature of corporate elite rule in a supposedly progressive town, and the challenges white activists face dealing with the complexities of politics in a “majority minority” city. But most of all, it’s the people in my particular San Francisco who I’ve come to love, and I’m now carrying all of their stories with me as I move in new directions. 

My San Francisco is the people rarely quoted in the local media and most often mentioned only in the context of one social problem or another. They are the mostly poor and working-class families of color I’ve been learning from all these years, people whose daily suffering goes mostly unnoticed, whose political leadership is rarely respected, and whose view of San Francisco is rarely taken into account. This is the San Francisco largely off the political and geographic map, where neither tour buses nor politicians tend to go.

My San Francisco has been in the southeast quarter, the Frisco where people work hard and do whatever is necessary to feed their families, have loud family BBQs in the park, and rock their Giants gear as much and as often as possible. The folks getting evicted, foreclosed on, and displaced by being priced out. They are Black and Latino folks who’ve joined grassroots organizations — mostly women — who make incredible daily sacrifices to change the world. They are volunteer community organizers, who might go to school or take care of other people’s children during the day, and organize for change one meeting at a time, at night. They face the threat of deportations, police harassment, and stressful low-wage work. When they join a membership-based organization, they get a community with shared values and support, but they don’t get money, status or personal power. The Frisco families I know and love don’t identify as “moderate” or “progressive,” but they know that rich people don’t have the right to rule the world, that public education and decent housing should be basic human rights, and that it makes no sense, in the middle of such deep unemployment, to raise bus fares and make it more expensive to take the bus to work. They have compassion, common-sense, critical thinking, and courage. They should be running the city.

The grassroots leaders, activists and organizers who’ve become such an intimate part of my life and whose stories now make up “my San Francisco” don’t align nicely with most dominant ideas about this place. They are not cool, cosmopolitan and carefree. But neither are they simply victims of downtown’s political power. Their leadership is the only hope for this city that I have.

It’s the young Black women with heartbreaking stories of brothers and cousins lost through gun violence, and with less public but equally horrifying private horrors of sexual violence and abuse that have traumatized them to their core.  But they are proud to be born and raised in this city and are leading community meetings, developing campaign strategies, educating their peers about Prop. 13 and their right to quality education. I have their tears, their youthful giggles, and their dreams for the future, all here in my head. 

I have the stories of undocumented Latina immigrant women, who too suffered sexual abuse when crossing the border, but now here in the US take incredible risks and do practically everything in their power to ensure their children have a better life than their own. I have the sound of their laughter together, often in Spanish —  of  these mamas, as they make plans to call 100 people for the next meeting, and the shaking in their voice when they rise to speak out in public against the racism they witness in our public schools. These women in my San Francisco have knocked on thousands of doors, talked to tens of thousands of people about the pressing issues of our times. But they are ignored on the streets of our city and in the halls of power, invisible to so many middle class, often white, professionals and activists who just don’t know, understand, or appreciate this ‘other’ San Francisco.

I love this San Francisco, and my hope is that this column can lift up these stories in coming weeks and months. San Francisco will never, ever, become the city of our dreams until the people doing the hard, often invisible work of grassroots organizing in the communities most impacted by city’s contradictions, play a more central role in defining the city’s politics. There is new leadership emerging in communities of color, and the future of San Francisco lies in their power.

Caught in the FBI’s net: the extended interview

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Caught in the FBI’s net: the extended interview

From June 20 through June 23, the FBI and local police departments and district attorney’s offices throughout the United States were engaged in Operation Cross Country, three days of stings targeting pimps for arrest.

According to the FBI, the mission was successful. “Nationwide, 79 children were rescued and 104 pimps were arrested for various state and local charges,” a press statement released the following week reads.

In the Bay Area, the operation resulted in “the recovery of six children, who were being victimized through prostitution, and the arrest of seven individuals, commonly referred to as pimps.”

Also caught up in the Bay Area sweep: 61 adult prostitutes — ten consensual sex workers for every underage victim.

The Guardian caught up with one such consensual sex worker swept up in Operation Cross Country. “Maya,” 22, an escort in Richmond, was targeted because officers believed she looked under 18 in her ads.

This is an extended version of the interivew with “Maya” published in this week’s paper.

Bay Guardian: Tell me about the arrest.

Maya: I got a phone call. All he said to me was that he was nervous and had never done this before, and that he was looking for somebody to party with. So I never said anything sexual, and he didn’t either. There was absolutely no premise.

So I went to the hotel room. I walked in the door and I said, I’m glad that I found the right room. I put my bag down. I turned to the side and there was another man standing there, and my immediate thought was that I was going to get taken advantage of by another person. But then- I can’t even, I don’t know how many officers it was. Some came out of the bathroom, and they said Richmond PD, you’re under arrest, put your hands behind your back. They arrested me.
They had me in handcuffs, they questioned me for a while. Then they took me back to a different place where they read me my rights and questioned me, then they took me to a different police station to get booked. So all in all, I was in custody for about six hours. So I guess the way that it works with that is, the phone call is initiation and showing up to the hotel room is an act in furtherance. Entrapment is legal for that in California.

BG: What was the questioning like?

M: You know, I’ve been through a lot of things in my life. Family tragedies. Just like a lot of people. But that was definitely hands down, probably top five most traumatic events in my life.  I’ve never felt so degraded. Because of the questioning, because they really badgered me and broke me down. And I’ve always been such a strong person that I think that was the hardest part of it, they really took advantage of me and put me in a very vulnerable space. Because they were very, very adamant about, basically getting me to say that I have sex for money.

They didn’t read me my rights until about an hour and a half after I was in custody. And they were sitting there asking me, why do you have condoms in your bag? I had a vibrator, I had lube, and I had condoms with me. So they just sat there and asked me about it.

There were four men and one woman in the room, and they were all sitting there making jokes. One of the officers was very adamant about telling me that he would never pay me that much for my services.

BG: You’ve said they lied to you, what did they lie to you about?

M: They told me that that day they had caught an underage girl, but then I read the newspaper article about the sting about it, and they said the youngest girl that they got that day was 20. So they were trying to make it seem like they were helping all these women, helping all these girls get away from this lifestyle, when in reality they’re just busting girls like me. Who totally- this has made my life infinitely worse.

They looked through my phone and looked through my pictures, and questioned me about every picture in my phone. They were like, is this your pimp? They read my text messages, they listened to voice mails from my family. They don’t care.

BG: Did you tell them that you didn’t have a pimp?

M: Yes.

BG: And they didn’t believe you?

M: Well, not at first. Because when I got arrested- my boyfriend is my safety call. I call him after I get into the room to let him know that I’m OK, and then I call him when I’m leaving . And if I don’t call him and let him know that I’m OK, that means that there’s a problem. So I knew that he was going to call and I didn’t want him to have a heart attack worrying that I was hurt or something like that. So I had to tell them that he was going to call, and they assumed he was my pimp because of that. But after they talked to him and all that, they realized that he wasn’t. Like, I’m saying they- you know, they’re trying to deal with these girls who are completely not in the realm of who I work with and what I do. Whatsoever.

BG: Have you experienced an arrest before?

M: No, never been arrested before.

BG: The sting was for underage people being trafficked.  Do you think that’s a big problem? What do you think about that issue?

I do think that it’s a problem, absolutely. But this is the very unfortunate thing about what I do for work. Whether you want to call it prostitution or you want to call it escorting. So I do think absolutely it’s a problem, but it’s very important for people to know that it’s not the same thing, it’s really, really not.

I love my job, it’s unfortunate that this happened. I went to school for psychology, my main interest in human sexuality, and I was sort of doing this as a way to get into the field, essentially. I would absolutely consider it a form of therapy. Absolutely. Because I genuinely care. That’s why it’s the girlfriend experience. So yes, human trafficking is absolutely a problem. It’s not in my realm. I don’t support it, of course not. But there’s nothing that I can do about that unfortunately.

BG: Do you have any thoughts on how police could better track down trafficking in a way that doesn’t put you and other people who are in a totally different line of work in danger?

M: Yeah, I think that they need to not go after the girls, they need to go after the pimps. That’s it, period. It’s not fair to prosecute us…When it comes down to it, they say that they’re really trying to go after the pimps, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.

For me, for instance, I’m probably going to get two years’ probation, up to 60 days in jail and hundreds of dollars in fines. Now I’m out of work, can’t get a job, and I have prostitution on my record. You know, it’s just- it doesn’t help anybody.

BG: You’re out of work?

M: I can’t put ads up. I don’t have another job right now. So of course I can find work in the future, but it’s- it was abrupt. Basically everything that I’ve worked for. Because I’ve been doing sex work since I was 18. So people might not look at it this way, but its sales. It’s marketing. I’ve built my little empire with that. I’ve built the reviews, and I’ve built the experience, and essentially they just swiped it all away from me.

People I’m sure will read this article and either be completely unsympathetic or, if they take the time to really think about it, it’s a service, like any other service. This is the oldest profession in the world. If you, I’m a good and caring person. People give it such a bad name. Like the police, they think that us girls are just hustlers and pieces of shits and we’re just trying to make money and we don’t care. Which is absolutely not the case. Three quarters of the reason I do this job is because I care.

BG: It strikes me what you were saying about the police officer saying I wouldn’t pay that much. Were there other degrading things said?

M: In total I probably talked to about 10 different officers. Every single one of them, their first question was, how old are you? And when I said 22, they got this look of disgust, and they were like, oh, you’re so young. I had multiple officers tell me, you’re a victim and you don’t even know it. Just trying to break me down.

I don’t care if they’re officers, I don’t care what they do for a living. They’re still men.  And when you come in and you’re a prostitute, they look you up and down. And they’re thinking about that. And I had the officer asking me questions like oh, how do you clean your vibrator. Just unnecessary questions, where obviously they’re getting some sort of gratification out of it. My interest is human sexuality and psychology, and I know, also because of this job, I know how to read a man and how to read what they’re thinking. And like I said, when you get booked as a prostitute you just get treated like a piece of meat and they all look at you like one. They’re just completely unsympathetic, I had to sit in a jail cell in Richmond, there was blood on the walls and there’s MS-13 tags everywhere…. And they keep telling me, you did this to yourself, you put yourself in this position, and it’s your fault you’re here. And they kept telling me, you need to get out of this life.

They all just joked, they were all laughing and joking. I had an officer, I was telling them why I have condoms and he said “I call bullshit!” and they all fucking laughed at me. I was a joke to them. They were all just sitting around laughing the whole time. And they’re sitting there watching the A’s game, I’m just sitting in handcuffs in the corner crying.

It was bad enough that it took me about a week before I could even see people again. It was, yeah.  I couldn’t see anybody, I couldn’t tell anybody about it. Pretty much cried all the time.

BG: I was wondering if you could talk more about pimping, because people have told me that the definition of pimping has led to peoples boyfriends getting busted for pimping. Could you talk about pimping in general, what it means, what falls under it?

M: I can only tell you so much because I don’t have a pimp. But for the standard they use to evaluate if someone’s a pimp or not, I know they were asking my boyfriend if he set up dates for me. So I think it’s the setting you- I imagine if he had driven me to my appointment, he probably would have gotten in trouble also. So it’s the driving them, being the driver, setting up appointments. And I know they asked me a lot, and I heard them asking another girl who got arrested around the same time as me, they kept asking her if she gave him money for anything. So I think that’s it, if you give them money, if they drive you, if they set up your dates. They asked me, because my boyfriend got surgery recently and I’ve been helping him out with that. And they kept prying, asking if I gave him money for groceries, if I gave him money for anything. They try to trick you. But other than that I don’t have any thoughts on pimping, other than its terrible.

BG: Have you ever met people who were forced into what they’re doing?

M: No…I mean, we’ve all done things for money. You know, desperate times. Whether it’s working some shit job- I mean, I look at it as a job. So in the past when I was younger yeah, you know, trying to make rent. You know, maybe I’ll do something that I wouldn’t want to do as much, or not get paid as much for it. But it’s like shit, beats working at Taco Bell. You know, that’s the way you look at it. I’d rather have one appointment with a guy instead of making the same amount of money working 20 hours that week. Its’ just the way you look at. It takes a certain kind of person to do this kind of work, its now- people sometimes think it’s easy money. It’s not easy money. It takes a certain person, it takes an emotionally stable and sexually stable person to do this work sustainably. It’s definitely tolling. It’s tolling because its therapy. It’s tolling because I listen to people’s problems, it’s not tolling because of the sexual aspect at all. You know, that’s anatomy. It’s not the way that people think. People always concentrate on the physical attributes, when realistically there’s so many more psychological attributes that go into this kind of work.

BG: Have you gotten any help from sex workers rights organizations?

M: I did have a therapist that’s sex-worker friendly offer me free sessions. I might take him up on that, but- you know, the event was traumatizing. I’m not traumatized by my work. I can tell the story and that’s pretty much enough for me. I don’t really need therapy for being a sex worker. I love my job. It makes me happy, its great.

BG: What do you love about it?

M: I love meeting different people, I love the psychological aspects. I just have so many fantastic stories, and amazing people that I’ve met. I saw a guy recently who, after our session he was telling me that his wife had died about six months previous that he had married to for 42 years, and he started crying. And my mother passed away when I was younger, and so we were able to relate on that. And I gave him my lessons on how I dealt with it, and he had never really had somebody tell him that, and he was very touched. And I know that he will take those lessons that I taught him and use them for his grieving process.

So it’s things like that. People don’t realize how much therapy it really is, how many of these people just want some intimacy…we’re human beings, we need sexual outlets. That’s just the way that we are.

“Maya” invites anyone who has been in a similar situation or wants to talk to contact her at mayaarticle8719@yahoo.com.

Now, Monsoon

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Now, Monsoon

>>LISTEN TO AN EXCLUSIVE KUSH ARORA MIX (AND MORE) HERE

SUPER EGO Hurray, it is not 115 degrees here! I just got a skype from my heatwaved homegirl Googie Santorum in Canton, Ohio, and she said all her wigs had melted into Dynel helmets and that she lost two pairs of kitten heels in the asphalt puddle outside Heggy’s Nut Shop on West Tuskawaras Street. I thought we cured global warming 10 years ago when we sat through that Al Gore movie and quit using Aqua Net? Well, apparently not.

I felt a little guilty reveling in our temperate clime while the rest of America fried — but that all changed when I started instead feeling a little guilty for passing out on the Fourth with two lit sparklers in my hair and a crotchful of spilled PBR. Goddess bless America. And all her bald spots and blackout complications.

In club terms, however, summer’s really steaming up our tails. I especially felt the mercury rising when it was announced that our hometown heroes of “dread bass,” the Surya Dub DJ crew, would be returning to the scene, taking over the second dance floor of the bangin’ Non Stop Bhangra monthly party on Sat/14 (9pm-3am, $10–$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com). Bassheads, get ready for a low pressure system no amount of my overheated metaphors can properly describe.

The mega-affair is being billed as “Indian-Caribbean summer tropical bass madness,” and you get mad amounts of hot tropicalia: a main room headlining slot from Portland’s DJ Anjuli and The Incredible Kid, founders of the longest-running bhangra party on the West Coast; guest spots for our main moombahton man, DJ Theory, and Matt Haze of wicked broken bass collective Slayers Club; bhangra dance lessons from the amazing Dholrhythms dance troupe; live drumming ….

And on top of it, Surya Dub’s ever-evolving, deep-global sound, finally back in the spotlight. SF’s musico-cultural cross-currents certainly haven’t flagged in the three years since the South Asian-flavored crew ruled the local bass scene with an irresistible mix of dub floor-droppers, future-bass bangers, ruff riddims, global breaks, and hip-hop bhangra. But when the crew members went on to various projects (including bringing Surya Dub to India and producing some great records), the scene lacked their singular fire.

“We never really went away,” Maneesh the Twister told me on a conference call with fellow Dubbers Kush Arora and Jimmy Love. “But it seemed like the music was changing in the clubs here. We wanted to evolve, to update the dread bass sound, in response to all the dubstep, electronic bass music, UK funky, and bashment that’s come to the fore.”

“We started feeling a wider variety of both New World and traditional sounds,” Kush told me. “African beats like kuduro — Buraka Som Sistema is great — to more post-dubstep tropical sounds. All of these rhythms that are talking to each other around the world. And of course we work in what’s been going on in bhangra as it develops.”

Jimmy, who also runs the Non Stop Bhangra party itself, was the catalyst for the “reunion.”

“We’re don’t just play traditional-sounding Bollywood or bhangra at the NSB parties,” he said. “I love dub reggae and Afrolicious-like funk, and our die-hard Indian crowd has loved when we play more tropical tracks. We always want to stretch the definition, and walking upstairs to Surya’s room will be a seamless experience of global sounds.

“It’s all about bringing communities together on the dance floor. And then heating everything up.”

 

COSMETICS

Soigné dark synthpop Canadian duo Cosmetics travel musically from Moroder to Siouxsie, charmingly, icily, and will be joined by Portland’s Soft Metals and our own Breakdown Valentine — two more chamber synth duos whose tunes seem intimately crafted just for you — for a catchy Friday the 13th affair. Justin of the Soft Moon, Rachel of the Conversion, and Omar DJ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPz2bME4Phg

Fri/13, 9pm, $11–$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

CUBCAKE

The whole gay bear thing kinda lost my interest once many of the hot fat country lumberjacks got replaced by entitled circuity gymrats constantly checking their Scruff apps on the dance floor. YOU’RE NOT A BEAR — YOU’RE JUST MIDDLE-AGED, I cried. (Middle age is a new thing for us post-AIDS era gay men; we’re working it out.) But that was, what, 2010? Time to reappraise. I’ve been hitting up this too-cute pan-musical dance party at Lonestar the past two months, brimming with sexy-goofy young hairies on the hoof and a few zesty chubs, too. Bear Trek: the Next Generation looks pretty damn good.

Fri/13, 9pm, free. Lone Star, 1354 Harrison, SF. www.lonestarsf.com

 

LEMONADE

The once-local (now Brooklynite) trio sanded off some of its esoteric angles in favor of wistful, Fairlight synth era-referencing pop on new album Diver, but it still retains those breezy percussive touches that made it one of the leaders of the nu-tropicalism underground dance movement a few years ago. With killer DJ and DMC champion Kid Fresh from Hong Kong at the always balmy nu-cumbia Tormenta Tropical monthly.

Sat/14, 10pm, $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/11-Tue/17 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $10. “Orbit (film): A Program of Short Films About Our Solar System,” Sat, 8. “Collaborations: An Evening of Music and Image,” Tue, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Thief (Mann, 1981), Wed, 7, and Straight Time (Grosbard, 1978), Wed, 9:15. San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Wings (Wellman, 1927), Thu, 7; “Amazing Tales from the Archives: Into the Digital Frontier,” Fri, 10:30am; Little Toys (Sun, 1933), Fri, 1; The Loves of Pharaoh (Lubitsch, 1922), Fri, 4; Mantrap (Fleming, 1926), Fri, 7; The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (Schwarz, 1929), Fri, 9:15; “The Irrepressible Felix the Cat!”, Sat, 10am; The Spanish Dancer (Brenon, 1923), Sat, noon; The Canadian (Beaudine, 1926), Sat, 2:30; South (Hurley, 1919), Sat, 5; Pandora’s Box (Pabst, 1926), Sat, 7; The Overcoat (Kozintsev and Trauberg, 1926), Sat, 10; The Mark of Zorro (Niblo, 1920), Sun, 10am; The Docks of New York (von Sternberg, 1928), Sun, noon; Erotikon (Stiller, 1920), Sun, 2; Stella Dallas (King, 1925), Sun, 4:30; The Cameraman (Sedgwick and Keaton, 1928), Sun, 7:30. More info and advance tickets (free-$42) at www.silentfilm.org. Inforum Presents: “Chuck Palahniuk: The Monsters Within,” Mon, 7 (this event, $20-40); “Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black: Two Slices of American Pie,” Tue, 7 (this event, $25-45).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Bel Ami (Donnellan and Ormerod, 2012), call for dates and times. Bernie (Linklater, 2012), call for dates and times. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (Beresford, 2011), call for dates and times. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Pool, 2011), call for dates and times. Take This Waltz (Polley, 2011), call for dates and times. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012), July 13-19, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Across the Universe (Taymor, 2007), Fri, 8. Union Square, Geary at Powell, SF. The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE First Street at Broadway, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. We Bought a Zoo (Crowe, 2011), Thu, sundown.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Music and Nostalgia:” Amélie (Jeunet, 2001), Fri, 6.

MENLO-ATHERTON PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 555 Middlefield, Atherton; www.windriderbayarea.org. $5-15. Windrider Bay Area Third Annual Independent Film Forum, with films from Africa, Australia, and North America, and stars and filmmakers in person, Thu-Sat.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Bellissima: Leading Ladies of the Italian Screen:” Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1956), Wed, 7; The Leopard (Visconti, 1963), Fri, 7; Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965), Sat, 6. “Cool World:” The Hustler (Rossen, 1961), Thu, 7; Ed Wood (Burton, 1994), Sat, 8:50. “A Theater Near You:” El velador (Almada, 2011), Sun, 5:30. “Always for Pleasure: The Films of Les Blank:” In Heaven There Is No Beer? (Blank and Gosling, 1984). Sun, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. “Au Revoir Béla Tarr:” The Man From London (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2007), Wed, 6:30; The Turin Horse (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2011), Wed, 9:15. “Songs Along a Stony Road: Music Movies by Local Luminaries:” Songs Along a Stony Road (Csicsery and Teerink, 2011) with “Sprout Wings and Fly” (Blank, 1983), Thu, 7 and 9. Filmmakers George Csicsery and Les Blank in person. San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, animation, shorts, and documentaries, Fri-Sat. All-day festival pass, $20; more info at www.frozenfilmfestival.com. Crazy Wisdom (Demetrakas, 2011), July 13-19, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:15, 5).

SF FILM SOCIETY CINEMA 1746 Post, SF. $10-11. The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Part Seven: New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and New American Independents and the Digital Revolution (Cousins, 2011), Sat, noon. British TV series; new episodes weekly through July 21. Ballplayer: Pelotero (Finkel, Martin, and Paley, 2011), Fri-Sat and Tue, 3, 7; Sun-Mon, and July 18, 5, 9; July 19, 1. Bonsái (Jiménez, 2011), Fri-Sat and Tue, 5, 9; Sun-Mon and July 18, 3, 7; July 19, 3. “Family Screening: The Storytellers Show,” Sat, 10am. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (Akers, 2011), Wed-Thu, 2:45, 5, 7:15, 9:30.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.911expertsspeakout.org. $10. 9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out (Gage, 2012), Wed, 7. Filmmaker Richard Gage in person.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Documentaries By Ai Weiwei:” Disturbing the Peace (2009), Sun, 2. *

 

Our Weekly Picks: July 11-17

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 11

Marat/Sade

San Francisco theater fiends: are you ready for this? Marc Huestis — local producer of such memorable star ‘n’ movie events as “A Carrie White Christmas with Piper Laurie” and “Linda Blair Live!” — is collaborating with Thrillpeddlers — San Francisco’s delightfully daring theater troupe, known for its Grand Guignol and Cockettes-inspired productions — to heat up foggy July with Marat/Sade. Peter Weiss’ play with music (it won a Tony for Best Play; the 1967 movie version starred most of the Royal Shakespeare Company actors who’d originated the roles) is set just after the French Revolution and is “performed” by Charenton Asylum inmates, with the Marquis de Sade directing. Judging by the talent behind this show, you’d be insane (ahem) to miss it. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through July 29

Previews Wed/11-Thu/12, 8pm, $20

Opens Fri/13, 8pm, $38

Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (also July 22, 1:30pm), $25–$38

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 863-0611

www.ticketfly.com

 

Campfire Guitar Lessons

If you’ve ever felt bummed when a friend whips out a guitar at a group gathering, a jam session begins, and you’re the only person who can’t join in on the fun, this class may be for you. The San Francisco Free School offers weekly Campfire Guitar Songs lessons to those in need of practice. The songs change every week but teachers Joergen and Marco favor classic bands and musicians such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, and the Who, as well as Gospel music, nursery rhymes, and traditional tunes. They recommend doing some preliminary guitar playing at home so the group can work at a good pace, and remember: bring your own guitar. Learn the basics so you can impress your musically inclined friends, and join in at the next impromptu band night. (Shauna C. Keddy)

6pm, free

The Hapiness Institute, SF

1720 Market, SF

www.thehappinessinstitute.org

 

FIDLAR

Looking for a new party mantra? FIDLAR’s got you covered. This LA band’s name is an acronym for Fuck it Dog Life’s a Risk. If that’s not what you’re looking for, check out its singles “Wake Bake Skate” and “Black Out Stout.” This band’s lo-fi garage-punk is the perfect summer soundtrack, whether you’re surfing, skating, crowd surfing, or drinking. Especially drinking. Instead of pointing to like-minded artists, the band credits Four Loko, Coors Light, and a laundry list of college-caliber booze brands as its influences. Take a hint, grab your tall cans, and get ready to rage. (Haley Zaremba)

With Meat Market, the Shrills

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


THURSDAY 12

Steel Panther

For the spandex-clad, Aqua Net-sprayed members of Steel Panther, the 1980s hair metal scene never went away; the Los Angeles quartet keeps the glory days of the Sunset Strip alive and well with its hilariously over the top and outrageous, but nonetheless hard rocking, sound and attitude. The band’s second album, Ball Out, dropped last year, and featured a host of anthem-worthy tunes that you and your bandana-wearing buddies can sing along with tonight when it hits the city — “Supersonic Sex Machine,” “17 Girls In A Row,” and of course, “It Won’t Suck Itself.” (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $22.50–$25

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter St., SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com


FRIDAY 13

Mugsy Wine Bar Bastille Day pop-up happy hour

Storm the fortress of this Mission dive’s patio — it shouldn’t be too hard, there’s no cover — for El Rio’s new pop-up wine bar. Mugsy Wine Bar is organized by Granate Sosnof, mainly so that Sosnof could have a decent cup of vino while her partner works behind the Tecate-margarita-serving bar. Sosnof focuses on wines made by queer, people of color, and family producers and to honor the 223rd year of commemoration of the storming of the Bastille, Mugsy will be serving a sparkling Blanc de Noir Cremant de Bourgnone, the 2009 Cotes du Rhone from Le Clos du Caillou. If ever there were an excuse to wear your sequined beret around any one besides your cat, this is it. (Caitlin Donohue)

5:30-8:30pm, free

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.elriosf.com

mugsywinbar.tumblr.com

 

Reverend Horton Heat

It may be hard to believe, but the rockabilly juggernaut that is the Reverend Horton Heat has been hitting stages for more than 25 years now — and as fans of the Texas musician and same-named trio know, the band’s strong suit is its live show, which the group captured for posterity during an August 2010 concert at the historic Fillmore right here in San Francisco. Due for release later this month, 25 To Life is the new DVD/CD set documenting that night’s musical mayhem; until then, get off the couch and catch the boys live and in person, back in the Bay. (McCourt)

With Supersuckers, Goddamn Gallows

Fri/13-Sat/14, 9pm, $20–$25

Uptown

1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 451-8100

www.uptownnightclub.com

 

SS2

There is no single unifying thread that weaves all the motley, underground S.S. Records bands together. As the laudable DIY Sacramento label and online shop puts it, “the records we put out and the ones that we carry we actually listen to” (emphasis mine). Crystal balling it, chances are that you’ve listened to some of these bands too, or you should be: San Francisco legends Icky Boyfriends, Spray Paint, Lamps, Musk, and the list goes on. Last year, the label celebrated a decade of life with its own intimate music fest. It went so well, they’re doing it again. Bands such as the aforementioned Icky Boyfriends along with late ’80s psych-garage stalwarts Monoshock, and newer Modern Lovers-ish LA weirdos Wounded Lion (now on In the Red) will come together to play the two-day 11th anniversary gathering this weekend. (Emily Savage)

Fri/13-Sat/14, 9pm, $12 each day

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk Street, SF (415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

Com Truise

Seth Haley’s technicolor electro-funk under the Com Truise moniker has all the subtlety of a giant bowl of Fruity Pebbles. His newly released full-length, In Decay, finds the Jersey-based synth-nut fine-tuning his bloggy brand of retro-futurism, with a nostalgic approach resembling Rustie or Onra. The oversaturated arpeggios pop like neon paintballs; the basslines rip like buzzsaws; the hex-drums evoke every supposedly ill-advised ’80s-ism you secretly never want to forget. Haley’s giddily excessive production ties this all together with an immediacy that should result in an exhilarating live show. Throwing restraint to the wind, Com Truise’s music revels in its garishness. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Baauer, Kid 606, Jim-E Stack, Giraffage

10pm, $15

103 Harriet, SF

(415) 264-1015

www.1015.com

 

SATURDAY 14

DJs from Mars

You know the basics: European DJ duo dons masks for a frisson of anonymity in our Age of Overexposure (in this case basically cardboard boxes with faces painted on them), mashes up popular tunes over aggressive electro beats, and become renowned for their antics both onstage and off, possibly involving bared breasts and chainsaws — don’t worry, not both things simultaneously. You are perhaps also familiar with that great contemporary international DJ woe: having to cancel your tour due to visa issues. Happily, Italian duo DJs from Mars manage to transcend all your familiarities. Sure, the boys(?) have got the EDM rock star schtick down, but it’s never been more polished or goofy-nuts. They’ve also got the visas, and their rescheduled tour stop at the Bootie mashup party should be what the kids used to call a real banger. (Marke B.)

9pm, $10–$20

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

www.bootiesf.com


SUNDAY 15

Aesop Rock

Recently rated the industry’s most intelligent rapper by Listverse, San Francisco resident Aesop Rock is a hip-hop maverick with a quick tongue and sharp wit that will leave your feet tapping and your head spinning. His je ne sais quois coolness seems to increase with every move he makes, from collaborating with Atmosphere’s Slug to peppering his rhymes with obscure science fiction references to touring with alternative folk royalty Kimya Dawson to writing a song about Grubstake, Polk Street’s notorious greasy spoon and late-night vomitorium. See you there after the show. (Zaremba)

With Rob Sonic & DJ Big Wiz

8pm, $22.50 Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com


MONDAY 16

Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang

Sierra Leone’s Janka Nabay is the self-proclaimed King of Bubu — a traditional Muslim music genre with a lightning tempo. When Nabay relocated to New York in 2009, his passion for music and the frenetic energy of bubu gained the attention of the local music scenesters. As a result, Nabay is now backed by the Bubu Gang, an impressive array of Brooklyn indie-rockers that includes members of Chairlift, Skeletons, and Gang Gang Dance. The group recently signed with David Byrne’s record label Luaka Bop; now they’re bringing their catchy beats and bamboo pipes to the West Coast, so dust off those dancing shoes. (Zaremba).

With Sun Araw, Cash Pony

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


TUESDAY 17

Shearwater

You’d be forgiven for thinking Shearwater was beamed in from a bygone era. A time when lush, spacious production wasn’t restricted to lifestyle music for the boomer-dad demographic. On its eighth LP, Animal Joy, the Austin-based collective, and Okkervil River spinoff, out-luxuriates the competition yet again, further developing its high-concept brand of art-rock with a cavernous, naturalistic production sound worthy of Talk Talk. Frontperson Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals are surprisingly elegant for a guy on Sub Pop, bearing the full-throated quiver of Antony Hegarty or Scott Walker via Climate of Hunter. Shearwater’s Animal Joy is the sound of analog integrity trumping digital expedience; hopefully, Shearwater’s stage presence will reflect this old-school sense of refinement. (Kaplan)

With Husky, Gold Leaves

9pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

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

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Marat/Sade Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St, SF; (415) 863-0611, www.ticketfly.com. $20-38. Previews Wed/11-Thu/12, 8pm. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (also July 22, 1:30pm). Through July 29. Marc Huestis and Thrillpeddlers present Peter Weiss’ macabre Tony-winner.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 11. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s sexy, sinister musical.

BAY AREA

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta, Oakl; www.lowerbottomplayaz.com. $10-25. Opens Fri/13, 7pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 22. Lower Bottom Playaz perform August Wilson’s music-industry expose.

The Marvelous Wonderettes Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; www.broadwaybythebay.org. $20-48. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also July 21 and 28, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through July 29. Broadway By the Bay performs Roger Bean’s retro musical, featuring classic tunes of the 1950s and ’60s.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Previews Sat/14, 2pm. Opens Sat/14, 7pm. Runs Thu, Sat, and July 25, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 19. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

Upright Grand TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $24-73. Previews Wed/11-Fri/13, 8pm. Opens Sat/14, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 10. TheatreWorks launches its 43rd season with the world premiere of Laura Schellhardt’s play about a musical father and daughter.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the characters of San Francisco.

Duck Lake The Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.duck-lake.com. $17-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 28. By terns gross and engrossing, PianoFight’s Duck Lake — written and produced by associated sketch comedy locals Mission Control — proves a gangling but irresistible flight, a ballet-horror-comedy-musical with fair helpings of each. By the shore of the eponymous watery resort with a mysterious past as an animal testing site, a perennially “up-and-coming” theater director named Barry Canteloupe (poised and sassy Raymond Hobbs) marshals a pair of prosthetic teats and other trust-building paraphernalia in a cultish effort to bring off yet another reimagining of Swan Lake. His cast and crew include a rebounding TV starlet (a sure and winsome Leah Shesky), a lazy leading man (delightfully dude-ish Duncan Wold), a supremely confident and just god-awful tragedian (a duly expansive Alex Boyd), and a gleeful misfit of a tech guy (an innocently inappropriate, very funny Joseph Scheppers). When the thespians come beak-to-beak with a handsome local gang leader (a nicely multifaceted Sean Conroy) and his rowdy band of sun-addled jet-skiers (the awesome posse of Daniel Burke, David Burke, and Meredith Terry), a star-crossed college reunion ensues between the tattooed tough and the hapless production’s white swan. Meanwhile, “scary fucked-up super ducks” go on a killing rampage under tutelage of some cave-bound weirdo (an imposing, web-footed Rob Ready), leading to love, mayhem, and shameless appropriation of timeless musical numbers. It’s all supported by four tutu’d mallards (the po-faced, limber ensemble of Christy Crowley, Caitlin Hafer, Anne Jones, and Emma Rose Shelton) and flocks of murderous fellow fowl (courtesy of Crowley’s fine puppet design). And don’t worry about the convoluted plot, all will be niftily explained by an old codger of a groundskeeper (a hilariously persuasive Evan Winchester). If the action gets attenuated at times across two-plus hours, a beguilingly agile cast and robust concept more than compensate for the loosey-goosey. (Avila)

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through July 21. Tides Theatre performs Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s comedy about five women forced into a bomb shelter during a mid-breakfast nuke attack.

Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (Sun/15, show at 7:30pm). Extended through July 22. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

Jip: His Story Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Thu/12-Fri/13, 7:30pm; Sat/14, 2pm; Sun/15, 3pm. Marsh Youth Theater remounts its 2005 musical production of Katherine Paterson’s historical novel.

Proof NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.proofsf.com. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm. $28. Expression Productions performs David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play about a mathematician and his daughter.

“Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating; $50 donation for five-play reserved seating pass). Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. Cutting Ball’s annual fest of experimental plays features two new works and five new translations in staged readings.

The Scottsboro Boys American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm). Extended through July 22. American Conservatory Theater presents the Kander and Ebb musical about nine African American men falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit in the pre-civil rights movement South.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 21. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

Waiting… Larkspur Hotel Union Square, 525 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $49-75. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 5. Comedy set behind the scenes at a San Francisco restaurant.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through August 4. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson The Stage, 490 S. First St, San Jose; www.thestage.org. $25-$50. Wed-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 29. An overrated president and rock musical at once, the 2010 Broadway hit by Alex Timbers (book) and Michael Friedman (music, lyrics) takes its first Bay Area bow in San Jose Stage’s ho-hum production, directed by Rick Singleton. In this proudly irreverent but rarely very witty take on mob-democracy and the pack of jackals that are our illustrious political forefathers, a vicious and ambitious cornpone Jackson (David Colston Corris, subbing for Jonathan Rhys Williams) takes his Indian-hating ways to the top of the political establishment on a wave of backwoods resentments and Tea Party-style populism. Present-day parallels should run deep here, but the play is so shallow in its humor that it feels one-note for the most part, while its South Park-like insouciance has an unintentional way of making jokes about the Trail of Tears feel “too soon.” This American Idiocy and the 13 accompanying musical numbers are gamely if not always smoothly essayed by cast and band alike (under musical direction by Allison F. Rich), but dumb satire lines up with a generally unappealing score, straining after saucy eloquence while sounding derivative of the emo fare served up by the likes of Spring Awakening and that lot. A tack away from sheer vulgarity and buffoonery toward moralizing history lesson comes late in the hour and its guilty pretention — along with earlier gratuitous, vaguely uncomprehending references to Susan Sontag and Michel Foucault — only makes matters worse. (Avila)

Emotional Creature Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed/11 and Sun/15, 7pm (also Sun/15, 2pm); Thu/12 and Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 2pm). It’s not easy being a girl, and Eve Ensler’s newest play Emotional Creature leaves no scenario unexplored: from high school shaming rituals to ritual clitorectomies. If that sounds like a jarring juxtaposition, you’d be right. It’s difficult theatrically to transition seamlessly from a deeply affecting monologue about being a teenage sex slave in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a cute song about wearing miniskirts, and it’s equally difficult for the audience to change emotional gears rapidly enough to be able to adequately absorb the impact of each individual segment. Instead, the play comes off as an earnest but awkward Girl Scout Jamboree variety show — attempting to address as wide a variety of social ills as possible (from teen suicide to industrial pollution) — despite the strong and savvy acting chops of the six performers. In contrast to Ensler’s most popular work, The Vagina Monologues, which effectively “humanized” a part of the body by giving it something highly personal to say, Emotional Creature weirdly depersonalizes its girls by putting lines in their mouths (“I’m not the life you never lived”) that clearly come from an adult perspective. And as for those girls who don’t particularly identify as “emotional creatures” at all? For them, there are no words. (Gluckstern)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/14-Sun/15, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. SF Mime Troupe launches its annual political musical (this year’s theme: one percenters behaving badly); the show travels around NorCal parks and other venues throughout the summer.

King John Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Sun/15, July 21, 27, 29, Aug 4, 10-12, 8pm; July 22 and Aug 5, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company kicks off its 2012 outdoor summer festival season with this history play.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/14, 8:30pm; Sun/15, 7pm. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Salomania Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 22. The libel trial of a politically opportunistic newspaper publisher (Mark Andrew Phillips) and the private life of a famous dancer of the London stage — San Franciscan Maud Allan (a striking Madeline H.D. Brown) — become the scandalous headline-grabber of the day, as World War I rages on in some forgotten external world. In Aurora’s impressive world premiere by playwright-director Mark Jackson, the real-life story of Allan, celebrated for her risqué interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, soon gets conflated with the infamous trial (20 years earlier) of Wilde himself (a shrewdly understated Kevin Clarke). But is this case just a media-stoked distraction, or is there a deeper connection between the disciplining of “sexual deviance” and the ordered disorder of the nation state? Jackson’s sharp if sprawling ensemble-driven exploration brings up plenty of tantalizing suggestions, while reveling in the complexly intermingling themes of sex, nationalism, militarism, women’s rights, and the webs spun by media and politics. A group of trench-bound soldiers (the admirable ensemble of Clarke, Alex Moggridge, Anthony Nemirovsky, Phillips, Marilee Talkington, and Liam Vincent) provide one comedy-lined avenue into a system whose own excesses are manifest in the insane carnage of war — yet an insanity only possible in a world policed by illusions, distractions and the fear of unsettled and unsettling “deviants” of all kinds. In its cracked-mirror portraiture of an era, the play echoes a social and political turmoil that has never really subsided. (Avila)

Truffaldino Says No Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 22. For centuries, stock characters have insidiously demonstrated to the working classes the futility of striving against type or station with broadly comedic pratfalls, doomed to play out their already-written destinies with no hope for a change in script. Truffaldino (William Thomas Hodges) is one such pitiable character. Longing for his airheaded mistress, Isabella (Ally Johnson), playing second fiddle to his father, the iconic Commedia dell’Arte fool Arlecchino (Stephen Buescher), Truffaldino becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the monotony of the “old world” and strikes out for the new one — eventually washing up in Venice Beach. Despite their dayglo California veneer and sitcom-appropriate shenanigans, the new world characters he meets quickly come to resemble the stock commedia characters Truffaldino has left behind, and he finds himself similarly trapped in their incessantly recurring cycle — pining predictably for valley girl waitress, Debbie (Johnson again). What thankfully cannot be predicted is how Truffaldino manages to rewrite his destiny after all while reconciling his two worlds in a raucous comedy of errors anchored by the solid physical comedy of its stellar cast, particularly that of Stephen Buescher as both Arlecchino and Hal, who bounces, prances, tumbles, and falls down the stairs with the kind of rubber-jointed dexterity that should come with a “kids, don’t try this at home” warning label. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Ballroom With a Twist” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com. $49-79. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 6pm. Through July 29. Dancing With the Stars pros and contestants from American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance perform pumped-up ballroom dance and music.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm, through July 27: “Naked” Theatresports, $17. Sat, 8pm, through July 28: “Spontaneous Broadway,” $20.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“Expiration Date: Still Good” Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.pianofight.com. Thu, 8pm. Through July 19. $20. PianoFight’s female-driven comedy group ForePlays performs fan-fave sketches.

“The Front Row: Live at the Dark Room!” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.thefrontrow4.com. Sat/14, 8:30pm. $8. The all-girl sketch comedy troupe performs.

Keith Lowell Jensen San Francisco Punch Line, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. July 17-18, 8pm. $15. The comedian performs and tapes a new CD for Stand Up! Records.

“Jillarious Tuesdays” Tommy T’s Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.jillarious.com. Tue, 7:30. Ongoing. $20. Weekly comedy show with Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, Justin Lucas, and special guests.

“Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness” Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 12. $25-65. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, performers in Baroque-chic gowns, music, and more.

“Mediate presents Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Human Bionic” Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $12-25. Multimedia and interactive performances by Joe Cantrell, Kadet Kuhne, and Les Struck + Sonsherée Giles.

“Mediate presents Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Sonicplace Exhibition” Intersection for the Arts, SF Chronicle Building, 925 Mission, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Opening night event Fri/16, 6-10pm, free. Exhibit runs Tue-Sat, noon-6pm. Through Sept 28. Innovative sound installations and exhibits presented by UC Santa Cruz’s OpenLab/Mechatronics Group.

“Stripping Down to Story” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. $10-20. Comedian and performance artist Jovelyn Richards performs her solo show.

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

Ballplayer: Pelotero With upbeat music, slick editing, and narration by John Leguizamo, Ballplayer: Pelotero is an entertaining, enlightening investigation into exactly why the Dominican Republic produces so many baseball stars. Comparisons to acclaimed sports doc Hoop Dreams (1994) are apt, as filmmakers Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin, and Jonathan Paley travel to the DR to follow a pair of teenage baseball players dreaming of big-league stardom (and big-league paychecks). But the Hoop Dreams kids weren’t being confronted by the shady, sinister, bottom-line-obsessed recruiters working for Major League Baseball, which maintains a pee-wee farm system of sorts in the country to train young prospects — the best of whom are snapped up at the magic age of 16 for bargain-basement (relatively speaking) prices. And in this environment, questions about numbers reign supreme: how much with each kid be signed for? And, more intriguingly, is either kid lying about his true age? (1:12) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

Bonsái Awkward young love blooms in this Chilean import, a hit at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival. (1:35) SF Film Society Cinema.

Crazy Eyes Los Angeles thirtysomething Zach (Lukas Haas, playing a character apparently based on writer-director Adam Sherman — which, if true, yikes) doesn’t do anything but party from the minute he wakes up ’till the moment he passes out. Since he’s conveniently, inexplicably rich, he also has plenty of time to chase tail; occasionally, very occasionally, he’ll make time for his concerned parents and young son, the product of a failed marriage to a woman openly portrayed as a gold digger. Adding to this noxious brew is Rebecca (Madeline Zima), Zach’s vapid drinking buddy; she refuses to have sex with him, so he becomes obsessed with her — see, she’s the one thing the man who has everything can’t have. Deep, man. This is the cinematic equivalent of all that slurring, flailing, late-night drama that goes down outside your local dive bar, amplified to magnificently self-indulgent levels. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Crazy Wisdom Not exactly your average Buddhist leader, Chogyam Trungpa was one part monk to two parts rock star. Recognized as a reincarnated master while still an infant, he left Tibet behind to flee Chinese government forces in 1960, eventually landing in the UK, where he founded its first Buddhist center. A decade later he’d move to the US, founding its first Buddhist university. Amidst all that achievement and enlightenment-spreading, however, he also found time to marry a 16-year-old upper-class Brit, have myriad affairs with students, partially paralyze himself driving a car into a shop front, frequently get drunk in public, and so forth — even though, incongruously, he frowned upon marijuana (and rock music). All this made sense in a tradition of Tibetan Buddhist “crazy wisdom” — or so his supporters would (and still) claim in his defense. Having left this life at age 48, his body exhausted by decades of hedonistic excess, he still has a powerful hold over diverse, multi-faith followers and acquaintances who recall his extraordinary spiritual-personal magnetism. Johanna Demetrakas’ entertaining documentary gathers up testimony from a gamut of them, including Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Thurman, and Anne Waldman. (1:26) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon An annual family gathering sets the stage for revival of the poisonously competitive rivalry between two thirty-something siblings. Mark (Steve Zissis) has a devoted wife (Jennifer Lafleur), a teenage son (Red Williams), a home, and steady job, but he can still be easily goaded into a frustrated rage by brother Jeremy (Mark Kelly), who has none of the above but still gloats over his alleged victory in an adolescent fraternal mini-Olympics two decades earlier. Their uncomfortable reunion provides an opportunity to settle that score once and for all — even if they must (not very successfully) try to hide this epic athletic rematch between nearly middle-aged schlubs from their disapproving relatives. Penned by the Duplass Brothers (2011’s Jeff, Who Lives at Home), and shot several years ago, this feels like a Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly (or whoever) comedy writ small, with the variously normal and silly competitive heats only mildly amusing, and the character drama only slightly more depthed than it would be in a more commercial, slapsticky vehicle. Plus, it’s hard to care much about whether the bros achieve reconciliation, since Jeremy is a little too effectively drawn as an annoying, bullying prick in the early going. There’s a clever idea at Pentathlon‘s center, but this just passably diverting feature doesn’t make all that much of it. (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

“Family Screening: The Storytellers Show” A one-time-only engagement, this cosmopolitan, family-friendly compilation of short films is a mixed bag, both content and quality-wise. Certain selections — the beautifully, imaginatively animated, Storyteller (Kahanikar) of England; the live-action, Aussie Play Lunch — are inhibited by the heavy-handed drive to tell a linear story or push a message, while others (the Tim Burton-ish, Alan Rickman-narrated Boy in the Bubble) put forth compelling narratives, hindered by wishy-washy CGI. Strongest are the visually-driven films (the silent, mixed-media Paper Piano from Venezuela, in which a young girl crosses the “dangerous urban jungle” to get to her music lesson), and those whose stories flow naturally (the live-action, left-field documentary The Vacuum Kid, about a tweenage boy who enthusiastically collects vacuum cleaners). As a whole, “The Storytellers Show” is perfectly viable entertainment — but with competition like A Cat in Paris, it’s not compulsory viewing, either. (1:06) SF Film Society Cinema. (Taylor Kaplan)

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, France, 2012) Opening early on the morning of July 14, 1789, Farewell, My Queen depicts four days at the Palace of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, as witnessed by a young woman named Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who serves as reader to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Sidonie displays a singular and romantic devotion to the queen, while the latter’s loyalties are split between a heedless amour propre and her grand passion for the Duchess de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). These domestic matters and other regal whims loom large in the tiny galaxy of the queen’s retinue, so that while elsewhere in the palace, in shadowy, candle-lit corridors, courtiers and their servants mingle to exchange news, rumor, panicky theories, and evacuation plans, in the queen’s quarters the task of embroidering a dahlia for a projected gown at times overshadows the storming of the Bastille and the much larger catastrophe on the horizon. (1:39) Embarcadero. (Rapoport)

Ice Age: Continental Drift This time with pirates. (1:27) Presidio.

Magic of Belle Isle Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen star in this Rob Reiner-directed drama about an alcoholic writer who gets a new lease on life after befriending the neighbors at his lakeside cabin. (1:49) Opera Plaza.

Patang (The Kite) Loving memories tethered to a place (Ahmedabad, India), moment (the city’s kite festival, the largest of its kind in the country), and season (according to the Hindu calendar, the event coincides with the day that wind direction shifts) beautifully suffuse this first feature film by director and co-writer Prashant Bhargava. Certainly Patang (The Kite) is the story of a family: Delhi businessman Jayesh (Mukund Shukla) has returned with his freewheeling, movie-camera-toting daughter Priya (Sugandha Garg) to his majestically ramshackle family home, where he supports his mother, sister-in-law (Seema Biswas of 1994’s Bandit Queen), and nephew Chakku (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). He’s come to indulge his childhood love of kite flying and to introduce Priya to Ahmedabad’s old-world sights and ways. Entangled among the strands of story are past resentments —harbored by Chakku against his paternalistic uncle — and new hopes, particularly in the form of a budding romance between Priya and Bobby (Aakash Maherya), the son of the kite shop owner. Above all — and as much a presence as any other — is the city, with its fleeting pleasures and memorable faces, captured with vérité verve and sensuous lyricism on small HD cameras by Bhargava and director of photography Shanker Raman. Their imagery imprints on a viewer like an early memory, darting to mind like those many bright kites dancing buoyantly in the city sky. (1:32) Metreon. (Chun)

Red Dog Already a monster hit in Australia, provenance of the Babe movies, this animal-centric charmer comes to the Bay Area as part of the Windrider Bay Area Film Forum in Atherton. It’s based on Louis de Bernières’ collection of tales (and tall tales) about a legendary canine that roamed the country’s Northwestern wilderness in the 1970s. Director Kriv Stenders centers his film in the mining burg that erected a statue to the animal after its death — an event that serves as the movie’s starting point, as the townspeople gather to toast Red Dog’s many contributions to the community (in addition to providing a much-needed source of amusement in a bleak, barren place, he also became a mascot for the local union, match-made multiple couples, prevented a suicide-by-shark attempt, and engaged in epic brawls with his arch-nemesis, Red Cat). It’s a shaggy, sentimental story elevated by some appealing human performances — Josh Lucas is the token American star, though Aussie film fans will recognize Noah Taylor and Keisha Castle-Hughes — and, of course, one very charismatic pooch. If you can’t make the trek down the peninsula for the screening, Red Dog will be available On Demand starting August 14; the DVD will be out September 4. (1:32) Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when “the storm” floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Bridge, California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Neil Young Journeys Interested in going back further with Neil Young, back beyond 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere? With Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006) and Neil Young Trunk Show (2009) under his belt, Jonathan Demme has clearly earned the trust of the singer-songwriter, who occasionally likes to flex his multi-hyphenate creative muscles as a director himself, working under the name Bernard Shakey. The music-loving filmmaker tails Young as he drives through his hometown of Omemee, Ontario, shares glimpses of his school, named after his newspaper-man father, his small-town streets, and his home, and then takes it back to the stage and performs at Toronto’s Massey Hall. The stories and sights will interest mostly Young fans — you definitely get a feel for Young’s roots, but the place and its tales won’t jump out dramatically; they merely visualize factoids one can cull from sources like James McDonough’s bio Shakey — but performance dominates this concert film. Playing solo on guitar, harmonica, and in at least one memorable instance, pipe organ (for a hammered-home “After the Gold Rush”), the songs range from the still-moving, sprawling “Ohio” to “Love and War” off 2010’s Le Noise. It’s all love here for the Young diehard, though for an insightful, passionate tour doc, one might look to Shakey’s own CSNY/ Deja Vu (2008) or, for the performer’s finest cinematic performances, to Rust Never Sleeps (1979) and The Last Waltz (1978). (1:27) SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun) *

 

Meanwhile, in Uruguay

Andrew Lam
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1
Meanwhile, in Uruguay

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE Happy Independence Day hangover (yes, still)! I’ll leave aside all discussion regarding the wisdom of the mid-week holiday and head straight into the fact that I spent the evening of the Third of July very, very sadly.

It was for this reason: after work I tore over to my beloved neighborhood dispensary Shambhala Healing Center (www.shambhalasf.com), arriving ten minutes before closing time. It was closed. Peeved, I called in to lightly berate them for shuttering early.

But this was no early start to the staff’s holiday. Just hours after I posted last week’s Herbwise about the Vapor Room going kaput, I found out Shambhala’s brick and mortar location had shut its doors for the last time on June 30.

Now this should not have come as a surprise. I spent time with an indignant Shambhala founder Al Shawa in his dank-smelling dispensary backroom this spring, discussing the letter that US Attorney Melinda Haag sent to his landlord, proclaiming that his storefront was inappropriately close to a playground, and that this landlord faced decades of jail time if he wasn’t evicted (“Shambhala Healing Center next on the federal chopping block,” 3/5/12).

I should have been paying closer attention to Shawa’s predicament, especially since I buy my sativa from him. At least Shambhala will continue to deliver, a move that the last place I used to buy weed from in the Mission, Medithrive, also resorted to when it was forced to close in November. (For the Herbwise column on that mess see “For the kids?” 12/13/11)

For me, the Third of July was a moment when this to-do between the federal government and these local businesses (and more importantly, the patients that depend on cannabis to function) punched me in the gut. My plans for THC consumption over Independence Day had been foiled by the feds, and all at once the sheer idiocy of this whole cannabis crackdown was almost too much to bear. Work on real problems! Go!

(By the way, SF Chronicle columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross have it on good authority that Obama is coming back to town on July 23 for his seventh Bay Area fundraising trip this year, who is down for a protest?)

So this week, I’m giving it up for South America. Big ups to Uruguayan president Jose Mujica for proposing a plan to legalize marijuana so that adults could walk into government-run stores and buy weed. He presented it as an anti-crime measure, suggesting that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on pot by consumers could be better funneled in the government’s pocket than those of illegal drug dealers.

President Mujica is blessed with one of his continent’s most stable countries — plus it’s tiny, at 3.3 million inhabitants — so his plan could prove more manageable to implement than elsewhere in South America. But he’s not the only leader south of Panama to call bullshit on this War on Drugs. This spring at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, that country’s President Juan Manuel Santos called for an “in-depth discussion” on the War on Drugs’ utility, preferably one “without any biases or dogmas.” He suggested, as many have, that Prohibition has never worked before, and might not be working now.

Our president was there too. “Legalization is not the answer,” said Barack Obama to a conference full of Latin American leaders. Of those who remain focused on this issue, President Obama counseled perspective. He said that this kind of debate seemed “caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy, and Yanquis, and the Cold War, and this, and that, and the other. That’s not the world we live in today.”

Anyways, I’m sure that when he gets here — July 23! — he’ll be looking for our opinion on the ways of the world. ¡Hasta pronto!

 

Caught in the FBI’s net

Andrew Lam
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3
Caught in the FBI’s net

yael@sfbg.com

The mission: Rescuing sexually exploited children. Who can argue with that?

From June 20 through June 23, the FBI and local police departments and district attorney’s offices throughout the United States were engaged in Operation Cross Country, three days of stings targeting pimps for arrest.

According to the FBI, the mission was successful. “Nationwide, 79 children were rescued and 104 pimps were arrested for various state and local charges,” a press statement released the following week reads.

In the Bay Area, the operation resulted in “the recovery of six children, who were being victimized through prostitution, and the arrest of seven individuals, commonly referred to as pimps.”

Also caught up in the Bay Area sweep: 61 adult prostitutes — ten consensual sex workers for every underage victim.

Operation Cross Country was part of an ongoing effort called the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which the FBI describes as beginning in the Bay Area in 2005 with the Bay Area Innocence Lost Working Group. According to FBI spokesperson Julianne Sohn, this June’s crackdown was the sixth Operation Cross Country in the past several years.

“The FBI and our partners are looking for those who are exploiting minors for purposes of prostitution,” Sohn told the Guardian. “But in the process of doing this we also pick up pimps exploiting adults, and adult prostitutes along the way.”

“What we’re looking at are people who traffic children for prostitution and solicitation,” she said. But the pimping arrests under Operation Cross Country don’t necessarily have anything to do with children. “Those are just pimps, generally speaking,” said Sohn.

As Caitlin Manning, a sex workers rights advocate, put it, “This emotionally laden appeal to save children who are forced into sexual slavery is being used to further the criminalization of all sex work, these lines are being blurred. There are always a large number of consensual sex workers involved in these stings.”

The Guardian caught up with one such consensual sex worker swept up in Operation Cross Country. “Maya,” 22, an escort in Richmond, was targeted because officers believed she looked under 18 in her ads. After her entrapment, arrest and interrogation, she convinced them she was older. She says that sex trafficking is a terrible problem, but criminalizing working people like her is no solution.

Bay Guardian: Tell me about the arrest.

Maya: I got a phone call. All he said to me was that he was nervous and had never done this before, and that he was looking for somebody to party with. So I never said anything sexual, and he didn’t either. There was absolutely no premise.

So I went to the hotel room. I walked in the door and I said, I’m glad that I found the right room. I put my bag down. I turned to the side and there was another man standing there, and my immediate thought was that I was going to get taken advantage of by another person. But then- I can’t even, I don’t know how many officers it was. Some came out of the bathroom, and they said Richmond PD, you’re under arrest, put your hands behind your back.

They had me in handcuffs, they questioned me for a while. I was in custody for about six hours. So I guess the way that it works with that is, the phone call is initiation and showing up to the hotel room is an act in furtherance. Entrapment is legal for that in California.

BG: What was the questioning like?

M: You know, I’ve been through a lot of things in my life. Family tragedies. Just like a lot of people. But that was definitely hands down, probably top five most traumatic events in my life. I’ve never felt so degraded. They were sitting there asking me, why do you have condoms in your bag? I had a vibrator, I had lube, and I had condoms with me.

There were four men and one woman in the room, and they were all sitting there making jokes. One of the officers was very adamant about telling me that he would never pay me that much for my services.

BG: You’ve said they lied to you, what did they lie to you about?

M: They told me that that day they had caught an underage girl, but then I read the newspaper article about the sting about it, and they said the youngest girl that they got that day was 20. So they were trying to make it seem like they were helping all these women, helping all these girls get away from this lifestyle, when in reality they’re just busting girls like me.

They looked through my phone and looked through my pictures, and questioned me about every picture in my phone. They were like, is this your pimp? They read my text messages, they listened to voice mails from my family. They don’t care.

BG: The sting was for underage people being trafficked. Do you think that’s a big problem? What do you think about that issue?

M: I do think that it’s a problem, absolutely. But this is the very unfortunate thing about what I do for work. Whether you want to call it prostitution or you want to call it escorting. So I do think absolutely it’s a problem, but it’s very important for people to know that it’s not the same thing, it’s really, really not.

I’m probably going to get two years’ probation, up to 60 days in jail and hundreds of dollars in fines. Now I’m out of work, can’t get a job, and I have prostitution on my record. You know, it’s just … it doesn’t help anybody.

BG: It strikes me what you were saying about the police officer saying I wouldn’t pay that much. Were there other degrading things said?

M: I don’t care if they’re officers, I don’t care what they do for a living. They’re still men. And when you come in and you’re a prostitute, they look you up and down. And they’re thinking about that. And I had the officer asking me questions like oh, how do you clean your vibrator. Just unnecessary questions, where obviously they’re getting some sort of gratification out of it.

BG: Have you ever met people who were forced into what they’re doing?

M: No…I mean, we’ve all done things for money. You know, desperate times. Whether it’s working some shit job. I mean, I look at it as a job. So in the past when I was younger yeah, you know, trying to make rent, maybe I’ll do something that I wouldn’t want to do as much, or not get paid as much for it. But it beats working at Taco Bell.

People sometimes think it’s easy money. It’s not easy money. It takes a certain person, it takes an emotionally stable and sexually stable person to do this work sustainably. It’s definitely tolling. It’s tolling because its therapy. It’s tolling because I listen to people’s problems, it’s not tolling because of the sexual aspect at all.

BG: Have you gotten any help from sex workers rights organizations?

M: I did have a therapist that’s sex-worker friendly offer me free sessions. I might take him up on that, but — you know, the event was traumatizing. I’m not traumatized by my work. I can tell the story and that’s pretty much enough for me. I don’t really need therapy for being a sex worker. I love my job. It makes me happy, its great.

BG: What do you love about it?

M: I love meeting different people, I love the psychological aspects. I just have so many fantastic stories, and amazing people that I’ve met. I saw a guy recently who, after our session he was telling me that his wife had died about six months previous that he had been married to for 42 years, and he started crying. And my mother passed away when I was younger, and so we were able to relate on that. And I gave him my lessons on how I dealt with it, and he had never really had somebody tell him that, and he was very touched. And I know that he will take those lessons that I taught him and use them for his grieving process.

So it’s things like that. People don’t realize how much therapy it really is, how many of these people just want some intimacy…we’re human beings, we need sexual outlets. That’s just the way that we are. “Maya” invites anyone who has been in a similar situation or wants to talk to contact her at mayaarticle8719@yahoo.com. An extended version of this interview can be found at sfbg.com

The malling of San Francisco

Andrew Lam
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110
The malling of San Francisco

steve@sfbg.com

Shopping malls filled with national chain stores and restaurants are in many respects the antithesis of San Francisco. They’re the bane of any metropolis that strives to be unique and authentic. And those just happen to be qualities that make tourism this city’s number one industry.

The logic of modern capitalism, and its relentless growth into new markets, has already placed a Target or a Walmart, and a Nordstrom, Macy’s, Ross, or a JCPenney — along with a bevy of Starbucks, Applebee’s, Jamba Juice, and McDonald’s and myriad other formulaic corporate eateries — in just about every town in the country.

Do people really need them here, too? And in a city renowned worldwide for its scenic beauty and temperate (albeit sometimes foggy) climate, do people want to shop in the enclosed, climate-controlled malls popularized in the small or suburban towns that many residents came here to escape?

For me, the answer is no. Frankly, malls have an aura of artificiality that gives me the creeps — but I freely acknowledge that not everyone feels that way. Some San Franciscans may like malls and chain stores while others don’t.

But it doesn’t really matter what any of us think. Left unchecked, it’s the market that matters — and the logic of the market gives chain stores a huge competitive advantage over the mom-and-pops. Their labor and supply costs are lower, their financial resources are more extensive and appealing to commercial landlords, and their business models are based on constantly opening new stores.

All cities have to do is just say yes. And San Francisco has been increasingly saying yes to malls and chain stores.

The economic desperation that set in since the financial crash of 2008 has overcome the trend of resistance to so-called “formula retail establishments” that had been building in San Francisco during the years before the recession.

So now, rather than dying from neglect, the Metreon mall has been brought back to life by a huge Target store set to open this fall, the second Target (the other one at Masonic and Geary) going into a city that had once eschewed such national mega-retailers.

Just down the street, in the heart of the city’s transit-rich commercial center, the CityPlace mall that had been abandoned by its previous owners after winning city approval two years ago is now being built by new owners and set to open next spring with “value-based” national chain stores like JCPenney.

Projects funded with public money aren’t immune either. The new Transbay Terminal transit center now under construction will have its own mini-mall, with 225,000 square feet of retail, much of it expected to house national chains. Even more retail will be built on the ground floor of the dozen other nearby residential and office buildings connected to the project.

And it isn’t just these new malls going in a stone’s throw from the Westerfield Mall, Crocker Galleria, San Francisco Center, and other central city malls. All over town, national chains like the Whole Foods and Fresh & Easy grocery stores are replacing Cala Foods and other homegrown markets, or going into other commercial shells like the S&C Ford building on Market near the Castro.

Just a few years ago, the approval of Home Depot on Bayshore Boulevard (since then sold and opened as Lowe’s, another national chain) was a hugely controversial project approved by the Board of Supervisors on a closely watched 6-5 vote. Now, Lennar is building an entire suburban-style complex of big box stores on Candlestick Point, hundreds of thousands of square feet — without much controversy at all.

Even Walmart — the dreaded poster child for huge corporations that use their market power to drive down wages or force local stores out of business — is reported to be actively looking to open “a couple” of stores in San Francisco (see “Walmart sets sights on San Francisco,” June 24, San Francisco Chronicle).

To Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich and others who have long encouraged San Francisco to embrace the kind of urbanism advocated by famed author and activist Jane Jacobs — which emphasizes unique, neighborhood-based development that enhances public spaces and street life — accepting the malls feels like giving up on more dynamic urban models.

“It’s sort of an admission of failure,” Radulovich said. “It’s the failure of urbanism in San Francisco.”

 

 

MID-MARKET SYMBOLISM

Mid-Market Street is a bellwether for the type of city San Francisco may become. Every mayor since at least Dianne Feinstein in the late 1970s has called for the redevelopment of Mid-Market into a more active and inviting commercial and social corridor, and few have done so more fervently than Mayor Ed Lee.

Several city studies have explored a wide variety of ways to accomplish that goal, from eliminating automobiles and transforming Market Street into a lively pedestrian promenade to using redevelopment money, tax breaks, and/or flashy lighted signs to encourage distinctive development projects unique to San Francisco.

“But the city failed, so the market filled the void,” Radulovich said.

It isn’t that all shopping malls or enclosed commercial areas are necessarily bad, Radulovich said, citing the influential work by writer Walter Benjamin on the roles the enclosed “arcades” of Paris played in public life. “They work when they are an extension of public spaces,” Radulovich said.

Yet that isn’t what he sees being built in San Francisco, where what gets approved and who occupies those spaces is largely being dictated by private developers who are more interested in their bottom lines than with the creation of a vibrant urban environment where people are valued as more than mere consumers or workers.

San Francisco isn’t alone in allowing national chains to increasingly dominate commercial spaces. In fact, Stacy Mitchell, a researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said that until recently San Francisco was one of the best big US cities in controlling the proliferation of chain stores.

But the city has lost ground since its anti-chain high water mark in 2007, when voters approved Proposition G, which expanded the controls on formula retail outlets — generally requiring them to get a conditional use permit and go through public hearings — that the Board of Supervisors had approved in 2004.

Those controls are only as good as the political will to reject a permit application, and that doesn’t happen very often. A memo prepared last July for the Planning Commission — entitled “Informational Presentation on the Status of Formula Retail Controls” — found that of the 31 formula retails applications the city received since 2007, just three were rejected by the commission, six were withdrawn, and 22 were approved.

It’s gotten even worse since then, as the two Targets and other chains have been courted and embraced by Mayor’s Lee’s administration, whose key representatives didn’t respond to Guardian interview requests by press time.

Mitchell said it’s not nearly as bad in San Francisco as it is in Chicago, New York City, New Orleans, and other iconic US cities whose commercial spaces have been flooded with chains since the recession began.

“It’s nothing compared to the no-holds-barred stuff going on in New York City right now,” Mitchell said. “Walking down Broadway now is like a repeating loop of the stores you just saw further up the street.”

It isn’t that these cities are actively courting the national chains in most cases. It’s just that in the absence of strong local controls, developers and large commercial landlords just prefer to deal with chains, for a variety of reasons.

“If you’re just going with the flow of what developers are doing,” she said, “you always end up with national chains.”

And that’s what San Francisco has started to do.

 

 

MALLS LIKE CHAINS

Stephen Cornell, the owner of Brownie’s Hardware and a board member of the nonprofit advocacy group Small Business California, said chains have a huge competitive advantage over local businesses even before either one opens their doors.

“In general, landlords tend to like chains more,” said Cornell, whose business has struggled against Lowe’s and other corporate competitors. “The landlord always worries: is this guy going to make it and do they have the funds to back it up?”

Big corporate chains have lawyers and accountants on staff, and professional systems established for everything from buying goods to opening new stores, whereas most local entrepreneurs are essentially figuring things out as they go along.

“They’re very good at selling themselves,” Cornell said. “They’re going to manipulate the system perfectly, whether it’s the city and its codes or dealing with neighborhood merchants.”

And for large malls, Cornell said the problem is even worse. Brokers that fill malls have standing relationships with the national chains — most of which are publicly traded corporations seeking to constantly expand and gain market share — and no incentive to seek out or take a chance on local entrepreneurs.

“Chains have a lot of advantages,” Cornell said.

Mitchell said there are two main ways in which malls favor national chains over local businesses. In addition to the relationship between mall brokers and national chains, malls are often built with financing from financial institutions that require certain repayment guarantees.

“What they want to see are credit-worthy clients signed onto those places, and that means national chains with a credit rating from Standard & Poors,” Mitchell said, noting how that “automatically locks out” most local businesses.

Cornell also noted that national chains have already figured out how to maximize their efficiency, which keeps their costs down even though that often comes in the form of fewer employees with lower pay — and less reliance on local suppliers, accountants, attorneys, and other professionals — which ends up hurting the local economy. In fact, big chains suck money out of the city and back to corporate headquarters.

“All those people are making money and spending money here, so you have to look at the full circle,” Cornell said.

Mitchell said there are often simple solutions to the problem. For example, she said that city officials in Austin, Texas recently required the developer of a large shopping mall to set aside a certain percentage of the units for locally owned businesses.

So rather than hiring a national broker to find tenants, the developer hired a local broker to contact successful independent businesses in the area who might be interested in expanding, and the project ended up greatly exceeding the city’s minimum requirements.

Mechanisms like that, or like the formula retail controls pioneered in San Francisco, give her some hope. But she said, “Whether the counter-trends will be enough to counter the dominant trend, I don’t know.”

 

 

PUBLIC SUBSIDIES

The increased malling of San Francisco isn’t simply the result of official neglect. Often, the city’s policies and resources are actively encouraging the influx of chain stores. A prime example is the massive redevelopment project on Hunters Point and Candlestick Point that city voters approved in 2008 after mega-developer Lennar and most San Francisco political officials pushed the project with a well-funded political campaign.

“If you’re selling the land to Lennar for a dollar, and then building all the automobile infrastructure for people to get there, then that’s a massive public subsidy,” Radulovich said of the big-box mall being built on what was city-owned land on Candlestick Point.

That public subsidy creates a cycle that makes San Francisco less intimate and livable. Creating commercial spaces on the city’s edge encourages more people to drive on congested regional roadways. These spaces are filled with national chain stores that have a direct negative impact on small, locally owned stores in neighborhood commercial districts all over the city, causing some of these businesses to fail, meaning local residents will need to travel further for the goods they once bought down the street.

“Those neighborhoods are going to be less walkable as a result,” Radulovich said, noting how the trend contradicts the lip service that just about every local politician gives to supporting local businesses in neighborhood corridors. “There’s a certain schizophrenia to San Francisco’s economic development strategy.”

Sup. Eric Mar has been working with Jobs with Justice San Francisco and other groups to tweak city policies that have allowed the chains to proliferate. Last year, Mar held high-profile hearings in City Hall on how national chains impact local businesses, which pointed to the need for additional protections (see “Battling big box,” Jan. 3).

This year, he’s working on rolling out a series of legislative initiatives designed to level the playing field between local interests and those of Wall Street and the national chains it champions.

Last month, the Board of Supervisors approved Mar’s legislation to add banks to the city’s formula retail controls, a reaction to Chase Bank and other national banks snapping up vacant stores in neighborhood commercial corridors such as Divisadero Street.

Now he’s working on legislation that would mandate minimum labor and community benefit standards for chain stores — including grocery outlets such as Fresh & Easy — and study how chains affect San Francisco’s overall economy.

“There should be good neighbor policies when they come into a neighborhood,” Mar said. “Some neighborhoods are so distressed they may want a big box grocery story coming in, but we need to try to mitigate its negative impacts.”

One of his partners in that effort is his brother, Gordon Mar of Jobs with Justice, who argues the city needs to have a clearer picture of how national chains impact local communities.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in corporate chain stores coming into San Francisco in the last year, and nobody has really been tracking it,” he said.

While the Planning Department’s quarterly pipeline report shows that applications for retail outlets has held steady at about 3 million square feet on the way in recent years, it doesn’t break out how much of that is national chains — let alone how that impacts the city’s economy and small business sector.

The city’s Legislative Analyst is now studying the matter and scheduled to release a report later this summer, which Gordon Mar said will be helpful in countering the narrow “jobs” rhetoric that now dominates City Hall.

“They are exploiting the economic recession by saying they’re bringing much needed jobs into the city and serving low-income residents,” he said. “But when you bring out the facts about the impact of these low-road retail stores on neighborhoods and small businesses, there is a net loss of jobs and a lowering of labor standards.”

 

 

VALUING MALLS

Yet the fate of those controls is uncertain at best, particularly in a tough economic environment in which the city needs revenue, people are desperate for jobs, and many residents have seen their buying power stagnate, making the cheap goods offered by Target and Walmart more attractive.

“It’s complicated stuff,” Michael O’Connor, a local entrepreneur and former member of the Small Business Commission who favors formula retail controls, told us. “Stores like Target do appeal to lower income families…The progressive agenda needs to understand that working-class families need somewhere to shop.”

O’Connor acknowledges how small businesses like those he owns, including a clothing store, often can’t compete with national chains who buy cheap goods in bulk. So he said he favors protections in some neighborhoods while allowing chains in others, telling us, “I don’t have a problem with the Target going into the Metreon.”

That argument also held sway with city officials when they considered approving the CityPlace project two years ago, which was presented as a mall filled with “value-based” stores that would be affordable to median income San Franciscans.

“At the time, the decision was around whether a value-based retail operation made sense in that location, and the answer was an emphatic ‘yes,'” Barbary Coast Consulting founder Alex Clemens, who represented the project, told us.

On a national or global level, there are good arguments against reliance on national chains selling cheap imported goods, which has created a huge trade deficit between the US and countries such as China that costs American jobs — ironically, the very things that some use as arguments for approving chain stores.

“The recession has created a climate of desperation where cities are more easily swayed by the jobs argument,” Mitchell said, noting the falsity of those arguments by pointing to studies showing that the arrival of chain stores in cities usually creates a net loss in employment. Finally, supporters of chain stores say the cash-strapped city needs the property and sales tax revenue “Because they say they’ll produce a lot sales tax revenue, they’re going to get away with all kinds of shit,” Cornell said, arguing that shouldn’t justify city policies that favor big corporations, such as tax breaks and publicly financed infrastructure. “I certainly don’t think [city officials] should be giving them any advantages.” There are few simple solutions to the complex and interconnected problems that result from the malling of San Francisco and other cities. It’s really a question of balance — and the answer of whether San Francisco can regain its balance has yet to be answered. “Given the mayor’s approach to economic development, it’s inevitable that we’ll have more coming into the city,” Sup. Mar said. “But the ’50s car culture, and the model of malls that came in the ’60s, don’t build communities or strong neighborhoods.”

Win a pair of tickets to the US Air Guitar Championships

Maria Poblet
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0

The official 2012 US Air Guitar Championship is coming back to The Bay!  On this very special evening, the best local Air Guitarists will compete for the opportunity to represent San Francisco in the National Finals.  Contestants are judged on a combination of Technical Merit, Stage Presence, and “Airness.” Bjorn Turoque, star of the movie Air Guitar Nation, will return in 2012 to host the US Air Guitar Championships.   And 2008 SF, US & World Air Guitar Champion, Hot Lixx Hulahan, will return as a judge. This is an evening you will never forget! For more information about the event, click here.

Check out a past video to see what you’ll be getting yourself into:

Enter for your chance to win a pair of tickets by emailing sfbgpromos@sfbg.com with the title as ‘US Air Guitar Championships’ and include your name in the message. Three lucky winners will receive a pair of tickets to the event.  Winners will be announced this Friday the 13th.

Saturday, July 14, doors open at 8:30, event starts at 9 @ The Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF | $20

 

9 ways to say oui to Bastille Day

Andrew Lam
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1
9 ways to say oui to Bastille Day

Unless the tech kings and queens need to start watching their backs, there’s no accounting for the voracity San Francisco consumes all things Bastille Day (Sat/14). Why do we celebrate the anniversary of the storming of a French clink so comprehensively, when Canada Day goes all but unnoticed? Perhaps the answers will be clearer after this weekend — movies, concerts, food cart explosions, and more will be taking place now through Sat/14 in honor of the Bay’s most illogically favorite holiday.

Farewell, My Queen 

Landmark Theatres picked an appropriate time to unveil French director Benoit Jacquot’s film Farewell, My Queen. The flick follows the last three days of Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) and her reader (Léa Seydoux, the pale beauty from Midnight in Paris) in the chaos just before the French Revolution.

Showing at Embarcadero Center Cinema, 1 Embarcadero Center, SF; Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Ave, Berk.

www.landmarktheatres.com

Pre-Bastille Musicale with Baguette Quartet and GAUCHO

Peacefully ring in this not-so-peaceful holiday with a musical performance in the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. Local group Baguette Quartette performs tangos, foxtrots, and more tunes endemic to 1920s and ’30s Paris. It’ll be joined by Gaucho, a Euro-New Orleans-inspired jazz group that prides itself on its ability to inspire foot-tapping. 

Thu/12 5:30-7:30pm, $12

University of California Berkeley Botanical Gardens

200 Centennial, Berk. 

(510) 643-2755 

botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu

“From Geek to Chic: French Fashion and Technology”

SF Fashion + Tech has acquired a collection of Bay Area industry notables to speak at their Bastille Day commemoration “French Technique: From Geek to Chic.” Enrich your intellect and your closet with drinks, music, and fashion tech talk. 

Thu/12 5pm-9pm, $15-$25

Temple

540 Howard, SF. 

f1wfrenchtechnique.eventbrite.com

Mugsy’s Pop-Up Wine Bar

El Rio busts out its new socially-conscious wine bar in honor of Bastille Day, where Francophile — or just plain wine-chugging — Missionaries can celebrate French independence with a cuppa and some patio-side sunshine. Just as the French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille on this monumental day, Mugsy proposes to storm your olfactory senses with a velvety wine with hints of licorice, chocolate, and lavender (and, somehow, plum, olive, and pepper), a 2009 Le Clos du Caillou Côtes du Rhône Vieilles Vignes Cuvee Unique. Quite a way to class up your Friday night happy hour. 

Fri/13 5:30-8:30pm

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF.

mugsywinebar.tumblr.com

Off The Grid Au Francais 

Foodies can rejoice in a Off The Grid’s solution to affordable French cuisine. In honor of the holiday, many of the street truck fair’s vendors will be offering special French-inspired items. Regardless of one’s culinary orientation (cupcake, crepe, and bahn mi, or baguette?), French gypsy jazz will accompany this cart food frenzy throughout the evening. 

Fri/13 5pm-9pm, free entry

Fort Mason Center, SF

www.offthegridsf.com

Bardot-A-Go-Go 

Go-go to the Rickshaw’s no-pretension dance floor for this always-fun Bastille Day pre-party. DJs Brothers Grimm and Pink Frankenstein will be providing the tunes to guide the night, and you can count on some Gainsbourg screenins to provide an appropriately-hazy French ambiance. Go-go girls, drinks, videos — even 1960’s hair-styling for only $10. 

Fri/13 9pm-11pm, $10

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF 

www.rickshawstop.com

Belden Place Block Party 

Celebrating another nation’s independence day has never felt so authentic. Tucked away in a FiDi alleyway, Belden is a focal point for Francophiles in San Francisco due to its tasty restaurants. Bastille Day turns the nook into a communal fete, with music and other festivities to boot. The festival recently ran into some trouble due to “past insanity” — always a good sign — but it’s pledged to  

Sat/14, check restaurant websites for hours

Belden between Pine and Bush, SF.

www.belden-place.com

KZYX Bastille Day benefit

Holler your support of community radio through a mouthful of crawfish etouffee — today Mendocino indie radio station KZYZ is raising funds for its community tunes with a full spread of French Cajun fare. Live tunes from Americana rockabillies Contino and that band’s fave openers Shaky Jake Blues Band featuring Rag Time Rick will be the perfect side dish to heaping bowls of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice with sweet corn boiled in Tabasco mash for the vegetarians music fans. 

Sat/14 3pm, $10-$15

Mendocino County fairgrounds

Highway 128, Boonville

www.kzyx.org

Le P’tit Laurent 

What is normally a highfalutin French restaurant is also a fabulous fete for those who want to get their dinner, drinks, and dancing all in one. The restaurant will serve its normal menu a la carte, keep its bar open until 2am, and rumor has it DJs and dancing will enter the scene at around 10:30pm.

Sat/14 5:00pm-10:30pm dinner, 10:30pm-2am drinks and dancing, $23

699 Chenery, SF. 

 www.leptitlaurent.net

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