Oakland Archives — Page 62 of 115 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Tourk’s clients sully Herrera’s mayoral campaign

Sasha Cuttler

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May 5, 2011

Tourk’s clients sully Herrera’s mayoral campaign

Does anyone really believe that lobbyist and campaign consultant Alex Tourk isn’t talking to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose mayoral campaign Tourk is running, about the biggest clients and issues that Tourk is representing? Honestly, do they believe the public is that stupid?

Apparently so, because that’s the story they were feeding to the Chronicle and its readers today, denying that the two men had ever talked about the Stow Lake Boathouse vendor contract or California Pacific Medical Center and its controversial plan to build a new hospital and housing project on Cathedral Hill.

I mean, c’mon, Tourk even filed documents with the Ethics Commission stating that they had talked about those issues and clients, only to now deny it after realizing that it’s actually illegal to lobby one of your campaign clients. Luckily, Herrera had the good judgment to refer the matter to the Oakland City Attorney’s Office to investigate, considering that this city’s hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual Ethics Commission has abdicated its watchdog responsibilities in favor of repeatedly rubber-stamping every ethics waiver that comes before it, making a mockery of itself and contributing mightily to culture of political corruption that has been on the rise in San Francisco.

This is a problem that runs far deeper that just the Recreation and Parks Department steering the Oretega family vendor to Tourk, who then used his insider connection to get them the contract, which is unseemly enough. No, that’s just the tip of the iceberg with a consultant who has deep connections to monied interests and who has been hired by a mayoral candidate who actually hopes to gain some progressive support.

Consider Tourk’s client list. CPMC is perhaps the most controversial project facing city approval this year, one in which a powerful corporation is making big demands that are being strenuously opposed by a wide swath of working class San Franciscans. Whether Herrera would support this project as mayor and what modifications he would make are important litmus tests to determine what kind of mayor he would be. Yet his campaign consultant is simultaneously advocating for CPMC.

How would Herrera be on police issues, ranging from officer accountability to pension reform to whether to retain new Police Chief Greg Suhr? And can we really have faith that whatever stands Herrera takes weren’t influenced by the fact that the San Francisco Police Officers Association is another Tourk client?

Other Tourk clients include Civil Sidewalks, which advocated for the sit-lie ordinance that police are now struggling with how to legally implement; CH2MHill, the Lennar subcontractor who exposed Hunters Point residents to carcinogenic construction dust; Medjool Restaurant, whose politically connected owner has pushed projects that clash with local planning codes; Prado Group, which has a number of development proposals in SF; Target Corp., which is doing a controversial remodel of the Metreon; and many others.

Is Tourk touting his inside access to man who may be the next mayor? Will Herrera’s campaign benefit from that cross-pollination? I’ve left messages with Tourk and Herrera to ask these questions and others, and I’ll update this post when the call back, but what do you think they’re going to say? And, based on their credibility-stretching comments to the Chron today, will anyone believe them?

UPDATE: Herrera called back, but he wouldn’t discuss these issues on-the-record, instead just giving me a quote similar to the one he gave the Chron: “I was surprised to read that Alex Tourk listed me on his lobbying disclosure forms because he never lobbied me on any of those clients and issues.”

2011 Small Business Awards

Andrew Lam

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May 3, 2011

2

Everyone loves to talk about the value of small business. There’s a National Small Business Week, proclaimed by the president, and San Francisco Small Business Week, proclaimed by the mayor. There are conferences and speakers and programs. Even the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce — the mouthpiece for giant corporations in town — periodically hails the value of the little entrepreneur.

But when you get right down to it, small businesses don’t have it easy in this town. Under siege from big chains (who often get their way at City Hall), faced with unfair tax burdens (the little operators pay the same rate as the biggest companies), struggling to find support from banks (many of which don’t make many small business loans), the companies that create most of the new jobs in the city and preserve the lively character of the neighborhoods ultimately get little respect.

Check it out: if Twitter — worth billions — wants a tax break, City Hall leaps to the rescue. Yet a proposal that would have made the business tax burden more fair for small companies died last year without a vote.

Once a year we celebrate the people who hang in there, often against the odds, and not only survive but thrive. People who build small businesses that build cool neighborhoods and hire local workers and keep the San Francisco economy moving.

This year we’ve combined our editors’ picks with readers’ choices — and we’ve asked our winners who they would have picked as the best small businesses of the year. It’s a wonderful lineup that looks, and feels, like San Francisco. (Tim Redmond)

ARTHUR JACKSON DIVERSITY IN SMALL BUSINESS AWARD

LA COCINA

Believe it or not, there was a time in this city when Le Truc did not park its chicken parmigianas in front of the Conservatory of Flowers and street food did not inspire a weekly mob scene at Off The Grid’s mobile market. Back then, a lot of the people who sold food on the street were immigrant women.

“Their commonality is this incredible entrepreneurial spirit,” says Caleb Zigas of La Cocina, a food business incubator created to give street food vendors the tools they need to take their business into the next realm of profitability.

Its program has proven highly successful. After taste tests of applicants’ proposed cuisine (“They wouldn’t be here if their product wasn’t good,” Zigas says. La Cocina participants are counseled on brand development and distribution. In the organization’s gleaming commercial kitchen in the Mission District, eight businesses can simultaneously work at one time. On a typical morning, it’s used to prepare hummus, huaraches, and traditional Yucatecan-Mayan food for a day of sales.

Some graduates, like Clairessquares — a chocolate-shortbread-caramel treat company started by the eponymous Irish immigrant — are local grocery store constants now. Some businesses have used the program to go from selling at farmers markets to owning a restaurant of their own — Veronica Salazar of El Huarache Loco will be the first La Cocina grad with a brick and mortar location, opening in Larkspur this year. Two years ago, La Cocina started the Street Food Festival, an event that consistently packs the streets where it occurs and this year plans to expand to nine blocks of vendors.

Entrepreneurs from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Japan, El Salvador, and Mexico have passed through the La Cocina program. Everyone on staff speaks English and Spanish (the languages the organization offers counseling in). Outreach is done through partnerships with other groups like the Women’s Initiative and the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center.

Though the center now fields applications from all socioeconomic levels as street food becomes chic food, its original purpose remains: to provide a foot up to the women who are pushing to make life work in a new country with their families. “It’s important for us to remember that our mission is to provide an entry into business,” Zigas says.

La Cocina’s small business award pick: As the diplomatic Zigas says: “The consumers who purchase from small business owners.” (Caitlin Donohue)

2948 Folsom, SF. (415) 824-2729, www.lacocinasf.org

GOLDEN SURVIVOR AWARD

HANS ART AUTOMOTIVE

The repair folks: Sophia Chicas, Norbert Alvarenga, Luis Frias, Joao Santos, Ricky Saavedra, Henry Wong, and Hans Art. Photo by Ben Hopfer

Hans Art got his start in business in 1970, when one of his Noe Valley roommates couldn’t get his car started — and was therefore unable to get to his job delivering erotic ice cream concoctions to stoners and musicians at midnight for the legendary restaurateur Magnolia Thunderpussy.

“I was your classic hippie mechanic,” Art recalled. “I came out there with my screwdriver, adjusted the points, and the guy was on his way. And it occurred to me that this might not be a bad way to make a living.”

His business plan: An index card with his phone number on the wall in Bud’s Ice Cream. His goal: Flexible hours, plenty of time off and “a great way to have an alternative lifestyle.” That didn’t last long: “Pretty soon I was the hardest working hippie in San Francisco.”

More than 40 years later, Hans Art Automotive is one of the city’s most beloved car repair shops, a successful small business that still has a bit of the old hippie ethic.

“I have lots of customers with very moderate incomes,” Art said. “I tell them what’s needed now, what can wait four months … I pare it down so the service is affordable. We’re very non-pushy.”

It’s certainly working: more than 95 percent of his customers are regulars. “We want you to have a regular mechanic, the way you have a dentist,” he said. “Our advertising is mostly word of mouth.”

These days Art works from a cramped office above the shop floor, supervising around 10 employees who take extraordinary care in their work. “There are 800 opportunities for us to screw up every day,” Art noted. “If we avoid 799 of them, a lot of people would think that’s great — unless your car is the one we missed.”

He’s up against much bigger outfits in a business with low margins and constant changes in technology that require expensive investments — and that easy lifestyle is still elusive — but Art is a survivor. “I think I’ve made payroll more than 3,000 times,” he said. “For a small business, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

Hans Art’s small business award pick: He couldn’t pick just one — Art went with Michael Bruno Luggage, Noe Valley Bakery, and Tuggy’s Hardware.(Redmond)

3121 17th St., SF. (415) 621-6400, www.hansartautomotive.com

WOMEN IN BUSINESS AWARD

KATE SOFIS

Kate Sofis. Photo by Ben Hopfer

Kate Sofis is quick to tell you that she only held “one nonprofit job” prior to her work with SFMade, San Francisco’s local manufacturers association. The real root of Sofis’ passion lies with the manufacturing world. It’s not surprising — she’s seen the sector shape communities.

Raised in 1970s Buffalo, N.Y., where manufacturing was seriously struggling, Sofis later found herself drawn to studying Japanese quality practices in college. After graduation, she ran production lines for high tech companies. “I worked with Apple during the first iMac production runs on Folsom,” she says. She was also there for Apple’s first outsource.

Later she worked with a small South San Francisco furniture manufacturer (“back when we were still making furniture in this country.”) that eventually folded. Sofis realized that although she wanted to work in manufacturing, she wanted even more for there to be a manufacturing sector to work for.

“There were no programs set up,” she says, sitting in SFMade’s office space within the TechShop building on Howard Street. “You couldn’t get a bank loan because no one believed it was possible to actually make money in small manufacturing.” Sofis knew that manufacturing created decently-paying, high-skilled jobs with good benefits. At the same time, she understood that it needed to define its identity in 21st century America — and stand up for its sector’s health.

Today, the year-and-a-half-old SFMade has grown to include 150 San Francisco manufacturers — from Anchor Brewing to mid-Market garment shops, to Home Kombucha and Rickshaw Bags. May 21-27, it will sponsor SFMade Week, chockfull of local shopping events and “open factories” tours of members’ production areas.

The group advocates for ways to make its members’ economic contribution tenable in one of the most expensive cities in America. Sofis and other staff work to establish lines of communication to City Hall around issues like improved public transportation in areas where a lot of manufacturing gets done. “If the mattress coil spring guy is late, guess what? Mattresses don’t get made,” she say. But equally salient is its work on raising awareness among consumers and policymakers that San Francisco manufacturing still exists — and in the age of artisanal products, has the capacity to grow.

Her small business award pick: Greg Markoulis, manager of the American Industrial Center. “Twenty-five percent of our companies are located there, and they’re there for the long haul. Without that asset. San Francisco wouldn’t have half the manufacturing it does.” (Donohue)

SFMade, 926 Howard, SF. www.sfmade.org

SPIRIT OF THE STREETS AWARD

THE TAMALE LADY

Virginia “The Tamale Lady” Ramos. Photo by Ben Hopfer

Virginia “The Tamale Lady” Ramos has been selling her own homemade tamales since 1993, when she started her business to make enough money to send her daughters to school. She didn’t expect to become a local legend. Selling bar-to-bar to hungry boozehounds ever since, she’s made a name for herself as one of the city’s most celebrated street food vendors.

Hungry? Current tamale varieties include chicken, pork, chile cheese, sweet potato black bean, and mixed vegetable. Although Ramos’ prices have gone up since the early 1990s, they’re still a bargain — $4 for a hefty handful of home-cooked masa and filling, delivered right to your bar stool.

There’s no disputing that the Tamale Lady has achieved T(amale)-list celebrity, but her work is far from done. With the help of her family, Ramos’ treats land in rates of about 100 per day in the stomachs of soused locals in bars across the Mission, Tenderloin, and Lower Haight.

She imports her cornmeal and husks straight from Mexico. Every tamale is made by hand in her kitchen — a process that can be witnessed by watching the 2004 Cecil B. Feeder rockumentary on her life, which features a slew of original songs in homage to her work. It’s physically demanding, but Ramos bears the honor of being the city’s tamale angel with pride.

“I had an unpleasant life growing up [in Mexico]. I’ve been here for 25 years, and San Francisco gave me something I never had before: it brought me my independence. SF people came into my life as angels, they gave me the opportunity to feel like I can do my thing and nobody can mess with me.”

The Tamale Lady’s small business award pick: “The independent flower girls who go around selling flowers in restaurants, bars, and shops around the Mission.” (Hannah Tepper)

twitter.com/tamalelady

EMPLOYEE-OWNED BUSINESS AWARD

ARIZMENDI BAKERY

Arizmendi employee-owners, fresh from the ovens: (from left) Yeni Solis, Leidy Fernandez, Juan Clavel, Yelena Khlystova, Isaac Hee, Erica Harris, Celia Sagastume, Troy Vadakan, Sandy Guevara, Liz Fitzgerald, Nicki Green, Madeleine Van Engel, and Jenny Espinoza. Photo by Pat Mazzera

For the worker-owners at Arizmendi Bakery, cooperation is more than just a nice idea — it’s their business model. “I’ve worked in everyplace from Safeway to a bakery that was owned by one person,” says Arizmendi worker-owner Heather Coppersmith. “Arizmendi is different because we have to worry about our own finances, cost of sales, and income. We all get a sound understanding of what it takes to run a business, but responsibilities are spread out so that no one person is bearing the full brunt.”

So how does the egalitarian model function so well? “All of the work is shared,” says Coppersmith. “We create an environment that makes everyone feel valuable and train everyone in all aspects of the bakery, so there is no need for management.”

Arizmendi’s first sister location, the Cheeseboard, opened in the mid-1990s on Lakeshore Boulevard in Oakland. The concept of a bakery that was entirely worker-owned was dreamed up by Berkeley professor Jaques Kaswan and his partner Tim Huet. The idea was a winner: today there are five bakeries in the Arizmendi family across the Bay Area. When a new Arizmendi is started, newly hired worker-owners intern and train at other locations, learning all they need to know to operate their own bakery before opening for delicious, fluffy, crusty business.

The model has worked so well that Arizmendi was one of only nine food businesses in San Francisco to be awarded a perfect worker treatment score by its employees in community group Young Workers United’s yearly restaurant guide. It received high marks in wages, job mobility, health and safety, and job security — not surprising since worker-owners have the final say on workplace issues at Arizmendi.

But let’s not forget — how could we, really? — that Arizmendi doesn’t just produce happy and fulfilled worker-owners. The bakeries are best known for their more public offerings: delicious brioches, organic breads, and vegetarian pizzas with seasonal toppings that change daily. Cooperation never tasted so good.

Arizmendi’s small business award pick: “Underdog on Irving street. It’s a family-run hotdog and sausage place that has some great vegan options. They are very conscious of the food they prepare and where they are getting it from — and they are really nice.” (Tepper)

Various Bay Area locations. www.arizmendibakery.org, valencia.arizmendi.coop, lakeshore.arizmendi.coop

CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD

DISCOUNT BUILDERS SUPPLY

Shannon Brundiek of Discount Builders Supply. Photo by Ben Hopfer

Going up against big businesses like Lowe’s and Home Depot doesn’t mean Discount Builders Supply needs to pull any fancy gimmicks to get customers. Indeed, some clients have been returning to the 50-year-old SoMa spot since manager Shannon Brundiek started working there two decades ago.

“A lot of big-box stores have popped up in that time,” Brundiek says. “We don’t handle business in the same way, or stock the same products, but they’re definitely our competition. They spend a lot of money competing for the same market share.”

Money national chains spend on advertising, owner Charles Goodman channels into things like employee benefit programs. The result? A business you can go to even if you’re not quite sure what it is that you need. Discount Builders Supply banks on the fact that its employees know how to help whoever walks in the door.

“What stands out most to our customers is the service,” says Brundiek. “Because we pay benefits, our employees work full time, and we strive to keep our employees long-term. It’s a career for them — it’s what they do and they love it.”

All that added experience makes a difference to devoted customers who count on DBS employees to know the difference between cinder blocks and coffin locks, cable clamps and sodium lamps.

Brundiek is adamant that the store he works at is simply a good old-fashioned hardware shop — “We don’t sell TVs or dog toys,” he says. But the business does offer free design services for kitchen and bath and specializes in SF-specific fixtures, plumbing, and moldings common in Victorians. Plus, it caters to a huge Burning Man rush every summer. Now that’s giving customers what they want.

Discount Builders Supply’s small business award pick: Brundiek acknowledges that San Francisco is home to a “great group of small hardware stores that all work together.” How’s that for lending a helping hand? (Emily Appelbaum)

1695 Mission St., SF. (415) 621-8511, www.discountbuilderssupplysf.com

GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD

GOOD LIFE GROCERY

Kayren Hudibergh of Good Life Grocery. Photo by Ben Hopfer

It’s not often that San Franciscans take to the streets to protest the closing of a grocery story. But when the Good Life Grocery on Potrero Hill faced a 1,000 percent rent increase in 1985, neighborhood activists marched, shouted, hung banners, and dragged then California Assemblymember Art Agnos into the fray. The uproar allowed the owners, Kayren Hudiburg and Lester Zeidman, to find a new location nearby.

The Good Life has been part of the hill’s DNA since the early 1970s, when it started as one of a handful of community food stores. “We live down the block,” Hudibergh said. “Customers come in day in and day out. We’re a part of the neighborhood.”

Hudiberg, who also has a store on Cortland Avenue in Bernal Heights, makes a point of hiring local residents first. “We pay good wages, have a good health plan, and after two-and-a-half years, employees become part-owners,” she explained.

It’s not easy running an independent food store, particularly when you’re under attack by the giant Whole Foods chain. “When they moved in eight blocks away, people said we’d never survive,” Hudibergh said. “Whole Foods has more money than God, they can buy up a whole farmer’s crop.” But after taking a “big hit,” the Good Life is doing fine. “It takes a lot of hard work — I’m the owner, the produce buyer, the accounts payable clerk, the payroll clerk — it never ends,” Hudiberg said. “But we have a great, dedicated staff and we offer exceptional customer service.”

She’s also an exceptional San Franciscan. When the Board of Supervisors was moving to offer Twitter a big tax break, she took time off to trek down to City Hall and give the supes a bit of perspective. “I was just outraged,” she recalled. “Here a multibillion-dollar company is asking for a tax cut. I have 65 employees; I pay my taxes and I’m proud to do it — the city needs the money.”

“If my small business can pay, why can’t Twitter?”

We quite agree.

Good Life Grocery’s small business award pick: Goat Hill Pizza. Hudiberg says not only are its pies “wonderful,” but the restaurant donates food to neighborhood events and political affairs, and meeting space to community groups. “They support everything worthwhile and are a true neighborhood institution.” (Redmond)

448 Cortland, SF. (415) 648-3221

READER’S POLL WINNERS

For the first time, we asked Guardian winners to weigh in with their own small business awards. Who was the shining local business star in their neighborhood? Here are the winners of the most online votes.

FAVORITE RETAIL

THE MISSION STATEMENT

Design team: Estrella Tadeo and Jessica Bovert. Photo by Ben Hopfer

“I have always worked better when I work as part of a team,” says Estrella Tadeo, owner of the Mission Statement, who runs the Mission clothing boutique with the help of six other designers. “Working as a collective helps me stay sane.” All seven sell their work and work shifts on the retail floor every week, making it highly likely that if you have a question on the jungle-toned, one-shouldered flowing top you’re fingering, the person that created it is only a few feet away.

“Our goal with our customers is that they identify with our work and with us. It’s so much more interesting when we know the history behind something,” Tadeo says.

That’s likely the secret to the shop’s popularity with our readers. Since Mission Statement designers swap goods through a fruitful bartering system, they’re the experts — they wear a lot of the designs themselves.

The shop’s hands-on approach also means that if you don’t see the perfect Vanessa Gage architectural necklace or Bedouin princess skirt from oda, those designers will take custom orders or do alterations to create it for you. “It’s the way of slow fashion,” Tadeo says of this more personal, connective way of shopping. “We want to develop a relationship with our customers so that they can feel special, look special, and covet all that they purchase.”

It would appear that the collective has achieved this goal. Even so, Tadeo admits that running a specialized boutique in a recession can be a challenge. But, she adds, “It’s about staying positive and being the best we can be as business owners and people. We all want to get a good exchange of energy, and the best way to get it is to give it.”

The Mission Statement’s small business award pick: “Two definitely stand out,” Tadeo says. “Wonderland/Chillin’ Productions and Rag Co-op. Both stores have great concepts, amazing owners, and contribute so much to the local design community. Our three stores are different, but I feel they mutually enhance each other.” (Donohue)

3458 18th St., SF. (415) 255-7457, www.missionstatementsf.com

FAVORITE RESTAURANT

GIALINA

Sharon Ardiana of Gialina. Photo by Ben Hopfer

“First and foremost, I always wanted Gialina to be a place that everyone — young, old, families, singles, gays, straights — would want to come,” says Sharon Ardiana, chef and owner of the Glen Park Italian restaurant. Judging from the response of our readers, she’s achieved her goal — Gialina got top marks for its neighborhood-focused dining room.

The first to own a business in her family, Ardiana spent 20 years in the restaurant industry until she says she “kind of got to a point where I realized that I needed to drive the bus, so to speak.” Although she says she finds laying down the chef’s hat to run the business to be the hardest part of her job, she’s blessed with “an amazing staff in the front and back of the restaurant.” Five employees have been there for Gialina’s entire four years of operation, and Ardiana says the rest of the staff averages three years in the crew.

Such was the fervor over food like Gialina’s Atomica pizza — a simple, flavorful pie with mushrooms, chilies, and red onions added to the tomato sauce-mozzarella base — that Ardiana recently opened Ragazza, another small Italian eatery that, in the words of a recent Guardian review, “brings haute pizza culture to a vortex of the Haights (lower and upper) and Nopa.”

But for Ardiana’s “fantastically loyal clientele” in Glen Park, a neighborhood that has managed to remain free from Starbucks and Denny’s, it will always be about kid-friendly Gialina. “I want people to see the huge family photos on the wall and to connect with them and remember their own family members,” Ardiana says. “I want everyone to walk out that door feeling like they just had a really great meal and that they want to come back again.”

Gialina’s small business award pick: “I would say my friends Kris Hoggerhyde and Anne Walker at Bi-Rite Creamery,” Ardiana says. “I have just been blown away by the response of their customers. They work tremendously hard to make really great, delicious products.” (Donohue)

2842 Diamond, SF. (415) 239-8500, www.gialina.com

FAVORITE BUSINESS THAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE COMMUNITY

CHLOE’S CLOSET

Staffers at Chloe’s Closet: Molly Tyson, Andrea Mejia, Keyko Ruiz, Zulekha Azam, Jane McIntyre. Photo by Ben Hopfer

“One of the things I always noticed was that second-hand kids’ clothes were a little expensive,” says Molly Coogan Tyson, owner of Chloe’s Closet in Bernal Heights. Tyson opened the in 2003 when her two kids were four months and two years old.

Opening her store was a response to feeling cooped up at home and a desire to fill the need for a no-frills used children’s clothing store. “I really didn’t want Chloe’s Closet to be picky about what clothes we would buy and sell. I just wanted to facilitate the trade of goods for people who have young children because I know that kids’ sizes and interests change quickly.”

Her shop’s original location has been open for eight years and continues to grow steadily — there’s also a Chloe’s No. 2 in the Sunset. All Tyson’s stores sell clothes on consignment. When clothes are purchased, the original seller receives 50 percent of the sale price, a generous cut.

But giving back is the main goal, Tyson says. “My husband has suggested that I take up a nonprofit status,” she says, referring to the minuscule profit margins that a community-oriented store like hers must sacrifice in exchange for giving young parents a break on clothing prices.

Chloe’s donates all overflow clothes that can’t fit on racks to churches that serve low-income families and other organizations that can sell the clothing at fundraisers. She even makes HR decisions based on her community’s needs.

“I was approached by mom of four who, due to religious beliefs, wears a full burka. She really wanted to work, and she said no one else would hire her. We didn’t really need extra help, but I hired her because I was touched by her story.”

Chloe’s Closet’s small business awards pick: “I would want to recognize Heartfelt gift shop. They have a rotating stock of interesting gifts and the owner is Darcy Lee of the Bernal Business Alliance. She does a lot for the neighborhood.” (Tepper)

451 Cortland, SF. (415) 642-3300; 616 Irving, SF. (415) 664-4611. www.chloesclosetsf.com

Homeowner defense groups to target Wells Fargo shareholders

Mary Magee

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May 2, 2011

8

Homeowner defense groups to target Wells Fargo shareholders

“Foreclosures are the new F-Word.” So said Regina Davis, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, at an April 29 seminar at SFHDC’s office on Third Street that explored ways to prevent more foreclosures in San Francisco, California and beyond.

Since the economic meltdown in 2008, there have been 2,000 foreclosures in San Francisco. And the majority have impacted low-income folks and communities of color, who were sold more predatory loans than other groups, Davis and a panel of foreclosure experts warned
And as the recession drags on, another 2,000 foreclosures could be in the works, further destabilizing communities and draining more resources from the city, in terms of lost property values and related tax revenues.

And while deep-pocketed lobbyists have been making it hard to pass laws that would offer at-risk homeowners more protections, homeowner defender groups have decided to target, and now protest against, the group they believe stand directly in the way of equitable reforms: the banks.
“Wells-Fargo CEO John Stumpf took home $21 million in 2009 while his bank received $25 billion in TARP funds,” stated a flier that ACCE (formerly ACORN) and the Home Defenders League are distributing to urge folks to meet at Justin Herman Plaza at 11: 30 a.m., May 3 and march to the Wells Fargo shareholder meeting where protesters plan to personally deliver a list of their demands to WF CEO Stumpf.

“He and his cronies fought tooth and nail to kill consumer protection bills in California and around the country and are currently trying to gut a 50-state Attorneys General settlement with homeowners that have been defrauded,” the flier concluded.
It noted that ACCE and the Home Defenders League sponsored this event, in partnership with the California State Labor Federation, the California Nurses Association, Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organizing, Causa Justa: Just Cause, ENLACE, Jobs for Justice, National Education Association, Oakland Education Association PICO California, PICO National Network, SEIU United Service Workers West and Local 1021 and Tenants Together.

“We are also part of The New Bottom Line, a national campaign focused on creating an economy that works for the many, and not the few,” the flier stated.

Are you really middle class?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 29, 2011

3

A fascinating article appeared in the New York Times a couple days ago about the bias people tend to have when it comes to beliefs about their own economic standing in relation to the rest of society. It seems a trio of researchers found that Argentinians tend to view their personal economic classifications in much the same way people in the United States do: Everyone believes they are middle class.

The bias works differently depending on one’s income bracket, apparently: “Poor people consistently overestimated their rank, and rich people consistently underestimated their rank.”

According to the article, “Respondents were eventually informed about whether their own rankings estimates were too high or too low. This news changed people’s policy attitudes. People who thought they were relatively richer than they actually were started to demand higher levels of income redistribution when told they were actually relatively poor. After all, learning that they were poorer than they had believed also meant they’d be more likely to benefit from redistributive policies than they originally believed.”

This got me wondering what income distribution actually looks like in the San Francisco Bay Area, and how people view themselves within that spectrum. I went to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to find the most recently available data for earners in this designated metropolitan area, which includes San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont.

The data was from May of 2009. Taking into account all occupations and nearly 2 million earners, the mean annual wage was $58,250. That’s the number in the exact middle, but most earners were in employment categories which made less than that on average.

To better understand how it breaks down, I scrolled through the various employment categories. The data showed that around 6.8 percent of all earners worked in management — the bosses of all stripes — making an average of $126,260 per year. People working in the computer and mathematical science sector, such as programmers or database administrators, made an average of $91,440 a year, representing about 4.3 percent of all earners. The accountants, budget analysts, and others in business and financial occupations accounted for about 6.8 percent, earning an average of $84,330 per year.

Meanwhile, around 59 percent worked in employment categories with average earnings of less than $58,250. That’s not to say every single one of those earners made less than that — police officers, for example, registered at an average of $79,080 annually, while their “protective services” employment category had an annual average of $52,260. But it does suggest that at the end of the day, quite a few people fell below that middle income line.

The greatest areas of employment by far were office and administrative support services (around 16 percent of all earners; bringing in an average of $41,670 annually), sales (nearly 10 percent; earning an average of $45,860 annually), and food service (around 8.4 percent; earning an average of $23,740 annually).

People working in education, a category that includes teachers and instructors as well as librarians and curators, had median incomes that very closely reflected the exact middle — $58,880. That category made up around 6 percent of all earners.

Of course, there are flaws in any data set, it can only really reveal so much, and even this one was titled “wage estimates.” A study of San Francisco by itself would likely portray a different picture, with a higher mean annual wage. There are outliers, like Pacific Gas & Electric Co. CEO Peter Darbee, who made more than $10 million in 2009. And all of this should be considered in the context of an official 9 percent unemployment rate for San Francisco (actual unemployment rates tend to be higher than official estimates).

On a broader scale, we also know that 1 percent of the nation’s population takes nearly a quarter of the wealth.

The research cited in the NYT article offered this theory about why people are tend to be biased about where they stand: “If you’re mostly exposed to people earning about as much as you, you’re likely to think your earnings are average.”

Hot sexy events: April 27-May 3

Andrew Lam

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April 27, 2011

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Hey there sexy, how’s life on the other side of the Intertubes? I wanna get real with some real questions in this week’s sexy events column. Don’t worry, it’s about you. Namely, we here at the SF of BG would like to know just what you feel is missing from sex coverage in this age of Aquarius (ha!) in which we live. Are you feeling like you have pressing sex ed questions that need answering? Are you wishing that there was more event coverage of the parties and perv-a-thons in our fair Sodom By the Bay?

See, we’re going through an evolution with our sex coverage, and though we’ve got some pretty hot and wild ideas up in our noggins, youse the readers are just that, and maybe you’re thinking something we missed. So how bout it – new voices, dildo reviews, heavy breathing monolouges? The Guardian’s mission is to be a voice for the community of San Francisco, so have at us. Um, our safe word is spelt.

Erotic Reading Circle

Share your thoughts, air out those tired old insecurities – get real pervy with, whatever. The monthly Erotic Reading Circle at the Center for Sex and Culture provides a safe space for writers to share their bedroom-related materials. Carol Queen and Jen Cross of Writing Ourselves Whole facilitate the gathering, pretty much a must-do for any aspiring sex scribe.

Weds/27 7:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

Hot Draw

Unleash your wild, artistic side at these live drawing sessions – one need only peep the galleries on Mark I. Chester’s website to see that he doesn’t play when it comes to drawing dirty players. Kinky leathermen strut about for a crowd of strictly sketchy, strictly gay male artist scribblers.

Thurs/28 6:30-9:30 p.m., free

Mark I. Chester Studio

1229 Folsom, SF

(415) 621-6294

www.markichester.com

Art of Restraint

How would you like to be situated right in the center of a high-art, surround sound bondage performance? It’s all within your grasp, baby – this week’s Femina Potens event at Mission Control will string up local lovelies Fivestar and Madison Young, while adult film performers and submissives offering up chocolate-covered strawberries romp about. Does it sound too good to be true? Believe, child, believe.

Sat/30 8 p.m.-3 a.m., $50-75

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org

How Weird Street Faire

While not sexy per se, this fair sure is freaky: How Weird takes over a good portion of SoMa for stage upon stage of electronic ass-shaking, and community bonding. What community, you say? Bonding how, you ask? Well maybe just maybe that’s up to you, sailor. Head over in whatever state of disarray you like and get funky.

Sun/1 noon- 8 p.m., $10 suggested donation

Howard and Second St., SF

www.howweird.org

Kentucky Fried Woman’s Guilty Pleasures

You need this bucket of crispy, greasy, lip-smackin’ queers stripping down to their burlesque bundles like you need to watch your cholesterol intake. For reals, put down the trans fat. Instead, pop on over to Oakland’s Bench and Bar bar, and feast your eyes on the talents of Alotta Boutté, Scotty the Blue Bunny, and oh! So much more. Heart-stopping, in a good way.

Sun/1 7:30-10:30 p.m., $10

Bench and Bar

510 17th St., Oakl.

(415) 374-1924

Facebook: Kentucky Fried Woman’s Guilty Pleasures

“Finding and Maintaining a Happily Ever After: A Relationship Workshop for Lesbian Couples”

How do you make relationships last past the original courting period? Davina and Molly have married each other countless times in protest of unequal civil rights, and so they’re uniquely qualified (maybe) to talk about how to make matrimony mutually awesome (in and out of the bedroom).

Tues/3 6:30-8:30 p.m. $20-25 for singles $35-45 for pairs

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

FEAST: 8 intriguing entrees

Andrew Lam

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April 26, 2011

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virginia@sfbg.com

Forget that gourmet mac ‘n’ cheese, leave behind another night of Neapolitan pizza — it’s time to consider a meal that has yet to be repeated all over town. Here are a few that have really turned my head of late.

HIBISCUS

Hop a flight to the Caribbean via this downtown Oakland eatery, where chef Sarah Kirnon pulls together stimulating new interpretations of classic island flavors. A stand-out on this menu of tastes native to Barbados and Jamaica is Kinon’s Dungeness crab cornmeal porridge, a comforting blue cornmeal mash laced with chunks of crab, butternut squash, carrots, leeks, and spiced up with bird’s eye chili. It may be one of the best dishes she’s served yet.

1745 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 444-2626, www.hibiscusoakland.com

WISE SONS DELI

As long as it stays in its current form — a pop-up eatery that takes over Jackie’s Vinoteca and Cafe on Saturdays — lines at Wise Sons are sure to stay painfully long. That’s because nowhere else in the city can you get the authentic Jewish eats these young guys serve up. It’s no surprise that after only a few weeks of operation, they’re already in hot demand. Corned beef and pastrami are sliced before your eyes in all their meaty glory, excellent chocolate babka is earthy with dark chocolate or laced with Clairessquares caramel in a sweeter incarnation. Don’t miss house-smoked salmon with red onions and capers on a bialy, a traditional roll that’s similar to a bagel but baked instead of boiled.

Saturdays 9 a.m .–2 p.m. 105 Valencia, SF. (415) 787-DELI, www.wisesonsdeli.com

BAR BAMBINO

It was with delight I heard that one of the city’s first Italian charcuteries was shifting to a Germanic-Italian cuisine that would focus on the Tyrol and Friuli regions. I’ve been craving Tyrolean food ever since I traveled the area in Italy — its melting pot of cultures equals pleasure on a plate. Bambino’s executive chef Lizzie Binder plays with unique dishes like chewy, subtle pumpkin seed spaetzle, but my favorite is the Alpine bruschetta, simple hunks of rustic bread layered with Alpine ham, melted Montasio cheese, and horseradish kraut. It transported me straight back to dining on ham and cheese on sunny patios in the Alps.

2931 16th St., SF. (415) 701-VINO, www.barbambino.com

GITANE

Do not fear raw lamb. Do not expect gaminess. Order this dish — and prepare for fresh, succulent meat to rival the best beef tartares you’ve ever had. Chef Batson’s lamb tartare is unexpectedly silky meat, loaded with flavor. The added bonus is three dollops of worthy spreads, from an eggplant compote to a mix of pomegranate, walnut, and red pepper. There’s just no dish like it in town.

6 Claude, SF. (415) 788-6686, www.gitanerestaurant.com

FIFTH FLOOR

Since executive chef David Bazirgan recently climbed aboard, there are a number of noteworthy dishes here — particularly the Mendocino uni flan. It arrives unceremoniously, resembling a little bowl of foam. Dig into this “saffron air” and underneath you’ll find Dungeness crab fondue and a silky uni flan. Heightened by aged kaffir lime and Sichuan pepper, you’ll be dreaming about it all week.

12 Fourth St., SF. (415) 348-1555, www.fifthfloorrestaurant.com

HELMAND PALACE

A highly underrated SF gem. Decor is not the latest or hippest — but even better, it’s mellow and unassuming. It’s easy to get a reservation, you can fill up for $15, and even after 20 years, Helmand Palace remains our city’s best Afghani restaurant. Although kaddo (pumpkin that is pan-fried, then baked) in yogurt-garlic sauce remains a favorite dish of mine, I’m just as crazy about aushak, Afghan raviolis filled with leeks and scallions and served in a sauce of yogurt, mint, garlic, tomato, and ground beef: Middle Eastern cuisine meets red sauce Italian.

2424 Van Ness, SF. (415) 345-0072, www.helmandpalace.com

ICHI SUSHI

Industry insiders sidle up to Ichi’s sushi bar for impeccable fish from chef Tim Archuleta and crew. Archuleta keeps it seasonal and affordable — you’ll find far less interesting slices of fish elsewhere at higher prices. There are also high quality hot plates, and a particular stand-out is the artistic beef tataki. All-natural beef is seared sous vide, then accented with radish, kimchee, white ponzu, and crispy burdock root. The meat oozes tenderness while the accompanying ingredients add dimension to the dish.

3369 Mission, SF. (415) 525-4750, www.ichisushi.com

SPQR

Though everyone loves SPQR’s rustic pastas and exquisite antipasti, you’ll be equally satisfied at its bar with spuntini small bites and a glass of Italian wine from Shelley Lindgren’s impeccable list. Executive chef Matthew Accarrino infuses Roman sensibilities throughout the menu, achieving near-perfection in snacks like milky burrata cheese, which runs over accompanying toast and is sweetened with honey, hazelnuts, and a hint of chili — savory, sweet, silky. Spiced ricotta fritters are equally unforgettable: warm, with a whisper of smoked maple syrup.

1911 Fillmore, SF. (415) 771-7779, www.spqrsf.com

FEAST: 7 brunch cocktails

Andrew Lam

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April 26, 2011

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culture@sfbg.com

It’s noon on a Saturday — for you, we envision two possible scenarios. One: you’re covered in glitter, you smell like a wet poodle, and you’re on your way to brunch. Two: you’re well-rested after last night’s sobering yoga, feeling fly, and on your way to brunch. Hey booze breath, forget the three Advil, coffee, and a Xanax — you know there’s no better way to kick a hangover (or forge the path toward one) than to cocktail your way through the early afternoon. And Miss Fresh-As-A-Daisy? Have a drink already. Always helpful, never hurtful, here is our list of the tastiest brunch libations of the moment.

GINGER LEMON DROP AT CAFÉ FLORE

There is a stretch of Market Street that catches us unawares: one minute you’re surrounded by city, the next you’re in front of a magical garden filled with people downing bloody marys and eating eggs benedict. Ah, Café Flore, your lush patio makes us feel guilty for not drinking at breakfast. But we resolve not to live our life in shame. The ginger lemon drop, a Café Flore original, is the perfect way to kick off a day of leisure. Ginger liqueur and fresh lemon juice will have you feeling like you’re drinking pure, unadulterated sunshine, while the Ketel One vodka buzz reminds you that you’re actually just drunk.

2298 Market, SF. (415) 621-8579, www.cafeflore.com

MOJITO AT THE RAMP

You’re already on a mission to brunch, why not indulge in a meal amid the ocean breezes? Salty winds plus brunch treats and cocktails equals living large at The Ramp, which sits all the way at the end of Dogpatch’s Mariposa Street, perched on the pier of a boatyard. Grab a table inside the funky dining room or outside on the water and make sure to order one of the fresh mint mojitos. Two sips in, and you’ll be feeling like a brunch pirate. Day drunk ahoy!

855 Terry Francois, SF. (415) 621-2378, www.ramprestaurant.com

SPICED ALEXANDER AT AXIS CAFÉ AND GALLERY

The standard Alexander cocktail is made with gin, chocolate liqueur, and cream, a mature take on chocolate milk. The spiced Alexander at Axis Café, a lowkey but upscale café and art gallery at the base of Potrero Hill, is served hot and spiked with soju — great by itself or with one of the cafe’s whole wheat pancake and poached cranberry plates. A lesser-known brunch beverage, yes, but it pairs way better with waffles than a tequila shot. Like an old-fashioned hot cocoa, Axis’ is sweet, creamy, and warm — perfect for the seats by the joint’s roaring fireplace.

1201 Eighth St., SF. (415) 437-2947, www.axis-cafe.com

FOG CUTTER AT BAR AGRICOLE

This sleek SoMa restaurant is known in some circles as the Chez Panisse of cocktails, so it’s no wonder that its brunch offerings include libations worth writing home about, once you’ve sobered up. One standout is the fog cutter, a complex citrus drink made with pisco, rum, gin, sherry, citrus juice, and orgeat (almond syrup) served on the rocks and with a taste that’s similar to a mai tai. Planning on catching up with your correspondence later that day? We suggest you stick to one, for clarity’s sake.

355 11th St., SF. (415) 355-9400, www.baragricole.com

BLOODY MARY AT HOME

While it’s true that you can build your own bloody mary in the comfort of your own home, doing it at Market and Church Street’s comfiest brunch spot is much more exciting. Home puts the world at your fingertips: pickled veggies, olives, and over 15 kinds of hot sauce. This, friends, is the art of taking bloody mary by the horns.

2100 Market, SF. (415) 503-0333, www.home-sf.com

MICHELADA AT COCK-A-DOODLE CAFÉ

This downtown Oakland breakfast spot has the brunch drink for when you’re looking to kick off your free day with some heat. As all those who have ventured south of the border will recall, the michelada is a bloody mary gone Mexican, the dreaded red beers (lager and tomato juice) of your college days gone festive. Crisp Corona, lime, and Cock-A-Doodle’s house bloody mary mix await you, served in a huge salt-and-chile-rimmed glass that’s ready to baila contigo.

719 Washington, Oakl. (510) 465-5400 www.cockadoodlecafe.com

IRISH COFFEE AT THE BUENA VISTA

The Buena Vista’s Irish coffee story is frequently repeated by a certain faction of Bay Area folks. It is said, usually after the storyteller has downed a few, that this Fisherman’s Wharf bar was the first to perfect the drink on this side of the Atlantic. The Buena Vista’s Irish coffee is a proprietary mix of Irish whiskey, hot joe, and frothy cream — and although a friend of ours once wisely told us never to mix our uppers with our downers, to her we say: welcome to brunch drinks.

2765 Hyde, SF. (415) 474-5044 www.thebuenavista.com

This place

Andrew Lam

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April 26, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

LIT Begun in part as a series of maps accompanying public lectures, Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press, 167 pages, $24.95) is a remarkable act of gathering, one that presents myriad versions and visions of San Francisco and its surrounding areas that can inform a reader’s experience.

Infinite City was recently selected by the Northern California Independent Booksellers as one of its 2011 winners. Duality is a fundamental aspect of the book’s breadth and depth and sense of sharply critical appreciation — structurally, Solnit pairs distinct maps with corresponding chapter-length essays. In keeping with that characteristic, and also with the book’s group spirit (though admittedly on a much smaller and less intensive scale), I asked different Guardian contributors to share appraisals of one, or in most cases two, of the 22 sections. The result provides just a hint of what can be found within Infinite City. (Johnny Ray Huston)

MAP 3. “Cinema City: Muybridge Inventing Movies, Hitchcock Making Vertigo“

The map for this chapter tracks the San Francisco life of Eadweard (sic) Muybridge, alongside landmarks from Alfred Hitchcock’s Bay Area masterpiece Vertigo. In “The Eyes of the Gods,” Solnit, who won the National Book Critics Circle award for her 2003 Muybridge bio River of Shadows, writes of the 19th century artist’s breakthrough high-speed photography, “It was as though the ice of frozen photographic time had broken free into a river of images.”

Many such rivers flowed all over this fair city when Vertigo premiered at the Stage Door Theatre at 420 Mason St. on May 9, 1958. Alas, only 10 of the more than 60 single-screen venues extant that year, all demarcated on Shizue Seigel’s fine map, are still functioning. Solnit rightly describes the shift to watching films on various digital delivery mechanisms as leaving contemporary culture with a “curious imagistic poverty.” As she concisely describes watching Milk and Once Upon a Time in the West on the Castro Theatre’s giant screen, we’re reminded that there is no comparison between enjoying cinema in such a grand setting and staring at a laptop. The great 20th century memoirist and observer Quentin Crisp wrote, “We ought to visit a cinema as we would go to a church. Those of us who wait for films to be made available for television are as deeply suspicious as lost souls who claim to be religious but who boast that they never go to church.”

That applies to you too, Netflix subscribers! The Roxie, Castro, Red Vic, Clay, and a small number of other houses of worship are still in business, so what are you waiting for? (Ben Terrall)

MAP 4. “Right Wing of the Dove: The Bay Area as Conservative/Military Brain Trust”

In “The Sinews of War are Boundless Money and the Brains of War Are in the Bay Area,” Solnit argues that antiwar, green, and left Bay Area hotspots are well known and don’t need to be charted again — unlike military contractors and assorted other forces of reaction in the region.

Solnit notes that many military bases that used to operate in the Bay Area are closed, “but the research, development, and profiteering continue as a dense tangle of civilian and military work, technological innovation, economic muscle, and political maneuvering for both economic and ideological purposes.”

Among the hard-right compounds providing counterevidence for that demonstration chestnut “the people united will never be defeated”: Lawrence Livermore National Labs (birthplace of Star Wars — the Reagan era money pit, not the George Lucas movie); Lockheed Martin, world’s largest “defense” contractor; the Hoover Institution, Stanford’s reactionary think tank; and Northrop Grumman, missile component designer. It’s useful to have so many of them in one place, if queasy-making.

On the lower left of the map sits Sandow Birk’s beautifully warped code of arms, which features the Cicero quote (Nervi belli pecunia infinita) that Solnit cites in her chapter title, under a half eagle/half dove, a rifle-toting soldier, and a scythe-clutching skeleton. It should be on the door of every U.S. military recruiting center. (Terrall)

MAP 6. “Monarchs and Queens: Butterfly Habits and Queer Public Spaces”

“How thoroughly the lexical landscape of gay history is invested with [a] paradigm of emergence,” notes poet Aaron Shurin in “Full Spectrum,” the chapter accompanying Infinite City‘s sixth map. Like one of the dazzlingly-named butterfly species rendered by Mona Caron on the map, Shurin flits gracefully between memoir and historiography as he tracks San Francisco’s ongoing evolution as a locus for queer emergence.

From North Beach to Polk Gulch, from Folsom to Castro, LGBT folk — be they American painted ladies, Satyr angel wings, or Mission blues — have continually migrated to and within the city to shed their cocoons and show their true colors. Local faux-queen Fauxnique traced this metamorphosis at the 2003 Miss Trannyshack Pageant when she climatically emerged as a regal butterfly to Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” (apropos to Shurin’s royalty motif, she won the crown). So too did the late Age of Aquarius painter Chuck Arnett, who often nestled butterfly imagery into his portraits of SoMa’s leather demimonde, and whose murals once adorned some of the many now-extinct bars also denoted by Ben Pease’s cartography. Only more than half a dozen of these “wildlife sanctuaries,” in Shurin’s parlance, have survived, with the Eagle Tavern’s announced closure marking another loss of habitat. Queers, though, are if anything adaptive, and my hope is that the future fluttering tribes of San Francisco will keep alighting on new ground to unfurl their wings. (Matt Sussman)

MAP 7. “Poison/Palate: The Bay Area in Your Body”

“Food is part of the Bay Area you hear about nowadays, exquisite upscale food at famous restaurants and gourmet markets. But it’s so boring we couldn’t stay focused on it in this map.” These refreshing, if rarely uttered words come two-thirds of the way through the chapter that accompanies the “Poison/Palate” map, Rebecca Solnit’s “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Gourmet.”

The phony Tuscany of Napa and the once-orchard-filled, now-EPA-Superfund-site-speckled Silicon Valley are wisely singled out for derision, a convenient duality in both geography and culture and the perfect framework on which to hang a critique of the local culinary community’s smug, myopic self-indulgence, by raising the not-so-elite-specters in Bay Area food history (the It’s It, the Popsicle, the Hangtown Fry, the Rice-a-Roni), and reintroducing the politics of food into the conversation, in the form of the chemical tonnage used to produce wine grapes, food giveaways at community gardens, Diet for a Small Planet, and Black Panther breakfast programs for school-kids. The sprawling topic is almost given too short a shrift, threatening to leap its mutant-mermaid-bedecked map.

Better is the 18th chapter, “How to Get From Ethiopia to Ocean Beach.” Solnit begins by loosely charting the ingredients that go into your cuppa joe: the water from Hetch Hetchy, the milk from West Marin, the coffee that courses through the port of Oakland, and, impishly, the leavings that flow toward the Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant. All that’s missing from the equation is the sugar that I need to make the darkest, brandy-and-cherry-tinged brew palatable. SF’s cafe culture is also deservedly lionized — though some might want to hurl china due to the exclusions on the accompanying map: why, for instance, call out Blue Danube Coffee House and not the grungier, more Chinese-populated Java Source? (Kimberly Chun)

MAP 8. “Shipyards and Sounds: The Black Bay Area since World War II”

Though author Joshua Jelly-Schapiro opens this chapter, subtitled “High Tide, Low Ebb,” with an eloquent invocation of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” — penned in Sausalito, by the way — it was the slight mention of Lowell Fulson’s “San Francisco Blues” that most resonated with me. “Ohh, San Francisco,” the lyric goes, “Please make room for me.” The facts presented in “Shipyards and Sounds” record The City’s answer as a genteel and progressive “No nigger.”

Beginning at the start of WWII, when Southern blacks migrated to the Bay Area to build ships in Hunters Point, Jelly-Schapiro points out that the main areas of wartime shipbuilding (Richmond, Hunters Point, Marin City) are “places that today remain centers of black population and of black poverty.” Indicating, to me, that little has changed since the 1940s in some significant ways. Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t say it. Jelly-Schapiro did.

Jelly-Schapiro also shows how terms like “redevelopment” displaced black Fillmore District residents to housing projects they’d been banned from during the war and land-grab euphemisms like “urban renewal” decimated black neighborhoods such as West Oakland. Electoral laws mandating that the SF Board of Supervisors be elected by citywide contests and not by district allowed a city that desegregated its schools and transit system in the 1860s to remain progressive and very, very white.

Jelly-Schapiro’s conclusion contains a critique of Bay Area celebrations when “Negro president” Barack Obama was elected in 2008. What he won’t say is covered in Shizue Seigel’s map. A sidebar shows the dwindling soul of a city, while the headers cover the founding of the Black Panthers and Sylvester’s solo debut at Bimbo’s. (D. Scot Miller)

MAP 9. “Fillmore: Promenading the Boulevard of Gone”

After the damned disheartening facts presented in the previous chapter, it’s both merciful and hopeful that “Little Pieces of Many Wars” — though just as rage-inducing — establishes some kind of equilibrium.

Gent Sturgeon’s incredible Rorschach-inspired artwork opens a thoroughly-researched piece on Fillmore Street and its many incarnations. Mary Ellen Pleasant’s abolitionist work and her eucalyptus trees — which still stand on the corners of Bush and Octavia streets — are a starting point for a leisurely stroll with Solnit, who runs the voodoo down, “The war between the states left its traces here,” she says, “as did the Second World War, and the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the stale and ancient war of racism, and the various forms of freelance violence.”

She remembers San Francisco as an abolitionist headquarters, and Fillmore Street as the first place Allen Ginsberg read “Howl.” Recalling the Fillmore’s rich heritage of jazz, poetry, and art, Solnit takes it even further, adding, “The wealthy sometimes claim to bring civilization to rough neighborhoods, but the Upper Fillmore neighborhood that was so culturally rich when it was the property of poor people in the 1950s is smoothed over in significance now.”

The tragedy of Japanese internment, and the cross-cultural exchange that was demolished by it and redevelopment loom like white sheets over the city to this day. But Solnit closes with an optimistic sense of resurgence, even though Nickie’s has gone Irish.

Ben Pease’s cartography shows the cross-currents of culture of yesterday’s Fillmore Street, but not much else. That’s not a complaint, really. (Miller)

MAP 13. “The Mission: North of Home, South of Safe”

Two 2009 shootings on 24th Street pop out, in blood red, on the map accompanying Adriana Camarena’s “The Geography of the Unseen,” in much the same way that the spate of shooting deaths the previous year marked my brief time spent living in the Mission. In ’08, I lived in a Victorian flat at Treat and 23rd, distinguished by the fact that it was a favorite hang for the teenaged homies — its steps were slightly tucked back off the street, ideal when it came to hiding out, smoking dope, and snacking out — until my landlords installed a fence, ostensibly to keep the steps free of spit.

We were on the same block as an appliance-loaded junkyard; the last stop of an ancient Mission industrial railroad; and the Parque Niños Unidos, with its swampy, grassy corner, so often cordoned off to keep the tots from wading in the mud, its circling ice cream carts and its de facto refreshment stand, El Gallo Giro taco truck; and the community garden, where the feral kittens tumbled and hid and fresh produce was given away free every Sunday afternoon.

The Parque likely was the last thing 18-year-old poet Jorge Hurtado saw when he was shot and killed on our corner at 1 a.m. that year. I remember waking up that night to what sounded like a cannon boom, only the first of a slew that sweltering, ominous summer — Mark Guardado, president of the SF chapter of the Hells Angels, was killed a little over a week later, down Treat, in front of Dirty Thieves. The tension was thick and gooey in the air — who was next? The beauty of Shizue Seigel’s Mission map lies in how intimate it is, how it’s threaded around the shaggy-dog snatches of yarns Camarena catches among the day laborers waiting at Cesar Chavez and Bayshore, from the long litany of splintered families, time spent in the refuge of gangs at 24th and Shotwell, and then, in Frank Pena’s case, lives cut sadly short farther up 24th at Potrero. The included stories, rarely straying beyond the tellers’ voices and the facts they choose to reveal, stay with you — even if her sources’ internal lives remain, as the chapter’s subtitle goes, “the Geography of the Unseen.” (Chun)

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS 2011 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS

FICTION

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, stories, Yiyun Li (Random House, 240 pages, $25)

Nonfiction

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Mary Roach (W.W. Norton and Company, 336 pages, $15.95)

Honorable Mention: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, (University of California, 760 pages, $34.95)

POETRY

Come On All You Ghosts, Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon, 96 pages, $16)

Food Writing

My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy’s Undiscovered South, Rosetta Costantino, Janet Fletcher, and Shelley Lindgren (W.W. Norton and Company, 416 pages, $35)

Children’s Picture Book

The Quiet Book, Deborah Underwood and Renata Liwska (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 32 pages, $12.95)

Honorable mention: Zero, Kathryn Otoshi (KO Kids, 32 pages, $17.95)

TEEN LIT

The Sky is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson (Dial, 288 pages, $17.99)

Honorable mention: The Mockingbirds, Daisy Whitney (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 352 pages, $16.99)

REGIONAL TITLE

Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, Rebecca Solnit (University of California, 167 pages, $24.95)

Honorable mention: A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California, Laura Cunningham (Heyday, 352 pages, $50)

What to watch, part two

Andrew Lam

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April 26, 2011

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WEDS/27

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (Marie Losier, U.S., 2011) Once dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”, shock artist and cofounder of seminal industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has softened somewhat with time. Her plunge into pandrogyny, an ongoing artistic and personal process embarked upon with the late Jacqueline “Lady Jaye” Breyer P-Orridge, is an attempt to create a perfectly balanced body, incorporating the characteristics of both. As artists, the two were committed to documenting their process, but as marriage partners, much of their footage is sweetly innocuous home video footage: Genesis cooking in the kitchen decked out in a little black dress, Lady Jaye setting out napkins at a backyard bar-b-que or helping to dig through Genesis’ archives of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle “ephemera,” the two wrapped in bandages after getting matching nose jobs. “I just want to be remembered as one of the great love affairs of all time,” Jaye tells Genesis. This whimsical documentary by Marie Losier will go a long way toward making that wish a reality. Wed/27, 9:15 p.m., and May 5, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Nicole Gluckstern)

THURS/28

Love in a Puff (Pang Ho-cheung, Hong Kong, 2010) In 2007 the global crackdown on smoking made its way to Hong Kong, where the smoking ordinance effectively banned the practice in all indoor areas. This has lead to the explosion of “hot pot packs,” where smokers from varying walks of life come together in solidarity to grab their drags in the streets. That’s the milieu of Love in a Puff, an utterly charming, endearingly funny rom-com from Hong Kong filmmaker Pang Ho-cheung. When Cherie, a pretty Sephora sales clerk and asthmatic with a magenta-hued bob, meets Jimmy, a blandly handsome 20-something advertising exec, over Capri Slims and Lucky Strikes, what follows is a thoroughly modern and tentative courtship waged through dozens of text messages, a dash of karaoke, and a chaste encounter in a Hong Kong “love hotel.” Throw in some haunted car trunks, rogue foreign pubes in bracelets, all night-smoke runs to beat brutal tax increases, and a dry-ice-in-the toilet fetish (“It’s like taking a dump in heaven!” exclaims Jimmy) and you get a thoroughly quirky but never overly cute take on modern romance, one that never blows smoke when it comes to navigating the messy realities of love. Thurs/28, 8:45 p.m., and Sat/30, 1:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Michelle Devereaux)

SAT/30

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden/U.S.) Cinematic crate-diggers have plenty to celebrate, checking the results of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Swedish documentarian Göran Hugo Olsson had heard whispers for years that Swedish television archives possessed more archival footage of the Black Panthers than anyone in the states — while poring through film for a doc on Philly soul, he discovered the rumors were dead-on. With this lyrical film, coproduced by the Bay Area’s Danny Glover, Olsson has assembled an elegant snapshot of black activists and urban life in America, relying on the vivid, startlingly crisp images of figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton at their peak, while staying true to the wide-open, refreshingly nonjudgmental lens of the Swedish camera crews. Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas Keith provide the haunting score for the film, beautifully historicized with shots of Oakland in the 1960s and Harlem in the ’70s. It’s made indelible thanks to footage of proto-Panther school kids singing songs about grabbing their guns, and an unforgettable interview with a fiery Angela Davis talking about the uses of violence, from behind bars and from the place of personally knowing the girls who died in the infamous Birmingham, Ala., church bombing of 1963. Sat/30, 9 p.m., Kabuki, and Tues/3, 6 p.m., New People. (Kimberly Chun)

SUN/1

Circumstance (Maryam Keshavarz, France/U.S./Iran/Lebanon) Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is younger than 30. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. Sun/1, 6 p.m., and Tues/3, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Chun)

The Salesman (Sébastien Pilote, Canada) Indefatigably optimistic on the outside, small-town Quebec car salesman Marcel (Gilbert Sicotte) refuses to slow down, let alone retire — perhaps from fear that grief over his wife’s death would fill any hours left empty, though he’s far too composed to let that show. He has his daughter (Nathalie Cavezzali) and grandson (Jeremy Tessier) to dote on, and his customers to endlessly fuss over and reassure. But there are few customers these days because the local factory workers are on strike, their plant in danger of being shuttered. Sébastien Pilote’s quiet drama carefully accumulates everyday details toward a full understanding of Marcel and his milieu, the stability of both eventually threatened by factors that not even his formidable powers of denial can overcome. It’s the kind of movie so small and unassuming you’re caught completely unaware when it delivers a gut-punch. Sun/1, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki; Tues/3, 8:50 p.m., PFA; and May 5, 2 p.m., Kabuki. (Dennis Harvey)

13 Assassins Before you accuse Japan’s bad boy director Takashi Miike of going all prestige-y by making a Kurasawa-esque samurai pic, consider that his 13 Assassins is actually a remake of what was originally dismissed by many as a Seven Samurai knockoff, the late Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 film of the same name. Koji Yakusho stars as Shinzaemon Shimada, an aging ronin convinced to come out of the proverbial retirement to assassinate a psychotically brutal lord (Goro Inagaki) with a penchant for raping, killing, and wreaking general havoc. Shinzaemon assembles a ragtag team of warriors with varying levels of experience, and the requisite carnage ensues. Featuring solid performances and an impressively choreographed climax, this well-told tale nevertheless feels disappointing stale. The idea of the iconoclastic Miike reinventing the samurai genre is an intriguing one. But while the film at times gnashes the provocative pulp that most Miike devotees have come to crave, it admittedly elicits a measure of old-fashioned respectability that the genre, by default, seems to command like a master ordering his knightly charge. It certainly beheads all its targets, but with something of a shrug of its shoulders. Sun/1, 8:30 p.m., Castro. (Devereaux)

MON/2

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Canada/France, 2010) When tightly wound émigré Nawal (Luba Azabal) dies, she leaves behind adult twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) — and leaves them documents that only compound their feelings of grief and anger, suggesting that what little they thought they knew about their background might have been a lie. While resentful Simon at first stays home in Montreal, Jeanne travels to fictive “Fuad” (a stand-in for source-material playwright Wajdi Mouawad’s native Lebanon), playing detective to piece together decades later the truth of why their mother fled her homeland at the height of its long, brutal civil war. Alternating between present-day and flashback sequences, this latest by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (2000’s Maelstrom) achieves an urgent sweep punctuated by moments of shocking violence. Resembling The Kite Runner in some respects as a portrait of the civilian victimization excused by war, it also resembles that work in arguably piling on more traumatic incidences and revelations than one story can bear — though so much here has great impact that a sense of over-contrivance toward the very end only slightly mars the whole. Mon/2, 6:30 p.m., and May 5, 8 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

TUES/3

Tabloid (Errol Morris, U.S., 2010) Taking a break from loftier subjects, Errol Morris’ latest documentary simply finds a whopper of a story and lets the principal participant tell her side of it — one we gradually realize may be very far from the real truth. In 1978 former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney flew to England, where the Mormon boy she’d grown infatuated with had been posted for missionary work by his church. What ensued became a U.K. tabloid sensation, as the glamorous, not at all publicity-shy Yankee attracted accusations of kidnapping, imprisonment, attempted rape, and more. Her victim of love, one Kirk Anderson, is not heard from here — presumably he’s been trying to live down an embarrassing life chapter ever since. But we do hear from others who shed considerable light on the now middle-aged McKinney’s continued protestations that it was all just one big misunderstanding. Most important, we hear from the lady herself — and she is colorful, unflappable, unapologetic, and quite possibly stone-cold nuts. Tues/3, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki, and May 5, 2:45 p.m., New People. (Harvey)

THE 54TH ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs through May 5. Venues are the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Castro, 429 Castro, SF; New People, 1746 Post, SF; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third, SF; and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, SF. For tickets (most shows $13) and complete schedule visit www.sffs.org>.

Get off on green

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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April 25, 2011

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Your outdoor environment is looking a little cleaner after Friday’s Earth Day efforts, so now it’s time for some dirty bedroom rewards. Don’t worry– it’s possible to carry your eco-ethics into the other room. Let your passion for saving the environment slide between the sheets for love making in all shades of green.

Being a good little environmentalist all year deserves a (nice) spank, but sometimes the products we use and things we do to feel good make the Earth feel bad. Phthalate-infected vibrators, cuffs from overseas, lube made in nasty factories, and mounds of landfill-bound packaging are definite turn-offs.Tree-humpers should take note from the hoards of San Francisco foodies eating out every night: treat your bed like you would a table and go for conscious, local, and sustainable. From foreplay to fornication, here are a couple of stimulating Bay Area resources for keeping things hot between you and Mother Nature.

Setting the mood:

Skip the machine-made colognes and perfumes and keep it simple — you can pick some herbal aphrodisiacs made from your own backyard garden. If you forgot to plant said garden, check out White Buffalo Naturals collection of stimulating smells. All products are made locally in small batches by Nicole Spencer, a traditional herbalist who is all about the Big O (a.k.a. organic) and growing or wild-harvesting the plants she uses for the White Buffalo line herself.

Sexy underthings:

Stripping down to your factory-made granny panties or tighty-whities could be a huge boner-dissapointer if you’re about to get down with an earth lover. Pull on a pair of PACT undies, a Berkeley company that sources super-soft, organic Turkish cotton and in the process, allows you to participate what they call, a social movement — your purchase supports farmers, responsible labor practices, and a chain of non-profits dedicated to change. Wow– instant orgasm.

Protection:

Condoms aren’t very sweet on the environment but nothing says green like curbing the population of our crowded city. Unfortunately rubbers can’t be composted or recycled, so you’ll just have to make up for it in other areas. Rubber offsets? Buy in bulk and save on wasteful packaging.

Supportive supplies:

Leather can really help tie ’em down and strap ‘er on, but it’s important to know your hide source isn’t hiding any secrets. Project TransAction is an Oakland-based independent leatherworking company who promises to keep things ethical and earth-friendly. Their super-attractive harnesses, cuffs, and collars will keep anyone in line with a smirk, especially when they hear these babies were made with water-based inks, biodegradable cleaners and non-toxic dyes.

Setting:

Screw PG&E and conserve utilities. Turn down the heat and let your bodies control the temperature. Turn off the lights and replace with flickering soy candles. Go outside and let the moon cast some flattering shadows. Do it in the garden (backyard not community) and then save water by showering off the dirt together.

Stimulating Extras:

As guilty or proud as it made you feel, that rabbit vibe you picked up at the adult superstore didn’t suffer a short life due to overuse. Cheaply made sex toys are a dime a dozen, but their small sticker price makes for a big pile at the landfill. Quality is important, ladies and gents, and a good toy should hum for more than a year. Jimmyjane‘s vibrators are totally down for extended use, inviting you to play and please with a three-year warranty. The San Francisco company’s design-centric products buzz pretty and smart: responsibly manufactured, energy efficient, replaceable parts, and rechargeable batteries.

5 Things: April 22, 2011

Andrew Lam

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April 22, 2011

1

>>BLACK WHEELS Three reasons why African-Americans should ride bicycles, brought to you courtesy of community two-wheeler group Red Bike and Green. One, health: the exercise can counter obesity and chronic disease. Two, economics: why drop all your cash into a car pit when you can put it to brightening your present and future? Three, environment: environmental racism — including pollution in low-income communities — has gone on too long, and you can do you part to change it. Now that we have that out of the way, check out Red Bike and Green’s first “black Critical Mass” of the year in Oakland on Sat/23. Bikes: too many good reasons to ride them.

>>LOCAL BOY DONE GOOD Reynaldo Cayentano Jr. grew up on Sixth Street, and he’s not going anywhere. The City College student and photographer recently opened up gallery space with cohort Chris Beale in the old District Attorney’s office, but the two will be throwing their Sat/23 “Native Taste” party at the House Kombucha factory, where they’ll showcase the work of 13 local artists and the hip-hop stylings of Patience. Speaking of local boys, have you heard the new SF anthem by Equipto and Mike Marshall?

Equipto ft. Mike Marshall, “Heart and Soul”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Fh0dXpuco&feature=player_embedded

>>GOOD & PLENTY CHEAP There’s nothing we like better than good, cheap stuff. Not the cheap, cheap stuff of a Walmart or Kmart, or the good, pricey stuff of a Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdale’s. Good. Cheap. Stuff. And in pursuit of said stuff, we know that many of our fellow city dwellers have checked out a City Car Share car for the express purpose of driving to Serramonte Shopping Center in Daly City and hitting the Daiso store. Put away that gas tank: now we have our own Daiso store, newly opened in Japantown. Since most of the items cost $1.50, a $20 bill will get you a Santa Claus-size bagful of beautiful origami paper, clever lunch boxes, kitchenware, or whatever strikes your fancy from Daiso’s — no jive — selection of 70,000 good, cheap goods.

>>THEY WALK AMONG US It isn’t often that we indulge in a little unabashed fandom when a celebrity comes to our city/ashram. After all, we have our standards (smart, funny, left-leaning, maybe a pot bust or two), which rules out your Biebers, your Gagas, your Cruises ‘n’ Holmeses. We also believe that a man with a three-day stubble muttering to himself as he walks down the street has a right to his private musings. But when that man is Alec Baldwin, well, we have to stop, give him a deep Zen bow, tell him he’s welcome here, and report back. We have no idea why Baldwin is here – a Giants game? No, they’re on the road. SFIFF? No, we would have heard. Filming an episode of 30 Rock, Alcatraz Edition? Possibly –- and truthfully, we don’t care. We will take this no further. No tweets, no nothing. Because we want him to come back -– with Tina Fey.

>>THE GOOD BOOKS A few minutes spent reading a good, cheap book can add some insight and perspective to anyone’s day, and this weekend presents a reason to look for said books. The San Francisco Public Library’s 50th Anniversary Book Sale is going on at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion until Sun/24, with everything on sale for three dollars or less. Books, DVDs, CDs, tapes, and other media are available, and on the sale’s final day, nothing will cost more than a dollar.

Beyond 420

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

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steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY When the clock or the calendar hits 420 — and particularly at that magical moment of 4:20 p.m. on April 20 — the air of Northern California fills with the fragrant smell of green buds being set ablaze. But this year, some longtime cannabis advocates are trying to focus the public’s attention on images other than stoners getting high.

“I hope the house of hemp will replace the six-foot-long burning joint as the symbol of 420,” says Steve DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center, an Oakland cannabis collective, and one of the organizers of an April 23 festival in Richmond dubbed Deep Green that offers an expanded view of cannabis culture.

In addition to big musical acts, guest speakers, and vendors covering just about every aspect of the cannabis industry, the event will feature a house made almost entirely of industrial hemp. That exhibit and many others will highlight the myriad environmental and economic benefits of legalizing hemp, as California Sen. Mark Leno has been trying to do for years, with his latest effort, SB676, The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, clearing the Senate Agriculture Committee on a 5–1 vote April 5.

Public opinion polls show overwhelming support for ending the war on drugs, particularly as it pertains to socially benign substances like industrial hemp, a strain of cannabis that doesn’t share the psychoactive qualities of its intoxicating sister plants. Yet DeAngelo said that after 40 years of advocating for legalization, he’s learned to be patient because “unfortunately, our politicians are lagging behind public opinion.”

In San Francisco and many other cities, marijuana dispensaries have become a legitimate and important part of the business community (see “Marijuana goes mainstream,” 1/27/10), spawning offshoots like the edibles industry that provide more safe and effective ways of ingesting marijuana (see “Haute pot,” 1/25/11).

But the proof that the medical marijuana is about more than just getting people high also continues to grow, from the endless touching tales of cancer, AIDS, and other patients who have been saved from suffering by this wonder weed to the lengths that the industry is going to cultivate cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in marijuana that doesn’t get people high but offers many other benefits, including acting as an antidepressant and antiinflammatory medicine.

CBD and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, generally have an inverse relationship in cannabis plants, so the efforts by generations’ worth of pot cultivators to breed strains with higher THC content have almost completely bred the CBD out of the plants. “In the underground markets, it didn’t have any value,” DeAngelo said.

When Harborside Health Center first started laboratory-testing marijuana many years ago, DeAngelo said that of 2,000 strains tested, only nine had “appreciable quantities of CBD.” In addition to efforts by Harborside and the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center (SPARC) to work with growers on bringing back CBD-heavy strains, modern scientific techniques are allowing CBD to be extracted from the strains that do exist.

“It’s not psychoactive, but let me tell you, it is mood-altering,” says Albert Coles, founder of CBD Sciences in Stinson Beach. “A lot of people, when they smoke pot go inward, but that often isn’t good for social interactions.”

His company makes laboratory-tested cannabis tinctures called Alta California that have been increasingly popular in San Francisco, offering three different varieties: high THC/low CBD, low THC/high CBD, and a 50-50 mix. “It’s good for creative thinking because it just clears out all the noise,” Coles said of CBD.

But even when talking about THC, many in the industry dispute the criticism that most marijuana use is merely recreational drug use. Vapor Room founder Martin Olive has said most pot use isn’t strictly medical or recreational, but a third category he calls “therapeutic,” people who smoke pot to help cope with the stress of modern life.

DeAngelo agrees, although he puts it slightly differently: “The vast majority of cannabis users use it for the purpose of wellness.”

DEEP GREEN FESTIVAL Saturday, April 23. Performances by The Coup, Heavyweight Dub Champion, and more; speakers include pot cultivation columnist Ed Rosenthal, Steve DeAngelo, and business owner David Bronner. $20 advance/$30 door ($20 for bicyclists and carpoolers, $100 VIP).

Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond. www.deepgreenfest.com

House haunters

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

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cheryl@sfbg.com

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Carol and Mike decide to sell the house and the kids fake-haunt it to scare off potential buyers? It’s the pop culture moment I always think of when I hear about an apartment with suspiciously cheap rent. First reaction: “Wow! Is it haunted?”

In real life, low rent usually means the place is the size of a broom closet or has some other easy-to-discover flaw. But in Emily Lou’s The Selling, ghostly squatters — plus bleeding walls, exploding toilets, and other unexplained phenomena — are a legit concern for real estate agent Richard Scarry (“like the children’s book author”), played by the film’s screenwriter, Gabriel Diani.

Richard’s trying to sell the troublesome house quickly to pay for his mother’s medical bills, so he turns to blogger and spirit-world expert Ginger Sparks (Etta Devine) for help. The previous tenant, a serial killer nicknamed “the Sleep Stalker,” could be the root cause — but the supernatural goings-on prove more sinister than Richard and Ginger expect. Mayhem (inspired by haunted-house films past, including 1979’s The Amityville Horror, 1982’s Poltergeist, 1980’s The Shining, 1987’s Evil Dead II, and 1988’s Beetle Juice) inevitably ensues.

The Selling is Lou’s first feature; it’s having its world premiere as part of SFIFF’s “Late Show” program. Her background is in theater directing, which is how she met Diani — they both studied at San Francisco State University, and later collaborated on a play at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. Diani was also a part of Totally False People, a comedy troupe instrumental in founding San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival (TFP O.G.s Janet Varney and Cole Stratton also have roles in The Selling).

Though the film was shot in Los Angeles (lowbrow comedy fans may recognize the house — it’s the same one used in 2008’s The House Bunny), Lou, who grew up in Yuba City, lives in Oakland. She was inspired to trade the stage for a film set for tangible reasons.

“I did a lot of theater and I’d spend all this time and energy creating this product I was really proud of — and not only my time and energy, but a lot of other people’s too. And at the end of the day, like 50 people would have seen it,” she says. “It struck me that I wanted to create something timeless, something we could keep and contain — and hopefully a greater audience could see it. The idea of this moment in time with theater just passing by didn’t seem like enough. I wanted something longer-lasting, something that gave a little bit more to the people who put their heart and souls into it.”

After getting a camera and shooting “a couple of terrible short films,” Lou contacted Diani, whose writing skills she admired. Ironically, horror isn’t her favorite genre. “I am so easily scared,” she confesses. “But Gabe and I are both drawn to older, classic horror rather than the new, Saw-type horror.”

Though it has spooky elements, The Selling is more comedy than frightfest. Directing two genres at once required a certain amount of flexibility on Lou’s part. “Horror has a lot more to do with the visual components, like the set and makeup — and setting up for the shot, because it’s probably going to be enhanced with some after-effects. With comedy, if it’s funny, it’s funny — let’s just capture the funny.”

The Selling‘s cast is largely unknown (unless you’re a Sketchfest diehard), but it does feature a cameo by Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) royalty Barry Bostwick, playing a daffy exorcist. “We were fans of his, and we approached his agent. Barry read the script, and he really liked it and wanted to do it,” Lou says. “It just kind of went from there, and he worked for less than he normally works for — he’s also a fan of classic horror. He was amazing to work with, just a great guy.”

THE SELLING

April 29, 11:30 p.m.;

May 4, 4:15 p.m., $13

Sundance Kabuki

1881 Post, SF

www.sffs.org

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

2

tredmond@sfbg.com

You lose a lot on the left. We all get used to it; we’re fighting against a rich, entrenched power structure and the rules of the game are rigged against us. For people in the labor movement, it’s been a particularly bad year; all over the country, politicians are looking for ways to undermine collective bargaining rights.

So it’s nice to win one every now and then — and it’s nice to be able to say that labor, progressive labor, just won a major victory in San Francisco. But it’s no surprise that the San Francisco Chronicle got the story wrong.

For several years now, the owners of the Fairmont Hotel have wanted to tear down a tower built in the 1960s, eliminate 226 hotel rooms, and build about 160 luxury condos instead. The hotel workers union, not surprisingly, worried about a loss of jobs; condo owners don’t use housekeeping. But it’s a larger issue than that: people who buy hotel condos don’t live there much. Most of the rooms that have been converted nationwide become pieds à terre for very wealthy people. They spend a few nights a year in their units; the rest of the time, the places are empty. Nobody there to shop, eat, or get entertained in SF; nobody spending money here.

So it’s a nice little bit of class warfare: The city loses hotel and restaurant jobs — and part of the city’s tourist infrastructure — so that the owners (including a Saudi prince and Oakland A’s owner Lou Wolff) can make a fast windfall profit. (Think $1 million to $2 million each for 160 condos and you get the picture.)

The owners hired Willie Brown to make their case at City hall; Mayor Ed Lee quickly introduced legislation that would allow the conversion. The Chron picked up the ownership line: only condos can save the Fairmont. “The business has migrated downhill to new hotels near the Moscone Convention Center south of Market,” the paper lamented in an April 17 editorial. Done deal, right?

Well, no. Local 2, the hotel workers union, did an amazing job of organizing, working with Nob Hill neighbors and, by the way, pointing out the facts — the Fairmont has outperformed the SoMa hotels during 10 of the past 11 years, has enviable occupancy rates and stands to reap the benefits of the America’s Cup. Facing a possible strike and a battle royal at City Hall, the Fairmont blinked. The condo plan is dead. Good work, my friends.

Stopping the garbage monopoly

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

2

A few years back, when Aaron Peskin was president of the Board of Supervisors, he decided that the contract to perform budget and policy analysis ought to go out to bid. Supporters of longtime budget analyst Harvey Rose were aghast — Rose, by all accounts, does a great job watching the city’s dollars and helping the supervisors evaluate proposals. He has more than 30 years of institutional knowledge and memory; the very thought of replacing him seemed insane.

But Rose works as a private contractor, and for decades, he had the equivalent of a no-bid contract — the same sort of deal he and his staff have warned against. So the supervisors took bids — and, to nobody’s surprise, Rose won the contract. That was the right outcome. Except that faced with a competitive bid, he lowered his prices, and the city saved about $500,000.

That’s an important lesson, one the supervisors ought to keep in mind on April 20 when they consider the latest version of a proposal to award the contract for taking the city’s trash to a landfill. Two competing outfits, Recology and Waste Management, are fighting for the lucrative deal. It’s a complex environmental and policy issue: Recology is proposing to haul the trash all the way to Yuba County, and Waste Management would truck it to the existing Altamont landfill. But there’s a critical policy issue hanging in the background.

Since 1932, the company now known as Recology (formerly Sunset Scavenger then Norcal Solid Waste Systems) has had an exclusive, no-bid contract to collect garbage within the San Francisco city limits. The contract to haul the stuff over the bridge and out of town gets put out to bid, but only Recology can pick up residential and commercial garbage. The rates are set by the director of public works. And Recology pays the city nothing — zero — in franchise fees. (The only money the city gets from the garbage company is some $7.5 million a year that goes to the Department of Environment.) Oakland, with about half the number of customers, gets $29 million a year for its general fund from its garbage contractors; by that standard, San Francisco could pull in at least another $14 million a year, maybe more. And it’s not as if Recology is hurting — the company’s San Francisco revenue last year was $275 million.

Both the budget analyst and a private report commissioned by the city’s Local Agency Formation Commission have recommended that San Francisco put its garbage contract out to bid. In fact, the LAFCO report, done by R3 Consulting, notes that San Francisco is the only one of 95 cities surveyed in the Bay Area that had no competitive bidding process for local garbage hauling — and is the only city that has neither a bidding process nor a formal franchise agreement. According to the consultant, “it does not appear that Recology is contractually obligated to 1) negotiate with San Francisco or 2) continue providing service.”

This is utterly unacceptable. Sup. David Campos is absolutely right to be proposing a ballot measure that would mandate competitive bidding. And if he can’t find three more supervisors to sign on (and wouldn’t that be a sad statement), citizen activists are prepared to gather signatures.

We recognize that Recology is a local, worker-owned company with fully unionized employees and good benefits. That should — and will — be a factor in any bidding process. But no $275 million deal should be awarded to anyone in perpetuity, without the city having any leverage to negotiate.

The bid to haul waste to the landfill is directly related: If the board awards Recology that contract too, then the company will have such a monopoly that competitive bidding would be difficult. The committee should continue that item until the board figures out how to handle Recology’s overall contract. Rushing it through now would be a bad mistake.

Battling the banksters

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

1

news@sfbg.com

Late in the afternoon of April 15, in the quiet of the huge round Bank of America lobby on Montgomery Street, a young woman suddenly yelled “Bank of America made $4.4 billion in profits in 2009 but paid zero in taxes!” About two dozen bystanders converged in a synchronized dance routine, kicking, strutting, and shimmying to lively music from the Brass Liberation Orchestra while supporters held up signs reading “tax evader.”

The event was one of hundreds of “Tax Day” demonstrations around the country on April 15 and 18, sponsored by progressive organizations US Uncut, MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, and many more. US Uncut identified the targets as “corporate tax cheats and unnecessary and unfair public service cuts.” They point to big corporations’ use of offshore tax havens and specially tailored loopholes to avoid paying federal taxes while Congress is slashing popular programs from education to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Barely two weeks before, on April 4, thousands of union members and their allies gathered in Oakland and San Francisco in two of more than 1,000 rallies across the country expressing support for embattled workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere, protesting cuts in public programs, and pushing a simple solution to the country’s economic woes: “tax the rich.”

“I think what’s happening is the rebuilding of a movement,” said Josie Camacho, acting executive secretary-treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council. Nina Rubin, a participant in the April 15 Bank of America protest, agreed. “People started rising up in Wisconsin and now sparks are flying all around the country.”

At another Bank of America office on Market Street targeted by protesters on April 15, Oakland resident Peggy Maxwell said she heard about the flash mob actions on Facebook and joined “because these cuts [to public services] are going to bring down the country. Unless we make corporations contribute at least their share to offset their bad decisions, there’s no hope for anyone not in the top 1 percent.”

Marylee Fithian, 75, traveled from Guerneville to participate “because I am a senior who is going to be screwed by these Republican cuts. They claim we’re broke, but we’re not. If all the corporations paid taxes and we put higher taxes on the very rich, we wouldn’t have a problem at all.”

Cynthia Reed, a Hyatt Regency telephone operator active in UNITE-HERE Local 2, said she joined the April 4 march in San Francisco because of the attacks on public employee unions in Wisconsin. “If that governor gets rid of the unions, who will stand up for the people’s rights, their health care, their pensions, their wages?” she said. “Corporations have their lawyers — who will represent the people?”

Beyond the immediate events, “people really wanted to do something about the crisis we’re in and the right-wing manipulation of the political infrastructure,” Camacho said. Bob Mandel, an activist in the Oakland Educators Association, said that “lots of people really resent the [2008] bailout [of banks]. The anger is still there,” fueled by ongoing economic pressures.

San Francisco resident Christopher Roesner participated in the April 15 Bank of America flashmob wearing a business suit and sporting a faux Bank of America badge identifying him as a specialist in “tax accountability.” Formerly a nonprofit finance director, in the current recession, “I lost my job, I lost my house, I lost my health insurance,” he said. “I was forced into bankruptcy while the banks got all the money. That’s a typical American story now.”

In people’s lives, the issues converge. Because of the economic crisis, said UNITE-HERE Local 2 activist Reed, employers are “trying to take away our wages, make us pay for pensions and health care — and the cost of living is still going up.” Meanwhile, “as people get lower salaries, the [public] programs that are there to help people are being taken away.”

With these overlapping concerns, groups that don’t typically work together joined in the recent protests. Unions representing electricians, grocery store workers, and other private-sector employees defended public-sector workers and denounced cuts to public services at the April 4 rally in Oakland. The AFL-CIO joined with MoveOn to sponsor the nationwide “Tax Day” protests on April 18. US Uncut leader Joanne Gifford says she’s been meeting with labor and community groups.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), along with another community organization, People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO), and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 joined together in a statewide campaign against foreclosures and for “bank accountability.” Camacho cited this coalition as an example of union and community “partnerships getting deeper,” adding, “We have members [in Local 1021] who have lost their homes in Oakland” to foreclosure.

The coalition brought about 100 people to Sacramento April 5 to lobby for bills that PICO says are “aimed at protecting homeowners from fraudulent bank foreclosure practices and making banks pay their fair share for the housing and foreclosure crisis.”

The combination of the 2008 federal bailouts, the ongoing foreclosure crisis, and revelations of “tax evasion” has made “the banksters” a special target of progressive anger. Under the radar, smaller protests aimed at banks continue.

The Oakland Education Association (OEA), for example, faced with the layoff of 600 Oakland teachers, scheduled a sit-in at the downtown Oakland Wells Fargo branch April 4 with the slogan “Bail out schools, not banks!” Forewarned, bank officials closed the office for three hours, so about 100 Oakland teachers and their supporters protested outside. The OEA wants Wells Fargo to use its influence to increase state support for education with money raised through progressive taxation and to stop foreclosures and reduce the debt of “underwater” mortgage holders to the current value of their houses.

On April 12, students at Berkeley Community College held a two-day “Move Your Money” teach-in. Student Gabriella Deyi, treasurer of the Civic Engagement Club, said cuts to the community college budget will mean higher tuition, thousands of students turned away, and services slashed. “Corporate bankers are stealing money from all of us and they don’t pay taxes,” she said. “So giving them your money is investing in a lost cause.” The club urged students to take their money out of big corporate banks and deposit it in community banks and credit unions, some of which had set up tables outside the auditorium.

Berkeley Community College students are also participating in student protests in Sacramento, joining what has become an annual spring ritual in which public employees and advocates for education and social services travel to the state Capitol to oppose budget cuts. Teachers, students, parents, mothers on welfare, people with disabilities, and others plead for programs they depend on and tell their personal stories of why proposed cuts would be devastating.

Typically political strategists advise them to avoid the question of where the money to fund the services will come from, lest they incur Republican wrath by using the “t” word: taxes. This year, though, the new spirit of activism seems to be emboldening some advocates to say out loud what they’ve been whispering for years: “tax the rich.”

“We’re not just fighting defensive battles,” said Fred Glass, spokesperson for the California Federation of Teachers (CFT). “We’re going on the offensive.” The CFT created ammunition with a poll asking California voters how they felt about raising the income tax on the rich. The results, released April 1, show that 78 percent of Californians support raising the personal income tax rate of 1 percent on the top 1 percent of taxpayers (those making more than $500,000 a year). Sixty percent of Republican respondents also agreed.

Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D.-Berkeley) has introduced a bill for an increase of “1 percent on the 1 percent,” and the CFT is working to put together a coalition of unions and community organizations to promote it. Glass says he’s getting more invitations to deliver his workshop on fair taxes to unions and community groups.

Meanwhile the other teachers union, the California Teachers Association, charges that “the Legislature’s failure to protect basic, essential services is destroying our future,” has declared a “state of emergency” and is calling for a week of actions May 9–13 in local communities and Sacramento, beginning and ending with a “takeover” of the state Capitol by hundreds of teachers.

Will this new spirit of progressive activism grow into a force capable of challenging corporate power?

“I just feel the hope that people are resilient,” Camacho said. “We’ve been through difficult times. What we need to do is turn this into a movement that builds and builds, where people are energized, where people find their voice, find the energy to lift their heads and say, ‘We’re not going to take it any more. We’ve got to stand together.'”

For now, ACCE, SEIU, PICO, US Uncut, and other groups are planning a “militant protest” at the Wells Fargo shareholders meeting in San Francisco May 3. 2

Editorial: Stop the garbage giveaway

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April 19, 2011

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Impertinent questions to the supervisors: After awarding multi-million dollar tax breaks and giveaways to Twitter and others, and after being unable to raise PG&E’s ultra-low 1939 franchise fee, why would you cement Recology’s monopoly contract in San Francisco with no franchise fee? Will you support the move by Sup. David Campos to put the 1932 agreement on the fall ballot and give the voters a chance to mandate a competitive bidding process and a real franchise fee on the $275 million deal? If not, I’d appreciate your reasoning. B3

A few years back, when Aaron Peskin was president of the Board of Supervisors, he decided that the contract to perform budget and policy analysis ought to go out to bid. Supporters of longtime budget analyst Harvey Rose were aghast — Rose, by all accounts, does a great job watching the city’s dollars and helping the supervisors evaluate proposals. He has more than 30 years of institutional knowledge and memory; the very thought of replacing him seemed insane.

But Rose works as a private contractor, and for decades, he had the equivalent of a no-bid contract — the same sort of deal he and his staff have warned against. So the supervisors took bids — and, to nobody’s surprise, Rose won the contract. That was the right outcome. Except that faced with a competitive bid, he lowered his prices, and the city saved about $500,000.

That’s an important lesson, one the supervisors ought to keep in mind on April 20 when they consider the latest version of a proposal to award the contract for taking the city’s trash to a landfill. Two competing outfits, Recology and Waste Management, are fighting for the lucrative deal. It’s a complex environmental and policy issue: Recology is proposing to haul the trash all the way to Yuba County, and Waste Management would truck it to the existing Altamont landfill. But there’s a critical policy issue hanging in the background.

Since 1932, the company now known as Recology (formerly Sunset Scavenger then Norcal Solid Waste Systems) has had an exclusive, no-bid contract to collect garbage within the San Francisco city limits. The contract to haul the stuff over the bridge and out of town gets put out to bid, but only Recology can pick up residential and commercial garbage. The rates are set by the director of public works. And Recology pays the city nothing — zero — in franchise fees. (The only money the city gets from the garbage company is some $7.5 million a year that goes to the Department of Environment.) Oakland, with about half the number of customers, gets $29 million a year for its general fund from its garbage contractors; by that standard, San Francisco could pull in at least another $14 million a year, maybe more. And it’s not as if Recology is hurting — the company’s San Francisco revenue last year was $275 million.

Both the budget analyst and a private report commissioned by the city’s Local Agency Formation Commission have recommended that San Francisco put its garbage contract out to bid. In fact, the LAFCO report, done by R3 Consulting, notes that San Francisco is the only one of 95 cities surveyed in the Bay Area that had no competitive bidding process for local garbage hauling — and is the only city that has neither a bidding process nor a formal franchise agreement. According to the consultant, “it does not appear that Recology is contractually obligated to 1 ) negotiate with San Francisco or 2) continue providing service.”

This is utterly unacceptable. Sup. David Campos is absolutely right to be proposing a ballot measure that would mandate competitive bidding. And if he can’t find three more supervisors to sign on (and wouldn’t that be a sad statement), citizen activists are prepared to gather signatures.

We recognize that Recology is a local, worker-owned company with fully unionized employees and good benefits. That should — and will — be a factor in any bidding process. But no $275 million deal should be awarded to anyone in perpetuity, without the city having any leverage to negotiate.

The bid to haul waste to the landfill is directly related: If the board awards Recology that contract too, then the company will have such a monopoly that competitive bidding would be difficult. The committee should continue that item until the board figures out how to handle Recology’s overall contract. Rushing it through now would be a bad mistake.

The Performant: I’m aware of the dark

Andrew Lam

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April 19, 2011

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David Thomas and Joanna Haigood explore the shadows of the American Dream

“There’s no real trick to living life like a ghost,” David Thomas assures an excited contingent of experimental music enthusiasts from a makeshift stage set up in performer Erica Blue’s Oakland warehouse residence. Best known for his iconoclastic avant-rock combo Pere Ubu, Thomas’s stage persona may be less openly confrontational than in younger days, but he wears the mantle of curmudgeonly grand-père with a sense of historical imperative.

Accompanied by multi-faceted musician (and jovial straight man) Ralph Carney on clarinet, Thomas’s additional instrumentation involved nothing more than a small button accordion punctuated by a few spare samples pulled up on a cigarette-ash-streaked iPad. His singing voice was weathered yet resonant, like the creaking of an old barn door, and he made good use of the melodic rumble of his speaking voice in the conversational manner of a clairvoyant storyteller, interspersing long, poetic passages from works such as “Mirror Man” with tragic-comic tunes such as “Sad.Txt.” admonishing that “time will catch up to you/like it caught me too.” Within each song shimmered an elusive portrait of the America of the dispossessed: roadside cafes and long lonesome stretches, broken hearts attached to broken people, living ghosts, and dark spaces. “I’m aware of the dark,” he crooned during his encore, while an empathetic shiver passed through the room.

Opening act, The Wounded Stag, an inventively disturbing collaboration between performance artist Dan Carbone and musician Andrew Goldfarb, a.k.a. The Slow Poisoner (plus a cameo appearance by dancer Erica Blue) provided a worthy introduction to the darkside, with lyrics like “please don’t let me go to heaven with a swollen gun in my pocket,” and “aren’t we all already dead?” Crooning, warbling, screaming, even grunting like a monkey, singer-lyricist Carbone’s expressive use of props and masks underscored his theatrical background while Goldfarb, another amiable foil, provided the swamp-rock tinged musical ballast with his electric guitar and a single, expressive kickdrum.

On the other side of the Bay Bridge, Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre company was remounting their 2008 exploration of racism in America, The Monkey and the Devil at YBCA. Inventively set in an installation known as “a house divided” (designed by Charles Trapolin), two section of a single wooden edifice split in two and mounted on shaky, unbalanced foundations, Monkey featured two couples, one black, one white. Mocking each other’s mannerisms and posturing for dominance, the women started the piece off, culminating in a pitched battle royale in a boxing spotlight “ring”. Settling back into their separate quarters, they proceeded to hurl racially-charged epithets at each other in muted monotones until abruptly the tenor of the scene shifted to one of palpable threat as the men leapt to the top of each “house” and then through the windows, menacing the women with silence and measuring tapes which coiled and uncoiled like whips.

In the final tableau, each couple danced in desperate tandem, being spun violently around and around by a member of the other duo to a soundtrack of waves and traffic which crashed over their bodies slamming against the wooden walls of their unstable fortresses. After a pause the cycle resumed itself, this time with the men in the posturing position. Then once more with the women, an endlessly repeating loop, as fitting a metaphor for the persistence of racism in America as any written word.

Anti nuclear movement gears up

Zelda Bronstein

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April 14, 2011

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The ongoing battle to stop Pacific Gas and Electric Co. from renewing its license to operate the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant continued April 14th as part of a nationwide antinuclear campaign. In the wake of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear facility, activists around the country are calling on the California Public Utilities Commission and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to cease issuing license renewals.

A demonstration of about four dozen lively activists on the steps of the CPUC office across from City Hall followed a public hearing at which more than 30 speakers expressed concern about the presence of nukes in California. “This is basically an introduction event,” Jason Ahmadi, an Oakland resident and member of the April Action Committee, the group that organized the protest, told the Guardian. “We came out today to make the statement to shut down nuclear facilities.”

“The PUC acts as an interface between the industry and residents,” Jan Lundberg, oil analyst and founder of the nonprofit Culture Change, said. “The system is out of control. We are trying to keep the truth about nuclear power out there.” The truth, Lundberg, who spoke in front of the CPUC, includes the irresponsibility of plants creating radioactive waste that will be toxic for thousands of years — and the risk factors associated with generating nuclear power and maintaining nuclear facilities.

“I do not approve of nuclear power,” he said. “It’s my planet too. There is a vast overabundance of energy in California. We need to conserve. We need to share.”

Activists also presented arguments in favor of phasing out nuclear power in California at the Senate Energy Committee in Sacramento today.

On another anti-nuclear front, close to 45 organizations filed a petition challenging the way the NRC conducts business. NRC officials are required to respond to the petition, according to Jane Swanson, spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo-based Mothers For Peace spokesperson. The petition calls for the suspension of six existing reactor license renewal decisions, including Diablo Canyon as well as permit decisions for 21 proposed nuclear reactor projects in 15 states, according to a Physicians for Social Responsibility news release.

Swanson told us she thinks it’s possible that the NRC will suspend nuclear licenses. “I don’t think this many groups would be working so hard these last few days without a strong possibility of it happening,” Swanson said

“There is precedent. Lessons have been learned,” she said. The historical precedent Swanson mentioned was a review of all U.S. nuclear facilities after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, a review that triggered the NRC to suspend all licensing decisions of nukes at that time.

Currently, Mothers for Peace is suing the NRC and PG&E to require seismic studies of earthquake faults around the plant that have only been recently discovered before PG&E’s license is renewed. PG&E requested in a letter to the NRC on April 10 that the commission delay the final processing of the application to renew its license, which would keep DCPP operating until 2045, until 3-D seismic studies— studies the CPUC approved funding for in August of last year— were completed. In response to the company’s attempt to assuage the public’s concern over Diablo Canyon’s long-term safety Swanson said, “PG&E is not really interested in working with anyone, they only care about profits.”

Mothers for Peace will hold a rally in opposition of license renewal on April 16, in Avila Beach adjacent to the DCPP in San Luis Obispo.

Your Black Muslim Bakery leader had Chauncey Bailey killed, bakery follower testifies

Sasha Cuttler

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April 13, 2011

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Your Black Muslim Bakery leader had Chauncey Bailey killed, bakery follower testifies

Report from The Chauncey Bailey Project, of which the Guardian is a member:

By Thomas Peele/Bay Area News Group

OAKLAND — Yusuf Bey IV told one of his followers shortly after the shooting death of Chauncey Bailey that the journalist “slandered” Your Black Muslim Bakery and Bey IV bragged he did what he “had to do,” a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

With the follower, Dawud Bey, also known as Dwight Smith, on the stand, Deputy District Attorney Melissa Krum asked him if he gave a statement to investigators in which he said Bey IV told him he had Bailey killed.

“They twisted up my words,” Dawud Bey answered. “I was just giving my opinion.”

Krum then read jurors a report prepared by another prosecutor, Christopher Lamiero, and an inspector, Michael Foster, after they interviewed Dawud Bey while investigating Bailey’s murder.

“You didn’t tell them Yusuf Bey IV told you, ‘I did what I had to do?’ ” Krum said, waving the report.

“No,” answered Dawud Bey, 23. “That was just my opinion.”

“So your opinion is that Bey IV had (Bailey) killed because he had to. Is that what you’re saying?” Krum asked.

“Yeah,” the witness responded.

When Bey IV’s lawyer objected to an opinion being stated as fact, Judge Thomas Reardon let the answer stand.

Reardon said Krum “intends to present other witnesses who will testify” that Dawud Bey made the statement as a fact and was quoting Bey IV directly.

Dawud Bey’s statement is the first time a second person corroborated the account from Devaughndre Broussard, Bailey’s confessed killer, who said Bey IV ordered the journalist killed to stop him from writing an article about the bakery in the Oakland Post. Bey IV, 25, has pleaded not guilty to ordering the death and his attorney has said Broussard was lying when he testified Bey IV sanctioned the murder.

Bey IV is also charged with ordering the killings of two other men, Odell Roberson and Michael Wills. His co-defendant, Antoine Mackey, 25, is charged with killing Wills and helping Broussard kill Bailey and Roberson.

Dawud Bey spent about two hours on the stand Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. He described himself as a Black Muslim “warrior” and said the bakery “still lives on in my heart. The bakery was a beautiful place. It brought truth to our people.”

He testified that Bey IV was the bakery’s commanding officer and required followers to salute him as if they were in the military.

Krum spent about 20 minutes asking him about Bey IV’s teachings about “white devils.” Broussard has testified that Bey IV and Mackey bragged they killed Wills in July 2007 because he was white, saying they boasted they “got a devil.”

“All whites are devils by nature,” Dawud Bey said on the stand. African-Americans, he said, are not devils by nature but can become them through their actions. Some whites, he said, can stop being devils if they are kind and helpful to blacks.

References to white devils “came up a lot” around the bakery and in Bey IV’s sermons, he said.

Asked about Black Muslims who had killed whites believing they are devils, he said, “that’s a good thing in my opinion. They are brothers who do what they have to do. If you are confronted by chaos, you have to stand up and do what is right.”

As he left court after finishing his testimony, Dawud Bey paused briefly in front of several members of the Bey family in the audience, raised his hands palm up, and bowed.

Also Tuesday, the father of a man convicted of killing Bey IV’s older brother, Antar Bey, in 2005 testified that he saw people he knew as bakery followers drive by his house numerous times after his son’s arrest for the slaying.

Broussard testified that Bey IV wanted the man, Alfonza Phillips Sr., killed as retribution for Antar Bey’s death; Alfonza Phillips Jr. was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole in December 2007.

But Broussard said he was never able to find Phillips Sr., so he said Bey IV eventually told him to kill another relative, Roberson.

Phillips Sr., a retired postal worker, said he frequently saw men from the bakery driving past his house in a black BMW with vanity plates that read “DR. BEY.”

“They were staring at me like I am supposed to run,” Phillips said. “I just stood there. Here I am. It wasn’t the same person every day.

In afternoon testimony, a man with a record of drug and gun crimes told jurors that Bey IV approached him for a loan “to save the bakery” in 2007 but the man instead helped set up what became a botched kidnapping and robbery of a woman.

The man, Albert “Johnny” Antone, was flown in to testify from an undisclosed state where he awaiting trial on gun charges.

Bey IV, he said, was dating one of his daughters. Shortly before Bey IV asked him for money, Antone said he had been the victim of a home invasion robbery where men posing as police officers took $85,000 in cash and jewelry worth more than $150,000.

He said he “heard on the street” that a woman to whom he sometimes sold cocaine set him up. So rather than lend Bey IV money, he suggested robbing the woman. Bey IV could keep the money and Antone would get her drugs, Antone testified.

He said he also urged Bey IV to rob one of his rival drug dealers.

On May 17, 2007, Antone said he saw the woman’s car at an East Oakland bingo parlor and called Bey IV. Eventually, five bakery members were charged with kidnapping and torturing the woman in a failed attempt to learn where the rival kept drugs and money.

Two of Bey IV half brothers, Yusuf Bey V and Joshua Bey, took plea deals. A bakery follower, Richard Lewis, was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Bey IV and another man, Taom Halfin, have yet to be tried in the case.

Krum has built much of her case on the premise that Bey IV was desperate for money to save the bakery from bankruptcy. Killing Bailey, she said in her opening statement, was an extension of those efforts, because he feared anything that Bailey wrote might impact his ability to borrow money. He also thought the murder would intimidate lenders who would then not turn him down.

Antone said he asked Bey IV not to hurt the woman “because I wasn’t hurt and no one in my house was hurt” when he was robbed. The woman, who testified at Lewis’ trial, has not been identified by name because she was tortured.

Antone received a grant of immunity in the kidnapping and torture case to testify in the murder case.

As court ended for the day, Krum told Reardon that an unidentified man used two fingers as if they were a gun and gestured twice as if firing two shots at Antone has he left the courtroom. A district attorney’s inspector also saw the hand motion.

Reardon expressed concern. “If it was intimidation, then I need to do something about it,” he said, adding that he would ask his bailiffs to investigate.

Contact investigative reporter Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.

The tale of two trials

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

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news@sfbg.com

Since March 21, reporters representing the cream of American journalism have been camped out in the Bay Area covering two high-profile trials.

In an Oakland courtroom, two men are accused of being involved in three murders, including that of Chauncey Bailey, a journalist who was writing a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery. In San Francisco, baseball home run king Barry Bonds is accused of telling a federal grand jury that he never knowingly took steroids.

Apart from the fact that both trials are taking place simultaneously and all the defendants are African American, there is a disparity in how these cases are being treated by the media, both local and national.

The Bailey trial is being covered by fewer than a dozen reporters from mostly local media: the Oakland Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, KTVU, American Urban Radio Networks, CBS Radio, NPR, the Guardian, the Associated Press, ABC 7 News, several websites, and bloggers. Some are there every day, others are not. To be fair, there was more media coverage for the first few days of the trial.

According to KCBS reporter Doug Sovern, who is covering the Bonds trial, the press list includes “KCBS, KGO Radio (some of the time), KQED (occasionally), Westwood One, Channels 2 (KTVU), 4, 5, 7, 11, Comcast Sports Net, ESPN, CNN, Bloomberg, the Associated Press, Agency France Presse, the Chronicle (a reporter and a columnist every day; sometimes two columnists,) the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Bay Area News Group (including the San Jose Mercury News), Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, a few other bloggers, stringers, and people I don’t recognize,” writes Sovern in an e-mail. “I would say that adds up to about 30, plus still photographers. Probably close to 40 in all, plus THREE sketch artists!”

Media experts say the Bailey trial is far more significant when you look at how both cases affect society.

“Obviously Barry Bonds is one of the greatest baseball players of all time,” said Louis Freedberg, senior reporter for California Watch, one of the units at the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley. “You add to that the celebrity factor in a society that is completely obsessed with celebrities, regardless if they do good or bad, I can see how it’s easy to define this (Bailey) as a local story and shunt it aside.”

But the problem is that society depends on journalists to provide truth and information and to hold those in power accountable. There are many countries where journalists are arrested and/or killed for writing stories that someone doesn’t like.

An independent press was a top priority for America’s founding fathers, right behind establishing the military.

“Establishing a free press was viewed as fundamental,” said Freedberg. “I don’t think they talked about baseball players at that time, so when you have a journalist being assassinated, that strikes at the core of what this society stands for — or should stand for.”

That belief was so strong after Bailey was killed that journalists, including the author, came together to form the Chauncey Bailey Project to finish Bailey’s work and make sure that everyone who was involved in the assassination was brought to justice.

“Some media are covering this deeply — the ones that covered it here — so I don’t want to make a blanket condemnation. But, yeah, I think the Bailey trial has much broader symbolism and importance to the United States than the trial of Barry Bonds,” said Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting and executive editor of the Chauncey Bailey Project.

Another issue that has caused concern in the African American community is how boys and men of color are portrayed in the news media. “Usually when you see this demographic in the press, they are accused of crime, victims of crime, or playing sports,” said Dori Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

In the Bonds case, the media are hitting two out of three — a great average for baseball, but a Bonds conviction will have virtually no impact on American democracy.

The media should cover the Bonds trial, but it should not forget about the Bailey trial, which will still be going when the Bonds trial ends.

If those who are on trial for killing Bailey are indeed guilty but are allowed to go free, it will send a message that journalists — the people who keep society informed and hold those in power accountable — are fair game. (Bob Butler)

This story first appeared at www.maynardije.org, the website of the Maynard Institute, a member of the Chauncey Bailey Project, of which the Guardian is also a member.

LATEST TRIAL NEWS: JUDGE DENIES DEFENSE MOTION AFTER REPORTER RECEIVES DEATH THREAT

On April 11, a defense attorney in the Chauncey Bailey murder trial asked the judge to ban jurors from reading newspapers or using the Internet for the duration of the trial after the Bay Area News Group and the Chauncey Bailey Project reported that a journalist had received a death threat while reporting a story related to the now defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery.

Gary Sirbu, who is representing codefendant Antoine Mackey, made the request as the trial resumed Monday, April 11. Articles about the threat were published Saturday, April 9 on the front page of Bay Area News Group publications, including the Oakland Tribune.

Judge Thomas Reardon asked jurors if they had read any news stories over the weekend about the telephone threat made to reporter Josh Richman. By a show of hands, jurors indicated they had not read the articles.

Reardon denied Sirbu’s request, saying he did not want to make such an order. But the judge again cautioned jurors to avoid any news coverage about the case or anything related to Your Black Muslim Bakery. (Thomas Peele)

Working on it

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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caitlin@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE With the recession fast seeping into the everyday fabric of American life (or at least Monday through Friday’s fabric), the enthusiasm that the term “green jobs” generates can be well understood. But can we really call a $10 hourly pay rate for installing solar panels sustainable? And what would be the bigger of the two triumphs: creating a carbon-free country or a more equitable nation? With partnerships springing up across the country like the Blue Green Alliance, created by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, maybe the two goals aren’t so separate after all. Here are some West Coast organizations fighting to make sure that the environmentally-friendly jobs that do exist — and have yet to be created — pay a decent wage.

OAKLAND GREEN JOBS CORPS

Created by the long-time civil rights champions at the Ella Baker Center and other community partners, this program recruits poor young adults to a 38-week course of study that recognizes what it takes to break the cycle of unemployment. Participants begin with classes in basic job skills, literacy, and substance abuse counseling, then continue on to classes at Laney College in basic construction skills, eco-literacy, and specialized green building practices. At graduation, participants are hooked up with well-paying jobs in the green construction sector or traditional building trade union apprenticeships — where their newfound environment-saving skills will make them leaders in the years to come.

www.ellabakercenter.org

CALIFORNIA INTERFAITH POWER AND LIGHT

Pray for change — or change the way you pray? Created 10 years ago in SF, CIPL, whose work has since spread to 38 state affiliates, aides faith communities of all denominations in greening their place of worship. Greatest hits include installing a geothermal heating system in a Berkeley synagogue, work on First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco, and tricking out a Bayview-Hunters Point church with solar panels on the congregation’s extremely limited budget. Workers hired to make the holy places sing a song of sustainability are usually sourced from organizations like Richmond Build, which provides training to many people living in public housing and with criminal records.

www.interfaithpower.org

APOLLO ALLIANCE

Apollo Alliance, another nationwide coalition-building organization that got its start in SF, is making green jobs happen in Los Angeles — with or without federal dollars. The group sponsored the city’s Green Retrofit and Workforce ordinance, which required that municipal buildings achieve LEED certification at the silver level or higher, prioritizing updates on the buildings that were near areas with low income and high unemployment rates. Linked directly to workforce training programs, the ordinance is already under attack in Washington by H.R.1, a bill that would strip its funding. But L.A. is making the first move on the threat — the city is hoping to fund the successful program through energy conservation bonds.

www.apolloalliance.org

GREEN FOR ALL

Erstwhile Obama appointee, environmental rock star, and Ella Baker Center founder Van Jones started this organization in 2008 to place the war on poverty at the heart of the sustainability movement. Sure, with offices around the country, it’s not exactly local. But the group plays an important role supporting nationwide policies that will make green jobs fair and just for workers. Plus, it led the charge against last year’s Prop. 23 challenge to the growth of green technologies, taking to the road in a bus that interviewed community members and green energy experts in 10 Californian cities. Plus, it kicked ass with a media campaign smart enough to best the bummers at PG&E and other public utilities.

www.greenforall.org

It’s not easy being green

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

0

culture@sfbg.com

A smattering of the phenomenal sustainability people and places you can plug into around the Bay.

Green your home

FISHPHONE

Yeah, yeah, you watched The Cove and try to keep up on the latest bycatch horror stories — but sometimes you’re out with friends and that petrale sole looks divine … eek, was it on the “good” list? Text 30644 with the word “FISH” and the name of the waterway inhabitant in question (or be fancy and use the iPhone app) and within minutes you’ll receive a text with its sustainability level — and the rationale behind it.

www.blueocean.org/fishphone

GHOST TOWN FARM

It has been said that the key to success is having good role models. And if your aim is growing your own meals inside city limits, you could do a lot worse than Novella Carpenter. Her book Urban Farmer gave a tantalizing primer on her life farming in West Oakland, and her blog provides inspiration, tips, and community farming news. Carpenter is currently sparring with Oakland city government over urban farming regulations, but we’re confident she’ll pull through in the end — and educate us all while doing so.

ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com

ALEMANY FARMERS MARKET

“Affordable” usually isn’t the first word that comes to mind when it comes to local, natural foods. The Alemany farmers market became the first to open in the Bay Area in 1943, and is affectionately referred to as “the people’s market.” It’s rumored to be one of the most affordable markets in the city, and is well-known for supporting small farmers.

Every Saturday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. 100 Alemany, SF

ECOVIAN

Ever wonder if your favorite coffee shop or tapas bar is as green as you want it be? This website has user-generated sustainability ratings of hundreds of city eateries (not to mention helpful rankings of businesses from spas to furniture stores).

www.ecovian.com

Cleaner commutin’

POST-CAR PRESS

One of the hardest parts about being car-free are those days when you just want to get out of the city and into nature. Enter Post-Car Press, the website and guidebook assembled by East Bay couple Kelly Gregory and Justin Eichenlaub. The two give you the low-down on how to get to camp-hike spots in Marin County, Mount Diablo, even Big Sur without a motor vehicle.

www.postcarpress.org

BAY BRIDGE BICYCLE SHUTTLE

Biking and BART don’t always mix, especially at peak commute hours. That’s why Caltrans has this smart, cheap shuttle to get you and your bike across the Bay Bridge during morning and afternoon rush hours for only $1. It will pick up you and your steed and drop the two of you off at the MacArthur BART Station and SF Transbay Terminal.

www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/shuttle

PLANETTRAN TAXI SERVICES

These green taxis and shuttles will take you where you need to go without increasing your carbon you-know-what-print. With a fleet of exclusively ultra fuel-efficient vehicles in the country, it’s the first taxi service to put fuel efficiency in the front seat. PlanetTran’s primary business is in green rides to and from the San Francisco and Oakland airports.

www.planettran.com

SUSTAINABLE BIODIESEL RETAILERS ALLIANCE

An association of biodiesel companies committed to providing fuel to those who already use it — and assistance for those who want to lead their diesel engines to greener fields. Go to any of the alliance’s locations to fill up on biofuel or get help converting your vehicle to biodiesel. Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley, Dogpatch Biofuels, and People’s Fuel Cooperative located in Rainbow Grocery are all part of this groovy green oil alternative. www.autopiabiofuels.com

Green your home

SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY POWER

Partnering with the San Francisco Department of the Environment, SFCP is a nonprofit that helps small businesses and low-income residents save money and reduce environmental impact. SFCP recently launched a free Green Home Assessment Audit initiative available to all city residents that helps improve home safety, disaster-preparedness (how timely), efficiency, and ecofriendliness. It also distributes vouchers for home improvements.

www.sfpower.org

BAYVIEW GREENWASTE

This benevolent mulch-making company donated all the material needed for sheet-mulching the magnificent Hayes Valley Farm and has contributed, free, to dozens of other community projects. Even the small-time urban grower can pick up mulch, compost, or soil amendment from its SF or Redwood City sites. It also delivers (for a small fee), so go ahead and rip out those invasive, inedible weeds in front of your house. Your own patch of nature awaits.

www.bayviewgreenwaste.com

CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY

Speaking of patches of nature … visit this group’s website for gardening tips, links, and a list of local nurseries that sell native plants.

www.cnps.org

RECYCLED MATERIAL BUILDING SUPPLIES

Before you build, paint, remodel, or so much as hammer in a nail, it’s worth tripping to the Bay’s building resource centers — second-life sites for construction debris and used building supplies. The East Bay’s Urban Ore and The Reuse People host landscapes of pink toilets, claw foot tubs, and towering stacks of discontinued tile. Looking for some SF supplies? Try Building Resources in SF (www.buildingresources.org) or www.stopwaste.org.

Build your green community

SAN FRANCISCO GREEN FESTIVAL

Of course, being sustainable isn’t all heavy lifting and culinary vigilance — environmental friendliness can be a fertile way to meet your like-minded neighbors. This weekend, trek to the city’s largest green expo for more than 130 speakers, music, and exhibits featuring everything from Food Not Bombs to reclaimed redwood manufacturers.

Sat/9 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; Sun/10 11 a.m.–6 p.m., $5–$25. SF Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St., SF. www.greenfestivals.org

SF GREEN MAP

A great online visual for people looking for the nearest community garden, recycling center, and so much more, this happy cartographic achievement documents our city by highlighting its bright green hubs of activity.

www.sfgreenmap.org

GARDEN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Gardening involves more than just a tub of dirt, seeds, and a healthy appetite. To really get your hands dirty, there is a body of knowledge you’d do well to tap into. At Garden for the Environment’s Inner Sunset one-acre farm, you can learn about leafy greens while meeting like-minded seed slaves. After all, it pays to have a buddy who can plant-sit.

www.gardenfortheenvironment.org

Threads of change

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

3

rebeccab@sfbg.com ; caitlin@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE Planting indigo seedlings in a leaky greenhouse in the mist of a cold Marin County afternoon, Rebecca Burgess thinks about what she’s going to wear. She’s not a fashion model, or a clotheshorse, but she is on a yearlong quest to attire herself only in garments that were sourced and produced bio-regionally — or within a 150-mile radius of home — an area she calls her local fibershed.

Why take on such a challenge? “If we don’t want BP oil spills, it’s about more than just not fueling our cars with it,” Burgess says. While many activists seeking to unplug from oil dependency have worked to encourage bicycles, local agriculture, and reusable shopping bags, her approach takes on the materials we use to clothe our bodies.

Half of all jeans sold annually in the United States — around 200 million pairs — are produced in the Xintang township in China’s Pearl River Delta, where a Greenpeace study found hazardous organic chemicals and acidic runoff in the watershed, both of which may contribute to profound health risks for factory workers and their communities.

Of course, oil is consumed in the transport of factory-made garments halfway across the globe. But as Burgess notes, that’s only part of the reason for her project, which so far has yielded a book on the making of natural dyes and a plan for a community cotton mill in Point Reyes.

She’s also concerned about the synthetic fibers mass-manufactured clothes are made of. “We’re wearing a lot of plastic,” she notes. Not just plastic: petrochemicals, formaldehyde, and carcinogenic polycrylonitriles can all be used to produce your outfit— materials that seep into your pores when you’re active and can hardly be considered ideal to wear against your skin.

To limit support of the oil-reliant garment industry, Burgess envisions a collaboratively created source of clothing made from materials and processes that are — unlike the heavy-metal laden industrial effluent from denim dyes flowing into China’s Pearl River — completely nontoxic. To that end, she’s linking natural fiber artisans and raw material providers throughout the region with the fibershed project, which aims to bolster local clothing production.

Today, she’s the poster child for her effort. Burgess sports striped alpaca kneesocks, an organic cotton skirt sewn by a friend, and a wool sweater her mom knitted with handmade yarn, sourced from a sheep farmer they know. The clothes look well-loved, which makes sense: relying on one’s fibershed for a wardrobe is not easy. When Burgess first embarked on her yearlong bioregional clothing challenge, there wasn’t much in her dresser. “I lived out of three garments for weeks,” she laughs. “People were like, ‘You’re wearing the same thing over and over and over again.'<0x2009>”

But she found that she wasn’t the only one who believed that a change was possible in our closets. Friends, family, and a wider community of shepherds, cotton growers, knitters, seamstresses, and artisans all pitched in to help her along with the project. Burgess says this growing network underlies what it will take for communities to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. “All this is about encouraging more relationships.”

There’s Sally Fox, whose non-genetically modified colored cotton operation in the Capay Valley is the culmination of years of seed-selecting for natural color tones. There’s the 96-year old sheep farmer in Ukiah. Not to mention the hip fiber artisans based in Oakland and the young fashion students in San Francisco who were inspired by her project.

“It’s not just of value to an old spinster community, it’s of value to a young, hip generation of people who want to live in a carbon-free economy,” Burgess notes. “A bunch of urban young people are really into fibers.” Most, she adds, are women.

Burgess makes her own clothing, too, and to research her book (Harvesting Color, Artisan, 180 p., $22.95) traversed the country learning from female “wisdom-keepers,” women whose craft practices were based on passed-down traditions encouraging the health of their ecosystems.

Today is part of her latest endeavor: growing her own indigo dye so that locally made garments can be dyed blue sustainably. Her day’s work entails planting 400 indigo seeds in flats filled with soil from a ranch down the road. This spring and summer, she plans to raise 1,000 indigo plants in three garden plots just outside the greenhouse. The day the Guardian came to visit, sheep lounged in the pasture beyond her garden plots, as if to illustrate the point that this process won’t require any long-distance transport.

She realizes that few people have a greenhouse to plant indigo in, much less the time necessary to produce their own clothing — or the money needed to dress in handcrafted pieces. But by proving that it’s possible to wear clothes that were created by your own community, she hopes that people will at least “settle for second best, which in this case is wearing organic, American-made materials.”

Even that would be something — right now clothes just aren’t on most of our sustainability compasses. As an example, Burgess recalls a panel discussion she attended at which sustainable food champions Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin were speakers. Someone (“And it wasn’t even me!” she insists) asked them what role garments played in a sustainable lifestyle. “And they were speechless. They didn’t have a thing to say.”

It was a PR challenge Burgess was happy to assume — she has since struck up an e-mail correspondence with Pollan, which she hopes will spread her message further. “Clearly we need some education.”

Join Burgess and other yarn producers for a locally made fashion show and to see plans for their community mill May 1 at Toby’s Feed Barn in Point Reyes. For more information call (415) 259-5849 or visit www.rebeccarburgess.com