Mission Archives — Page 23 of 201 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Mantra from the Milk/Moscone memorial march: “Fight back!”

Sasha Cuttler

November 29, 2013

Mantra from the Milk/Moscone memorial march: “Fight back!”

Hundreds of activists and progressive San Franciscans marked the 35^th anniversary of the Mayor George Moscone and Sup. Harvey Milk assassinations on Wednesday night in the Castro with fiery speeches urging the crowd to “fight back!” against displacement and gentrification, conjuring the words and spirit of those slain leftist leaders.

“Gotta have hope just to stay alive,” the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang of Milk and his message on the 35^th anniversary of that chorus’ first performance, on the steps of City Hall on the day of the tragedy, belting out the refrain, “Gotta give ‘em hope.”

Despite the onslaught of evictions triggered by real estate speculators and the city’s current economic development policies, such as the tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks extended to Twitter alone, the defiant message from this podium did have an undercurrent of hope.

But that hope was predicated on people’s willingness to organize and engage in “a fight they started,” Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, said of Milk and Moscone, “a fight against gentrification and displacement.”

Yet Temprano also said that people have to feel stable and secure to really have hope: “You can’t have hope without a roof over your head. You can’t have hope without affordable housing. And that’s why we’re marching today.”

Temprano then played an old news clip of Milk talking about his own eviction from the camera store and apartment where he lived on Castro Street, the result of similar economic forces that are overtaking the city today.

Milk explained how San Francisco’s economy relies on local residents being able to earn a living wage and not pay too much of their incomes in rents. But when landlords gouge their tenants, they have less to spend in local businesses, “and sooner or later, that’s going to crunch the economy locally.”

One of the more fiery speeches of the evening came from Brian Basinger of the AIDS Housing Alliance, who used one of Milk’s signature lines when he said, “I’m Brian Basinger and I’m here to recruit you. I’m here to recruit you into a movement for housing justice that goes back decades.”

He cited the recent successes of that movement, from suing to stop CitiApartments from abusing and exploiting its tenants to stopping the 8 Washington luxury condo project when the voters overwhelmingly defeated Props. B&C this month.

“Housing rights are human rights,” Basinger said.

Housing activist Tony Robles, a board member of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, recalled being a student at Mission High School when the news of the assassinations was announced, an event that profoundly affected him. He said they represented “the spirit of community and the spirit of fighting for what is right.”

Robles called out Sup. Scott Wiener, a Milk successor representing the Castro, calling Wiener unworthy of that legacy, citing Wiener’s legislation allowing more apartments to be converted to condos and with closing the parks at night. “You were no Harvey Milk when you made that move, brother,” Robles said, closing with this hope: “Let the poetry of Harvey Milk’s struggle live on in the streets of San Francisco.”

Wiener and other politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee, Sen. Mark Leno, Board President David Chiu, and state Democratic Party head John Burton, spoke earlier in the day at a City Hall memorial. But they pointedly weren’t invited to the more raucous evening event (although Sup. David Campos, whose Assembly race against Chiu the Milk Club has endorsed, did show up to offer his silent support).

“Fuck you, we are staying!” was the message Shannell Williams, a San Francisco native and a rising young activist who came from the Save City College movement, had for city’s landlords and those who say low and middle income earners should just move to Oakland.

She and others recalled the message of love and inclusion that were hallmarks of Milk and Moscone’s political philosophy, as well as their belief in building coalitions to defeat powerful economic interests.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the SF Housing Rights Committee cited recent successes the movement has had in fighting back against evictions and said, “It’s because of the power we have as tenants when we unite and we fight back.”

He said that was Milk’s central message: “If we unite and fight, we can win.” And Mecca said San Francisco “doesn’t belong to greedy landlords, it belongs to all of us.”

Cleve Jones, an longtime LGBT activist who was an intern for Milk at the time of the assassinations, noted that, “There are some who will question our desire to raise political points tonight,” recognizing this occasion has usually been a solemn memorial march.

But he said that using this occasion as a vehicle for political organizing is the best way to honor the legacy of Milk and Moscone, who Jones said would be appalled by what’s happening in this city. Jones told the story of an aging gay activist who was recently depressed about being displaced from the city, and Jones tried to comfort him by saying, “It’s hard to get old in this town and see all the changes.”

It didn’t help: Days later, Jones said his friend committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.

“It’s not rhetoric and it’s not hyperbole. This destroys lives,” Jones said. It was a message repeated on a large banner carried by those leading the march to City Hall, which read, “Eviction=Death.”

The rally was closed out by members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who cited a long list of “weird, kooky artistic innovators” from San Francisco’s past, and said that, “They never could have afforded to live here today.”

Then the Sisters offered an invocation they called the “Rosary of Housing Evils,” asking the crowd to repeat the mantra “Save us from the speculators” between each of their prayers and observations for the city, which included:

“Harvey Milk was evicted from his home.”

“Extend rent control to all residential and commercial units.”

“Forty percent of queer seniors cannot afford their rents.”

“Rent has risen 21 percent this year.”

“We all need to stay together or they’ll pick us off one by one.”

Rep Clock: November 27 – December 3, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 27, 2013

Schedules are for Wed/27-Tue/3 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

“ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL” Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com. $12. Now in its 10th year, the festival highlights indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films, Nov 29-Dec 19.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “Other Cinema:” “Synth Britannia,” videos by Gary Numan, Human League, and others, plus live performances, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” Hugo (Scorsese, 2011), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. Circus Dreams (Taylor, 2011) Tue, 6.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. •Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964), Wed, 7, and Buffalo ’66 (Gallo, 1997), Wed, 9:20. The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), Nov 29-Dec 8, 7 (no evening show Sun/1; also Sat-Sun 1pm; no shows Mon/2-Tue/3 or Dec 6). Presented sing-along style; tickets ($10-15) at www.ticketweb.com. We Were Here (Weissman and Weber, 2011), Sun, 7. Screening in honor of World AIDS Day, with David Weissman and cast members in person.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. Running from Crazy (Kopple, 2013), call for dates and times. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013), Nov 29-Dec 5, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman, 1975), Sat, midnight.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. Keep the Promise: The Global Fight Against AIDS (Fockele and Smolowitz, 2013), Sun, 2.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Beauty and Sacrifice: Images of Women in Chinese Cinema:” Center Stage (Kwan, 1992), Fri, 7; In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000), Sat, 6:30. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975), Sat, 8:30. “The Resolution Starts Now: 4K Restorations from Sony Pictures:” Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962), Sun, 3.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Nov 29-Dec 5, call for times. Keep the Promise: The Global Fight Against AIDS (Fockele and Smolowitz, 2013), Sun, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: anders, Molussien (Rey, 2012), Fri, 7:30. With Nicolas Rey in person. “Films by Fassbinder:” Martha (1974), Sun, 2. *

Theater Listings: November 27 – December 3, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 27, 2013

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.

THEATER

OPENING

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/27, 7pm and Fri/29, 2 and 8pm. Opens Sat/30, 6pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (family/student matinee Dec 7, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 15. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Arlington Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28; also Dec 4, 2:30pm); Sun and Tue, 7pm (also Sun, 2:30pm; no 7pm show Dec 8); Through Dec 8. Magic Theatre performs Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s world-premiere musical.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm (no show Wed/27). Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Extended through Dec 17. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-210. Tue-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28; check website for matinee schedule); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 8. The Tony-winning Broadway revival launches its national tour in San Francisco.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Ideation Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $10-20. Wed-Thu, 7pm (no shows Thu/28 or Dec 4-5); Fri-Sat, 8pm (additional shows Sat/30 and Dec 7, 3pm). Through Dec 7. Next up in the San Francisco Playhouse “Sandbox Series” is this dark comedy from Aaron Loeb.

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Andy Gram and Roger Parsley’s adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s award-winning screenplay.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm (no show Thu/28); Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter and the Starcatcher Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $40-160. Wed/27 and Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm (also Wed/27 and Sat/30, 2pm); Sun/1, 2pm. Fanciful, Tony-winning prequel to Peter Pan.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Urge For Going Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $10-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 8. Jamila (Camila Betancourt Ascencio) is a bright student desperate to pass her college entrance examination — an unexceptional proposition in many places, but Jamila is a Palestinian raised in a Lebanese refugee camp. For her, even the right to take such an exam is in no way guaranteed and must be fought for. That Jamila’s struggles don’t end at the front door of her crowded home provides the basis for the drama in Mona Mansour’s 2011 play, Urge for Going, now receiving an uneven but sometimes moving West Coast premiere from Golden Thread (which last year produced The Letter, a short play co-written by Mansour, as part of its ReOrient Festival). Amid the makeshift walls, mismatched furniture, and exposed wiring of Kate Boyd’s evocative scenic design, Jamila lives with her austere father (Terry Lamb), a onetime literature scholar with a passion for Wordsworth; her supportive mother (Tara Blau); her father’s effusive loose-canon of a brother (Julian Lopez-Morillas); her mother’s brother (Munaf Alsafi); and her own big-hearted but haunted older brother (Wiley Naman Strasser), a once brilliant math student who suffered brain damage at the hands of a Lebanese soldier. But front and center is her father, whose barely cloaked disappointment and despair turn to recalcitrance and outright antagonism in the face of Jamila’s too-pointed desire to flee this hobbled world of exile for a wider world of possibilities. Directed by Evren Odcikin, the play’s sentimental naturalism (broken through at times by didactic direct address to the audience by the entire cast) makes what follows both too predictable and somewhat artificial. At the same time, Mansour carefully and revealingly couches her story in the political and existential limbo of multiple generations of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, deprived for over half a century of basic rights amid cramped poverty and deprivation. (Avila)

BAY AREA

A Bright New Boise Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-50. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 8. Faith can be a touchy subject among true believers and skeptics alike, and as long as the topic of religion is avoided (as it often is) you might not even know that your bus driver is Buddhist, or your checkout clerk born again. In Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, now playing at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, the line blurs between public face and private faith, as mysterious stranger Will (Robert Parsons) rolls into Boise and takes up employment at the Hobby Lobby, ostensibly to reconnect to his long-lost, given-up-for-adoption son, Alex (Daniel Petzhold). But when Will is revealed to be a former member of a disgraced Evangelical sect from “up North,” his sudden reappearance in Alex’ life appears to be motivated not by a long-standing remorse, but by a recent unmooring. Under Tom Ross’ direction, the other characters — a foul-mouthed store manager (Gwen Loeb), a painfully shy stock clerk (Megan Trout), and a confrontational sales associate (Patrick Russell) — appear similarly unmoored, careening into each other like jittery, neurotic pinballs, with about as much consideration. Only Parsons’ Will appears calm and deliberate in his actions, until he startlingly demonstrates otherwise. It’s an abrupt end to both the play and Will’s charade of normalcy, and neither Hunter nor Ross seem to know how to build up to his eventual fall naturally, ultimately allowing him to be defined only by his fanaticism rather than his humanity. (Gluckstern)

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 15. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

The Dining Room Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia, Piedmont; www.piedmontcenterforthearts.org. $25. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 7pm. Piedmont Avenue Repertory Theatre performs A.R. Gurney’s family dramedy, which features six actors playing 57 parts.

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 15. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

A King’s Legacy Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Elyce Melmon’s world premiere, a drama about King James VI of Scotland.

A Little Princess Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu-Fri, 7pm (Thu/28, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm (no 5pm show Sun/1). Through Dec 8. Berkeley Playhouse opens its sixth season with Brian Crawley and Andrew Lippa’s musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett story.

110 in the Shade Douglas Morrison Theatre, 22311 N. Third St, Hayward; www.dmtonline.org. $10-29. Fri-Sat and Dec 5, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 8. Douglas Morrison Theatre performs N. Richard Nash’s romantic musical, adapted from his classic play The Rainmaker.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 5 and Sat, 2pm; no shows Thu/28, Dec 24, or Dec 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Dec 15, 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. $20. This week: “DuoProv Championship,” Fri/29, 8pm; “Family Drama,” Sat/30, 8pm.

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun, 11am-noon. $8. Sun/1: Comedy improv with Kenn Adams Adventure Theater; Dec 8: “The Bubble Lady!”

“Cynic Cave” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; facebook.com/cyniccave. $10-12. This week: Dave Thomason, Emily Maya Mills, Sean Keane, Christian Duguay, and more, Fri, 8 and 10pm; Emily Heller and Jules Posner, Sat, 8 and 10pm.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/1, Dec 7, 15, 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“Guardianas de la Vida” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Sat/30, healing session 6pm; performance, 7pm. $15. Music, flamenco dance, and poetry performance in honor of San Francisco’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“Misery Index” Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.miseryindexcomedy.com. Mon, 8pm. Free. “Maladjusted mirth making” with comedians Matt Gubser, Natasha Muse, Ivan Hernandez, and others.

“The News: Fresh Queer Performance” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; somarts.org/thenews. Tue/3, 7:30-9pm. $5. Fresh queer performances by Bay Area artists.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Dec 6 and Jan 3, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Interactive interpretation of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 classic. (Some tickets include meatball sandwiches!)

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/27, 8-10pm. $10. Paco Romane hosts performances by Johnny Taylor, Mary-Alice McNab, Chris Riggins, and more.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“So You Think You Can Dance” Warfield, 982 Market, SF; fox.com/dance. Sat/30, 8pm. $52-68. Dancers from the Emmy-winning dance competition show perform.

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/29-Sun/1 and Dec 8 and 15, 2pm; Dec 5-6 and 12-13, 11am; Dec 7 and 15, 1 and 4pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

BAY AREA

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” This week: Bankhead Theater, 2400 First St, Livermore; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/29-Sat/30, 7:30pm (also Sat/30, 2pm). $40-60. Also Dec 11-14, 8pm (also Dec 14, 2pm); Dec 15, 2pm, $49-65, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; and Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

Film Listings: November 27 – December 3, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 27, 2013

Tough snowman Marshmallow is among the cast of characters in Disney’s new animated musical, Frozen, out Wed/27.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DISNEY

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, Sam Stander, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Black Nativity You have to hand it to director-writer Kasi Lemmons (2001’s The Caveman’s Valentine) for even attempting an adaptation of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity. The idea of recasting the original play’s straightforward hybrid of the nativity tale, gospel, and African folk traditions in contemporary Harlem as a spiffed-up urban street opera feels inspired, especially when the otherwise-familiar narrative is supercharged with emotion, thanks to Oakland-native music producer and co-composer Raphael Saadiq. The songs and their delivery make those moments when the cast members burst into song seem like the most natural thing in the world. The child rhapsodized about here is — wink, nudge — Langston (Jacob Latimore), who’s getting evicted along with his single mom, Naima (Jennifer Hudson). In an act of self-disgust, or grudging respect, she sends her feisty tween to stay with his estranged grandparents in NYC. Reverend Cornell (Forest Whitaker) and Aretha Cobbs (Angela Bassett) turn out to be proud pillars of their community, with deep connections to the Civil Rights movement, which Langston discovers when the stern Rev shows the boy his most prized possession: an engraved pocket watch given to him by Martin Luther King Jr. Alas, if Lemmons simply stuck to her present-day rework — and refrained from the self-consciously stagy Christmas dream sequences, which actually seem to hew closer to the original Black Nativity, break the momentum, and cue this operetta’s complete break with reality — this version would have fared much better than it does. Still, Black Nativity isn’t without its moments. Whitaker, playing against type and tasked with the heaviest acting effort, and particularly Bassett, who channels a fiery spirit via her upstanding matron to provide much-needed warmth, are mesmerizing, and though Mary J. Blige and Nas are unfortunately given little to do, Hudson pulls her weight, if not with acting, then with her sheer skill at conveying heartbreak amid the melismas. (1:33) (Chun)

Frozen The voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, and Jonathan Groff star in Disney’s animated musical inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. (1:48) Cerrito, Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck, Vogue.

The Great Beauty See “La Ho-Hum Vita.” (2:22) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Homefront It’s not clear if Jason Statham’s undercover DEA agent is retired, but after a major meth bust he loses his scraggly mop of hair and put-on accent to enter seclusion in a town “not far from Appalachia.” He’s taught his daughter well, but when she defends herself against a school bully, the family incurs the wrath of the local tweaker-tiger mom (Kate Bosworth). Tiger Mom’s brother is the local meth lord, Gator (James Franco). He’s in cahoots with the Sheriff (Clancy Brown) and aspires to the heights of the biker badass Agent Statham put away, so he causes trouble for Statham’s family. Winona Ryder, looking more like Cher’s kid than she did in 1990’s Mermaids, is the “meth-whore” who starts a bustling lab with her business-savvy BF, and while she’s hardly out-performing any of the cast, she’s definitely the film’s best character. This mess of wonky editing and absurd send-ups totally delivers on gags and explosions, and when Franco sees his future he looks at it like a CEO applying at Starbucks. His face says “What the hell happened?” but his mouth yells, regrettably, “Are you retarded?” (1:40) (Vizcarrondo)

Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? “I’m a leetle nervous,” French-accented Michel Gondry admits as he begins interviewing linguist and activist Noam Chomsky. Their chats make up this doc, aptly dubbed “an animated conversation” as it’s brought to life by the director’s whimsical animated drawings. The rambling convo (sometimes a lively back-and-forth, sometimes just Chomsky’s gravely voice pondering a topic at length) winds from autobiographical material — Chomsky’s earliest memory (a stubborn-baby moment in which he absolutely refused to eat oatmeal); his childhood ambitions of being a taxidermist (“Don’t ask me why! I guess I liked the word?”) — to more philosophical and intellectual topics. Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? might seem an offbeat choice for Gondry, but does he ever make any other kind of choice? This is, after all, the filmmaker who has maintained an edgy reputation throughout his varied career, from highlights (Björk’s “Human Behavior” video; 2005’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) to head-scratchers (2011 Seth Rogen superhero comedy The Green Hornet). (1:28) Roxie.

Oldboy In 2003, South Korean director Park Chan-wook released a modern masterpiece of harsh, misanthropic revenge cinema with Oldboy, a twisty and visually stylish adaptation of a Japanese manga. Ten years later, Spike Lee and screenwriter Mark Protosevich have delivered a recombinatory remake of the Korean film. It’s neither satisfying nor particularly infuriating — it plays with the elements of Park’s intensely memorable movie, alluding to scenes and images without always exactly reproducing them, and it makes a valiant effort to restore suspense to a story whose gut-wrenching twist has been slightly softened by a decade. But it’s much less visually engaging, replacing Park’s sinister playfulness with a blander, more direct action palette. Josh Brolin’s Joe Doucett is brooding and brutal, but not as sickly compelling as Choi Min-sik’s wild-eyed Oh Dae-su; Elizabeth Olsen is emotionally powerful as his helper and lover; and Sharlto Copley offers a bizarre, rather gross caricature as the scheming antagonist. (2:00) (Stander)

Philomena Stephen Frears directs Steve Coogan (who co-wrote the script) and Judi Dench in this drama about a journalist who helps an elderly woman find the son she was forced to give up for adoption 50 years earlier. (1:35) Albany, Embarcadero.

ONGOING

About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Vizcarrondo)

All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All Is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) Elmwood, Opera Plaza, SF Center. (Eddy)

The Armstrong Lie “This is a story about power, not doping,” a talking head points out in Alex Gibney’s latest doc, The Armstrong Lie. Gibney, an Oscar winner for 2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side, set out to make something more along the lines of The Armstrong Return, shadowing Lance Armstrong as he prepped for his 2009 Tour de France comeback. He envisioned crafting a “feel-good movie,” especially when Armstrong notched an impressive third-place finish — a feat intended to silence those performance-enhancing drug rumors once and for all. In the end, it only amplified the skepticism that loomed over his accomplishments. And as the evidence against Armstrong mounted, Gibney scrapped his original concept and went in a decidedly darker direction. Armstrong’s critics, interviewed for Lie, admit they spotted the acclaimed documentarian among Armstrong’s Tour de France entourage and feared he was “buying into the bullshit.” Among these voices are Armstrong’s former US Postal Service teammate, Frankie Andreu, and his wife, Betsy, who’d been excoriated by their former good friend and his supporters for speaking out against him. A feel-good movie, this is not. And ultimately, Gibney’s film probes deeper than Armstrong’s flaws; it’s careful to point out that drug use is widespread among professional cyclists, who are surrounded by an insular, high-stakes culture that encourages it. The sports world lives and dies by the next world record or superhuman achievement. Is it any wonder that elite athletes seek out that extra competitive edge? And that Armstrong, in fully-inflated ego mode, would believe he had the power to rearrange reality to keep his victories intact? (2:03) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Best Man Holiday (2:00) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Book Thief One of those novels that seems to have been categorized as “young adult” more for reasons of marketing than anything else, Markus Zusak’s international best seller gets an effective screen adaptation from director Brian Percival and scenarist Michael Petroni. Liesl (Sophie Nelisse) is an illiterate orphan — for all practical purposes, that is, given the likely fate of her left-leaning parents in a just-pre-World War II Nazi Germany — deposited by authorities on the doorstep of the middle-aged, childless Hubermanns in 1938. Rosa (Emily Watson) is a ceaseless nag and worrywart, even if her bark is worse than her bite; kindly housepainter Hans (Geoffrey Rush), who’s lost work by refusing to join “the Party,” makes a game of teacher Liesl how to read. Her subsequent fascination with books attracts the notice of the local Burgermeister’s wife (Barbara Auer), who under the nose of her stern husband lets the girl peruse tomes from her manse’s extensive library. But that secret is trivial compared to the Hubermanns’ hiding of Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), son of Jewish comrade who’d saved Hans’ life in the prior world war. When war breaks out anew, this harboring of a fugitive becomes even more dangerous, something Liesl can’t share even with her best friend Rudy (Nico Liersch). While some of the book’s subplots and secondary characters are sacrificed for the sake of expediency, the filmmakers have crafted a potent, intelligent drama whose judicious understatement extends to the subtlest (and first non-Spielberg) score John Williams has written in years. Rush, Watson, and newcomer Schnetzer are particularly good in the well-chosen cast. (2:11) Metreon, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Blue is the Warmest Color The stars (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) say the director was brutal. The director says he wishes the film had never been released (but he might make a sequel). The graphic novelist is uncomfortable with the explicit 10-minute sex scene. And most of the state of Idaho will have to wait to see the film on Netflix. The noise of recrimination, the lesser murmur of backpedaling, and a difficult-to-argue NC-17 rating could make it harder, as French director Abdellatif Kechiche has predicted, to find a calm, neutral zone in which to watch Blue is the Warmest Color, his Palme d’Or–winning adaptation (with co-writer Ghalya Lacroix) of Julie Maroh’s 2010 graphic novel Le Blue Est une Couleur Chaude. But once you’ve committed to the three-hour runtime, it’s not too difficult to tune out all the extra noise and focus on a film that trains its mesmerized gaze on a young woman’s transforming experience of first love. (2:59) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Rapoport)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Opera Plaza, Vogue. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) Elmwood, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) SF Center.

The Counselor The reviews are in, and it’s clear Ridley Scott has made the most polarizing film of the season. Most of The Counselor‘s detractors blame Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay, the acclaimed author’s first that isn’t drawn from a prexisting novel. To date, the best film made from a McCarthy tale is 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and The Counselor trawls in similar border-noir genre trappings in its tale of a sleek, greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets in way over his head after a drug deal (entered into with slippery compadres played by Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem) goes wrong. Yes, there are some problems here, with very few unexpected twists in a downbeat story that’s laden with overlong monologues, most of them delivered by random characters that appear, talk, and are never seen again. But some of those speeches are doozies — and haters are overlooking The Counselor‘s sleazy pleasures (many of which are supplied by Cameron Diaz’s fierce, feline femme fatale) and attention to grimy detail. One suspects cult appreciation awaits. (1:57) Metreon. (Eddy)

Dallas Buyers Club Dallas Buyers Club is the first all-US feature from Jean-Marc Vallée. He first made a splash in 2005 with C.R.A.Z.Y., which seemed an archetype of the flashy, coming-of-age themed debut feature. Vallée has evolved beyond flashiness, or maybe since C.R.A.Z.Y. he just hasn’t had a subject that seemed to call for it. Which is not to say Dallas is entirely sober — its characters partake from the gamut of altering substances, over-the-counter and otherwise. But this is a movie about AIDS, so the purely recreational good times must eventually crash to an end. Which they do pretty quickly. We first meet Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) in 1986, a Texas good ol’ boy endlessly chasing skirts and partying nonstop. Not feeling quite right, he visits a doctor, who informs him that he is HIV-positive. His response is “I ain’t no faggot, motherfucker” — and increased partying that he barely survives. Afterward, he pulls himself together enough to research his options, and bribes a hospital attendant into raiding its trial supply of AZT for him. But Ron also discovers the hard way what many first-generation AIDS patients did — that AZT is itself toxic. He ends up in a Mexican clinic run by a disgraced American physician (Griffin Dunne) who recommends a regime consisting mostly of vitamins and herbal treatments. Ron realizes a commercial opportunity, and finds a business partner in willowy cross-dresser Rayon (Jared Leto). When the authorities keep cracking down on their trade, savvy Ron takes a cue from gay activists in Manhattan and creates a law evading “buyers club” in which members pay monthly dues rather than paying directly for pharmaceutical goods. It’s a tale that the scenarists (Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack) and director steep in deep Texan atmospherics, and while it takes itself seriously when and where it ought, Dallas Buyers Club is a movie whose frequent, entertaining jauntiness is based in that most American value: get-rich-quick entrepreneurship. (1:58) California, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Delivery Man Twenty years ago David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) “put love in a cup” 600-plus times to finance a family trip to Italy. His mother was sick, his father couldn’t afford it, and with time running out, David embarked on a harebrained scheme to make (a lot of) “it” happen. The sperm bank that paid him $23K for his “seed” overused it, and 18 years later he has 533 kids, 143 of which are on a hunt to find their biological father, “Starbuck.” (This also the name of the 2011 Canadian comedy on which Delivery Man is based.) With a premise this quirky you’ll have a hard time finding something to hate, even if this is technically a film about runaway jizz. This heartwarming Thanksgiving release isn’t really appropriate for youngsters (unless you’re been trying to find a entrée to explain sperm banks) but the way Delivery Man deals with the seemingly limitless generosity contained in each of us is both touching and inspiring. Maybe David’s contribution to “Starbuck’s Kids” doesn’t obligate him to reveal his identity, but he’s desperately attached, and goes embarrassingly far outside his comfort zone to interact. The kids’ emotional stake in this is murky, but the way their search for identity finds a voice in tune with the current tech-confident yet socially-confused younger generation could make Delivery Man relevant to more generations than X or Y. (1:45) Elmwood, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Ender’s Game Those entering Ender’s Game in search of homophobic threads or politically unsavory themes will likely be frustrated. After all, Orson Scott Card — once a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, and here serving as a producer intent on preserving the 1985 novel that netted him acclaim — has revisited what was initially a short story multiple times over the years, tweaking it to reflect a new political climate, to ready it for new expedient uses. Who knows — the times are a-changin’ fast enough, with the outcry of LGBT activists and the growing acceptance of gay military members, to hope that a gay character might enter the mix someday. Of course, sexuality of all sorts is kept firmly in check in the Ender‘s world. Earth has been invaded by an insect-like species called the Formics, and the planet unifies to serve up its best and brightest (and, it’s implied, most ruthless) young minds, sharpened on first-person-shooters and tactical games, to the cause of defeating the alien “other.” Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is the knowing hybrid of his sociopath brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) and compassionate sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) — of the trinity, he’s “the One,” as Han Solo, I mean, Harrison Ford, cadet talent-spotter and trainer Colonel Graff, puts it. Ender impresses the leather off the hardened old war horse, though the Colonel’s psychologically more equipped cohort Major Anderson (Viola Davis) suspects there’s more going on within their chosen leader. Director-screenwriter Gavin Hood demonstrates his allegiance to Card’s vision, valorizing the discipline and teamwork instilled by military school with the grim purpose and dead serious pleasure one might take in studying a well-oiled machine, while Ender is sharpened and employed as a stunningly effective tool in a war he never truly conceived of. This game has a bit more in common with the recent Wii-meets-Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Godzillas of Pacific Rim than the winking, acidic satire of Starship Troopers (1997), echoing a drone-driven War on Terror that has a way of detaching even the most evolved fighter from the consequences of his or her actions. The question is how to undo, or rewrite, the damage done. (1:54) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Free Birds (1:31) Metreon.

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Before succumbing to the hot and heavy action inside the arena (intensely directed by Francis Lawrence) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire force-feeds you a world of heinous concept fashions that’d make Lady Gaga laugh. But that’s ok, because the second film about one girl’s epic struggle to change the world of Panem may be even more exciting than the first. Suzanne Collins’ YA novel The Hunger Games was an over-literal metaphor for junior high social survival and the glory of Catching Fire is that it depicts what comes after you reach the cool kids’ table. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) inspired so much hope among the 12 districts she now faces pressures from President Snow (a portentous Donald Sutherland) and the fanatical press of Capital City (Stanley Tucci with big teeth and Toby Jones with big hair). After she’s forced to fake a romance with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), the two watch with horror as they’re faced with a new Hunger Game: for returning victors, many of whom are too old to run. Amanda Plummer and Jeffrey Wright are fun as brainy wackjobs and Jena Malone is hilariously Amazonian as a serial axe grinder still screaming like an eighth grader. Inside the arena, alliances and rivalries shift but the winner’s circle could survive to see another revolution; to save this city, they may have to burn it down. (2:26) Balboa, California, Cerrito, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (1:32) Metreon.

Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) SF Center. (Harvey)

Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his 80s era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) Elmwood, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Nebraska Alexander Payne may be unique at this point in that he’s in a position of being able to make nothing but small, human, and humorous films with major-studio money on his own terms. It’s hazardous to make too much of a movie like Nebraska, because it is small — despite the wide Great Plains landscapes shot in a wide screen format — and shouldn’t be entered into with overinflated or otherwise wrong-headed expectations. Still, a certain gratitude is called for. Nebraska marks the first time Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor weren’t involved in the script, and the first one since their 1996 Citizen Ruth that isn’t based on someone else’s novel. (Hitherto little-known Bob Nelson’s original screenplay apparently first came to Payne’s notice a decade ago, but getting put off in favor of other projects.) It could easily have been a novel, though, as the things it does very well (internal thought, sense of place, character nuance) and the things it doesn’t much bother with (plot, action, dialogue) are more in line with literary fiction than commercial cinema. Elderly Woody T. Grant (Bruce Dern) keeps being found grimly trudging through snow and whatnot on the outskirts of Billings, Mont., bound for Lincoln, Neb. Brain fuzzed by age and booze, he’s convinced he’s won a million dollars and needs to collect it him there, though eventually it’s clear that something bigger than reality — or senility, even — is compelling him to make this trek. Long-suffering younger son David (Will Forte) agrees to drive him in order to simply put the matter to rest. This fool’s mission acquires a whole extended family-full of other fools when father and son detour to the former’s podunk farming hometown. Nebraska has no moments so funny or dramatic they’d look outstanding in excerpt; low-key as they were, 2009’s Sideways and 2011’s The Descendants had bigger set pieces and narrative stakes. But like those movies, this one just ambles along until you realize you’re completely hooked, all positive emotional responses on full alert. (1:55) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Thor: The Dark World Since any tentacle of Marvel’s Avengers universe now comes equipped with its own money-printing factory, it’s likely we’ll keep seeing sequels and spin-offs for approximately the next 100 years. With its by-the-numbers plot and “Yeah, seen that before” 3D effects, Thor: The Dark World is forced to rely heavily on the charisma of its leads — Chris Hemsworth as the titular hammer-swinger; Tom Hiddleston as his brooding brother Loki — to hold audience interest. Fortunately, these two (along with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, and the rest of the supporting cast, most of whom return from the first film) appear to be having a blast under the direction of Alan Taylor, a TV veteran whose credits include multiple Game of Thrones eps. Not that any Avengers flick carries much heft, but especially here, jokey asides far outweigh any moments of actual drama (the plot, about an alien race led by Christopher Eccleston in “dark elf” drag intent on capturing an ancient weapon with the power to destroy all the realms, etc. etc., matters very little). Fanboys and -girls, this one’s for you … and only you. (2:00) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

12 Years a Slave Pop culture’s engagement with slavery has always been uneasy. Landmark 1977 miniseries Roots set ratings records, but the prestigious production capped off a decade that had seen some more questionable endeavors, including 1975 exploitation flick Mandingo — often cited by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favorite films; it was a clear influence on his 2012 revenge fantasy Django Unchained, which approached its subject matter in a manner that paid homage to the Westerns it riffed on: with guns blazing. By contrast, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is nuanced and steeped in realism. Though it does contain scenes of violence (deliberately captured in long takes by regular McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbitt, whose cinematography is one of the film’s many stylistic achievements), the film emphasizes the horrors of “the peculiar institution” by repeatedly showing how accepted and ingrained it was. Slave is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an African American man who was sold into slavery in 1841 and survived to pen a wrenching account of his experiences. He’s portrayed here by the powerful Chiwetel Ejiofor. Other standout performances come courtesy of McQueen favorite Michael Fassbender (as Epps, a plantation owner who exacerbates what’s clearly an unwell mind with copious amounts of booze) and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, as a slave who attracts Epps’ cruel attentions. (2:14) California, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy) *

Music Listigs, November 27-December 3, 2013

November 27, 2013

WEDNESDAY 27

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. BFF.fm Launch Party, w/ The Happy Hollows, Deep Dimension, Kitten Grenade, DJ Jackson Sandland, 9 p.m., $10.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Solwave, Vanaprasta, Coo Coo Birds, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. The Straight Ups, The Real Deal, 9 p.m., $6.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Limousines, Mona, Dresses, 8 p.m., $15.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Unruly Things, Not Sure. Not Yet, Oceanography, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Morbid Angel (playing Covenant), Rude, Blasphemous Creation, 9 p.m., $28.

Sub-Mission Art Space (Balazo 18 Gallery): 2183 Mission, San Francisco. Don’t Be a Hero, Parkside, The Truth Is …, The Temps, The Fourth & King, 8 p.m., $5-$8.

DANCE

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “Trancegiving,” w/ Kristina Sky, Mitka, SNR, Ryan Mendoza, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “Bassgiving,” w/ Dulce Vita, Simple Greene, Influence, Dr. Whiskers, Skywise, 9 p.m., $5-$10.

Bruno’s: 2389 Mission, San Francisco. “Black Wednesday: Pre-Thanksgiving Bash,” w/ DJs Miles Medina, Yo Yolie, Charly Fusion, Marv, and EMT, 9 p.m., $10 (free with RSVP).

Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. “Dark Sparkle,” w/ DJ Sage & Miz Margo, 10 p.m., $5.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sugar: Thanksgiving Eve,” 9 p.m.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bondage A Go Go,” w/ DJs Damon, Tomas Diablo, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$10.

Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks,” 18+ dance night with Vaski & Schoolboy, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “1964,” w/ DJ Matt B & guests, Second and Fourth Wednesday of every month, 10 p.m., $2.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Bodyshock,” w/ Lust for Youth, Hive Mind, plus DJs Justin, Crackwhore, and Blk Rainbow, 9 p.m., $7.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tainted Techno Trance,” 10 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Housepitality: Pre-Turkey Day Special,” w/ Tyree Cooper, Matrixxman, Vin Sol, Bai-ee, J.P. Soul, 9 p.m., $5-$10.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Qoöl,” 5 p.m.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10 p.m.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9 p.m., free.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10 p.m., free.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Lights Down Low,” w/ Azari & III (DJ set), Myles Cooper, Split, Richie Panic, Sleazemore, 9 p.m., $17.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Fullyloaded: A Pre-Thanksgiving Get Down,” w/ Ardalan, Galen, Solar, DJ M3, DJ Omar, Mozhgan, Cole, 9 p.m., $5-$10.

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. 4 All Tour, w/ Nadastrom, Salva, Sinden, Deejay Theory (in the main room), 9 p.m., $12-$15.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9 p.m., $3.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Cosmic Gate, 9 p.m., $25-$35 advance.

Supperclub San Francisco: 657 Harrison, San Francisco. “Foam for the Holidays,” w/ DJs Chris White & Jimmy Bell, 10 p.m., $15-$20.

HIP-HOP

Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Black Wednesday: Pre-Thanksgiving Event,” w/ DJs J. Espinosa, J-Trip, and Acme, 10 p.m.

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9 p.m., $5.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Special Blend,” w/ DJs Max Kane, Roman Nunez, LazyBoy, and Mr. Murdock, 9 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Bryce Wilson, 7 p.m.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7 p.m., free.

Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Happy Hour Bluegrass, 6:30 p.m., free.

Johnny Foley’s Irish House: 243 O’Farrell St., San Francisco. Terry Savastano, Every other Wednesday, 9 p.m., free.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. KnightressM1, Rabbit Quinn, Yonat Mayer, 8:30 p.m., $7.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. The Toast Inspectors, Last Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session, The Amnesiacs, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. The Cosmo Alleycats featuring Ms. Emily Wade Adams, 7 p.m., free.

Martuni’s: 4 Valencia, San Francisco. Tom Shaw Trio, Last Wednesday of every month, 7 p.m., $7.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9 p.m., $10.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Steve Snelling, 8 p.m.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30 p.m., $5.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Anya Malkiel, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Timba Dance Party, w/ DJ WaltDigz, 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7 p.m., $5-$10; Fifth Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Party, w/ Julio Bravo y Su Orquesta Salsabor, plus DJs Super Chino, MGD, Flako, and Mambo, 9 p.m.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “International Freakout A Go-Go,” w/ DJs Ben Bracken, Moon Bowl, and Bobby Ganush, 10 p.m., free.

The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Redwood Tango Ensemble, 8:30 p.m., free.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. International String Trio, 8 p.m., $17-$21.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. HowellDevine, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Craig Horton, 9:30 p.m.

SOUL

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Freddie Hughes & Chris Burns, 7:30 p.m., free.

THURSDAY 28

DANCE

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “Tubesteak Connection,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, 9 p.m., $5-$7.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” ‘80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10 p.m., $5.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and live guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursday,” w/ DJ Jay-R, 9 p.m., free.

Raven: 1151 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Morgan Page, Beltek, Topher Jones, 9 p.m.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9 p.m., free.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Cypher,” w/ resident DJ Big Von, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “#Quattro,” w/ DJ Dino, Fourth Thursday of every month, 9 p.m.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Cream of Beat: Reunion Party 2013, Part 2,” w/ Masta Ace, Spice 1, Mind Motion, DJ Ivan, Rolo 1-3, Dark Money, DJ Apollo, DJ Fuze, Big Von, Scotty Foxx, 9 p.m., $20-$60.

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Peaches,” w/lady DJs DeeAndroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, Umami, Inkfat, and Andre, 10 p.m., free.

JAZZ

Bottle Cap: 1707 Powell, San Francisco. The North Beach Sound with Ned Boynton, Jordan Samuels, and Tom Vickers, 7 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Charlie Siebert & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez, 7:30 p.m., $5.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Thanksgiving Brunch & Dinner Buffet with Michael Athans & Ricardo Scales, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., $59-$109.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30 p.m., free.

BLUES

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. T-Wrex & The Primitive Rhythm, 4 p.m.; Chris Cobb, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7 p.m., free.

FRIDAY 29

ROCK

50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. The Ever After, Bellygunner, Felsen, State to State, The Palace Ballroom, 8 p.m., $10.

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Ancient Mariner, Crüella, Mexican Steel, 9:30 p.m., $10.

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. I Need You Bad: The Live Show, w/ Little Wings, Chris Cohen, The Memories, Fronds, DJ Sonny Smith, 8 p.m., $12-$15.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Life Stinks, Quaaludes, Dancer, 9:30 p.m., $5.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Ocelot, Skinny Guns, Mr. Turkey, RDR, 9 p.m., $8.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Less Than Jake, Anti-Flag, Masked Intruder, Get Dead, 7:30 p.m., $26.

DANCE

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. Official Pretty Lights After-Party featuring Cut Chemist, Eliot Lipp, N.A.S.A., Marvel Years, Beni Haze, Bogl vs. Dials, Little John, Balance, 10 p.m., $20-$25.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “The Pilgrim Party: Post-Thanksgiving Bash,” w/ Jessie Andrews, 10 p.m., $10 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “Hummer,” w/ DJs Mark Loque & Robert Jeffrey, 9 p.m., $7-$10.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Kinky Beats,” w/ DJ Sergio, 10 p.m., free.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Boy Bar,” w/ DJ Matt Consola, 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Dancing Ghosts: 4AD vs. Mute Records,” w/ DJs Xander, Miz Margo, Orko, and Sage, 9:30 p.m., $7 ($3 before 10 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “F.T.S.: For the Story,” 10 p.m.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Trap & Bass,” 18+ dance party with Butch Clancy, UltraViolet, Napsty, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fever,” 10 p.m., free before midnight.

The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “We Rock Fridays,” 9:30 p.m.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Jon Hopkins, Clark, Nathan Fake, 9 p.m., $18-$20.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Escape Fridays,” 10 p.m., $20.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Funky Friday,” w/ DJs Teeko & Julicio, 10 p.m., $5.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL,” 9 p.m., $3.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. Groove Merchant Records Night, w/ DJs Cool Chris, Jerry Nice, Vinnie Esparza, and Jon Blunk, 9:30 p.m., $5.

Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Fortune Fridays,” 10 p.m., free before 11 p.m. with RSVP.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “F-Style Fridays,” w/ DJ Jared-F, 9 p.m.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Nightmares on Wax, 9 p.m., $20.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. “Tribal Funk: 20-Year Family Reunion,” w/ Donald Glaude, Stacey Pullen, John Howard, Jenö, Tony, Rooz, Sharon Buck, Seven, Sean Murray, Dan Suda, George Didescu, 9 p.m., $15-$25.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Lazy Days,” w/ Fred Everything, Paolo Rocco, Joey Alaniz, 9:30 p.m., $12-$15.

OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Release,” 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Mixologi Presents: Remember the Soundtrack,” w/ DJs Mackswell, Timoteo Gigante, and Wonway Posibul, 10 p.m., $10-$20.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9 p.m., $3.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Shogun, 9 p.m., $20 advance.

Supperclub San Francisco: 657 Harrison, San Francisco. “Black (Out) Friday,” w/ DJs Tall Sasha, Taj, Vodka Soda, and Volkan, 10 p.m.

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. Ronn Carroll, Ben Tom, DJ Midnight SF, Monika Santucci, Philip Adrian, Goldroy, Mikey Tan, Kepik, DJ Caprise, 10 p.m., $15.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bionic,” 10 p.m., $5.

Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. Sound It Out, Tigran, Key Method, 10 p.m., $10-$30.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bridge the Gap,” w/ resident DJ Don Kainoa, Fridays, 6-10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Brand Nubian, Pep Love, BPos, L*Roneous, 9 p.m., $20-$25.

EZ5: 682 Commercial, San Francisco. “Decompression,” Fridays, 5-9 p.m.

ACOUSTIC

Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Turkey Trot 2013: 39th Annual Americana Music Feast, w/ Coffin Hunter, James Nash & The Nomads, The Highway Poets, Secret Town, 8:30 p.m., $13-$15.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Thee Hobo Gobbelins, 5 Cent Coffee, Vagabondage, Victoria & The Vaudevillians, 8 p.m., $10.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Benjamin Brown, 9 p.m.

The Sports Basement: 610 Old Mason, San Francisco. “Breakfast with Enzo,” w/ Enzo Garcia, 10 a.m., $5.

JAZZ

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Johnny Smith, 8 p.m., free.

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $20.

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Vijay Anderson Quartet, 7:30 p.m., free.

Cliff House: 1090 Point Lobos, San Francisco. David Costa, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8 p.m., free.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Jack Dorsey & Shan Kenner, 8 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. David Jeffrey Jazz Fourtet, 9 p.m.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Black Market Jazz Orchestra, 9 p.m., $10.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Joyce Grant, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Taste Fridays, featuring local cuisine tastings, salsa bands, dance lessons, and more, 7:30 p.m., $15 (free entry to patio).

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Montuno Swing, 8 p.m.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15 p.m., $15-$18.

Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. Poppy Benefit Dance Party with DJs Boludo y Gurilla, 7 p.m., $5-$20.

Roccapulco Supper Club: 3140 Mission, San Francisco. Leo Dan, Raul Acosta y Oro Solido, 8 p.m., $55 advance.

REGGAE

Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “Let’s Do It Again: Give Thanks Edition,” w/ Bayonics, Da Mainland, Arden Park Roots, Flex, DJs D Locc1 & Irie Hustle (on the upstairs stage), 9 p.m., $10-$12.

BLUES

Brava Theater Center: 2781 24th St., San Francisco. Second Annual Native American Day “Red ‘n’ Blues” Concert, Benefit for AIM-West featuring Dr. T & The Blues Criminals, Twice as Good, The Bobby Young Project, and Daniel Rodriguez, 6:30 p.m., $12.

Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson St., San Francisco. Willie G, 7:30 p.m.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Jan Fanucchi, Last Friday of every month, 4 p.m.; Mari Mack & Livin’ Like Kings, 9:30 p.m.

FUNK

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Katdelic, Sal’s Greenhouse, DJ Be Smiley, 9:30 p.m., $12-$15.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Second Annual Black Fridye Fashion Show, w/ music by Papa Mali, Bobby Vega, Matt Hubbard, Robbie Kidd, and Trees of Mystery, 7:30 p.m., $30.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Loose Joints,” w/ DJs Centipede, Damon Bell, & Tom Thump, 10 p.m., $5.

SOUL

Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Soul Circuit,” Cosmic Entertainment networking mixer with Danny A. Thomas, DJ Therd Mic, Uncle Jess, more, 8 p.m., $8-$12.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Cosmic Love,” w/ Guthrie Galileo, Cloudship, The Beggars Who Give, Drii, Soul Spectrum, DJ Booda, Brsmsn, Illamayne, Bläp Dëli, Lifted Aquatic, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Soul Crush,” w/ DJ Serious Leisure, 10 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Freddie Hughes & Chris Burns, 7:30 p.m., free.

SATURDAY 30

ROCK

Bender’s: 806 S. Van Ness, San Francisco. Swamphammer, 10 p.m., $5.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Down Dirty Shake, Down & Outlaws, The Electric Magpie, DJs Joel Gion & Darragh Skelton, 9 p.m., $8.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Mammatus, The Broads, 9:30 p.m., $8.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Tea Leaf Green, Loyal Scam, 9 p.m., $20-$50.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Red Fang, The Shrine, Indian Handcrafts, 8:30 p.m., $16.

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Church of Misery, Saviours, Wizard Rifle, Disastroid, 9 p.m., $17.

DANCE

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “Modular,” w/ Agoria, Christian Mora, Pedro Arbulu, MFYRS, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “Industry,” w/ DJ Morabito, 10 p.m., $20.

Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. “Dark Room 2.0,” w/ DJ Jimmy Swear, San Cha, Vain Hein, Lady Bear, DJ Le Perv, more, 9:30 p.m., $9.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Bistrotheque,” w/ DJ Ken Vulsion, 8 p.m., free.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Right?!?!: The ‘90s Video Dance Party – Biggie vs. Tupac,” w/ Miles the DJ, Marco De La Vega, Porter, Tomas Diablo, Devon, Mr. Washington, Myster C, 9:30 p.m., $7-$10.

The Center S.F.: 546 Fillmore, San Francisco. “LoveTech: Integration,” w/ The Flashbulb, Moldover, Bartel, Hopscotch, Rich DDT, Janaka Selekta, Biomigrant, Colfax, Sabotage, more, 7 p.m., $12-$15 advance.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Bootie S.F.,” w/ Entyme, MyKill, Kendell & Clee, Brass Tax DJs, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “Love Fur,” w/ DJ Gordon John, 9 p.m., $8.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” w/ XL Middleton & Moniquea, resident DJs, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Icee Hot,” w/ Ben UFO, Avalon Emerson, Austin Cesear, Shawn Reynaldo, Ghosts on Tape, Rollie Fingers, 10 p.m., $5 before 11 p.m.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Konnekted,” w/ Nick Warren, J. Remy, Zita Molnar, Rafael Vanoni, 9 p.m., $10-$25 advance.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9 p.m., $3.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “The No Theme Super Dance Jam,” w/ DJs Sonny Phono, Facemelter, and Precious Cargo, 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Official Pretty Lights After-Party featuring Break Science, Tech Minds, Matt Haze, 10 p.m., $15.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Funksgiving,” w/ Fort Knox 5, Pumpkin, Motion Potion, 10 p.m., $10-$15.

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. Seth Troxler, Felix Dickinson, Galen, Solar, Anthony Mansfield, Rich Korach, Dax Lee, 9 p.m., $18 advance.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Planet Booty, NVO, 8th Grader, 9 p.m., $10.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Manufactured Superstars, 9 p.m., $20-$30 advance.

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. Festiva, Kid Alien, DJ Oons, Lel_Lion, Leon Gotham, Michael Milano, Mackwell, 10 p.m., $20.

Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. Sex Panther, 10 p.m., $10-$30.

HIP-HOP

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Jungle Boogie,” w/ DJ Zita & Ill Equipt, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Basstown,” 10 p.m.

Project One: 251 Rhode Island, San Francisco. Native Tongues Appreciation Night, w/ DJs Platurn, J-Boogie, Cutso, and King Most, 9 p.m., $10.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. “The Ol’ Skool House Party,” w/ Naughty by Nature, plus DJs Pos Red, Supreme, and C.J. Flash (in Yoshi’s lounge), 10:30 p.m., $20-$30.

ACOUSTIC

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, Saturdays, 4-6 p.m., free.

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Shannon Bryant, 7 p.m.

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Kacey Johansing, Sera Cahoone, 9 p.m., $12-$15.

Exit Theatre: 156 Eddy, San Francisco. “Songwriter Saturdays,” hosted by Melissa Lyn, Last Saturday of every month, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Jonny Kaplan & The Lazy Stars, Broken Rodeo, Dear County, 9 p.m., $8-$10.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Parmesans, 9:30 p.m., free.

JAZZ

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Alex Conde Trio, 7:30 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Mr. Lucky & The Cocktail Party, 9 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Jules Broussard, Danny Armstrong, and Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Bryan Girard/Wayne Fettig Quartet, 7:30 p.m., $10.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9 p.m.

St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church: 2097 Turk, San Francisco. Spider Saloff: “The Memory of All That: Celebrating 115 Years of George Gershwin,” 8 p.m., $20-$23.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Anne O’Brien, Last Saturday of every month, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Pura,” 9 p.m., $20.

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Eva Salina, Zina Bozzay, Heather Domhoff, The Glasses, 6 p.m., $8-$10.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Mazacote, DJ EMV, 8 p.m., $15.

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Danilo y Universal, 8 p.m.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “El SuperRitmo,” w/ DJs Roger Mas & El Kool Kyle, 10 p.m., $5.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Yas, Dirtyhertz, Mehrbod, Dadmehr, Dr. T, 10 p.m., $30 advance.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Peña Eddy Navia & Pachamama Band, 8 p.m., free.

Roccapulco Supper Club: 3140 Mission, San Francisco. The Latin Kings All Stars, 9:30 p.m., $35-$40.

REGGAE

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Native Elements, Last Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $10-$15.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Earl Thomas & The Blues Ambassadors, Last Saturday of every month, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $24.

Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson St., San Francisco. Eldon Brown, 7:30 p.m.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. The Rattlecans, 9 p.m.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Kathy Tejcka, 4 p.m.; Nancy Wright, 9:30 p.m.

FUNK

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tie Dye Panty Party with Papa Mali & The AllStar Band, 9:30 p.m., $15 advance.

SOUL

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bobby V, 8 & 10 p.m., $22-$46.

SUNDAY 1

DANCE

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “Replay Sundays,” 9 p.m., free.

The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8 p.m.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ DJ Sep & Deejay Theory, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “T.Dance,” 6 a.m.-6 p.m.; “Sunday Sessions,” 8 p.m.; “BoomBox,” First Sunday of every month, 8 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Stamina Sundays,” w/ DJs Lukeino, Jamal, and guests, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” 10 p.m., free.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Jock,” Sundays, 3-8 p.m., $2.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10 p.m.

Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 10 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8 p.m., free.

The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “No Parking on the Dancefloor,” w/ resident DJs Dutchboy & Gehno Aviance, 11 p.m., $5.

HIP-HOP

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30 p.m., free.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Swagger Like Us,” First Sunday of every month, 3 p.m.; OneWerd, Task1ne, Joe Mousepad, 8 p.m., $5.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Pusha T, Rico Dolla, DJs Ruby Red-I & Ant One, 8 p.m., $22.50.

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Shooz,” w/ DJ Raymundo & guests, First Sunday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Fourth Annual Mary Elizabeth Beckman Memorial Concert, 7 p.m.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Trevor Hall, Nahko, Dustin Thomas, 8 p.m., $20.

The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Sunday Bluegrass Jam, 4 p.m., free; Foggy Window String Band, 8 p.m.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Spike’s Mic Night,” Sundays, 4-8 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “iPlay,” open mic with featured weekly artists, 6:30 p.m., free.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: 1755 Clay, San Francisco. “Sunday Night Mic,” w/ Roem Baur, 5 p.m., free.

JAZZ

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Kally Price Old Blues & Jazz Band, First Sunday of every month, 9 p.m., $7-$10.

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Lloyd Gregory, 7 & 9:30 p.m., $15.

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Share the Music, Benefit for Bread & Roses with Marco Benevento & Friends, Megan Slankard with the Novelists, and vinyl DJ selections by Folk Yeah’s Britt Govea., 8 p.m., $20-$100.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. E. Doctor Smith, Flotation Device, Ian Robertson, 8 p.m., $12.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” 10 p.m., free.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4 p.m., free/donation.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Atmosphere: 447 Broadway, San Francisco. “Hot Bachata Nights,” w/ DJ El Guapo, 5:30 p.m., $10 ($18-$25 with dance lessons).

Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Tardeadas Tropicales,” 3 p.m.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30 p.m., free.

Salle Pianos & Events: 1632 Market St., San Francisco. Klezmer Brunch with Kugelplex, Hanukkah celebration with a menu including latkes, bagels, matzoh ball soup, and more., 1-3 p.m., $10-$20.

Thirsty Bear Brewing Company: 661 Howard, San Francisco. “The Flamenco Room,” 7:30 & 8:30 p.m.

BLUES

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. HowellDevine, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4 p.m.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8 p.m., free.

Swig: 571 Geary, San Francisco. Sunday Blues Jam with Ed Ivey, 9 p.m.

COUNTRY

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. “The Hootenanny West Side Revue,” First Sunday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

SOUL

Delirium Cocktails: 3139 16th St., San Francisco. “Heart & Soul,” w/ DJ Lovely Lesage, 10 p.m., free.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Ray Charles Project Christmas Show, 7 p.m., $19.

MONDAY 2

ROCK

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Billy Cramer & Share the Land, Red Light Radical, Letters from Readers, 9 p.m., $5.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Waxahatchee, Swearin’, Joyride, Crabapple, 8 p.m., $10-$12.

DANCE

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Death Guild,” 18+ dance party with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $3-$5.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9 p.m., free.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Front Country, The Blackberry Bushes, 9 p.m., free.

The Chieftain: 198 Fifth St., San Francisco. The Wrenboys, 7 p.m., free.

Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open mic with Brendan Getzell, 8 p.m., free.

Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4 p.m.

JAZZ

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Rob Reich, First and Third Monday of every month, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7 p.m., free.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “The Monday Makeout,” 8 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8 p.m.

The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. The Session: A Monday Night Jazz Series, pro jazz jam with Mike Olmos, 7:30 p.m., $12.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Nora Maki, 7:30 p.m., free.

REGGAE

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10 p.m., free.

BLUES

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30 p.m.

SOUL

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 3

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Jail Weddings, The Dandy Lions, Bones of a Feather, 9 p.m., $8.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. “Wood Shoppe,” w/ The She’s, Dream Boys, Wiles, 9 p.m., free.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Happy Fangs, GoldBoot, Faux Canada, 7 p.m., $5.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Leonhardt, The Vans, Sweetwater Black, Machine, 8 p.m., $7.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. The Secret Secretaries, The Rinds, Pogo Ono, DJ Chad Stab, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Cate Le Bon, Kevin Morby, 8 p.m., $10.

DANCE

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10 p.m., $2.

Laszlo: 2532 Mission, San Francisco. “Beards of a Feather,” Enjoy classy house records, obscuro disco, and laid-back late-’80s jams with DJ Ash Williams and guests, First Tuesday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10 p.m., free-$10.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9 p.m., $3.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10 p.m., free.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Songwriter in Residence: Kate Kilbane, 7 p.m. Starts . continues through 1.

JAZZ

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7 p.m.

Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5 p.m., free; Conscious Contact, First Tuesday of every month, 8 p.m., free.

Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tommy Igoe Big Band, 8 p.m., $22.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Linda Kosut, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Descarga S.F.,” w/ DJs Hong & Good Sho, 8 p.m., $12.

The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. “Conga Tuesdays,” 8 p.m., $7-$10.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

REGGAE

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Groundation, Pure Roots, 9 p.m., $25.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10 p.m.

BLUES

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Lisa Kindred, First Tuesday of every month, 9:30 p.m., free.

FUNK

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Fat Tuesday Band, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Boogaloo Tuesday,” w/ Oscar Myers & Steppin’, 9:30 p.m., free.

SOUL

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. The JRo Project, First Tuesday of every month, 9:30 p.m., $5.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30 p.m., free. 2

City College Trustee resigns, protesting state takeover

Sasha Cuttler

November 27, 2013

City College Trustee resigns, protesting state takeover

Democracy is a thing of the past at City College of San Francisco, and now one member of its elected board has had enough. City College Trustee Chris Jackson announced today that he is resigning from the college board to protest the state takeover of the school, and he explains his reasoning in an op-ed in this week’s Guardian.

“I came to City College to do good work,” Jackson told the Guardian. “At this point it’s impossible to do that work I set out to do. That’s why I’m leaving.”

Jackson was first elected to City College’s board in 2008, but in 2013 he was a trustee in name only. The day City College was told it would lose its accreditation was also the day it lost its Board of Trustees. Those democratically elected by San Francisco voters to lead City College were pushed aside by California Community College Chancellor Brice Harris.

It was a state takeover, and the board was rendered powerless.

The seven-member board holds no more meetings, drafts no more legislation, casts no more votes. The public cannot hold elected officials accountable when things go wrong — because the man in charge is no longer someone San Francisco elected.

Robert Agrella is the “super” trustee, appointed by the state chancellor to make unilateral decisions regarding City College’s future, something they say is necessary to save the school. Agrella holds no public comment sessions, and told the Guardian previously that personal emails to him would suffice. Agrella hardly ever answers his phone, we’ve found.

Paul Feist, a spokesperson for the California community college state chancellor’s office, said that the takeover was necessary to make the hard decisions needed to save City College quickly.

“Tremendous progress has been made since July, with key positions having been filled, collective bargains agreements reached and fiscal controls implemented,” Feist told the Guardian.

To Jackson, it’s a mockery of democracy.

“If my resignation can bring a light to this public policy issue, I hope it does,” he said.

In the last month a vote by the California Community College Board of Governors made Agrella’s stay indefinite. Legally, he won’t leave until the state tells him he has to.

“There is not a formal timeline for returning governance of CCSF to local trustees, but it is hoped that this happens soon after the college demonstrates it has addressed the deficiencies identified by [its accreditors],” Feist said. “The state has no interest in running City College indefinitely under a special trustee arrangement.”

To those who wonder what this all means, and to understand Jackson’s grievance, one look only as far as two of Agrella’s latest unilateral decisions.

A performing arts center long planned to be built by City College was canned by the super trustee, citing funding concerns.

“Clearly, the college is in no position to make this commitment at this time,” Agrella told the San Francisco Chronicle when he cancelled the project. It was $6 million shy of its estimated $95 million cost.

The school’s only performance venue is the Diego Rivera Theater. It is the lone theater serving a school of 85,000 students (and sometimes more) but it seats only hundreds, and is dilapidated and crumbling.

That was the first of Agrella’s motions to overturn decisions by the Board of Trustees, but his next decision was directly challenged by Trustee Chris Jackson.

Just last month the super trustee overturned a decision by the board to drop Wells Fargo as its bank. Last year, the board voted to find a more ethical bank to do business with, instead of one that foreclosed San Francisco homes and held questionable ties to the student loan industry.

An investigation by the San Francisco Examiner found that after Wells Fargo exerted pressure on Agrella and promised the school at least $500,000 in grants, the super trustee repealed the decision to shop for a new bank.

The unilateral decisions of Agrella make Jackson furious, but it’s not as if he didn’t see it coming.

In a September 2012 meeting, the Board of Trustees faced a decision: Does it ask the state for a special trustee? It was quickly communicated to the trustees that if they didn’t ask for one, one would be imposed anyway.

It was a false choice. A public relations move designed to make the board look like they sought help when newspapers and TV stations asked them about the super trustee. In the end, no matter what decision they made the state would take control of the school.

“This special trustee, while not ideal, I don’t personally like, I think it’s appropriate for right now. But we need to understand how long they’ll be there, and what position need to be in for them to leave,” Jackson said.

“I hope this board doesn’t just cede power to the special trustee,” he said.

That was a year ago. Now five months without the board, City College has lost the vision a local politician can bring.

“I’ve certainly called him the conscience of the board,” Alisa Messer, the faculty union president at the college, said of Jackson.

“Chris made himself accessible to those who felt besieged. He’s for the underdog, regardless of being black or brown,” former student trustee William Walker told us.

“I’m just really sad to see Chris go,” said the current student trustee, Shanell Williams, who first met Jackson while on San Francisco’s youth commission.

All of them mentioned Jackson’s work to secure childcare for the two City College campuses in the Bayview. When City College’s accreditors tasked them with scaling down its mission of who to serve, Jackson championed the college’s GED program and won. He also worked closely with the group Students Making a Change, which endeavors to close the achievement gap for students of color at City College.

Jackson’s departure leaves a seat open on the board which Mayor Ed Lee can make an appointment to fill. But the legality of an appointment while the board is effectively out of power is an open question. The Guardian contacted the mayor’s office to find an answer, but did not hear back from them before press time.

“I think the thing San Franciscans ought to be asking is: Do we even have a board, and when are we going to?” Messer said.

As for Jackson, he’s looking forward to concentrating on his family and his career. He currently works at a nonprofit which helps people in Africa and India find new jobs in tech.

“I’ll have more time to spend with my daughter,” he said. “I’ll have more time to focus on my own professional career, and am looking to go to law school.”

The 30 year old Jackson said he wants to be an attorney to help young men like D’Paris Williams, who was stopped for a traffic citation at Valencia Gardens in a case of alleged racial profiling. Jackson, who lives in the Bayview, wants to defend the people in his community.

“I want to be a part of that,” he said.

Update: Commenters and sources that called the Guardian rightly asked what Chris Jackson’s Ethics Commission fines had to do with his stepping down. Jackson was late filing his campaign reports and was fined about $3,000 by the commission. When the Guardian spoke to them a few months ago about this, they told us it was a routine matter and that Jackson was complying with their requests for payment. Jackson had already reached a payment agreement well before his resignation, which does not affect the fine, he said.

L’chaim!

Michael Redmond

November 27, 2013

culture@sfbg.com

CHOW NOW

Fans of Brenda’s French Soul Food will be happy to know the next time you’re in line for your weekend beignets and Hangtown fry (sorry to be a buzz kill but you really need to watch your cholesterol, babe), you’ll be able to score a delicious chicory coffee and more next door at the new Libby Jane Café (644 Polk, SF), courtesy of Brenda’s wife and biz partner, Libby Truesdell. This tiny new joint is opening Nov. 29 and is mostly meant to be a takeout spot: You can get the famed biscuits (yes yes yes), coffee, sweet tea, and gumbo by the quart — perfect on chilly nights — plus items like Brenda’s pickled okra and watermelon. Open daily.

Another new and petite spot where you can find some tasty treats is Marla Bakery Kitchen Communal (613 York, SF. www.marlabakery.com). I know, it’s Thanksgiving this week and I’m telling you about buttery baked goods, but you gotta eat. While owners Amy Brown and Joe Wolf are finishing up their new bakery in the Outer Richmond, they figured out they can actually sell some goodies from their commissary kitchen in the Mission in the meantime. We all win. Swing on by for Danishes and turnovers, or a bagel with herbed farmer cheese, and there’s also a “lunch box” of the day, with a savory pie and dessert. Mmmm, pie! You can also get some sweets from Wholesome Bakery (think ice-cream sandwiches, cookie sandwiches, and donuts) and A Spoonful of Sugar (offering brioche doughnuts and cupcakes), plus coffee and espresso from Wrecking Ball Coffee. Hours are Mon–Fri 9am–4pm.

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET

Okay, so a $55 dinner isn’t exactly a budget item, but a four-course Hanukkah menu is too damn cool to not get fired up about it. Chef Charlie Kleinman of Wexler’s (568 Sacramento, SF. www.wexlerssf.com) in the Financial District will be serving this special menu Nov. 29-30. It’s inspired by the Kleinman family’s own traditional Hanukkah dinner, so don’t be surprised when the brisket is served family-style. The menu includes roasted duck matzo ball soup, latkes, brisket braised in mead, potato kugel, roasted carrots, and of course sufganiyot, aka jelly doughnuts, for dessert. There are also Hanukkah-inspired cocktails! L’chaim! Reservations can be made by calling the restaurant at 415-983-0102 or hopping on the Wexler’s homepage. Jump on this quickly, seating is limited.

YOU GOTTA EAT THIS

Isn’t it crazy that Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah are the same day, Nov. 28? (Hanukkah officially begins the 27th at sundown.) Downtown sandwich spot Shorty Goldstein’s (126 Sutter, SF. www.shortygoldssteins.com) is getting in on the fun this week with some “Thanksgivukkah” specials like turkey matzo soup. Shorty’s will be open on Black Friday, which is very useful info for all you shoppers who need something substantial to fuel up on.

Chef-owner Michael Siegel features a number of family recipes on the menu, from rustic knishes to chopped liver, and some excellent house-made pastrami. One thing Siegel has really dialed in of late is the rye bread — it turns out the restaurant is making its own bread now, so the sandwiches are registering extra-high on the tasty meter. Go for simpler picks like pastrami or corned beef on rye, or the Rachel (a Reuben made with pastrami). On the days when you need some home cooking, don’t miss the prakas: beef-stuffed cabbage with a sweet and sour tomato sauce. Good stuff. Salted caramel egg cream. Whoa. It’s a casual and popular lunchtime spot that also happens to be open for breakfast too: Bagel and egg with pastrami and cheddar? Oh, hell yes.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

Brawl fallout

Michael Redmond

November 27, 2013

D’Paris “DJ” Williams spent his day the same way many San Franciscans did Nov. 15, watching young Miles Scott, aka Batkid, rescue a damsel in distress to the cheers of thousands.

Williams, 20, then biked from downtown to visit relatives in the Valencia Gardens housing project in the Mission District. It was there, as the nation continued cooing over the caped crusader, that two plainclothes police officers pulled Williams onto the ground. Police said they initially pursued Williams into the housing complex because he was coasting his bike on the sidewalk, a traffic violation.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Neighbors quickly came to Williams’ defense, fists at the ready. The ensuing brawl was recorded on video and quickly went viral nationally. Fast forward two weeks and two protests later, and Williams’ family has joined with prominent attorney John Burris to sue the SFPD, for allegedly using excessive force and violating Williams’ civil rights.

“The violence is the grave matter of the entire thing, and the illegal detention and subsequent arrests,” Burris told the Guardian. He has not yet filed suit.

As the video went viral, allegations of improper police conduct abounded. Police are now crying foul, too. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr called for wearable cameras for police officers, saying he’s confident that it would clear police of wrongdoing.

The question that haunts the community around Valencia Gardens, though, is not only about the use of force. Residents wonder if the police profiled Williams because he’s black.

Was he really stopped because of a traffic violation? Or was that just legal justification for the police to search him on suspicion that he was carrying a firearm or controlled substance, which would amount to profiling?

TWO SIDES OF THE STORY

D’Paris’ stepfather, Frank Williams, told the Guardian that his son was in disbelief immediately following the ordeal.

The elder Williams related the story DJ told him.

While walking to his grandma’s house in Valencia Gardens, DJ walked with his bike for a bit, then sat on it and scooted it with his feet. Some people he didn’t recognize got out of a car nearby, calling “hey come here, come here.” As Williams stood in the doorway, “They grabbed him by his jeans and pulled him out,” the elder Williams said. “They kept pulling on him, and he’s saying ‘What did I do? What did I do?’ as they started punching him on the side of the face, and dragged him out.”

The police shared a different version of the story with reporters.

The plainclothes officers, who remain unnamed, identified themselves as police and displayed their badges, according to the SFPD account. When Williams “failed to comply” with their orders to stop, they caught up to him and attempted to detain him.

“He became combative, resisted arrest, and multiple subjects came out of that residence and formed a hostile crowd around the officers,” said Officer Gordon Shyy, a SFPD spokesperson.

When the Guardian asked him to explain the officers’ actions in more detail, Shyy said he didn’t have that information. The SFPD did not make the incident report public, but Shyy had a copy.

The reason the brawl broke out remains under dispute, but what happened next was captured on video and posted to the Internet.

As the plainclothes officers tried to subdue Williams, a neighbor took a swing with a cane that nearly hit an officer. A policeman threw haymaker punches at a neighbor as bystanders shouted them down. In the end, Williams and three of his cousin’s neighbors were taken into custody.

Williams’ sister was there, too, watching them fight as she held her newborn.

Video shows the four men who were detained scraped and bloodied, and Williams was bleeding and bruised as the officers took him in. All were taken to San Francisco General Hospital.

Williams was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon, which Shyy said was for biting an officer. He was then discharged pending further investigation, the District Attorney’s Office told the Guardian. Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the city doesn’t usually pursue such cases.

“The reason you discharge cases is, you can’t prove them,” Adachi explained.

While Shyy maintained that the officers pulled him aside because he was riding his bicycle on a sidewalk, those officers were outside Valencia Gardens for a particular reason. Part of a SFPD squad called the Violence Reduction Team, their unit is tasked with pulling guns off the streets.

“What were these guys doing stopping DJ for a traffic violation?” wondered Travis Jensen, a friend of Williams who publicized the incident on Instagram. It’s a fair question: The Violence Reduction Team isn’t exactly known for pulling over bicyclists.

GUN HUNTERS

AK47s, .45 handguns, semi-automatics, guns hidden in waistbands. That’s what the Violence Reduction Team seeks to do away with when they hit the streets.

SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy credits the team with a drop in citywide homicides. It has certainly been busy.

The Violence Reduction Team arrested 20 suspects during last year’s Fleet Week, a press release from the SFPD announced, touting the unit’s success. That Halloween, they nabbed six more guns. Just last month they made 10 arrests, pulling even more firearms off the street, Shyy said.

“The VRT officers were on their regular patrol for their shift, it had nothing to do with the Batkid event,” Shyy told the Guardian. “VRT is tasked to patrol high crime areas and conduct pro-active policing to prevent violent crimes from occurring.”

When asked directly if the officers stopped Williams because they suspected he had a gun, Shyy repeated that they lawfully detained him because he illegally rode his bicycle on the sidewalk. “If officers lawfully detain a person, and can articulate a cursory pat search of that person, they may do so,” he said.

When officers took Williams to the ground they did search him for weapons.

The Guardian contacted former Tiburon Police Chief Peter Herley, who previously served as president of the California Police Chief’s Association, to ask if plainclothes officers responsible for seizing guns would take the time to cite a bicyclist for a traffic violation.

“Generally they don’t do it, because it may blow their cover,” he said. “If the violation was grievous enough, maybe. Usually a plain clothes unit wouldn’t do it.”

Adachi put it another way. When a person is stopped for an infraction, “the expectation is there’s a ticket drawn up and a person is sent on their way.”

Based on what Shyy read to us from the police report, the officers at the scene seemed to enter the situation believing Williams could be armed. “Williams continued to resist by pushing his upper body against the sidewalk and tried to get to his feet. Williams was unhandcuffed and unsearched at this point. From my knowledge and experience I know this is a high crime area and people in this area often carry weapons. I believed if Williams were able to free himself from us, he may attempt to access a weapon.”

Ultimately the officers only found two things on D’Paris Williams: juice and a cupcake.

SHAKEN, BUT NOT DETERRED

Williams’ cousin Dave lives in Valencia Gardens. Dave, who refused to provide his last name because he feared retaliation, says Williams rode his bike to a Goodwill store that day to apply for a job. Dave, 36, invites some of his younger distant cousins, including Williams, over for what he calls a “positive hype.”

“They’re over here like every day. We have a big family, we’re very lovable,” he said.

Williams’ sixth grade science teacher, Norm Mattox, told the Guardian DJ was in school at City College, known as a young man with prospects.

“He’s someone we think can get out of the neighborhood, get out of the projects,” he said.

That’s why D’Paris was in disbelief too, his stepfather told us. “I did question my son about it. Why would they follow you? Explain this to me,” the elder Williams told the Guardian. He fears his son was targeted for being the wrong color, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

That’s why Burris took the case. “The young people need to know there is a place to go, that you don’t have to accept this level of brutality by an officer,” he said. “The legal issues themselves, are an illegal detention, illegal arrest, and use of excessive force. [These are] federal civil rights violations.”

D’Paris took that to heart. The younger Williams told his father something had to change, that he was determined that something good had to come from this.

“He kept repeating it. ‘This has got to stop. Got to stop. Got to stop,'” the elder Williams said.

“It makes a dad proud to hear that.”

Why I’m resigning from the City College board

Sasha Cuttler

November 26, 2013

Why I’m resigning from the City College board

By Chris Jackson

When I worked for the state legislature, a member once told an overly ambitious guy that there are those who get into politics to be someone and those who get into politics to do something, and we have enough of the first type.

Serving on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees was always a means for me to work to connect underserved communities to education and eventually economic empowerment.

One of the first measures that I passed while on the board was to expand City College’s Community/Outreach Ambassador to the Mission and the Southeast campuses. Through this program, City College was better able to do outreach to underserved communities.

Be it by protecting CCSF’s GED program or child care sites, working with community leaders to continue to make the Mission campus an educational jewel to its residents, or working with Bayview advocates to ensure the Southeast campus’ survival and eventual growth, I came to the CCSF Board of Trustees on a mission to help ensure that our most vulnerable populations are given access to education as a means of equity.

Although I’ve had amazing success and even made a few mistakes along the way, I don’t want anyone to doubt my continued passion and commitment to the communities that CCSF serves. It is this passion to do something and not simply be a figurehead that has led me to the difficult decision to resign from the CCSF Board of Trustees.

The Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges, an unelected and publicly unaccountable organization, seeks to change the values and charge of City College from an inclusive, community-based and student-focused college to a simple junior college that serves the few and shares the values of the corporate education reform movement.

Even more disappointing has been our state Community College Board of Governors. Instead of performing its public-policy duties, the state Board of Governors, led by State Chancellor Brice Harris, has continued to allow itself to be bullied by the ACCJC to the point where there is a serious question of who really sets public policy for the 112 colleges in our statewide system: our publicly appointed Board of Governors or the unelected, unaccountable private ACCJC.

It pains me to see the scope of our class offerings pared back, our community-based campus continually threatened with closure, much-needed academic counselors laid off, and our Second Chance program for ex-offenders with an over 900-student waiting list. It pains me even more to be sidelined by Harris and our public Board of Governors and watch them shrink and cower to the power of Barbara Beno and her private ACCJC.

But in the face of this challenge to our public education, I see hope. Students like Trustee Shannell Williams, Student President Oscar Pena and former Trustee William Walker rallying students to stand up for their public education give me hope. The American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 and the Save CCSF coalition have become rallying points not just for the immediate CCSF community, but for the larger SF community. Their bravery in the face of the withering attacks on public higher education should be commended and be a model that others should follow. At this moment, there exists the base for a long-lasting coalition of students, educators, and community fighting for the high-quality, affordable education.

Thank you for the opportunity to do something to make an impact in people’s lives. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees.

Chris Jackson was elected to the CCSF Board of Trustees in 2008.

Freedom is slavery, privacy is theft

Sasha Cuttler

November 26, 2013

LIT Reading a book is a simple, solitary pleasure. As I sat with the thick, hardback edition of The Circle by Dave Eggers in recent weeks, I could feel its weight on my lap and watch my bookmark slowly proceed through its pages. It was a precious, visceral experience to read it, something I savored like a juicy secret.

Those sensations and my desire to keep them to myself for awhile are anathema to the hyper-connected, technology-obsessed world that Eggers creates in this dystopian novel — a world that is far closer to the one we live in and are building right here in the Bay Area than many techophiles would like to admit.

In fact, I deliberately waited until just after I finished reading The Circle (Knopf/McSweeney’s, 504 pp., $27.95) to read any of its reviews, and one of the first ones to come up on my Google search was a scathing critique in Wired magazine headlined “What the Internet Looks Like if You Don’t Understand It.”

Without a sense of irony, the review parrots the perspective of the book’s protagonist — 24-year-old Mae Holland, who gets a coveted job at The Circle, a near-future Silicon Valley company that’s an amalgam of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and your bank — who dismisses concerns about privacy, corporate power, and the reductive, data-driven trivialization of culture by saying that critics just don’t understand the Internet.

You see, The Circle — like many of today’s real life tech companies and a large portion of the shiny, happy true believers who work at them — is saving the world from all the messiness and ignorance that preceded its rise. And if you don’t get that, or you don’t accept trading your personal information for the collective good, then you’re just crazy and resistant to the inevitable march of progress.

“Who but a fringe character would try to impede the unimpeachable improvement of the world?” Mae asks herself when The Circle’s biggest critics mysteriously turn out to have incriminating information on their computers.

Later, Mae and The Circle’s “Wise Men,” who prod her progression toward becoming the fresh young face of the company, reduce that faith in the digital collective to the Orwellian slogan: “Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft.”

And in the end, the naif-turned-guileless-villain could only see the goodness and virtue of living “in a world where everyone could know each other truly and wholly, without secrets, without shame and without the need for permission to see or to know, without the selfish hoarding of life — any corner of it, any moment of it. All of that would be, so soon, replaced by a new and glorious openness, a world of perpetual light.”

POWER OF FICTION

I understand how some critics can fault Eggers for being a little over-the-top in presenting The Circle’s technologies and ambitions, or with its characters being sometimes two dimensional messengers of the author’s takeaways, or with plot points that seem a little implausible (for example, it’s hard to imagine most politicians “going transparency” and wearing live cameras around the necks all day, every day).

But that’s really part of the fun with this book, and those supposed flaws actually prove to be skillful devices that develop the novel into an allegory of modern times in much the same way that George Orwell did in 1984, a comparison that Eggers was clearly aiming for.

Instead of the grim, top-down, thought-policing security state conjured up by Orwell as he observed the rise of totalitarianism in Europe, the dystopian world that Eggers creates is a cheerful if vapid, bottom-up, all-knowing security apparatus that supplants government itself.

Much like in 1984, it is average citizens who become the key agents of the security state, persuaded by propaganda and skewed visions of the greater good to spy on their neighbors. Or in the case of The Circle — and its cheap, small, wireless, and ubiquitous SeeChange cameras, or the TruYouth tracking chips implanted in children for their protection — the actions of people in every corner of the world.

Yet the real power and insights in this compelling work of fiction isn’t with its portrayal of the grand endgame, as creepy as that all might be (and I won’t even get into a couple of the chilling plot twists and scenes that come toward the end of the book). What intrigued me most was its reflection of the attitudes and motivations that are so prevalent in the tech world today, as we see all around us, and the perils in following through these incubating ideas to their logical ends.

Mayor Ed Lee and his main financial benefactor, venture capitalist Ron Conway, the libertarian-leaning investor in a huge cross-section of local high-tech companies (see “The Plutocrat,” 11/27/12), regularly present technology as the panacea for all that ails this complex, multi-faceted city.

“Dispution” is the main stated goal of this industry, whether it be Airbnb’s defiance of local housing, zoning, and tax laws to allow people to monetize their apartments; Lyft and Uber creating unregulated taxi services that threaten San Francisco’s long-developed taxi system; or the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology & Innovation (sf.citi) pushing tech-based public-private partnerships “to find new solutions to historic problems facing San Francisco.”

In fact, a campaign video that sf.citi created during the mayor’s race two years ago was eerily similar to the thoughts Mae had one day while away from the safe and sanitized cocoon of the Circle campus: “Walking through San Francisco, or Oakland, or San Jose, or any city, really, seemed more and more like a Third World experience, with unnecessary filth, and unnecessary strife and unnecessary errors and inefficiencies — on any city block, a thousand problems correctible through simple enough algorithms and the application of available technology and willing members of the digital community.”

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

Eggers writes from a place of love for San Francisco, the city we watched him adopt through his breakout novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2001). He then founded the McSweeney’s publishing house and the 826 Valencia writing lab, mentoring new generations of young writers and encouraging our love affair with the printed word.

I got to know Eggers at events and coffee shops in our Mission District neighborhood, and he was generous with his time and advice as I was writing my own book, The Tribes of Burning Man (2010). Eggers spanned the first dot-com boom and the current one, his award-winning books are critically acclaimed for their penetrating insights into what makes people tick, and so his observations about the quirks and pitfalls of techie culture here in the Bay Area can’t be easily dismissed.

The tech industry does a lot of good and important work, but there are inherent dangers in the marriage of powerful technologies to the power-hungry capitalists who finance their ventures. And the mediating factor is the multitudes who use the technologies and what their expectations are. It is a triad reflected in a parable-like story toward the end of the book when a shark, an octopus, and a school of sea horses are put into the same tank (spoiler alert: the shark wins).

The mysterious Kalden, a Mark Zuckerberg-like character who helped create The Circle, explains toward the end that he and others were motivated by a desire to apply technological fixes to any problems they saw, often just to see what could be done, without really thinking through the wider and longer term implications of what they were doing.

“I was trying to make the web more civil. I was trying to make it more elegant. I got rid of anonymity. I combined a thousand disparate elements into one unified system. But I didn’t picture a world where Circle membership was mandatory, where all government and all life was channeled through one network,” Kalden tells Mae.

We all want to be seen and counted, to be connected to something greater than ourselves, and to be protected from lurking evils in our world. The Circle reminds us to careful what we wish for, and it also offers an intriguing prescription for what ails us.

At the end of the novel, Kalden tries to enlist Mae’s help is promoting “The Rights of Humans in a Digital Age,” which range from “We must all have the right to anonymity” and “Not every human activity can be measured” down to the final line, written in red ink: “We must all have the right to disappear.” *

Civil rights attorney John Burris to sue SFPD over alleged Valencia Gardens profiling

Erica Hanna

November 22, 2013

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Civil rights attorney John Burris to sue SFPD over alleged Valencia Gardens profiling

Prominent civil rights lawyer John Burris will sue the SFPD on behalf of the family of D’Paris “DJ” Williams, after a neighborhood brawl involving police at the Valencia Gardens housing project that Burris called “outrageous.”

Last Friday, 20 year old D’Paris Williams was bicycling to his cousins’ house from the Batkid festivities downtown when plainclothes police officers from the Violence Reduction Team, a narcotics and firearms reduction squad, attempted to detain him for riding his bike on the sidewalk. In the confusion, a brawl broke out with the police, Williams, and three neighbors. Video was recorded of the incident, which quickly went viral.

After seeing a bloody and beaten Williams carried to a squad car by police in the video clip, his family and the residents of Valencia Gardens have posed the question: why?

Why did plainclothes officers tasked with the mission of seizing guns stop a young man coasting on his bike on a sidewalk for a few feet? The family said they believe Williams was targeted because he was a young man of color visiting a housing project.

“When young people are brutally assaulted by the police, there must be accountability,” Burris told the Guardian.

Williams’ step-father, Frank Williams, an ex-offender who now works with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, was shaken when he first heard what happened to his son, DJ. “I know there are some good cops, some are my friends,” he said. “But there are some bad cops. What ran through my mind was how he got profiled like that, just because. I don’t like how it happened, and how they justified it.”

The SFPD was unavailable for comment at press time. All they found on DJ Williams was juice and a cupcake.

A protest defending D’Paris Williams and the three other men hurt and detained in the brawl marched in the Mission Tuesday, and another protest is planned for tonight at 5pm at 15th and Guerrero.

Click here for our previous coverage of the Valencia Gardens incident.

Music Listings: November 20-26, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

November 20, 2013

WEDNESDAY 20
ROCK
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Screaming Females, Upset, Peace Creep, 9 p.m., $10.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. U.S. Girls, Chasms, Ether Island, 9 p.m., $7-$10.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. The Reverend Horton Heat, Larry & His Flask, Deke Dickerson, 9 p.m., $25.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Apt H, Neon Satori, Pharaohs, 8 p.m., $5.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Rocket Queens, BROFX, 9 p.m., $7.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Qui, Roland, Big Long Now, 8:30 p.m., $7.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Josh Berwanger Band, Mammoth Life, The Silhouette Era, 8 p.m., $10.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Self-Inflicted Wounds, Balms, Demimonde, DJ Ryan Smith, 9:30 p.m., $6.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. City Tribe, We Arsons, The Wooden Suns, 8:30 p.m., $5.
DANCE
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sticky Wednesdays,” w/ DJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bondage A Go Go,” w/ DJs Damon, Tomas Diablo, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$10.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks,” 18+ dance night with DJ Dan, SwitchBlade, Frank Nitty, more, 9 p.m.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tainted Techno Trance,” 10 p.m.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Housepitality,” w/ Marcel Vogel, James What, Tyrel Williams, Ben Bean, 9 p.m., $5-$10.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Qoöl,” 5 p.m.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10 p.m.
Lexington Club: 3464 19th St., San Francisco. “Friends of Dorothy,” w/ DJ Sissyslap, 9 p.m., free.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9 p.m., free.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Burn Down the Disco,” w/ DJs 2shy-shy & Melt w/U, Third Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10 p.m., free.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “We Are Monsters,” w/ Sammy D, Mozhgan, Jason Greer, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9 p.m., $3.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Nokturnal,” w/ DJs Coyle & Gonya, Third Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Lunice, Rockie Fresh, B. Bravo, 8 p.m., $10-$15.
Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Cash IV Gold,” w/ DJs Kool Karlo, Roost Uno, and Sean G, 10 p.m., free.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Latyrx featuring Skins & Needles, Forrest Day, DJ Aaron Axelsen, hosted by Blackalicious, 9 p.m., $25.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9 p.m., $5.
ACOUSTIC
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7 p.m., free.
Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Happy Hour Bluegrass, 6:30 p.m., free.
Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, Every other Wednesday, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Drea Muldavin, 8 p.m., $10.
JAZZ
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session, The Amnesiacs, 7 p.m., free.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. The Cosmo Alleycats featuring Ms. Emily Wade Adams, 7 p.m., free.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Ned Boynton & Friends, 6 p.m., free.
Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. The Suppression of Sound: An Evening of Poetry and Music, with Thomas Sayers Ellis, James Brandon Lewis, and Raina J. León, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Michael Parsons Trio, Every other Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9 p.m., $10.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Fran Sholly, 8 p.m.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30 p.m., $5.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Anya Malkiel, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Timba Dance Party, w/ DJ WaltDigz, 10 p.m., $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7 p.m., $5-$10.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Cafe LatinoAmericano,” 8 p.m., $5.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Jorge Ben Jor, 8 & 10 p.m., $35-$55.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Mitch Woods & His Rocket 88s, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Big Bones & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Takezo, 9:30 p.m.
SOUL
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Soul Train Revival,” w/ Ziek McCarter, Third Wednesday of every month, 9:30 p.m., $5.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Daley, 7:30 p.m., sold out.

THURSDAY 21
ROCK
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Nova Albion, The Foreign Resort, 9 p.m., $7-$10.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. The Rock Collection, featuring Stu Allen, Greg Anton, Mark Karan, Melvin Seals, and Robin Sylvester, 9 p.m., $10-$13.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Howe Gelb, 9 p.m., $18-$20.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Norma Jean, Vanna, KEN Mode, Exotic Animal Petting Zoo, Name, 7 p.m., $13-$18.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Lemme Adams, Hungry Skinny, Fox & The Law, Electric Shepherd, 8 p.m., $7.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Dengue Fever, Seventeen Evergreen, 8 p.m., $16-$18.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Build Them to Break, The Trash Pop Icons, Protected Left, 8:30 p.m., free.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. The Kimberly Trip, Poeina Suddarth, Claire on a Dare, Drivers, 8 p.m., $8.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Albert Hammond Jr., Rathborne, 9 p.m., $21.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. White Barons, Hornss, Winter Teeth, Rock Bottom, 9:30 p.m., $7.
DANCE
Abbey Tavern: 4100 Geary, San Francisco. DJ Schrobi-Girl, 10 p.m., free.
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “Tubesteak Connection,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, 9 p.m., $5-$7.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9 p.m., $5.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” ‘80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10 p.m., $5.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Crib,” 9:30 p.m., $10, 18+.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Turbo Drive,” w/ Anoraak, Marrow, plus DJs Devon, MyKill, and Mr. Smith, 9:30 p.m., $15.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and live guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Beat Church,” w/ Mint, Humpfree Lowgart, residents, 9 p.m., $5-$10.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “I Love Thursdays,” 10 p.m., $10.
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “SoLuna,” w/ resident DJ Miquel Penn, Third Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Never Knows, Exotic Club, Bézier, DJs Nihar & Mashi Mashi, 9:30 p.m., $6.
Laszlo: 2532 Mission, San Francisco. “Werk It,” w/ DJ Kool Karlo, Third Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Alland Byallo, 10 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursday,” w/ DJ Jay-R, 9 p.m., free.
Raven: 1151 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. “Popscene,” w/ Deptford Goth, Sohn, 9:30 p.m., $13-$15.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. “Awakening,” Coldharbour Recordings Night with Khomha, Beat Service, Grube & Hovsepian, 9 p.m., $20 advance.
SPARC: 1256 Mission, San Francisco. “Surya Dub Mission,” w/ Kush Arora, J-Boogie, DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, 7-10 p.m., free with RSVP (must be 18+).
The Tunnel Top: 601 Bush, San Francisco. “Tunneltop,” DJs Avalon and Derek ease you into the weekend with a cool and relaxed selection of tunes spun on vinyl, 10 p.m., free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10 p.m., free.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Base,” w/ Nathan Barato, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
HIP-HOP
Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9 p.m., free.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Cypher,” w/ resident DJ Big Von, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
Park 77 Sports Bar: 77 Cambon, San Francisco. “Slap N Tite,” w/ resident Cali King Crab DJs Sabotage Beats & Jason Awesome, free.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tougher Than Ice,” w/ DJs Vin Sol, Ruby Red I, and Jeremy Castillo, Third Thursday of every month, 10 p.m.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Peaches,” w/lady DJs DeeAndroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, Umami, Inkfat, and Andre, 10 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Acoustic Open Mic, 7 p.m.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Yesway, TaughtMe, Magic Magic Roses, 8:30 p.m., $8.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. The Neckbeard Boys, 8 p.m.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. The New Thoreaus, Ghost Lore, 8 p.m., $10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Tipsy House, Third Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
JAZZ
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., free.
Bottle Cap: 1707 Powell, San Francisco. The North Beach Sound with Ned Boynton, Jordan Samuels, and Tom Vickers, 7 p.m., free.
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Dick Fregulia’s Good Vibes Trio, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Ralph Carney’s Serious Jass Project, 9 p.m.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Art Lewis Trio, 7 p.m., free.
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Shannon Wolfe & Grant Levin, 8:30 p.m., free.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Charlie Siebert & David Udolf, 7:30 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez, 7:30 p.m., $5.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1002 Nights: A Celebration of the Life & Music of Cheb i Sabbah,” w/ Jai Uttal, Sukhawat Ali Khan & Party, Jef Stott, Momo Loudiyi, Opium Sabbah, Eva El Beze, Karsh Kale & The Midival Punditz, DJ Rekha, Dub Gabriel, Janaka Selekta, Shabi Farooq, Radiohiro, Fabian Alsultany, Little John, DJ Sep, Tarun Nayer, DJ Dragonfly, Jimmy Love, Bob Duskis, Maneesh the Twister, DJ Amar, many more, 7 p.m., $10-$20 suggested donation.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Pa’Lante!,” w/ Juan G, El Kool Kyle, Mr. Lucky, 10 p.m., $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Julio Bravo y Su Orquesta Salsabor, 8 p.m., $12.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Jueves Flamencos,” 8 p.m., free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Gary Flores & Descarga Caliente, 8 p.m.
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. The Verdi Club Milonga, w/ Christy Coté, DJ Emilio Flores, guests, 9 p.m., $10-$15.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Septeto Nacional de Cuba, 8 & 10 p.m., $23-$28.
REGGAE
Pissed Off Pete’s: 4528 Mission St., San Francisco. Reggae Thursdays, w/ resident DJ Jah Yzer, 9 p.m., free.
BLUES
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Phillippe, 5:30 p.m., free.
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Jarekus Singleton, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $18.
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Chris Ford, Third Thursday of every month, 4 p.m.; Wendy DeWitt, 9:30 p.m.
COUNTRY
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7 p.m., free.
EXPERIMENTAL
The Luggage Store: 1007 Market, San Francisco. Erors, Mountain vs. Building, 8 p.m., $6-$10.
Swedish American Hall: 2174 Market, San Francisco. Thomas Dolby: The Invisible Lighthouse Live, The synth-pop pioneer turns his attention to film for this transmedia event that combines documentary movie footage, live narration, and — naturally — electronic music and sound design., 8 p.m., $25-$60.
SOUL
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Soul: It’s the Real Thing,” w/ The Selecter DJ Kirk & Jon Blunck, 10 p.m., free.

FRIDAY 22
ROCK
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. The Rabbles, The Wearies, Red Elk, Feed Me Jack, Modern Kicks, 8 p.m.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Papa, Panic Is Perfect, Bent Shapes, 9:30 p.m., $12.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Lumerians, Factrix, Li Xi, 9 p.m., $12-$15.
Connecticut Yankee: 100 Connecticut, San Francisco. Pony Fight, 1906, The Quart of Blood Technique, 10 p.m.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Friday Live: The Whoa Nellies, DJ Emotions, 10 p.m., free.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Moonbeams, Slowness, Venus Beltran, 9:30 p.m., $7.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Wax Idols, Metal Mother, Opulence, DJ Omar, 9 p.m., $10.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. John Vanderslice, Doe Eye, 8:30 p.m., $15.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Protest the Hero, Architects, The Kindred, Affiance, 7:30 p.m., $20.
Sub-Mission Art Space (Balazo 18 Gallery): 2183 Mission, San Francisco. Brave Ulysses, Downfall, Waterfly Spigot, Black Bones, Rundown Radio, 8 p.m.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Brocas Helm, Hatchet, Exmortus, Midnight Chaser, 9 p.m., $10.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. SnowGlobe Pre-Party with Amon Tobin (DJ set), Machinedrum, Just Blaze, G Jones, Mr. Rogers, Vin Sol, Stylust Beats, Digital Rust, Bogl vs. Dials, plus many more, 10 p.m., $20-$30 advance.
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Poolside, Pacific Disco, Papa Lu, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.
BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “U-Haul,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & China G, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Kinky Beats,” w/ DJ Sergio, 10 p.m., free.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Boy Bar,” w/ DJ Matt Consola, 9 p.m., $5.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Dark Shadows,” w/ DJs Daniel Skellington, Melting Girl, Owen, and Mz. Samantha, 9:30 p.m., $7 ($3 before 10 p.m.).
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “F.T.S.: For the Story,” 10 p.m.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “120 Minutes,” w/ House of LaDosha, Santa Muerte, Chauncey CC, 10 p.m., $10-$15.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fever,” 10 p.m., free before midnight.
The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “We Rock Fridays,” 9:30 p.m.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. Sharam Jey, J. Remy, Laura Lisbona, Jeff Hinchman, 9 p.m., $10.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Escape Fridays,” 10 p.m., $20.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL,” 9 p.m., $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “I ♥ the ‘90s,” w/ DJs Samala, Teo, Mr. Grant, & Sonny Phono, Fourth Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Fortune Fridays,” 10 p.m., free before 11 p.m. with RSVP.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “F-Style Fridays,” w/ DJ Jared-F, 9 p.m.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Dirtybird Players,” w/ Catz ‘N Dogz, Cause & Affect, J.Phlip, Leroy Peppers, Worthy, 9 p.m., $10-$20.
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Aphrodite, Jamal & Audio Angel, Kimba, Chris the Junglist, Audio 1, Micah J, Kirin Rider, Sychosis, 10 p.m., $13 advance.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Acid Test,” w/ D’Marc Cantu, Tyrel Williams, Bai-ee, Miguel Solari, Fil Latorre, 9:30 p.m., $12-$15.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. 100% Silk Label Tour, w/ Octo Octa, Magic Touch, Coyote Clean Up (on the upstairs stage), 9 p.m., $13-$15.
OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Release,” 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. Dubfire, DJ Rooz, Mossmoss, Bob Campbell, Bardia F, Keith Kraft, 9:30 p.m., $13-$20.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9 p.m., $3.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Super8 & Tab, 9 p.m., $20 advance.
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. Blaus, Lenny Kiser, King James, Twin Spin, 10 p.m., $15.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bionic,” 10 p.m., $5.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Project X,” w/ Matth, Kepik, Beau Kelly, Rose, 10 p.m., $10-$30.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bridge the Gap,” w/ resident DJ Don Kainoa, Fridays, 6-10 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Hella Fresh Fest,” w/ Zion I, Tribal Seeds, CunninLynguists, Pacific Dub, Richie Cunning, Rey Resurreccion, Rglnd & Duckwrth, MK Smth, more, 8 p.m., $25-$50.
EZ5: 682 Commercial, San Francisco. “Decompression,” Fridays, 5-9 p.m.
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “#Flow,” w/ The Whooligan & Mikos Da Gawd, Fourth Friday of every month, 10 p.m., free befoe 11 p.m.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Homesick Elephant, 7 p.m.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Supermule, Cahalen Morrison & Eli West, The Barbary Ghosts, 9:30 p.m., $9-$12.
Dolores Park Cafe: 501 Dolores, San Francisco. Keeva, Beryl Baker, 7:30 p.m.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Jason Powers, Karmina, XY Unlimited, 9 p.m., $10.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. “Once Silent Hollows,” w/ Jean Marc, Vessna Scheff, and David Colon, 8 p.m., $10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Get Offa My Lawn, 9 p.m.
The Sports Basement: 610 Old Mason, San Francisco. “Breakfast with Enzo,” w/ Enzo Garcia, 10 a.m., $5.
Swedish American Hall: 2174 Market, San Francisco. William Fitzsimmons, Denison Witmer, 8 p.m., $20.
JAZZ
Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Johnny Smith, 8 p.m., free.
Bird & Beckett: 653 Chenery, San Francisco. Chuck Peterson Quintet, Fourth Friday of every month, 5:30 p.m.
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Jerry Oakley Trio, 7:30 p.m., free.
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8 p.m., free.
Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. Voices for the Poppy: A Special Benefit Concert, Meklit Hadero hosts music and poetry by Tiffany Austin, Tom Sway, Prasant Radhakrishnan, Todd Thomas Brown, Schuyler Karr, and Michael Warr., 7:30 p.m., $15-$50.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & Carmen Getit, 7:30 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Carol Luckenbach, 7:30 p.m., $8.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sebastian Parker Quartet, 9 p.m.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Black Market Jazz Orchestra, 9 p.m., $10.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Joyce Grant, 8 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Baxtalo Drom, International shimmying for lovers of Balkan music, bellydancers, and burlesque., Fourth Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5-$10.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Taste Fridays, featuring local cuisine tastings, salsa bands, dance lessons, and more, 7:30 p.m., $15 (free entry to patio).
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Orquesta Borinquen, 8 p.m.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15 p.m., $15-$18.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Septeto Nacional de Cuba, 8 & 10 p.m., $26-$30.
REGGAE
Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30 p.m., free.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Green, Kimie, Extra Classic, 9:30 p.m., sold out.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Jarekus Singleton, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $20.
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson St., San Francisco. Eldon Brown, 8:30 p.m.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. David M’ore, 4 p.m.; Eugene Huggins, 9:30 p.m.
Tupelo: 1337 Green St., San Francisco. Marshall Law Band, 9 p.m.
FREE
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Danilo y Universal, 8 p.m., free.
FUNK
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Loose Joints,” w/ DJs Centipede, Damon Bell, & Tom Thump, 10 p.m., $5.
SOUL
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Marcus Cohen & The Congress, Kev Choice Ensemble, 9 p.m., $12-$15.
Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Soul Crush,” w/ DJ Serious Leisure, 10 p.m., free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Sissy Strut,” w/ The Handsome Young Men (DJs Ponyboy, Lil MC, Katie Duck, & Durt), Fourth Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $3-$5.

SATURDAY 23
ROCK
Amoeba Music: 1855 Haight, San Francisco. Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, 2 p.m., free.
Bender’s: 806 S. Van Ness, San Francisco. Wild Eyes, Buffalo Tooth, 10 p.m., $5.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. That’s Not Her, Scissors for Lefty, Vela Eyes, 9:30 p.m., $10-$12.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Nobunny, Nubs, Primitive Hearts, G. Green, DJ Kevin Spaghetti, 9 p.m., $12.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Lee Gallagher & The Hallelujah, Coo Coo Birds, Be Calm Honcho, 9:30 p.m., $10-$12.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. The Entrance Band, Raw Geronimo, 9 p.m., $12-$15.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “The Hop,” w/ The Royal Deuces, Cole Walker & His Rhythm Section, Kountry Kittens Burlesque, DJ Tom G, more, 9 p.m., $13.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Brother JT, Carlton Melton, Life Coach, Suzuki Junzo, 9:30 p.m., $8.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Shine On,” w/ Electro Group, Cruel Summer, Corey, Tepid Joy, 9 p.m., $6.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. The Impersonations, Mane, 7:30 p.m., $8.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. The Parmesans, Cash for Gold, Mary Jones’ Lights, Staring@Stars, 9 p.m., $8-$10.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Finntroll, Blackguard, Metsatöll, 9 p.m., $25.
Sub-Mission Art Space (Balazo 18 Gallery): 2183 Mission, San Francisco. Garrett Miranda, The Resistance Panel, Skitzofrenik, The Residuals, 8 p.m., $5.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Attik Door, Moxie Kids, Field of Stones, Rage Against Florence & The Machine, 9 p.m., $8.
DANCE
BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “Evolution,” w/ Marco Da Silva, Christopher B, 10 p.m., $10-$15 advance.
Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Bistrotheque,” w/ DJ Ken Vulsion, 8 p.m., free.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Villainy: The Dance Club with a Dark Side – Celebrating 50 Years of Doctor Who,” w/ DJs Tomas Diablo, Donimo, Chris Zachos, Daniel Skellington, and Prince Charming, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Bootie S.F.,” w/ A+D, DJ Dada, Smash-Up Derby, DJ Tripp, DJ Lex, Barney Iller, Teknacolor Ninja, more, 9 p.m., $10-$15.
S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “Sadistic Saturdays,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. Shangri-La, Asian queer dance party., Fourth Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $15-$20 (free before 11 p.m.).
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Trap City,” w/ DJ Sliink, UltraViolet, Napsty, Audio 1, Lé Swndle, Astro, WolfBitch, Thizz Markie, 10 p.m., $15 advance.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. Helena, Spektor, D-Bryk, 9 p.m., $10.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Set,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $20.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9 p.m., $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Blunted Funk,” w/ resident DJs Sneak-E Pete & Chilipino, Fourth Saturday of every other month, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 10 p.m.).
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. “Bass Cabaret: A Titanic Experience,” w/ Stephan Jacobs, Gydyr, Jake Lamante, Nebakaneza, plus burlesque & circus performers, 10 p.m., $22-$60 advance.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. Monarch 2-Year Anniversary, w/ Danny Daze, DJ M3, Shiny Objects, Dust Red Skies, Queen Majesty & Saboteur, Columbo Ahmed, Mozhgan, Jacob Fury, 9 p.m., $10-$20.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Thanksgifting,” w/ Deekline, DJ Icon, Brad Robinson, Barney Iller, Ejagz, Nugz, Clarkie, Mystr Hatchet, DJMK, Alvaro Bravo, DJ Dane, 9 p.m., $15-$20.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. “Gameboi S.F.: Annual Thanksgiving Dinner & Canned Food Drive,” w/ VJ LaRock, 9:30 p.m., $8-$15.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. “World Town,” w/ Chocolate Puma, Trevor Simpson, 9 p.m., $25 advance.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Porno,” w/ DJs James Torres & Trixxx, 9 p.m., $5.
Sub-Mission Art Space (Balazo 18 Gallery): 2183 Mission, San Francisco. “Requiem,” w/ DJs Xiola, Owen, and Calexica (in the back room), 9:30 p.m., $5.
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. “Life,” w/ David Garcia, David Paul, The Whooligan, Tim Brown, Frankie Jr., J-Trip, 10 p.m., $20.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. Chris Garcia, 10 p.m., $10-$30.
HIP-HOP
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Nice,” w/ DJ Apollo, Fourth Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Alexander Spit, 9 p.m., $8.
ACOUSTIC
Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, Saturdays, 4-6 p.m., free.
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Wave the Sea, 7 p.m.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Erin Brazill & The Brazillionaires, Rusty Stringfield, 8 p.m., $10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Br’er Rabbit, 9 p.m.
St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church: 2097 Turk, San Francisco. Anne & Pete Sibley, The T Sisters, 8 p.m., $12-$15.
JAZZ
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Lori Carsillo, 7:30 p.m., free.
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Panique, 9 p.m., free.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & Carmen Getit, 7:30 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Octobop, 7:30 p.m., $10.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9 p.m.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Lisa Lindsley, 8 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Pura,” 9 p.m., $20.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. La Gente, La Chamba, DJ Kush Arora, 9:30 p.m., $10-$15.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Somos el Son, DJ Good Sho, 8 p.m., $15.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Saboriche, 8 p.m.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Mango,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 3 p.m., $8-$10.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “El SuperRitmo,” w/ DJs Roger Mas & El Kool Kyle, 10 p.m., $5.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Peña Eddy Navia & Pachamama Band, 8 p.m., free.
REGGAE
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Green, Kimie, Skins & Needles, 9:30 p.m., sold out.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Barrington Levy, Mango Kingz, DJ Smoky, Rozone, 9 p.m., $25-$45.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $22.
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson St., San Francisco. Robert “Hollywood” Jenkins, 7:30 p.m.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Dave Workman, Fourth Saturday of every month, 4 p.m.; Curtis Lawson, 9:30 p.m.
SOUL
Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Nightbeat,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and Dr. Scott, Fourth Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., $3.

SUNDAY 24
ROCK
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. The Shivering Lilies featuring Lily Holbrook, Matt Jaffe & The Distractions, 7 p.m., $10.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Thy Art Is Murder, I Declare War, Fit for an Autopsy, The Last Ten Seconds of Life, Kublai Khan, 6:30 p.m., $10-$12.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Mercury in Retrograde, Bitter Fruit, DJ Adee Roberson, 8 p.m., $5-$10.
DANCE
440 Castro: 440 Castro, San Francisco. “Sunday Furry Sunday,” Last Sunday of every month, 4-10 p.m., $1.
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “Replay Sundays,” 9 p.m., free.
The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8 p.m.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ Mr. E, DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “T.Dance,” 6 a.m.-6 p.m.; “Sunday Sessions,” 8 p.m.; “Local Love,” Fourth Sunday of every month, 8 p.m.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Stamina Sundays,” w/ DBridge, Method One, Lukeino, Jamal, 10 p.m., free.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” 10 p.m., free.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Jock,” Sundays, 3-8 p.m., $2.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10 p.m.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Direct to Earth,” w/ Marc Houle, Solar, Bob Campbell, Max Gardner, Patrick Gil, 9 p.m., $15.
Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 10 p.m., free.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8 p.m., free.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Cognitive Dissonance,” Fourth Sunday of every month, 6 p.m.; “No Parking on the Dancefloor,” w/ resident DJs Dutchboy & Gehno Aviance, 11 p.m., $5.
HIP-HOP
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Br’er Rabbit, The Family Crest, 6 p.m.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Don DiLego, Misisipi Mike, The California Sons, 8 p.m., $8-$10.
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson St., San Francisco. Sam Johnson, 4 p.m.
The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Sunday Bluegrass Jam, 4 p.m., free; The Ring of Truth Trio, 8 p.m.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Spike’s Mic Night,” Sundays, 4-8 p.m., free.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “iPlay,” open mic with featured weekly artists, 6:30 p.m., free.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. The Barren Vines, 6 p.m., free.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with Marla Fibish, 9 p.m.
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Happy Family Singers, Yard Sale, 5 p.m., free.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: 1755 Clay, San Francisco. “Sunday Night Mic,” w/ Roem Baur, 5 p.m., free.
JAZZ
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” 10 p.m., free.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4 p.m., free/donation.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Atmosphere: 447 Broadway, San Francisco. “Hot Bachata Nights,” w/ DJ El Guapo, 5:30 p.m., $10 ($18-$25 with dance lessons).
Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Tardeadas Tropicales,” 3 p.m.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30 p.m., free.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Salsa Sundays,” Second and Fourth Sunday of every month, 3 p.m., $8-$10.
Old First Presbyterian Church: 1751 Sacramento, San Francisco. Melody of China: 20th Anniversary Concert, 4 p.m., $14-$17.
Thirsty Bear Brewing Company: 661 Howard, San Francisco. “The Flamenco Room,” 7:30 & 8:30 p.m.
REGGAE
Il Pirata: 2007 16th St., San Francisco. “Ragga Ragga,” w/ DJs Vinny Ras, Kure All, & Theory, Last Sunday of every month, 7 p.m., free.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Sean Chambers, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $18.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. HowellDevine, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4 p.m.; The Door Slammers, 9:30 p.m.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8 p.m., free.
Swig: 571 Geary, San Francisco. Sunday Blues Jam with Ed Ivey, 9 p.m.
EXPERIMENTAL
Center for New Music: 55 Taylor St., San Francisco. Into the Thicket, w/ Anne Rainwater, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.
SOUL
Delirium Cocktails: 3139 16th St., San Francisco. “Heart & Soul,” w/ DJ Lovely Lesage, 10 p.m., free.

MONDAY 25
ROCK
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Social Studies, Ash Reiter, The She’s, 9 p.m., $6.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Paws, Surf Club, Tiaras, Pro Fan DJs, 9 p.m., $10.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Will Sprott, Devotionals, DJ Neil Martinson, 9 p.m., $10.
DANCE
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Death Guild,” 18+ dance party with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $3-$5.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9 p.m., free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Jel & Serengeti, 9 p.m., $10.
ACOUSTIC
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. The Pick Bluegrass Jam, Fourth Monday of every month, 6 p.m., free; The Earl Brothers, Fourth Monday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. West Coast Songwriters Competition, 7 p.m.
The Chieftain: 198 Fifth St., San Francisco. The Wrenboys, 7 p.m., free.
Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open mic with Brendan Getzell, 8 p.m., free.
Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4 p.m.
JAZZ
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7 p.m., free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8 p.m.
The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. The Session: A Monday Night Jazz Series, pro jazz jam with Mike Olmos, 7:30 p.m., $12.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Gayle Wilhelm, 7:30 p.m., free.
REGGAE
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10 p.m., free.
BLUES
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30 p.m.
Tupelo: 1337 Green St., San Francisco. Chris Ford, 9 p.m.
SOUL
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 26
ROCK
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. French Cassettes, Black Cobra Vipers, Waterstrider, 9:15 p.m., $7.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Rode Down, Spooky Flowers, FayRoy, 9 p.m., $8.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Rare Monk, Vinyl Spectrum, 7:30 p.m., $8.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Ego Likeness, Servitor, The RaZor Skyline, DJ Unit 77, 9 p.m., $10.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Future Twin, Week of Wonders, Twin Steps, Randumbly Chillaxin, 8:30 p.m., $6.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Monster Magnet, Royal Thunder, Anti-Mortem, 8 p.m., $25.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. The Nerv, Go Time, Nihilist Cunt, DJ Mashi Mashi, 9:30 p.m., $6.
DANCE
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10 p.m., $2.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10 p.m., free-$10.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9 p.m., $3.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10 p.m., free.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Takin’ It Back Tuesdays,” w/ DJs Mr. Murdock and Roman Nunez, Fourth Tuesday of every month, 10 p.m., free.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “True Skool Tuesdays,” w/ DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, 10 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Andy Padlo, 7 p.m. continues through.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Julianna Barwick, Mark McGuire, 8 p.m., $12.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Claes Cem, Kingsborough, Austin James Hicks, 8 p.m., $7.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Song session with Cormac Gannon, Last Tuesday of every month, 9 p.m.
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Toshio Hirano, 8:30 p.m., free.
JAZZ
Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7 p.m.
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7 p.m., free.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7 p.m.
Jazz Bistro At Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. M.B. Hanif & The Sound Voyagers, 7:30 p.m., free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5 p.m., free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Eric Wiley, 8 p.m.
Tupelo: 1337 Green St., San Francisco. Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Jazz Band, 6 p.m.
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9 p.m., $10-$12.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tommy Igoe Big Band, 8 p.m., $22.
INTERNATIONAL
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Descarga S.F.,” w/ DJs Hong & Good Sho, 8 p.m., $12.
The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. “Conga Tuesdays,” 8 p.m., $7-$10.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
REGGAE
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10 p.m.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Ron Thompson & The Resistors, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Dr. Mojo, 9:30 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Powell Street Blues Band, 9:30 p.m.
FUNK
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Boogaloo Tuesday,” w/ Oscar Myers & Steppin’, 9:30 p.m., free.
SOUL
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30 p.m., free.

Charges dropped in police-resident brawl at Valencia Gardens

Sasha Cuttler

November 19, 2013

285

After spending the weekend and Monday in jail, D’Paris “DJ” Williams’s was released this morning (Tue/19) at 2am. Williams was initially charged with felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon in a widely publicized brawl between police and residents of Valencia Gardens on Friday, but the case was discharged pending further investigation, according to the District Attorney’s office.

It was Friday afternoon, and 20-year-old Williams was having a very good day. As his cousin Dave (last name withheld due to his fear of retaliation) tells it , Williams had just finished applying for a job at Goodwill, and spent the afternoon enjoying the Batkid festivities along with thousands of his fellow San Franciscans. On his way to visit his cousin in the Valencia Gardens housing complex in the Mission, plainclothes officers spotted Williams riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

According to the SFPD, the plainclothes officers identified themselves as police, displayed their badges, and when Williams “failed to comply” with their orders to stop, they caught up to him and attempted to detain him. As they struggled to put Williams on the ground, nearby neighbors came out to defend him.

“He became combative, resisted arrest, and multiple subjects came out of that residence and formed a hostile crowd around the officers,” Gordon Shyy, a spokesperson for SFPD, told the Guardian.

In layperson’s terms, a brawl broke out.

Someone allegedly threw a cane that nearly hit an officer. An officer let loose haymaker punches towards a backpedaling neighbor, as a crowd shouted them down. By the end, Williams and three of his cousins’ neighbors were bloodied and bruised as they were taken into custody.

Williams was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon, which Shyy said was for biting an officer. Shyy maintains that the officers pulled him aside for a traffic infraction of riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, and the officers decided to detain Williams because he ignored their calls to stop and continued toward the residence.

But just why they decided to pull Williams over is questionable.

The officers were undercover, plainclothes narcotics and gun seizure agents called the “Violence Reduction Team,” Shyy said. Why such specialized officers would leave their vehicle only to make a traffic citation is still unclear, and the SFPD declined to answer that question.

“What were these guys doing stopping DJ for a traffic violation?” Jensen said, incredulous, to the Guardian.

When asked how the officers justified their use of force, Shyy read directly from the police report: “Williams continued to resist by pushing his upper body against the sidewalk and tried to get to his feet. Williams was unhandcuffed and unsearched at this point. From my knowledge and experience I know this is a high crime area and people in this area often carry weapons. I believed if Williams were able to free himself from us, he may attempt to access a weapon.”

Not long after, Williams’ friend Travis Jensen, a local photographer who was teaching Williams the trade, took to Instagram to sound the horn, describing it as police misconduct.

“This isn’t the DJ I know,” Jensen said of the SFPD’s characterization of how Williams reacted. None of the men involved have criminal records, as far as Jensen knows, and were just concerned about their friend.

Video of the incident widely circulated around the internet, riding the wave of Batkid publicity. All were taken to SF General Hospital, according to the SFPD.

The cops, having no other information except that Williams was riding his bike on the sidewalk, were afraid Williams would have a weapon. In the end, all he had on him was a Capri Sun and a cupcake.

Now that the case is discharged, does Williams have to wait in fear? Not likely, Public Defender Jeff Adachi told the Guardian.

“The reason you discharge cases is you can’t prove them,” Adachi said. Though this shouldn’t be taken as sacrosanct, he clarified, it’s likely Williams can leave the incident behind him. “If I was advising him I would say the case was discharged, and they’re not going to file. Generally speaking if they could, they would file it now.”

A protest is planned for tonight at 5pm in front of SFPD’s Mission station, which Williams’ cousin Dave said was a “peaceful protest. I’ll make sure of that.”

On the Cheap: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 20

“The Diversity of Habitable Zones and Their Planets” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. San Francisco State astrophysicist Dr. Stephen R. Kane discusses, among other things, advancements in knowledge about “planets in highly eccentric orbits” and “super-Earths.” Geared for adults but all ages are welcome.

“Lyrics and Dirges” Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-1320. 7:30pm, free. Reading with a mix of prominent, emerging, and beginning writers, including Charles Kruger, Monica Wesolowska, Airial Clark, and others.

Michael McClure City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The legendary Beat author reads from his recently reissued Ghost Tantras.

THURSDAY 21

Bay Street Tree Lighting Bay Street Emeryville, 5616 Bay, Emeryville; www.baystreetemeryville.com. 6-8pm, free. The shopping center ushers in the winter-holiday season with the lighting of its 34-foot tree, plus a light and sound show, photos with Santa, hot chocolate, and more.

Holiday Craft Fair Simple Family Health, One Rio Vista, Oakl; www.simplefamilyhealth.com. 6-9pm, free. Nine different craft artists — fleece hats, cute polka-dot items, fascinators and headbands, and more! — share their wares.

Paul Koudounaris Bone Room Presents, 1573 Solano, Berk; www.boneroompresents.com. 7pm, free. The author discusses and signs copies of his macabre, beautifully-photographed books The Empire of Death and Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs.

Karen Luk Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; thirdthursdaysf.wordpress.com. 5-8pm, free. The author and illustrator discusses her new release, Steampunk ABCs, at an appropriately steampunk-y event (hint: costumes encouraged!)

“Survival Not Extinction: A Fundraiser for Tribal Rights” Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, 2323 Mission, SF; (415) 503-1254. 6pm, free. A gallery, short film, raffle, photo booth, and other activities highlight this happy-hour fundraiser for Survival International, an international rights organization working to assist the Awá tribe of Brazil. The bar will donate 10 percent of its proceeds from the evening, so show up thirsty.

FRIDAY 22

“Pancakes and Booze Art Show” Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.pancakesandbooze.com. 8pm, $5. Through Sat/23. Over 75 underground and emerging artists display their works — plus a performance by Xpander Xperience, a photo booth, body painting, and an all-you-can-eat pancake bar.

“Rude, Glued, and Screwed” Red Door Studios, 50-A Bannam Place, SF; www.collagemuseumsf.com. 7-10pm, free. Opening exhibition celebrating the launch of the Collage Museum of San Francisco, curated by Winston Smith.

SATURDAY 23

“Art and Ideas Day Festival” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Noon-9pm, free. In conjunction with its current “Dissident Futures” exhibit, YBCA hosts a festival aiming to inspire explorations of “possible futures,” with workshops, lectures, performances, interactive media and more presented by robotic experts, food activist, designers, environmentalists, and other experts.

“Magic Makers: The Bay Area’s Queer Art and Craft Fair” Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th Ave, Oakl; themagicmakers.wordpress.com. 1-8pm, free. A marketplace and showplace for Bay Area queer artists. Hey, the gift-giving season is approaching — and what better presents than jewelry, prints, body-care products, candles, and other items created by local makers?

“Operation: Fork 4!” Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl; (510) 444-6174. 6pm-midnight, five cans of food or $10. Cobra 1st Legion hosts this costume party-dance party-food drive (with help from the Bay Area Ghostbusters). The Alameda County Community Food Bank benefits from donations, and Disastroid, Victoria and the Vaudevillians, MHA, and Maritime Wilderness provide the tunes. Costumes are encouraged.

“Ukranian Holodomer: Genocidal Famine of 1932-33 (80th Anniversary)” Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (650) 281-6927. 2pm, free. Speakers, including survivors and witness accounts; music; and a documentary screening highlight this historical commemoration of the Ukraine’s tragic famine.

SUNDAY 24

“Patchwork Indie Art and Craft Festival” Jack London Market Building, 55 Harrison, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 11am-5pm. Over 140 local artists gather to sell handmade goods, including art, housewares, paper crafts, and clothing. Plus: food trucks, free DIY craft stations, a DIY gift-wrap booth, and more.

“Thangs Taken: Rethinking Thanksgiving” La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. 7pm, $10-25 sliding scale. Artists and activists come together to explore Thanksgiving’s complex history through music, dance, spoken word, and other avenues. Produced by the Free Land Project and curated and hosted by Ariel Luckey. *

Sabrosito

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

CHOW NOW

If you’re a fan of the incredible birria on the weekends at Gallardo‘s (3248 18th St, SF. 415-436-9387), you’ll be happy to know you can go for the goat at the Mexican restaurant’s new location (in the former Chava’s), which is still in La Mission. You can also join the line for the weekend menudo, and warm up with some pozole during the week. Welcome back, Gallardo’s!

Over in the Marina, a new Mexican restaurant that has opened in the former City Tavern, Sabrosa (3200 Fillmore, SF. www.sabrosasf.com), has one hell of a chef: José Ramos, who was one of the founding chefs at Nopalito and has been at Nido in Oakland of late. His home-style menu includes recipes from the ladies in his life (that would be his mother, grandma, and aunt), with some local and seasonal twists. Look for a toasted masa sope with pasilla chile, beef tips, and chickpea; quite a few salads; tacos and quesadillas, including a quesadilla de tinga poblano with chicken, chorizo, chipotle chile and tomato sauce, crema, and epazote (which I can’t wait to taste); and entrées like caldo xochitl, a chicken, rice, and squash soup with carrots, turnips, and chipotle. There’s also grilled chicken with a chile seed pipián sauce. It all sounds muy tasty.

A dining room with a communal table fits 12, and outside seating has room for 32 (yes, there are heaters). There’s also a large, 24-seat bar of golden onyx, where you can get your heat on with drinks like the Night Creature, with Old Overholt rye, mezcal, Averna, Benedictine, and orange bitters. Or heat up with a Pepino Diablo, made from jalapeño-infused tequila, cucumber, lime, and salt. Brunch and lunch will be coming in about six weeks.

YOU GOTTA EAT THIS

You love sandwiches? How about an East Coast-style sub? Yeah, I thought so. You need to hightail it over to the newly opened Merigan (636 2nd St., SF. www.merigansubshop.com) in SoMa, where chef Liza Shaw, formerly of A16 and Acquerello, is bringing her twist on a sub shop to glorious light.

Shaw takes care of all the butchery in-house. Everything from the pork in the Arista (a delightfully drippy sandwich with roasted pork loin and braised shoulder with provolone, hot peppers, and arugula, uh huh, and you can add burrata to it, hold the phone) to the meatballs, the coppa di testa, and porchetta all come from the one and a half sides of Llano Seco pigs Merigan will be getting each week. Also under the hot subs list, there’s an eggplant parm and chicken parm sandwich, and a cheesesteak too.

Cold subs include a roast beef number with horseradish ricotta, provolone, pickled onions, and arugula, or housemade egg salad, and the insanely good Italian combo, with mortadella, salami, prosciutto cotto, provolone, shredded lettuce, onion, tomato, aioli, and hots (those would be hot peppers for those of us who don’t speak Philly). This sandwich is the kind you want to eat half of and come back to the other half late at night when it has all been marinating together even longer Yeah, that. This sandwich is almost too good. All the subs come on a custom sesame Italian roll from Pinkie’s Bakery, with a texture that’s soft and chewy, perfect.

Bonus points: The sub shop is near the ballpark, which is gonna be perfect for when baseball is back, and it has a killer wine and beer selection. Plus, you can get an Italian ice for dessert. Is this heaven or what? Hours are Mon–Sat 10am–7pm.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

Rep Clock: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

Schedules are for Wed/20-Tue/26 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “Periwinkle Cinema: Smoke and Ruin,” short films, Wed, 8. “Double Feature,” two short films by Lawrence Rickford, Thu, 8. “GAZE #6: Luminous Impulse,” all-animation show, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema,” works about the “(no-zones) of the American West” by Jeanne Finley, Katherin McInnis, and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS’ HALL 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10 suggested donation. JFK: The Case for Conspiracy (Groden, 2003), Thu, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. Contempt (Godard, 1963), Wed, 4:45, 7, 9:15. •Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Thu, 7, and Rumble Fish (Coppola, 1983), Thu, 9:05. “Happy 100th Birthday to Benjamin Britten,” Fri, 7:30. This event ($20) presented by the Asawa SOTA Instrumental Music Department; more info at sfsota.org/britten. “Peaches Christ Productions presents:” 9 to 5 (Higgins, 1980), with stage show premiere of Work!, starring Pandora Boxx, Heklina, and Peaches Christ, Sat, 8. More info for this event ($25-55) at www.peacheschrist.com. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), presented in 3D, Sun, 1, 3:30, 5:45, 8.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. Running from Crazy (Kopple, 2013), call for dates and times. Persistence of Vision (Schreck, 2012), Thu, 7. The Singularity (Wolens, 2013), Sun, 7. Filmmaker Doug Wolens in person.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Oldboy (Park, 2003), Fri-Sat, midnight.

COPPOLA THEATER Fine Arts Building, SF State University, 1600 Holloway, SF; creativestate.sfsu.edu. Free. “Hungarian Film Festival,” documentary and narrative films, Fri, 4-10; Sat, 9am-10pm; Sun, 5-10.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Dark Star: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck:” Forty Guns (Fuller, 1957), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Your Day Is My Night (Sachs, 2013), Wed, 7. “Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema with Randy Thom, Sound Designer:” Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1990), Thu, 7; Colors (Hopper, 1988), Sat, 6; The Incredibles (Bird, 2004), Sun, 3. “Fassbinder’s Favorites:” Vivre sa vie (Godard, 1962), Fri, 7. “Afterimage: Agnès Varda on Filmmaking:” Cléo From 5 to 7 (1961), Fri, 8:45. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Lola (1981), Sat, 8:45; Veronika Voss (1982), Sun, 6.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. American Promise (Brewster and Stephenson, 2013), Wed-Thu, 6:15, 9. The Counselor (Scott, 2013), Wed, 7, 9:15. City College of San Francisco’s Festival of the Moving Image, two different showcases of student films, Thu, 7, 8:45. “SF Film Society’s Cinema By the Bay Festival:” Holy Ghost People (Altieri, 2013), Fri, 7 and 9:30; The Genius of Marian (Fitch, 2013), Sat, noon; Redemption Trail (Sjogren, 2013), Sat, 2:15; American Vagabond (Helke, 2013), Sat, 4:30; Along the Roadside (Lisinac, 2013), Sat, 6:45; “Street Smarts: YAK Films’ Dance Then and Now,” Sat, 9:30; “The SF State of Cinema: Shorts from SFSU Alumni,” Sun, noon; The Other Side of the Mountain (Jang, 2012), Sun, 2:15; “Essential SF,” honoring the Bay Area film community, Sun, 5; The Illness and the Odyssey (Minott, 2013), Sun, 7; Dear Sidewalk (Oelman, 2013), Sun, 9:15.

SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL 2174 Market, SF; www.cafedunord.com. $30-60. “The Invisible Lighthouse,” live music and film with Thomas Dolby, Thu, 8.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” Holy Ghost People (Adair, 1967), Sun, 7:30.

VICTORIA 2961 16th, SF; www.savethewaves.org. $5-50. “Save the Waves Film Festival,” docs about ocean conservation and surfing, plus live music and speakers, Fri, 6.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Films by Fassbinder:” Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970), Thu, 7:30. *

Theater Listings: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

THEATER

OPENING

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Opens Thu/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 8pm (no show Nov 28); Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

BAY AREA

The Dining Room Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia, Piedmont; www.piedmontcenterforthearts.org. $25. Opens Thu/21, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 1. Piedmont Avenue Repertory Theatre performs A.R. Gurney’s family dramedy, which features six actors playing 57 parts.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing their Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist Goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Arlington Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Opens Wed/20, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 28; also Dec 4, 2:30pm); Sun and Tue, 7pm (also Sun, 2:30pm; no 7pm show Dec 8); Through Dec 8. Magic Theatre performs Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s world-premiere musical.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm (no show Nov 27). Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-210. Tue-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 28; check website for matinee schedule); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 8. The Tony-winning Broadway revival launches its national tour in San Francisco.

Ideation Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $10-20. Wed-Thu, 7pm (no shows Nov 28 or Dec 4-5); Fri-Sat, 8pm (additional shows Nov 30 and Dec 7). Through Dec 7. Next up in the San Francisco Playhouse “Sandbox Series” is this dark comedy from Aaron Loeb.

Peter and the Starcatcher Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $40-160. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no show Nov 28); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 1. Fanciful, Tony-winning prequel to Peter Pan.

The Rita Hayworth of This Generation Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.715bryant.org. $10-15. Wed/20-Thu/21, 8pm. Writer-performer Tina D’Elia’s 2010 solo comedy spins a queer and ethnically rich world that straddles the living and the dead in a Las Vegas that, let’s face it, lies somewhere between those two poles already. Drawing on her own professional obsession with Rita Hayworth (née Margarita Carmen Cansino), the ethnically neutered Hispanic star of 1940s Hollywood, D’Elia plays Carmelita, an ambitious Rita Hayworth impersonator who gets entangled with a Latino/a transgender blackjack champion with a drinking problem and too many deals with the devil — in the person of deceased Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn’s daughter, a powerful Vegas TV host and Star-maker. Meanwhile, Carmelita’s smitten production manager Angel tries her best to look out for her, while would-be angel Rita Hayworth herself takes on the role of Carmelita’s consultant on all things Hayworth in a bid to earn her wings from a God moving in typically mysterious ways. While the piece requires patience with the usual formal pitfalls of the solo form (including some awkward back-and-forth between multiple characters) and the hefty plot could also use some editing, D’Elia (under director Mary Guzmán), in a production with few frills, proves a sharp and engaging performer, her characters tending to be both endearing and amusingly full-bodied. (Avila)

“Shocktoberfest 14: Jack the Ripper” Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm. It’s lucky 14 for the Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween-tide Shocktoberfest, and while there are few surprises in this year’s lineup, there’s plenty of reliable material to chew on. Opening with A Visit to Mrs. Birch and the Young Ladies of the Academy, a ribald Victorian-era “spanking drama,” the fare soon turns towards darker appetites with a joint Andre De Lorde-Pierre Chaine work, Jack the Ripper. Works by De Lorde — sometimes referred to as the “Prince of Fear” — have graced the Hypnodrome stage over the years, and this tense Victorian drama, though penned in the 30s, is suitably atmospheric. Although it becomes pretty evident early on who dunnit, it’s the why that lies at the heart of this grim drama, and in the course of that discovery, the play’s beleaguered lawmen reveal themselves to be no less ruthless than the titular Ripper (John Flaw) in pursuit of their quarry. Norman Macleod as Inspector Smithson particularly embodies this unwholesome dichotomy, and Bruna Palmeiro excels as his spirited yet doomed bait. Inspired by Oscar Wilde’s Salome, the Thrillpeddlers’ piece by the same name is perhaps the weak link in the program, despite being penned by the ever-clever Scrumbly Koldewyn, and danced with wanton abandon by Noah Haydon. Longtime Thrillpeddlers’ collaborator Rob Keefe ties together the evening’s disparate threads under one sprawling big top media circus of murder, sex, ghosts, and sensationalism with his somewhat tongue-in-cheek, San Francisco-centric The Wrong Ripper. (Gluckstern)

Underneath the Lintel Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-150. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm). A lone librarian (David Strathairn) takes the stage with a suitcase of “scraps” he will use to “prove one life and justify another.” To illustrate the first, he pulls a battered travel guide — 113 years overdue — from the case, and then, as the play continues, displays further “lovely evidence” to bolster his admittedly vague hypothesis. The life he is attempting to prove is that of the so-called “Wandering Jew,” but it’s the life he attempts to justify, namely his own, that becomes the more compelling, and his broadening horizons drive his narrative far more efficiently than his curious obsession with a man in a funny hat (who owes the library quite a fine for his century-delayed return of the guidebook). As a man who has rarely left the comfortable confines of his hometown, Hoofddorp, traveling to London, China, New York City, and even Australia is nothing short of epic in the best sense of the word — a hero’s journey during which the benignly dotty librarian emerges transformed. Given the expanse of ACT’s Geary Theater mainstage, the production does suffer somewhat from a lack of intimacy, but moments of inventive staging take advantage of Nina Ball’s fantastically-cluttered set and the librarian’s innate sense of curiosity, as he unearths a wealth of evidence and fraught memories from the depths of the cavernous space. (Gluckstern)

Urge For Going Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $10-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 28); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 8. Golden Thread Productions presents Mona Mansour’s play about a Palestinian teen who hopes academics will be her ticket out of the Lebanese refugee camp she calls home.

BAY AREA

A Bright New Boise Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-50. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 8. Faith can be a touchy subject among true believers and skeptics alike, and as long as the topic of religion is avoided (as it often is) you might not even know that your bus driver is Buddhist, or your checkout clerk born again. In Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, now playing at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, the line blurs between public face and private faith, as mysterious stranger Will (Robert Parsons) rolls into Boise and takes up employment at the Hobby Lobby, ostensibly to reconnect to his long-lost, given-up-for-adoption son, Alex (Daniel Petzhold). But when Will is revealed to be a former member of a disgraced Evangelical sect from “up North,” his sudden reappearance in Alex’ life appears to be motivated not by a long-standing remorse, but by a recent unmooring. Under Tom Ross’ direction, the other characters — a foul-mouthed store manager (Gwen Loeb), a painfully shy stock clerk (Megan Trout), and a confrontational sales associate (Patrick Russell) — appear similarly unmoored, careening into each other like jittery, neurotic pinballs, with about as much consideration. Only Parsons’ Will appears calm and deliberate in his actions, until he startlingly demonstrates otherwise. It’s an abrupt end to both the play and Will’s charade of normalcy, and neither Hunter nor Ross seem to know how to build up to his eventual fall naturally, ultimately allowing him to be defined only by his fanaticism rather than his humanity. (Gluckstern)

Don’t Dress For Dinner Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.centerrep.org. $33-52. Wed/20, 7:30pm; Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2:30pm). Center REP performs Marc Camoletti’s sequel to his classic farce Boeing-Boeing.

A Little Princess Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu-Fri, 7pm (Nov 28, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm (no 5pm show Dec 1). Through Dec 8. Berkeley Playhouse opens its sixth season with Brian Crawley and Andrew Lippa’s musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett story.

Metamorphoses South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, Berk; www.infernotheatre.org. $10-25. Thu/21 and Sat/23, 8pm; Fri/22, 9pm. Inferno Theatre performs a multimedia, contemporary adaptation of Ovid’s classic.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 5 and Sat, 2pm; no shows Nov 28, Dec 24, or Dec 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Dec 15, 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Red Virgin, Louise Michel and the Paris Commune of 1871 Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 5pm. Central Works’ first musical play seems, initially, an unlikely subject for song: the role of anarchist icon Louise Michel (known as the Red Virgin) in the popular 1871 uprising that, in the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, briefly transformed the French capital into a socialistic society — one that claimed revolutionary authority over the entire country before being brutally put down by troops loyal to the national regime under Adolphe Thiers. Very soon into Gary Graves’ two-act play, however, a reference to Victor Hugo flags a familiar precedent in the annals of musical theater, and one that skirts a little too closely to what follows. Despite a sharp and engaging cast under director John Patrick Moore, led by an imposing and powerful Anna Ishida in the title role, there’s something too predictable and inexorable in both the play’s history lesson and its resonances, however intentional, with the melodramatic terrain of Les Misérables. There are more playful and winning aspects to the proceedings — especially in the vaguely Brechtian mode of the eclectic musical numbers (under direction of Allison Lovejoy) — but in general nuances of history and personality, as well as a hoped for contemporary relevance, get obscured in dialogue pitched in a heroic key. While the clear-throated cast can handle the musical notes with aplomb, the play itself seems to find the popular resonances its going for just out of range. (Avila)

Social Security Muriel Watkin Gallery, 1050 Crespi Drive, Pacifica; (650) 359-8002. $10-25. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. Pacifica Spindrift Players performs Andrew Bergman’s classic comedy.

strangers, babies Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed/30-Thu/21, 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. Shotgun Players’ strong local premiere of strangers, babies is certainly among the most worthwhile theater productions in the Bay Area at the moment. It’s also the Bay Area’s second look at the work of Scottish playwright Linda McLean, whose 2010 play Any Given Day was one of the best things seen at the Magic Theater last year. Both plays have a decidedly Royal Court flavor (a key London venue in what in the 1990s was called England’s In-Your-Face theater movement), a generally hard-edged and penetrating style somewhat underrepresented in theaters in these parts. Among other things it implies a refreshingly elliptical approach to storytelling — on display in strangers, babies — that gives much more rein to an audience’s intelligence, curiosity, and imagination than the kind of playwriting that forecloses all of those in an effort to explain absolutely every aspect of a character’s motivation and backstory. Instead, we get mystery around the edges, much as in real life, if in a formally heightened way that in the best instances casts a coruscating light on theme without necessarily offering easy, prefab moral answers. The theme here has to do with intimate, foundational violence — with subtle soundings of sex, gender, and the problem of control amid the ultimately feral nature of both parents and children. Well cast and directed with a clean, clear precision by Jon Tracy, strangers, babies unfolds as an intriguing, unsettling series of discrete scenes, duets whose multifaceted emotional anchor is Danielle Levin’s seemingly good-natured but progressively complicated and troubled young woman—the play’s sole female character, surrounded by a set of male companions, relations, authorities (played by Cole Alexander Smith, Richard Louis James, Tim Redmond, Joe Estlack, and Tim Kniffin) whose domineering tendencies are matched by just perceptible streaks of insecurity and fear. (Avila)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. $20. This week: “DuoProv Championship,” Fri, 8pm, through Nov 29; “Family Drama,” Sat, 8pm, through Nov 30.

“Be Bop Baby: A Musical Memoir” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/20-Thu/21, 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $25-75. World premiere by Margo Hall and the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.

“Best of the 2013 San Francisco Fringe Festival” Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $15-25. This week: Maria Grazia Affinito’s Eating Pasta Off the Floor.

CounterPULSE 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. This week: Brontez Purnell Dance Company’s The Episodes, Fri/22-Sun/24, 8pm, $10-12.

“Cynic Cave” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; facebook.com/cyniccave. Sat/23, 8 and 10pm. $12. With Ian Karmel and Josef Anolin (early show) and Kelly Anneken (late show), and hosts George Chen and Kevin O’ Shea.

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“Let Us Compare Chronologies” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $15-30. New dance works by James Graham and Katharine Hawthorne.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The No Thank You Show” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; artworkouts.wordpress.com. Tue/26, 8pm. $10-50. Local experimental dancers and performers (Keith Hennessy, Laura Arrington, Monique Jenkinson, and more) present works previously deemed too “impractical, impossible, or inappropriate” to bring to the stage.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Thu/21, Nov 30, and Saturdays in Dec, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

Adam Pascal Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Sat/23, 7pm. $25-40. The Broadway star (Rent) performs.

“Quality of Movement” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 7pm. $25. Ramon Ramos Alayo’s Alayo Dance Company premieres a new work.

“Romp at the General’s Residence” General’s Residence, Fort Mason Center, Franklin at MacArthur, SF; www.levydance.org. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm. $30-50. LEVYdance presents a site-specific performance.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

BAY AREA

Adventures of a Black Girl: Traveling While Black EastSide Cultural Center, 2277 International, Oakl; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $5-15. Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe performs her solo show.

“Frogz” Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Dana, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Sat/23, 2pm; Sun/24, 3pm. $22-52. Imago Theatre presents its trademark work.

“Shift” Mills College, Lisser Theatre, 500 Macarthur, Oakl; www.mills.edu. Thu/21-Fri/22, 1pm (also Fri/22, 8pm). $12-15. Mills Repertory Dance Company performs choreography by Sonya Delwaide, Yukie Fujimoto, and others.

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” This week: Walnut Creek, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/22, 8pm; Sat/23, 2pm. $49-65. Smuin Ballet kicks off its annual holiday show, with ballet, tap, and swing among the styles on display. *

Gray days

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY New DIY record labels? Minimalist two-person ukulele bands? These are not the signs of fast-paced, modern, glossy hi-tech lifestyles. While San Francisco is at a crossroads, on the verge of an identity crisis splintered throughout many a start-up, at least a few of SF’s musicians (and likely plenty more) have made an artist’s leap farther north to even grayer Portland, Ore.

Magic Fight’s Alex Haager is one of those expatriates. He started a new indie label — Breakup Records — and moved to Portland with his partner, Sierra Frost, another musician, from the bands clintongore and Downer Party. “It’s a great place for music and a great place to live if you make less than 200k a year. And we like the rain.”

They started the label last month with an indeterminate interest in dreamy, brainy pop acts. There are already plans to release records by Frozen Folk, Magic Fight, Jesus Dude Mom, and a few more in the next six months or so. Right now, the roster of acts soon to be rolled out is all from the Bay Area.

“We each have tight relationships with some great independent bands whom we have worked with in different capacities over the years,” says Haager, from his newish home in Portland. “Our goal is to help grow the bands that inspire us — especially musicians with approaches and aesthetics that we find interesting within the realms of what can be considered pop.”

“Frankly, we’re both underwhelmed by garage rock. We plan to release records that offer an alternative to the overly nostalgic, blasted out stuff that has become so prevalent in California in the last 10 to 15 years. We want to showcase what the West Coast sounds like to us.”

One of the label’s first releases will be the debut EP of Kitten Grenade, a deceptively named duo made up of old-timey vocalist-ukulele player Katelyn Sullivan and drummer Ben Manning. Breakup previewed it with a single release a few weeks back, for a song titled “Gray.”

The minimalist pop track is arresting — occupying a space between bright and dark, it’s both melancholy and lightly fluttering over heavier vibes, with much of those emotions pinned to Sullivan’s jazz-inflected vocals. “That was very intentional,” says San Francisco’s Sullivan, who lives in the Mission. “‘Gray’ started out being about my inability to make decisions, and is another play on opposites; it felt like a great song to pick as our first single.”

The video for the track, shot in black and white, similarly plays with light and dark shadows. It features crisp repetitive images cropped in closely around Sullivan’s face and bare shoulders, and dancing orchids and roses twirling around her. Like Georgia O’Keeffe’s storied paintings, the close-ups of the flowers can resemble female sexual organs, in particular the still from the video that was chosen for the cover of the single.

“In a way, the orchid in the image — with its vaginal undertones — could represent purity, which then fades into the muddled gray of the real world in the background. Using it as the cover wasn’t so much planned as it was a happy accident. It’s an image that happened to be in our video that really resonated with me,” Sullivan says.

The full four-track debut EP, Nice Day, on Breakup is coming in January 2014. Sullivan — who calls Philz Coffee, the Phone Booth, El Rio, and Hog and Rocks her favorite local spots — says the album title references her experience with drummer Manning when they were recording during the “beautiful San Francisco summer we had this year.”

So why go with a label full of SF ex-pats? Turns out Sullivan played music with Frost before, in her previous ukulele band, Hate Factory. “[I] have always admired her smarts and knowledge when it comes to music,” says Sullivan of Frost. “Both Alex and Sierra are working musicians, but they’re also excellent at playing a supportive creative role. In terms of building my band, they’ve really helped me realize what’s in my head when on stage, in the studio, and representing myself out in the world, which can be hard and weird. It’s wonderful to be a part of something during its beginning stages.”

Sullivan, whose long-running influences are Fiona Apple and Joli Holland, got her own start doing musical theater on the East Coast. She came to California to study visual arts and later began writing music. She met Frost around then and they formed Hate Factory, another charming act with a defiant name: “Although most people who hear the name Kitten Grenade imagine shredding guitars and screaming metal ballads, it really does fit the theme of our little indie folk band. The name has actually been with me for a long time, and was the name of my thesis project in art school. Kitten Grenade in itself is all about juxtapositions and opposites. I really like names that trick you.” she explains. “I mean, when you hear the name Hate Factory, you don’t think of two cute girls playing ukuleles.”

While Sullivan and Manning await the release of their EP on Breakup, they’ll play a few local shows including opening the BFF.FM launch party for the new local radio station Best Frequencies Forever, with the Happy Hollows next week (Nov. 27, 9pm, $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com.)

“If you haven’t seen Kitten Grenade yet, you definitely should,” says Haager. “She’s basically an angel.”

As for Haager’s concert schedule, he’ll flee the life of Portland comfort momentarily for the Bay Bridged’s annual Bay Brewed festival Dec. 7 at Public Works. Also, he too is looking forward to a new release through Breakup: a split cassette EP with Oakland-based Frozen Folk. And of course, he’s excited about Kitten Grenade’s debut.

“It’s simple and elegant and will encourage you to fall in love.”

WORLD MUSIC MAYHEM

Longstanding global music-mashers Dengue Fever (of LA) and New York City’s Balkan Beat Box (originally from Tel Aviv) both arrive in SF on extended tours this week. Led by Cambodian singer-songwriter Chhom Nimol and guitarist Zac Holtzman, Dengue Fever will release its Girl from the North EP Dec. 3 — its first release in more than two years, on its own label, Tuk Tuk Records. It plays the Independent this Thu/21 with locals Seventeen Evergreen (8pm, $18. 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com). BBB is releasing new videos, including one for “Suki Muki,” a single off 2012’s Give (Nat Geo Records), and a remix of “Suki Muki” by Ori Kaplan’s alter ego DJ Shotnez. It plays with Canadian Bhangra-Celtic fusion act (really) Delhi 2 Dublin at the Regency Fri/22 (8:30pm, $27. Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness, SF. www.theregencyballroom.com).

Born to lose

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

By Dennis Harvey

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Alexander Payne may be unique at this point in that he’s in a position — which, of course, could easily be changed by a flop or two — of being able to make nothing but small, human, and humorous films with major-studio money on his own terms (re: casting and final cut). As he’s said, in a better world this would be the norm rather than a singular achievement. It’s hazardous to make too much of a movie like Nebraska, because it is small — despite the wide Great Plains landscapes shot in a wide screen format — and shouldn’t be entered into with overinflated or otherwise wrong-headed expectations.

Still, a certain gratitude is called for. As usual, most of the year’s better films have been ones (too indie, too foreign) that won’t get the big drumbeat of awards-consideration thumping. And notably this year, most of the ones that will have been American movies made by foreign directors (i.e. Gravity, Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, Prisoners, etc.) Nebraska is, finally, a win by the home team.

It is also the first time Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor weren’t involved in the script, and the first one since their 1996 Citizen Ruth that isn’t based on someone else’s novel. (Hitherto little-known Bob Nelson’s original screenplay apparently first came to Payne’s notice a decade ago, but got put off in favor of other projects.) It could easily have been a novel, though, as the things it does very well (internal thought, sense of place, character nuance) and the things it doesn’t much bother with (plot, action, dialogue) are more in line with literary fiction than commercial cinema.

Elderly Woody T. Grant (Bruce Dern) keeps being found grimly trudging through snow and whatnot on the outskirts of Billings, Mont., bound on foot (he’s no longer allowed to drive) to Lincoln, Neb., 900 miles away. Brain no doubt fuzzed by age, not to mention decades of drinking and tuning out the Mrs. (June Squibb as Kate, who in a moment of restraint greets his latest forcible return with “You dumb cluck!”), he’s convinced he needs to collect the million dollars waiting for him there. After all, he got a notice he’d won that amount in the mail. Never mind that it was just some Publishers Clearing House-type flier in fact promising nothing while attempting to sell magazine subscriptions. Woody didn’t read the fine print, and won’t be dissuaded. Something bigger than reality — or senility, even — is compelling him to make this trek. Finally, long-suffering younger son David (Will Forte), a stereo salesman whose girlfriend of two years just moved out, agrees to drive him in order to simply put the matter to rest. None of this will be particularly easy or pleasant, even if David is used to dad being problematic (or as Bob Odenkirk as older brother Ross puts it, “[He] never gave a shit about us”). Perhaps selectively deaf, Woody is no conversationalist, and claims that he’s sobered up are quickly dashed when he stumbles into their first-night motel room and bashes his head in the dark, requiring stitches. This fool’s mission acquires a whole extended family-full of other fools when father and son detour to the former’s podunk farming hometown.

There, a slew of Grants — the men all close-mouthed, the women all gabby — prove eager to believe Woody has struck gold, coming up with variably imaginary reasons why they should share in his newfound wealth. Likewise greeting this reunion with eyes full of dollar signs is Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach), a former business partner who by Woody’s reckoning has actually owed him money for 40-odd years.

Nebraska has no moments so funny or dramatic they’d look outstanding in excerpt; low-key as they were, 2009’s Sideways and 2011’s The Descendants had bigger set pieces and narrative stakes. But like those movies, this one just ambles along until you realize you’re completely hooked, all positive emotional responses on full alert. There are minor things to quibble about (mother Kate could be less of a shrew — it’s always a bit bothersome when the only significant female role in a movie evokes the “b” word), but so much that’s so deeply satisfying you hardly want to get out of your seat at the end.

Having apparently considered and bypassed bigger names (like Jack Nicholson, who for my money was too snarky — too Jack Nicholson — for 2002’s About Schmidt), Payne has a perfect cast, from 1970s almost-stars Dern and Keach to pliant-faced comedians playing straight Forte and Odenkirk. Forte (who also does good dramatic work in another upcoming seriocomedy, the Irish Run & Jump) in particular does the kind of ballasting act that attracts little attention to itself but perfectly harmonizes with other actors’ higher notes. We can feel how David has probably always undervalued himself, as well as how his wishing the people around him were kinder just might, eventually, make them so.

It’s a great pleasure just to watch the timeless flat vistas — timeless because these characters stayed behind in towns everybody else has been leaving for decades — of Phedon Papamichael’s photography, which recalls other great black and white rural movies of the color era like Hud (1963) and Paper Moon (1973). Nor should anyone overlook the soundtrack by Mark Orton of SF’s own Tin Hat, whose other members also contributed to an acoustic score that at an unusual moment of high-profile movies dominated by American roots music — neotraditionalist 1960s folk in Inside Llewyn Davis, bluegrass in the Belgian Broken Circle Breakdown — feels at once the most modest, effective, and emotionally authentic derivation of the lot.

NEBRASKA opens Fri/22 in Bay Area theaters.

We are back

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO All of a lately, my inbox has been flooded with so many bangin’ all-night underground party invites — real underground, not just some dude from Ibiza who doesn’t play Afromaus or whatever — that I’ve had to hike my virtual pants up to my gloriously toned calves. I look like a Williamsburg 2k7 thrift store hipster, minus the neon shutter shades. (Well, at least we’re not in clamdigger territory … yet.)

I don’t know what gives, but I like it. I haven’t seen so many undergrounds go off since the heyday of the Compound and Odyssey a few years back. Real estate prices, annoying neighbors, an overeager alcohol board, and too many bored police have always foiled a thriving underground scene in SF. Oakland has fared much better — and even there I’ve seen a recent uptick in quality basement throwdowns.

Good. No matter how nifty our big clubs and regular parties — and they’re pretty nifty — they can always use some competition as corrective, especially when they’ve become too bright, or too crowded, or wrong-crowded, or expensive, or not nearly loud or bass-heavy enough. And the parties themselves have been fantastic. I’ll always heart the kandi kids, but it’s nice to pack into an extralegal venue rocking some batshit techno and a friendly crowd — with no fear of losing an eye to any errant Glo-Sticks. Thanks, rave unicorn!

SURYA DUB MISSION

So perfect. Two of our legendary bass crews, the Indian-flavored Surya Dub and the Jamaican-rolled Dub Mission jamming together… at a pot club. One of the city’s sleekest and most innovative cannabis dispensaries, at that: SPARC, teaming up with Grown Kids Radio. With Kush Arora, Sep, J-Boogie, and Maneesh the Twister.

Thu/21, 7-10pm, free and 18+ but must RSVP to www.sparcsf.org/gkr before the event. 1256 Mission, SF. www.facebook.com/sparc

1002 NIGHTS

Hard to believe the guiding light of global electronic music, Cheb i Sabbah, is no longer with us, having passed away from cancer last week at the age of 66. But the music will always remain: This gala celebration, named for the party he put on for almost 20 years, will honor his contribution to the musical melting pot and bring the classic SF nightlife community out to honor Chebiji’s legacy. With more than 30 performers and Djs from around the world, including DJ Rekha, Dub Gabriel, Sep, Little John, Radiohiro, Jimmy Love, and Opium Sabbah.

Thu/21, 7pm-late, $10–$20 suggested donation. 1015 Folsom, SF. www.1015.com

ALLAND BYALLO X NIKOLA BAYTALA

Two Bay Area techno greats get together to rock Mighty’s sound system. Alland decamped for Berlin several years ago to run his successful Bad Animal imprint and Nikola, despite playing host to nearly every foreign DJ who blows through town, has been far too absent from the decks lately. Don’t sleep.

Thu/21, 10pm-late, $10 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

RETRO FUTURE

Oh hey, we’re throwing a party. The Bay Guardian that is. The latest in our series of evening soirees at the de Young Museum, this Friday evening happening pays homage to the new David Hockney exhibit by giving you a little retro-future zazz. DJs from neato Italo disco monthly Galaxy Radio shine like stars, with interdimensional face-painting, living statues, cool jewelry-making, and art, art, art (and cocktails).

Fri/22, 6pm-8:45pm, free. de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, SF. deyoung.famsf.org

DIRTYBIRD PLAYERS

Before you feast on that T-bird next week at your folks’, stuff your face with some bass and gravy, courtesy of the Bay’s notoriously lowdown Dirtybird family. With special guest Polish duo Catz ‘n Dogz, whom I adore.

Fri/22, 9pm-late, $20. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

DANNY DAZE

Caught this young ‘un (DJing raves since 13) at Detroit’s Movement festival last year, when he was riding atop a bouncy castle of Latin-flavored tech-house hype. Skinny Cuban cutie turned it out with some smooth grooves.

Sat/23, 9pm-late, $20. Monarch, 101 Sixth St, SF. www.monarchsf.com

DELTRON 3030 ORCHESTRA

Del the Funky Homosapien in the captain’s chair, Dan the Automator on navigation, and Kid Koala at the teleporter: This collab of Bay underground hip-hop and trip-hop greats, a tribute to the seminal Deltron 3030 project of the early 2000s, should be one cosmic mindtrip/blastoff. With a live orchestra, OK?

Sat/23, doors 8pm, show 9pm. $32.50. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. www.thefillmore.com

Parents under pressure

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

In recent weeks, the San Francisco Unified School District held a series of community forums to ask parents what they think kids need in order to thrive in school. The meetings were held as part of a policymaking process leading up to next year’s renewal of two important funds — the Children’s Fund and the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which account for some $100 million in funding combined.

There were huge turnouts — a Chinatown forum, where Mayor Ed Lee was reportedly in attendance, attracted more than 180 participants, while a Nov. 14 meeting at Cesar Chavez Elementary in the Mission District drew a crowd of between 80 and 90.

The parents weren’t exactly asking for more museum field trips for their kids. During breakout sessions where facilitators wrote group members’ concerns on flip pads, a few recurring themes emerged. “Job security for parents,” one read. “Affordable housing,” another stated. “It’s a shame to have to talk about lack of funds given wealth and corporations in SF,” more parent feedback stated.

Maria Su, director of the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families, thanked parents for coming and told them, “We know how hard it is and how challenging it is to survive in the city. But that doesn’t mean we should give up.”

The whole exercise provided a glimpse into just how tough it is for families to get by in a city where a hefty cost of living amounts to serious pressure. “The sacrifices they make is, their children will have access to resources you can’t get anywhere else,” said Mario Paz with the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, who works with a lot of Latino immigrant families.

A report digesting the findings of stakeholder focus groups boiled it down. “Many participants commented on … the extraordinarily high cost of living in San Francisco,” it noted, which “contributes to both financial and emotional strain on the part of our many working class and lower income residents.”

New hope for arts nonprofits

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

A few months ago, arts nonprofits CounterPULSE and The Luggage Store faced an uncertain future. New tech neighbors drove their rents sky high, and the groups that for years were venues for struggling artists found themselves struggling.

“Twitter moved in literally behind our building,” said Jessica Robinson Love, executive director of CounterPULSE. Faced with higher rents, they started preparing for a move to Oakland.

But now a nonprofit with resources to match tech is on a mission to help displaced arts organizations find permanent homes.

In a packed press conference just outside The Luggage Store on Market Street, the foundation-funded Community Arts Stabilization Trust announced Wednesday that it would purchase two properties for the longstanding Mid-Market nonprofits. Risky renters no longer, both nonprofits will soon own their own buildings, shielded from the ebbs and flows of rent surges.

Flanked by Mayor Ed Lee and Sup. Jane Kim, CAST said The Luggage Store will stay on Market and Sixth streets, while CounterPULSE will move five blocks away into an old porn theater on Turk Street. The two arts nonprofits have been in San Francisco since the early 1990s.

“Yes, rents are rising because of our success,” Lee said to the crowd. “But this will be a city for the 100 percent.”

The city contributed just over $300,000 toward helping the nonprofits find a new home, a small fraction compared to the $5 million committed by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The new nonprofit then bought the properties, a new strategy of pooling funds to save arts organizations.

“The bottom line is, nonprofits can’t compete on a commercial real estate market,” Love said. While the move bought them some breathing room, the reprieve is temporary.

CounterPULSE must raise millions of dollars to pay CAST for the property, which it hopes to do before moving into the space in 2015, Love told us. The amount isn’t exact yet because it’s still applying for a number of grants that could mitigate the costs.

The long wait before moving is due to the need for renovation at the Turk Street site. Formerly the Gayety theater and Dollhouse, the site was littered with broken glass and piles of trash and remains in disrepair.

The Guardian took a tour of the site with Love, and she saw through the crumbling plaster to what could be. Leading us downstairs, she showed us where performers would practice. On the top floor, she envisioned a space where visiting artists could stay for the duration of their exhibits. “It’s magic,” she said.

CounterPULSE already has agreements with SROs to perform for tenants, and street art is a part of the package, too. They’re a progressive arts group, she said, “from food justice to prison reform, from housing advocacy to rental rights.” She views the arts as a way to bring together community, by giving them a safe place to be at night, and a reason to celebrate.

The Presidio Strikes Back

Michael Redmond

November 19, 2013

joe@sfbg.com

On the coast of San Francisco’s national park, the Presidio, a battle is underway that may define what this unique place is really about.

Is the Presidio a historically significant natural area with a heritage worth celebrating and protecting? Or is the Presidio just the last great piece of undeveloped land in San Francisco, with the added benefit of being outside the jurisdiction of city regulators and taxes? Maybe it’s both.

The embattled parcel that could illuminate those questions is a 15-minute walk east from the Golden Gate Bridge, just off the beach of Crissy Field, which now houses Sports Basement. Once a slab of concrete and now a bustling waterfront teeming with bicyclists and joggers, it seems almost too beautiful and prosperous a place for a sporting goods store to be housed.

That may be why, a year ago, the powerful people who preside over the Presidio asked for a bevy of museum proposals to replace Sports Basement and its building.

For months, three teams with multi-million-dollar museum proposals hotly competed to rent the soon-to-be vacant property: an institute devoted to sustainability, an interactive science museum based around Presidio history, and a museum housing the extensive art collection of filmmaker George Lucas, the wealthy creator of the Star Wars empire.

Decisions made behind closed doors will seal the deal in the next few weeks and the winning pitch may shape the future of the Presidio. And like the Highlander, there can be only one. At least, that was the original thought.

Ultimately the decision won’t rest in the hands of the mayor, the Board of Supervisors, or any other elected official. For better or for worse, decision-making in the Presidio is entrusted to a seven-person “trust,” mostly appointed by the president of the United States: the Presidio Trust.

“I think, at times, you think that we all know what we’re doing,” Presidio Trust President Nancy Bechtle, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008, told a crowd of hundreds at an Oct. 24 public meeting about the museum decision. “I don’t think that any of us have made up our minds on anything yet.”

But if recent reports from the San Francisco Chronicle are to be believed, the Trust is pushing to please everyone and disappoint no one. Citing anonymous sources, longtime media bromance Matier and Ross reported last week that the Presidio Trust was leaning towards Lucas’ museum proposal while feeling out alternative sites for the remaining projects.

Presidio Trust spokesperson Dana Polk admitted they were putting out feelers. “We don’t have specific sites identified, we’re just speaking to the teams to see if they are willing to consider other options,” she told the Guardian.

For a stretch of land that has moved slowly to bring in new development, each one a laborious and controversial process, the idea of allowing a trilogy of museums could have blockbuster implications for the Presidio and its tony surrounding neighborhoods.

As many advocates from different sides of the debate have said, any major development there could make the Presidio that much denser: bringing more cars, more tourists, and more San Franciscans to the remote northwestern corner of the city that many residents seem to ignore.

More than 400,000 annual visitors would flock to Crissy Field under any of the existing plans, while multiple proposals could more than double that. The two lead proposals, Lucas’ art museum and the Presidio Exchange, tell a tale of two Presidios. One is an interactive museum that celebrates the history of the natural setting of the park around it, and the other celebrates the digital history of the surrounding Bay Area.

It’s techies versus naturalists.

There are six criteria the Presidio Trust laid out for the projects, but only two of those divide the projects sharply: firstly, is it economically viable, and secondly does the project complement the Presidio as it is today?

Which proposal defines the Presidio’s present depends on how you see its past.

EMPIRE OF ART

Palo Alto of 1878 was as driven by technology as it is today. There and then, a young Eadweard Muybridge lined up a series of photo cameras with strings tied to their shutters along a racetrack, all to settle a bet. Do all of a racing horse’s hooves leave the ground as it runs?

The horse’s galloping legs pulled each string one by one, inadvertently making the world’s first series of sequential photographs (and yes, the hooves all left the ground). Out of technological advancement, cinema was born.

There’s a reason Lucas’ Presidio-based Lucasfilm studio houses a statue of Muybridge reaching to the sky. The man who pioneered Star Wars is really the man who pioneered the golden age of cinematic special effects, and he modeled his career after techno-artists like Muybridge. The heart of his proposed museum embodies that work.

Technology shapes art, Lucas believes, and film technology was birthed in the Bay Area.

“When I moved here in 1969 right out of college, I stayed here, I built my business here, I never made a film in Hollywood,” Lucas said at a public meeting on the mid-Crissy Field site, pitching his museum idea to the Presidio Trust and to the crowd. “I’m proud of being a San Franciscan.”

At 95,000 square feet, the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum is a love poem to the history of technological art. Statues of Star Wars and other cinematic characters line the walls in mock-ups. Promotional videos for the museum show kids staring excitedly at laptops and levitating X-Wings, the spacecraft of Jedi hero Luke Skywalker, with the push of a button.

In his videos and speeches about the museum, Lucas touts the Bay Area as a hub of cinema, promising his museum would draw Pixar and LucasFilm luminaries to teach and inspire the next generation of filmmakers. The museum has hands-on digital workshops cooked into the design of the building.

“This is our chance to show young people what cinematic design is,” Lucas said. He’s shown that dedication through his nonprofit, Edutopia, bringing digital lesson plans into public school classrooms.

But as much as Lucas values the technology of cinema he also values pop art, and Star Wars is the ultimate pop adventure fantasy.

Lucas said that storytelling art, “derisively called illustration,” never gets a fair shake in museums. Now is the time, and the main event in his museum would celebrate an artist made famous by Christmas cards and Boys’ Life Magazine.

The Star Wars director’s collection of Norman Rockwell paintings is widely known in the art world, touring the US and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As with all art that appeals to the masses, ex-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown loves it.

“Lucas has what amounts to a museum of Hollywood, mixed with the kind of art you don’t need a curator to explain,” Brown wrote in a July edition in his Chronicle column, Willie’s World. “Think the Empire meets Middle America.”

Willie Brown isn’t the only luminary to back the Lucas proposal. At each public meeting and in every public letter written to the Trust, an empire of rich folks and techies sang songs of praise for the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum.

Mayor Ed Lee, tech venture capitalist Ron Conway, Pixar film director John Lasseter, Saleforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, MC Hammer, and Tim Ritchie, president of San Jose’s The Tech Museum of Innovation, all actively support the Lucas proposal.

The morals and mores of tech are all over the letter that Conway, the godfather of Silicon Valley, wrote to the Presidio Trust: “As you know, I have a passion for making and keeping San Francisco at the forefront of innovation. Certainly, there is no greater innovator around than George Lucas. His businesses have transformed the tech sector, specifically digital technology. San Francisco deserves this museum. It demands it.”

Though monied interests backed Lucas, it isn’t like he needs their cash. He pledged to personally finance the creation and operations of his museum.

The Star Wars franchise grossed more than $33 billion for Lucas, according to a study by Wired magazine. Lucas also owned Industrial Light and Magic, a pioneer in the special effects industry with a hand in everything from Back to the Future to the newest Harry Potter and Iron Man flicks. Now Star Wars and his special effects studios are owned by Disney, a deal penned just last year.

Some of that work came out of their studio in the Presidio, where the studio Lucas created pays $5.8 million annually in rent. The Letterman Digital Arts Center is one of two locations of ILM, and it’s an embodiment of Lucas’ plan for the area.

It’s a manicured campus, to be sure. A man-made creek runs down its center towards a serene pond, much lovelier than the swamps of Dagobah that Yoda called home. The white buildings with red shingled roofs confuse visitors into thinking they were erected by peoples long ago. And that’s the point, Lucas spokesperson David Perry told the Guardian.

“It looks like something that could’ve been built at the turn of the century,” he said.

Inside the Lucas museum is an homage to the tech history of the Bay Area, but the architecture’s Mission Revival style is an homage to the birth of San Francisco itself.

A LONG TIME AGO

Long before the rise of the hipsters, the first peoples to chill out in our foggy peninsula were the Ohlone tribes, dating back to the year 700. But the first who built what we know as San Francisco were Spanish soldiers driven by the fires of religion and conquest.

Lt. Col. Juan Bautista de Anza settled two areas when he first came to San Francisco in 1776: Mission Dolores and today’s Presidio. He argued with his superiors long and hard for settling the Presidio. They thought the fog and cold too harsh and inhospitable for colonization. How little things have changed.

Since the Ohlone were displaced or enslaved, the Presidio has long housed the military, segueing from the Spanish to the United States military, where it became an important installation during World War II.

Massive gun batteries sprouted on the hills of the Marin Headlands across the bay and in the Presidio, keeping a watchful eye to sea and airborne invaders from the west. Some of the barracks that housed the soldiers still stand today.

As recently as the ’90s, a lone cannon fired there every day as the flag was lowered, signaling the Marina and Richmond districts that evening was on its way. In 1994, the cannons were silent.

After the military ended its occupation of the Presidio, its fate remained uncertain. In what news reports at the time characterized as a Republican swipe against Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in 1996 Congress deemed that now San Francisco’s national park should be self-sustaining. Thus a novel quasi private-public institution was born: the Presidio Trust.

The Trust was mandated with making the Presidio a self-supporting entity, earning money with rents and development, and it has now finally achieved the goal of covering its own operating costs with no help from the federal government. It’s the only national park with a profit motive, and that changes the calculus of what’s built.

The Presidio is an entity in San Francisco, but not of San Francisco, in financial and political terms. Guardian investigations from Lucas’ first move to the Presidio catalogued an estimated $60 million in savings he achieved by not paying local San Francisco taxes. The new museum site may benefit from the same deal.

The Presidio of today is taking halting baby steps towards commerce. The main post houses a high school, a YMCA, and the Disney Museum. The cannon rests unused adjacent to a bowling alley.

The Presidio houses 3,000 residents, according to federal data, and 3,000 workers come in from the surrounding Bay Area to work. Since 1996, the area has transformed. But beyond just making money, the Presidio Trust is also tasked with maintaining its parkland and curating its past, and it’s that past that the other museum proposals celebrate.

The Presidio Exchange museum proposal focuses on the Presidio itself, its history and future.

OF AND FOR THE PRESIDIO

First off, this is not a rebels versus the empire tale. The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy — a nonprofit affiliated with the Golden Gate National Parks Recreation Area — is at the helm of the Presidio Exchange site. Even though it isn’t George Lucas, its not a ragtag band of outliers either.

The Parks Conservancy built and currently maintains visitor attractions all over San Francisco’s national parkland, from the Warming Hut at Fort Point to Alcatraz. It has raised more than $300 million to support these projects since 1981, all in the name of curating its slice of important Bay Area history.

Its Presidio Exchange (PX) proposal is about about celebrating the area’s natural history. In physical terms, the PX architecturally embodies its name: A great big X. Each wing houses a different focus on Presidio’s natural world and history through interactive workshops, taking exhibit cues from local favorites like the Exploratorium.

One end houses “park place,” where arts will intersect with the environment. A great example that exists now is Spire, a construct of trees that forms a sculpted point near the Presidio’s Arguello gate. Another wing houses a demonstration kitchen, where food grown on-site will be fricasseed and fried in the name of education.

If the home and workplace are first and second spaces for people to live, the Parks Conservancy touts the PX as a “third space,” with a living room area built-in to look out on the water of the bay.

Stepping upstairs is a two-story spiral of differently angled screens, allowing visitors to choose their history lesson based on sightline — Ohlone or Spanish colonialists, or to ditch humanity altogether and learn about the ecosystem.

A third museum proposal, called the Sustainability Institute, has gained little political traction, but also follows the PX ideal of celebrating natural settings of the Presidio. That proposal describes it as “a place to explore the critical social, economic, and environmental issues of our time.”

More than celebrate history though, the PX also has spaces for visiting artists to perform in its “world stage.” Renderings of dancers litter its website. “It’s progressive and, most of all, inclusive,” said Janice Berger, a Parks Conservancy board member, in a promotion for the PX.

Nature aside, what the Parks Conservancy also does well is drum up support. At a public forum on the museum proposals on Oct. 24, a portion of the over 35,000 annual parks volunteers and networks that shaped the Golden Gate National Parks were united against the force that is George Lucas.

WHO IS IT FOR?

Those used to the public meetings of the Board of Supervisors would be in for a rude awakening at the Presidio Trust as the atmosphere was jovial and friendly, at least within the museum proposal fiefdoms. The meeting to discuss the mid-Crissy field site was divided into discernible camps: Tanned and weathered naturalists, upper crust folks with pocket squares in their coats, Presidio neighbors, and a handful of Lucas employees.

The windows of the former military cafeteria looked out onto the Golden Gate Bridge, and with the foghorn as musical accompaniment the commenters pleaded for their preferred Presidio project.

“Relatively speaking, the Lucas building is unrelated to the site,” former Presidio Trustee Amy Meyer said at the microphone, addressing the current board and the audience. The crowd thumped and cheered as she spoke.

Danya Sherman, who works in community engagement at Friends of the Highline in New York City, said the PX was like a sister-project with that train-track-turned-museum, with many of the same local benefits.

“Our plans were opposed by the mayor at the time, including much of the business community and others,” she said. “But after a tidal wave of community support, the High Line now is one of the top three most visited sites in New York. And its economic impact is estimated to be over $2 billion.”

“How do we get complete engagement?” asked Charles Jennings, questioning the Lucas proposal’s ability to do so. “Not just next door to the Presidio, but in the entire city?”

Ray Holland of the Planning Association of the Richmond said a coalition of neighborhood groups also thought the PX was the right way to go.

“They’re going to be some very tough [decisions] because all three of them are very solid proposals,” he said. “It’s our feeling that only one of them actually meets all of the criteria in your solicitations for those proposals, and that’s the Presidio Exchange.”

Becky Evans, local chair of the Sierra Club, lampooned the Lucas plan for not tying into the local natural area. Choosing the PX, she said would let the Trust “leave a legacy of something with monumental status.”

Over 30 speakers touted the benefits of the PX, but there were just a handful of Lucas supporters in tow that night, most of them his employees. Only two supporters for the sustainability institute spoke. Letters flew into the Trust as well, posted for the public to see.

As a general rule, parks and surrounding neighborhood groups sent letters of support for the PX, and tech groups and monied interests (like the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce) wrote in favor of the Lucas Cultural Arts Center.

At the end of the night, Presidio Trust President Bechtle told the Guardian that there were so many good reasons for each of the proposals she was flummoxed. She mimed her head bursting, hands flying outward.

As this issue goes to print, she and the board planned to meet privately to discuss interviews they conducted with project heads over the past two weeks. Perry, the Lucas project spokesperson, said Lucas made his case for over an hour to the board.

“This was about answering some of the individual board members’questions,” he said. Of the critique of not fitting with the natural setting like the PX, “I think it’s safe to say there’s not much in the Presidio now that was there in the beginning — including the eucalyptus trees.”

But other questions might provide a clue as to who’ll win the contract.

The Trust asked about compromise in the construction by scaling back the building to make it fit more harmoniously into the surrounding area. “Was there room for give and take in compromise?” Perry said Lucas was asked. “The answer was yes.”

Does that mean it’s in the bag?

With the serenity of a Jedi, Perry answered simply: “I can’t say.”

Throughout, all admitted the decision is difficult. Should the site be used as a beautiful backdrop for one man’s art collection to be enjoyed by all, or an inclusive science museum dedicated to the history and natural setting of the Presidio?

In just a few weeks we may see what the Presidio Trust’s vision is for the northwest corner of San Francisco.

Parents under pressure

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

November 15, 2013

134

In recent weeks, the San Francisco Unified School District has held a series of community forums to ask parents what they think kids need in order to thrive in school. The meetings were held as part of a policymaking process leading up to next year’s renewal of two important funds – the Children’s Fund and the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which account for some $100 million in funding combined.

There were huge turnouts – a Chinatown forum, where Mayor Ed Lee was reportedly in attendance, attracted more than 180 participants, while a Nov. 14 meeting at Cesar Chavez Elementary in the Mission District drew a crowd of between 80 and 90.

The event provided a glimpse into just how tough it is for families to get by in a city where a hefty cost of living amounts to serious pressure. “The sacrifices they make is, their children will have access to resources you can’t get anywhere else,” said Mario Paz with the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, who works with a lot of Latino immigrant families.

A report digesting the findings of stakeholder focus groups distilled the pressures facing families. “Many participants commented on … the extraordinarily high cost of living in San Francisco,” it noted, which “contributes to both financial and emotional strain on the part of our many working class and lower income residents.”

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