News

‘Because you showed your ass’: ‘Black Lips in India’ peek

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Culture clash? The trailer for The Black Lips in India

This in from peeps with the Black Lips (known for their adventurous wandering in Israel and about):

“Like the Sex Pistols’ January ’78 tour of the Deep South, the Black Lips recent expedition to India was marked by a series of fairly seismic culture shocks. Everything from bottle-throwing fans at a gig in Pune, to livid show promoters in Chennai, all in response to a bunch of full-frontal punk rock provocateurs from Atlanta. For those that still haven’t heard the story, the band was booked to play on India’s equivalent of American Idol, The ‘Campus Rock Idol’ Tour, a big-ticket televised series with large corporate sponsors.

“Last Saturday, in Chennai, the band entertained the crowd with what stateside fans would consider a typically raucous Black Lips show, replete with intra-band lip locking, and Cole de-pantsing, mooning the crowd, and attempting to play his six-string with, well, his privates. Barely OK in America, definitely not OK in India, the band was subsequently chased out of the country and the sponsors pulled the plug, effectively canceling the rest of the tour and the television season. The events have caused an international wave of news coverage, rounded out by everything from defensive “It’s only rock ‘n’ roll” stories to meatier pieces that tease out the more nuanced concepts at play here, namely artistic freedom versus cultural respect.

Eco-Boutique of the Week: Wildlife Works gets it all the way

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SFBG’s Juliette Tang peeps the best eco-friendly products and boutiques.

It seems that the biggest trend in fashion these days isn’t the ankle boot, the harem pant, or the high-waisted jean, but the color green. Everything is being dyed green lately, no? And by green I don’t mean the color of that pretty John Galliano dress. I mean green as in producing goods in a socially conscious manner, inflicting as little harm as possible on the environment, and considering the sustainability of the planet as a meaningful paradigm in the relationship between labor, assembly, and production. Green as in the type of clothing one might find in boutiques like Wildlife Works, a green fashion label headquartered in San Francisco whose mission is to save endangered wildlife in Kenya.

Unlike much of the clothing on the market that is labeled ‘green,’ the products at Wildlife Works are actually green. Sadly, ‘green’ is often a misnomer used to mislead consumers. It seems everyday we’re hearing news of fraudulent eco-friendly products that aren’t nearly as green as they claim to be. Says Mike Korchinsky, founder and CEO of Wildlife Works, “Is everything that claims to be eco-friendly really eco-friendly? No, absolutely not. The marketing world has caught onto the green buzz and has been making a lot of hay out of the green movement.” From poor quality goods to deceitful advertising, spurious greenwashing is everywhere.

Why newspapers won’t die

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By Tim Redmond

But before I get into that:

Doesn’t the Chronicle’s new design look awful? I mean, it’s cluttered and backward-looking and I don’t think it’s going to save THAT newspaper from its financial problems. Why doesn’t the Chron just take local news seriously, cover San Francisco, and hire just one, just one progressive urban political columnist to balance the suburban Chuck Nevius?

Okay: But newspapers aren’t going to die. I try to explain this to people all the time. I tell students that journalism is going to be around forever, even if we stop killing trees to make paper and the internet morphs into a consensual hallucination or people screw sockets into their brains to learn things or whatever. There will still be communication, and some of it will still involve journalists.

I don’t always agree with Bill Keller, the editor of the NY Times, but in a recent column answering readers’ questions, he got this one just right:

First, there is a diminishing supply of quality journalism, and a growing demand. By quality journalism I mean the kind that involves experienced reporters going places, bearing witness, digging into records, developing sources, checking and double-checking, backed by editors who try to enforce high standards. I mean journalism that, however imperfect, labors hard to be trustworthy, to supply you with the information you need to be an engaged citizen. The supply of this kind of journalism is declining because it is hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work. The traditional practitioners of this craft — mainly newspapers — have been downsizing or declaring bankruptcy. The wonderful florescence of communication ignited by the Internet contains countless voices riffing on the journalism of others but not so many that do serious reporting of their own. Hence the dwindling supply. The best evidence of the soaring demand is the phenomenal traffic to the Web sites that do dependable news reporting — nearly 20 million unique monthly visitors to the site you are currently reading, and that number excludes the burgeoning international audience. The law of supply and demand suggests that the market will find a way to make the demand pay for the supply.

And it doesn’t take that much money to create a news operation on the web. The giants in the industry (and some of the not-so-giants, like the SF Chronicle) may fall by the wayside, and we may see much more web-based local reporting from a larger number of smaller and more diffuse news outlets (already happening in SF) and that won’t be such a bad thing.

But newspapers, in the traditional sense of organizations that pay staffers to report and deliver news and charge people (in our case, by showing them ads) to access it … that’s not going anywhere.

mills college music

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Because the Bay Guardian is the go-to source for Bay Area audiences, I thought your readers would be interested to know about the latest happenings at Mills College with the opening of its new concert hall and exciting all-star contemporary music festival.

From February 21-April 5 Mills will celebrate their rich music legacy with a six-concert festival, Giving Free Play to the Imagination. An elite group of musicians who have helped shape contemporary music around the world, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Roscoe Mitchell, Joan Jeanrenaud, Muhal Richard Abrams, the Arditti Quartet, and Fred Frith, among others, will perform pieces of their own design, including several world-premiere pieces, and of Mills composers past and present. At this time Mills will also celebrate the reopening of the Mills Concert Hall, a venue that has inspired audiences for more than 80 years. Oliveros will play the first sounds in the Hall on February 21.

Mills College is the international leader in contemporary music, which is why musicians from around the world come to Mills, and how Mills has become an incubator for the evolution of contemporary music, with the likes of Dave Brubeck, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Burt Bacharach, Darius Milhaud and Phil Lesh among students and faculty. As the Bay Guardian has covered Mills’ music in the past, I think your readers would be interested to know about this exciting festival, the Bay Area’s latest greatest concert venue, and what’s new in the world of Mills as its musicians inspire communities in the Bay Area and around the world.

Please let me know if we can arrange an interview with Mills music leadership or the performers to help you build your story. A summary of the Festival program is below, with further details available at www.mills.edu/musicfestival.

Best regards,

Victoria Terheyden

Victoria Terheyden

MacKenzie Communications, Inc.

600 California Street, Suite 1590

San Francisco, CA 94108

Tel: 415.403.0800 ext. 30
Fax: 415.403.0801

www.mackenziesf.com

Media Contacts:

Quynh Tran, Mills College

Media Relations Manager

510.430.2300

qtran@mills.edu

Victoria Terheyden

MacKenzie Communications, Inc.

415.867.2516

vterheyden@mackenziesf.com

Mills College Celebrates 80 Years of Musical Innovation with

Giving Free Play to the Imagination Music Festival

OAKLAND, CA—Feb. 3, 2009. Mills College celebrates 80 years of musical innovation as it reopens the historic Mills Concert Hall after an extensive 18-month renovation with a music festival featuring some of the world’s leading contemporary musicians. The six-concert series, Giving Free Play to the Imagination, runs from February 21 through April 5, 2009.

Musical innovators such as Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Joan Jeanrenaud, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, the Arditti Quartet, and Fred Frith, among many others, will celebrate Mills College’s leadership in defining contemporary music.

At the heart of the aesthetic and educational mission of music at Mills is a tradition of experimentalism. Breaking free from preconceived notions about music, Mills composers and performers embrace new sounds and musical forms while pursuing creative, exploratory, and individual approaches to music. It is this unique approach that has made Mills College the destination for sonic pioneers. And it is why some of the top names in contemporary music—Darius Milhaud, Dave Brubeck, Joëlle Léandre, Phil Lesh, John Cage, Anthony Braxton, and Pauline Oliveros, to name just a few—have been part of the faculty and student population at Mills.

“Because of our long history of support for an experimentalist tradition across barriers of genre, cultural identity, or perceived hierarchy, Mills is uniquely placed to cultivate, appreciate, and celebrate musical pioneers,” said Fred Frith, head of the Music Department and internationally known composer, multi-instrumentalist, and improviser.

Mills music faculty, students, and visiting artists from varied musical traditions come from as far away as Argentina, China, France, and Turkey to study musical forms from electronic music to classical performance to jazz improvisation.

“Ever since renowned French classical composer and Mills’ professor Darius Milhaud encouraged soon-to-be-renowned jazz pianist composer and Mills’ student Dave Brubeck to ‘be himself,’ our students have been discovering how to ‘be themselves’ with single-handed determination,” said Frith. “As a Music Department that encourages experimentation while respecting tradition, we are second to none.”

“We are continually inspired by the influence and impact of our music graduates in their artistic pursuits,” said Janet L. Holmgren, president of Mills College. “Whether they are composers, performers, professors, or music producers or whether they are working in the film, video game, or music industries, or in leading technology and digital media companies, our graduates reflect the College’s mission to encourage creativity and experimentation, all within a global context.”

Giving Free Play to the Imagination also marks the completion of the $11 million renovation of the Mills College Concert Hall, to be renamed for well-known Bay Area philanthropist and Mills alumna Jeannik Méquet Littlefield, MA ‘42. Designed by noted California architect Walter Ratcliff Jr., the Mills Music Building has received widespread acclaim since its opening in 1928.

Improvements to the Concert Hall include new acoustic panels for enhanced sound quality, an expanded stage area for larger performances, installation of a dedicated mixing station, soundproofing for performance and recording quality, new seating and improved layout for a better audience experience. The multicolored frescoes and murals created by California painter Raymond Boynton were restored by two teams of art conservators to return them to their original vibrant colors.

The festival’s name, in fact, derives from Boynton’s vision for his murals, “to produce a scheme of decoration that would give free play to the imagination.”

Mills Music Festival Honorary Committee:

Charles Amirkhanian* – composer, percussionist, sound poet, radio producer

Laurie Anderson* – performance and visual artist, composer, vocalist, musician

Dave Brubeck*+ – jazz and classical musician, pianist, composer

Robert Cole – director of Cal Performances

Merce Cunningham – choreographer and founder of Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Evelyn Glennie – percussionist, composer, motivational speaker

David Harrington – violinist and founding member of the Kronos Quartet

Phil Lesh* – musician and founding member of the Grateful Dead

George Lewis – improviser-trombonist, composer, computer/installation artist

Jeannik Méquet Littlefield* – philanthropist and patroness of the arts

Annea Lockwood – composer, professor emeritus at Vassar College

Rebeca Mauleón* – Latin and world music pianist, composer, educator

Meredith Monk – composer, singer, director/choreographer

Michael Morgan – music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, pianist, educator

Pauline Oliveros+ – composer, performer, first director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center)

Lauren Speeth* – CEO of the Elfenworks Foundation, member of the Mills Board of Trustees, violinist, recording artist

Roselyne Swig+ – philanthropist, activist, and patroness of the arts

Michael Tilson Thomas – music director of the San Francisco Symphony, composer, recording artist

* Mills alumnae/i

+ Mills honorary degree recipient

Program

Saturday, February 21, 2009 8:00 pm

OPENING NIGHT: Pauline Oliveros with Tony Martin; Terry Riley; Joseph Kubera performs Roscoe Mitchell; Joan Jeanrenaud

Solo performances of works by pioneers in the experimentalist tradition. Oliveros will play the first musical sounds in the renovated Concert Hall. A champagne reception follows.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 3:00 pm

A CELEBRATION OF THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

More than 40 years of electronic innovation featuring Pauline Oliveros, Tony Martin, Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, William Winant, Joan Jeanrenaud, James Fei, and John Bischoff. Pre-concert talk with performers at 2:00 pm.

Friday, February 27, 2009 8:00 pm

LEGENDARY COMPOSER AND IMPROVISER MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS with special guest Roscoe Mitchell

Saturday, February 28, 2009 8:00 pm

DARIUS MILHAUD’S BRAZILIAN CONNECTION

Dazzling orchestral works conducted by Nicole Paiement. A celebration of the renaming of the Concert Hall in honor of Mills alumna Jeannik Méquet Littlefield follows.

Sunday, March 8, 2009 3:00 pm

ARDITTI QUARTET

The world-renowned string quartet plays works by Mills composers past and present

Sunday, April 5, 2009 3:00 pm

THE MUSIC OF FRED FRITH

A rocking birthday concert of new music with Fred Frith and Cosa Brava (Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi, Zeena Parkins, The Norman Conquest), Liz Albee, Minna Choi, Beth Custer, Joan Jeanrenaud, Myra Melford, Roscoe Mitchell, Ikue Mori, Larry Ochs, Bob Ostertag, and William Winant.

TICKETS / PUBLIC INFO:

General admission: $20/concert; $100/series

Seniors: $12/concert; $60/series

For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.mills.edu/musicfestival

Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity to approximately 950 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men. Since 2000, applications to Mills College have more than doubled. The College is named one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report, one of the Best 368 Colleges by the Princeton Review, and ranks 75th among America’s best colleges by Forbes.com. Visit us at www.mills.edu.

Bay hip-hoppers Zion I to launch ‘The Takeover’

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zion i poster sml.jpg

News from Bay Area hip-hop duo Zion I’s camp: Their new record, The Takeover, arrives Feb. 17, along with a show at 330 Ritch. Word has it that there will also be a Feb. 13 listening party at the pair’s studio-office, the Zoo. Sounds like the group is reaching out and expanding – even during belt-tightening times.

ZION I
Feb. 17, 10 p.m., call for price
330 Ritch, SF
(415) 541-9574
www.330ritch.com

Who is Mr. Slim?

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Text by Sarah Phelan

Is “Slim” really Mr. Slim’s real name? And who is this scary-sounding guy, anyways? News junkies should probably be asking these questions now that Carlos Slim Helú has loaned $250 million to the New York Times, and may ultimately take over the financially troubled company, which reportedly is $1.1 billion in debt.

When I first read Mr. Slim’s name, coupled with the phrase “the Mexican billionaire,” I thought there was no way this could be his real name. It had to be a nickname, a scary one at that, evoking comic book-style images in which a burly mobster darkens the newspaper’s door with a long shadow, a cloud of cigar smoke and the threat that “Mr. Slim intends to slim down the newsroom, starting with your left pinkies, if he doesn’t see some profits soon.”

But while it’s true that Mr. Slim is looking for a 10 percent profit at the Times—a scary sounding goal for reporters in an increasingly shrinking media world —it turns out Slim really is Mr. Slim’s real name, albeit a modification of the name of his Lebanese father, Youssif Salim, a Maronite Catholic, who emigrated to Mexico at the tender age of 14.

Upon reaching Mexico, Mr. Slim’s father changed his name from Youssif Slim to Julián Slim Haddad, adding his mother’s surname, Haddad, for good measure, as per Mexican-naming customs.

As the perhaps future king of the NYT, Slim, 69, already exerts influence on the telecommunications industry in Mexico and much of Latin America, and may well be the richest man on Earth, with a net worth of $60 billion, having possibly surpassed Warren Buffet in the recent global economic turmoil. All of which makes me fear that there is a fat chance that Slim will be suffering expanding word counts at the New York Times, any time soon.

Seeing starzzz

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Pitchfork Media has sort of become synonymous with junk-food news in recent years, sensationalizing almost every aspect of the independent music world for the hungry masses through dirt-dishing bites on the latest breaking headlines and scale-tipping — or dipping — album reviews. While some may see the Chicago online music publication as a rock-snob tabloid, there’s no denying the influence it’s had upon some independent musicians: artists such as Animal Collective and No Age have collared a kind of A-list celebrity status almost overnight thanks, in part, to the site of music sites.

But when I met with San Francisco group Nodzzz at drummer Eric Butterworth’s Upper Haight apartment, the three seemed averse to any hype they may garner from Pitchfork. When I mentioned that the publication had just reviewed the band’s self-titled, 10-song long-player on What’s Your Rupture? that very morning, the three met my remark with silence. Then Butterworth opined: "Pitchfork is lame, and it doesn’t even matter because that shit is stupid. If you base your musical interests on Pitchfork — fuck yourself."

Fair enough. While Nodzzz managed to capture an above-average 7.6 rating for its efforts, the outfit agreed, as vocalist-guitarist Anthony Atlas put it, that "[Pitchfork] reviews are always kind of contradictory" and "a positive review would be just as problematic as a negative review."

"It’s pretty fucking crazy how many people that goes out to," guitarist and backup vocalist Sean Paul Presley added. "It makes you feel pretty nervous because you already hold your own material pretty close to yourself and you wonder what’s gonna happen when you get a review like that, because Pitchfork is single-handedly responsible for making bands, what bands do well, and what bands sell records. It’s been an auspicious day not knowing what it actually means. I’m on the fence about whether it means anything more than just another review."

This review does come at a point not long after Nodzzz’s "I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)" single, issued on Butterworth’s Make a Mess imprint. That release ended up on quite a few best-of-2008 short lists. But while the group’s name has amassed a wave of chatter on the blogosphere, Nodzzz have obvious convictions concerning the objectification of its image and the commercialization of its sound — even going so far as to turn down an opportunity to play at this year’s South by Southwest festival.

"I like pop and punk music when they cater to an audience and to fun," said Atlas, who formed the band with Presley and original drummer Pete Hilton in the fall of 2006 after relocating from Olympia, Wash., to the Bay Area for school. "Something about SXSW seems too market driven — kind of like a rock ‘n’ roll tradeshow. There’s a ton of fantastic bands playing, and I’m sure it’s a fun time, but I don’t feel like asserting ourselves in this broader rock ‘n’ roll market is what we’re all about."

Released in November 2008, the album channels the slapdash garage-pop urgencies of ’80s groups like the Feelies and Great Plains. "Is She There" opens the recording with a burst of amp crackle and drum jolt that’s over before you know it. On songs such as "In the City (Contact High)" and "Controlled Karaoke," the bright-eyed harmonies of Atlas and Presley bait you with nagging, sing-along choruses that get lodged in your skull for days on end, while "Highway Memorial Shrine" and "Losing My Accent" smother you in fuzz and chaos with a scrappy, twin-guitar assault of chiming hooks and jangly lo-fi, as well as Hilton’s trash-can rumble.

As Atlas sees it, his band’s fortunes can be chalked up to simply "tunneling through the fog" as each of its "little goals" are accomplished.

"I have no agenda with this band, but I do have goals, and I just see them as they become possible," he explained. "I feel like we have to have a healthy relationship with it because it can just end quickly. It’s so rewarding, but yet it’s a rock ‘n’ roll band — it’s a project with three people. You can’t stake a life on it."

www.myspace.com/nodzzz

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

Immigrant activists seek Newsom meeting

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› news@sfbg.com

As cops pushed their way through City Hall’s crowded hallways the day after the presidential inauguration, telling immigrant-rights demonstrators to make a clear pathway, a woman pulled her friend closer to the wall.

"Be careful," she said in Spanish. "You don’t want to be detained."

The mostly Latino protesters placed a candle and an invitation to an immigrant rights meeting in front of each supervisor’s door. The event was meant to bid good riddance to George W. Bush and demand policy change from both President Barack Obama and Mayor Gavin Newsom in light of the escautf8g nationwide crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.

Angered by what they see as a lack of local political leadership in the face of federal assaults on San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance, the protesters, numbering in the hundreds, sang social justice songs and chanted "Si se puede" before stopping in front of the Mayor’s Office to shout, "Let us in!"

Organized by the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee, a coalition of 30 organizations that has been working on an immigrants’ rights platform since last July, the action was intended to place additional pressure on Newsom to meet directly with activists.

Newsom has refused to hold a public meeting with immigrant-rights groups since announcing last summer that the city would contact federal authorities whenever youth suspected of being undocumented are arrested on felony charges. That means even innocent kids, arrested by mistake, could be deported.

Newsom’s abrupt policy shift came on the heels of a series of racially charged San Francisco Chronicle articles that hit newsstands just as he was announcing his intention to run for California governor.

Since then, SFIRDC has organized protests and met individually with nine supervisors to persuade them to uphold the city’s sanctuary ordinance and municipal ID program, and to work to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, police checkpoints, and budget cuts to immigrant community programs.

To date, the four newly elected supervisors — John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, and Eric Mar, all direct descendants of immigrant families — along with two returning board members, Sups. Chris Daly and Bevan Dufty, have signed SFIRDC’s pledge.

But while Sup. Sophie Maxwell is said to be open to the idea and Ross Mirkarimi is likely to sign it, Sups. Michela Alioto-Pier, Sean Elsbernd, and Carmen Chu, Newsom’s closest allies on the board, have not.

SFIRDC co-organizer and Asian Law Caucus staff attorney Angela Chan said the coalition hopes Newsom will be receptive to the idea of a Feb. 25 town hall meeting, and that Obama will heed calls to stop raids and suspend detentions and deportations — moves that have increased in frequency locally since Joseph Russoniello was appointed U.S. Attorney for Northern California in December 2007.

"Russoniello’s priorities don’t seem to be in line with the Obama administration," Chan told the Guardian, further noting that the success of SFIRDC’s February 25th meeting, which will be held at the office of St. Peter’s Housing Committee, hinges on the presence of the mayor: If he doesn’t show, the discussion cannot move forward.

San Francisco’s 1989 Sanctuary Ordinance prohibits the use of city funds to enforce federal immigration law, but a 1993 amendment requires the city to report immigrants suspected of felonies to the federal government.

But San Francisco law-enforcement officials chose not to apply that rule to young people — until last summer’s policy shift. Since then, the Juvenile Probation Department has referred an estimated 100 San Francisco youth (who were arrested on suspicion of a crime, but not yet convicted) to ICE. The feds can detain undocumented youth in county jails with adult criminals or transfer them to other facilities, often in other states, without notifying an attorney or a family member.

"We want to narrow the 1993 felony exception to be applied only if a youth has gotten due process and been found to have committed a felony," Chan said.

The city’s crackdown is part of a larger national picture. The amped-up federal campaign against undocumented immigrants, a product of post-9/11 programs, began when ICE was created to replace the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003.

"There are victims of domestic violence who will not call the police because they are afraid of their families getting deported," Guillermina Castellano, a domestic worker and activist with Mujeres Unidas and La Raza Central, said at the protest."The main difference between now and before is the scale," said Francisco Ugarte, a lawyer with the Immigrant Legal Education Network. "It’s hard to describe the kind of fear that exists now."

Strange bedfellows

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY San Francisco’s bicycle community found itself in the strange position of encouraging Superior Court Judge Peter Busch — someone many cyclists revile for his strict enforcement of a far-reaching injunction against bike projects in the city — to reject a city-sponsored bike safety proposal during a Jan. 22 hearing. It was one more sign of the desperation bicyclists and city officials are feeling over the three-year-old ban on all things bike-related, from new lanes to simple sidewalk racks (see “Stationary biking,” 5/16/07).

Judge Busch denied a city motion asking for the authority to make safety improvements at intersections that have proven dangerous to bicyclists, as well as a specific proposal by the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) to remove the bike lane at the most dangerous of those intersections, on Market Street at Octavia Boulevard, where 15 bicyclists have been hit by cars making illegal right turns onto the freeway since the revamped intersection opened in September 2005.

But the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and other bicyclists opposed the MTA proposal, arguing it would be more dangerous and holding a Jan. 16 rally at the site, which drew several supportive local politicians, including Sen. Mark Leno, Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, David Campos, and Bevan Dufty. “As people who ride through that intersection every single day, we believe the proposal would have made the intersection more dangerous. So I’m really relieved that the judge saw that,” SFBC director Leah Shahum told us.

She was less pleased with the judge’s refusal to relax the injunction, which stems from a legal challenge to the San Francisco Bicycle Plan. San Francisco resident Rob Anderson and attorney Mary Miles successfully sued the city in June 2006, arguing that the plan was hasty and did not include an environmental impact report (EIR), as required by state law, to determine how the plan would affect traffic, neighborhoods, businesses, and the environment.

“This case has been very discouraging because there are a handful of activists against bicyclists in the city,” City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey said. “The hearing showed that the city has to go to court any time it wants to improve the streets for bicyclists.”

Although Judge Busch denied the city’s request to remove the bike lane, he hinted that the injunction would probably be lifted this spring with the completion of the Bike Plan’s EIR. “There was a strong message from the judge that he sees the bigger picture about getting the EIR done. It just needs to be complete and fair and accurate. Then the city can get back to work making the streets safer,” Shahum said.

Both Anderson and the SFBC, who usually agree on little, agreed on the judge’s latest ruling. Anderson advocates maintaining streets for cars and pedestrians, while the SFBC works to make roads safer for bicycles and encouraging bicycling as an important transportation option. Shahum urges city officials to rethink their approach to make Market and Octavia safer. “The city really does need to move on to the next steps to make the intersection better,” she said.

Although the number of bicyclists in San Francisco has doubled in recent years in light of volatile gasoline prices, the economic crisis, and greater awareness of global climate change, Anderson continues to argue that bicyclists will always be a minority interest, even in San Francisco.

“We have to make the streets as safe as possible without strangling the rest of the traffic,” Anderson told the Guardian. “Only a small percentage of the population in San Francisco use bicycles as their main mode of transportation. It’s not fair for the bike people to design the streets just to benefit them.”

Dorsey and Deputy City Attorney Audrey Pearson oppose Anderson, who has said bicycling is an inherently dangerous activity that the city shouldn’t be promoting. “As a policy, the city tries to discourage cars in San Francisco,” Dorsey said, referring to the longstanding “transit first” policies.

Now that the public comment period for the Bike Plan’s Draft EIR is over and Judge Busch has ruled to keep the bike lane at Market and Octavia, all parties are looking ahead to spring when the court is expected to lift the injunction on improving bike safety in San Francisco, unleashing nearly 60 new bike projects. That is, unless Anderson and Miles can find a way to stop them.

Pelosi targets Bush tax cuts

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By Tim Redmond

Here’s some very good news from someone who is not my favorite politician: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing to repeal the Bush tax cuts, two years before they expire.

We’re talking about a lot of money here — $226 billion. And all coming from the top 1 percent of the richest people in America.

Good news: Obama issues executive orders on FOIA

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President Obama: “Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency”

President Barack Obama in a statement to the press on his first hours on the job said, “Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency.” Now that is good news.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC), flashed the word about Obama’s new press policy in a special communique.

Scheer reported, “Obama apparently has signed executive orders whose effect, among
other things, is to reverse the so-called “Ashcroft Memorandum,”
which (in)famously authorized executive branch agencies, when
responding to FOIA requests, to use their discretion under the law to
err on the side of withholding government information rather than
disclosing.

The stink of ink

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Film noir doesn’t fuck around. It gives you tough-taking characters, gunshots, stiff drinks, and outrage, all within 90 minutes (frequently less). The seventh Noir City, programmed by Anita Monga and Eddie Muller, is stacked with double-features focused on "Newspaper Noir," the inkiest of subgenres. The fest kicks off with Humphrey Bogart in Deadline — USA (1952), a crackling newsroom thriller from Richard Brooks (1955’s The Blackboard Jungle, 1967’s In Cold Blood). Rapid-fire pacing is the only way this film crams in so much exciting stuff: a storied newspaper, The Day, that’s on the verge of being sold; a mysterious blonde, found dead and wearing only a fur coat; a gangster-about-town who’s got his fingerprints on City Hall; a courtroom battle; and a murder that literally stops the presses. Bogart ("Newspaperman is the best profession in the world!") is aces as a soon-to-be-unemployed editor who makes a last stand by exposing the gangster’s crimes on his front page. He also has a nice subplot trying to woo back his ex-wife (future Planet of the Apes-er Kim Hunter) and barks plenty of wisdom about the state of the news biz, some of it oddly prophetic: "It’s not enough anymore to give ’em just news — they want comics, contests, puzzles …" Ethel Barrymore adds Old Hollywood class as the widow of Bogie’s boss, while Gilligan’s Island‘s Jim Backus pops up as a Day reporter.

But not all newspapermen are as heroic as Deadline — USA‘s scum-busting bunch; opening night concludes with 1952’s Scandal Sheet, based on a Sam Fuller novel. The film’s New York Express lives for a lurid mix of "thrills, escape, and news," with a special talent for manufacturing the latter. But editor Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) is as sleazy as his paper. When a secret from his past threatens his position, he commits a murder that becomes the obsession of the Express‘s top reporter (John Derek) — and the end result is dramatic irony at its juiciest.

NOIR CITY

Jan. 23-Feb. 1, double features $10

Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF

www.noircity.com

Housing is economic stimulus

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By Paul Boden


EDITORIAL Change is certainly in the air these days. A president who understands that the phrase "economic recovery" is more then just a buzzword for tax cuts and bailouts for corporations and wealthy people represents perhaps the biggest, and some would argue the most important change — and it offers an opportunity for struggling communities.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to create the largest public works construction project since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. He has talked about funding work on everything from schools to sewer systems, from green jobs to ensuring that every American has access to a college education. All this is incredibly good news for the country as a whole.

My concern is that homelessness has received very little mention, although more than 3 million people experience homelessness every year. Family homelessness, in particular, is on the rise, with 16 cities (out of 25 surveyed in a recent report) reporting an increase in the number of families forced out of their homes. And yet there seems no clear plan for using economic recovery programs to restore the draconian cuts in federal affordable housing funding. Since 1983, those programs have been reduced by $54 billion a year. And there’s no plan to show how addressing homelessness can and should be part of the economic revitalization of local communities.

Many of us watched in despair as our issues were ignored during the campaign debates and in the party platforms. Homelessness is the No. 1 issue locally, yet it was all but ignored nationally.

But the country has now elected a president who understands what it means to respect the work of true community organizations and allow for local voices to be at the table when decisions are made that have an impact on our lives.

Local Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and Housing Development Corporations (HDCs) already exist in many communities. The credible ones will work in partnership with community members and organizations to combine a federal reinvestment in affordable housing with economic stimulus activities that benefit everyone — street-level space for creating new local businesses, job training connected to positions created in the development and management of the new business and housing units, the use of (and training in) smart green technology in all development.

Tax dollars invested in affordable housing stay in the local economy. Many of the jobs created remain long after the construction phase is completed.

Economic recovery plans are being made now, as federal departments are hiring staff and priorities are being set. Congress, despite the lessons learned from the banking bailout, is in a rush to release funds without much detail. We need direct petitioning from local communities. We need calls demanding that a share of economic recovery funding be given directly to local organizations to develop desperately needed housing and community spaces, using accountable local hiring requirements and safe green building practices.

It’s on all of us locally to come together and make the call.

Paul Boden is director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a coalition of West Coast social justice-based homeless organizations.

Change you can live in?

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If you ask San Franciscans about the most pressing issues facing the city, homelessness and affordable housing are always near the top of the list. While this city’s housing problems are particularly dramatic, homelessness is on the rise across urban America. And in nearly every big city, public housing projects are crumbling, suffering from years of federal neglect.

But you wouldn’t know that to look at the latest stimulus package coming out of Washington, DC.

The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, introduced Jan. 15, contains only $16 billion for affordable housing. That’s about half what advocates had sought — and a tiny fraction of what’s really needed.

The bill has the affordable housing community shaking its collective head. "Unfortunately, the news right now is not good. This first pass at the stimulus bill is not encouraging," Matt Schwarz, president of the California Housing Partnership, a San Francisco–based nonprofit working to expand affordable housing stock throughout California, told us.

Will President Obama, who barely mentioned homelessness during the campaign, look at affordable housing as a priority? Most housing activists say they’re cautiously optimistic. But some are starting to sound the alarm.

"I think, when it comes to political clout in DC, poor people and their allies are still in trouble," said Paul Boden, director of the San Francisco–based Western Regional Advocacy Project, a group that focuses primarily on homelessness issues. "It was disheartening to go to the Obama [transition team] Web site and find … a very miniscule mention of homelessness — and it’s under ‘veterans.’<0x2009>"

City officials are looking at the bright side. "Most people would agree that there’s been very little new money available at the federal level for affordable housing [in the past eight years]," Doug Shoemaker, director of the Mayor’s Office on Housing, told us. Shoemaker expects that to change under the Obama administration, especially with the pick of New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan as US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, whom he characterized as "an incredible leader who really understands homelessness and affordable housing."

Olson Lee, deputy director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, sounded a similar note. "We’re looking forward to an administration that cares about affordable housing," he said. Projects like the Hunters View reconstruction project, which would restore a dilapidated public-housing complex in the Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood, tops the list of projects that would shift into gear again if new federal dollars are made available, Lee noted.

But while city agencies seem to have high hopes for federal dollars that could be headed to San Francisco under the new administration, many grassroots-level affordable housing advocates are more cautious.

Longtime affordable housing activist Calvin Welch pointed out that there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the allocation of federal funding under the economic recovery package. "The first test is, does the Obama administration view affordable housing — especially affordable rental housing in cities — as a priority?"

From Welch’s perspective, the answer appears to be yes. But he added that no affordable housing practitioners were named to Obama’s transition team. And in San Francisco, a pending blow to health and human services due to local and state budget cuts will bring about more distress linked to housing issues.

"When those health and human services are reduced, the effect is an increase in the homeless population, or at least the temporarily unhoused population — a population with very challenging housing needs, which is at extreme risk," Welch told us. "I haven’t seen any response to that consequence. I have not read that any portion of the Obama stimulus package is focused on health and human services." Until the details are hammered out, he said, "We’re holding our breath."

A recent report issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — a DC-based research and analysis organization focusing on issues affecting low-income families — underscores Welch’s concerns. The recession has prompted a rise in homelessness nationwide, the report notes, and an unusually large number of people are still likely to fall into severe poverty, putting them at risk of being turned out onto the streets.

"It is important that the package include funding for effective homelessness prevention strategies," CBPP notes.

Specifically, the report recommends that funding be made available for 200,000 additional Section 8 housing vouchers, which allow very low-income residents to rent privately-owned units of their choice. That number would only begin to address the need. In San Francisco, the waiting list for Section 8 has been closed since 2001, and some 13,000 people have languished on the list, according to Sara Shortt, director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. Despite the urging of organizations like CBPP, the first draft of the bill included no new additional funding for Section 8 vouchers.

The Obama administration has made it clear that new funding will become available for "shovel-ready" projects — those that are ready to move forward in a matter of months. According to the results of a survey conducted by the California Housing Partnership, San Francisco has 24 such affordable housing development projects waiting in the wings, which could provide an estimated 3,915 affordable homes and could potentially generate 4,500 construction-related jobs.

But Schwarz, president of CHP, says he’s less optimistic that those projects will move forward after seeing the proposed legislation. Schwarz says the $16 billion included for affordable housing measures in the proposed legislation was disheartening. With that figure, "We’re not expecting a significant portion of those stuck developments to get unstuck," he said. "There seems to have been some major backtracking, and we’re not quite sure where this is coming from."

While the bill falls short of what many of San Francisco’s affordable housing advocates had hoped for, it does include funding for public housing repair. "This economic recovery bill includes $5 billion to allow public housing authorities to complete repair and construction projects, including critical safety repairs," Drew Hammill, press secretary to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrote in an e-mail to the Guardian. "This is more than double the amount that was included for this account in the fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill and double the amount that is pending in fiscal year 2009."

But Hammill acknowledged that the need for such repairs is great in San Francisco: "The existing backlog in San Francisco is over $250 million" he wrote, "with approximately $26 million of additional physical deterioration occurring each year."

Shortt, who heads the Housing Rights Committee, looks back on the past six years as "a disaster" for public housing. "It is very likely that we’ll see an infusion in public housing and affordable housing in this recovery package," she said. But she regards the expected $5 billion for public housing capital funds as "a drop in the bucket. It’s estimated that the overall need is $33 billion nationally." .

Shortt did have praise for Donovan, Obama’s HUD secretary pick. Even so, she says, "Whether Obama himself feels strongly about housing or not, politically it’s going to take a while before it’s high on the priority of the Beltway. It’s been relegated to the bottom of the heap for so long."

Department of Eagles

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PREVIEW Considering that the Brooklyn band Department of Eagles’ much-praised, tres delectable nugget of fast-forward/throwback rock, In Ear Park (4AD), resides so firmly in those lazy, hazy, haunted memories of youth, there’s something exquisitely fitting about the fact that 26-year-old East Bay native Fred Nicolaus is bringing his collaboration Grizzly Bear member and ex–New York University roommate Daniel Rossen back to the Bay for its first show at a venue frequented as a ska-loving Oakland kid. "I remember seeing a weird swing band there — Lee Press-On and the Nails?" he recalls from snowy Pennsylvania.

The Nails don’t crop up on the album — the follow-up to the group’s 2003 debut, The Cold Nose (The Whitey on the Moon UK LP) initially released by Oakland’s Isota Records and reissued by American Dust — nor do the years between NYU and today that Nicolaus spent toiling in the nine-to-five trenches of publishing ("The first magazine I worked for was Industrial Equipment News — the most doomed experience of all time!"). Instead DOE plunges into a many-pleasured, multitextured wonderland teeming with groaning cello, swooping samples, clattering toy pianos, and blissfully ethereal vocals — and tender backward glances to neglected classical LPs, childhood retreats, and the more ecstatic musical ruminations of Van Dyke Parks. "It was about taking that idea of using weird, amazing arrangements and applying them to music that’s more poppy," Nicolaus says of the band, once dubbed Whitey on the Moon UK after the protestations of the SF combo also named for the Gil-Scott Heron track.

The twosome worked on In Ear Park for years "in the margins of Grizzly Bear’s recording and touring schedule," with Nicolaus dreaming up with the raw ideas for the songs and Rossen molding them into shape. "When you work on something for five years," Nicolaus explains humbly, "you can afford to throw away stuff that isn’t up to par." Now the pair is tackling their studio creations live, assisted by a full band that includes Grizzly Bear’s Chris Bear, on an outing that Nicolaus believes "might be our only tour, really," since Grizzly Bear is committed to completing a 2009 full-length. Still, Nicolaus is delighted to find that DOE’s tunes can work without their aural finery: "It’s reassuring that with these songs, if you took their clothes off they’d still be able to stand up."

DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES With Cave Singers. Sun/25, 7 and 10 p.m., $15. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

Obama kite

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By Amanda Witherell

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It was a great day to be out and about in San Francisco. This morning, before I headed to Civic Center to watch the swearing-in ceremony in front of City Hall, I was recalling where I had been in 2005 when Bush was inaugurated for the second time — sitting glumly at my kitchen table in Sedgwick, Maine, listening to the brutal truth broadcast by NPR. Though I lived in the heart of Sedgwick, one could say the “civic center” of what could still be considered a one-horse town — the street was empty. Town was silent. I turned off the news and, like many of my friends and family, didn’t turn it back on for weeks. It was too depressing.

But today, it felt like a time to be among people. Hundreds filled Civic Center to watch the ceremony broadcast on a giant screen by NextArts, and when he spoke, the crowd was silent, attentive, listening, digesting his words and cheering en masse at the ones that hit home.

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And it seemed that everywhere I went there were signs of Obama. I walked down the sidewalk behind a group of women were talking about how they felt like a great weight had been lifted off their shoulders. Upbeat strangers chatted amicably with me at the DMV, in spite of waiting lines streaming out the door. At Ocean Beach, a man was flying a floppy, awkward square kite in the unusually calm afternoon breeze.

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When I got closer, I could see it was Obama.

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Throw shoe at Bush, send message to Obama

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Text and video by Sarah Phelan

Spirits are high in San Francisco, following the departure of former President G. W. Bush, and the inauguration of the 44th U.S. President, Barack Hussein Obama.

I saw a guy walking down Market Street, chanting “O-Ba-Ma”, like it was a protective mantra. And pretty soon other folks were joining in, like newborns emerging from the darkness of the Bush years.

And then there was the crowd of folks who were gleefully throwing shoes at an appropriately shifty cardboard cut-out of Bush. The cut-out was standing inside at colorful carnival booth that antiwar groups Direct Action to Stop the War and Courage to Resist had set up near the Obama inauguration simulcast at Civic Center Plaza.

At first, it was fairly quiet when I got there shortly after 9 AM, but the crowd quickly grew, once people emerged from the simulcast. Pretty soon, folks were eagerly waiting in line and cheering each other on, clearly delighted to have the chance to vent and throw one last shoe at Bush.

“Throw a shoe for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq!” shouted one of the event organizer, quoting Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who stunned and delighted the world when he took aim during Bush’s Dec. 14 joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Still in prison in Iraq, al-Zeidi was due to face trial in December on charges of assaulting a foreign leader, which carried a 15-year maximum sentence. But an appellate court is currently considering a motion to reduce his charges to simply insulting Bush. And someone really should award al-Zeidi a medal for managing to pitch a perfect shoe toss under extreme pressure.

Kudos to “A Burning Opera”

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By Steven T. Jones, aka Scribe

A couple months ago, when I heard first about “A Burning Opera: How to Survive the Apocalypse,” I rolled my eyes. Burning Man has inspired some very good and very bad art and for some reason I assumed that a musical telling the story of the event would hew toward the latter category.

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Boy, was I wrong! I attended opening night and was struck by how this play – created by Mark Nichols, Erik Davis and Christopher Fulling-McCall – is both engrossing musical theater in its own right and a piece of art that truly captures the feel of the event and the Zeitgeist of its attendees.

The play’s central conflicts – humans vs. nature, ravers vs. punks, chaos vs. control, Larry Harvey vs. John Law (who sat in front of me and said he enjoyed the play about an event he helped create but left in frustration in 1996) – are deftly woven into a storyline that traces the journey of a trio of newbies and an event that has grown from a small gathering on Baker Beach to the most profound and enduring countercultural phenomenon of our time.

But this play would never use that last phrase. Yes, this musical is certainly an ode to something its creators love, but its strength comes for its clear-eyed, warts and all view of the event and its attendees. It skillfully walks the line between the Law and Harvey views and balances the event’s spiritual, silly and bacchanalian aspects in a way that, well, got me really excited to return to the playa this year.

And now, dear readers, the bad news: Its two-weekend run at Stagewerx Theatre is sold out. But executive producer Dana Harrison (dana@burningopera.com) says she’s looking for ways to extend the run somewhere here in town, so stay tuned.

Wavves play GAMH, sign to Fat Possum

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Lots of news on Wavves front; for the Guardian review of Wavves, go here. This in from the Wavves publicity people:

“To avoid any potential confusion (and there is a lot of potential for confusion here) we’ll break this down for you nice and slow:

“* WAVVES has a self-titled debut album out now on the Woodsist label
“* WAVVES’ second album is called WAVVVES (notice the extra “V”)
“* Both albums have very, very similar covers
“* WAVVVES by WAVVES is being released on Fat Possum (not De Stijl, as we originally announced) on March 17, 2009

Twice as nice?

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RANT As 2008 wound down, and filmgoers everywhere began to gag on For Your Consideration flicks, one exciting piece of news gurgled out for genre fans: a planned remake of 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby had been cancelled. According to a post on Collider.com, producer Andrew Form was stumped by trying to adapt Ira Levin’s 1967 novel for a contemporary audience. "We couldn’t come up with something where it felt like it was relevant and we could add something to it other than what it was," he told the site.

These pearls of wisdom from the guy who produced 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2005’s Amityville Horror, 2007’s The Hitcher, this February’s Friday the 13th, and the slated-for-2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street. Roman Polanski’s paranoia-will-destroy-ya tale of New York City witches is spooky enough on its own, thanks to suspenseful pacing, an overwhelming sense of dread, and its performances, particularly by a bug-eyed Mia Farrow and a grasping, Oscar-winning Ruth Gordon. For current viewers, subtext from the director (the movie predated Charles Manson’s murder party at Sharon Tate’s mansion by a year) and the setting (the Dakota, John Lennon’s last address) further ups the creep factor. The movie itself seems haunted. You think producers who favored lingering shots of Ryan Reynolds’s Amityville abs over any actual scares could replicate that?

But I’m rambling on a moot point. Most horror remakes do get made, and rake in the bucks. Many tend to be hampered by the worst invention in the past 25 years of cinema, the PG-13 rating. (The recent wave of PG-13 horror films really need their own genre distinction that doesn’t have "horror" in it, because there’s no horror in them.) For the most part, post-millennial horror remakes are either J-horror (2002’s The Ring remains the most lucrative) or slashers, like 2007’s Halloween. The selection process for what gets remade seems as arbitrary as the eventual results: Jamie Lee Curtis’s 1980 disco-dance nightmare Prom Night, a cult favorite, became a shitty 2008 release (PG-13!) seen by maybe 15 people. But some seemingly sacrilegious efforts, like the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, were well liked. Even by me.

Up next: 1981’s My Bloody Valentine, a somewhat obscure early-period slasher comin’ at us in 3-D this Friday. (Yes, it’s rated R.) What good is gimmick du jour 3-D if not to enhance flailing limbs and splattering blood? Cynical though I am, I can’t resist. Besides, one of my favorite movies of all time is a horror remake: John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing. (Cheryl Eddy)

MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D opens Fri/16 in Bay Area theaters

The Hard Times Handbook

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We all have high hopes for the new administration. We’d all like to believe that the recession will end soon, that jobs will be plentiful, health care available to all, and affordable housing built in abundance.

But the grim reality is that hard times are probably around for a while longer, and it may get worse before it gets better.

Don’t despair: the city is full of fun things to do on the cheap. There are ways to save money and enjoy life at the same time. If you’re in trouble — out of work, out of food, facing eviction — there are resources around to help you. What follows is a collection of tips, techniques, and ideas for surviving the ongoing depression that’s the last bitter legacy of George W. Bush.

BELOW YOU’LL FIND OUR TIPS ON SCORING FREE, CHEAP, AND LOW-COST WONDERS. (Click here for the full page version with jumps, if you can’t see it.)

MUSIC AND MOVIES

CLOTHING

FOOD

CONCERTS

WHEELS

HEALTH CARE

SHELTER

MEALS

COCKTAILS

DATE NIGHTS

YOGA

PLUS:

HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

HOW TO GET UNEMPLOYMENT

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FREE MUSIC AND MOVIES

For a little extra routine effort, I’ve managed to make San Francisco’s library system my Netflix/GreenCine, rotating CD turntable, and bookstore, all rolled into one. And it’s all free.

If you’re a books-music-film whore like me, you find your home maxed out with piles of the stuff … and not enough extra cash to feed your habits. So I’ve decided to only buy my favorites and to borrow the rest. We San Franciscans have quite a library system at our fingertips. You just have to learn how to use it.

Almost everyone thinks of a library as a place for books. And that’s not wrong: you can read the latest fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, and I’ve checked out a slew of great mixology/cocktail recipe books when I want to try new drinks at home. I’ve hit up bios on my favorite musicians, or brought home stacks of travel books before a trip (they usually have the current year’s edition of at least one travel series for a given place, whether it be Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, or Frommer’s).

But there’s much more. For DVDs, I regularly check Rotten Tomatoes’ New Releases page (www.rottentomatoes.com/dvd/new_releases.php) for new DVD releases. Anything I want to see, I keep on a list and search www.sfpl.org for those titles every week. About 90 percent of my list eventually comes to the library, and most within a few weeks of the release date.

And such a range! I recently checked out the Oscar-nominated animated foreign film, Persepolis, the entire first season of Mad Men, tons of documentaries, classics (like a Cyd Charisse musical or Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s catalog), even Baby Mama (sure, it sucked, but I can’t resist Tina Fey).

A music fanatic can find virtually every style, and even dig into the history of a genre. I’ve found CDs of jazz and blues greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, kitschy lounge like Martin Denny and singer Julie London, and have satiated rap cravings with the latest Talib Kwali, Lyrics Born, Missy Elliott, T.I. or Kanye (I won’t tell if you won’t).

Warning: there can be a long "holds" list for popular new releases (e.g., Iron Man just came out and has about 175). When this happens, Just get in the queue — you can request as many as 15 items simultaneously online (you do have a library card, right?) You’ll get an e-mail when your item comes in and you can check the status of your list any time you log in. Keep DVDs a full seven days (three weeks for books and CDs) and return ’em to any branch you like.

I’ve deepened my music knowledge, read a broader range of books, and canceled GreenCine. Instead, I enjoy a steady flow of free shit coming my way each week. And if I get bored or the novelty of Baby Mama wears off, I return it and free up space in my mind (and on my shelf) for more. (Virginia Miller)

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STYLE FOR A SONG

Shhh. The first rule about thrifting, to paraphrase mobsters and hardcore thrift-store shoppers, is don’t talk about thrifting — and that means the sites of your finest thrift scores. Diehard thrifters guard their favorite shops with jealous zeal: they know exactly what it’s like to wade through scores of stained T-shirts, dress-for-success suits, and plastic purses and come up with zilcherooni. They also know what it’s like to ascend to thrifter nirvana, an increasingly rarified plane where vintage Chanel party shoes and cool dead-stock Western wear are sold for a song.

Friendships have been trashed and shopping carts upended in the revelation of these much-cherished thrift stores, where the quest for that ’50s lamb’s fur jacket or ’80s acid-washed zipper jeans — whatever floats your low-budg boat — has come to a rapturous conclusion. It’s a war zone, shopping on the cheap, out there — and though word has it that the thrifting is excellent in Vallejo and Fresno, our battle begins at home. When the sample sales, designer runoff outlets, resale dives, and consignment boutiques dry up, here’s where you’ll find just what you weren’t looking for — but love, love, love all the same.

Community Thrift, 623 Valencia, SF. (415) 861-4910, www.communitythrift.bravehost.com. Come for the writer’s own giveaways (you can bequeath the funds raised to any number of local nonprofits), and leave with the rattan couches, deco bureaus, records, books and magazines, and an eccentric assortment of clothing and housewares. I’m still amazed at the array of intriguing junk that zips through this spot, but act fast or you’ll miss snagging that Victorian armoire.

Goodwill As-Is Store, 86 11th St., SF. (415) 575-2197, www.sfgoodwill.org. This is the archetype and endgamer of grab-and-tumble thrifting. We’re talking bins, people — bins of dirt cheap and often downright dirty garb that the massive Goodwill around the corner has designated unsuitable, for whatever reason. Dive into said bins, rolled out by your, ahem, gracious Goodwill hosts throughout the day, along with your competition: professional pickers for vintage shops, grabby vintage people, and ironclad bargain hunters. They may not sell items by the pound anymore — now its $2.25 for a piece of adult clothing, 50 cents to $1 for babies’ and children’s garb, $4 for leather jackets, etc. — but the sense of triumph you’ll feel when you discover a tattered 1930s Atonement-style poison-ivy green gown, or a Dr. Pimp-enstein rabbit-fur patchwork coat, or cheery 1950s tablecloths with negligible stainage, is indescribable.

Goodwill Industries, 3801 Third St., SF. (415) 641-4470, www.sfgoodwill.org Alas, not all Goodwills are created equal: some eke out nothing but stale mom jeans and stretched-out polo shirts. But others, like this Hunter’s Point Goodwill, abound with on-trend goodies. At least until all of you thrift-hungry hordes grab my junk first. Tucked into the corner of a little strip mall, this Goodwill has all those extremely fashionable hipster goods that have been leached from more populated thrift pastures or plucked by your favorite street-savvy designer to "repurpose" as their latest collection: buffalo check shirts, wolf-embellished T-shirts, Gunne Sax fairy-princess gowns, basketball jerseys, and ’80s-era, multicolored zany-print tops that Paper Rad would give their beards for.

Salvation Army, 1500 Valencia, SF. (415) 643-8040, www.salvationarmyusa.org. The OG of Mission District thrifting, this Salv has been the site of many an awesome discovery. Find out when the Army puts out the new goods. The Salvation soldiers may have cordoned off the "vintage" — read: higher priced — items in the store within the store, but there are still plenty of old books, men’s clothing, and at times hep housewares and Formica kitchen tables to be had: I adore the rainbow Mork and Mindy parka vest I scored in the boys’ department, as well as my mid-century-mod mustard-colored rocker.

Savers, 875 Main, Redwood City. (650) 364-5545, www.savers.com When the ladies of Hillsborough, Burlingame, and the surrounding ‘burbs shed their oldest, most elegant offerings, the pickings can’t be beat at this Savers. You’ll find everything from I. Magnin cashmere toppers, vintage Gucci tweed, and high-camp ’80s feather-and-leather sweaters to collectible dishware, antique ribbons, and kitsch-cute Holly Hobbie plaques. Strangest, oddly covetable missed-score: a psychiatrist’s couch.

Thrift Town, 2101 Mission, SF. (415) 861-1132, www.thrifttown.com. When all else fails, fall back on this department store-sized megalith. Back in the day, thrift-oldsters tell me, they’d dig out collectible paintings and ’50s-era bikes. Now you’ll have to grind deeply to land those finds, though they’re here: cute, mismatched, mid-century chairs; the occasional designer handbag; and ’60s knit suits. Hint: venture into less picked-over departments like bedding. (Kimberly Chun)

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FREE FOOD

San Francisco will not let you starve. Even if you’re completely out of money, there are plenty of places and ways to fill your belly. Many soup kitchens operate out of churches and community centers, and lists can be downloaded and printed from freeprintshop.org and sfhomeless.net (which is also a great clearinghouse of information on social services in San Francisco.)Here’s a list of some of our favorites.

Free hot meals

Curry without Worry Healthy, soul pleasing Nepalese food to hungry people in San Francisco. Every Tues. 5:45–7 p.m. on the square at Hyde and Market streets.

Glide, 330 Ellis. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch noon-1:30 p.m. everyday. Dinner 4-5:30 p.m., M-F.

St. Anthony Dining Room, 45 Jones, Lunch everyday 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

St Martin de Porres Hospitality House, 225 Potrero Ave. Best bowl of oatmeal in the city. Tues.-Sat. breakfast from 6:30-7:30 a.m., lunch from noon-2 pm.. Sun. brunch 9-10:30 a.m. Often vegetarian options.

Vegetarian

Food not Bombs Vegetarian soup and bread, but bring your own bowl. At the UN Plaza, Mon., 6 p.m.; Wed., 5:30 p.m. Also at 16th and Mission streets. Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.

Mother’s Kitchen, 7 Octavia, Fri., 2:30-3:30. Vegan options.

Iglesia Latina Americana de Las Adventistas Seventh Dia, 3024 24th St. Breakfast 9:30-11 a.m., third Sun. of the month.

Grab and go sandwiches

Glide, bag meals to go after breakfast ends at 9 a.m.

St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 666 Filbert. 4-5 p.m. every day.

Seniors

Curry Senior Center, 333 Turk. For the 60+ set. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch 11:30 to noon every day.

Kimochi, 1840 Sutter St. Japanese-style hot lunch served 11:45 am (M-F). $1.50 donation per meal is requested. 60+ only with no one to assist with meals. Home deliveries available. 415-931-2287

St. Anthony Dining Room, 10:30-11:30 a.m., 59+, families, and people who can’t carry a tray.

Free groceries

San Francisco Food Bank A wealth of resources, from pantries with emergency food boxes to supplemental food programs. 415-282-1900. sffoodbank.org/programs

211 Dial this magic number and United Way will connect you with free food resources in your neighborhood — 24/7.

Low-cost groceries

Maybe you don’t qualify for food assistance programs or you just want to be a little thriftier — in which case the old adage that the early bird gets the metaphorical worm is apropos. When it comes to good food deals, timing can be everything. Here are a couple of handy tips for those of us who like to eat local, organic, and cheap. Go to Rainbow Grocery early and hit the farmers markets late. Rainbow has cheap and half-price bins in the bread and produce sections — but you wouldn’t know it if you’re a late-riser. Get there shortly after doors open at 9 a.m. for the best deals.

By the end of the day, many vendors at farmers markets are looking to unload produce rather than pack it up, so it’s possible to score great deals if you’re wandering around during the last half hour of the market. CAFF has a comprehensive list of Bay Area markets that you can download: guide.buylocalca.org/localguides.

Then there’s the Grocery Outlet (2001 Fourth St., Berkeley and 2900 Broadway, Oakland, www.groceryoutlets.com), which puts Wal-Mart to shame. This is truly the home of low-cost living. Grocery Outlet began in 1946 in San Francisco when Jim Read purchased surplus government goods and started selling them. Now Grocery Outlets are the West Coast’s version of those dented-can stores that sell discounted food that wasn’t ready for prime-time, or perhaps spent a little too long in the limelight.

Be prepared to eat what you find — options range from name brands with trashed labels to foodstuffs you’ve never seen before — but there are often good deals on local breads and cheeses, and their wine section will deeply expand you Two-Buck Chuck cellar. Don’t be afraid of an occasional corked bottle that you can turn into salad dressing, and be sure to check the dates on anything perishable. The Grocery Outlet Web site (which has the pimpest intro music ever) lists locations and ways to sign up for coupons and download a brochure on how to feed your family for $3 a day. (Amanda Witherell)

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LIVE MUSIC FOR NOTHING — AND KICKS FOR FREE

Music should be free. Everyone who has downloaded music they haven’t been given or paid for obviously believes this, though we haven’t quite made it to that ideal world where all professional musicians are subsidized — and given health care — by the government or other entities. But live, Clive? Where do can you catch fresh, live sounds during a hard-hitting, heavy-hanging economic downturn? Intrepid, impecunious sonic seekers know that with a sharp eye and zero dough, great sounds can be found in the oddest crannies of the city. You just need to know where to look, then lend an ear. Here are a few reliables — occasional BART station busks and impromptu Ocean Beach shows aside.

Some of the best deals — read: free — on world-class performers happen seasonally: in addition to freebie fests like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass every October and the street fairs that accompanying in fair weather, there’s each summer’s Stern Grove Festival. Beat back the Sunset fog with a picnic of bread, cheese, and cheap vino, though you gotta move fast to claim primo viewing turf to eyeball acts like Bettye Lavette, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Allen Toussaint. Look for the 2009 schedule to be posted at www.sterngrove.org May 1.

Another great spot to catch particularly local luminaries is the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which runs from May to October. Rupa and the April Fishes, Brass Menazeri, Marcus Shelby Trio, Bayonics, and Omar Sosa’s Afreecanos Quintet all took their turn in the sun during the Thursday lunchtime concerts. Find out who’s slated for ’09 in early spring at www.ybgf.org.

All year around, shopkeeps support sounds further off the beaten path — music fans already know about the free, albeit usually shorter, shows, DJ sets, and acoustic performances at aural emporiums like Amoeba Music (www.amoeba.com) and Aquarius Records (www.aquariusrecords.org). Many a mind has been blown by a free blast of new sonics from MIA or Boris amid the stacks at Amoeba, the big daddy in this field, while Aquarius in-stores define coziness: witness last year’s intimate acoustic hootenanny by Deerhoof’s Satomi and Tenniscoats’ Saya as Oneone. Less regular but still an excellent time if you happen upon one: Adobe Books Backroom Gallery art openings (adobebooksbackroomgallery.blogspot.com), where you can get a nice, low-key dose of the Mission District’s art and music scenes converging. Recent exhibition unveilings have been topped off by performances by the Oh Sees, Boner Ha-chachacha, and the Quails.

Still further afield, check into the free-for-all, quality curatorial efforts at the Rite Spot (www.ritespotcafe.net), where most shows at this dimly lit, atmospheric slice of old-school cabaret bohemia are as free as the breeze and as fun as the collection of napkin art in back: Axton Kincaid, Brandy Shearer, Kitten on the Keys, Toshio Hirano, and Yard Sale have popped up in the past. Also worth a looky-loo are Thee Parkside‘s (www.theeparkside.com) free Twang Sunday and Happy Hour Shows: a rad time to check out bands you’ve never heard of but nonetheless pique your curiosity: Hukaholix, hell’s yeah! And don’t forget: every cover effort sounds better with a pint — all the better to check into the cover bands at Johnny Foley’s (www.johnnyfoleys.com), groove artists at Beckett’s Irish Pub in Berkeley (www.beckettsirishpub.com), and piano man Rod Dibble and his rousing sing-alongs at the Alley in Oakland (510-444-8505). All free of charge. Charge! (Kimberly Chun}

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THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET AROUND TOWN

Our complex world often defies simple solutions. But there is one easy way to save money, get healthy, become more self-sufficient, free up public resources, and reduce your contribution to air pollution and global warming: get around town on a bicycle.

It’s no coincidence that the number of cyclists on San Francisco streets has increased dramatically over the last few years, a period of volatile gasoline prices, heightened awareness of climate change, poor Muni performance, and economic stagnation.

On Bike to Work Day last year, traffic counts during the morning commute tallied more bicycles than cars on Market Street for the first time. Surveys commissioned by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition show that the number of regular bike commuters has more than doubled in recent years. And that increase came even as a court injunction barred new bike projects in the city (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07), a ban that likely will be lifted later this year, triggering key improvements in the city’s bicycle network that will greatly improve safety.

Still not convinced? Then do the math.

Drive a car and you’ll probably spend a few hundred dollars every month on insurance, gas, tolls, parking, and fines, and that’s even if you already own your car outright. If you ride the bus, you’ll pay $45 per month for a Fast Pass while government will pay millions more to subsidize the difference. Riding a bike is basically free.

Free? Surely there are costs associated with bicycling, right? Yeah, sure, occasionally. But in a bike-friendly city like San Francisco, there are all kinds of opportunities to keep those costs very low, certainly lower than any other transportation alternative except walking (which is also a fine option for short trips).

There are lots of inexpensive used bicycles out there. I bought three of my four bicycles at the Bike Hut at Pier 40 (www.thebikehut.com) for an average of $100 each and they’ve worked great for several years (my fourth bike, a suspension mountain bike, I also bought used for a few hundred bucks).

Local shops that sell used bikes include Fresh Air Bicycles, (1943 Divisidero, www.fabsf.com) Refried Cycles (3804 17th St., www.refriedcycles,com/bicycles.htm), Karim Cycle (2800 Telegraph., Berkeley, www.teamkarim.com/bikes/used/) and Re-Cycles Bicycles (3120 Sacramento, Berkeley, www.recyclesbicycles.com). Blazing Saddles (1095 Columbus, www.blazingsaddles.com) sells used rental bikes for reasonable prices. Craigslist always has listings for dozens of used bikes of all styles and prices. And these days, you can even buy a new bike for a few hundred bucks. Sure, they’re often made in China with cheap parts, but they’ll work just fine.

Bikes are simple yet effective machines with a limited number of moving parts, so it’s easy to learn to fix them yourself and cut out even the minimal maintenance costs associated with cycling. I spent $100 for two four-hour classes at Freewheel Bike Shop (1920 Hayes and 914 Valencia, www.thefreewheel.com) that taught me everything I need to know about bike maintenance and includes a six-month membership that lets me use its facilities, tools, and the expertise of its mechanics. My bikes are all running smoother than ever on new ball bearings that cost me two bucks per wheel, but they were plenty functional even before.

There are also ways to get bike skills for free. Sports Basement (www.sportsbasement.com) offers free bicycle maintenance classes at both its San Francisco locations the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Or you can turn to the Internet, where YouTube has a variety of bike repair videos and Web sites such as www.howtofixbikes.com can lead you through repairs.

The nonprofit The Bike Kitchen (1256 Mission, www.thebikekitchen.org) on Mission Street offers great deals to people who spend $40 per year for a membership. Volunteer your time through the Earn-a-Bike program and they’ll give you the frame, parts, and skills to build your own bike for free.

But even in these hard economic times, there is one purchase I wouldn’t skimp on: spend the $30 — $45 for a good U-lock, preferably with a cable for securing the wheels. Then you’re all set, ready to sell your car, ditch the bus, and learn how easy, cheap, fast, efficient, and fun it is to bicycle in this 49-square-mile city. (Steven T. Jones)

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LOW-COST HEALTH CARE

When money’s tight, healthcare tends to be one of the first costs we cut. But that can be a bad idea, because skimping on preventive care and treatment for minor issues can lead to much more expensive and serious (and painful) health issues later. Here is our guide to Bay Area institutions, programs, and clinics that serve the under- and uninsured.

One of our favorite places is the Women’s Community Clinic (2166 Hayes, 415-379-7800, www.womenscommunityclinic.org), a women-operated provider open to anyone female, female-identified, or female-bodied transgender. This awesome 10-year-old clinic offers sexual and reproductive health services — from Pap smears and PMS treatment to menopause and infertility support — to any SF, San Mateo, Alameda, or Marin County resident, and all on a generous sliding scale based on income and insurance (or lack thereof). Call for an appointment, or drop in on Friday mornings (but show up at 9:30 a.m. because spots fill up fast).

A broader option (in terms of both gender and service) is Mission Neighborhood Center (main clinic at 240 Shotwell. 415-552-3870, www.mnhc.org, see Web site for specialty clinics). This one-stop health shop provides primary, HIV/AIDS, preventive, podiatry, women’s, children’s, and homeless care to all, though its primary focus is on the Latino/Hispanic Spanish-speaking community. Insurance and patient payment is accepted, including a sliding scale for the uninsured (no one is denied based on inability to pay). This clinic is also a designated Medical Home (or primary care facility) for those involved in the Healthy San Francisco program.

Contrary to popular belief, Healthy San Francisco (www.healthysanfrancisco.org) is not insurance. Rather, it’s a network of hospitals and clinics that provide free or nearly free healthcare to uninsured SF residents who earn at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (which, at about $2,600 per month, includes many of us). Participants choose a Medical Home, which serves as a first point-of-contact. The good news? HSF is blind to immigration status, employment status, and preexisting medical conditions. The catch? The program’s so new and there are so many eligible residents that the application process is backlogged — you may have a long wait before you reap the rewards. Plus, HSF only applies within San Francisco.

Some might consider mental health less important than that of the corporeal body, but anyone who’s suffered from depression, addiction, or PTSD knows otherwise. Problem is, psychotherapy tends to be expensive — and therefore considered superfluous. Not so at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center (507 Polk. 415-561-0230, www.goldengatecounseling.org), where individuals, couples, families, and groups can get long- and short-term counseling for issues from stress and relationships to gender identity, all billed on a sliding scale.

Other good options

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (450 Connecticut, 415-282-9603, actcm.edu). This well-regarded school provides a range of treatments, including acupuncture, cupping, tui ma/shiatsu massage, and herbal therapy, at its on-site clinics — all priced according to a sliding scale and with discounts for students and seniors. The college also sends interns to specialty clinics around the Bay, including the Women’s Community Clinic, Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, and St. James Infirmary.

St. James Infirmary (1372 Mission. 415-554-8494, www.stjamesinfirmary.org). Created for sex-workers and their partners, this Mission District clinic offers a range of services from primary care to massage and self-defense classes, for free. Bad ass.

Free Print Shop (www.freeprintshop.org): This fantabulous Webs site has charts showing access to free healthcare across the city, as well as free food, shelter, and help with neighborhood problems. If we haven’t listed ’em, Free Print Shop has. Tell a friend.

Native American Health Center (160 Capp, 415-621-8051, www.nativehealth.org). Though geared towards Native Americans, this multifaceted clinic (dental! an Oakland locale, and an Alameda satellite!) turns no one away. Services are offered to the under-insured on a sliding scale as well as to those with insurance.

SF Free Clinic (4900 California, 415-750-9894, www.sffc.org). Those without any health insurance can get vaccinations, diabetes care, family planning assistance, STD diagnosis and treatment, well child care, and monitoring of acute and chronic medical problems.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics (558 Clayton. 415-746-1950, www.hafci.org): Though available to all, these clinics are geared towards the uninsured, underinsured "working poor," the homeless, youth, and those with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. We love this organization not only for its day-to-day service, but for its low-income residential substance abuse recovery programs and its creation of RockMed, which provides free medical care at concerts and events. (Molly Freedenberg)

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THE BEST HOMELESS SHELTERS

There’s no reason to be ashamed to stay in the city’s homeless shelters — but proceed with awareness. Although most shelters take safety precautions and men and women sleep in separate areas, they’re high-traffic places that house a true cross-section of the city’s population.

The city shelters won’t take you if you just show up — you have to make a reservation. In any case, a reservation center should be your first stop anyway because they’ll likely have other services available for you. If you’re a first-timer, they’ll want to enter you into the system and take your photograph. (You can turn down the photo-op.) Reservations can be made for up to seven days, after which you’ll need to connect with a case manager to reserve a more permanent 30- or 60-day bed.

The best time to show up is first thing in the morning when beds are opening up, or late at night when beds have opened up because of no-show reservations. First thing in the morning means break of dawn — people often start lining up between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. for the few open beds. Many people are turned away throughout the day, although your chances are better if you’re a woman.

You can reserve a bed at one of several reservation stations: 150 Otis, Mission Neighborhood Resource Center (165 Capp St.), Tenderloin Resource Center (187 Golden Gate), Glide (330 Ellis), United Council (2111 Jennings), and the shelters at MSC South (525 Fifth St.) and Hospitality House (146 Leavenworth). If it’s late at night, they may have a van available to give you a ride to the shelter. Otherwise, bus tokens are sometimes available if you ask for one — especially if you’re staying at Providence shelter in the Bayview-Hunters Point District.

They’ll ask if you have a shelter preference — they’re all a little different and come with good and bad recommendations depending on whom you talk to. By all accounts, Hospitality House is one of the best — it’s small, clean, and well run. But it’s for men only, as are the Dolores Street Community Services shelters (1050 S. Van Ness and 1200 Florida), which primarily cater to Spanish-speaking clients.

Women can try Oshun (211 13th St.) and A Woman’s Place (1049 Howard) if they want a men-free space. If kids are in tow, Compass Family Services will set you up with shelter and put you on a waiting list for housing. (A recent crush of families means a waiting list for shelters also exists.) People between 18 and 24 can go to Lark Inn (869 Ellis). The Asian Woman’s Shelter specializes in services for Asian-speaking women and domestic violence victims (call the crisis line 877-751-0880). (Amanda Witherell)

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MEALS FOR $5: TOP FIVE CHEAP EATS

Nothing fancy about these places — but the food is good, and the price is right, and they’re perfect for depression dining.

Betty’s Cafeteria Probably the easiest place in town to eat for under five bucks, breakfast or lunch, American or Chinese. 167 11th St., SF. (415) 431-2525

Susie’s Café You can get four pancakes or a bacon burger for under $5 at this truly grungy and divine dive, right next to Ed’s Auto — and you get the sense the grease intermingles. , 603 Seventh St., SF (415) 431-2177

Lawrence Bakery Café Burger and fries, $3.75, and a slice of pie for a buck. 2290 Mission., SF. (415) 864-3119

Wo’s Restaurant Plenty of under-$5 Cantonese and Vietnamese dishes, and, though the place itself is cold and unatmospheric, the food is actually great. 4005 Judah, SF. (415) 681-2433

Glenn’s Hot Dogs A cozy, friendly, cheap, delicious hole-in-the-wall and probably my favorite counter to sit at in the whole Bay Area. 3506 MacArthur Blvd., Oakl. (510) 530-5175 (L.E. Leone)

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CHEAP DRINKS

When it comes to free drinks I’m a liar, a whore, and a cheat, duh.

I’m a liar because of course I find your designer replica stink-cloud irresistible and your popped collar oh so intriguing — and no, you sexy lug, I’ve never tried one of those delicious-looking orange-juice-and-vodka concoctions you’re holding. Perhaps you could order me one so I could try it out while we spend some time?

I’m a whore because I’ll still do you anyway — after the fifth round, natch. That’s why they call me the liquor quicker picker-upper.

And I’m a cheat because here I am supposed to give you the scoop on where to score some highball on the lowdown, when in fact there’s a couple of awesome Web sites just aching to help you slurp down the freebies. Research gives me wrinkles, darling. So before I get into some of my fave inexpensive inebriation stations, take a designated-driver test drive of www.funcheapsf.com and www.sf.myopenbar.com.

FuncheapSF’s run by the loquacious Johnny Funcheap, and has the dirty deets on a fab array of free and cheap city events — with gallery openings, wine and spirits tastings, and excellent shindigs for the nightlife-inclined included. MyOpenBar.com is a national operation that’s geared toward the hard stuff, and its local branch offers way too much clarity about happy hours, concerts, drink specials, and service nights. Both have led me into inglorious perdition, with dignity, when my chips were down.

Beyond all that, and if you have a couple bucks in your shucks, here’s a few get-happies of note:

Godzuki Sushi Happy Hour at the Knockout. Super-yummy affordable fish rolls and $2 Kirin on tap in a rockin’ atmosphere. Wednesdays, 6–9:30 p.m. 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.knockoutsf.com

All-Night Happy Hour at The Attic. Drown your recession tears — and the start of your work week — in $3 cosmos and martinis at this hipster hideaway. Sundays and Mondays, 5 p.m.–2 a.m. 3336 24th St., (415) 722-7986

The Stork Club. Enough live punk to bleed your earworm out and $2 Pabsts every night to boot? Fly me there toute suite. 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 444-6174, www.storkcluboakland.com

House of Shields. Dive into $2 PBR on tap and great music every night except Sundays at the beautiful winner of our 2008 Best of the Bay "Best Monumental Urinal" award. (We meant in the men’s room, not the place as a whole!) 39 New Montgomery, SF. (415) 975-8651, www.houseofshields.com

The Bitter End. $3 drafts Monday through Friday are just the beginning at this Richmond pub: the Thursday night Jager shot plus Pabst for five bucks (plus an ’80s dance party) is worth a look-see. 441 Clement, SF. (415) 221-9538

Thee Parkside Fast becoming the edge-seekers bar of choice, this Potrero Hill joint has some awesome live nights with cheap brews going for it, but the those in the know misplace their Saturday afternoons with $3 well drinks from 3 to 8 p.m.1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.theeparkside.com

Infatuation. One of the best free club nights in the city brings in stellar electro-oriented talent and also offers two-for-one well drinks, so what the hey. Wednesdays, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF. (415) 433-8585, www.vesselsf.com

Honey Sundays. Another free club night, this one on the gay tip, that offers more great local and international DJ names and some truly fetching specials at Paradise Lounge’s swank upstairs bar. Sundays, 8 p.m.–2 a.m. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com (Marke B.)

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IMPRESS A DATE WITH DINNER UNDER $50

You’ve got a date this weekend, which you’re feeling pretty good about, but only $50 to spend, which feels … not so good. Where should you go?

You’ll appear in-the-know at the underrated Sheba Piano Lounge (1419 Fillmore, www.shebalounge.com) on lower Fillmore Street, right in the middle of the burgeoning jazz revival district. Sheba was around long before Yoshi’s, offering live jazz (usually piano, sometimes a vocalist) and some of the best Ethiopian food in the city in a refined, relaxed lounge setting. Sure, they’ve got Americanized dishes, but skip those for the traditional Ethiopian menu. Sample multiple items by ordering the vegetarian platter ($13) or ask for a mixed meat platter, which is not on the menu ($16 last time I ordered it). One platter is more than enough for two, and you can still afford a couple of cocktails, glasses of wine or beer, or even some Ethiopian honey wine (all well under $10). Like any authentic Ethiopian place I’ve eaten in, the staff operates on Africa time, so be prepared to linger and relax.

It’s a little hipster-ish with slick light fixtures, a narrow dining room/bar, and the increasingly common "communal table" up front, but the Mission District’s Bar Bambino (2931 16th St., www.barbambino.com) offers an Italian enoteca experience that says "I’ve got some sophistication, but I like to keep it casual." Reserve ahead for tables because there aren’t many, or come early and sit at the bar or in the enclosed back patio and enjoy an impressive selection of Italian wines by the glass ($8–$12.50). For added savings with a touch of glam, don’t forget their free sparkling water on tap. It’s another small plates/antipasti-style menu, so share a pasta ($10.50–$15.50), panini ($11.50–$12.50), and some of their great house-cured salumi or artisan cheese. Bar Bambino was just named one of the best wine bars in the country by Bon Apetit, but don’t let that deter you from one of the city’s real gems.

Nothing says romance (of the first date kind) like a classic French bistro, especially one with a charming (heated) back patio. Bistro Aix (3340 Steiner, www.bistroaix.com) is one of those rare places in the Marina District where you can skip the pretension and go for old school French comfort food (think duck confit, top sirloin steak and frites, and a goat cheese salad — although the menu does stray a little outside the French zone with some pasta and "cracker crust pizza." Bistro Aix has been around for years, offering one of the cheapest (and latest — most end by 6 or 7 p.m.) French prix fixe menus in town (Sunday through Thursday, 6–8 p.m.) at $18 for two courses. This pushes it to $40 for two, but still makes it possible to add a glass of wine, which is reasonably priced on the lower end of their Euro-focused wine list ($6.25–$15 a glass).

Who knew seduction could be so surprisingly affordable? (Virginia Miller)

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FREE YOGA

You may be broke, but you can still stay limber. San Francisco is home to scores of studios and karmically-blessed souls looking to do a good turn by making yoga affordable for everyone.

One of the more prolific teachers and donation-based yoga enthusiasts is Tony Eason, who trained in the Iyengar tradition. His classes, as well as links to other donation-based teachers, can be found at ynottony.com. Another great teacher in the Anusara tradition is Skeeter Barker, who teaches classes for all levels Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. at Yoga Kula, 3030a 16th St. (recommended $8–$10 donation).

Sports Basement also hosts free classes every Sunday at three stores: Bryant Street from 1 to 2 p.m., the Presidio from 11a.m. to noon, and Walnut Creek 11 a.m. to noon. Bring your own mat.

But remember: even yoga teachers need to make a living — so be fair and give what you can. (Amanda Witherell)

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HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

So the building you live in was foreclosed. Or you missed a few rent payments. Suddenly there’s a three-day eviction notice in your mailbox. What now?

Don’t panic. That’s the advice from Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union. Tenants have rights, and evictions can take a long time. And while you may have to deal with some complications and legal issues, you don’t need to pack your bags yet.

Instead, pick up the phone and call the Tenants Union (282-6622, www.sftu.org) or get some professional advice from a lawyer.

The three-day notice doesn’t mean you have to be out in three days. "But it does mean you will have to respond to and communicate with the landlord/lady within that time," Gullicksen told us.

It’s also important to keep paying your rent, Gullicksen warned, unless you can’t pay the full amount and have little hope of doing so any time soon.

"Nonpayment of rent is the easiest way for a landlord to evict a tenant," Gullicksen explained. "Don’t make life easier for the landlady who was perhaps trying to use the fact that your relatives have been staying with you for a month as grounds to evict you so she can convert your apartment into a pricey condominium."

There are, however, caveats to Gullicksen’s "always pay the rent" rule: if you don’t have the money or you don’t have all the money.

"Say you owe $1,000 but only have $750 when you get the eviction notice," Gullicksen explained. "In that case, you may want to not pay your landlord $750, in case he sits on it but still continues on with the eviction. Instead, you might want to put the money to finding another place or hiring an attorney."

A good lawyer can often delay an eviction — even if it’s over nonpayment or rent — and give you time to work out a deal. Many landlords, when faced with the prospect of a long legal fight, will come to the table. Gullicksen noted that the vast majority of eviction cases end in a settlement. "We encourage all tenants to fight evictions," he said. The Tenants Union can refer you to qualified tenant lawyers.

These days some tenants who live in buildings that have been foreclosed on are getting eviction notices. But in San Francisco, city officials are quick to point out, foreclosure is not a legal ground for eviction.

Another useful tip: if your landlord is cutting back on the services you get — whether it’s a loss of laundry facilities, parking, or storage space, or the owner has failed to do repairs or is preventing you from preventing you from "the quiet enjoyment of your apartment" — you may be able to get a rent reduction. With the passage of Proposition M in November 2008 tenants who have been subjected to harassment by their landlords are also eligible for rent reductions. That involves a petition to the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board (www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_index.asp).

Gullicksen also recommends that people who have lost their jobs check out the Eviction Defense Collaborative (www.evictiondefense.org).

"They are mostly limited to helping people who have temporary shortfalls," Gullicksen cautioned. But if you’ve lost your job and are about to start a new one and are a month short, they can help. (Sarah Phelan)

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OUT OF WORK? HERE’S STEP ONE

How do you get your unemployment check?

"Just apply for it."

That’s the advice of California’s Employment Development Department spokesperson Patrick Joyce.

You may think you aren’t eligible because you may have been fired or were only working part-time, but it’s still worth a try. "Sometimes people are ineligible, but sometimes they’re not," Joyce said, explaining that a lot of factors come into play, including your work history and how much you were making during the year before you became unemployed.

"So, simply apply for it — if you don’t qualify we’ll tell you," he said. "And if you think you are eligible and we don’t, you can appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board."

Don’t wait, either. "No one gets unemployment benefits insurance payments for the first week they are unemployed," Joyce explained, referring to the one-week waiting period the EDD imposes before qualified applicants can start collecting. "So you should apply immediately."

Folks can apply by filling out the unemployment insurance benefits form online or over the phone. But the phone number is frequently busy, so online is the best bet.

Even if you apply by phone, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment beforehand to view the EDD’s extensive unemployment insurance instructions and explanations. To file an online claim, visit eapply4ui.edd.ca.gov. For a phone number for your local office, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/telephone_numbers.

(Sarah Phelan)

We’ll be doing regular updates and running tips for hard times in future issues. Send your ideas to tips@sfbg.com.

Six aren’t enough

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› news@sfbg.com

The historic Jan. 8 vote electing Sup. David Chiu as president of the Board of Supervisors — rare for its elevation of a freshman to the post and unprecedented for a Chinese American — clearly illustrates the ideological breakdown of the new board.

The six supervisors who claim membership in the progressive movement (Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, David Campos, John Avalos, Eric Mar, and Chiu) gave Chiu the presidency after their efforts to give it to Mirkarimi or Avalos fell short, while the other five supervisors voted for Sup. Sophie Maxwell in each of the seven rounds, refusing to support any of the progressive picks.

But there are limits to what a bare majority of supervisors can do in San Francisco, particularly when the mayor is threatening vetoes and the city is wrestling with a budget deficit of gargantuan proportions. Overriding a mayoral veto or approving some emergency measures requires eight votes.

So the first question is whether Mirkarimi and Daly can come together after their split divided progressives and led to Chiu as a compromise candidate. But the second, more important, question for progressives is whether they can attract swing votes such as Maxwell and Bevan Dufty when the need arises.

The answers to those questions could start coming immediately as supervisors consider proposals to close a looming $575 million budget gap, including the proposal for a special election on revenue measures in June. Mayor Gavin Newsom opposes that election, so the board would have to muster eight votes in the next month to move forward with it.

They might even need more than that. A confidential memo to supervisors and the mayor by the City Attorney’s Office that was obtained by the Guardian sorts out the complex requirements needed to approve new taxes, including the requirement of unanimous board approval to place tax measures that can be passed with a simple majority vote on the ballot this year.

So President Chiu, who pledges to bring his colleagues together, certainly has his work cut out for him.

 

POLITICS AND POLICY

Achieving a unanimous vote on anything significant or controversial seems impossible right now. Mirkarimi is unhappy with Daly for thwarting his presidential ambitions; Maxwell and Dufty are unhappy with progressives for keeping her out of their club; and Chiu must quickly learn his new job during a time of unprecedented turmoil.

Chiu told his colleagues that he was “incredibly humbled” by an election that he didn’t think he’d win, and said that he is “acutely aware that I am new to the institution and the body.” But observers say Chiu’s temperament, intelligence, and connections to both the business community and the progressive movement could serve the city well right now.

“I think Chiu is a great choice. He has the humility that will help him,” outgoing Sup. Jake McGoldrick told the Guardian.

This compromise pick for president was praised by all sides, from the progressive coalition that feted him after the vote at a party at the SoMa club Temple. Rob Black, government affairs director for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, told reporters that “David seems to be someone who is very willing to listen and willing to ask questions.”

“We have a progressive supervisor running the board,” Mirkarimi told the Guardian as he walked back to his office following the vote. Or, as Daly told us, “In the end, the progressive coalition stuck together and I’m happy about that.”

Walking back to Room 200 after the vote, Newsom told reporters that Chiu was “an outstanding choice” who represents “a fresh air of progress.” Asked whether he expects to have a better working relationship with Chiu than with outgoing president Aaron Peskin, Newsom replied, “That’s a gross understatement.”

“We’re looking forward to working with the new Board of Supervisors,” Newsom spokesperson Nathan Ballard told the Guardian after the vote. “The mayor has a long relationship with David Chiu. In fact, he was on our short list to be named assessor just a few years ago.”

Yet at the progressive party that night, Chiu sounded like a rock-solid member of that group, promising to help Mirkarimi with police reform, Campos with protecting undocumented city residents, Mar with strengthening city ties to the schools, and Avalos with safeguarding progressive budget priorities.

“I think this is the best outcome we could have,” Mirkarimi told the Guardian shortly after Chiu was elected. “I was the deciding vote that delivered Sup. David Chiu, the first Asian American president of the board. That doesn’t mean that the seasoned experience of Maxwell and myself wasn’t hard to pass by.”

In fact, both Dufty and Maxwell groused about the progressive bloc’s opposition to Maxwell, noting her positions on issues such as public power, affordable housing, and transportation issues. “The people that voted for me did so because they felt I would at least listen to them,” Maxwell told us, expressing frustration at not being accepted “by the board’s progressive clique” which, she noted, “are all males.”

“I think David will be great,” Dufty told the Guardian. “Obviously there was a desire to have someone strongly aligned with the progressive movement. I think it’s a mystery that Sophie isn’t considered part of the progressive movement.”

Progressives are going to have to work at resolving those differences if they are going to play a leadership role in the midyear budget cuts and prevent an expansion of the bloc of five supervisors who stuck with Maxwell and often align with the mayor.

“There has been tension between Ross and myself, but also between Sophie and Ross,” Daly told us. “Sophie is feeling that she might be a progressive, too. And some of the things we do on the board need eight votes. The rift between Ross and I is little. The real question is, when do we get Bevan and Sophie back?”

After fending off a progressive challenger in his reelection bid two years ago, Dufty seemed to move to the left, only to return to Newsom’s centrist faction — which mixes social liberalism with fiscal conservatism — in the last year. He prevented progressives from being able to override a mayoral veto of their decision to cancel $1 million in funding to Newsom’s Community Justice Center. And on Jan. 6, the old board delayed a vote on a mayoral veto of an ordinance that amends the Planning Code to require Conditional Use hearings and permits for any elimination of existing dwelling units through mergers, conversions, or demolitions of residential units, something sought by the tenant groups that are an important part of the progressive coalition.

Those issues, and the thicket that is the budget debate, illustrate what Daly admitted to us last week: “We can’t run this city with six votes.”

 

THE BUDGET MESS

The most pressing problem facing the new board is the budget, which requires $125 million in midyear cuts for the current fiscal year and will be an estimated $575 million out of balance for the fiscal year that begins in June. Chiu’s first move to deal with it — one lauded by progressives — was to name Avalos as budget chair.

“John Avalos has more experience on budget issues than me,” Daly, who chaired the Budget Committee for two years, said of his former board aide. But even Avalos was awestruck by the tsunami of bad budget news hitting the city, telling us, “I was visibly shaken.”

Mirkarimi and Elsbernd, the Budget Committee’s two other current members, also admit they face a daunting task.

“We can’t put a Band-Aid on the problem,” Elsbernd told the board last week. “This is not just about San Francisco now, but about San Francisco 20 years from now. We need to think about the next generation.”

Mirkarimi agrees with Elsbernd, at least in terms of the enormity of the problem.

“We cannot be incrementalist. We can’t dance around the edges,” Mirkarimi told his colleagues, shortly after making the surprise announcement that he’s expecting a child in April with Venezuelan soap opera star Eliana López, who he’s dated since meeting her last year at a Green Party conference in Brazil. Elsbernd and his wife are also expecting their first child.

Progressives strongly argue that such a large budget deficit can’t be closed with spending cuts alone, so one of Peskin’s final acts was to create legislation calling a special election for June 2 and having supervisors hold hearings over the next month to choose from a variety of revenue measures, but Newsom and the business community opposed the move.

“Basically, it’s not fully baked. It will take a citywide coalition (à la Prop. A) to win something like this and the coalition just hasn’t been built yet,” Ballard told the Guardian. Even Mirarimi echoed the sentiment, telling the Guardian, “I’m not opposed to a June election, but you can’t put something on the June ballot that’s half-baked because I doubt we could win in November if we put something half-baked on in June. My preference is that we work harder to create alliances to assure a healthy chance of getting something on the ballot and delivering a victory.”

Yet many progressives and labor leaders say it’s important to bring in new revenue as soon as possible, particularly because the cuts required by the current budget deficit would slash about half the city’s discretionary spending and devastate important initiatives like offering health coverage to all San Franciscans.

“For Healthy San Francisco to survive, the Department of Public Health has to have a minimum level of funding,” said Robert Haaland, a labor representative with the public employee union SEIU Local 1021. “Given the cuts that have been proposed, it’s not going to survive.”

While Peskin was criticized for acting prematurely, the City Attorney’s Office memo indicated that he couldn’t have waited and still allowed supervisors to play the lead role in determining what ended up on the June ballot. The memo was requested by Daly.

“In response to your specific inquiry about maximizing the amount of time a committee could deliberate the underlying measures and ensuring that the Board would have enough time to override a Mayoral veto, the emergency ordinance and the resolution calling for the special election should be introduced today,” the City Attorney’s Office wrote Jan. 6, the day Peskin introduced his revenue package.

Even then, supervisors would need to vote to waive certain election procedures, such as the 30-day hold for proposed ballot measures, and to move expeditiously forward with hearings, selection of the tax measures, and preparation of findings related to the special election and declaration of fiscal emergency.

The City Attorney’s Office wrote that the package needs final approval by Feb. 17. “We recommend that to meet this deadline, the Board adopt the resolution at its January 27 meeting and that the Mayor sign the resolution no earlier than February 2,” they wrote.

But Newsom has indicated that he would veto it, thus requiring eight supervisors to override. “Aaron had the right to do what he did, but in some ways he rushed the discussion, so it’s been a bit rockier than it otherwise might have been,” Dufty told us, noting that he’s still open to supporting a June ballot measure. “There is no way to avoid spending cuts, and we need more revenues and more givebacks from public employees … I think labor is spending a significant amount of time with the mayor, and he’s making a strong effort to work with the board. I’m trying to encourage us all to work together to the maximum extent possible.”

In fact, San Francisco Labor Council director Tim Paulson told the Guardian he couldn’t talk about the tax measures yet because of intense ongoing discussions. Ballard said Newsom might be open to tax measures in November, telling the Guardian, “Ideally we could do it all by streamlining government, reducing spending, etc. But the mayor lives in the real world and so he is open to the possibility of a revenue measure with a broad base of support.”

So, can the new board president help coalesce the broad base of support that he’ll need to avoid cuts that would especially hurt the progressive base of unions, tenants, social service providers, affordable housing activists, and others who believe that government plays an important role in addressing social problems and inequities?

“In light of the global meltdown, national slowdown, local crisis, and largest budget deficit in history, I believe this board understands the importance of unity and working together,” Chiu told his colleagues. “We don’t have time for the politics of personality when we have the highest murder rate in 10 years, when businesses are failing, and the budget deficit grows exponentially.”

The Daily Chronicle newsroom in crisis mode

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By Barry Schrader
Chronicle Columnist
Feb 11, 2009

It was 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008, and the Daily Chronicle news operation had wound down for the day; most of the staff either out on assignment or headed home. But what happened that day and hour will remain seared into the memories of everyone connected with the Chronicle, and I assume many others in the DeKalb area and on the Northern Illinois University campus, for the rest of their lives. I wasn’t there to witness the tension and emotion that ran so high that day, but two weeks later decided there should be a permanent record of the tragic events, so asked the staff if I could interview each of them on video as an oral history project. Some of them were in their first jobs as professional journalists, about the same age as the older students at NIU. It was a very emotional and shocking experience for everyone involved, whether inside that newsroom or out at the campus where the shootings took place. I wanted to capture the feelings and reactions of those closest to the events as things unfolded. The tapes will be turned over to the NIU archives and Joiner History Room where they can be perused by future journalists and historians. Now, as I replay those interviews and recall those horrendous hours and days, I realized that nearly half of those news people interviewed have either left DeKalb for other jobs or changed careers. I wonder how much the impact of that day had on their decisions to move on. One of the most succinct statements was given to me in writing by then Chronicle production superintendent, Bruce Bieritz, a 29-year newspaper veteran, who recalled it this way: “Anyone in the newspaper business lives for days like today (Feb. 14). While being tragic in nature, the events of today are in itself exhilarating in nature from a news standpoint … To be sitting in the editorial area when this tragic event unfolded was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen.

Avalos is Budget Committee chair

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Photo by Luke Thomas
“Mr. Mayor, it’s great to see you in Chambers. We need to have your cooperation,” Sup. John Avalos (far right) tells Newsom (second from right), as newly elected Board President David Chiu (second from left) and Clerk of the Board Angela Cavillo (far left) look on.

Text by Sarah Phelan
Newly sworn-in Supervisor John Avalos told the Guardian yesterday that he had asked to be on the board’s powerful Budget and Finance Committee and would happy to be its chair.

And now comes news that Avalos, who represents the predominantly working class District 11, has got his wish.

Avalos, who was sworn in yesterday by newly elected Board President David Chiu, will take over as the Budget and Finance Committee chair from termed-out Sup. Jake McGoldrick.

The move comes as the City faces its worst budget deficit since the Depression.

But though Avalos is a first-time supervisor, he already has a deep and broad understanding of the City’s budget process, knowledge that he gleaned while working as Sup. Chris Daly’s legislative analyst for the past three years.

“John Avalos has more experience of budget issues than me,” Daly told me yesterday, outside the Board Chambers, after the inaugural meeting was over. “Because while I was in there (Daly gesticulates towards the Board chambers) listening to endless hours of public comment, John, as my legislative analyst was meeting with the Controller and the Budget Analyst and all the other people involved in the budget process.”

But even Avalos is awestruck by the tsunami of bad financial news that has hit the City.

“I was visibly shaken” Avalos told me of his reaction during in a recent meeting about the City’s budgetary woes.

Avalos’ appointment as chair means that he can get on with advancing measures related to the city’s staggering $576 million deficit. These include holding hearings about legislation that former Board President Aaron Peskin’s introduced earlier this week, on his penultimate day on the job.

That legislation proposes a special election in June, so voters can weigh in on a number of proposed, but as yet-to-be finalized revenue generating measures.

Avalos will also oversee hearings on $125 million in midyear budget cuts, including Peskin’s proposal to get rid of the Small Business Assistance Center and cut ballet, symphony and opera funding in half.

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