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If you don’t know about the Filthy ’Moe
It’s time I let real game unfold….
Messy Marv, “True to the Game”
I meet Big Rich on the corner of Laguna and Grove streets, near the heart of the Fillmore District according to its traditional boundaries of Van Ness and Fillmore, although the hood actually extends as far west as Divisadero. “Me personally,” the 24-year-old rapper and lifelong ’Moe resident confesses, “I don’t be sticking my head out too much. But I make sure I bring every photo session or interview right here.”
At the moment he’s taping a segment for an upcoming DVD by the Demolition Men, who released his mixtape Block Tested Hood Approved in April. Since then, the former member of the San Quinn–affiliated group Fully Loaded has created a major buzz thanks in part to the snazzy video for “That’s the Business,” his E-A-Ski- and CMT-produced single, which was the Jam of the Week in August on MTV2 and added to straight-up MTV in time for the Oct. 3 release of the Koch full-length Block Tested Hood Approved. (Originally titled Fillmore Rich, the album was renamed to capitalize on the mixtape-generated hype.)
Presented by E-40 and featuring Rich’s dope in-house producer Mal Amazin in addition to heavyweights such as Sean-T, Rick Rock, and Droop-E, BTHA is a deep contribution to the rising tide of Bay Area hip-hop. While Big Rich’s gruff baritone delivery and gritty street tales make his music more mobster than hyphy, the album is not unaffected by the latter style’s up-tempo bounce, helping the movement hold national attention during this season of anticipation before Mistah FAB’s major-label debut on Atlantic. “I don’t necessarily make hyphy music,” Rich says. “But I definitely condone it. As long as the spotlight is on the Bay, I’m cool with it.” Coming near the end of a year that has seen landmark albums from San Quinn, Messy Marv, Will Hen, and fellow Fully Loaded member Bailey — not to mention JT the Bigga Figga’s high-profile tour with Snoop Dogg, which has taken hyphy all the way to Africa — Rich’s solo debut is one more indication of the historic district’s importance to the vitality of local hip-hop and Bay Area culture in general.
THE EDGE OF PAC HEIGHTS
The Fillmore is a community under siege, facing external and internal pressures. On the one hand, gentrification — in the form of high-end shops and restaurants serving tourists, Pacific Heights residents, and an increasingly affluent demographic creeping into the area — continues to erode the neighborhood’s edges. “If you grew up in the Fillmore, you can see Pacific Heights has crept down the hill, closer to the ghetto,” says Hen, who as a member of multiregional group the Product (assembled by Houston legend Scarface) moved more than 60,000 copies of its recent “thug conscious” debut, One Hunid (Koch). “Ten years ago there were more boundaries. But the Fillmore’s prime location, and I’m not asleep to this fact. We’re five minutes away from everything in the city. That has to play a role in the way the district is represented in a city that makes so much off tourism. You might not want your city portrayed as gangsta, even though it is.”
Hen has a point. The notion of San Francisco as gangsta is somewhat at odds with the way the city perceives itself. As an Oakland writer, I can attest to this, for even in San Francisco’s progressive artistic and intellectual circles, Oakland is usually understood to be beyond the pale in terms of danger and violence. Yet none of the Oakland rappers I’ve met talk about their hoods in quite the same way Fillmore rappers do, at least when it comes to their personal safety. As Big Rich films his section of the DVD, for example, he remarks on the continual stream of police cruisers circling the block.
“They slowed it down,” he says. “Now they only come every 90 seconds. Right around here is murder central — people be shooting each other every night. By 7 o’clock, we all gotta disperse, unless you want to get caught in the cross fire.” He waves his hands in mock terror. “I ain’t trying to die tonight!”
“BUSTING HEADS”
Though Rich is clowning, his statement is perfectly serious — indiscriminate gunfire among gang members, often in their early teens, makes nocturnal loitering a risky proposition at best. As of September, according to the San Francisco Police Department’s Web site, the Northern Police District, which includes the Fillmore, had the city’s second highest number of murders this year, 11, ceding first place only to the much larger Bayview’s 22. For overall criminal incidents, the Northern District led the city, at more than 10,000 so far.
Though Fillmore rappers might be given to stressing the danger of their hood, insofar as such themes constitute much of hip-hop’s subject matter and they feel the need to refute the city’s nongangsta image, no one I spoke to seemed to be boasting. They sounded sad. Hen, for example, reported that he’d been to three funerals in October, saying, “You hardly have time to mourn for one person before you have to mourn for the next person.” While the SFPD’s Public Affairs Office didn’t return phone calls seeking corroboration, both Rich and Hen indicate the neighborhood is suffering from an alarming amount of black-on-black violence.
“Basically, it’s genocide. We’re going to destroy each other,” Hen says. “It used to be crosstown rivalries rather than in your backyard. Now there’s more of that going on. If you get into it at age 15, the funk is already there. Whoever your crew is funking with, you’re in on it.” The ongoing cycle of drug-related violence — the Fillmore’s chief internal pressure — has only ramped up under the Bush administration’s regressive economic policies. It’s a fact not lost on these rappers: as Rich puts it succinctly on BTHA, “Bush don’t give a fuck about a nigga from the hood.”
“Everybody’s broke. That’s why everybody’s busting each other’s heads,” explains Rich, who lost his older brother to gun violence several years ago. “If you don’t know where your next dollar’s coming from …”
To be sure, the rappers give back to the Fillmore. They support large crews of often otherwise unemployable youth, and Messy Marv, for example, has been known to hand out turkeys for Thanksgiving and bikes for Christmas. But Bay Area rap is only just getting back on its feet, and while the rappers can ameliorate life in the Fillmore’s housing projects, they don’t have the means to dispel the climate of desperation in a hood surrounded by one of the most expensive cities on earth. Moreover, they are acutely aware of the disconnect between their community and the rest of the city, which trades on its cultural cachet.
“It’s like two different worlds,” Hen muses. “You have people sitting outside drinking coffee right in the middle of the killing fields. They’re totally safe, but if I walk over there, I might get shot at. But the neighborhood is too proud for us to be dying at the hands of each other.”
HOOD PRIDE
The neighborhood pride Will Hen invokes is palpable among Fillmore rappers. “I get a warm feeling when I’m here,” Messy Marv says. “The killing, you can’t just say that’s Fillmore. That’s everywhere. When you talk about Fillmore, you got to go back to the roots. Fillmore was a warm, jazzy African American place where you could come and dance, drink, have fun, and be you.”
Mess is right on all counts. Lest anyone think I misrepresent Oaktown: the citywide number of murders in Oakland has already topped 120 this year. But my concern here is with the perceived lack of continuity Mess suggests between the culture of the Fillmore then and now. By the early 1940s, the Fillmore had developed into a multicultural neighborhood including the then-largest Japanese population in the United States. In 1942, when FDR sent West Coast citizens of Japanese origin to internment camps, their vacated homes were largely filled by African Americans from the South, attracted by work in the shipyards. While the district had its first black nightclub by 1933, the wartime boom transformed the Fillmore into a major music center.
“In less than a decade, San Francisco’s African American population went from under 5,000 to almost 50,000,” according to Elizabeth Pepin, coauthor of the recent history of Fillmore jazz Harlem of the West (Chronicle). “The sheer increase in number of African Americans in the neighborhood made the music scene explode.”
Though known as a black neighborhood, Pepin says, the Fillmore “was still pretty diverse” and even now retains vestiges of its multicultural history. Japantown persists, though much diminished, and Big Rich himself is half Chinese, making him the second Chinese American rapper of note. “My mother’s parents couldn’t speak a lick of English,” he says. “But she was real urban, real street. I wasn’t brought up in a traditional Chinese family, but I embrace it and I get along with my other side.” Nonetheless, Pepin notes, the massive urban renewal project that destroyed the Fillmore’s iconic jazz scene by the late ’60s effectively curtailed its diversity, as did the introduction of barrackslike public housing projects.
The postwar jazz scene, of course, is the main source of nostalgia tapped by the Fillmore Merchants Association (FMA). Talk of a musical revival refers solely to the establishment of upscale clubs — Yoshi’s, for example, is scheduled to open next year at Fillmore and Eddy — offering music that arguably is no longer organically connected to the neighborhood. In a brief phone interview, Gus Harput, president of the FMA’s Jazz Preservation District, insisted the organization would “love” to open a hip-hop venue, although he sidestepped further inquiries. (Known for its hip-hop shows, Justice League at 628 Divisadero closed around 2003 following a 2001 shooting death at a San Quinn performance and was later replaced by the Independent, which occasionally books rap.) The hood’s hip-hop activity might be too recent and fall outside the bounds of jazz, yet nowhere in the organization’s online Fillmore history (fillmorestreetsf.com) is there an acknowledgement of the MTV-level rap scene down the street.
Yet the raucous 1949 Fillmore that Jack Kerouac depicts in his 1957 book, On the Road — replete with protohyphy blues shouters like Lampshade bellowing such advice as “Don’t die to go to heaven, start in on Doctor Pepper and end up on whisky!” — sounds less like the area’s simulated jazz revival and more like the community’s present-day hip-hop descendants.
How could it be otherwise? The aesthetics have changed, but the Fillmore’s musical genius has clearly resided in rap since Rappin’ 4Tay debuted on Too $hort’s Life Is … Too $hort (Jive, 1989), producer-MC JT the Bigga Figga brought out the Get Low Playaz, and a teenage San Quinn dropped his classic debut, Don’t Cross Me (Get Low, 1993). While there may not be one definitive Fillmore hip-hop style, given that successful rappers tend to work with successful producers across the Bay regardless of hood, Messy Marv asserts the ’Moe was crucial to the development of the hyphy movement: “JT the Bigga Figga was the first dude who came with the high-energy sound. He was ahead of his time. I’m not taking nothing away from Oakland, Vallejo, or Richmond. I’m just letting you know what I know.”
In many ways the don of the ’Moe, San Quinn — reaffirming his status earlier this year with The Rock (SMC), featuring his own Ski- and CMT-produced smash, “Hell Ya” — could be said to typify a specifically Fillmore rap style, in which the flow is disguised as a strident holler reminiscent of blues shouting. While both Messy Marv and Big Rich share affinities with this delivery, Will Hen, for instance, and Quinn’s brother Bailey — whose Champ Bailey (City Boyz, 2006) yielded the MTV and radio success “U C It” — favor a smoother, more rapid-fire patter.
What is most striking here is that, with the exception of fellow traveler Messy Marv (see sidebar), all of these artists, as well as recent signee to the Game’s Black Wall Street label, Ya Boy, came up in the ’90s on San Quinn’s influential Done Deal Entertainment. Until roughly two years ago, they were all one crew. While working on his upcoming eighth solo album, From a Boy to a Man, for his revamped imprint, Deal Done, Quinn paused for a moment to take justifiable pride in his protégés, who now constitute the Fillmore’s hottest acts.
“I create monsters, know what I’m saying?” Quinn says. “Done Deal feeds off each other; that’s why I’m so proud of Bailey and Rich. We all come out the same house. There’s a real level of excellence, and the world has yet to see it. Right now it seems like we’re separate, but we’re not. We’re just pulling from different angles for the same common goal.”
“We all one,” Quinn concludes, in a statement that could serve as a motto for neighborhood unity. “Fillmoe business is Fillmoe business.” SFBG
myspace.com/bigrich
myspace.com/williehen
myspace.com/sanquinn
Oakland
The other home of Bay hip-hop
The Business of Dirty Nukes
By Sarah Phelan
In the war on terror, even cats are suspect. Or at least their kitty litter is.
That’s because of trace amounts of uranium and other suspect stuff that apparently triggers alarms at ports worldwide
But now comes news of better technology–and bigger profits—in the war on terror.
Today, the Bay Area-based Veritainer unveiled equipment at the Port of Oakland which can, according to Veritainer CEO John Alioto, detect “dirty bombs” in shipping containers
Yes, we know that Oakland is a domestic port, and thus less likely to be the site of smuggled nukes, but the Veritainer folks say they are using Oakland as a test case.
No, that doesn’t mean they’ll be bringing in dirty bombs to Oakland so they can test their technology. Instead, they’ll be bringing in small sources of naturally occurring nuclear material, such as americium, which is found in smoke detectors (and was, ironically enough, named for the Americas).
“This is to protect ports around the world from the low probability but high impact of nuclear smuggling,” said Veritainer Chairman and CEO John Alioto, who plans to charge $20 per container to screen for dirty bombs, provided his company gets certified by the Department of Homeland Security in January 2007.
In other words, Veritainer stands to make oodles of bucks, given that Oakland handles 2 million containers a year, L.A. handles 6 million and Rotterdam handles 20 million. Add to that the fact that radiation screening is now required at international ports, thanks to the Safe Port Act which President Bush signed in October, and you get the picture.
Right now, according to John Alioto, the customer is the government, with the National Nuclear Safety Agency setting aside $2.5 billion to cover initial costs.
Alioto also told me that there’ll be no danger to port workers from this technology,
“The equipment is purely passive,” he said. “Unlike dentists’ X-ray equipment, this is passive, purely detective equipment. So, there’ll be no shooting of radiation at the waterfront!” (The International Longshoremen and local residents will be happy to hear that.)
“Unlike radiation portal monitors, which were called kitty litter detectors because they couldn’t differentiate between dangerous and non-dangerous sources, these devices can identify isotopes, and say, yes, it americium. At which point, port officials can check the ship’s manifest and see if it’s certified to carry smoke detectors. And eventually, the machine will be able to do manifest comparison itself, too.”
So, next year, if you’re riding a ferry to Jack London Square, chances are port officials will be monitoring radioactive levels at the port, 24/7. So, leave the kitty litter at home.
Smart and dangerous
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The Fucking Ocean are seriously fucking refreshing: they’ve taken cues from Mark E. Smith and Ian MacKaye alike to produce biting, sincere post-punk that’s nigh anomalous in American music. In band member John Nguyen’s San Francisco home, the current three-piece talked about their politics, new record, playing under the stairs at the Edinburgh Castle, and a shared affinity for Mexican food and DC punk.
It was collegiate rock enthusiasm that initially helped bring about this ensemble. Nguyen went to Brown with fellow band member Matt Swagler, where they played together in what Swagler said was a “pretty embarrassing ’90s power pop band.” When Nguyen subsequently moved west to enter med school at Stanford, he randomly tuned in to Fucking Ocean cofounder Elias Spiliotis on KZSU, the campus radio station.
“I had a show called Lethal Injection on Saturday evenings where I was playing Greek punk and bands like the Fall, Fugazi, and Blonde Redhead,” Spiliotis said. “Before I ever met him, John called in one night, said he liked the show, and asked me, ‘Where are the cool people at Stanford?’”
They inevitably found each other at a station staff meeting a few months later, and Nguyen started his own finely titled show, Sad and Dangerous. Later, after Swagler moved to San Francisco, a 2003 show from defunct DC no-wave ragers Black Eyes blew the friends’ collective mind. Starting a band was the noble, noisy result.
As cryptic as the Fucking Ocean’s name is, it has rather silly origins: “I was dropping off Matt after band practice when ‘Foggy Notion’ by the Velvet Underground came on the radio,” Spiliotis said. The band had been tossing around possible names, and when he suggested “the Foggy Notion,” his Greek accent unwittingly locked in a different phrase, one that they’ve used to this day.
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Luckily, Swagler explained, the Foggy Notion serves as a name for playing kids’ birthday parties — when his grandmother recently asked his band’s name, that’s the one he gave her. Spiliotis, while no longer in the band (he left in order to continue his research in cell biology at Stanford), appears on the record with Nguyen, Swagler, and Marcella Gries, who joined the group after former bass player Megumi Aihara moved to Boston for graduate school.
For more than a year their rehearsals were tape-recorded on Gries’s clock radio. The band eventually had a friend help them record a five-song EP that, while never released, primed them for their studio time at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studio.
“We were playing a lot of shows, and our friends in the Mall suggested going to Ian and Jay Pellicci to record an album,” said Gries of the Pelliccis, who have recorded some of their favorite bands, Deerhoof and Erase Errata. They brought the Fucking Ocean newfound on-tape clarity and a pointed drum sound care of Jay Pellicci, as well as some nifty frills — a vintage Gibson amplifier and, appropriately, a telephone, which Nguyen said was “rewired and disordered in a way that makes it sound vaguely like a bullhorn.”
“MUSICAL VOLLEYBALL”
The Fucking Ocean’s affable attitude contrasts with their music’s tension and focus. Drum, bass, and guitar duties aren’t singularly assigned — the band writes collectively and swaps instruments. The approach makes their live show as varied and blindingly fun as their record. On the road they have been carting around new songs and video accompaniment courtesy of local artist Tony Benna. Shawn Reynaldo, who signed the Fucking Ocean to his Oakland label, Double Negative Records, calls them a “musical volleyball team” with a deliberately Minutemen-like songwriting economy. The prevailing maxim among the Fucking Ocean is that if an idea is presented to the listener, it needn’t stick around that long: no use in letting John Q. Listener get too comfortable, right?
Recording the album, all done on analog tape, took six days in June. While a lot of Indian pizza, Gatorade, and various caffeinated drinks fueled their long nights behind the boards, the result, Le Main Rouge, is damn lean. At 11 songs in a little under 27 minutes, it’s an urgent delight of terse angularity from a band bursting with novel ideas, both politically and riffwise.
Addressing abortion rights in the fuzzed, pissed strut of “Adam,” the Fucking Ocean close with the lines “Do you remember when, do you remember when?/ Women had to risk their lives just to live again!” “Bombs in the Underground,” a response to last year’s London Underground bombings, opens with a memorable guitar-bass groove reminiscent of midperiod Sleater-Kinney before bursting into a shouted refrain, then traversing odd tempo shifts and a drum fill — it’s thoughtfully fragmented and endlessly listenable. Le Main Rouge shows a band whose enthusiasm hopefully bodes a good run ahead. You’re advised to polish up that kayak and tune in. SFBG
FUCKING OCEAN
With Kid 606 and Friends and Warbler
Thurs/16, 9 p.m.
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
$8
(415) 621-4455
Ranked choice spreads
By Laura Beth McCaul
While the Democrats’ congressional takeover and Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation are making headlines, election day set off another trend that may not be on the tip of voters’ tongues, but could change the way democracy works in the United States.
Instant runoff voting (IRV), or ranked choice voting – which has been in place in San Francisco for two years — was on the ballot in four jurisdictions and all won with significant approval. Minneapolis, Oakland, Davis and Washington’s Pierce County all approved measures that will eliminate separate primary elections and allow voters to rank the candidates from their first to last choice.
Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, said IRV “speaks to a lot of people who feel like the current system is not working and they want a political system that is going to open it up and give more choices. Instant runoff voting really fulfills a need that makes them feel like their vote counts.”
Done deal for Aimee?
by James Woodward
Aimee Allison’s campaign party was the second one I attended tonight. Maxwell’s, located four blocks away on 13th St. in Downtown Oakland, was festooned with orange balloons while a young crowd of supporters,
clad in bright orange tee shirts, stood out front to smoke. Inside people filled the dance floor as the DJ played Latin rhythms and funk. The crowd here is much younger than the Kernighan party. Everybody’s having a pretty good time, although the food is gone and the drinks aren’t cheap, but everybody seems to partying like it’s a
done deal.
Goldies Visual Art winner Chris Duncan
Artist Chris Duncan came to Northern California for the Tahoe powder — and to get away from his routine in Delaware and his native New Jersey of catching hardcore shows every weekend and doing absolutely nothing else with his life. Duncan recalls he and a friend “snowboarded for a season, and it was rad and it was horrible at the same time. Every night it was the same party with the same 40 guys and three girls, so I started to stay in and draw.”
Since then, that need to draw a line between the fun but perhaps meaningless life of nightly parties and his own creative urges has led Duncan to San Francisco, where he moved in 1996 and spent the next years working, skateboarding, and attending California College of the Arts, where he began to find direction, to chart his own personal map to the color theory of Mark Rothko and Josef Albers, and to dip into sacred geometry, string theory, Eastern philosophies, and increasingly, simple nonfigurative forms. In his current work temporal strings converge, intersect, and radiate above needle-nose pyramids, shooting off across ceilings and traversing rooms. Flat works are stitched with ragged stars or painted with dark rays that explode above kaleidoscopic ziggurats.
“For me, it’s about dealing with being fully overwhelmed by humans, to be perfectly honest,” confesses Duncan, 32, kicking back in his tidy wood box of an Oakland studio, off the downtown-area railroad tracks. Dressed head to toe in black, tattoos crawling up his neck and down his arms to hands that jerk to punctuate a point, the artist is far from slick, but he exudes an amiable earnestness raving about his young daughter, Aya-mea Mourning. “I’m also completely amazed by people. People are fantastic and can do such great things. Look how far we’ve come — and the mirror image of that is look at what we’ve done.”
What has Duncan done? Perhaps he’s captured the zeitgeist, one that’s both physical and ethereal, give or take a planet. His SF gallerist Gregory Lind says, “Chris Duncan’s laboriously rendered works on paper and his intricate string sculptures seek to combine the spiritual with the scientific, which is compelling to me in this kind of dark period we find ourselves in today.”
Whether the artist’s pieces trace strings of energy or ecstatic explosions in some acid-laced map room, he’s found a way to tap some sort of fuel source for his numerous projects, including his striking grab bag of an art zine, Hot and Cold, in which he and Griffin McPartland showcase artists like Matt O’Brien, Chris Pew, and Jen Smith. They took a page from their own periodical to produce a catalog for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ 2005 exhibit “The Zine UnBound: Kults, Werewolves and Sarcastic Hippies.” Duncan has also curated exhibits as part of Keepsake Society, a site he maintains with ex-girlfriend Aki Raymer, and he is editing an anthology of “my first punk show” stories for AK Press.
“When I got older and found art making, I found a spot to do the things I saw happening as a teenager, with what all my friends were doing,” he says. “I began making zines and started curating, and in terms of how active and how DIY everything was in that [East Coast hardcore] scene, I found a place to put that to use when I got a little older. And this is the perfect city for that — there are so many examples of people doing it. It’s a nice blanket to be under.”
And speaking of blankets: Duncan will be stitching together a cosmic ray–embellished quilt of sorts in memory of his recently deceased 99-year-old great-grandmother for his forthcoming show at Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York City. Much like a handmade, toy- and goodie-bundled, affordable and accessible limited-edition art zine, the project embodies an aesthetic Duncan embraces. “We just totally outdo the last thing we did and totally overwhelm people. Things don’t exist like that anymore,” explains the artist. “Everything’s so not made by hand and so not giving in a way. I think with a little energy you can give a lot, and I think that’s really important.” (Kimberly Chun)
Goldies Dance winner Funkanometry SF
Earlier this fall Funkanometry SF celebrated their fourth anniversary at the same place, 111 Minna Gallery, that is hosting this year’s Goldies ceremony and party. They packed the joint. Between then and now the company has been places. Six core members — including directors Emerson Aquino and Gina Rosales — answered an invitation to travel to Bogotá, Colombia. There, as part of the city’s Festival de Danza Urbana, they taught classes, were interviewed on the streets for radio and television, and gave performances.
Funkanometry SF is traveling these days — this month includes a trip to Chicago — but their heart remains in the Bay Area, where every Sunday night they take over the Westlake School for the Performing Arts in Daly City. In one large room company members and new students might run through eight counts while in another, smaller classroom veteran dancers hone an upcoming performance. Before, after, and in between the dancing, everyone hangs out in the courtyard, where kids and parents stop by to see what’s up.
“I really started choreographing when I was 14,” the soft-spoken Aquino explains one such Sunday, as he, Rosales, and cofounder Kyle Wai Lin good-naturedly attempt to break down the group’s history, kidding each other all the while. “To me, choreography is about making pictures. Once you realize the amount of people you have [to work with], you can maneuver them to make pictures.”
The pictures the group creates aren’t just captivating still images — they form waves of energy as friends in the audience shout encouragement to dancers on the floor. That type of flow is no small feat, considering Aquino and the 20-some-member group tap into many different genres of music. The ladies are as slyly, stylishly sexy-tough as Amerie and Aaliyah, and the gentlemen aren’t buried under baggy clothes — they’ve got debonair flair. In other words, Funkanometry SF aren’t solemn hip-hop snobs — they’re just as likely to draw from J-pop, house, or rock as they are Bay Area hyphy. “The art of choreography involves movement that is clear,” Aquino says while discussing the fact that Janet Jackson is a dancer’s pop singer if there ever was one (an axiom that extends to Timbaland as producer). “But a lot of people focus on movement at the expense of feeling. You can just move, but if you’re not feeling the music, you’re not dancing.”
Like Aquino, Funkanometry SF’s other codirectors started dancing in high school. Before joining Funkanometry SF the energetic Rosales captained a high school team and was part of another local crew, Xplicit. Lin and Aquino are friends dating back to childhood; these days Lin oversees the business and Web creative side of the group (www.funkanometrysf.com and www.funksters.org), letting Aquino guide the dancers. “Both of us wanted to create a foundation to serve the community, to challenge dancers, and create an outlet for youth,” Lin says. Judging from the huge response to the group’s Funksters youth program — overseen by Mary Jane Huang — they’re succeeding on all fronts.
Each fall the San Francisco Hip Hop Dance Fest rolls around, and along with another community-based local company — Oakland’s Izzy Award–winners New Style Motherlode — Funkanometry SF can be counted on to represent. This year Aquino and company are preparing a new show, Funk’s Boutique, for Micaya’s annual Palace of Fine Arts event. “It’s set in a trendy boutique, and it showcases the versatility and diversity of the company,” Aquino explains. Versatility and diversity — those are just two of the qualities that make Funkanometry SF unique. Each dancer brings another reason to check out their boutique. (Johnny Ray Huston)
Kernighan cautiously optimistic
live report by James Woodard
As early numbers roll in, Pat Kernighan is being cautiously optimistic at his election night party being held at Sushi Zone on Ninth Street in downtown Oakland. Supporters of Kernighan, including Oakland City Council President, Ignacio de la Fuente, are calling her a woman of action and someone who works hard for Oakland, whether or not everyone likes her position.
More Impertinent Questions on Hearst shenanigans on the drug pricing scandal (part 5) Why did Hearst censor an AP story on McKesson profits?
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Let me cite yet another example of the dangers of the Hearst/Singleton move to destroy daily competition and impose regional monopoly in the Bay Area.
As attentive Bruce blog readers know, I always turn to the second page of the Chroncie/Hearst business section called “Daily Digest” to pick up the news that Hearst is censoring. Yesterday, I spotted yet another nugget
that demonstrated how Hearst was censoring a major scandal story involving its own subsidiary in San Bruno and McKesson Corp., one of the nation’s largest drug wholesalers.
The story looked harmless enough, a six paragraph Associated Press story headlined “McKesson soars above expectations,” with a lead that said that the company’s “quarterly profit climbed 37 per cent to soar past analyst expectations, prompting the nation’s largest prescription-drug distributor to brighten its financial outlook.” Another five paragraphs provided the details of this seemingly rosy McKesson story.
So, knowing there was much more to this story and getting my blogging genes at the ready, I checked the online version of the story. Imagine my surprise when I found that the guts of the Chronicle story had been cut out of the paper and the juicy stuff was tucked away in the online version. A full seven paragraphs had been chopped from the print version of a l6 paragraph story by Michael Liedtke from the San Francisco AP bureau.
Let me quote the key chopped out paragraphs to make my point: “McKesson released its results and bullish outlook after the stock market closed Tuesday. The company’s shares fell 60 cents to finish at $50.09 on the New York Stock Exchange. After an early rebound in after-hours trading, the shares shed 5 cents.
“The downturn extended a recent slump triggered nearly four weeks ago by news of a tentative legal settlement that could depress prescription drug prices. (b3: a dreadful thing.)
“The settlement covers a class-action complaint alleging that drug price publisher First DataBank Inc. (B3: a Hearst subsidiary in San Bruno) had conspired with McKesson between 2002 and 2005 to boost the wholesale cost of most prescription medicines by 5 per cent. (B3: a tidy newsworthy sum).
“Although McKesson has denied any wrongdoing and isn’t joining the settlement, investors are worried the agreement will force the company to lower its prices (b3: another dreadful thing). Consumer advocates have estimated the settlement will save health insurance plans about $4 billion (b3: a nice newsworthy figure). The settlement still needs approval by a Massachusets federal court, something unlikely to happen before April…”
Note my previous blogs to get the scope of the Hearst shenanigans at work here. AP doesn’t put Hearst into the story where it belongs and doesn’t even identify FirstDateBank as a local subsidiary owned by Hearst, the biggest daily in Northern California and a big bankroller and participant in the Singleton move to monopolize the Bay Area. Hearst doesn’t properly edit the AP story and put Hearst high up where it belongs. And Hearst actually cut the print version of the story and put the guts of it up online at SF Gate so it will be hard to spot. And of course Hearst never ran the original story of the scandal (reported first in a lead story in the Oct. 6 Wall Street Journal, with versions by the AP, the Guardian, and even the Hearst-owned Houston Chronicle, see my previous blogs.)
The hinge point: Hearst went to these embarrassing lengths to censor a major scandal story involving Hearst, and three local companies, to protect its corporate interests and refuses to explain this professionally glaring omission in the stories, or to its readers. It also refuses to answer my questions directed to Hearst corporate in New York City via Hearst San Francisco and publisher Frank Vega, Executive Editor Phil Bronstein, Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal, and Business Editor Ken Howe. And the “competitive” Singleton papers haven’t done the story either to my knowledge and won’t explain why.
Impertinent Questions: If Hearst and Singleton won’t compete on a major scandal story like this, where will they compete and when do they start? How can they censor and cover up a major story like this in the midst of investigations by Justice and the AG?
This sorry episode illustrates a key issue for the current Justice and AG investigations into whether the Hearst/Singleton deal violates U.S.and state antitrust laws. It also illustrates a key issue for the highly important Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto antitrust suit seeking to blast apart the Hearst/Singleton financial relationship. I refer again to Brugmann’s Law: Where there is no economic competition, there is no news and editorial competition. So the thrust of any real antitrust investigation ought to be to stop monopoly moves like this and insure real newspaper and media competition.
We hear that Justice is at least doing lots of interviewing. God knows what Lockyer and his antitrust crew are doing as he heads into the sunset to be state treasurer. His probable successor, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, operating under the thumb of the Oakland Tribune/Singleton, has refused to comment or answer questions as to whether he will continue Lockyer’s purported investigation. Reilly and Alioto are hard into discovery, working with the media documents they obtained from Justice and the AG as a result of their suit. The documents were filed by the principals in the original merger (McClatchy, Hearst, Singleton, Gannett, Stephens) to get preliminary Justice and AG approval. They are certain to be illuminating. Impertinent Question: Why is it that, once again, Relly and Alioto must do the heavy lifting in a private suit because Justice and the AG have so far knuckled under to the chains and refused to do their job.
Repeating the Impertinent Questions to Hearst and Singleton editors and publishers: Why haven’t you done this major scandal story? When will you do it? If you won’t do the stories, please explain. Until then, let’s have no more macho talk about competition between Hearst and Singleton papers. B3
P.S. Let me quote the third paragraph from the WSJ to dramatize the heft of this story: “A 2002 email by a manager of (McKesson) describes how pharmacies would be able to more than doiuble their profit for dispensing the cholestrol drug Lipitor and adds, ‘that is awesome.'” The article quoted an economist hired by the plaintiffs who estimated that savings in 2007 alone at $4 billion. There is much, much more. The Hearst and Singleton papers would cover this national scandal in a flash if it involved any other big company in their territory. Hopefully.
A tough pill to swallow by G.W. Schulz
McKesson’s fiscal 2Q profit rises 37 percent to top analyst views by MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
White Guilt on Your Green Lifestyle
By Sarah Phelan
With the Green Festival’s tips on green homes, green investment, eco-travel and organic beer set to hit San Francisco Nov. 10-12, African People’s Solidarity Day coordinator and physicist Aisha Fields told the Guardian her group is hitting the Bay Area a week earlier to tell folks that “the entire white lifestyle—alternative or not—is unsustainable.”
Because of its colonial legacy, much of mineral-rich Africa has no infrastructure—something APSD wants to change by raising awareness, funding and support for Africa, including demanding reparations for centuries of slavery, theft and genocide.
“Tremendous natural resources only serve a few corrupt politicians, who pump them out and send them to Europe and the U.S.,” says Fields, who hopes to fund projects for electricity, renewable energy and water purification in West Africa. “People need to deepen their understanding of the root causes. Many of the minerals mined to make cell phones come from Africa, and many of the wars Americans see on TV are being fought to frighten folks off their land, or because a ruling party wants access to those resources.”
APSD takes place in Oakland, Nov. 4, 10am – 5pm, at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th St and in San Francisco, Nov. 5, 10am – 5pm at the Women’s Building, 3543 18 St. Contact info@apscuhuru.org. 510.625.1106
SUNDAY
Oct. 29
Dance Party
Fresh/Halloween T-Dance
Sassy, slinky, and sexy costumes abound at this Halloween dance party. DJ Manny Lehman spins. (Todd Lavoie)
6 p.m.-midnight
Ruby Skye
420 Mason, SF
$20
www.freshsf.com
Event
Dia De Los Muertos Fruitvale Festival
With the theme “love, family, memories,” the Unity Council in Oakland has put together a full day of family celebration. Five stages showcase music and dance performances by local and world-renowned artists. More than 150 exhibitors and nonprofits highlight wares and services. Art and altars are on view, and the Children’s Pavilion promises to be a rewarding educational experience for kids of all ages. (Todd Lavoie)
10 a.m.-5 p.m.
International Blvd., between Fruitvale Ave and 41st Ave, Oakl
Free
(510) 535-6940
WEDNESDAY
Oct. 25
Theater
Hamlet and Hamlet:
Blood in the Brain
’Tis the season for dueling Hamlets – dueling unconventional Hamlets, in fact. Stuart Bousel and his No Nude Men Productions stick with the title of Shakespeare’s original but interpret the play as myth rather than canon fodder, casting the movie-length result so that male parts are played by women and female parts are played by men. Developed in partnership with California Shakespeare Theater and Campo Santo, Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain places the drama amid the drug-related violence of ’80s-era Oakland. Opening night forces you to overcome Hamlet-like indecision to choose one of these two versions, but at least you have a month or so to see both. (Johnny Ray Huston)
Hamlet
8 p.m. (continues Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 18)
Climate Theater
285 Ninth St., SF
(415) 621-1503
www.horrorunspeakable.com
Hamlet: Blood in the Brain
8 p.m. (Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 20; special benefit performance Sat/28, 7 p.m.)
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia, SF
$9-$20 ($25-$40 for Sat/28 benefit)
(415) 626-3311
www.theintersection.org
Film
United Nations Association Film Festival
Tonje Hessen Schei’s documentary Independent Intervention is the single most staggering doc yet made about the unholy matrimony of the military-industrial complex and the media. Using corporate newsreels, interviews with journalists, and footage from unembedded correspondents, the film relentlessly stabs its audience with egregious facts about the war in Iraq that have been avoided by mainstream reports. Both painful and empowering, this is a film everyone needs to see. Another highlight among the 31 docs playing at the United Nations Association Film Festival is Ben Lewis’s Blowing Up Paradise, which plots the history of France’s nuclear bomb testing on the French Polynesian island of Moruroa. (Sara Schieron)
Through Thurs/26
Stanford University
See Web site for program information
www.unaff.org
Tricks and treats with Down at Lulus
HALLOWEEN BEAUTY The Oakland salon and boutique Down at Lulus is copowered by members of Gravy Train!!! and the Bobbyteens. Seth Bogart of the former and Tina Lucchesi of the latter got together with me recently to first discuss the greatness of Davines hair care products from Italy (“If you have dry hair, they will blow your mind,” Lucchesi says), then get down to ghost boobs, hot sweet and sticky treats, and other things Halloween-y.
SFBG What are your best or worst Halloween experiences?
TINA LUCCHESI None are very memorable because I’m always pretty wasted. A funny one was seeing the Phantom Surfers open for the Cramps at the Warfield after Bill Graham died. One of my friends dressed as Dead Bill Graham and got us kicked out. Everyone was so pissed off about him stepping out of a coffin and slagging off Bill Graham and Ticketmaster. But I did get to hang out with Lux Interior and Ivy Rorschach.
SETH BOGART It’s funny to go trick-or-treating when you’re old. One time my friend was dressed up like Michael Jackson, and this lady answered the door with a baby and was disgusted that we were still trick-or-treating. He made comments about her baby, and she slammed the door in our face.
SFBG What to you is a sexy Halloween costume or look?
TL I hate all the typical ones like French maid, naughty nurse, or Catholic schoolgirl. Why can’t there be a look like sexy crack whore?
SB I think the only appropriate sexy costume is when a guy is wearing it. When a girl does, it’s so played out. A hot straight guy you never get to see naked, wearing a bikini — that’s my fave.
SFBG What’s your idea of a fun Halloween night?
TL Probably playing tricks on little kids and scaring them. I’ve always wanted to set up a crazy graveyard in front of my house.
SB No one comes to my house because it’s kind of dangerous, and I think I’m over trick-or-treating, finally. My ideal Halloween would be to experience something haunted, like a séance.
SFBG Do you have a favorite scary movie?
TL So many. I love The Wizard of Gore. I love Herschell Gordon Lewis movies and Mario Bava movies like Black Sunday and Castle of Blood. Texas Chainsaw Massacre — classic. The Last House on the Left — classic.
SB I love horror movies, but I also love haunted houses. Every year I go to, like, five. The best one is in Hollister in a cornfield — it’s so scary. When the chainsaw man comes, we all run, and a lot of people get hurt just from falling.
SFBG What are you going to dress up as this year?
TL Either Dolly Parton with extreme boobs and hair, Cyndi Lauper, or a vampire bloody majorette.
SB I think I’m going to be Teen Wolf. But I’m not sure yet. One year I was Nancy Reagan, but the mask was hotter than hell and it was making me sick. I had to take it off. (Johnny Ray Huston)
DOWN AT LULUS
6603 Telegraph, Oakl.
Call for appointments
(510) 601-0964
www.downatlulus.com
Solomon’s, mine
› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Boo! And hiss, while you’re at it. Isn’t it scary how the music retail biz has changed? As a onetime music store flunky, I was hard-pressed to decide whether it was a trick or treat when I heard a few weeks back about the liquidation of Tower Records — this after filing for bankruptcy twice in the last two years. After all, I wasted a good, penniless year and a half of the late ’80s behind a register in the “tape” room and then behind a clipboard at one of the Sacto chain’s flagship stores at Columbus and Bay in San Francisco.
Those were the days — the horror, the horror of trying to subsist on megamuffins and minimum wage. The fun of stacking and alphabetizing cassettes under the benevolent leadership of the azure-Mohawked experimental musician Pamela Z. The joy of talking psychedelia and envisioning earth-shattering cultural epiphanies (one fave: imagining Sonic Youth teamed with Public Enemy years before “Kool Thing”) with Winter Flowers’ Christof Certik. The insanity of controlling the red-eyed, camped-out crowd from behind the Bass ticket booth when the final Who tour went on sale — and getting a Tower sweatshirt when my $50,000-in-two-sellout-hours register totaled to the penny.
The shock of realizing, as a budding world music buyer, that my assistant was thieving bags of Van Morrison and Chieftains CDs from my section. The starstruck bedazzlement of glimpsing the musicians and celebs pour through the glass doors on a regular basis (following a testy Todd Rundgren around with a drooling coworker, catching a lady-killing grin from Chris Isaak, and listening to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys praise the version of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem pouring out of the speakers). The weirdness of instructing shut-in customers on what to do when the cassette ends (you press “rewind” or you find Scotch tape and record over it in disgust). The surprise of ordering vinyl and CD versions of the same release and finding certain humongous labels unwilling or unable to ship records, making available only the higher-priced so-called alternative. The pleasures of the lurching, lumbering 1 a.m. Muni ride home after completing the midnight closing shift, back to my digs in the Lower Haight. The switch-flipping surrealness of realizing I was the only one actually bothering to work during most of my shifts — while everyone else was down the street on three-hour lunches or fielding drinks with label reps.
Sure, the party was great while it lasted, and in pop cultural backwaters like Honolulu, Tower became the only, life-changing game in town — jetting in imports, hard-to-find discs, zines, and books at below list prices — and likewise you could get your hand-stapled xeroxed zine into Towers from Tokyo to Paris. And while the sprawling stores flourished, they drove out of business the local mom-and-pop music stores that didn’t recalibrate and start to sell used music and books, collector’s cards, comics, and games.
So now it’s being boiled down to end racks and wire fixtures — after a 30-hour bankruptcy auction ended in favor of the Great American Group’s $134.3 million bid rather than that of Trans World Entertainment, which said it would have kept most of the stores open. And frankly, I feel only somewhat sentimental — despite the initial quality of in-house magazine Pulse and the quasi-democratic, carry-everything supermarket atmosphere — because Russ Solomon’s retail model was far from carefree. The reason the prices were so low was that the workers there were barely scraping together a living (therefore often resorting to unrepentant graft — one staffer funded his trip to Italy on returned, unmarked promo music). At the time it felt like the glamorous equivalent of a record store sweatshop, with its overeducated, obsessive employees bitterly muttering to themselves about the amount of money that would pass through their hands — and straight into Solomon’s coffers.
Why stay? Pre–Amoeba Music, Tower was the biggest and best music store in San Francisco. And did such rampant thieving make a dent in profits, leading to the chain’s demise? Maybe it only started to show when downloads began their rule and the market shattered into a grillion niches, when even a megalith like Tower didn’t seem able to keep up.
As Tower crumbles, I may not be able to find the music I passionately want or need at 11:55 p.m., but I might shed a tear for my last shred of connection with the store — those times I’d trot up Market, between sets at Cafe du Nord, when most shops are darkened and early birds are tucked in bed, and duck into the Castro Tower to browse the magazine racks, those fluorescent lights beating down and the words dancing beneath my ringed eyes.
NO PAIN, NO DOCTORS If you think this election season is painful, tell it to the Bay Area–by–way–of–Chicago art-rock transplants No Doctors. Their whistle-stop tour of sorts stops this week at Club Six in San Francisco and ends at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland — and takes the formidable loudness of the foursome to some scenic points such as Joshua Tree and Lompoc. A working vacation with a message?
The tour has been dubbed “US out of CA,” guitarist Elvis DeMorrow told me. “I think everyone can get behind secession at this point.” After spending most of the past year working on their new LP, Origins and Tectonics, due spring 2007 on Yik Yak, the band “somehow arrived on an all-California thing, playing all the places no one even tries to play,” he continued.
Luckily for the No Doctors, DeMorrow is keeping his administrative job at the Stanford medical school’s pain research division. “To me, it’s totally relevant to playing music with a band and the effects it might have in your life,” he declares. Playing music as pain control? Don’t tell that to the bright bulbs at the CIA who came up with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as an instrument of torture. SFBG
NO DOCTORS
Tues/31, 8 p.m.
Club Six
60 Sixth St., SF
$5–$7
(415) 863-1221
Editor’s Notes
› tredmond@sfbg.com
The San Francisco Examiner reported last week that enrollment in the local public schools is down by another 1,000 students this year, which means, some school board members say, that more sites will have to be closed.
I understand the economic issues — the state pays for education based on average daily attendance, and if fewer kids show up, the school district gets fewer dollars. And I’ll admit I have a dog in this fight: my son goes to McKinley Elementary, a wonderful school that represents everything that’s right about public education in San Francisco — and McKinley was on the hit list last year. It’s a small school; that makes it vulnerable.
I also understand that there are some things the school board can’t control. Families are leaving San Francisco in droves. That’s largely because of the high cost of housing, which is an issue for the mayor and the supervisors (and one that’s going to take a lot more work and resolve to address). So we’re going to lose some students that way.
But we’re also losing a lot of kids to private schools; I know that because I have good friends who’ve chosen that route, mostly because they don’t think the public schools can offer what they want for their kids. This is a perception problem, and it’s something the school board doesn’t have to sit back and accept.
That, I guess, is what really frustrates me — so many people simply saying that as a matter of strategic planning, we need to assume 1,000 fewer students a year will go to the public schools. The district spent around a quarter of a million dollars last year on a public relations office, and almost all the office seemed to do was hide information from the press and promote the career of then-superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Now Ackerman’s gone, and so is her officious flak, Lorna Ho. It’s time to take district PR seriously.
How hard would it be to have one PR staffer dedicated to creating a major citywide ad campaign promoting the public schools? I suspect it would be relatively easy to find a top-flight local ad firm that would work pro bono and not at all impossible to raise money for media (billboards, bus sides, direct mail, print ads, TV, whatever). Lots of prominent people would do testimonials. Set a goal: no enrollment drop-off next year. Before we close any more schools, it’s worth a try.
Now this: Clear Channel, which owns 10 radio stations in San Francisco and does almost no local public affairs programming at all, recently dropped its only decent San Francisco show, Keepin’ It Real with Will and Willie on KQKE, and replaced it with a syndicated feed out of Los Angeles. To listen to most of Clear Channel radio, you’d never actually know that you’re in San Francisco; the giant Texas chain doesn’t care anything about this community.
If you’re sick of this kind of behavior by an increasingly consolidated monopoly broadcast industry (using, by the way, the public airwaves), you’re not alone: Media Alliance, the Youth Media Council, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will host a hearing on media consolidation in Oakland on Oct. 27, and two Federal Communications Commission members, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, will be there to take public comments.
The hearing’s at the Oakland Marriott Civic Center, 1001 Broadway. For more information, go to www.media-alliance.org. SFBG
Allison inspires youth
OPINION I first saw Aimee Allison, District 2 candidate for the Oakland City Council, when she addressed a large, enthusiastic crowd of high school students, mostly students of color, from Oakland Tech, McClymonds, and Skyline. She spoke about the ruin and costs of war, the need for decent jobs, and practical ways and means for overcoming poverty in Oakland.
What impressed me about the young, vivacious candidate from the Grand Lake–Chinatown district was not just her Ron Dellums–like vision of Oakland, where “a better world begins.” It was her special ability to break through youthful feelings of despondency, the Generation X cynicism that continues to impede social progress. Allison has a special asset that her adversary, incumbent Pat Kernighan, lacks: an ability to inspire hope and activism among youth, including the struggling students in the least affluent sections of our city.
On Sept. 17, Constitution Day at Laney College, students hosted a debate between Kernighan and Allison. After the debate I talked with Reginald James, a 24-year-old Laney College student. He told me other students agreed that Kernighan was unprepared. “She was unable to relate to youth, to find common ground.”
James said Kernighan tended to blame the federal government for Oakland’s problems, deflecting responsibility from the City Council on which she serves. In contrast, Allison said incumbents should accept accountability for their failures, and she challenged the students to become active in their own cause.
During the debate Kernighan was almost fatalistic. “When there are not enough resources, we have to make hard decisions,” she argued. After the debate, Oakland teacher Jonah Zern summarized Kernighan’s presentation: “Pat continuously stated that she was powerless to change the problems of Oakland, that it was the state and federal government that need to make changes. It made me wonder. Why was she running for City Council?”
It was not her political positions as such or even her record that irked the youthful audience. One student asked Kernighan why the streets in the flatlands are not as clean as those above the freeway. She replied, “They don’t sweep the streets up there because the people do not tend to throw their trash out in the street.” The insinuation that people in the hills are superior to less-fortunate folk upset some students. Allison’s remarks, in contrast, were well received. Allison said, “In rich neighborhoods, parents can raise money for their kids’ sports teams. In others, schools don’t have teams. In rich neighborhoods, they can send their kids to music lessons, while in poor neighborhoods, music and art programs are being cut. Every child deserves an opportunity.”
Kernighan works hard. She knows the ins and outs of city government. But she has no vision, no plan to address the structural defects of Oakland’s social life. As a successful businessperson, Allison responds well to the needs and feelings of the middle class. But unlike most politicians, she maintains close relations and ties with the young and poor of Oakland. She has a valuable talent for enlisting youth in the fight against crime, for uniting our diverse cultures.
Understanding the needs and longings of young Oaklanders, tapping their potential to become agents of change, is a precondition of effective leadership on the City Council. If the Laney debate is an example, Kernighan is out of touch. SFBG
Paul Rockwell
Paul Rockwell is a writer living in Oakland.
SPECIAL: Scary monsters and supercreeps
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Halloween is the season for self-expression in all of its many glorious forms: costumes, music, dance, art, theater, and maybe even a few forms that can’t be classified. Whether you’re a trash-culture junkie or a splatter-movie freak, a pagan ritual follower or a brazen exhibitionist, you’ll definitely find something chilling, somewhere in the Bay Area. Here’s a sampling; for more Halloween and Día de los Muertos events, go to www.sfbg.com.
PARTIES AND BENEFITS
FRIDAY 27
The Enchanted Forest Cellar, 685 Sutter, SF; 441-5678. 10pm-2am. $5-10. Silly Cil presents the seventh annual Enchanted Forest costume ball; woodland nymphs and mythical creatures are welcome. DJs McD and Scotty Fox rock the forest with hip-hop and ’80s sounds.
Hyatt Regency/98.1 KISS FM Halloween Bash Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero Center, SF; 788-1234. 8 pm. $28.50 advance ($30 door). KISS Radio’s Morris Knight MCs an evening of costumed revelry. DJ Michael Erickson brings the dance mix.
Rock ’n’ Roll Horror Show Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; 820-3907. 7:30pm. $5-10 donation. Rock out and scream loud for a good cause: proceeds go to the ninth SF Independent Film Festival. A screening of 1987 B-movie Street Trash is followed by the sounds of Sik Luv, Wire Graffiti, Charm School Drop Outs, and Madelia.
SambaDa: Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Exotic Halloween Extravaganza Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF; 552-7788. 10pm. $8-10. Don’t feel like ghosts and goblins and blood and guts? How about samba and bossa nova grooves to keep your feet busy?
BAY AREA
Halloween Madness Speisekammer, 2424 Lincoln, Alameda; (510) 522-1300. 9pm. Free. Skip Henderson and the Starboard Watch offer hard-drinking sailor songs. Come in costume and get a free rum drink, matey.
SATURDAY 28
Exotic Erotic Ball Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF; 567-2255, www.exoticeroticball.com. 8pm-2am. $69. P-Funker George Clinton, ’80s icon Thomas Dolby, and rapper Too Short are among the musical guests at this no-holds-barred celebration. Put on your sexiest, slinkiest number and admire the antics of trapeze artists, fetish performers, and burlesque show-stoppers, as well as those of the attendees.
SUNDAY 29
Fresh/Halloween T-Dance Ruby Skye, 420 Mason, SF; www.freshsf.com. 6pm-midnight. $20. Sassy, slinky, and sexy costumes abound at this Halloween dance party. DJ Manny Lehman spins.
MONDAY 30
Dead Rock Star Karaoke Cellar, 685 Sutter, SF; 441-5678. 8pm-2am. Free. Elvises, Jim Morrisons, and Kurt Cobains deliver heartrending renditions of favorite songs.
TUESDAY 31
A Nightmare on Fulton Street Poleng Lounge, 1751 Fulton, SF; www.polenglounge.com. 8pm-2am. $5-10. The third annual Holla-ween showcases a rich harvest of fat beats, thanks to the DJ skills of Boozou Bajou.
Scary Halloween Bash 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF; 970-9777. 8pm. $10. All dressed up but not feeling like heading to the Castro? Want to hear a marching band? No, wait, come back. It’s the Extra Action Marching Band, which specialize in baccanalian freak-shows. Sour Mash Jug Band and livehuman leave you grinning beneath that rubber mask.
FILM/MUSIC/THEATER/ART
WEDNESDAY 25
Art Hell ARTwork SF Gallery, 49 Geary, suite 215, SF; 673-3080. noon-5:30pm. Free. Bay Area artists render darkness, death, and all things devilishly creepy. Sale proceeds go to the San Francisco Artist Resource Center. Also open Thu/26-Sat/28, same hours.
THURSDAY 26
Babble on Halloween Dog Eared Books, 900 Valencia, SF; 282-1901. 8pm. Free. There’s nothing like shivers up the spine to go with cupcakes and wine! Bucky Sinister, Tony Vaguely, and Shawna Virago creep you out with spooky stories and bizarre performances.
A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco’s Lost Cemeteries California Historical Society Library, 678 Mission, SF; 357-1848. 6pm. Free. Trina Lopez’s documentary tells the story of how San Francisco relocated burial grounds in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire — ironically sending some of the city’s settlers on a last journey after death.
Shocktoberfest!! 2006: Laboratory of Hallucinations Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; 377-4202. 8pm. $20. The Thrillpeddlers are back with a gross-out lover’s delight: public execution, surgery, and taxidermy in three tales of unspeakable horror. Also Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm.
FRIDAY 27
BATS Improv/True Fiction Magazine’s Annual Halloween Show Bayfront Theater, 8350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. 8pm. $18 ($15 advance). Madcap improvisational comics of True Fiction Magazine transform audience suggestions into hilariously bizarre pulp fiction–inspired skits. In the spirit of the season, TFM is sure to throw ghoulish horror into the mix. Also Sat/28.
Hallowe’en at Tina’s Café Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; 581-1600. 9pm. Free. What’s Halloween in San Francisco without any drag? Before you consider the sad possibilities, let Tina’s Café banish those thoughts with a deliciously campy drag queen cabaret show. Mrs. Trauma Flintstone MCs.
Rural Rampage Double Feature Alliance Française de San Francisco, 1345 Bush, SF; www.ham-o-rama.com. 7:30pm. Free. Those midnight movie aficionados at Incredibly Strange Picture Show unreel a shriekingly tasty lineup from the “scary redneck” genre: Two Thousand Maniacs and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
SATURDAY 28
11th Annual Soapbox Pre-Race Party/Halloween Show El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; 282-3325. 9pm. $7. What better way is there to get revved up for the Oct. 29 Soapbox Derby in Bernal Heights? With a full evening of good ’n’ greasy garage rock and rockabilly, thanks to the All Time Highs, Teenage Harlets, and the Phenomenauts, this party gets you in touch with your inner speed demon.
Pirate Cat Radio Halloween Bash Li Po Cocktail Lounge, 916 Grant, SF; www.piratecatradio.com. 8pm. $5. The community radio station presents an evening of crazy rock mayhem with Desperation Squad, the band now famous for getting shot down on TV’s America’s Got Talent! Wealthy Whore Entertainment, the Skoalkans, and Pillows also perform.
Shadow Circus Vaudeville Theatre Kimo’s, 1351 Polk, SF; p2.hostingprod.com/@shadowcircus.com. 9pm. $5. Shadow Circus Creature Theatre hosts a variety show of ukulele riffs, comedy, burlesque, and filthy-mouthed puppets.
Spiral Dance Kezar Pavilion, Golden Gate Park, 755 Stanyan, SF; www.reclaiming.org. 6pm. Free. Reclaiming, an international group observing pagan traditions, celebrates its 27th annual Spiral Dance with a magical ritual incorporating installations, drama, and a choral performance.
BAY AREA
Flamenco Halloween La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 849-2568, ext. 20. 8:30pm. $15. Flametal brings the evil to flamenco with mastermind Benjamin Woods’s fusion of metal and the saddest music in the world.
Murder Ballads Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 841-0188. 9pm. $8. Murder, misfortune, and love gone really, really wrong — all sung by an impressive array of garage rockers, accordionists, and female folk-metal songstresses. There’s even a duo who specializes in suicide songs! Dress up so no one can recognize you weeping into your beer.
SUNDAY 29
The Elm Street Murders Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF; www.myspace.com/theelmstmurders. 7:30pm. $20. Loosely based on A Nightmare on Elm Street, this multimedia interactive stage show promises heaping helpings of splatter.
MONDAY 30
The Creature Magic Theatre, building D, Fort Mason Center, SF; 731-4922. 8pm. Free. Reservations required. Black Box Theatre Company gives a single performance before a studio audience of their new podcast adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankensten. This version tells the story from the monster’s point of view.
Independent Exposure 2006: Halloweird Edition 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; 447-9750. 8pm. $6. Microcinema International assembles a festively creepy collection of short films from around the world, focusing on the spooky, unsettling, and just plain gross.
TUESDAY 31
Bat Boy: The Musical School of the Arts Theater, 555 Portola, SF; 651-4521. 7pm. $20. It’s back: a Halloween preview performance of the trials and tribulations of everyone’s favorite National Enquirer icon, Bat Boy. Camp doesn’t get any better than this.
Cramps Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF; 346-6000. 8pm. $30. Don’t get caught in the goo-goo muck. The Demolition Doll Rods and the Groovie Ghoulies also whip you up into a rock ’n’ roll frenzy.
One Plus One (Sympathy for the Devil) San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut, SF; 771-7020. 7:30pm. Free. Before the Rolling Stones became some of the richest people on earth, Mick, Keith, and the boys dabbled on the dark side. At a rare screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s One Plus One, you get a chance to see them at the height of their flirtation with evil, performing the still-mesmerizing “Sympathy for the Devil.”
EVENTS/FESTIVALS/KID STUFF
FRIDAY 27
Haunted Haight Walking Tour Begins at Coffee to the People, 1206 Masonic, SF; 863-1416. 7pm. $20. How else can you explain all of those supernatural presences drifting between the smoke shops and shoe stores? Here’s a chance to find out about the more lurid chapters in the neighborhood’s history. Also Sat/28-Tues/31, 7pm.
SATURDAY 28
Boo at the Zoo San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo, SF; 753-7071. 10am-3pm. Free with zoo admission. Costumed kiddies can check out the Haunted Nature Trail and the Creepy Crawly Critters exhibit. Live music, interactive booths, games, and prizes keep little ghosts and goblins delighted.
Children’s Halloween Hootenanny Stanyan and Waller, SF; www.haightstreetfair.org. 11:30am-5pm. Free. The Haight Ashbury Street Fair folks provide children ages 2 to 10 with games, activities, theater, and food. Costumes are encouraged.
Family Halloween Day Randall Museum, 199 Museum, SF; 554-9600. 10am-2pm. Free. Trick-or-treaters play games, carve pumpkins, create creepy crafts, and take part in the costume parade. Jackie Jones amazes with a musical saw and dancing cat; Brian Scott, a magic show.
Hallo-green Party Crissy Field Center, 603 Mason, SF; 561-7752. 10am-2pm. $8. It’s never too early to teach your children about environmentalism. The party includes a costume contest and a chance to bob for organic apples.
House of Toxic Horrors Crissy Field Center, 603 Mason, SF; 561-7752. 10am-2pm and 4-8pm, $8. Ages 9 and older. No, it’s not a Superfund site, but it should be equally educational: the center’s first haunted house addresses the scary world of environmental horror. Sludge and smog lurk behind every corner.
BAY AREA
Boo at the Zoo Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links, Oakl; (510) 632-9525. 10am-3pm. Free with zoo admission. Dress up the kids and bring them over to the zoo for scavenger hunts, crafts, rides on the Boo Choo Choo Train, puppet shows, and musical performances. Also Sun/29, 10am-3pm.
SUNDAY 29
Halloween’s True Meaning Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St., SF; 289-2000. 1-3pm, $5-15 sliding scale. Kids are encouraged to come in costume for this afternoon of interactive theater led by Christina Lewis of the Clown School. Enjoy Halloween history, storytelling, role-playing, and face-painting.
Pet Pride Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; 554-9427. 11am-3pm. Free. Dress up your pet in something ridiculous and head down to Golden Gate Park to laugh at all of the other displeased pups! The pet costume contest is always a blast, as is the dog-trick competition.
BAY AREA
Haunted Harbor Festival and Parade Jack London Square, Oakl; 1-866-295-9853. 4-8pm. Free. Families can check out live entertainment, games, crafts, activities, and prizes. The extravagantly decked-out boats in the parade are not to be missed.
Rock Paper Scissors’ Annual Street Scare Block Party 23rd Ave. and Telegraph, Oakl; www.rpscollective.com. Noon-5pm. Free. Who doesn’t love block parties? The kid-friendly blowout has something for everyone: fortune-telling, craft-making, pumpkin-carving, and all sorts of wacky games and prizes. And barbecue — witches love a good barbecue.
MONDAY 30
Halloween Heroes Benefit Exploratorium, Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon, SF; (650) 321-4142, www.wenderweis.org. 6:30pm. $185 for a parent and child. A benefit for the Exploratorium Children’s Educational Outreach Program and the Junior Giants Baseball Program, this lavish costume party for kids promises to be equally fun for the parents. Many of the exhibits are turned into craft-making and trick-or-treat stations.
TUESDAY 31
Halloween in the Castro Market and Castro, www.halloweeninthecastro.com. 7pm-midnight. $5 suggested donation. You and 250,000 of your new best friends — reveling in the streets and getting down to thumping beats. Don’t even think of driving to get there, and don’t forget: no drinking in the streets.
Vampire Tour of San Francisco Begins at California and Taylor, SF; (650) 279-1840, www.sfvampiretour.com. 8pm. $20. This isn’t Transylvania, but San Francisco has had its share of vampires. Just ask Mina Harker, your fearless leader, if you dare take this tour.
DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS
ONGOING
BAY AREA
‘Laughing Bones/ Weeping Hearts’ Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl; (510) 238-2200. Wed-Sat, 10am-5pm. $8. Guest curator Carol Marie Garcia has assembled a vibrant collection of installations produced by local artists, schools, and community groups, all celebrating the dead while acknowledging the sorrow of those left behind. Through Dec. 3.
THURSDAY NOV. 2
Death and Rebirth Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center, 2981 24th St, SF; 334-4091. 7-10pm. Free. Precita Eyes Muralists will be celebrating the work of founder Luis Cervantes with a breathtaking mural exhibit and celebration.
Día De Los Muertos Procession and Outdoor Altar Exhibit 24th St and Bryant, SF; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 7pm. Free. Thousands of families, artists, and activists form a procession to honor the dead and celebrate life, ending at the Festival of Altars in Garfield Park, at 26th Street and Harrison. Local artists have created large community altars at the park; the public is invited to bring candles, flowers, and offerings.
Fiesta De Los Huesos’ Gala Opening Reception Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; 643-5001. 6-11pm. $5. Curator Patricia Rodriguez has put together a family-oriented party, with musical performances, mask carving, sugar skull–making, videos, and other tempting creations among the exhibits, altars, and installations. The exhibition opens Oct. 27.
BAY AREA
Día De Los Muertos Benefit Concert 2232 MLK, 2232 Martin Luther King Jr., Oakl; www.2232mlk.com. 7pm. $8-20 sliding scale. Hosted by the Chiapas Support Committee, this benefit concert features Fuga, los Nadies, la Plebe, and DJ Rico. Early arrivals get free pan dulce and hot chocolate.
SUNDAY NOV. 5
Dia De Los Muertos Family Festival Randall Museum, 199 Museum, SF; 554-9681. 1-5pm. $100 and up for family of five. The family event benefits the museum’s Toddler Treehouse and other toddler programs. Arts and crafts, food, and entertainment make this a rewarding educational experience for kids. Attendees learn how to make masks and sugar skulls and to decorate an altar. Los Boleros provide festive entertainment.
BAY AREA
Día De Los Muertos Fruitvale Festival International Blvd., between Fruitvale Ave and 41st Ave, Oakl; (510) 535-6940. 10am-5pm. Free. With the theme “love, family, memories,” the Unity Council in Oakland has put together a full day of family celebration. Five stages showcase music and dance performances by local and world-renowned artists. More than 150 exhibitors and nonprofits highlight wares and services. Art and altars are on view, and the Children’s Pavilion promises to be a rewarding educational experience for kids of all ages.
THURSDAY NOV. 9
Mole to Die For Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; 643-5001. 7-10pm. $5. Try it all at this mole feeding-frenzy and vote for your favorite.
Dear Jerry Brown: more impertinent questions on the Hearst shenanigans (part 4)
Followups on Hearst: No word back from the Chronicle on my questions on why they are blacking out the big local story involving three big local players (Hearst, McKesson Corporation, and First DataBank). Let me give you the lead front headline on the Oct. 6 Wall Street Journal story to make the point about what a big big story they are stonewalling on:
“How Quiet Moves by a Publisher Sway Billions in Drug Spending, Lawsuit Forces Hearst Unit To Lower Prices on List Widely Used as Benchmark, A ‘Survey’ of One Company”
Anybody out there annoyed at the ever escalating price of prescription drugs? That is the point. Below are my questions emailed Thursday to the campaign headquarters of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who is the candidate most likely to be the next attorney general (no word back at blogtime).
Fair warning: next week I will start asking similar impertinent questions to the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Mateo Times, and other Media News Group/Dean Singleton papers that claim, along with Hearst, that they are really aggressively competing away out there even though they have formed what amounts to a regional news monopoply. Have they done the story and if not, when will they? And will they pursue the story as real competitive newspapers once did and as they ought to do again if they want to retain credility and financial viability? Repeating: Where are Justice and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and their antitrust departments.
Take note, Clint Reilly and Joe Alioto, a key part of your antitrust case is being made right here and now. B3
Dear Jerry Brown,
I am requesting some information and answers to questions from you, as a candidate for attorney general, for stories we are doing at the Bay Guardian and for my Bruce blog at sfbg.com.
The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 6, and the Bay Guardian in its current edition, have done stories on a major settlement in which a Hearst subsidiary (First Data Bank in San Bruno) has ” agreed to stop publishing its list of wholesale medicine prices, which numerous critics have blamed for driving up drug costs,” as an AP story in the Houston Chronicle/Hearst puts it. (See story on the link below). Would you as attorney general investigate this issue and determine if it would save health plans $4 billion and if there should be any further action in this case?
Hearst and Singleton interests have, as charged in the Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto antitrust suit, effectively destroyed newspaper competition in the Bay Area and imposed regional monopoly. Would you continue the Lockyer investigation into this case? And/or would you join the suit as a co-plaintiff or an amicus? Thanks very much.
Sincerely, Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)
Reforming democracy
By Steven T. Jones
Wtih ranked choice voting up and working well in San Francisco, four other communities around the country are poised to approve it in the upcoming election. In addition to Prop. O in Oakland, ranked choice is on the ballot in Davis, Minneapolis, and Pierce County, Washington.
“I see these four elections as key. If we can sweep them, that’s a tipping point,” activist and former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic said last night at a Prop. O fundraiser in the law office of Matt Gonzalez, who championed the San Francisco measure while serving on the Board of Supervisors.
Novoselic got involved in politics back in his Nirvana days, fighting to overturn a Seattle law that prevented people under 18 from attending concerts.
“Along the way, I got enthusiastic about democracy and participation,” he said. But even among those working on his campaigns, many felt their votes for candidates didn’t count. Reading SF-based democracy reform leader Steven Hill’s book, “Fixing Elections,” he learned about the concept of the “surplus voter” whose preference for a candidate other than the Democrat or Republican is essentially discarded. With ranked choice, voters can cast a ballot for their favorite candidate and also for the lesser of two evils, thus allowing minor parties to gain support. As such, Novoselic called democracy reform “the Holy Grail of the Green Party.”
Hill said he is cheered by the current situation. “It’s starting to happen, but these things take time. It’s a big country, but we’re making progress.”