Mission

It’s a beautiful day

Zelda Bronstein
-
0
It’s a beautiful day

It was mayhem out at 30th and Mission last night, people pouring into the streets, shouting and shooting off fireworks and cars cruising along, slowly throught the crowd, big “Gigantes” banners hanging out the doors and windows. A beautiful night in San Francisco, people coming together to celebrate, G.W. Bush and Nolan Ryan looking dejected and rejected, that rare sense of victory in the air … and it’s a beautiful morning, good weather across most of the state, turnout heavy in my precinct, anyway, and that’s very bad news for Meg Whitman, whose only real hope is that Democrats don’t show up at the polls.


So maybe we’ll have more to celebrate tonight.


It’s hard to predict the outcome of the state and local elections based on the latest polls, since at least a third of the voters have already cast their ballots. If Whitman and Brown were tied a month ago, when absentee voting started, and Brown is up 5-10 points today, which poll reflects how the voting actually went over the past four weeks? If Prop. 19 was ahead three weeks ago and is behind now, did supporters lready vote for it?


But I think I can safely predict that one the statewide level, big money isn’t going to take the day: Whitman’s going to lose, Carly Fiorina’s going to lose and Prop.23 is going to lose. If the left turns out to vote. Polls are open until 8.

Live Shots: World Series Celebratory Mayhem, 11/1/10

Andrew Lam
-
0

That’s right y’all, the news is gigante: the Giants won the World Series! And last night San Francisco lost no time in straightening their beards, assuming their best Freddy Sanchez expression, and vaulting over ignited mattresses. Streets were shut down around the city — Polk, Civic Center, and Castro had some particularly wild parties — but for our money, the Mission mayhem had ’em beat. SFBG photog Charles Russo was in the thick of the madness. Now one more time, all together: OOOOOOOO! RIBE! See you in the ticker tape.

World Series bedlam!

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
1

In case you didn’t notice, San Francisco erupted into a street party last night, Nov. 1, after the Giants won the World Series. Wandering through a sea of orange-and-black that swelled into the streets of the Mission, I got showered with beer and champagne about half a dozen times, and my ears are still ringing from all the hooting and hollering, horn-honking, firecracker bursting and police siren wailing that filled the air.

One of the craziest scenes I witnessed the entire night was when some people set a mattress on fire in the middle of the intersection at 22nd and Mission. As the blaze got brighter and everyone yelled louder and laughed harder, a fire truck started blaring its horn and inching its way through the crowd. But after the burning mattress situation was under control, the firefighters had a new problem — a dance party was unfolding on the roof of the fire engine. The crowd swarmed around it, people climbed on up, and even swung open the doors and got into the fire truck, and suddenly the brightly flashing emergency lights seemed more like a strobe light. When the truck sounded its deafening horn, it almost sounded as if the drivers were participating in the madness.

The celebration went on. There were brass bands, fireworks, spontaneous high-fives and embraces, dancing in the streets, and people hanging out of their cars half-naked waving Giants flags and laughing wildly. That was just one San Francisco neighborhood — it seems that similar out-of-control scenes played out in the Castro, near the Civic Center, and around the ballpark.

The riot cops came eventually, of course, and I’ve put a call out to the SFPD to find out how many total arrests were made by the end of the night. On my way into work this morning, I saw people washing graffiti off of brick walls and windows, and the sidewalks were littered with shards of broken glass and debris. San Francisco awoke today for the first time ever as a World Series city, but with one giant hangover.

Don’t nobody give a damn about us!

Mary Magee
-
0

As Supervisor John Avalos’ proposal to mandate local hiring for publicly-funded construction projects heads for a committee hearing next week, local hiring protests continue to break out around UCSF’s Mission Bay groundbreaking celebrations for a $1.5 billion hospital project that the UC Board of Regent recently approved.

The problem, according to community advocates, revolves around UC’s apparent absence of a community hiring plan. Rumor has is that local residents will only get 12-13 percent of the construction jobs, even though the site is only a T-Third ride away from Bayview Hunters Point and other low-income communities where unemployment rates have risen steeply in the last four years.

Yesterday evening, I went to a university-community celebration where UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann was in attendance. So, I asked her about UC’s local hiring plan. Desmond-Hellmann said I’d need to speak to UCSF’s Barbara French, who recently advised community-based organizations that construction at the site won’t start until December, and that the groundbreaking activities are happening now to take advantage of the weather.

So, while I’m waiting to hear back from French, check out a slideshow (see above) of the Oct. 27 local hiring protest at UC Mission Bay. There’s been coverage of how MC Hammer talked to the protesters Oct. 26, when the Secret Service got upset about the local-hiring demonstration outside the groundbreaking that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended. And how Hammer came back with a “we want jobs” message.

But there has been no coverage of how filmmaker Kevin Epps (who is responsible for Straight Outta Hunters Point and Black Rock) was on hand filming the Oct. 27 protest, or how UC’s Terry Rawlins dropped by, or how Terry Anders of the Anders & Anders Foundation) took part in the local hiring protest saying, “This is the first piñata we want to crack open,” or how  Mindy Kener, who is also with Anders & Anders, added, “We want all the candy to fall out.” Or how Aboriginal Blacks United’s Alex Prince, who led the protest to demand fair and equal access to high-paying union jobs on the UC Mission Bay project near the economically depressed Third Street corridor, was accompanied by Heaven, ABU’s cuter than cute mascot dog.

“We want to make sure folks get trained and everything that’s necessary, so there is no dispute,” Prince told me. “UC has not really been helpful. They just said they want to meet with us.”

Osiris Coalition member Greg Doxey, who helped negotiate labor’s community benefits agreement with Lennar in 2008, emphasized the importance of passing local hiring legislation that has some teeth.
“We’ve found that no matter how much dollars is committed for training, it doesn’t help if developer is not committed to doing any training,” Doxey said. “That’s why we are supporting Local SF, Sup. John Avalos’ legislation. We want some teeth. All we have right now is a good faith policy. Avalos’ legislation will give us teeth to set fines to be put in place.”

Charles Hopkins, another local resident, said all the community wants is its fair share.
“It’s sustainable for San Francisco to have local hire,” Hopkins said.

A group of unemployed Asian-American members of the iron unions also participated in the ABU rally where they held up signs saying “Show us the $$$”.

An employee of Cambridge, which along with San Francisco-based DPR, is one of the prime contractors at the site, did come out to talk to the protesters.
“If folks want to put their names on the list, they can,” the Cambridge employee, who declined to give his name, said. “But the unions have their own procedures, when it comes to who they dispatch, including seniority.”

Mindy Kener of the BVHP-based Anders and Anders Foundation said she’d like to see more women hired on local construction sites.“The women want to work and get off the welfare lines,, they need to work and it’ll make a big difference in our neighborhood if we put people to work who live on the T-Third line,” Kener said. “All we need is for UC to give the green light to put our neighborhood to work.”Carlos Rodriguez, a Local 261 member who has been out of work for two years, worries that workers are being forgotten while deal making is going on.“I see how unions talk to management, they forget about the laborers,” Rodriguez said.

A man on a bicycle stopped to see what was going on.
“It’s not going to work, when they can get illegal aliens to work for $6.50 an hour,” the man said, as he resumed his peddling.

Across the street, filmmaker Kevin Epps also indicated that he thought part of the local hire problem is rooted in racism.
“Deeply rooted, institutionalized racism,” Epps said. “We are talking about power, and power doesn’t give up without another power taking it away.”
Standing nearby was UC contract compliance manager Terry Rawlins, who clarified that UC isn’t currently hiring folks to work on the construction site.
But doesn’t the university have leverage?

“Not directly,” Rawlins said, “We try to establish goals, based on cooperation with unions, and without violating any bargaining agreements.”

But UCSF Director of Design and Construction J.Stuart Eckblad told the Guardian that he thought the workers were asking for the right thing.
“I’m all for maximizing the opportunities and participation of the local community,” Eckblad said.” The question is what is realistic, and there are issues of what is really available with labor and the trades.”

Joshua Arce of the Brightline Defense Project noted that folks have been distracted by Lennar’s shipyard project from the reality that there are 6,000 jobs coming on line, a stone’s throw from the Bayview, the Mission and Market Street.
“What is equitable?” Arce asked. “A good faith approach, a market-based approach or a mandatory approach? At the end of the day, it’s about equity, and no one would dispute that this situation is inequitable. Let’s just agree that it’s not equitable [to have no local hiring plan] on a big project like this in a community that is facing such high unemployment levels.”

“There are hundreds of good-paying, union jobs on this projects while we have people in our communities that are dying for lack of work,” ABU president James Richards told me. “We have qualified union workers standing outside the job site that are ready, willing, and able to work and if the community doesn’t work, no one works.Good faith efforts have never worked and now they want us to be fooled again. So, we are going to step it up, and we don’t give a damn about the unions, either. The person who fights for these jobs, deserves these jobs. So, let’s begin to tell the truth. Many of the folks in the labor unions don’t speak English, they are not from San Francisco, and most are not even from this country. Everyone is dancing around the truth. Everyone knows the truth, but they don’t speak it.”

But ABU’s tent looked inclusive at the protest, Arce noted, as he pointed  out the power of teaming up with all marginalized groups in San Francisco.

“I could go for that,” Richards said.  “We got blacks, Mexicans, Asians, whites, everybody in ABU. It’s ain’t no racist thing.  But let us work, too. “Why do we always have to get in last? Don’t nobody give a damn about us! 

Avalos: I have not buckled to anyone’s pressure over local hiring

Mary Magee
-
1
Avalos: I have not buckled to anyone’s pressure over local hiring

Last week, Sup. John Avalos introduced Local SF legislation to require contractors to meet a local hiring goal of 50 percent. And as the Guardian reported at the time, Avalos’ legislation represents a major departure from the city’s First Source Program, which only requires contractors on publicly subsidized projects to show “good faith” efforts to meet 50 percent goal.  Avalos’ legislation came on the heels of a report from the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development that showed only a 20 percent local hire rate in 29 publicly funded projects, despite the existence of First Source.

“My legislation will ensure that San Franciscans have a guaranteed shot to work on the City’s public works projects and that the local dollars invested in public infrastructure be recycled back into San Francisco’s economy and local communities,” Avalos said last week, noting that his legislation was developed over a series of stakeholders meetings with reps from city agencies, the Mayor’s Office, labor and building trades, the environmental community, neighborhood advocates, contractors, local hiring advocates and unemployed workers. And he vowed to keep this roundtable approach going as his legislation moves forward.

So we were surprised to read a Weekly blog post today that claimed that Avalos had allegedly buckled to union pressure and watered down his local hire requirements. Especially since his legislation hasn’t even had its Nov. 8 hearing before the Board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee…

Reached by phone Avalos clarified that he has not buckled to anyone’s pressure.
“I haven’t backed down on anything,” Avalos said. “And I have not made any amendments to my legislation. I did say when I introduced my legislation that this is a starting point and we’ll see where it ends up. We could pass legislation that wants 50 percent local hiring next year, and it would probably get vetoed and it wouldn’t be realistic. So, we have to phase it in and make sure we are creating a system that is going to push the trades to be more inclusive of local residents.”

Avalos noted that some trades and unions are already doing a good job of hiring San Francisco residents on public works projects, but reiterated that the city’s current policy only requires contractors to present paperwork to show they made a “good faith” effort—and that this approach has fallen far short of the city’s 50 percent local hire goal.

Avalos’ legislation–and his claims about First Source’s shortcomings–are  backed up by two recent studies.

The first report, released by Chinese for Affirmative Action and Brightline Defense Project this August, was titled “The Failure of Good Faith.” It showed that the city’s current policy only “yielded roughly 24 percent on employment opportunities” on public construction projects in San Francisco.

The second report, released by L. Luster & Associates on October 18, was titled “Labor Market Analysis San Francisco Construction Industry.” It confirmed that the construction workforce statewide has been in a “free-fall of job losses for the past four years.”

Noting that the Bay Area has not been as hard hit as other regions in California, the Luster report observed that the tri-county district of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, which had 45,100 construction jobs in August 2006, “lost nearly one-third of these jobs falling to 31,200 construction jobs by May 2010.”

“In San Francisco, unemployment in the construction sector has had a particularly negative impact on the city’s less educated residents,” the report stated. “For them, construction has provided access to higher paying jobs in a labor market that otherwise might provide them access mainly to positions paying lower end wages. Any local hire effort will be undertaken against the backdrop of this unprecedented construction job loss, and resulting unemployment among the existing San Francisco construction workers.”

One such group of unemployed workers—some of them in a union, others not—could be seen protesting yesterday outside the gates of the construction site on 16th Street in Mission Bay where UCSF has been celebrating the groundbreaking of its new Medical Center, a $1.5 billion project to be funded “through a combination of debt financing, philanthropic gifts and hospital reserves,” according to UC press releases.

But in an email to Joshua Arce of Brightline Defense, UCSF’s Barbara French noted that though UC is “actively working now to evaluate the workforce needs for every trade, for every phase of the project, and intend to make those public in December”, UC has not started construction on the project and won’t until December.
“ We haven’t signed the contract with the general contractor and we don’t yet have our permits,’ French wrote. “ The community may have believed that the celebrations this week truly marked the start of active construction. Not so. These were community celebrations held now in the hopes of getting good weather. “

Meanwhile, Avalos acknowledges that UC is not under the jurisdiction of San Francisco.
“But I know that they are doing a critical amount of building, and investing tax payer dollars there, so therefore the community should have some benefit from that, even though it’s complicated by this being the state’s money, so you could make the argument that all of California’s workers should have access,” Avalos told the Guardian. “But this land use impacts the surrounding community, so it makes sense that we have local hire legislation and access to serious end-use jobs at the hospital, which will include medical and support staff, building and janitorial maintenance and cafeteria related work.”

Avalos noted that the city is building infrastructure all around that project, including parks, Muni and light rail spruce-ups.
“There are huge surrounding investments,” Avalos said.

Either way, here’s hoping that by December, when folks begin to stress about providing for their families over the holiday season, all the workers in the following video clip will be able to put down their bullhorns and pick up decent-paying work, instead. And that this work will last for more than a couple of days.

FEAST: 7 burrito-free late nights

Andrew Lam
-
0
FEAST: 7 burrito-free late nights

We’re spoiled rotten living in the city where if you fling an ankle boot, it’s bound to hit a taqueria open past last call. Its like a burrito vortex — go out in San Francisco and at some point you will get wrapped up in flour tortilla and snuggle in with your old buddies, carnitas and shredded cheese. But gooey and warm as it is in there, you must resist the pull to turn into a burrito. I know, I know, we’re gonna hold your hand through this one. We’ve assembled the meeting places for Burritos Anonymous: purveyors of snacks so fine — and open at least until 1 a.m. on weekends — that your frijoles negros withdrawal-twitches will subside and your post-bar, pre-bed caloric intake will rejoin your regularly programmed San Francisco culinary adventuring. We’re talking calamari bulgogi, vegan smoked duck sandwiches, chilaquiles, pambazos, and beef brisket with a side of cucumber salad. We’re talking late night. Clip this page and store it near your bus fare.

TOYOSE

There’s a converted garage in the heart of the Sunset District stuffed with carousing young’uns into the wee hours. Its charmingly narrow dining area has enough foliage and hanging screens between tables to hide 1 a.m. sloppiness — and enough Korean delicacies to entertain the most rabble-rousing group for hours. Try their noodle dishes, which can feed four with their toss-it-yourself mounds of veggies, cold rice noodles, and chile sauce. House favorites include the seafood pancake, kimchee fried rice, bulgogi, soju smoothies, and the damn largest bottles of Korean lager seen this side of the Pacific.

Open until 2 a.m. daily.

3814 Noriega, SF, (415) 731-0232


NOMBE

A hip izakaya whose name roughly translates to “he who doesn’t remember the walk over.” Nombe’s menu can be boggling, but that doesn’t detract a smidge from the table of pickled daikon, stewed onion pork belly, steaming bowls of ramen, and sake flights that is apt to materialize after speaking with the friendly serving staff. Motor skills eschewing spoons and forks for the moment? Play swords with something off the tasty skewer menu.

Open until 2 a.m. weekends

2491 Mission, SF. (415) 681-7150. www.nombesf.com

REACTION RESTAURANT

When the owners of all-ages art-punk venue Sub-mission decided to open up a dining room next door, they kept it accessible. Reaction’s got a menu full of little-seen Mexico City specialties that won’t break the bank of their underage clientele, but still don’t relapse into the boring realm that sub–$5 food often falls. Our favorite is the pambazo, a roll that’s been dipped in red sauce, grilled, then stuffed with your choice of meats or beans. You’ll also find huaraches, gorditas, and burgers — all in a sleek, red and black ambience that won’t harsh your buzz.

Open until 3 a.m. weekends

2183 Mission, SF. (415) 552-8200

J & V CAFE

There’s late night, and there’s late night. If the sun’s coming up and you’re not ready to mix and mingle with the morning suits, head to Bayview. Not that J & V will be filled with drunken sops like you — a well-turned, few-frills cafe located in the middle of SF’s wholesale produce market, the work day here begins in the dark of the night. Standard diner fare, decent espresso, a few quality Mexican specials — no b-words, but plenty of heaping chilaquiles plates to palliate that come-down.

1 a.m.-2 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

2095 Jerrold, SF. (415) 821-7786. www.jandvcatering.com

THE LIBERTIES

A place that takes no liberties with the notion of good pub food available when you need it most. The Liberties offers stomach-liners like mashed potato-topped cottage pie, bangers, and Anglo-happy chicken curry for those who’d rather have their biggest meal of the day post their biggest pints of the day.

Open until 2 a.m. weekends

998 Guerrero, SF. (415) 282-6789. www.theliberties.com

TOMMY’S JOYNT

With an exterior decorated in shades of circus tent, the 63-year old legend is a great place for Mom’s cooking at hours Momma woulda freaked had you started rustling around in the kitchen. Hofbrau service has you line up with a tray and point to which braised meat and starch you’d like heaped on your plate. Beef brisket? Buffalo stew (their specialty)? Veggiesaurus? No worries. Scoops of pasta salad, greens, and potatoes await.

Open until 1:40 a.m. daily.

1101 Geary, SF. (415) 775-4216. www.tommysjoynt.com

LOVE N HAIGHT DELI & CAFE

Stating the obvious: vegans get short shrift when it comes to late night. Seriously, how often can you order the same thing Carnivorous Carl is having … minus the protein and sauce? Unfair. Pay it no mind — with Love N Haight’s head-whirlingly large menu of vegan (and some meat) sandwiches, you’ve got the upper hand. Sure, the fake roast duck may taste similar to the fish and the chicken — but its a chewy, satisfying kind of same.

Open until 2 a.m. weekends.

553 Haight, SF. (415) 252-8190 

 

 

Hot sexy events: October 27th-November 2nd

Andrew Lam
-
0

So you loved it when the princess in Disney movies was tied up, but aren’t quite sure if you’re ready to make the move to complicated (read: spendy) ropes and harnesses? No fear, my dear! Alluring ropes lady Midori is here to teach you how to hold down your naughty loved one with the aid of but a few handy scarves at her upcoming Good Vibrations class (Mon/1). Can you believe you can make a dildo harness from a kicky accessory? Come to think of it, dildo harnesses might just be the most kicky accessory of them all…

 

Erotic Reading Circle

Because where oh where will all those literary dirty thoughts in your head go, if not out your mouth and onto the printed page? An opportunity for all those venturing into erotica writing to test out their material in front of a welcoming, sex-positive crowd, hosted by Carol Queen and Jen Cross of Writing Ourselves Whole.

Wed/27 7:30-9:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org


Halloween Pansexual Play Party

For all voyeurs, tops, bottoms, switches, here’s the perfect chance to check out Oakland’s relatively new dungeon space. Space mistresses Jezebel and Isabella will be more than happy to aide you in your BDSM hauntings. 

Fri/29 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $20 single-$35 couple

The Looking Glass Dungeon

Jack London Square, Oakl.

 www.myspace.com/thelookingglassdungeon 

mail@thelookingglassarts.com 


Kinky Salon XXX Haunted Funhouse

I’m not really sure how you’ll find time to engage in copulation at this fake blood scare sex session. Between beats by clown-hop Burner DJ http://gooferman.com/ Gooferman, demon summonings, seances, zombie strippers, and ahem, fake spiders on strings (watch that he doesn’t dangle into unwelcoming orifices, will ya) – well, I’m sure you’ll find time. After all, it’s a two-night party.

Fri/29 and Sat/30 10 p.m., $25-$30 members only

Mission Control

2519 Mission, SF

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Wonderland at the Citadel

The Citadel is quick to note that unlike Wonderland, events at the Citadel do not inspire with the mere ingestion of fungi or snack treats – although that’d be awesome if they did. This is why they are having this fundraiser, which will plunge the appreciative perv into the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, various tea party refreshments, burlesque, and a dirty singalong of “My Favorite Things.” Plus an auction will be held where things like corsets, gags, sensual cupping scenes, and rattan canes can be had for a bid. 

Sat/30 3-6 p.m., $10

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


Citadel Cinema: Rob Zombie’s Halloween

How often during the course of your dungeon play party do you look up and think man, I wish there was a big screen TV over there? Well, all you screen-addicted creatures of the 21st century, your time is now! In honor of the scariest time of year besides Fleet Week, the Citadel is playing one of Rob Zombie’s gore fests – with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as a bonus teaser. Invite says bring your own pillows and blankets, uh-oh!

Sun/31 6-10:30 p.m., $5

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


Wrapped for Pleasure: Easy Bondage for Steamy Sex

You need not have a fully-equipped dungeon to have fun with toys. Let an expert teach you the utility of a few well-placed scarves and cushions. Viola! You are now kinky. 

Mon/1 6-8 p.m., $20-$25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

 

 

 

Different walls

Andrew Lam
-
0
Different walls

arts@sfbg.com

Palestinian perspectives are in. You know it when a major filmmaker like Julian Schnabel makes a big-budget film like Miral, based on the book by Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal (which recently screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival in advance of a general release next year).

In many ways, though, it’s the rest of the country that’s catching up to places like the Bay Area, where Palestinian voices have long been a part of the cultural landscape. The Arab Film Festival, for instance, which just closed its 14th season, once again featured several films from and about Palestine. And this year the San Francisco International Film Festival gave us a look at Port of Memory, the latest work from Kamal Aljafari, one of the most interesting and sophisticated filmmakers to come from Palestine since Elia Suleiman.

In theater, San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions just gave a staged reading of biographical work from youth in embattled Gaza called The Gaza Monologues. For years, Golden Thread has produced works incorporating the Palestinian perspective amid a mass culture overwhelmingly slanted toward the more powerful side in a basically colonial project. And currently Campo Santo and Intersection for the Arts bring the diasporic repercussions of Palestinian dispossession center stage in Habibi, a new play from a new Palestinian American theatrical voice, Sharif Abu-Hambeh.

Habibi makes its debut as the second offering in a trio of world premieres at Intersection by first-time playwrights (the first having been Chinaka Hodge’sMirrors in Every Corner). Directed by Omar Matwally, Abu-Hambeh’s play weaves together two distinct storylines that attempt to capture the inter-generational confusion and displacement experienced by assimilating Palestinian immigrants in the Bay Area. That confusion can regrettably transfer to the play itself, whose intentional deployment of ambiguity ends up, at least to some extent, being merely fuzzy rather than thought-provoking. But the ideas here are at times intriguingly subtle and the effort a promising one. Moreover, Matwally and Campo Santo give the play a strong production with various charms along the way.

At the center of this double helix of a narrative is young Palestinian American Tariq (a coolly vital and engaging Aleph Ayin). Tariq shares a small Mission District apartment and even — talk about family overload — a single bed with his loving but paternalistic father, Mohammed (a stern, sympathetic Paul Santiago). The deliberate and routine-loving Mohammed — who unlike his Americanized son speaks in accented English — is a museum guard with a strong work ethic that he’s trying, unsuccessfully, to instill in his slacker offspring. Tariq, for his part, has just happily shed his menial job at a local café and is in no hurry to find a new one. His absent mother (Nora El Samahy) apparently left them some time before, though she reappears at one point in his imagination.

This father and son dynamic, familial and almost too familiar, comes intercut with a public talk by a high-class museum curator (a sharp and funny El Samahy, dressed by costume designer Courtney Flores in esteem-grabbing Manhattan chic and sporting a very respectable English accent), who leads us through a slide lecture on the great art heists of the last century. Her talk, avid but meandering, is interrupted by simultaneously exasperating and guilt-producing phone calls from her terminally ill father, and a consequent tendency to wander into ruminations farther afield — summoned for us in pictures of dispossession that float by on the screen behind her (in video projections designed by Aubrey Millen).

Maybe these wayward ruminations aren’t so far afield after all, we come to suspect, as her theme of cultural theft warms up to its own complexities and encourages us to consider the nature of cultural transmission, loss, and hybridization in the life-and-death circumstances of exiled populations. This idea deepens as Tariq’s raucous and rebellious spirit extends to breaking into the curator’s monologue, and even smashing the fourth wall to confront us, her audience. Tariq also has a unique tendency to narrate his own actions, a self-conscious conceit that can be productive at times, especially of humor, and works as an indirect aside to the audience.

By the end, the two narratives come even closer together through a rash act of Tariq’s father that trades disastrously on the concept of family heirlooms, or the physical symbols of patrimony and place. The climax arrives too hastily, and its potential impact is muted. At the same time, the play’s departure from the more universal, shopworn gestures of “melting pot” tales verges on something rare and coruscating.

HABIBI

Thurs.–Sun., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 7; $15–$25

Intersection for the Arts

446 Valencia, SF

(415) 626-2787 

www.theintersection.org

 

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

 

Schedules are for Wed/27-Tues/2 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

 ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Deep Leap Microcinema:” “Zaum/Beyonsense” and work by Jesse Malmed, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” War of the Gargantuas (Honda, 1966), Ishiro Honda tribute with Japanese monster movie clips, Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “15th Berlin and Beyond Film Festival,” Wed-Thurs. Visitwww.berlinbeyond.com for complete schedule and tickets ($10-11.50). •Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut, 1966), Fri, 3:10, 7, and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (Lourie, 1953), Fri, 5:20, 9:10. “Mark Huestis Presents:” Poltergeist (Hooper, 1982), noon, 7:30, 9. With star JoBeth Williams in person at first two shows; 7:30pm show also features a pre-show performance. “Matinees for Maniacs: Monsters Are Coming to Town!:” •Something Wicked This Way Comes (Clayton, 1983), Sun, 2:30, and Escape to Witch Mountain (Hough, 1975), Sun, 4:30.

CELLSPACE 2050 Bryant, SF; www.sfindie.com. Free (donations to benefit CellSpace appreciated). “Eli Roth’s Midnight Movie Marathon:” The Thing(Carpenter, 1982), Sat, noon; Zombie (Fulci, 1979), Sat, 2; The Vanishing (Sluizer, 1988), Sat, 3:45; Pieces (Simon, 1982), Sat, 6; The Wicker Man(Hardy, 1973), Sat, 7:45; Who Can Kill a Child? (Serrador, 1976), Sat, 9:30; Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977), Sat, 11:45; Suspiria (Argento, 1977), Sun, 1:30am; Cannibal Holocaust (Deodato, 1980), Sun, 3:15am; Evil Dead (Raimi, 1981), Sun, 5:15am; Audition (Miike, 1999), Sun, 7am; Torso (Martino, 1973), Sun, 9am.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), Oct 29-Nov 2, call for times. “Global Lens 2010:” Becloud (Bicecci, 2010), Wed, 6:45; The Night of Truth(Nacro, 2004), Wed, 9; Masquerades (Salem, 2008), Thurs, 6:45; The Shaft (Zhang, 2008), Thurs, 8:45. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Leaving (Corsini, 2009), Oct 29-Nov 3, call for times. My Dog Tulip (Fierlinger and Fierlinger, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Straight to Hell Returns (Cox, 2010), Mon, 7:15. With Alex Cox in person.

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF; www.sffs.org. $12.50. “French Cinema Now:” Copacabana (Fitoussi, 2010), Thurs, 6:45 and Fri, 9:30; Rapt (Belvaux, 2009), Thurs, 9:30 and Mon, 9:15; Irène (Cavalier, 2009), Fri, 5 and Sat, 1:45; Love Like Poison (Quillévéré, 2010), Fri, 7 and Sun, 9:15; Sisters (Faucher, 2009), Sat, 3:45 and Sun, 6:45; The Princess of Montpensier (Tavernier, 2010), Sat, 6:30 and Sun, 3:45; A Real Life (Leonor, 2009), Sat, 9:30 and Tues, 6:30; Two in the Wave (Laurent, 2009), Sun, 1:30; Hidden Diary (Lopes-Curval, 2009), Mon, 6:30 and Tues, 9:15; Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010), Nov 3, 7, 9:15.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. The Cove (Psihoyos, 2009), Wed, 7:30.

JACK LONDON SQUARE East lawn, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008), Thurs, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. “CinemaLit: Apocalypse Noir:” Night of the Demon (Tourneur, 1958), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” “Photographic Memory: Bay Area Student Experimental Film Festival 2010,” Wed, 7:30. “Readings on Cinema:” Safety Last (Newmeyer and Taylor, 1923), Thurs, 7. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Chronicle of Poor Lovers (Lizzani, 1954), Fri, 7; La Terra Trema (Visconti, 1948), Sat, 7; Miracle in Milan (De Sica, 1951), Sun, 4. “Shakespeare on Screen:” Macbeth (Welles, 1948), Fri, 9:05. “Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres,” slide show presentation with photographer R.A. McBride and readings with contributors to Left in the Dark, Sat, 5. “Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted:” Swamp Thing (Craven, 1982), Sun, 7:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Wright, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:20 (also Wed, 2). Winnebago Man(Steinbauer, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat, 2, 4). The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight. Planet Terror (Rodriguez, 2007), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4). The Kids Are All Right (Cholodenko, 2010), Nov 2-3, 7:15, 9:30 (also Nov 3, 2).

“ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW” Clay, 2261 Fillmore, SF and Albany, 1115 Solano, Albany; www.landmarktheatres.com. $9.50-10. The 1975 Jim Sharman musical plays at both theaters Fri, midnight (also Sat, midnight at the Clay).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “SF DocFest,” Wed-Thurs. Program information at www.sfindie.com.Larry Wessel’s Iconoclast: Boyd Rice (Wessel, 2010), Mon, 7. “Halloween Spooktacular:” •The Man From Planet X (Ulmer, 1951), Fri, 6:35, 9:30, and The Creature With the Atom Brain (Cahn, 1955), Fri, 8; •Corruption (Hartford-Davis, 1968), Sat, 2:30, 6:15, 9:45, and The Brood (Cronenberg, 1979), Sat, 4:15, 8; •Straight to Hell Returns (Cox, 2010), Sun, 3:15, 7, 9, and Searchers 2.0 (Cox, 2004), Sun, 5. Alex Cox in person at Sunday shows.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfmoma.org. $5. “Witches!”: •Season of the Witch (Romero, 1973) andSuspiria (Argento, 1977), Thurs, 7.

VARIETY SCREENING ROOM 582 Market, SF; (650) 724-5544, www.unaff.org. Free. “United Nations Association Film Festival:” Strange Birds in Paradise: A West Papuan Story (Hill-Smith), Wed, 4; Kites (Dzianowicz), Wed, 5:25; “Panel Discussion: Images That Provoke,” Wed, 6:45; Secrets of the Tribes (Padilha), Wed, 8; The Rage of Images (Scharf and Duregger), Wed, 9:40.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10. “Mizoguchi and His Muse: Kinuyo Tanaka,” Wed-Tues, check website for schedule.

VORTEX ROOM 2961 16th Sf, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $10. “Remembering Dennis Hopper:” Night Tide (Harrington, 1961) with “The Wormwood Star” (Harrington, 1955), Wed, 7:30. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Muppet History 201: Rarities from the Henson Vault,” Thurs, 7:30 and Sat, 2.

 

 

Picks

Andrew Lam
-
0

 

WEDNESDAY 27

THEATER

West Side Story

West Side Story is back. Directed by Arthur Laurents, author of the original 1957 script, this rendition of the classic Romeo and Juliet story via 1950s New York City brings fresh life to the rivaling Jets and Sharks and Tony and Maria’s forbidden love. Musical favorites in Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s legendary score include “Tonight,” “America,” “Maria,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “Somewhere.” Jerome Robbins’ spirited dynamic choreography is as much a part of the magic as the story and music. See why West Side Story has captivated audiences for decades when its tour hits San Francisco. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Through Nov. 28

Showtimes vary, $30–$99

Orpheum Theater

1192 Market, SF

1-888-SHN-1799

www.shnsf.com


THURSDAY 28

FILM

“Witches!”

This year’s Halloween-y new releases, Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw 3D (the seventh entry in that undying series), may not be enough to satisfy your need for horror. Luckily, SFMOMA administers a double dose, starting with 1973’s Season of the Witch, an early George Romero film, about a housewife who becomes enmeshed in witchcraft. The must-see, though, is 1977’s Suspiria, in which an American ballet student travels to Germany to attend a new school where sinister goings-on are as common as pointe shoes. Directed by Dario Argento, the film is a Technicolor nightmare and an essential addition to the season. Read on for more Halloween movie revivals, including an additional Suspiria screening. (Ryan Prendiville)

7 p.m., $5 (free with museum admission)

Phyllis Wattis Theater

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

FILM

“French Cinema Now”

A week before presenting a run of Olivier Assayas’ 330-minute cine-event, Carlos, the San Francisco Film Society hosts its annual sampling of Gallic small wonders. “French Cinema Now” welcomes a few familiar faces (Isabelle Huppert in Copacabana, Catherine Deneuve in Hidden Diary, one of Guillaume Depardieu’s last performances in A Real Life), along with auteur turns from Bertrand Tavernier (The Princess of Montpensier) and Alain Cavalier (Irène). Closing night brings Certified Copy, in which Abbas Kiarostami, like Hou Hsiao-hsien before him, calls upon Juliette Binoche for his French twist. If early reviews are any indication, the Iranian filmmaker remains intimately concerned with epistemology in spite of the change in scenery. (Max Goldberg)

Through Nov. 3

Showtimes vary, $12.50

Embarcadero Center Cinema

One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF

www.sffs.org

DANCE

“Performing Diaspora: Devendra Sharma”

During last year’s Performing Diaspora, Devendra Sharma’s Mission Suhani proved to be a major hit. Inspired by the tradition of arranged marriages dowries, it put a light-hearted twist on what has become a controversial though deeply embedded cultural practice. Mission charmed with the wit of its dramatization of this tale about greed, betrayal, and sweet revenge. It is performed by Nautanki Theater, a company of amateurs and professionals residing in Fresno. Nautanki is a North Indian folkloric style, half musical theater, half dance that has migrated to the Central Valley and, clearly, seems to be thriving within the local Indian community. (Rita Felciano)

Thurs/28–Sat/30, 8 p.m.; Sun/31, 3 p.m.,

$19–$24

CounterPULSE, SF

1310 Mission, SF

1-800-838-3006

www.counterpulse.org


FRIDAY 29

MUSIC

Ray Parker Jr.

With an instantly recognizable tune and shout along opportunities galore (“Who ya gonna call?”), the “Ghostbusters” theme song likely brings back a flood of fun memories for anybody who grew up in the 1980s or is a fan of the hit movie and much-played music video. Written and performed by Ray Parker Jr., the tune has had a life of its own ever since it was unleashed on audiences more than 25 years ago. Spirits should be high at tonight’s concert as Parker is sure to resurrect his biggest hit, just in time for Halloween. Bustin’ makes me feel good! (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $59

Claremont Hotel, Club, and Spa

41 Tunnel Road, Berk.

(510) 843–3000

www.claremont-hotel.com

MUSIC

Acid King

I’m usually not a huge fan of weddings, but imagine this mythical union: L7 and Sleep joined in holy heavy matrimony, spitting out a bell-bottomed babe with a book titled Say You Love Satan in hand. Overlay this with indigo, fog, fuzz, a killer Hawkwind cover (the first song ever, it is said, to feature the word “parallelogram”), and dreamy female vocals dripping with distortion and demonic dew and doom. D-d-duhhh! This show is a no-brainer: formed back in 1993, Acid King is seminal SF stoner metal. Catch this rare local appearance on the heels of their Australian tour. C’mon, don’t be a plain ol’ square, be movin’ like a parallelogram. (Kat Renz)

With Thrones and Christian Mistress

9:30 p.m., $10

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

THEATER

Failure 2 Communicate

Jaime has a traumatic brain injury limiting his impulse control. Loomis is autistic and particularly sensitive to touch. How they and other students navigate the high school environment is the premise of Valeria Fachman’s new play Failure 2 Communicate. At a high school for students with severe behavior disorders, emotional disturbances, and learning disabilities, teachers develop strong relationships with difficult students, eventually empowering the students to change their lives. This world premiere from Performers Under Stress — a local physical theater company committed to exploring challenging content — ultimately addresses disability and how we cope. (Wiederholt)

Through Nov. 14

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $20

Garage Theater

975 Howard, SF

www.pustheatre.com

DANCE

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

Why Hubbard Street Dance Chicago? First, fabulous performances; second, it’s a modern dance company that is not a one-choreographer deal; third, it boasts an international repertory we might never see otherwise (they were the first Twyla Tharp entrusted pieces to after she disbanded her own troupe). Further proof of reason No. 3: Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato just disbanded his own ensemble; Hubbard is bringing his baroque music box piece Arcangelo. When Dance Theater of the Netherlands visited last, it had been 22 years. Now Hubbard is bringing a Jirí Kylián work, 27’52”. What’s more, Hubbard promotes from within. The Bay Are premieres of Deep Down Dos and Blanco are the creations of Company dancer and choreographer in residence Alejandro Cerrudo.(Felciano)

Through Sat/30

8 p.m., $32–$68

Zellerbach Hall

Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

COMEDY

“SF Sketchfest Presents: The Return of Tony Clifton”

When was the last time you saw a real zombie? Rumor has it that Tony Clifton is Andy Kaufman returned from the dead. (Hey, Jesus did it.) Just make sure you don’t mention the late comedian to Clifton; he’s notoriously touchy about the subject. In any case, Clifton is touring with his “Katrina Kiss-My-Ass Orchestra” as community service after being charged with disorderly conduct in New Orleans. Not only do proceeds benefit Comic Relief, but at each show one lucky ticket holder “will get to spend one night at Dennis Hof’s Moonlight Bunny with Mr. Clifton paying for the hooker of the winner’s choice.” Whoever he is, he’s still classy. (Prendiville)

Through Sat/30

8 p.m., $30.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

SATURDAY 30

FILM/EVENT

Poltergeist

Everyone remembers Carol Anne (“They’re heeeere!”) and Tangina (“This house is clean!”), but Poltergeist diehards know the heart of the 1982 horror classic is JoBeth Williams’ Diane Freeling, the kind of mother who’d crawl up a rope into purgatory to save her youngest child. (She also smokes weed and has a pretty awesome swimming-pool scene alongside several grinning corpses.) Clear your building-houses-over-graveyards-schedule; this Mark Huestis-produced event features an onstage interview with Williams, plus an array of entertainments, from a Carol Anne look-alike contest to a Poltergeist-inspired (creepy clowns? Creepier trees? Maggot-y steaks? Dead parakeets?) fashion show. (Cheryl Eddy)

7:30 p.m. (also noon, with Williams Q&A; 9 p.m., film only), $6–$30

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

FILM

“Eli Roth’s Midnight Movie Marathon”

Programmed by horror filmmaker Eli “Bear Jew” Roth, this SF Indiefest event offers nearly 24 hours of Halloween delights. Though drop-ins are welcome, this event is clearly structured to cater to true fiends who’ll sit tight for the whole dirty dozen, with dinner and breakfast breaks thoughtfully sprinkled throughout. Your descent into weak-kneed terror begins at noon with John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing (highlight: blood-testing scene), and continues, in order, with Lucio Fulci’s 1979 Zombie (zombie vs. shark underwater fight); 1988’s The Vanishing (Dutch version, not Nancy Travis-starring remake); 1982’s Pieces (chainsaw-sploitation); 1973’s The Wicker Man (Nic Cage-free original); 1976 Spanish chiller Who Can Kill a Child?; in-a-row essentials Eraserhead (1977), Suspiria(1977), Cannibal Holocaust (1980), and The Evil Dead (1981); Miike Takashi’s delightfully violent Audition (1999); and 1973 giallo Torso. Brain-scrambling awesomeness. (Eddy)

Noon, free (donations to benefit CellSpace appreciated)

CellSpace

2050 Bryant, SF

www.sfindie.com

 

SUNDAY 31

“Matinees for Maniacs”

If you’re not too hung over from all the booze, hard drugs, or candy corn you gobbled down the night before, come check out this double-dip of spooky Disney classics on Halloween afternoon. First up is Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), the Ray Bradbury-based tale of a demonic circus ringleader. (Haven’t thought about it for years, but in hindsight, it maaaaay just have something to do with my irrational fear of the circus.) Next up is Escape to Witch Mountain(1975). Unfortunately, or actually, perhaps very fortunately, this original version doesn’t star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or include a song by Miley Cyrus like the 2009 reboot does. (Landon Moblad)

2:30 p.m., $11

Castro Theatre

429 Castro

(415) 621-6120

www.thecastrotheatre.com

 

TUESDAY 2

MUSIC

Gary Numan

Gaining some initial recognition as the singer and leader of Tubeway Army with their single “Down In The Park,” Gary Numan’s success exploded with the release of his 1979 solo record The Pleasure Prinicipal, which featured the hit single “Cars.” Inspiring untold New Wave, industrial, and goth bands with his sound and look over the ensuing years, Numan has been enjoying a resurgence of late, and has found himself on stage with groups such as Nine Inch Nails as a special guest. Tonight he’ll be performing his debut album in its entirety; expect it to be delivered with an extra dose of seasoned edginess when this icon hits the stage. (McCourt)

8 p.m., $27.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com 

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

 

 

Stage

Andrew Lam
-
0

 

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. 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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.


OPENING

Equus Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org. $10-25. Opens Wed/27, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 20. Boxcar Theatre kicks off its fifth season with Peter Shaffer’s drama, directed by Erin Gilley.

Failure to Communicate The Garage, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Call for prices. Opens Fri/29, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 14. Perfomers Under Stress opens its sixth season with the world premiere of a physical theater piece by Valerie Fachman.

The Unexpected Man EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $18-25. Opens Fri/29. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 14. Spare Stage revives Yasmina Reza’s ironic comedy, starring Ken Ruta.

BAY AREA

Becoming Britney Center REPortory Company, Knight Stage 3 Theatre, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW, www.centerREP.org. $25. Previews Thurs/28-Fri/29, 8:15pm. Opens Sat/30, 8:15pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8:15pm; Sun, 2:15pm. Through Nov 14.Center REPortory Company presents an original musical about a naïve pop star, written by Molly Bell and Daya Curley.

Palomino Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Previews Fri/29-Sat/30 and Nov 3, 8pm; Sun/31, 2pm; Tues/2, 7pm. Opens Nov 4, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through Dec 5. David Cale brings his new solo play about a gigolo to Aurora Theatre for its Bay Area premiere.

Pirates of Penzance Novato Theatre Company Playhouse, 484 Ignacio, Novato; 883-4498, www.novatotheatercompany.org. $12-22. Opens Thurs/28, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 21. Novato Theatre Company revives the popular Gilbert and Sullivan swashbuckling tale.

ONGOING

Christian Cagigal’s Obscura: A Magic Show EXIT Cafe, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Magician Christian Cagigal presents a mix of magic, fairy tales, and dark fables.

Dracula’s School for Vampires Young Performers Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Third Floor, Room 300; 346-5550, www.ypt.org. $7-10. Sat, 1 pm; Sun, 1 and 3:30pm. Through Nov 14. Young Performers Theatre presents a Dracula comedy by Dr. Leonard Wolf.

Equus Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org. $10-25. Opens Wed/27, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 20. Boxcar Theatre kicks off its fifth season with Peter Shaffer’s drama, directed by Erin Gilley.

Futurestyle ’79 Off-Market Theater, Studio 250, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Wed, 8pm. Through Wed/27. A fully improvised episodic comedy played against the backdrop of SF in 1979.

Glory Days Boxcar Studios, 125 Hyde; www.jericaproductions.com. $30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performance Sun/31). Through Nov 7. Jerica Prodcutions and the Royal Underground Theatre company present Nick Blaemire’s and James Gardiner’s one-act musical.

Habibi Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia; 626-2787, www.theintersection.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through Nov 7. Intersection for the Arts and Campo Santo present the world premiere of a play by Sharif Abu-Hamdeh.

*Hamlet Alcatraz Island; 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. By donation. Sat-Sun, times vary. Through Nov 21. Outside of an actual castle, it would hard to say what could serve as a more appropriate stand-in for Kronborg castle of Helsingør—also known as Elsinore—than the isolated fortress of Alcatraz Island, where WE Players are presenting Hamlet in all its tragic majesty. As audience members tramp along

stony paths and through prison corridors from one scene to the next, the brooding tension the site alone creates is palpable, and the very walls impart a sense of character, as opposed to window-dressing. Deftly leaping around rubble and rock, a hardy troupe of thespians and musicians execute the three-hour

production with neat precision, guiding the audience to parts of the island and prison edifice that aren’t usually part of the standard Alcatraz tour package. Incorporating movement, mime, live music, and carefully-engineered use of space, the Players turn Alcatraz into Denmark, as their physical bodies meld into Alcatraz. Casting actress Andrus Nichols as the discontent prince of Denmark is an incongruity that works, her passions’ sharp as her swordplay, the close-knit family unit of Laertes, Ophelia, and Polonius are emphatically human (Benjamin Stowe, Misti Boettiger, Jack Halton), and Scott D. Phillips plays the

appropriately militaristic and ego-driven Claudius with a cold steel edge. (Gluckstern)

Hedda Gabler Phoenix Theatre, suite 601, 414 Mason; (800) 838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35.

The action unfolds in the parlor of the newly married Tesmans, young mediocre academic George (Adam Simpson) and town beauty Hedda, née Gabler (a crisp, tightly wound and nicely understated Cecilia Palmtag), a woman of exceptional intelligence, ambition and pride—to call her fiery wouldn’t be bad either, especially since she’s so fond of shooting off her late father’s pistols. Frustrated by her paltry new life, Hedda seeks news of an old flame, Eilert Lovborg (Paul Baird), via the admiring and vaguely lecherous Judge Brack (Peter Abraham) and a timid acquaintance from school days, Thea (Joceyln Stringer). The semi-wild but brilliant Lovborg has published a new book that imperils George’s chances for a professorship. Less interested in securing George’s career than controlling Lovborg’s destiny, Hedda soon manipulates events around her with bold determination and tragic consequences. Passionate, violent and psychologically complex, Henrik Ibsen’s titular heroine is at turns sympathetic and disturbing, an independent soul trapped in and warped by a society that allows her too little scope—a modern predicament that has inspired many modern and postmodern adaptations. Off Broadway West’s straight-ahead production of the late-19th-century drama, helmed by artistic director Richard Harder, remains faithful to the period setting. This includes Bert van Aalsburg’s respectable scenic design and Sylvia Kratins impressive costumes, as well as the old if fine translation by William Archer, who first introduced Ibsen to the English-speaking world. Unfortunately, the quaint diction is not handled with equal grace across an uneven cast. Palmtag’s solid, at times admirable performance in the lead, however, goes a good way toward grounding an otherwise patchy production. (Avila)

Last Days of Judas Iscariot Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.CustomMade.org. $10-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/30. Custom Made Theatre Company presents the 2005 play by New York’s Stephen Adly Guirgis (Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the A Train), which places purgatorial Judas (Kristoffer Alberto Barrera) on trial to determine his deserved fate for dropping a dime on Jesus and all that jazz. Flamboyant, sycophantic and horny prosecutor El-Fayoumy (Ben Ortega) and defense attorney Loretta (Amelia Avila) call between them a series of brow-raising witnesses—including Mother Teresa (Brandy Leggett), Sigmund Freud (Catz Forsman), and Satan (Richard Wenzel)—as Judas (seated on the upper tier of Sarah Phykitt’s suitably imposing split-level set) stares stoically in relative silence or appears in a series of childhood flashbacks. Characteristically funny and streetwise, as well as versed in the Catholic rigmarole as filtered through a NYC-boroughs sensibility, Guirgis’s play is also unusually tedious in its jokey, poky unfolding since—offering not much more than a cipher in the largely mute Iscariot—the proceedings lack a strong sense of dramatic stakes. It feels more like a revue than a play, or like an unnecessarily long-winded excuse for the final, well-turned concluding monologue by a heretofore marginal character (a speech delivered with admirable understatement by director Brian Katz). (Avila)

Law and Order: San Francisco Unit: The Musical! EXIT Theater, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Mon, 8pm. Through Nov 15. Funny But Mean comedy troupe extends its newest show at a new venue.

Mary Stuart The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. (also Wed/27, Nov 3; 7pm). Through Nov 7. Shotgun Players presents Friedrich Schiller’s historical drama, directed by Mark Jackson.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 10th St; (8008) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 19. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Proof Exit Stage Left Theatre, 156 Eddy; www.belljartheatre.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/30. Bell Jar Theatre presents David Auburn’s award-winning play.

*The Real Americans The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 6. The fifth extension of Dan Hoyle’s acclaimed show, directed by Charlie Varon.

*SHIToberfest Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/30. This special October run of PianoFight’s bowel-loosening comedy series, the S.H.I.T. Show (for acronym fans, that’s the Stop Hating Imagination Time Show), revolves dizzyingly around the subject of beer, Germans and, perhaps less explicably, flatulent dolphins, among much else in the wide open seas of poor taste. Is it hilarious? It is. And you don’t even need to smuggle in a forty to make it so, though it certainly doesn’t hurt. Fine comic acting throughout a charismatic cast (including writer-director-producers Alex Boyd, Zach Cahn, Jed Goldstein, Ray Hobbs, Devin McNulty, Evan Winchester and Duncan Wold, with help from Nicole Hammersla, Gabrielle Patacsil, Rob Ready, Derricka Smith, Andy Strong, Jacque Vavroch and Dan Williams) combines here with generally solid to exceptional sketch work, video and song. Add in a permeating spirit of revelry, debauchery and irreverence and the evening becomes a diversion of the first order, culminating in an utterly sacrilicious sketch about a bunch of toasted beer-brewing monks treated to a papal visit—one of the best venial sins for your buck. When it comes to Octoberfesting this year, “Bavaria” is just S.H.I.T.–faced for Bay Area. (Avila)

Shocktoberfest!! 2010: Kiss of Blood Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm (Thurs/28-Sun/31 include performances of The Forsaken Laboratory by the Brazilian Grand Guignol group Vigor Mortis). Through Nov 19. Thrillpeddlers’ seasonal slice of eyeball is comprised of three playlets variously splattered with platelets, all directed by Russell Blackwood and bridged by a rousing burst of bawdy song from the full cast. Rob Keefe’s Lips of the Damned (after La Veuve by Eugene Heros and Leon Abric) takes place in a rat-infested museum of atrocities just before the fumigating starts, as an adulterous couple—comprised of a kinky married lady (a vivacious Kara Emry) and a naïve hunk from the loading dock (Daniel Bakken)—get their kicks around the guillotine display, and their comeuppance from the jilted proprietor (Flynn DeMarco). Keefe’s delightfully off-the-wall if also somewhat off-kilter Empress of Colma posits three druggy queens in grandma’s basement, where they practice and primp for their chance at drag greatness, and where newly crowned Crystal (a gloriously beaming Blackwood) lords it over resentful and suspicious first-runner-up Patty Himst (Eric Tyson Wertz) and obliviously cheerful, non-sequiturial Sunny (Birdie-Bob Watt). When fag hag Marcie (Emry) arrives with a little sodium pentothal snatched from dental school, the truth will out every tiny closeted secret, and at least one big hairy one. Kiss of Blood, the 1929 Grand Guignol classic, wraps things up with botched brain surgery and a nicely mysterious tale of a haunted and agonized man (Wertz) desperate to have Paris’s preeminent surgeon (DeMarco) cut off the seemingly normal finger driving him into paroxysms of pain and panic. Well-acted in the preposterously melodramatic style of the gory genre, the play (among one or two other things) comes off in a most satisfying fashion. (Avila)

Sunset Limited SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $40-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm. Through Nov 6. This 2006 play by Cormac McCarthy exhibits some of the best and worst of the celebrated author, but significantly more of the latter. It sets an aging white academic and failed suicide (Charles Dean) in a room with his rescuer and would-be savior, a poor black social worker (Carl Lumbly), who has just snatched him from a railway platform ahead of a tête-à-tête with a train called the Sunset Limited. Both characters remain nameless, emphasizing the abstract pseudo-Socratic dimensions attendant on the dialogue-driven realism here (staged with a knowing wink in director Bill English’s scenic design, a partially walled wood-framed shack with see-through slits between the thin horizontal planking). The black man is a born-again Christian and ex-con convinced Jesus has just given him a major assignment. His dogmatic certainty is matched by the white man’s nihilism and despair. “I believe in the primacy of the intellect,” the miserable prof tells his host, who’s locked the door on his self-destructive guest in an effort to buy time to change his mind. Leaving aside the historically clichéd, problematic and baggage-heavy dynamic of a poor black American devoted to the welfare of a rich white one, neither man moves from his respective position one inch (at least until perhaps and partially at the very end), which constrains the dramatic development. Moreover, both sides argue feebly, mainly by gainsaying whatever it is the other one says, making this not a great intellectual debate either. SF Playhouse’s production sets two fine actors at this heavy-handed twofer, but little can be done to redeem so static and arid an exercise. (Avila)

Susie Butler Sings the Sarah Vaughan Songbook Exit Theater Cafe, 156 Eddy; (510) 860-0997, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Sat, 8:30pm. Through Nov 20. Local actress and singer Susie Butler takes on the Sassy songbook.

Zombie Town Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.stagewerx.org. (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sun/31, 5pm). Through Sun/31. Catharsis Theatre Collective presents a documentary play about zombie attacks in Texas.

BAY AREA

*Compulsion Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-85. Dates and times vary. Through Sun/31. Director Oscar Eustis of New York’s Public Theater marks a Bay Area return with an imaginatively layered staging of Rinne Groff’s stimulating new play. Compulsion locates the momentous yet dauntingly complex cultural-political outcomes of the Holocaust in the career of a provocative Jewish American character, Sid Silver, driven by real horror, sometimes-specious paranoia, and unbounded ego in his battle for control over the staging of Anne Frank’s Diary. A commandingly intense and fascinatingly nuanced Mandy Patinkin plays the brash, litigious Silver, based on real-life writer Meyer Levin, a best-selling author who obsessively pursued rights to stage his own version of Anne Frank’s story. The forces competing for ownership of, and identification with, Anne Frank and her hugely influential diary extend far beyond her father Otto, Silver, or the diary’s publishers at Doubleday (represented here by a smooth Matte Osian in a variety of parts; and a vital Hannah Cabell, who doubles as Silver’s increasingly alarmed and alienated French wife). But the power of Groff’s play lies in grounding the deeply convoluted and compromised history of that text and, by extension, the memory and meanings of the Holocaust itself, in a small set of forceful characters—augmented by astute use of marionettes (designed by Matt Acheson) and the words of Anne Frank herself (partially projected in Jeff Sugg’s impressive video design). The productive dramatic tension doesn’t let up, even after the seeming grace of the last-line, which relieves Silver of worldly burdens but leaves us brooding on their shifting meanings and ends. (Avila)

Dracula Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW, www.centerrep.org. $36-42. Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2:30pm (also Nov 20, 8pm). Through Nov 20. Eugene Brancoveanu stars as the Count in a production directed by Michael Butler.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Dates and times vary. Through Nov 21. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

*The Great Game: Afghanistan Roda Theatre, 201 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $17-73. Call for times. Through Nov 7. Berkeley Rep presents the West Coast premiere of a three-part show about Afghanistan.

*Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 13. Ann Randolph’s acclaimed one-woman comic show about grief returns for its sixth sold-out extension.

Superior Donuts TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/31. This latest from Tracy Letts (August: Osage County, Killer Joe) starts out as a delicious treat but a hollowness in the center of it all leaves one less than fully unsatisfied. Director Leslie Martinson’s cast shines, however, as the action unfolds in crisp, engaging scenes set in the titular run-down donut shop in Chicago’s slowly gentrifying Uptown neighborhood. Owner-operator Arthur Przybyszewski (Howard Swain) is an aging baby boomer and second-generation Polish immigrant who fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft and returned years later to take over his parents shop, alienated and hesitant, though well liked by his regulars. At least most: As the play opens his shop has been vandalized. Two beat cops are on the scene, James (Michael J. Asberry) and Randy (Julia Brothers), the latter eventually displaying a visible crush on an oblivious, then discombobulated Arthur. When an impressive young African American man named Franco (Lance Gardner) comes in and charms his way into a job, Arthur gradually finds himself drawn out of his shell and faced with the challenge of valuing another human being more than his own hide—a challenge underscored by Arthur’s several monologues, in which his personal history comes to the fore. The play feels pat and a little lazy-sentimental in the end, but there’s no denying the entertainment afforded here, especially by the magnetic pairing of leads Swain and Gardner. (Avila)

Winter’s Tale Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-5999, www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sun/31, Nov 7, and Nov 14, 2pm; Nov 18, 8pm). Through Nov 20. Actor’s Ensemble of Berkeley presents the rarely-performed Shakespeare play.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Beloved: A Requiem for Our Dead” CELLspace, 2050 Bryant; (510) 207-6101. $10-20. Fri/29, 8pm. Mangos With Chili presents a night of conjuring, memory, mourning and celebration.

“The ChatRoulette Halloween Show” Makeout Room, 3225 22nd St; www.chatrouletteshow.com. $12-15. Sat/30, 7:30pm. The Illuminated Theater presents a special Halloween edition of its show.

Alicia Dattner Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission; (917) 363-9646, www.aliciadattner.com. $20. Fri/29, 8pm.

“Fright Nights at the Wharf” Castagnola’s, 286 Jefferson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm. An evening of stand-up comedy by the water.

“Ghost Stories and other Horrors!” Jellyfish Gallery, 1286 Folsom; www.firesidestorytelling.com. $5. Wed/27, 8pm. Fireside Storytelling presents an evening of ghoulish tales.

“Kaleidoscope Cabaret” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Sat/30, 8pm. An evening of drag, burlesque, song, and aerial art by performers of color.

“Karaghiozis Saves the Economy” Hallidie Plaza, Market and 5th; 648-446, www.shadowlight.org. Free. Sun/31, 7pm. A Greek shadow theatre performance by Leonidas Kassapides.

“Make Drag, Not War!” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St; www.dancemission.com. $15-20. Sun/31, 8pm. A drag show and dance party hosted by Artist Malcolm Drake.

“MUNI Diaries Live!” Makeout Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.munidiaries.com. $5. Fri/29, 7:30pm. An evening of MUNI stories.

“Road trip to Pluto” 4 Star Theatre, 2200 Clement; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $9.99-12. Thurs/28, 8:30pm. Bitter Show reprises its contribution to the SF Fringe Fest.

“Romane Event Comedy Show: Super Special Election and Halloween Edition” Makeout Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.pacoromane.com. Wed/27, 7:30pm. Paco Romane’s guests include Will Durst, Casey Ley, Grant Lyon, and Pamela Ames.

Devendra Sharma CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.counterpulse.org. $14-24. Thurs/28-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/31, 2pm. CounterPULSe’s “Performing Diaspora” program presents a contemporary take on Nautanki theater by Sharma.

“Stories From a Haunted Forest” Presidio’s Log Cabin, 1299 Story; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Free. Sat/30, 7pm. Bindlestiff Studio presents a one-night-only phantasmic experience.

“Teatro Zinzombie!” Pier 29 at Battery; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. 117-167. Sun/31, 5:15pm. TeatroZinzanni is haunted for one night.

Trailer Park Boys Palace Fine Arts Theatre, 3601 Lyon; 567-6642, www.ticketmaster.com. $45-58. Thurs/28, 7:30pm. The fabled boys appear live in concert.

“Twilight Vixen Revue” SOMArts, 934 Brannan; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $12. A special Halloween edition.

“Upper Cut” The Dark Room, 2263 Mission; www.darkroomsf.com. $10. Thurs/28, 8pm. A weekly improve and sketch comedy open mic.

BAY AREA

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley campus, Berk; (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org. $31-68. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm. The acclaimed dance company performs some West Coast premieres.

“Persephone’s Boots” Codornices Park, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Wed/27-Sun/31, 5:30pm. Ragged Wing Ensemble presents the world premiere of a performance created by Anna Schneiderman and the ensemble.

 

 

Music

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

WEDNESDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Boom Boom Satellites Independent. 8pm, $15.

Bring Me the Horizon, August Burns Red, Emarosa, Polar Bear Club, This is Hell Regency Ballroom. 6:30pm, $20.

Castles in Spain, Sea of Sorrow, Gun and Doll Show, Pollux, Ol’ Cheeky Bastards, Katie Garibaldi Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $8.

Decry, Snake Mountain, Ruleta Rusa Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Fun., Steel Train, Jarrod Gorbel Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Future Night, Blackbird Blackbird Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Get Offs, Blowie! Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5-7.

Hawksley Workman, Ian Fays, Red Verse Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Insomniacs Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Midnight Strangers, Red Yellow Blue, Nectarine Pie Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Misisipi Mike’s Honky Tonk Night Time Band, Grand Nationals, Jeanie and Chuck’s Country Roundup El Rio, 8pm, $5.

Poor Bailey, Foxtails Brigade, Il Gato Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

Star Fucking Hipsters, Monster Squad, Static Thought Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

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

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

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

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big Eagle, Caleb Coy, D. Lee Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

“Blues at the Grammys” Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Isobel Campbell Ameoba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 7pm, free.

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Willy Mason Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $19.

Dirty Filthy Mugs, Death Valley High, FlexXBronco, Box Squad, Rock Fight Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Henry Clay People, Dig, Hundred Days Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Jeffrey Jerusalem, Brainstorm, Safe Milk. 8pm, $5.

K’Naan, Paper Tongues Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Liberation Institute, Annie Bacon and Her O-Shen, Terese Taylor, Seedy Naturalists El Rio. 9pm, $8.

UNKLE, Sleepy Sun Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

VersaEmerge, Anarbor, Dangerous Summer, Conditions Café Du Nord. 7pm, $12.

Zinc Finger, Bigelows Treehouse, Emily Zisman Hotel Utah. 8pm, $7.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Dirty Dishes 009 Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.dirtydishesdjs.com. 9pm, $3. With Gordon Gartress, DJ Diagnosis, and Jive.

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

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

SFSU International Halloween Party DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $20. With Fans of Jimmy Century, Glass Feather, and Nervous Factor.

FRIDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Boy in the Bubble, Ready! Ricochet, Poor Sweet Creatures Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Built to Spill, Revolt Revolt, Finn Riggins Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Grady Champion Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Death Hymn #9, Midnite Snaxx Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Deerhunter, Real Estate, Casino vs. Japan Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $17.

Elle Nino, Hold Me Luke Allen, Club Crashers El Rio, 9pm, $3-5.

Foreverland Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $35.

Free Energy, Foxy Shazam, Hollerado Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Grass Widow, Bar Feeders, Lou Lou and the Guitarfish Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $8. Book release party for Heart Transplant by Andrew Vachss.

Kindness and Lies, Leathers, Monbon, Mic Danja Rock-It Room. 9pm, $10. Also with Craft, DJ Madd Hatter with Rey Resurreccion, Paulie Rhyme, and Nero.

Lotus, Mux Mool Independent. 9pm, $20.

Of Montreal, Janelle Monae Warfield. 9pm, $32.

Joe Pug, Nik Freitas, Two Sheds Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

“SF Zombie Prom” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.zombiepromsf.com. 8pm, $15. With Stompy Jones and the Hi-Rhythm Hustlers.

Super Diamond, Pop Rocks Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

*Thrones, Acid King, Christian Mistress Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bitches Brew Revisited Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-65.

Dave Mihaly’s Shimmering Leaves Ensemble, Cylinder Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.davemihaly.com. 8pm, $10.

8 Legged Monster Coda. 10pm, $10.

Leo Kottke Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $32.

Kronos Quartet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $30.

Savanna Jazz Trio Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

All Hallow’s Eve DNA Lounge. 9pm, $13. Halloween party with Decay, BaconMonkey, Joe Radio, and more.

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

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

Fake Blood, Huoratron Mezzanine. 9pm.

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

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Icee Hot featuring L-Vis 1990, Low Limit, Ghosts on Tape, Disco Shawn, Rollie Fingers Elbo Room. 10pm. Electro.

Live 105’s Subsonic Spookfest Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF; www.livenation.com. 6pm, $50. With Underworld, Moby, MSTRKRFT, DJ Shadow, Booka Shade, and more.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing The Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Teenage Dance Craze Halloween Monster Party Knockout. 10pm, $4. Twist, surf, and garage with DJ Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw, plus a live performance by Girlfriends.

SATURDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Apples in Stereo, Fol Chen Independent. 9pm, $15.

*Cattle Decapitation, Devourment, Knights of the Abyss, Burning the Masses, Son of Aurelius, Slaughterbox Thee Parkside. 8:15pm, $12-15.

Dead Souls, Spellbound, Lisa Dewey and the Lotus Life Elbo Room. 10pm, $8-10.

Deerhunter, Real Estate, Casino vs. Japan Slim’s. 9pm, $17.

Fucking Buckaroos, Jesse Morris and the Man Cougars, Thee Heartbeats El Rio. 10pm, $7.

Love is Chemicals, HIJK, Donts, Jake Mann and the Upper Hand, ’86 Mets Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Nellie McKay Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30.

Kate Nash, Peggy Sue Warfield. 9pm, $25.

Super Diamond, Erasure-esque Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Tiny Television, Ferocious Few, Steve Pile Band Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Justin Hellman Coda. 7pm, $7.

Omara Portuondo Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-75.

Primavera Latin Jazz Band Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Arturo Sandoval Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-75.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Big Top Hallo-Weenie Party Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.joshuajpresents.com. 9pm, $5-10. With Kidd Sysko and DJ Jinks.

Blow Up SF: Halloween Special Edition Kelly’s Mission Rock, 817 Terry Francois, SF; www.blowupsf.com. 9pm, $10-20. Jeffrey Paradise and Ava Berlin host a Haunted Mansion party.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-20. Halloween mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Cramps Night Knockout. 9pm, $3. Halloween jams with Djs Sergio Iglesias, Okie Oren, and Lisa.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.sanfrancisco.going.com/gobang. 9pm, $5. Atomic dancefloor disco costume party with Andre Lucero, Glenn Rivera, and more.

Hov-O-Ween Medici Lounge, 299 Ninth St, SF; www.medicisf.com. 10pm, $5. Gloom, doom, and boom with DJs Voodoo, Purgatory, and Unit77.

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

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

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

SUNDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Burned Out Basements, Trainwreck Riders, Velveteen Habit, Dead Westerns, Beet the Meatles, Human Condition Bottom of the Hill. 6:30pm, $10.

Lucha VaVoom Fillmore. 8pm, $32.50.

Mig 21 with Jiri Machacek, DJ Che Café Du Nord. 8pm, $25.

Nobunny, Uzi Rash, Apache, Monster Maus, Tumor Boys Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12.

Parties, Lotus Moons Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Ghosts and Jazz” Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $5-20. With Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu.

Valeriana Quevado, Larry Vuckovich, Buca Necak, Sanna Craig Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

Trumpetsupergroup Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, SF; www.theintersection.org. 2pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino!, Rito Reinoso y su Ritmo y Armonia, DJ Specific Independent. 8pm, $17.

Back 40, Carburetors Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Danilo El Rio. 4pm, $8.

La Mission Band Roccapulco, 3140 Mission, SF; www.roccapulco.com. 3pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Halloween Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and guests Spit Brothers with Bakir and Dubsworth.

45 Club Halloween Party Knockout. 10pm, free. Funky soul with dX the Funky Gran Paw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.

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

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

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

Pachanga Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa with DJs Fab Fred and Antonio with Los Compas.

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

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

Trannyshack: Halloween DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $20. With special guest Julie Brown and hosts Peaches Christ and Heklina.

MONDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Asteroid 4, Lovetones, Fauna Valetta, Spyrals Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Enter Shikari, Haste the Day, Sleeping With Sirens, Ms. White Slim’s. 7pm, $16.

Ingrid Michaelson, Guggenheim Grotto Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

Stone Temple Pilots Warfield. 8pm, $52.50-65.

White Denim, Zodiac Death Valley Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild: Day of the Dead Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

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

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

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

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aural Logic Sound System/Back Beat Coda. 9pm, $5.

Bloody Beetroots DeathCrew 77 Mezzanine. 8pm, $25.

Robbie Fitzsimmons, Emily Greene Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Ian Fays, Calorifer is Very Hot Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Gary Numan Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

Tokeson, Candelaria Elbo Room. 9pm, $7-10. Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Laura Veir and the Hall of Flames, Leslie Stevens and the Badgers Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

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

 

 

Seeing spots

Andrew Lam
-
0
Seeing spots

arts@sfbg.com

Jancar Jones Gallery might be no larger than most gallery kitchens, but New York City-based artist Bill Jenkins has created the illusion of more space within it through very simple means. For his solo show “Lids and Dots,” he irregularly spray painted black polka dots across the gallery’s white walls, evoking Yayoi Kusama’s spot-covered installations from the 1960s as well as Keith Haring’s doodled-over interiors from two decades later.

The dots, especially when gazed at from the corner of one’s eye, make the gallery’s tiny dimensions seem more malleable. They curve corners rather than cut them, and their irregular placement suggests protrusion or indentation where there is actually only flatness.

This play off the given shape of a space is taken up in the exhibit’s other titular component. Made from papier-mâché, sometimes studded with debris and small objects from his studio, Jenkins’ coral-like “lids” sit atop a variety of everyday domestic vessels: a filing tray, a small plastic waste basket, a bowl — that have themselves been placed on white plinths.

The juxtaposition of Jenkins’ handmade components with the mass-produced products they only haphazardly cover is funny and strange. But the absurd pairings also raise the more serious question — echoed in Jenkins’ transformation of the exhibition space itself — of what happens when functionality is no longer a self-apparent quality of a thing but becomes something to be discovered in-process or, perhaps, to discard altogether.

THAR SHE BLOWS

Narwhals are the sort of animals that seem too strange to actually exist yet are that much more fantastic because they do. The same could be said of Seth Koen’s wonderfully suggestive wood sculptures at Gregory Lind, currently on display in a show that takes its inspiration from the small Artic whale, and its singular spiraling horn (actually a tooth).

Koen carves and planes his pale maple and basswood pieces into smooth planks with soft, curved edges that typically bend 90 degrees at a certain point. Their placement on the walls or floor, along with their titles, suggest various marine mammals, or the sort of tools that ancient fisherman would use to hunt those very same creatures.

With its two dowel-like appendages poking from what resembles the joined back and seat of a chair turned upside-down, Tusk sketches a walrus with but the simplest lines. So, too, does Selkie, with its upturned spire, evoke the titular shape-shifting seal of Celtic lore, as well as the horned creature from which the exhibit takes its name and creates a strange new adjective: “Narwhellian.”

It is a fanciful variation on “Orwellian,” as well as a repudiation of that word’s sinister connotations of control and manipulation. Koen’s sculptures, whose simple shapes are at once unspecific and particularly evocative, welcome a freedom of interpretation. Almost toy-like, they invite play.

I WANT CANDY

If you don’t get your candy fix this Halloween weekend, be sure to browse the rainbow-colored confections at Scott Richards Contemporary Art when the group show “Sweet Tooth” opens Nov. 4.

Your eyes will probably hurt as much as your teeth after taking in so many glossy, photo-realistic depictions of sugar, as well as its cheaper, government subsidized imitations. There are paintings of candy drops, a cocktail umbrella-topped mountain of sorbet, a truly dubious Jell-O mold, and a package of colorfully iced cookies (Daniel Douke’s Invasion) that resembles an edible version of one of Warhol’s Flowers silkscreens. The effect is one of brightly hued and cutely packaged obscenity.

There’s even some old fashioned, Easy-Bake sexism courtesy of pop pin-up artist Mel Ramos, whose Reese’s Rose features a busty brunette emerging from a Reese’s candy bar wrapper, à la Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Katy Perry should hit him up for her next album cover.

Wayne Thiebaud’s 1970 gouache painting Study for Gumball Machine is remarkable for its vivid two-dimensionality, reducing the spherical nature of its subject to colors and mostly straight lines. Dimension is drawn in, but Thiebaud’s line and color combinations create an aura around the gumball machine rather than convey its seeming tactile immediacy.

Thiebaud’s study lacks the glossy shellac that drips across the other works in “Sweet Tooth.” It is a useful reminder that we can’t always get what we want. 

BILL JENKINS: LIDS AND DOTS

Through Nov. 13

Jancar Jones Gallery

965 Mission, Suite 120, SF

(415) 281-3770

www.jancarjones.com

SETH KOEN: NARWHELLIAN

Through Dec. 11

Gregory Lind Gallery

49 Geary, Fourth Floor, SF

(415) 296-9661

www.gregorylindgallery.com

SWEET TOOTH

Nov. 4–Dec. 31

Scott Richards Contemporary Art

251 Post, Suite 425, SF

(415) 788-5588

www.srcart.com

 

 

Dancing with the dark

Andrew Lam
-
0
Dancing with the dark

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Kazuo Ohno, who died this past June at 103, probably received the broadest exposure of his long career when Antony and the Johnsons chose Naoya Ikegami’s black and white Ohno portrait as the cover art for their 2009 album The Crying Light. Shot in profile, wearing a black dress with a cluster of white flowers pinned in his hair, the visibly aged Ohno — his head tilted back, mouth slightly agape, and hands thrust forward like twisted branches — appears frozen somewhere between ecstasy and his last breath.

The image captures something of the powerful ambiguity of Ohno’s solo performances, in which he frequently embodied female characters. Beneath the What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? pancake makeup and vintage rags, Ohno — one of the founders of the postwar Japanese dance-theater form butoh — could still convey great tenderness as well as sorrow, and that it was possible to laugh in the dark while struggling through it. It is Ohno’s undeniable humanism that courses through Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ retrospective of films documenting his life and practice, with an accompanying performance run by acclaimed butoh troupe Sankai Juku.

Known for its evocations of darkness and decay, butoh came about as an artistic response to the horrors of the World War II, horrors Ohno had experienced first-hand when he was held for two years as a prisoner of war in China and New Guinea while serving as an intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army. Ohno’s first solo performance, Jellyfish Dance, given in Tokyo in 1949, was a reflection on the burials at sea he witnessed on board a vessel bearing captives to be repatriated to Japan. Ohno was 43 years old.

In the audience that night was the much younger artist Tatsumi Hijikata, who was entranced by Ohno’s performance. The two spent the next several years developing what was to become known as Ankoku Butoh-ha, “the dance of darkness.” Although Hijikata choreographed many of Ohno’s performances from the 1960s on, he became known for his grotesque and boundary-pushing performance style, whereas Ohno developed a more introspective, sometimes even delicate approach.

Ohno was born on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. His life changed in 1926 when, while still a student at the prestigious Japan Athletic College in Tokyo, he attended a performance by the Argentinean flamenco dancer Antonia Mercé, who would become the subject of his 1977 magnum opus Admiring La Argentina. Soon after he began to study with the modern dance pioneers Baku Ishii and Takaya Eguchi, while teaching physical education at a private Christian school in Yokohama — a position he held until the 1970s when he momentarily retired from public performance.

Although his choice of characters and costuming frequently drew attention to his aging body, Ohno was an indomitable performer. Even when he was confined to a wheelchair, late in his life, Ohno was still determined to use his body as a means of expression. The documentary An Offering to Heaven focuses on a remarkable 2002 collaborative performance with ikebana master Yukio Nakegawa, in which Ohno brought to life a dream he had in which a million tulips were cast from a helicopter, by dancing under a shower of flower petals and rain using only his upper body.

When he could no longer use his hands, he would dance with his eyes. On his death bed, he claimed that he would continue to dance with his breath until he exhaled for the final time. 

“Remembering Kazuo Ohno”

Nov. 4-21, $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

 

Hey boo

Andrew Lam
-
0
Hey boo

marke@sfbg.com

Time to slice some holes in a bedbugged sheet and hack through this year’s Phantasmatorium of Flabberghastly Fantastic Halloween Parties. Our chilling soundtrack is provided by terror-iffic local post-electro haunter oOoOO, who’s being broomed into the contentious new witch house subgenre, but who sends his own unique shiver down the spines of my stiletto eyeballs. You go, ghoul. (That joke kills me every time.)

Find oOoOO’s ghoulish tunes at www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkw

POPSCREAM

Long-running 18+ mainstay Popscene unleashes the horror, the horror of Brit pop bliss on a suspecting crowd of young fabs. DJs Omar and Aaron Axelsen bloody the decks — and this is the official warm-up party for the huge Spookfest at Cow Palace (www.cowpalace.com), so you know there’ll be special guests. Thu/28, 9 p.m., $10. 330 Ritch, SF. www.popscene-sf.com

DEBASER HALLOWEEN

The city’s best alternative retro-’90s club is reaching into the mothballs and pulling out the flannel and the neon — look out it’s gonna be a warehouse party theme! That’s right, rave meets grunge for all you young freaks. DJ Chris Orr makes sure it’s all quality. OMG free Glo-Stiks while they last. Dress up, peeps. Fri/29, 9 p.m., $5. 111 Minna, www.111minnagallery.com

DEATH BY DISCO

Calling all pink furry freaks and majik man-moths — inimitably beastly Burner crew Pink Mammoth hosts a night of chunky techno with an arsenic lace of dubstep. Phantasmic DJs Gravity and Jdub Ya whip your wool into a frenzy. Fri/29, 9 p.m., $5. Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.pinkmammoth.org

ICEE HOT HALLOWEEN

The scariest thing about this party is how good the music’s gonna be: Ghosts on Tape, L-Vis 1990, SBTRKT, Rollie Fingers, and Disco Shawn bring the down-low future funky for a cute crowd that creeps. Fri/29, 10 p.m., $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

NINJA TUNE XX

Everybody freak out! The 20th anniversary party for headtrip-tastic label Ninja Tune comes equipped with massive heavy hitters Amon Tobin, Kid Koala, DJ Food, Eskmo, and tons more — this isn’t necessarily a Halloween party, but it’ll tear you up nonetheless. Fri/29, 9 p.m.–4a.m., free with RSVP at website. 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com/onezerothree

ONRA

French future funkster who Frankensteins J Dilla slickness, Dam Funk sizzle, and Flying Lotus sass performs live with Buddy Sativa on synths. Boo-gielicious all-vinyl Sweater Funk crew warms up the operating tables. Fri/29, 10 p.m.–late, $10. SOM, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com

GO BOO!

It’s a disco bloodbath, hawney. Legendary old-school disco and hi-NRG DJs Glenn Riviera, Andre Lucero, and Steve Fabus join Sergio Fedasz for an amped up version of monthly mirrorball extravaganza Go Bang! Sat/30, 9 p.m.–late, $5 (free until 10) Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com

BIG TOP HALLOWEENIE

It’s a major electro-pop sausagefest (with a fab crowd redeeming the buzzsaw tunes), as this monthly circus-themed queer hoo-haw stuffs it up your Motel Hellhole. Highlights: Drag rapper Kalisto and witchy mama Mutha Chuka perform, and Tweeka Turner hosts a haunted crackhouse upstairs. Sat/30, 9 p.m.–late, $5. Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF. www.joshuajpresents.com

BLOW UP HAUNTED MANSION

Arise, ye amped-up ghosts of electro bangers, throw on your uber-stylish dancing togs, and make the scene, as the raucous Blow Up crew conjures its annual Halloween bash. Plus: full blown costume contest. Sexytime, sexytime. Sat/30, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $10–$20. Kelly’s Mission Rock, 917 Terry Francois Blvd., SF.www.blowupsf.com

DAS KLUB

Um, how could we argue with a “20,000 Homos Under the Sea” theme (insert seamen crack here). Bathhouse disco captain DJ Bus Station John joins forces with queer punk Hey Sailor crew to swab your alternaqueer poop deck. Sat/30, 10 p.m., $5 in costume, $7 without. Das boo! Club 93, 93 Ninth, SF.

HAUNTED TEMPLE

Local dance-rock fixture Jaswho? celebrates the release of his electrofied new album Nudroid Musik by performing live at this hair-raising affair, with backup from DJs Paul Hemming, Brian Salazar, and many more as Temple becomes a haunted graveyard. Sat/30, 10 p.m., $30. Temple, 540 Howard, SF.www.templesf.com

LESBO BLOODBATH IV

Sapphic spooks and gore-geous lesboos haunt the girlicious Lexington Club, with rockin’ DJs Jenna Riot and LA’s Miss Pop. Killin ’em Kelsey hosts the costume contest for amazing prizes, and I’m totally going as Vagina Den-Tatas, grrrl. Sat/30, 9 p.m., free. Lexington Club, 3161 19th St., SF.www.lexingtonclub.com

TABOO HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA

Soulful house godfather David Harness wowed the pants off ’em at the Fag Fridays reunion a couple weeks ago, follow him deeper at this installment of his lovely mixed Taboo monthly. Now with more spooky! Sat/30, 9 p.m., $10. Eve Lounge, 575 Howard, SF. www.eveloungesf.com

HALLOWEEN: A PARTY!

The name may be laughable generic (irony kills!) but the shindig’s anything but/butt: Peaches Christ and Trannyshack’s Heklina bring you a nightmarish night of outsized drag gutsiness, with tons of psycho performers and special guest Julie Brown. “Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun” — and she gonna pop yo ass. Sun/31, 9:30 p.m.–3 a.m., $20 advance. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST COCKTAILGATE

Suppositori “Skeletor” Spelling and her kooky coven of trash-drag underlings happily horrify you with a scary movie-themed night of pustulent performances and Satan-knows-what-else. Bring a towel and scream in it. Sun/31, 9 p.m., $4. Truck, 1900 Folsom, SF. www.trucksf.com

 

 

Cash not care

Andrew Lam
-
5
Cash not care

sarah@sfbg.com

With the general election just days away, campaign disclosure reports show that downtown interests are spending huge amounts of money to create a more conservative San Francisco Board of Supervisors and to pass Proposition B, Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s effort to make city workers pay more for their pensions and health insurance.

Much of the spending is coming from sources hostile to programs designed to protect tenants in the city, including rent control and limits on the conversion on rental housing units to condominiums. An ideological flip of the board, which currently has a progressive majority, could also have big implications on who becomes the next mayor if Gavin Newsom wins his race for lieutenant governor.

At press time, downtown groups were far outspending their progressive counterparts through a series of independent expenditure committees, most of which are controlled by notorious local campaign attorney Jim Sutton (see “The political puppeteer,” 2/4/04) in support of supervisorial candidates Mark Farrell in District 2, Theresa Sparks in District 6, Scott Wiener in District 8, and Steve Moss in District 10.

Prop. B has also been a big recipient of downtown’s cash, although labor groups have pushed back strongly with their own spending to try to kill the measure, which is their main target in this election.

But the biggest spender in this election appears to be Thomas J. Coates, 56, a major investor in apartments and mobile homes and a demonstrated enemy of rent control. He alarmed progressive groups by giving at least $250,000 to groups that support Farrell, Sparks, Wiener, Moss, and Prop. G, legislation that Sup. Sean Elsbernd placed on the ballot to cut transit operator wages and change Muni work rules.

Although Coates declines to identify with a political party on his voter registration, he donated $2,000 to President George W. Bush in 2004. More significantly, he was the biggest individual donor in California’s November 2008 election, when he contributed $1 million to Prop. 98, which sought to repeal rent control in California and limit the government’s right to acquire private property by eminent domain.

Coates, who is also a yachting enthusiast and sits on San Francisco’s America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC), donated $100,000 on Oct. 20 for Farrell, $45,000 for Sparks, $45,000 for Moss, and $10,000 for Wiener through third-party independent expenditure committees such as the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth.

The group has already received thousands of dollars in soft money from the San Francisco Police Officer’s Association, the Building Operators and Managers Association, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers, which supports a high-end hospital and housing complex on Cathedral Hill.

Those downtown groups have spent close to $200,000 on English and Chinese language mailers and robo calls in support of Sparks, Wiener, and Moss in hopes of securing a right-wing shift on the board.

Progressive groups including California Nurses Association, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and the SF Labor Council have tried to fight back in the supervisorial races. While downtown groups spent more than $100,000 promoting Sparks in D6, labor and progressive groups spent $13,000 opposing Sparks and $72,000 supporting progressive D6 candidate Debra Walker.

In D8, progressive groups that include teachers, nurses, and transit riders have outspent the downtown crowd, plunking down $40,000 to oppose Wiener and $90,000 to support progressive candidate Rafael Mandelman. So far, downtown groups have spent about $100,000 to support Wiener.

But in D10, the district with the biggest concentration of low-income families and communities of color, downtown interests spent $52,000 supporting Moss and $5,000 on Lynette Sweet while the Tenants Union was only able to summon $4,000 against Moss. The SF Building and Construction Trades Council spent $4,000 on Malia Cohen.

But that’s small potatoes compared to what downtown’s heavy-hitters are spending. The so-called Coalition for Sensible Government, which got a $100,000 donation from the San Francisco Association of Realtors, has already collectively spent $96,000 in support of Sparks, Wiener, Moss, Sweet, Rebecca Prozan in D8, Prop. G and Prop. L (sit-lie) and to oppose Prop. M (the progressive plan for police foot patrols) and Prop. N (a transfer tax on properties worth more than $5 million).

The Coalition for Responsible Growth, founded by Anthony Guilfoyle, the father of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ex-wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle (who now works as a Fox News personality), has received $85,000 from the Committee on Jobs, $60,000 from the Realtors, and $35,000 from SF Forward. It has focused on spending in support of Prop. G and producing a voter guide for Plan C, the conservative group that supports Sparks, Wiener, Sweet, and Moss

Coates’ donations raise questions about his preferred slate’s views on tenant and landlord rights. A principal in Jackson Square Properties, which specializes in apartments and mobile homes, Coates is the founding partner of Arroya & Coates, a commercial real estate firm whose clients include Walgreens, Circuit City, and J.P. Morgan Investment Management. In 2008, when he backed Prop. 98, Coates told the San Francisco Chronicle that rent control “doesn’t work.”

Ted Gullicksen, director of the SF Tenants Union (SFTU), which has collectively spent $30,000 opposing Sparks, Wiener, and Moss, is disturbed that Coates spent so much in support of this trio.

“Coates was the main funder of Prop. 98,” Gullicksen explained. “His property is in Southern California. He’s pumping a lot of money into supervisors. And he clearly has an agenda that we fear Moss, Sparks, and Wiener share — which is to make the existence of rent control an issue they will take up in the future if elected to the board.”

That threat got progressive and labor groups to organize an Oct. 26 protest outside Coates’ San Francisco law office, with invitations to the event warning, “Be there or be evicted!”

Sparks, Moss, and Wiener all claim to support rent control, despite their support by someone who seeks to abolish it. “I answered such on my questionnaire to the SFTU, which chose to ignore it,” Sparks told the Guardian via text message. “In addition, I’ve been put out of apartments twice in SF, once due to the Ellis Act. They ignore that fact as well.”

Records show that in May 2009, Moss — who bought a rent-controlled apartment building near Dolores Park in D8 for $1.6 million and he lived there from the end of 2007 to the 2010, when he decided to run for office in D10 — served a “notice to quit or cure” on a tenant who complained about the noise from Moss’ apartment. Ultimately, Moss settled without actually evicting his tenant.

“I read about Coats’ [sic] contribution in Bay Citizen,” Moss wrote in an e-mail to the Guardian. “This donation was made to an independent expenditure committee over which I have no control and almost no knowledge. I have stated throughout the campaign, and directly to the Tenants Union, that I believe current rent control policy should remain unmolested.”

But Moss is with downtown on other key issues. He supports Newsom’s sit-lie legislation and the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners Association, whose endorsement he previously called a “mistake.”

Yet Moss, who sold a condo on Potrero Hill in 2007 for the same price he paid for the entire building in 2001, seems to voice more sympathy for property owners than renters, who make up about two-thirds of city residents. He told us, “Landlords feel that they are responsible for maintaining costly older buildings and that they are not provided with ways to upgrade their units in ways that share costs with tenants.”

Another realm where downtown seems to be trying to flip the Board of Supervisors on a significant agenda item is on health care, particularly the California Pacific Medical Center proposal to build a high-end hospital and housing project on Cathedral Hill in exchange for rebuilding St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission.

The project has divided local labor unions. UHW supports the project and a slate of candidates that its parent union, Service Employees International Union, is opposing through SEIU Local 1021, which is supporting more progressive candidates. The California Nurses Association also opposes the project and candidates such as Wiener who back it.

“A recent mailer by CNA falsely says that CPMC is closing St. Luke’s and Davies,” CPMC CEO Warren Browner recently complained in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. “We are not. We are committed to building a state-of-the-art, high-quality replacement hospital at St. Luke’s and continuing to upgrade Davies.”

But the CPMC rebuild is contingent on the board approving the Cathedral Hill project. So the CNA mailer focused on what could happen if the city rejects the CPMC project: “We could lose two San Francisco hospitals if Scott Wiener is elected supervisor.”

SEIU-UHW’s alliance with downtown groups and its use of member dues to attack progressive candidates places it at odds with SEIU Local 1021 and the SF Labor Council, which has endorsed Janet Reilly in D2, Walker in D6, Mandelman in D8, and Cohen (first choice) and Chris Jackson (second choice) in D10.

“We’re really disappointed that there are labor organizations that feel they have to team up with Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which is against health care [it challenged the city’s Healthy San Francisco program all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court], and with CPMC, which is working to keep nurses from joining a union,” Labor Council Director Tim Paulson said. “This alliance does not reflect what the San Francisco labor movement is about.”

Paulson said that the Labor Council values “sharing the wealth … So we don’t want Measure B [Jeff Adachi’s pension reform] or K [Newsom’s hotel tax loophole closure, which has a poison pill that would kill Prop. J, the hotel tax increase pushed by labor] or L [Newsom’s sit-lie legislation],” Paulson said.

CPMC’s plan is headed to the board in the next couple months, although Sup. David Campos is proposing that the city create a health services master plan that would determine what city residents actually need. Hospital projects would then be considered based on that health needs assessment, rather than making it simply a land use decision as it is now.

Moss told the Guardian that UHW endorsed him because of his positions on politicians and unions. “I agreed that politicians should get not involved in union politics,” Moss said. “The United Healthcare Workers seem to be a worthy group,” he added. “All they said was that they wanted to make sure that they had access.”

But CNA member Eileen Prendiville, who has been a registered nurse for 33 years, says she was horrified to see UHW members recently oppose Campos’ healthcare legislation. “I was shocked that they were siding with management,” she said.

Prendiville believes UHW is obliged to support CPMC’s Cathedral Hill plan, which is why it is meddling in local politics. In his letter to the board, Browner noted that his company and its parent company, Sutter Health, can’t legally do so directly. “The fact is that CPMC and Sutter Health are 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, nonpartisan organizations, and we neither endorse nor contribute to candidates,” Browner wrote.

“When UHW settled its contract with its members [as part of its fight with the rival National Union of Healthcare Workers], they had to publicly lobby for Cathedral Hill,” Prendiville claimed.

SEIU 1021 member Ed Kinchley, who works in the emergency room at SF General Hospital, is also furious that UHW is pouring money into downtown’s candidates and measures. “UHW isn’t participating in the Labor Council, it’s doing its own thing,” he said.

Kinchley said UHW, which is currently in trusteeship after a power struggle with its former elected leaders, is being controlled by SEIU’s national leaders, not its local membership, which explains why it’s aligned with downtown groups that have long been the enemy of labor.

“Sutter wants a monopoly on private healthcare and people like Rafael Mandelman and Debra Walker have been strong supporters of public healthcare,” Kinchley said. “I want someone who can straight-up say, here’s what’s important for families in San Francisco, especially something as important as healthcare. But it sounds like UHW is teaming up with the Chamber and supporting people who are not progressive.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mad hatter

Andrew Lam
-
0
The mad hatter

 

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I had a coffee date after work in Alameda. He wasn’t feeling well and wondered about chicken soup. I knew exactly what to tell him, and he invited me to come along, but got it to go.

“Do you want a drink?” he said, while we were waiting.

I liked the guy alright, but don’t drink before dinner.

When his soup came, he walked me to my bike and gave me a hug.

“Let me know what you think of the soup,” I said. The place was La Piñata, but it said something else on it. It still said La Piñata, but it just also said I-forget-what. Some other name. So maybe it was La Piñata, and maybe not. But, hey, I get sick too, and what if my favorite bowl of chicken soup in Alameda is not what it used to be?

These were the thoughts I was thinking. Honestly, I knew I wasn’t going to see the guy again, datewise. I just wanted to know about the soup. In retrospect, of course I should have just ordered a bowl, to stay, and sent him packing.

I remember why I didn’t. I had to get to Deevee’s house in downtown Oakland to pick up/borrow my/her pink cowboy hat before she went to sleep. This was important because I was going camping the next day, and Deevee goes to sleep early. So no matter how hungry I was (very very), I had to suck it up, bike to BART, BART to downtown Oakland, bike to Deevee’s, and bike back toward BART on an empty stomach.

All for the sake of a pink cowboy hat. What can I say? I have a huge fucking head, and this is one of only two hats I have found in my life that fits it. It’s good to have a cowboy hat when you go camping. Keeps the sun off your ears, the rain out of your eyes, and the pine needles out of your hair — and if it’s pink it might even make you popular with park rangers.

Just a thought.

Thinking which, I forsook a bowl of sit-down soup to get to Deevee’s before bedtime (hers). Then, on my way back to BART, I thought I would duck into the first restaurant I saw for a quick little bite of something-or-other.

Binh Minh Quan. Vietnamese. Downtown Oakland just a couple blocks shy of BART on 12th Street. It was after 9 p.m. so the place was more than half-empty.

Me, I rarely want to eat in a hurry, but I do, on occasion, have low blood sugar meltdowns that — as many of my friends will attest — can get a little dicey. Usually I manage to keep the dice in my head. I just quietly go crazy, lose my sense of self and direction, then, glazed and psychotic, stagger to the nearest refrigerator and eat every single thing in it in 30 seconds or less. Blink, everything’s okay again, give or take a little heartburn.

I’ve learned to stave off these attacks by eating five meals a day and snacking in between. But sometimes when I’m at work, dating over coffee, or on an urgent hat-related mission — not to mention all three back-to-back — shit happens.

Wouldn’t you know it? The cute little staff of Binh Minh Quan, on this particular evening, was entirely overwhelmed by a party of seven. It took them almost 15 minutes to take my order, and another 20 or so to bring me my bun. Meanwhile, I tried to distract myself by talking local politics to my hat in a Cookie Monster voice, but under my breath.

Finally! The bun was of course great, but no way is this my New Favorite Restaurant. No. My New Favorite Restaurant is the guy at El Rio who makes fry bread, or Indian tacos, on Monday nights. His name is Rocky, he recently transplanted himself here from Arizona, and I think he might be Apache or else maybe I got that wrong.

Any case, I’ve run into him twice, once on the sidewalk and once on the El Rio patio, and both times he made my day. His savory fry bread, stacked with beans, cheese, and onions, transports me back to Delta’s Depression Dough, and breakfast.

And that’s a great place to start. 

ROCKY THE FRY BREAD GUY @ EL RIO

Mon. 8 p.m. until he runs out of dough

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

Cash only

Full bar

 

 

Dia de los San Franciscanos

Andrew Lam
-
0
Dia de los San Franciscanos

 

caitlin@sfbg.com

ARTS AND CULTURE Rene Yañez, the godfather of San Francisco’s Dia de los Muertos, is showing off the art for his new 3-D altar. The artist is hardly one to adhere to traditions, though he played a large role in creating one of the city’s most distinctive and popular interpretations of another country’s cultural celebrations.

Yañez’s elastic sense of the holiday’s expression mirrors the way his city has interpreted the Mexican holiday. Traditionally, Dia de los Muertos marks the time of year when the boundaries of the dead and living blur. Towns south of the border celebrate the day (which was synced with All Saint’s Day by the Catholic Church to capitalize on the cultural resonance of an indigenous celebration) by decorating the graves of loved ones with favorite treats and trinkets of those who’ve passed on.

But kicking the bucket doesn’t preclude your party pass on Dia de los Muertos. “The whole point of Day of the Dead is that we’re honoring death but mocking it,” says Martha Rodriguez, a Mexico City musician who curates the Dia de los Muertos San Francisco Symphony family concert that celebrates this year’s centennial of the Mexican Revolution.

“Through all the uprisings and death, there’s always space for fun,” Rodriguez says. “That’s kind of how Mexicans survive — we do not stop celebrating.”

Perhaps it’s the mix of spiritual connection, gravity, and levity — not to mention the stylin’ calaveras and brightly-colored floral iconography — that has made the celebration resonate here. The city hosts what is arguably the largest Muertos festivities in the country, featuring altar displays at SOMArts, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and Garfield Park, as well as a procession that organizers expect to attract 100,000 participants.

Yañez and son Rio are the curators of the SOMArts’ epic yearly altar installation — an atmospheric production that transforms SOMArts’ drafty main hall into a series of reflective spaces that pay homage to fallen family members, casualties of natural disasters, manmade conflict, and even beloved gatos who have gone to that litter box in the sky.

The elder Yañez’s involvement with SF Dia-ing goes back to the early 1970s when he was artistic director at Mission’s Galeria de la Raza, a time when the neighborhood was absorbing political exiles from political strife in South and Central America. A way to observe the day of remembrance was needed. “We talked about creating a ritual, a ceremonial exhibit,” he says.

At first it was people from the neighborhoods who came to see the altars put together by the de la Raza artists. But eventually, word spread. “The exhibit proved very popular and the schools started coming around,” Yañez remembers.

The altars were a way of talking about Mexican culture and the Galeria started to print lesson plans for teachers. Eventually Yañez organized a procession through the neighborhood, like the ones held in Mexico. The first year, which current procession organizer Juan Pablo tells me was 1978, attracted somewhere between 75 to a few hundred people. But that was going to change.

“It’s the one thing that unites us, the cycle of life and death,” Pablo said in a phone interview. The thousands who attend these days see far more than traditional Mexican spirituality, Pablo said, with Wiccans marching in the parade, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence granting indulgences, and tributes being paid to issues worse than old age and mortality. Last year, for example, a walking altar called attention to the 5,000 unsolved assassinations of women in the Mexican border town Juarez.

Any description of SF’s festivities would be remiss if it didn’t mention the influx of Burning Man culture, with its preponderance of elaborately-costumed young people, the stilters, and the skeletons.

They make for a visually stunning event but produce ambivalent cultural connotations. Local blogs have facetiously proclaimed that with the entrenched multiculturalism of SF’s Dia, the holiday celebrations can be more appropriately titled “Day of the Dead Gringos.”

Rio Yañez grew up during this evolution. “The neighborhood’s changed so much, the parade is a reflection of that,” he says. “It’s a way of sharing culture. Even with all the drunk hipsters just having a good time marching, there’s still a good community spirit.”

That’s not to say there isn’t disagreement over how the holiday should be celebrated here. A dispute over who is the source of police complaints about overcrowding and public drunkenness led to a split between Juan Pablo’s collective’s march and the Marigold Project’s altar installations in Garfield Park. “They want to create a party atmosphere, and that’s not what it’s about,” Pablo said. “It’s about honoring the dead.

“The procession is a moving target without any of the hassles of a fixed location,” replies Kevin Mathieu, Marigold Project organizer.

Maybe nothing is ever completely at rest in a San Francisco — even the dead are caught in the winds of our city’s ongoing envisioning of the our culture’s true nature.

 

 

Alerts

Andrew Lam
-
0

news@sfbg.com

THURSDAY, OCT. 29

Bert for BART

BART board candidate Bert Hill, who is endorsed by a broad array of progressive organizations in his bid to unseat Republican incumbent James Fang, will be campaigning and meeting commuters along with several of his campaign’s supporters.

4:30–7 p.m., free

Balboa Park BART Station

401 Geneva Ave., SF

www.bert4bart.org

FRIDAY, OCT. 29

Halloween Critical Mass

Find a costume, hop on your bicycle, and join the monthly Critical Mass bike ride, Halloween edition. This rolling street party is always a fun way to flip the normal transportation paradigm, but it’s even more festive when composed of zombies, naughty nurses, and sexy cops.

6 p.m., free

Justin Herman Plaza

Market and Embarcadero

www.sfcriticalmass.org

Zombie Flash Mob

Guardian sources have warned that a mob of zombies, possibly dressed in prom attire, will rampage through the streets of the Mission. They are said to be protesting being marginalized and are showing their solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Eventually, our sources say, they will converge at El Rio, 3158 Mission St., for a zombie prom featuring live music by Elle Niño and others, with a cover charge of $3 for the undead and $7 for the living.

8 p.m., free

Corner of 16th and Mission, SF

elleninosf@gmail.com

SUNDAY, OCT. 31

(SF) Rally to Restore Sanity

If you can’t make it to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity and the March to Keep Fear Alive, the send-up of political events by Comedy Central satirists Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, you can still take part in SF’s local version. The event include guest speakers, comedy, poetry, and dancing.

9 a.m.–3 p.m., free

Civic Center Plaza

Larkin and Grove, SF

www.sfsanityrally.com

MONDAY, NOV. 1

Urban Water Rates

Panelists from the industry will seek to answer whether water pricing at the urban water agency level can work as a water conservation tool, whether rate increases jeopardize revenue, and how to serve low-income and low-use customers. RSVP at info@whollyh2o.org.

1 p.m.–3 p.m., free

Jellyfish Gallery

1286 Folsom, SF

www.whollyh20.org

TUESDAY, NOV. 2

Election Day

This election features pivotal races for the governor of California, U.S. Senate, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors, as well as important local and state propositions, so don’t forget to vote. Use this week’s cover as a cheat sheet or view our complete endorsements. Also visit the Guardian’s Politics blog on Election Day for a rundown on the evening parties and follow our live election coverage there that night.

7 a.m. to 8 p.m., free

SF City Hall basement

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

www.sfgov.org/elections

 

 

Rev. Billy exorcises the demon sit-lie measure

Sasha Cuttler
-
17
Rev. Billy exorcises the demon sit-lie measure

This afternoon in the Mission District, a crowd gathered to bear witness to an exorcism. Reverend Billy had come from New York City to banish the demon from SF. That demon was Prop L, an unholy measure to ban people from communing on San Francisco’s sidewalks.
“The only fundamentalism is the absence of fundamentalism!” bellowed the Rev. Bill, a former San Francisco performance artist turned pastor of NYC’s Church of Life After Shopping (which was in town to perform tonight (Mon/26) at the Victoria Theater for its Earth-a-llujah, Earth-a-llujah Revival Tour).

Rev. Billy cited constitutional dicta on behalf of civil rights: that we are all, even those without addresses, equal. The good reverend followed with a defense of the unadulterated and often unpredictable daily experience out there on the streets of San Francisco, apt to shape a human in good and thoughtful ways, that would find itself stifled if city regulations seep onto our sidewalks.

Rev. Billy’s choir ended his sidewalk sermon with a song that repeated, “Speaking freely sets us free,” and whose chorus built to:
“Standing up in public space…
Breaking in to public space…
Shouting out in public space!”

Sup. John Avalos spoke after Rev. Billy, and no sooner had he taken the mic than he accused Police Chief George Gascon of suffering a demon of his own: “hubris.” Avalos referred disapprovingly to Gascon’s previous attempts to tackle drugs and Critical Mass, the city’s monthly bicyclist phenomenon.

In reference to Prop L, Avalos shared that when he came to San Francisco, he knew “three people, had $1,000 in my pocket,” but would have been sleeping on the street if not for a friend’s couch and kindness. He called San Francisco a “sanctuary city,” where people can “find a pathway in life to something better, like I did.”

Gabriel Haaland, a Haight neighborhood resident and labor leader, took the mic and proclaimed that “I am, we are, you are, the riff raff! Because the rent is too damn high.” He questioned whether some have taken to the streets partially because of San Francisco’s high cost of living.

SF resident Selina Gomez Sutton said of Prop L: “a San Francisco without street performers and musicians? Crazy.”
But Prop L is also about something other than civil rights, street-side music, and “cleaning up” Haight Street. It’s also about tolerance.

Tellingly, just a few feet away from, and entirely throughout, Rev. Billy’s sermon, a man sat nearby barking and shouting gruffly at apparently nothing but for what (he must have thought) were good reasons indeed. I was there the entire time, and can say that not one attendee told him to stop. Perhaps they were simply jaded to such conduct — or perhaps it was because they respected his right to exist.

Hold onto yer Wiggs, change comin’ to Western Addy

Andrew Lam
-
0
Hold onto yer Wiggs, change comin’ to Western Addy

Morgan Fitzgibbons isn’t thinking small when it comes to goals for his Western Addition sustainability group, the Wigg Party. “We want to make our community a leader in the transformation in resilience,” he tells me during our coffee date to discuss the group’s upcoming anti-boycott “carrotmob” at Matching Half Cafe (Sat/23). 

It’s no coincidence that his language sounds a little new age-y. The basis for Fitzgibbons’ vision for the Wigglers seems grounded in the PhD of Philosopy, Cosmology, and Consciousness he received at California Institute for Integral Studies. “We’re these sacred beings,” he tells me earnestly of his San Francisco community. “This is a sacred movement – I want people to look back in a hundred years and see that.”

Woo-woo? Well yeah, but hold your jaded mutterings until you hear what the guy’s done with his convictions in “cosmological evolution,” as he puts it. Fitzgibbons has assembled a core group of Western Addition residents who operate in four different arenas of turning the area around SF’s “Wiggle” (the well-trafficked bike route through the Panhandle and between the hills in Lower Haight and Duboce Triangle) into a leader in scaled-back, neighborhood-focused living.

Bicycling barristers: Morgan Fitzgibbons and Wigger Dave Bryson on a city-wide urban farms bike tour. Photo by Jenny Sherman

Their areas of attack, you ask? There’s a sustainable business group, who works on incentives for local outfits that find ways of greening their ways. For example, this Saturday’s carrotmob (you can read more about the nationally recognized concept here) is a concentrated effort to storm Matching Half’s doors with business in support of their pledge to buy a bike trailer to transport farmer’s market-purchased goods, switch to organic milk, and chuck the plastic wrap for reusable food containers. 

There’s also a local food group who works with local markets to freecycle unpurchased produce at the neighborhood’s Hayes Valley Farm, a “rescaling” group focusing on ways to limit commercial consumption, and the Wiggle Transformers, who are collaborating with the SF Bike Coalition on the Wiggle portion of their Connecting the City Initiative, a comprehensive plan to improve bike passage throughout San Francisco.

Like I said, comprehensive. And most of the core group – which Fitzgibbons pegs at around 20 party members – are under 30 years old. Which is neat-o, and most likely made possible by the group’s party ethos when it comes to fighting for what they believe. I mean, I say fighting but I think I really mean loving, or something equally hippie. A bunch of them live in a place called the Sunshine Castle, for god’s sakes, where they throw “shenanigans” (according to Fitzgibbons) after-parties for their events, like the recent 10/10/10 day of action that saw the Wigglers conduct a 50-60 person bike tour of the city’s urban farms and a coordinated garden plant in collaboration with Kitchen Garden SF. 

In the works are plans for a Bernal Bucks-esque local currency, which the group hopes will inspire Western Addition residents to patronize more heavily the wealth of small businesses along the Divisadero Corridor and surrounding areas (holler, happy hour at Bean Bag). 

Fitzgibbons says the hyper-localism of the Wigg Party is perfectly suited for the history and relative youth of the Western Addition neighborhood.

The Wiggle itself provides a apt symbol for the group. The Wiggle Transformers’ work is making bike traffic better for everybody, but also a physical passage that Fitzgibbons hopes will say “you’re stepping into a different place now” to bikers entering the Western Addition.

“San Francisco has always been a seed of revolution,” he reflects. “Of the younger neighborhoods – the Mission and Western Addition – Western Addition is a lot less nihilistic. With University of San Francisco near the area, there’s always going to be a lot of young people living out here, and that’s who our message resonates with. It’s such a new community.”

This last comment raises a red flag in my mind. The parties, the bike tours, it all sounds grand, but given that all this is coming from a twenty-something guy with a complicated mullet and a hoody, how much does the Wigg Party truly represent the Western Addition, an area that’s been wracked by recurring waves of gentrification and is subject, like everywhere else in the city these days, to ever-increasing rent prices and displacement of long time residents? Despite the free food at Hayes Valley, are we being sustainable, or are we being hipster-sustainable? 

“To be a truly successful movement, we’ll have to organize everybody,” Fitzgibbons says, who himself has lived in the neighborhood for three years. Among those that regularly attend Wigg meetings, there is but one long-time resident, he tells me, who plays an active role advising on how to better integrate with the neighborhood’s ongoing goals and activities. Past that, “there’s tacit support among the long-term residents, and we get a lot of family participation in our Wiggle events,” Fitzgibbons tells me.

But I trust that he’s learning as he goes. After all, in explaining his philosophy on activism to me, Fitzgibbons appropriates that sustainability champion himself: Socrates. “The only thing I know is I don’t know everything,” he smiles. “We don’t have to have all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, but we can whip up excitement and hopefully inspire people to do this in their communities. Create that showcase.” And if figuring it all out looks like a party in the streets, sayeth the Wigglers, so be it. 

Wigg Party Carrotmob

Matching Half Cafe

Sat/23 3-6 p.m., free

1799 McAllister, SF

www.wiggparty.org

 

Appetite: Three beef sandwiches that get it right

Andrew Lam
-
0

In today’s Appetite installation, Virginia Miller ranged near and far (in a fabulous pair of vintage pumps, as is her wont) in search of the meatiest hunk of sandwich available for hungry city souls. Sink your teeth into one while watching your — cross your fingers — new league champion baseball team. Go Gigantes! 

1. Deli Board’s Boca 

You’ll do a double take when arriving at the address given for SoMa’s Deli Board. The window is lined with butcher paper, giving the place an under-construction look. Per building owner’s rules, you can’t even step inside the entrance of the building but must wait on the sidewalk to get your sandwich, soup, or salad. But once you do, Deli Board’s friendly staff ensures that you get a sandwich hot off the grill, freshly made within the last few minutes. Their Boca sandwich ($9) is a triple beef threat with brisket, corned beef, pastrami, delicately sliced in a sweet French roll with Muenster cheese, pickles and brown mustard. Though I could have used more of their “board sauce”, the beef is perfection, melting warm in my mouth: feathery light, yet dense and meaty with a radiant, multi-color meat ranging from pink to brown.

1080 Howard Street, SF

(415) 552-7687

www.deliboardsf.com

Deli Board’s three-beef bomb, the Boca Source. Photo by Virginia Miller

2. Refuge’s roast brisket of beef

The famed pastrami sandwich at San Carlos Belgian beer bar and sandwich-burger joint, The Refuge, deserves the accolades. But equally worthy is their roast brisket of beef ($12). The beef is layered on warm bread in tangy sweet Carolina-style sauce with a lather of horseradish cream to give the already addictive beef even more lusciousness.

963 Laurel Street, San Carlos 

(650) 598-981

www.refugesc.com


3. Sycamore’s roast beef sandwich

Sycamore is a cozy little cafe on Mission Street, the kind of neighborhood joint where quality beers, wines, happy hour prices and sliders (I like the BLT slider) keep you coming back. But the real highlight is Sycamore’s famous roast beef sandwich ($8) on grocery store-reminiscent sesame buns with BBQ sauce and mayo, a sandwich that pays tribute to the roots of native Bostonian owners. The beef is pink, thinly sliced, soft but hearty, and dissolves in your mouth. Eating it makes me feel like a kid again.

2140 Mission, SF

(415) 252-7704

www.thesycamoresf.com

 

Right back atcha, Big Brother

Andrew Lam
-
1

I’ve been dabbling in dystopia of late. A little Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, a little Brazil (1985) and bam! I’m up to my ears in fears of bureaucracy and government subterfuge and omnipresence – as if that’s a new thing. 

But on the real, it is a bit discomfiting, the similarities between our culture’s visions of the fall. This discomfort sharpens with “black sites” researcher Trevor Paglen‘s monograph Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes (Aperture), an eerie book of photos and artifacts that acts like a show-and-tell of why we can’t trust The Man to level with us. Paglen will be presenting it at City Lights – those anarchos, of course! – Thurs/21.

“There are many kinds of invisibility. There is the invisibility of what is so taken for granted that few see it, the custom of the country, the water in which the fish swim. Thus to perceive that the U.S. is an empire on a permanent wartime basis is to be alien to, or become alienated from, the mainstream.”

So says writer Rebecca Solnit in her introduction to Invisible, which happens to be an excellent sourcebook for those wishing to be party to this alienation themselves. The book is a product of years of research on the part of Paglen, and is mainly comprised of photos he managed to take of things we are not supposed to see, like massive bunkers in the desert and streaking surveillance objects in the night sky. Though the photos – some taken from miles away, using high grade camera surveillance equipment – that Paglen has assembled of classified military compounds in the deserts of Southwestern United States are disturbing, what really got to me in his monograph were the badges. 

What in the god damn god damn? From left, military patches from an unknown mission, the Desert Prowler program, and the 1990s launch of an intelligent spacecraft. From Trevor Paglen’s Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes

A freaky-weird Illuminati eye shooting lightning bolts. A dragon wrapping its scaly body around a globe. Inexplicable star patterns. These are the images created for the insignia patches worn by personnel of our government’s top secret missions. Sure, we know a little bit about them – a woman’s golden umbrella is explained by Paglen to be a symbol for the gold plate satellite systems that a particular mission helped to install – but for the main part they seem to use American English to speak a language that the rest of us aren’t aware of. 

A world supported by taxpayers, yet not seen by them. It’s for our safety, right? Again, Solnit: “If war is an act of violence to compel others to do our will, you can speculate on how the American people have been essentially subjugated by the war economy to keep paying for it.”

Seen in this way, the research that Paglen does seems to be a form of liberation. Hours spent in libraries (some with SFBG contributor A.C. Thompson at his side) have yielded passports that show people that are not people – CIA operatives, in fact, charged with the disappearance of terror suspects. 

There are long exposure photos of classified satellites tearing through the sky. Some of these are quite lovely, a craggy, water-surrounded peak in one under a phalanx of light diagonal streaks in the sky above. There’s nothing lovely though, about the fact that amateur astronomer network The Other Night Sky (of which Paglen is a part) has identified almost two hundred secretly-purposed objects in our atmosphere, placed there by our government for reasons that surely have to do with eminent safety matters. Right?

This was the dillemma presented by Invisible. Meaning: if these things are indeed so ubiquitous and codified – water and war, in Solnit’s example — are they normal? Should we be worried? Should we all take to the hills of Nevada with a backpack full of digital cameras and squint mightily past lines of no-entry?

Maybe we’ll depend on Paglen to do it for the moment. And, of course, look at his photo books. 

Trevor Paglen: Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes

Thur/21 7 p.m., free

City Lights Bookstore

261 Columbus, SF

(415) 362-8193

www.citylights.com

 

1...120121122...201Page 121 of 201

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org