Opinion

There are even more inappropriate PG&E emails

Even more internal Pacific Gas & Electric Co. emails – this time flagged by activists focused on safety concerns at a nuclear power plant – raise new questions about the company’s tactics of manipulating the state regulatory process.

PG&E – which is facing federal charges in connection with a 2010 fatal gas line explosion in San Bruno – has come under scrutiny in recent months due to a series of questionable email exchanges revealing a cozy relationship between company executives and members of the California Public Utilities Commission, the state regulatory body that monitors utility spending and rate setting.

Much has been made of emails spotlighted by San Bruno officials, revealing a relationship so cozy that one PG&E executive signed off on an email with a CPUC representative by writing, “love you.” 

Those exchanges were the subject of an Oct. 7 hearing at the CPUC, and could result in financial penalties if an administrative law judge cracks down on PG&E for negotiating with state officials in what’s been dubbed a “judge-shopping” scandal. On Oct. 6, PG&E self-reported even more questionable “ex parte” communications with CPUC officials, correspondence it revealed is being scrutinized by federal prosecutors.

Meanwhile, when it came to an earthquake risk assessment at Diablo Canyon, according to a legal brief filed at the CPUC by the nuclear watchdog group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, PG&E “brazenly ignored the commission’s requirements” for working with a state-appointed independent review panel.

The panel of independent experts was appointed because the CPUC lacked staff with the expertise needed to review seismic safety studies concerning the nuclear facility, which is located in proximity to several earthquake fault lines. 

Internal PG&E emails obtained by the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, which used discovery to obtain documentation through its status as an intervener in the CPUC rulemaking process, revealed that PG&E was concerned about how to field inquiries from the independent panel.

In one email, a utility executive suggested submitting “processed” data, rather than raw data, to demonstrate how it had arrived at certain conclusions.

Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility spokesperson David Weisman discussed why that matters with an analogy: “Why don’t they want anyone else to look at the raw numbers? It’s like saying, here’s the cake. You might find that it tastes a little funny, but we aren’t going to tell you what went into it.”

In another internal PG&E email, a government affairs representative went so far as to ask his coworker: “Do you believe we could get the [independent panel] ‘decommissioned?’”

Several weeks ago, PG&E announced that it had found no safety hazard at Diablo Canyon, essentially telegraphing that there’s nothing to worry about. But that determination was made before the independent review panel had a chance to review the company’s analysis, or weigh in on whether it agreed with the science supporting this finding.

“If you release a report without the panel’s review, that’s not science,” Weisman charged. “That’s propaganda.”

PG&E did not respond to a request for comment.

As the Bay Guardian previously reported, the discovery of previously undetected fault lines around Diablo Canyon six years ago set in motion a new risk assessment to determine whether a major earthquake near San Luis Obispo, where Diablo Canyon is located, would result in power plant equipment failure. State legislators passed a law mandating that these risks be analyzed – long before Japan’s Fukushima nuclear meltdown underscored the importance of taking such hazards seriously.

Now, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is arguing that PG&E should not be allowed to recoup $64 million in ratepayer dollars that the CPUC agreed to set aside to fund the seismic study. “The CPUC granted PG&E ratepayer funding to carry out those seismic studies,” Weisman explained. “Our concern is that that the study itself is inadequate and poorly vetted.”

The Bay Guardian submitted several requests to speak with a knowledgeable CPUC staff member about the matter, but the agency did not grant an interview. Instead, public information officer Constance Gordon emailed a prepared statement that stated simply: “The Independent Peer Review Panel will review the seismic report and will hold a public meeting shortly to discuss it and receive public feedback.”

Interestingly, PG&E’s determination that Diablo Canyon is risk-free was issued on the very same day that the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission publicly dismissed the concerns of Michael Peck, the former on-site safety inspector at the nuclear facility.

The senior NRC staff member made headlines for formally suggesting that the plant should be temporarily shut down until the science could prove that it would safely withstand a major earthquake. News of Peck’s “differing professional opinion” caused California nuclear activists to immediately file petitions calling for Diablo Canyon to be shut down. 

In a lengthy op-ed published in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, Peck said he stood by his conclusion.

“I have exhausted the NRC processes for raising nuclear safety concerns,” he wrote. “At every turn, the agency reinforced that their original conclusions and actions had been correct. From my perspective, I applied the same NRC inspection standards and agency rules to the Diablo Canyon seismic issues that I’ve used to disposition many other design bases issues during my 20-plus years as an inspector. Because the [differing professional opinion] was reviewed by the highest levels of agency management, I was left with the impression that the NRC may have applied a special standard to Diablo Canyon.”

Prop. L puts cars over people

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By Fran Taylor

OPINION Just as climate change most affects people who contributed little or nothing to causing it, pollution and injury from traffic most affect communities least likely to create traffic. Nationally, people of color are four times more likely than whites to rely on public transportation. At the same time, African Americans have a pedestrian fatality rate 60 percent higher than that of whites. For Latinos, that rate is 43 percent higher.

Locally, Chinatown and the Tenderloin have some of the lowest rates of car ownership in San Francisco. Yet these poor neighborhoods suffer some of the highest rates of pedestrian injury and death, including a woman killed in a crosswalk at Stockton just last month.

Instead of acknowledging these inequities, the proponents of Proposition L on the November ballot have cast themselves as victims, claiming that pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements create impediments to their ability to drive fast and park easily.

But streetscape improvements don’t make it impossible to drive. They help make it possible to not drive. And the ability to get around without a car benefits everyone, as a matter of health and fairness.

Fewer speeding cars on the road means fewer injuries and deaths, which in San Francisco disproportionately affect people walking. Of the 19 traffic deaths so far in 2014, 13 have been pedestrians. In the wider Bay Area, these pedestrian deaths are almost twice as likely to occur in poor communities.

The Prop. L campaign claims that streetscape improvements worsen pollution by forcing drivers to idle engines and circle for parking. Free-flowing car movement is the measure’s goal. If fast traffic is so much healthier, freeways must be the healthiest of neighbors. Yet studies show that not only is asthma much more widespread near freeways, but uncontrolled asthma is twice as prevalent within two miles of that ideal zooming traffic. Meanwhile, lack of walkable access to schools and parks contributes to epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes, particularly in low-income populations and communities of color.

Medical costs throughout the city for pedestrian injuries alone amount to about $15 million a year, while the total annual health-related costs of traffic, including asthma and other conditions, come to $564 million, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The national average annual cost of owning a car is close to $10,000, likely more in San Francisco. Were families more easily able to reduce that cost by having one car instead of two or living car-free entirely, they would free up needed money for food, housing, and education. And that housing would be cheaper without parking requirements. The construction of off-street parking can add costs of up to 20 percent per unit. Prop. L demands more garages, so cars can have homes in a city where so many humans lack them.

The recent transformation of Cesar Chavez Street, led by the community group CC Puede, personifies the type of project Prop. L proponents object to. Changing a six-lane freeway on the ground did indeed slow traffic and remove some parking at intersections to accommodate pedestrian bulbouts and improve visibility, both proven safety fixes. It also made it easier for parents to cross the street with their children to Flynn and St. Anthony’s elementary schools. It made it safer for seniors and pregnant women to reach St. Luke’s Hospital. Bicycle ridership on the street has increased 400 percent. Lately, no cars have crashed into homes, a regular occurrence on the old six-lane speedway.

Prop. L proponents decry the loss of parking, but where are those spaces going? A parking lot at 17th Street between Folsom and Shotwell in the Mission is about to be ripped up to make a park designed in part by children living nearby. In a dense neighborhood with little greenery, half of the parking lot will give families crammed into crowded housing a place to walk to. The other half will eventually be used for affordable housing.

We could hardly have a clearer choice of priorities. Parking lots or parks? Parking lots or affordable housing? Prop. L is a vote for parking over people. Vote No on L.

Fran Taylor is cochair of CC Puede.

 

TIFF 2014: American standouts

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Jesse Hawthorne Ficks reports from the recent 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Previous installment here!

In high school, Hal Hartley was my first cinematic battle. On paper, his existential themes of truth, his French New Wave references, and the stilted dialogue he favored seemed like they would align perfectly with my sensibilities. Like many film students of the era, I gobbled up The Unbelievable Truth (1989), Trust (1990), and Surviving Desire (1993) multiple times. But as Simple Men (1992), Amateur (1994), and Flirt (1995) graced art-house theaters, I found Hartley’s films to be more and more like fingernails shrieking down a neverending chalkboard.

Late-night arguments over Hartley films became full-fledged deal breakers. At least one friendship was destroyed (I apologize, John Powers). And then came the climactic scene in his career-defining opus Henry Fool (1997). I felt like Hartley had finally shed his farcical facade for just one moment, allowing me to feel an overwhelming sense of insecurity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNKU8Jf3eEA

Unfortunately, he went digital shortly thereafter, and wallowed in a series of “mass-media” rants. But after an interesting return with the Parker Posey vehicle Fay Grim (2008), a sequel to Henry Fool, Hartley has concluded the trilogy with perhaps his most accessible and enjoyable film: Ned Rifle (US). Aubrey Plaza is downright hilarious as a suspicious and obsessive fan of writer Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan), perhaps tying all the characters together for one big clusterfuck. What is most refreshing about this return to form is Hartley’s self-effacing humor about his own issues; it’s also elevated by rapid-fire snappy dialogue and enough Robert Bresson references to satisfy his fans. It’s a joy to watch Hartley regulars like Posey, Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Martin Donovan give it one last (?) go in this cinematic universe. In fact, Ned Rifle might even muster up some new Hartley fans … which will hopefully result in a new generation of late-night disagreements.

Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher (US) sports Oscar-bait performances from its stellar cast: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum (yes, that Channing Tatum), and Mark Ruffalo. But it is clearly Miller’s sparse and surprising steady direction that gives this based-on-a-true-story flick its gleam. As its theme of loneliness is hauntingly accentuated across the board, I am curious if repeat viewings will enhance or detract from the film’s purposeful tone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVDmHmisQw

In my opinion, every year should be the year of exploitation pioneer Abel Ferrara’s comeback. Taking Toronto by storm with two feature films, as he did in 2014, is definitely the way to do it. His long awaited tribute Pasolini (France/Italy/Belgium) showcases Willem Dafoe as infamous Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. While the film is not the epic extravaganza that many were perhaps hoping for (it chronicles the final days of his life), this is most definitely a personal allegory for Ferrara’s own career and should be treated as such. Beautiful cinematography by Stefano Falivene (who shot Ferrara’s overlooked 2005 Mary) gives the film a distinctly classic feel that seemed to baffle some critics. Along with Dafoe’s pitch-perfect Pasolini, Maria De Madeiros fleshes out a wonderfully campy part as Laura Betti, one of the director’s best friends.

At a crisp 86 minutes, Ferrara’s film attempts to communicate with Pasolini’s uncompromising drive and artistic endeavors. There is a stunning scene in which Pasolini, amid an interview with an Italian TV reporter, gives a 10-minute soliloquy about the importance (and difficulty) of holding onto one’s artistic vision; every student of film should watch it on a daily basis.

Ferrara made headlines beyond TIFF with his other 2014 entry: Welcome to New York (France/US), which gives Gérard Depardieu his meatiest role in years. Based on the true story of French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn, infamously charged with the sexual assault of a hotel maid during a visit to New York City, it contains a monster-like performance from Depardieu (who hasn’t been without his own controversies of late). It’s bound to invite direct comparisons to Harvey Keitel’s balls-to-the-wall role in Bad Lieutenant (1992).

The film has garnered ecstatic write-ups, along with downright repulsed responses. The real Strauss-Kahn has announced he will be taking legal action against the film, but what’s most baffling is that according to an Indiewire report, “IFC Films wants him to deliver an R-rated cut” to American audiences. And Ferrara is livid (see the Indiewire article for his colorful quotes). Luckily, Toronto’s Royal Independent Theatre was screening the uncut, international version; as is, it’s one of the best films of the year. Transgressive cinema with a soul has always been Ferrara’s modus operandi. It’s your duty as a film lover to refuse to watch IFC’s censored version and seek out Ferrara’s original cut.

With While We’re Young (US), Noah Baumbach delivered a more sophisticated take on what is fast becoming an Y2Teen sub-genre: white yuppie 40somethings vs. white hipster 20somethings. What started with surprise PG hit Grown Ups 2 (2013) was reconfigured into an R-rated success with Neighbors. Baumbach’s spin on this story pits Ben Stiller and his iPhone against Adam Driver and his laid-back, vinyl collecting, vlog artist. The film works wonderfully on most levels as the aging couple (Stiller and Naomi Watts) find themselves caught in limbo land between adolescence and would-be parents. But with a surprisingly lackluster final act that discards the younger perspective as easily as an unaware 45-year-old might, it felt for the first time like Baumbach has actually lost a step himself.

Folsom Special: Guerrilla Queer Bar returns as leather “Pop-Up”

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Picture it: the Marina, 2000, a club called Trap Door playing goofy throwback hip-hop, shirty dudes and “woo” girls playing the heter-mating game with hetero-abando.

In strut a gaggle of rough and ready queers, me included, part of Guerrilla Queer Bar, to shake things up and sprinkle a little unicorn rainbow dust (and wig hair) on the proceedings. Web 1.0 was in full effect, queers were losing their spaces, and so we wanted to “take it back” by invading “straight” neighborhoods and wreaking a little lavender havoc — you know, to even things out and have fun. It was kind of the original flashmob, spread only by the limited social media of the time (i.e. email listservs). 

And that’s when the shiny-cuffed bro pulled out a $20 and told me to make out with his male roommate so he and his friends could watch. “We’ve never seen two guys make out in real life!” he said. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, but damn right I took his money stright up, and cultural experiences were shared all ’round.

Now, just in time for Folsom frolicking (most of it restricted to Soma), GQB is back, but in a much more global-reaching form called “Pop-Up Gay Bar,” still intending to challenge assumptions gay and straight in unexpected neighborhoods, while downing some yummy cocktails and making new friends. The next one will take place tomorrow, Fri/21 — sign up at the link above to get the details! Let’s take some queer leather and love to the normals.

I talked to Brian McConnell, Pop-Up Gay Bar organizer (along with Sister Selma Soul and a few others).

SFBG What prompted you to reactivate GQB  — and in this new form?

Brian Mcconnell A couple things prompted me.

One was going to eastern Tennessee a couple of months ago for my grandfather’s 95 birthday. This is in serious Appalachia (Smokey Mountains etc). Before I left, I stopped at a sports bar near the regional airport, and overheard the bartender talking with customers about his BF, etc. Twenty years ago you’d get beaten to a pulp, and then the cops would laugh at you for being a faggot. So obviously things have changed a lot, even in redneck country. It’s not the Castro, of course, but clearly things have improved, at least to the point people feel comfortable being more open now.

The other thing motivating me is I feel like the trend of everyone moving to the city is about played out. Yes, we’d all like to live in a cute house in a cute neighborhood, etc, but there’s only so much space, and the people who are already entrenched don’t want to move. So I think there are going to be a lot of people bypassing places like SF for other places. I moved here in 1994, partly because being gay and spending a lot of time in the South I was tired of that climate, and partly because I grew up around computers. At the time, it was really the only option professionally and personally. If it were today, I don’t know that I’d feel the same way about SF. It’s still a great place, but I don’t think the pull is as obvious now. What was a no-brain decision is less so now. (For context, I thought $800/month for a crappy 1 BR in the Tenderknob was expensive).

SFBG Who is all involved in the reboot, and have you launched in other cities yet?

BM In SF, it’s primarily me and Sister Selma Soul, who ran Pink Saturday for several years.

We’ve heard from people who are interested in organizing events in Marin/Sonoma, a guerrilla transgender event in East Bay, Baltimore and Harlem. The Pop Up Gay Bar system is set up so organizers can send email to people in their vicinity. It’s a location aware email listserv that I built. We’re letting it develop organically outside SF, since we noticed that GQB was different in each city it spread to.

SFBG What are some of your favorite GQB memories?

BM “Priscilla Queen of Walnut Creek” (Green Tortoise bus caravan to the East Bay). I remember Peaches Christ driving around a Safeway in one of the granny carts announcing “I need a price check for a rump roast.”

Saint Patricia’s Day. These two Irish tourists emailed us in advance of their trip to ask if we could organize something for them. At first we thought this a bit presumptuous, then realized they’d be here in March. So we organized a Saint Patrick’s Day parade two weeks early in Chinatown and made them the grand marshals.

“I’m Dreaming of a White Necklace.” We rented out (porn theater) The Campus Theatre for a Christmas party. Pro tip: if you are going to organize a completely illegal party across the street from a police precinct, rent searchlights and put out a red carpet (they’ll assume it’s legit).

SFBG Have you finalized this year’s location — and are you encouraging people to wear leather?

BM People can sign up at the site to get the information sent to them. On the record, we’re headed to Union Square, think of SantaCon with chaps. And yes, we are encouraging leather, or clowns, or whatever freak flag people want to fly.

SFBG What do you think the biggest challenges for queers are right now, both in the Bay Area and the country at large?

BM I think in general there has been a loss of LGBT space. Even in SF, gay bars have been disappearing (most recently Esta Noche), and there’s hardly anything here for lesbians. Outside SF, you’re lucky if there’s a place within an hour’s drive. So we’re hoping PUGB will spread, and that even the smallest towns will use it or something like it to create local space.

SFBG Should we bring our own girly drink to the pop up? Because what if there’s only beer.

BM You should always bring a flask.

While we definitely plan to have fun around SF, this time around its much more about getting this rolling everywhere, even places like Morristown, TN. That would be a good SF export in my opinion, and it is the kind of thing SF is good at starting.

Rep Clock: Sep 17-23, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/17-Tue/23 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “ATA Lives!”: •¡O No Coronado! (Baldwin, 1992) and Wild Gunmen (Baldwin, 1978), Fri, 7; Sonic Outlaws (Baldwin, 1995), Fri, 9. “Other Cinema:” “Anomalies From the Archive:” Technicolor N.G., performance and talk by artists and archivists Walter Forsberg and John Klacsmann, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” Holding on to Jah (Hall, 2011), Thu, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Repo Man (Cox, 1984), Wed, 7:30, and The Return of the Living Dead (O’Bannon, 1985), Wed, 9:15. •Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Thu, 7, and Petulia (Lester, 1968), Thu, 9:25. “Midnites for Maniacs:” “Diegetic Odysseys Double Feature:” •Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen and Coen, 2013), Fri, 7:20, and Coal Miner’s Daughter (Apted, 1980), Fri, 9:30. “SF Silent Film Festival: Silent Autumn:” “Another Fine Mess: Silent Laurel and Hardy Shorts (1928-29),” Sat, 11am; The Son of the Sheik (Fitzmaurice, 1926), with a new score by the Alloy Orchestra, Sat, 1; “A Night at the Cinema in 1914,” short films with a World War I focus and with music by Donald Sosin, Sat, 3:30; The General (Keaton, 1926), with Alloy Orchestra, Sat, 7; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920), Sat, 9. For tickets and more info, visit www.silentfilm.org. Frozen (Buck and Lee, 2013), Sun, 1, presented sing-along style. This event, $11-16. •Los Angeles Plays Itself (Andersen, 2003), Sun, 6, and Model Shop (Demy, 1968), Sun, 9:05. “A Celebration of Arturo Galster (1959-2014),” Mon, 7:30. Free event. •The World According to Garp (Roy Hill, 1982), Tue, 7, and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996), Tue, 4:45, 9:30.

CENTURY THEATERS @ PACIFIC COMMONS 43917 Pacific Commons, Fremont; www.theworldindiefilmfest.com. $15. “The World’s Independent Film Festival,” films raising awareness about global, cultural, and social issues, Sat-Sun.

“CINE+MAS PRESENTS: SAN FRANCISCO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL” Various venues including Opera Plaza Cinema, 601 Van Ness, SF; www.sflatinofilmfestival.org. Sixth annual festival celebrating work from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and other Latin American countries, plus the US, including documentaries, narratives, and short films. Sept 19-27.

COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo and Russo, 2014), Thu, 8:45.

EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Off the Screen:” Technicolor N.G., performance and talk by artists and archivists Walter Forsberg and John Klacsmann, Thu, 8. “Saturday Cinema:” “Experimental Films by Kids from the Film-Makers’ Cooperative,” Sat, 1, 3.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SF 530 Bush, SF; www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/enindex.htm. $5 suggested donation. “100 Years After WWI:” Majub’s Journey (Knopf, 2013), Wed, 6:30.

GRAND LAKE 3200 Grand Lake, Oakl; www.mecaforpeace.org. $10. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Wed, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Critics’ Choice, Classic and Quirky Americana:” Bedside (Florey, 1934), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” “Films of James Broughton (1948-81),” Wed, 7. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Tout va bien (Godard and Gorin, 1971), Thu, 7; One P.M. (Pennebaker, 1971), Sun, 5; Letter to Jane: Investigation of a Still (Godard and Gorin, 1972), Sun, 7. “Eyes Wide: The Films of Stanley Kubrick:” Lolita (1962), Fri, 7:30. “James Dean, Restored Classics from Warner Bros.:” Giant (Stevens, 1956), Sat, 7. “Activate Yourself: The Free Speech Movement at 50:” “Pigs, Parks, and Protesters: Films by San Francisco Newsreel (1968-69),” Tue, 7.

PALACE OF FINE ARTS 3301 Lyon, SF. “Reel Rock Tour:” Valley Uprising (2014), Wed, 7. More info on this screening ($20) at http://reelrocktour.com. Days of My Youth (2014), Fri, 8. More info for this screening (tickets $16.25) at www.skimovie.com.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. God Help the Girl (Murdoch, 2014), Wed-Thu, 9:30. Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering (Merola, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. “Frameline Encore:” Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story (Herzog and Orabona, 2014), Thu, 7. Free screening. Memphis (Sutton, 2013), Sept 19-25, 7, 9 (also Sat, 2; Sun, 3; no 7pm show Sept 25). This Ain’t No Mouse Music (Simon and Gosling, 2013), Fri-Sat, 7, 9:30 (also Sat, 2:30, 4:30); Sept 21-25, 7, 9:15 (also Sun, 4:30). Musical performances and director in person Fri and Sat; visit website for details. Microbirth (Harman and Wakeford, 2014), Sat, 4:30. “Roxie Kids:” “Charlie Chaplin Shorts,” Sun, 2. Free admission for kids under 12.

SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. Take Me to the River (Shore, 2014), Wed-Thu, call for times. This Ain’t No Mouse Music (Simon and Gosling, 2013), Sept 19-25, call for times. “Alec Guinness at 100:” The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick, 1951), Sun, 4:30, 7:30.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; lostandoutofprintfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” Queen of Burlesque (Newfield, 1946), Fri, 7:30; “LOOP presents:” “Cheap Thrills,” burlesque shorts, Sat, 7:30; The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930), Sun, 7:30.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Invasion of the Cinemaniacs:” Pietà (Kim, 2012), Thu, 7:30; Little Fugitive (Ashley, Engel, and Orkin, 1953), Sun, 2. *

 

Reform BART’s approach to labor

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By Christina Olague

OPINION If BART is part of your daily commute, you know how critical a reliable system is to Bay Area working people. If you don’t ride BART, all you have to do it think about all the cars that the system keeps off the road every day.

That’s why everyone — most of all the BART unions and their supporters — found last year’s strike so upsetting. And now, a new report commissioned in part by BART Board member James Fang shows how unnecessary it was for management to drive workers to walk off the job.

In fact, the report says, hiring a union-busting outside negotiator was a serious mistake. Allowing that hired gun to pursue an extremist bargaining strategy was a major cause of the labor unrest.

The report, conducted by an outside consultant, involved interviews with dozens of workers, managers, and negotiators. The document is riddled with references to war: Bomb-throwing, Vietnam, a labor “massacre.” It shows how badly the executive management at BART allowed the climate for negotiations to deteriorate — and how hard it will be to repair the damage.

Here’s how one manager put it: “This strike was not productive. We never did a course correction and then there was another strike. Two people got killed. We spent millions to end up getting creamed, and engendering hate.”

The report notes how BART executive management and their notorious chief negotiator refused to take seriously the concerns workers expressed about safety.

“Key points made about safety in bargaining sessions fell on deaf ears…because management thought the unions were just posturing and the unions thought the management was refusing to engage,” it states.

Safety concerns were a central part of the negotiations from the workers’ perspective, and by dismissing those concerns as a tactic, BART’s consultant not only made an agreement more difficult but gambled with the safety of workers and riders in order get concessions from workers.

Fang, head of the BART Board’s Labor Negotiation Review Committee, is asking that the board adopt the report’s recommendations to prevent this from happening again. These recommendations include more transparency around the agency’s finances, a much earlier start to negotiations — and if needed, bringing in mediators, not outside anti-union consultants.

Once the rest of our elected BART Board of Directors became more involved, management found a reasonable solution that both sides could live with. Why didn’t that happen at the beginning of negotiations?

That’s what the BART Board needs to be asking itself. A fair post-mortem puts much of the blame on management — a general manager who had little experience in labor negotiations and a board that failed to show leadership and independence.

Fang, who is the one board member who joined workers on the picket lines, says it’s time for management to change its approach. He’s calling for a strike-prevention plan that starts with honest, fair labor relations.

We’ve heard from some politicians looking to score easy points from frustrated riders that BART strikes ought to be banned. And it’s easy to imagine frustrated commuters, stuck far from work when the trains weren’t running, feeling sympathetic.

But if workers don’t have the right to strike, they are powerless to speak out against dangerous working conditions to a recalcitrant and, in this case, misdirected management. That leads to a more dangerous system for all of us.

Recognizing this, BART Board President Joel Keller just withdrew his suggestion that strikes be banned.

The much better approach for riders like me is to follow Fang’s prevention plan: Hold management accountable for its failures and to make sure that both sides can work together better in the future.

BART is a phenomenally successful system. Ridership has doubled in recent years, to 440,000 trips a day. With trained and experienced BART workers, the system’s on-time performance has risen to 95 percent. That’s not the result of some high-paid labor negotiator — it’s the work of a dedicated and hard-working staff.

If you ride BART every day, you deserve to know that the trains will be running, that you can count on the system to get you to work on time. Between now and 2017, when the next contract will be negotiated, the BART Board needs to learn from its past mistakes and find a different, more collaborative approach. Christina Olague is a community activist and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Toronto International Film Festival report: in defense of the long, long movie

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The unstoppable Jesse Hawthorne Ficks keeps his eyes open 24/7 through another Toronto International Film Festival, and lives to tell the tale (but shares no spoilers!) Read on for the first in several reports back from the 39th TIFF.

Starting on a high note: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep (Turkey/France/Germany) won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, so it arrived in Toronto with its share of hype. I can report Sleep is the director’s funniest and most satisfying film to date. That said, it does run 196 minutes, and more than a few critics walked out early, which poses an ever-important question about the current trend toward slow-moving, observational, and meditative narratives: Who’s actually watching ’em? 

With characters that come together through long sequences in which intense emotions are slowly drawn out through passive aggressive actions, this immersive class study — similar to Akira Kurosawa’s High & Low (1963) — clearly polarized audiences’ immediate interests. My own interests lead me to wonder what long-term effects that this type of cinema will have on contemporary audiences. Has it always been this divided? If TIFF critics don’t have the energy or enough time to experience this masterpiece, how will it come up in conversation when Oscar fans are debating which film had the best acting? What about those more mainstream moviegoers who went to see Guardians of the Galaxy more than once? 

Looking back 40 years, Milos Forman swept the Oscars with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) was luring in audiences for second and third helpings. Meanwhile, an Algerian master named Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with his 177 minute Chronicle of the Years of Fire, an exploration of the Algerian War of Independence as seen through the eyes of a peasant. I guess there has always been a cultural gap between Oscar-bait, popcorn entertainment, and political art cinema … and there probably always will be.

Also relevent to any discussion of very, very long films: Lav Diaz’s follow-up to last year’s 250-minute Norte, the End of History is yet another long-form master work — and in my opinion, the best film at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. The Filipino director made a surprise appearance to introduce his 338-minute From What Is Before. TIFF programmer Andréa Picard seemed even more surprised than the audience when Diaz’s humble introduction consisted of  “I hope you brought a pillow and some blankets.” 

Committing to a Diaz film is comparable to joining a motion picture religion. Not just due to the length of his films, but because of his conviction in delivering something truly profound. Like some of his own characters, Diaz has the power to astral project the viewer into another world. From What Is Before takes place in 1972, just before President Ferdinand Marcos’ announcement that he was putting the entire country under martial law. A forgotten farming community in the provinces must immediately shift its focus to survival. 

As the story unfolds much like the chapters of a novel, each character (and the dilemmas he or she faces) slowly comes into focus, sequence by sequence. Many of the film’s most devastating scenes featured Itang (Hazel Orencio), a young woman taking care of her mentally challenged sister. At the Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, Orencio rightfully won Best Actress, and From What is Before took home the top award, the Golden Leopard. 

For TIFF audiences and beyond, the biggest question is: Will you take the time to learn Diaz’s artistic language? His films blend the convoluted past of the Philippines with the mysterious depths of human beings. Yeah, 338 minutes is long. But like Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Claire Denis, Lav Diaz is speaking a cinematic vocabulary unique to the world. Don’t let your laziness get in the way.

Rep Clock: September 10 – 16, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/10-Tue/16 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7-10. “ATA Lives!”: “Mission Eye & Ear #6,” live music and film, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema,” works by Bryan Boyce, James T. Hong, and Sylvia Schedelbauer, Sat, 8. “Paper Circus,” animation by Luca Dipierro with a live soundtrack, Sun, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. Duran Duran: Unstaged (Lynch, 2011), Wed, 7:30. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” Under African Skies (Berlinger, 2012), Thu, 7:30. The 78 Project Movie (Steyermark, 2014), Fri, 10.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •If … (Anderson, 1968), Wed, 7, and The Chocolate War (Gordon, 1988), Wed, 9:05. •The Dog (Berg and Keraudren, 2013), Thu, 7, and Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet, 1975), Thu, 8:55. California Independent Film Festival, Fri, 1pm; Sat, 11am. For complete schedule, including screenings in Orinda and Moraga, visit www.caiff.org. Frozen (Buck and Lee, 2013), Sun, 1. Presented sing-along style. •The Fisher King (Gilliam, 1991), Sun, 7, and Good Morning, Vietnam (Levinson, 1987), Sun, 4:45, 9:30. •Alive Inside (Rossato-Bennett, 2014), Tue, 7, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975), Tue, 8:30.

COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Spaceballs (Brooks, 1987), Thu, 8:45.

FINNISH KALEVA HALL 1970 Chestnut, Berk; www.paratheatrical.com. $10. Dreambody/Earthbody (Alli, 2012), Thu, 8:30.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SF 530 Bush, SF; www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/enindex.htm. $5 suggested donation. “100 Years After WWI:” The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009), Wed, 6:30.

GRAND LAKE 3200 Grand Lake, Oakl; www.sf911truth.org. $15. “9/11 Truth Film Festival,” films and speakers, Thu, 1-11.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Critics’ Choice, Classic and Quirky Americana:” M (Losey, 1951), Fri, 6. With critic David Thomson in person.

NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; http://legacyfilmfestivalonaging.org. $12 (all-fest pass, $50). “Legacy Film Festival on Aging,” shorts, features, and documentaries from around the world that take on “the challenges and triumphs of aging,” Fri-Sun.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (Silha, Slade, and Logsdon, 2011), Wed, 7. “Activate Yourself: The Free Speech Movement at Fifty:” Berkeley in the Sixties (Kitchell, 1990), Thu, 7. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Sympathy for the Devil (1968), Fri, 7. “James Dean, Restored Classics from Warner Bros.:” Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Fri, 9:10. “Eyes Wide: The Films of Stanley Kubrick:” Spartacus (1960), Sat, 7. “Banjo Tales and Musical Holdouts:” Banjo Tales (Aginsky, 2014), Tue, 7:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. The Longest Week (Glanz, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. No No: A Dockumentary (Radice, 2014), Wed, 7, 9:15; Thu, 9:45. Forward 13: Waking Up the American Dream (Lovell), Thu, 5. Free screening. Metro Manila (Ellis, 2013), Thu, 7. God Help the Girl (Murdoch, 2014), Sept 12-18, 9:30 (also Fri-Sat and Mon-Tue, 7). Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering (Merola, 2014), Sept 12-18, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:30, 5:15). All This Mayhem (Martin, 2014), Sun, 7.

SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Notebook (Szász, 2013), Wed-Thu, call for times. Take Me to the River (Shore, 2014), Sept 12-18, call for times. “Alec Guinness at 100:” Our Man in Havana (Reed, 1959), Sun, 4:30, 7:30.

TEMESCAL ART CENTER 511 48th St, Oakl; www.shapeshifterscinema.com. Free. Works by Tommy Becker, Sun, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: “Life is An Opinion: Films by Mary Helena Clark and Karen Yaskinsky,” Sat, 7:30. Filmmakers in person. *

 

Jock joints

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culture@sfbg.com

CULTURE Jim McAlpine wants the world to know that not all marijuana users are lazy, permanently couch-locked, junk-food addicted stoners. That’s why McAlpine is organizing the 420 Games, a series of athletic competitions in which weed enthusiasts will run, walk, and bike their way to larger societal acceptance.

The Games’ inaugural event, a five kilometer fun run in Golden Gate Park Sat/13 that McAlpine hopes will attract 500 participants, will be followed by a road cycling competition in Marin County, a “Marijuana Olympics Challenge” in Sacramento, and foot races across the state. “What better way to prove that you’re not a stoner just because you use marijuana, than [by] going out and being motivated and athletic?” McAlpine points out in an e-mail interview with the Guardian.

The visual of hundreds of healthy weed users jogging en masse through Golden Gate Park’s winding green thoroughfares seems like an apt PSA for responsible pot use. The 420 Games also just sound like a good time. At the inaugural event, attendees have the option to skip the athletics completely and come for the afterparty, which features an artisanal beer garden sponsored by Lagunitas and a set by Zepparella, an all-female Led Zeppelin cover band.

Those expecting the baseball bat-sized joints and puking, littering high schoolers present each year at the 4/20 celebrations on Hippie Hill in the park, be warned: There will be no sanctioned on-site cannabis use at the 420 Games, and attendees are encouraged to drag only on legal weed before and after the event. The Games are not a free-for-all smoke out, radical demonstration, or a call to legalize weed now; rather, McAlpine has packaged his sporting events in a way that will encourage even cannabis skeptics to examine their views about marijuana in 2014.

In his previous life, McAlpine was an entrepreneur who ran a discount ski pass company. But drought and years of dismal snowfall have driven McAlpine to find additional ways to spend his time. He was inspired by the potential of the cannabis industry, and seeks to use many of the proceeds from the 420 Games to fund a 501c3 nonprofit, the PRIME Foundation, which he’s establishing. Though PRIME has yet to begin educational programming and McAlpine has few details on when it will begin operating, he told the Guardian that he wants the organization to be a source of education for youth and adults about marijuana addiction, and about the very real benefits of weed and hemp. “I hope we can begin to raise some money to create campaigns to really educate the public on topics like this,” he says, referring to the 420 Games kickoff.

Of course, the 420 Games are not the only proof that weed-smoking athletes exist. One need only look at the countless Olympians and NFL, NBA, and NFL players who have been caught with pot to know that the sporting life is not one that is necessarily devoid of THC. The highest-profile case was that of swimmer Michael Phelps, the Olympic phenom who has won more medals than anyone in the history of the Games (22 total, 18 of them gold). In 2009, three months after dominating the lanes in Beijing, a leaked photo appeared to show Phelps smoking a bong. Since the photo’s depicted infraction took place during the off-season, Phelps escaped Olympic sanctions, but he did receive a competition suspension and lost a few endorsement deals.

In 1998, Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was nearly stripped of his Olympic gold medal after a post-competition positive drug test, but ducked punishment when it was proven that marijuana wasn’t officially on the banned list of the Olympics’ governing board. It was added three months later, which meant American judo star Nicholas Delpopolo was expelled from the 2012 London Olympics when his results came back positive for pot (he maintains he unwittingly ate weed-infused food, but no exception was extended for ignorance of intoxication).

Josh Gordon of the Cleveland Browns was the NFL’s leading receiver during the 2013 season when he failed a drug test for pot. The league recently announced he will be suspended for the entire 2014 season. Pittsburgh Steelers running backs Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount were pulled over with weed in their car last month, but have yet to be suspended from play. And of course, who could forget SF Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum’s 2009 off-season misdemeanor charge, when a pipe and weed were found in his car’s center console during a traffic stop? The list of athletes who have been discovered with weed is rather lengthy, all things considered.

The NHL has removed marijuana — and all drugs not deemed to be performance-enhancing — from its list of banned substances, choosing instead to offer optional addiction counseling to athletes who repeatedly test positive. But NFL spokespeople have repeatedly asserted that no change will be forthcoming in the league’s weed policy. This is especially distressing given that football players likely stand to benefit much more than most people, particularly athletes, from marijuana’s pain management effects. A lawsuit filed earlier this year by 750 ex-NFL players takes on the league for alleged distribution of opioid painkillers that have been shown to have detrimental long-term effects on players’ health.

Cannabis’ natural painkillers are a different story. In an interview with the Fusion network, former Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson estimated that 70 to 80 percent of NFL players “gravitate toward the green,” and not just for recreational use. “Managing and tolerating your pain is how you make your money in this game,” Johnson said.

Berkeley doctor Frank Lucido knows full well why sports enthusiasts would turn to marijuana. “Some athletes might benefit from using cannabis after sports for the acute pain and inflammation from that recent activity or trauma,” Lucido writes in an e-mail interview with the Guardian. “Depending on the sport, a player may use cannabis before to ease chronic pain or muscle spasm, so they can function better.”

Lucido said he has prescribed various ex-NFL players medical marijuana, has worked with patients on seeking cannabis treatment since the passage of Prop. 215 in 1996, and holds the opinion that performance in some noncompetitive sports can benefit from cannabis use beforehand. He’s not alone. Others have commented anecdotally that weed can improve sporting ability, especially in pursuits involving high levels of finesse like golf and bowling.

McAlpine says thus far no pro athletes have announced their support of the 420 Games. In our interview, he alludes to plans to approach Phelps’ management, but he might have better luck shooting for Rebagliati. After his close shave with Olympic disgrace, the snowboarder is now the CEO of Ross’ Gold, a Canadian company that sells 14 strains of premium branded medical cannabis. Philadelphia Flyers veteran Riley Cote is another ex-pro in the world of marijuana — he recently started a foundation to teach people about the role hemp can play in a sustainable lifestyle.

But perhaps the 420 Games will manage to sway public opinion not with the appearance of gold medal winners, but rather everyday people who use weed in their everyday lives — something that weed expos, with their green bikini babes and emphasis on innovative new ways of getting blasted, have failed to do.

“I believe very strongly that there is a huge problem with public perception of marijuana users,” says McAlpine. “Even as it becomes legal. I knew it would be a big step to take on this new venture, but it is 100 percent for a cause I believe in, so that makes it all a lot easier to get up and put the hours in.”

There’s no question that it will take many muscles to change much of professional sports’ opinion on marijuana. But maybe we can start here. Call it a joint effort. *

420 GAMES 5K FUN RUN/WALK

Sat/13, 7am check-in; 8am race; 9am-noon afterparty, $60 (afterparty pass, $42)

Bandshell, Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF

www.420games.org

To the classrooms, Baby Boomers

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OPINION As long as I’ve been substitute teaching, people have asked what I thought we could do to improve public schools. With all of the classrooms I’ve been in, they figured I might know something. But I’ve never had a simple answer for them, because I don’t actually think there is a single overriding educational crisis.

For most kids, the system works okay, or at least as well as it always has. At the same time, there are large groups of kids clearly struggling — black students most obviously, but not only. If we’re serious about fixing the educational problems of the nation’s “disadvantaged” kids, we need to improve the overall circumstances of their lives.

I’d say there is one surefire thing we can do to improve America’s classrooms: Put more adults in them — and not just teachers.

Think of how seldom the question of class size makes it into the highly politicized national education debate. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it must be an insignificant element. But if you really want to know if class size is a big deal, just ask someone who teaches. Or if you want private sector confirmation of this, check out the private school brochures or websites, which tout their smaller class sizes.

So why don’t we hear more about this? Maybe because there’s no major corporate or political interests pushing it, as opposed to charter schools — or the various tenure, curriculum, or discipline reforms that vie to become panacea of the moment.

For instance, you’ll likely hear more about the problem of inadequate textbooks in “poor schools” than the too-large classes in them. Could this be related to the fact that the only part of the publishing industry that isn’t struggling these days is the educational sector?

The world’s four largest publishers produce educational materials, and they’re out there making their case and drumming up business all the time. There’s a lot of money to be made selling $85 world history texts to middle school classes of 35 students. Again, if you’re not sure yourself, ask any teacher which would help more: the latest textbook or a smaller class?

Moving from business to politics, the Obama Administration has recently expressed interest in reforming school discipline policy, but it says so little about the surest route to reducing classroom problems: a lower student-teacher ratio. The reason for the silence is pretty obvious. More teachers cost more money. This means higher taxes (or maybe reduced military spending). New textbooks cost money too, of course. The difference, however, is that there are no giant corporations pushing for hiring more teachers — there’s simply no money in it for them.

Yet we could put more adults into the mix even when we can’t actually reduce class size. I’ve been in classrooms where it seemed like the adult-to-child ratio needed to really give kids a shot was something like one-to-five-or-six — and this was not special ed. And I’ve seen combinations of teachers, paraprofessionals (aka teachers’ aides), student teachers, parents, or volunteers from the community that achieved that goal — at least for a little while. I’ve also seen situations where an additional person helped a kid who would have otherwise likely disrupted an entire class and not only prevented that, but got him to produce something useful.

After I had expounded on this idea at a recent gathering in Boston, an old friend came up to me and said, “Look around this room,” noting the crowd of Baby Boomers who are soon retiring and will have considerably more time on their hands. All had an interest in public education.

What if even a small percentage of them could find their way to helping public schools by actually spending time assisting in a classroom? Wouldn’t we have a significant asset on our hands? I think he was right.

Tom Gallagher is a San Francisco substitute teacher and the author of Sub: My Years Underground in America’s Schools (Coast to Coast Publishing, 2014). He can be reached at tgtgtgtgtg@aol.com. To submit a guest editorial, contact news@sfbg.com.

Owen Pallett on integrity, having his boyfriend as a manager, and the baroque pop of ‘In Conflict’

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You probably wouldn’t assume that someone who’s been putting out solo material for nearly 10 years would be best known for their contributions to other artists’ work, but Owen Pallett shows us that it can happen, and that it’s not necessarily a bad thing, either.

If you were to break Pallett’s career down into a pie chart (similar to the ones Ann Friedman makes that he and I touched on during our chat), then the contents of said pie would be as compelling as they are diverse. At age 34, the prolific Pallett has fashioned string arrangements for acts ranging from Grizzly Bear and Beirut to Linkin Park and Pet Shop Boys. Super-producer Brian Eno is also in on the goods — he can be counted among Pallett’s fans and is featured heavily on Pallett’s new album, In Conflict. And then, of course, there’s the Academy Award nomination he and Arcade Fire’s Will Butler received earlier this year for scoring Spike Jonze’s nearly-reality-sci-fi film, Her. Pretty impressive pie so far — and it’s not even fully populated yet.

Pallett is currently on the road promoting that new record, his fourth solo work, which marks the artist’s second time releasing material under his given name. (He started his career performing as Final Fantasy and his appreciation of video games is only further established by looking at some of his early track names, like “Adventure.exe.”) Reviews of Pallett’s live performances have been almost unanimously blemish-free, and it looks like his most recent tour is no exception. In spite of being lauded for his complex arrangements as well as mastery of his violin and voice via loop pedal (think Andrew Bird), Pallett took a more minimalistic approach on In Conflict, offering fans a simpler and more languid listening experience. But this is by no means signifies a “normcore” album — Pallett is still safely within the bounds of baroque pop here.

He was in Chicago, his last week on tour with Arcade Fire, taking a break at the Soho House when we spoke on the phone. Regardless of the topic, you pick up on something after a few minutes of conversation with Pallett: He values integrity. In Conflict seems like a preemptive name for his most recent album, as there have been several moments of legal or moral discord in Pallett’s career — he refused to accept the money from winning the Polaris Prize in 2006 because of his “antagonistic relationship with the sponsors,” instead giving it to bands he liked that were in need of financial assistance. He also asked Austrian infrastructure service provider Wiener Stadtwerke to sponsor a music festival of his and his agent’s curation instead of taking the company to litigation when it used one of his songs without approval.

Pallett’s advantageous way of handling disputes could also be a reason why he’s such a desired collaborator, especially since his attitude toward differences of opinion goes beyond business — well, kind of. Pallett’s manager is his longtime boyfriend Patrick Borjal, and as one could imagine, Pallett claims they “fight more about work than (they) do about anything else, to be honest.” He adds, however, that “the way we deal with it, I’m very proud of, is that we don’t communicate verbally about work. All of our work related talk is done through email.” If we could all be so lucky.

The systematic way Pallett views the world is evident throughout our exchange, and beyond it — to get an idea, take a look at one of his pieces in Slate. When he weighs in on what it’s like to have his boyfriend be his manager, he acknowledges that “the division of finances is easy,” but that “having my boyfriend as my manager means you won’t see me on [The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy] Fallon or anything…’cause we don’t know how to do that!” He laughs. “Like, we don’t know the number to call! How do you get on Fallon now?” I suggest Googling it.

Fallon or no Fallon, it appears that Pallett’s schedule is at capacity. “Ah, fuck! You’re so lucky!” he exclaims when I share my recent trip to LA’s FYF Fest. “That’s one of the few festivals I like…the bands and the lineup.” Undoubtedly one of the best acts that weekend was another frequent collaborator of Pallett’s, Dan Snaith, who performed as Caribou and Daphni. Pallett teamed up with Snaith on both his projects recently — he’s all over Caribou’s new album, Our Love, having done strings on six tracks, and he also worked on two Daphni tracks, “Julia” and “Tiberius.”

Pallett spoke modestly about how satisfied he was with the Daphni tracks, saying he “felt they were some of the best things [he’s] ever contributed to,” in addition to chuckling about the tour that never was. “A part of me was like, ‘Ehhh…In Conflict hasn’t been making that big of a splash, maybe I’ll just ask Dan to take me on tour in the fall instead.’” Luckily for us and unfortunately for Snaith, that didn’t come to the fruition.

Owen Pallett will be playing this Fri/12 at the Great American Music Hall. I suggest showing up at 9 when the openers come on, as they are “two of [Pallett’s] favorite bands at the moment,” and given his experience, I’m inclined to trust his tastes.

OWEN PALLETT

With Avi Buffalo, Foxes In Fiction
9pm, $21
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.slimspresents.com

 

Schools not prisons

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OPINION Jay-Z doesn’t usually make political endorsements.

But at a recent concert in Los Angeles, he took the rare and unexpected step of endorsing a California ballot initiative. “California, build more schools, less prisons,” he rapped to the crowd, and then encouraged them to all vote yes on Proposition 47.

Jay-Z chose the right issue to speak out about. On an otherwise quiet state ballot, Californians have the opportunity to make history this fall with Prop. 47, also known as the “Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act.”

While California has long been known as an incarceration trailblazer for all the wrong reasons, Prop, 47 will give us an opportunity to reduce overcrowded prisons and bloated corrections budgets, roll back the failed drug war, and reinvest in public education.

Most importantly, Prop 47 will reduce the penalty for most nonviolent, non-serious crimes, such as drug possession, shoplifting, and bouncing a check, from a felony to a misdemeanor. These offenses are closely associated with drug addiction or poverty, and are not well addressed in prison.

This change will also be retroactive, allowing us to make amends for misguided policies. Approximately 10,000 inmates will be eligible for re-sentencing, helping to alleviate California’s notoriously overcrowded prisons. Hundreds of thousands of formerly incarcerated people with past felony convictions will have them reduced to misdemeanors, lifting existing barriers to employment and housing.

The estimated $150–<\d>$250 million in savings each year will be reinvested into K-12 education, victim compensation, and community-based rehabilitation and re-entry programs.

There are a number of reasons why Prop. 47 would be a huge step forward for California. First, we have to stop wasting money unnecessarily locking people up for long periods of time. California currently spends $10 billion on corrections, which has increased 1500 percent since 1981. Even as crime rates have fallen, corrections spending keeps going up.

The astronomical increase in prison spending has squeezed public education and services. We spend $62,000 to imprison someone for one year, while only about $9,000 per K-12 student. California built 22 prisons since 1980, but we built just one university. Imagine if both of those numbers were flipped. In light of all of our urgent priorities as a state, the cost of imprisonment for minor offenses simply isn’t worth it.

Second, prison time and felony convictions can have a devastating impact on individuals and communities. When a person is sent away to prison, they are separated from their family, community, and employment. Their time spent behind bars often leads to serious negative consequences for their physical health, mental health, and overall wellbeing. When they come out, they can face insurmountable barriers to employment, housing, and assistance.

Others feel the impact too: Hundreds of thousands of children in California have parents who are incarcerated. A recent study showed that for many kids, having a parent in prison is more detrimental to a child’s health and development than divorce or even the death of a parent.

Third, locking people up for drug crimes and petty theft is ineffective. Many California prisoners need drug or mental health treatment, not longer prison sentences. There are now three times as many people with mental illnesses in prisons and jails than there are in hospitals.

And instead of treating drug use as a health issue, we have criminalized it and enforced laws selectively, with communities of color bearing the brunt of this counterproductive war on ourselves.

California has long been one of the country’s pioneers in creative and expansive ways to lock people up. We were one of the first to pass a “Three Strikes” law, and have the unfortunate distinction of being the only prison system found by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutionally overcrowded.

But just like our fellow citizens who made mistakes in the past, California too deserves a second chance. Prop. 47 gives us our own shot at redemption.

Prop. 47 can provide a mandate for a better California, one where we support each other and invest in our people, and put an end to misguided approaches that have been punitive and wasteful. Demanding “Schools Not Prisons,” a new California majority is emerging, one that will shape our state’s future this November and beyond.

Matt Haney is an elected member of San Francisco’s Board of Education and the co-founder of #Cut50, a new initiative to cut the prison population nationally by 50 percent in 10 years.

 

He hates these cans! How helping Muni becomes hating nonprofits

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While I’m reluctant to give this self-serving poverty pimp any more attention or web traffic, it’s hard to ignore the latest misleading hit piece that Randy Shaw has written on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee, going after Sup. Scott Wiener and his Muni funding measure Prop. B.

As many local media outlets have reported, the Mayor’s Office has been fuming that Wiener dared to put the measure on the ballot in response to Lee reneging on his promise to put a local vehicle license fee increase on the fall ballot to help Muni serve a growing population of residents and workers — and threatening political retaliation.

So Shaw has been using his BeyondChron website to defend the financial interests of his city-supported Tenderloin Housing Clinic and other pet projects that this nascent Tenderloin power broker has been working on, in the process providing propaganda pieces for the Mayor’s Office, which supports Shaw with money from city taxpayers.

This cozy and symbiotic relationship is never disclosed by Shaw when he writes stories that he promotes as actual journalism, a practice that we’ve repeatedly taken issue with. We also contacted Shaw for comment, something he doesn’t do when attacking the Guardian, but we got no response.  

Wiener isn’t always the most progressive supervisor, but he’s been a solid and consistent supporter of Muni and modernizing the city’s transportation infrastructure, arguing correctly that San Francisco needs good public transit to function well, a point that civic groups ranging from SPUR to Livable City also regularly make.  

But the only reason Shaw can see for Prop. B is that Wiener hates nonprofits: “I understand why Wiener backs Prop B. Wiener is the Board member most opposed to nonprofits. He fought to eliminate the nonprofit exemption on Transit Impact Development Fees.  Wiener pushed for the proposed Vehicle License Fee to go 100 percent to transit, though it had originally been intended to be partially available for human services.”

The argument, of course, is ludicrous. In fact, it reminds me of the scene in The Jerk where a sniper aiming for Steve Martin misses and hits oil cans, causing Martin’s dim-witted character to conclude, “He hates these cans!.

No, Randy, Wiener doesn’t hate nonprofits. He supports Muni, which is also the common denominator in that list you cited. And no, Randy, the salaries of nonprofit workers aren’t the only place to find $20 million in the General Fund, as the Guardian showed during our city budget overview earlier this year.   

Shaw also claims Muni funding has kept pace with population growth — which, if true, would mean it wouldn’t get any more money under Prop. B — but Shaw uses misleading data that ignores the SFMTA reorganization measure Prop. A from 2007, the raid of SFMTA funding that followed using “work orders” from city departments, Muni’s deferred maintenance backlog of more than $2 billion, and the fact that SFMTA’s budget increases lag behind other major departments (such as the Department of Public Health and the Police Department) even with this week’s 25-cent Muni fare increase.

As former Guardian Editor/Publisher Tim Redmond used to say regularly: not everything gets better when you throw more money at it, but schools and public transit do. Money translates directly into more capacity to serve students or riders, including the growing number of local workers Muni is serving on top of the increasing local population.

This makes sense to most people, whether or not they support Prop. B and giving more General Fund money to Muni, a legitimate question about which well-meaning people can have good-faith differences of opinion over. But Shaw isn’t one of those people, and to him, Wiener just hates those cans. 

Flynn and out

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM For years Errol Flynn was considered the definition of a born movie star — as opposed to being a born actor. The definitive Robin Hood, he was athletic, debonair, good-humored, and terribly good-looking in a two-decade career of mostly formulaic action and adventure films. Few were under the illusion that he deserved better material. Indeed, he became something of a joke, first for the limitations of his acting, then for movies where he seemed to be winning World War II single-handedly, and at last for being an alcoholic has-been who chased every skirt in town.

When he died of a heart attack in 1959 at age 50, the floodgates of scandal opened wide. It was revealed that his lover of recent years had been underage, and the press suggested she’d been pimped to him by a monster “stage mother.” The posthumous publication of Flynn’s autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways — shockingly frank by the standards of the time — only heightened an overly-well-lived life’s lurid afterglow.

That somewhat pathetic final chapter is dramatized in the latest by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the directorial team who made the nearly perfect indie Quinceañera (2006). But The Last of Robin Hood turns out to be one of those movies that should be great, given the material and talent on tap, but instead falls flat for nearly intangible reasons. Bad movies are easy to dissect; it’s harder to suss why an almost-good one just misses the mark.

The restless son of a respectable family in Hobart, Tasmania, Flynn globe-trotted doing odd jobs until his looks and vivacity inevitably drew him into acting. He landed at Warner Brothers in 1935, and last-minute replacement casting as swashbuckling Captain Blood that year got him abruptly promoted to stardom. He was pretty terrible — but also a sexy beast who clicked onscreen with subsequently-recurrent co-star Olivia de Havilland. Less of a fan was Bette Davis, with whom he acted twice in period romances. But even that tough broad considered him “utterly enchanting” despite mutual antipathy. Flynn flourished in a series of Westerns, war movies, and exotic adventures, until audiences tired of his ever-more routine exploits — and the highly public roué reputation that ballasted them offscreen. In 1941 he was acquitted of statutory rape, but public opinion judged differently.

At the end of his drug- and drink-addled tether some 15 years later, Flynn met aspiring dancer-singer-actor Beverly Aadland. According to this film’s version of events, he’d already seduced her before realizing that she was actually just a very precocious 15-year-old — carefully groomed to look older (and given a fake birth certificate) by Florence Aadland, a onetime dancer who projected her own ambitions on her daughter. Instead of backing away, however, he carried on their affair, providing a cover for his “protégée’s” constant companionship by making sure Mom was along as public chaperone.

When Susan Sarandon’s Mrs. Aadland realizes that in private their relationship is hardly innocent, she’s furious. But she’s vain and flattered enough to fall for the star’s charm offensive — no matter that no one aside from these two think Beverly has any real talent. The only role of note she ever played was in 1959’s Cuban Rebel Girls, the almost unwatchably bad cheapie that constituted Flynn’s final screen appearance and was released just after his death. It’s a ludicrous film, but she doesn’t exactly rise above the material.

Nonetheless, Flynn (Kevin Kline) and the junior Aadland (Dakota Fanning) are, as portrayed here, tied together by something more than mutual exploitation. It may not be true love, but it’s as close as a relationship between a rapidly aging sex maniac and a teen eager to get out from under mom’s thumb can be.

Kline is a resourceful actor whose characterization is ingenious and layered. But it still falls into that category of celebrity impersonation, which always feels a bit like a clever stunt. He’s somewhat upstaged by Sarandon, who gobbles up the spotlight here as if this were The Florence Aadland Story. Given one of her more substantial roles of late, Sarandon revels in being a bit frumpy, grasping, and middlebrow; she’s a classic Hollywood type, the perpetual margin-dweller still capable of being dazzled by proximity to a star. To the extent that it works, The Last of Robin Hood does so largely because Sarandon nails the comedy and pathos of terminal celebrity aspiration.

The extent that it doesn’t can at least partly be blamed on Fanning, a limited child actor turned limited young-adult one. Though she just turned in an solid performance in Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, here she’s back in her usual mode of dully earnest empathy for a character that (like her Cherie Currie in 2010’s The Runaways) could/should have had considerably more depth. The precocious poise the real Aadland exhibits singing “All Shook Up” for Groucho Marx on TV’s You Bet Your Life (a clip preserved on YouTube) is more than sallow Fanning’s victimized take can manage. Despite all canny costuming here, she never suggests an allure that might have lastingly turned the head of a man who could have any starlet or fangirl he chose.

The Last of Robin Hood also feels constrained budget-wise — perhaps financing woes explain why it took the co-directors so long to follow up the well-received Quinceañera — and while you can get the heady mixture of glamour, melancholy, barbed humor, and romance that the writer-directors were going for, it always falls a little short. As with so many Hollywood biopics, a great real-life story feels diminished onscreen, the legend still more potent than the dramatized re-creation. *

 

THE LAST OF ROBIN HOOD opens Fri/5 in Bay Area theaters.

Nuclear shakeup

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It was more than six years ago that Jeanne Hardebeck, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey’s Menlo Park Earthquake Science Center, started to zero in on a pattern. “I was looking at small earthquakes,” she explained. “I noticed them lining up.”

 

She and other earthquake scientists also detected an anomaly in the alignment of the earth’s magnetic field off the California coastline, near San Luis Obispo. It all added up to the discovery of an offshore fault line.

What made Hardebeck’s discovery truly startling was that the sea floor fracture, now known as the Shoreline Fault, lies just about 300 meters from Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, California’s last operational nuclear power plant. In the general vicinity of the facility, which is owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., there are also three other fault lines.

These discoveries have raised safety concerns and fed arguments by activists who want the Diablo Canyon reactors shut down, at least until the danger can be properly assessed.

When the final construction permits for Diablo Canyon were issued more than 45 years ago, engineers assumed a lower seismic risk. PG&E’s federal operating license to run Diablo Canyon is based on those assumptions. But the new information suggests that the ground is capable of shaking a great deal more in the event of a major earthquake than previously understood — leaving open the possibility that a temblor could spark sudden and disastrous equipment failure at Diablo Canyon.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency charged with overseeing the safety of nuclear facilities, has determined that the plant’s continued operation is safe. But Michael Peck, a senior NRC staff member, recommended that the reactors be shut down until a safety analysis could prove that the plant would successfully withstand a major earthquake. In the time since Peck began to sound the alarm about the potential seismic hazard, he’s been transferred from Diablo Canyon to a NRC training facility in Chattanooga, Tenn.

As The Associated Press reported on Aug. 25, Peck, who served as a resident on-site safety inspector at Diablo Canyon for half a decade as part of his 33-year career with the NRC, called for the plant to be temporarily shut down in a Differing Professional Opinion (DPO) filed in June 2013. Such a filing signifies a formal challenge to an agency position, and the NRC standard is to rule on these findings within 120 days.

More than a year later, however, Peck’s findings still haven’t been addressed. Since the DPO is technically classified — someone leaked it, and Peck says he wasn’t the source —the NRC hasn’t even publicly acknowledged its existence. The NRC did not return calls seeking comment.

Meanwhile, the Bay Guardian has learned that the NRC’s actions go beyond just foot-dragging on addressing Peck’s findings. Following a series of exchanges in the years since the discovery of the Shoreline Fault, PG&E filed a request to the NRC for its license to be amended so that it could continue operating Diablo Canyon in spite of the outmoded design specifications. As part of its request, the company performed its own studies concluding that the continued operation of the plant was safe in light of the new seismic information.

Yet the NRC technical staff rejected PG&E’s proposed methodology for analyzing the earthquake safety risk. Rather than amend the license, the NRC asked PG&E to withdraw its request. Despite this formal response, in a letter dated Oct. 12, 2012, an NRC project manager quietly gave PG&E the green light to update its own safety analysis report to incorporate the new seismic information, effectively allowing for the amendment without jumping through the hoops of the formal license amendment process.

“It appears that the licensing manager basically worked around the process,” Peck told us. Asked why he thought something like that might happen, he said, “I think there’s a prevailing viewpoint that … the plant is robust, and that even though it doesn’t meet its license requirements, it’s safe.” Nevertheless, “when our technical reviewers did a detailed review of the actual methodology, they said, we can’t approve it. It’s beyond what we can approve. I think that surprised a lot of people.”

Peck explained that the safety evaluations assess whether power plant equipment can be expected to remain “operable” in the event of an earthquake, in accordance with the agency’s technical standards. “In my opinion, their evaluation didn’t meet the standard,” he said.

That’s what prompted him to file two objections to the NRC’s decision to continue operating the facility despite the looming safety concerns. Peck stressed that he could not discuss the DPO, since it’s not a public document, but did speak about the concerns he raised in his first objection, which is publically available.

Peck emphasized that while he wasn’t saying outright that Diablo Canyon is unsafe, having the safety concerns out there as an unresolved question is unacceptable.

“How much will the plant shake? There’s not a clear consensus,” he told us.

When he performed his own analysis, concluding that PG&E’s evaluation wasn’t adequate, he based his assumptions on PG&E’s seismic calculations. Even by those numbers, which aren’t universally accepted, the peak ground acceleration in the event of an earthquake is “almost double” what PG&E’s operability standard is based on. PG&E did not return calls seeking comment.

Hardebeck, the seismologist, said that while the engineering questions are a point of contention, there’s little dispute about the earthquake science. “An earthquake on any one of these faults is very rare,” Hardebeck noted. The Shoreline Fault, for example, has an expected probability of rupturing in a major earthquake — of magnitude 6.5 or 6.7 — once every 10,000 years.

However, the existence of numerous fault lines in proximity means that if one ruptured, more earthquakes could be triggered along the other fault lines.

“It was only in the 1970s that some geologist found the Hosgri Fault — which turns out to be the biggest fault in the region,” Hardebeck said. “The Shoreline is sort of a little strand of the Hosgri Fault,” she added.

Seismologists predict that the Hosgri Fault could trigger a large earthquake, up to magnitude 7.5, once every 1,000 years. Also near Diablo Canyon are the Los Osos and San LuisBay faults, which Hardebeck said aren’t as well-understood by seismologists but could potentially rupture and cause earthquakes of a 6.5 magnitude.

Dave Lochbaum, who worked at the NRC prior to his current position at the Union of Concerned Scientists, provided some perspective by pointing out that nobody had expected the natural disaster that triggered the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan in March 2011.

“For context, the odds of a tsunami wave exceeding the protecting sea wall was one in 3,480 years,” he noted. “You’re in the same ballpark.”

Lochbaum said the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed with Peck’s analysis on Diablo Canyon. “He believes in nuclear power,” Lochbaum pointed out. “He’s not trying to say this plant can never split another atom. This plant is outside those rules and it needs to be fixed. … Technically, the plant has no legal basis for operating.”

The day after the AP article was published, the environmental nonprofit organization Friends of the Earth filed a 92-page petition with the NRC, calling for the Diablo Canyon to be shut down.

“Since Diablo is not operating within its licensing basis, as Peck asserted, the plant must suspend operations while the NRC considers a license amendment,” its petition states.

Yet by subverting the formal license amendment, as NRC public records show, the regulatory agency effectively skipped over a public process with an adjudicatory hearing that would have allowed concerned citizens to weigh in.

In the days following the AP report, US Sen. Barbara Boxer said she would submit a hearing request at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to ask the NRC about the matter. But aside from the checks and balances provided by the Senate and congressional oversight committees, the NRC is “the only game in town” when it comes to determining whether Diablo Canyon should continue operating or be shut down, said Lochbaum, who worked as a nuclear engineer for 17 years.

In a blog posted on the Union of Concerned Scientists website, Lochbaum said he had researched the history of how the NRC had treated similar situations.

“In all prior cases, I found that the NRC did not allow nuclear facilities to operate with similar unresolved earthquake protection issues,” he wrote. “For example, in March 1979 —two weeks prior to the Three Mile Island accident — the NRC ordered a handful of nuclear power reactors to shut down and remain shut down until earthquake analysis and protection concerns were corrected. Thus, Dr. Peck’s findings are irrefutable and his conclusion consistent with nearly four decades of precedents. What is not clear is why DiabloCanyon continues to operate with inadequately evaluated protection against known earthquake hazards.”

 

 

Little Dragon roosts at The Fox

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By Rob Goszkowski

Janet Jackson was in heavy rotation when Little Dragon went to work on Nabuma Rubberband, the album they released in May. That’s the Janet-era Janet — the sexy, sultry version of the R&B superstar — so it’s no coincidence that there are a few slow jams on the fourth record by the electro, soul, and synthpop quartet.

“I think we fit in right now at the moment. But we do love the ’80s and the sounds of that era have been a big part of our childhood soundtrack,” explains drummer Erik Bodin.

At the moment of this correspondence, he and the band, including vocalist Yukimi Nagano, bassist Fredrik Källgren Wallin, and keyboardist Håkan Wirenstrand, are “in Japan, trying out all the extra technical features everything has. Like automatic toilet cover lifts and such. We are also doing some shows at the Summersonic festival.” The lack of high-tech privies not withstanding, the band is excited about its return to the U.S. (They hit the Fox Theater for a sold-out show tomorrow, Fri/22.)

“We always felt love from California, and especially the Bay Area,” says Bodin. “People really seem to have an easy time getting down to our music.”

Indeed, much of Nabuma Rubberband is easy to dance to. It’s also restrained and mature in many respects, amid the bounce and clap of its soundscapes. It is — and feels like — an album recorded during winter months in Sweden. The beats can be sparse, the lyrics world-weary, yet they’re still fun. That dichotomy is well-represented in the album cover artwork by Chinese photographer Li Wei. It features a photo by of a little girl in a white dress in mid-air with her arms outstretched, the background a flat field of dormant, brown grass and traces of a smoggy/foggy city on the horizon.

And then there’s “Paris,” one of the album’s three singles, with its wonderful depth: a rollicking hi-hat and a danceable beat, but with somber chords and singer Yukimi clearly expressing that pulling away from the relationship in question.

It’s a workable songwriting strategy and they return to it over the course of the record. While there’s a solid groove in every track, the band may pair it with sober warnings about the greed (“blinded by the rubberbands”) or the risk in the pursuit of fame (“You’re aiming the royal scene/Fast luck /TV dreams/ Pretty girl, don’t get struck”) “It’s all up to each and everyone to interpret the lyrics … but of course we put a lot of consciousness into our lyrics and music,” Bodin says. “It’s nice to mix it up and pair dance music next to deeper, more-serious lyrics.” (Nagano breaks down the meaning of the title track here.)

The band has deliberately not abandoned what made them creatively compelling when they first formed the group as high school students in Gothenburg, Sweden. Youth provides energy and unpredictability, which is great for creativity, but it can also lead to bad decisions that can hurt the group and its career. The band’s name is reference to Yukimi’s feisty personality — she’s the youngest in the group. While the resulting tension has settled, Bodin contends that they haven’t changed that much since they started playing together in 1996.

“Fred is still the tallest. Yukimi still the smallest. Håkan is still the smartest (he thinks). Erik is still the smartest (actual fact). It feels like the circumstances have become different, though. We don’t have as much time as we used to just playing, fighting, painting and such. It’s both a good and sad thing. We feel it’s important to protect the childishness and playfulness.”

Their spurts of levity aren’t hard to find. In their music video for “Paris,” the band halts its road trip through the countryside in an orange VW bus at a small roadside deli. Håkan, repleat with a magnificent red beard, loses badly in an arm-wrestling match to a petite, straight-faced girl. Why is unclear. “That is a question we all wonder about,” Bodin says, maintaining the band’s dry humor. “He is not so strong after all, it turned out.”

Or they’ll apply a few less-serious words with a serious message. A trifling man playing games with his lover is called “smooth cat rider.” A pretty girl hung up on “the free fantasy” of easy fame?  That’s “Riding a unicorn through your Dali.” Bodin will neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of these interpretations during his interview with the Bay Guardian, only acknowledging that, “Fred wants to ride a cat, but the rest of us prefer the more reliable unicorns.”

Despite the diversion in opinion about which animal is more worthy of a saddle, the band is committed to being a single unit with the inevitable rise and fall of internal disagreement that accompanies it. “You get a buzz out of seeing all different wills and wishes clash and turn into a beautiful ‘trasmatta,’” Bodin says cryptically. “There is a hidden translation quest calling upon the reader in this answer.”

LITTLE DRAGON

Friday, Aug, 22, 8pm, $29.50

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

Too many parking tickets in SF

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By David Hegarty

OPINION San Francisco made $87 million in parking citation revenue in 2012; roughly double what the city made off actual paid parking meter revenue.

Let that sink in for a minute.

It’s become so hard to park a car in San Francisco that its citizens are paying almost $281,500 a day simply to park, and then they’re cited for doing it wrong.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency should be responsible to the people — to create and maintain clean, orderly streets and transit systems that work for the people who use them.

The responsibility of the SFMTA is not to incentivize government agents to write more tickets and make citizens a passive revenue stream because it’s convenient. Parking citations, in their current form, do not support an ethical citizen-focused approach by the city to parking law and violations.

The simple fact that revenue gained for parking citations is roughly double that of legal, paid parking meter revenue shows an inherent flaw in the system. If it is easier for the city to make money by writing citations, why would it change its systems to create more revenue through meters or alternative means such as license fees or permitting, even if it significantly benefitted citizens of San Francisco? It makes more financial sense to incent its relatively small fleet of parking authority officers to write more tickets.

But is this ethical? Absolutely not. Is this the way a government agency should make decisions? Absolutely not. Purposefully criminalizing citizens and then slapping them with the highest citation rates in the country due to convenience is not how a government agency should be “serving” its people.

Parking ticket fees in San Francisco are the highest in the country by nearly 14 percent and they continue to rise, a punitively expensive bandage on a citywide transit problem. There are 111 ways to violate the parking code, a parking code that is so intentionally opaque and vague that 3.9 tickets are written per registered car per year, nearly 1.5 million tickets total.

Our parking law should not be so confusing that it can’t be followed consistently — including by its own agents. Of the tickets processed by Fixed, we are able to contest 85-90 percent — 75 percent of which due to enforcement error. The city’s own parking authority agents are unable to accurately (and consistently) enforce the existing parking code.

Conflicting rules and regulations between systems are also a common issue in San Francisco — often signs will contradict themselves or other SFMTA systems, with no clear indication of which rules precede the others. Meters are inconsistent with other regulatory systems in use, permanent parking restriction signs are sometimes missing, hidden, or poorly maintained, and temporary restrictions are often inaccurate — creating grossly unfair conditions for people parking, and incorrectly written tickets by parking enforcement officers.

A recent anecdote is a clear example of this problem. A Fixed user’s car was towed after parking in a variable tow away zone — the tow away zone was in effect for only two blocks of the street during specific hours. The street-level parking sign of the spot in question stated “no parking” 4-6 pm, but the meter allowed the user to pay all the way up to 6pm with no indication of a tow away. This error, due to conflicting systems and misleading meter information, cost the user (but netted the city) $500.

Both driver and parking control officer are victims of a system that turns parking infractions into a revenue stream instead of a tactic to discourage behavior that doesn’t benefit the public at large.

Ethical parking law would be a clear, mutually fair system which benefits citizens of San Francisco, creates revenue for the city through legal, noncriminal means, and enables a parking environment where citizens can easily follow the rules. Parking law should be optimized for clean, orderly streets and transit programs that are profitable and reliable — instead of convenient revenue.

There must be another way to achieve SFMTA budget requirements than to make the people this government agency should be serving into unintentional criminals.

David Hegarty is the founder of Fixed (www.getfixed.me), a company that helps customers contest parking tickets.

 

Film festival organizers call for safer San Francisco streets

Editor’s Note: Aug. 19 marks the Bay Area Global Health Film Festival, hosted by the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology. The theme of this year’s festival is “Road Traffic Safety Locally … and Globally,” and is geared toward raising awareness about the need for road traffic safety improvements. In this opinion piece, representatives from the University of California at San Francisco Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, at San Francisco General Hospital, describe how all-too-common accidents can permanently injure pedestrians and bicyclists. And they voice support for Proposition A, the San Francisco Transportation and Road Improvement Bond.

By Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas

San Francisco is a transit-first city. Everyone shares the need to get safely from point A to point B, preferably quickly. And the various options for doing so span the full spectrum from driving, biking, and walking, to public transit like MUNI and Bart, rideshare programs, taxis, and companies like Uber and Lyft.

As we go about our daily lives, transportation is one of the most important public infrastructure systems that San Francisco relies upon. It encompasses many controversial issues and is linked to other social equity campaigns including housing advocacy and urban gentrification.

Yet the issue of pedestrian and bike safety in San Francisco has made disheartening headlines as of late. 2013 was an especially deadly year, with 21 pedestrian and four bicyclist fatalities. San Francisco General Hospital alone cared for over 1,000 road traffic injuries, with an estimated $60 million annual cost. Organizations like the SF Bicycle Coalition and WalkSF have made biking and walking leading issues in debates over transportation policy and traffic safety. Mayor Ed Lee and our city government have responded by introducing a $500 million transportation bond measure for the Nov. 4th ballot. If it passes, a portion of the funding will be allocated for improving pedestrian and cyclist safety.

Less often discussed, however, is what happens to the pedestrians and bicyclists who are hit while going about their daily routines and permanently affected by all-too-common accidents. At the UCSF SFGH Orthopaedic Trauma Institute (OTI), these patients fill our wards, the operating room schedule and our hearts as we help to heal them from these injuries. We struggle with the balance between doing what we can and what should be done to curb the growing volume of patients we see annually due to preventable accidents.

What is alarming is the socio-economic impact these accidents have, not only on the person affected, but on the hospital and our city as a whole. Even in cases where the driver is at fault, it is rare for them to even be cited for a traffic violation in most cases. More importantly, personal injury insurance and health coverage barely cover the emergency services needed for these accidents, and most services offered at the hospital are subsidized by taxpayer dollars, which means we are paying for this on all sides. This is unacceptable.

There is currently a wave of momentum to address these complex issues and attempt to tease through how we as a city can rebuild, redefine and reinforce the safety in our city. This movement is supported by a global platform addressing road traffic safety as a public health campaign, through the World Health Organization’s Decade of Road Traffic Safety. This campaign tackles the myriad polices and resource investments needed to address the enormous impact road traffic accidents have on the world. 

Injuries, mainly those resulting from road traffic accidents, account for greater disability and death than HIV, TB and Malaria combined.  An average 5.8 million die annually, and for every death caused by these accidents, eight to 10 more are permanently injured.

To bring collective awareness around this issue and to change the landscape, the community needs to stand together not only in San Francisco but also around the world, to demand safer streets. The city is doing its part to outline a roadmap to curbing these alarming statistics, and a greater global campaign is underway to promote awareness and inspire activism.

We must stand up for the injured and for ourselves as local citizens to demand safer streets and protection from when accidents occur.  We may not be able to prevent every accident, but we can improve the choreography of their outcome if we work together.    

Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas are Director of Development and Community Outreach Coordiator, respectively, at the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology, UCSF Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, San Francisco General Hospital.

The Bay Area Global Health Film Festival begins Tue/19 at 6 p.m. at Public Works, 161 Erie, in San Francisco.

This Week’s Picks: August 13 – 19, 2014

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THURSDAY 14

 

Kevin Morby

If you’re enough of an indie rock fan, you might have heard Kevin Morby’s work without knowing it. He’s played bass for Brooklyn psych-folk crew Woods since that band’s 2009 breakthrough Songs of Shame, and he co-fronts The Babies with Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls. But after touring with Real Estate and releasing the solo album Harlem River on Woods’ label Woodsist last year, he’s primed to take the spotlight. A fan of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Morby’s always had a strong Americana streak, from the Western ballads on the Babies’ Our House On The Hill to the New York City love letters on Harlem River. But despite his buzz-band cred, his all-American ethos never seems ironic, and his voice and guitar playing are perfectly suited for his ambitions. (Daniel Bromfield)

7pm, $8

1-2-3-4 Go! Records

420 40th St., Oakland

(510) 985-0325

www.1234gorecords.com

 

 

Sir Sly

There’s no need to call these band members “sir.” But you might’ve had to rely on that as a fallback when the musicians adopted anonymous identities at the beginning of their careers. Though that act was certainly mysterious enough to accompany the band’s gloomy sound (sad indie rock tinged with some hip-hop and electronic influences), Sir Sly deserves recognition for last year’s EP, which is enough to appease fans until this September’s release of its debut full-length. If the title track “You Haunt Me” is anything to go by, then yep, the trio’s polished its melancholy music the first album. (Amy Char)

With Thumpers, Mother

9pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

 

Like Stars We Collide

Playwright Vadenek Ke is ready to unveil his second installment in his “A Series of Collisions.” The enigmatic and elusive playwright, who explores the sexual, cultural, and vocational limitations of relationships, has written three new one acts, titled collectively Like Stars We Collide, that will be performed by his trusty troupe, the Planets Aligned Theatre Company. Known for their quick wit and occasional surreality, Ke’s works are morsels of romantic truth — they certainly don’t attempt to paint idealistic portraits of love, but simultaneously acknowledge the raw beauty and excitement that accompanies the pain. Each of the three works is directed by a different local voice, and features burgeoning SF stars. “Call it Off,” which chronicles a crumbling couple at a theme party, takes on a Rashomon-esque storytelling device to explain the individual experiences of the lovers. The small yet stylish Mojo Theatre provides an evocative locale for Ke’s elegant glimpses into the human condition. (Kurlander)

8pm, $15

Mojo Theatre

2940 16th St. #217, SF

(415) 830-6426

www.mojotheatre.com

 

 

GAYmous

San Francisco queer electro duo GAYmous claim to be motivated by the “power of the synthesizer.” On one level, this has to do with sound — their synths pack plenty of sonic oomph. But the self-declared “slut-step” duo is also motivated by synth-driven music’s ability to unite and empower marginalized groups, from the queer synthpop of the ’80s to the relentlessly empowering pop music of the early ’10s. Following those traditions, GAYmous delivers plenty of raunchy and sexually candid humor but ultimately succeeds on the basis of great pop hooks and melodies. They’ll be performing at the Uptown Oakland alongside multimedia drag performance group Daddies Plastik and the amazing Fatty Cakes & The Puff Pastries, an ensemble consisting of multiple vocalists and centered around a dizzying glockenspiel-snare drum-organ setup.

9pm, $8

Uptown Nightclub

1928 Telegraph, Oakland

(510) 451-8100

www.uptownnightclub.com

 

FRIDAY 15

 

 

Joshua Cook and the Key of Now

Joshua Cook made his name as the lead guitarist and sometime-singer of the Soft White Sixties, a local soul-heavy rock outfit that has made a huge splash at festivals (particularly an electric SXSW set) inthe last year. Cook has now formed his own outfit, a bluesier crew called Joshua Cook and the Key of Now. Their debut single, 2013’s “All Bad Things,” has a lick that sounds decidedly Jimmy Page-esque and cynical, frustrated lyrics about romantic near-misses and economic woes. FCC Free Radio, the six year-old internet radio station that champions local artists and opinion, takes over the DNA Lounge to present Cook’s new sound alongside Kitten Grenade, Survival Guide, and I Am Animal. Kitten Grenade, singer Katelyn Sullivan and instrumentalist Ben Manning’s ukelele and drum group, has been churning out sweet yet edgy folk-rock for the last two years and looks to be a nice counter to Cook’s heavier jams. (Kurlander)

8pm, $10

DNA Lounge

375 11th St, SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

 

 

Deadfest

Non-metalheads may not recognize any of the names at the Oakland Metro’s two-day Deadfest. But with four stages and 46 bands from the Bay Area and beyond (including Impaled, Bell Witch, and Negative Standards), Deadfest should have something for anyone even remotely interested in heavy music. Spearheaded by DIY promoter Gregg “Deadface” Paiva, Deadfest also features a food bar with delicious-sounding gourmet tacos, featuring absurdly Bay Area-sounding accoutrements like “key lime crema” and “heritage pepper confit.” The event is only $20 per day, meaning an average of less than a buck per band. If you have even a passing interest in thrash metal, doom metal, hard core, crust punk or any of the other various forms of loud, overdriven, fancy logo-encouraging music that will be on display at Deadfest, there’s no reason not to go. (Bromfield)

7pm, $20 per day

Oakland Metro

630 3rd St., Oakland

(510) 763-1146

www.oaklandmetro.org

 

SATURDAY 16

 

 

 

The Muppet Movie 35th Anniversary

Muppet fans! It’s time to get “Movin’ Right Along” down to the Castro Theatre to catch a 35th anniversary screening of The Muppet Movie, the feature film that started the big screen careers of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal and the rest of their beloved gang. Presented by SF Sketchfest, today’s event is extra special — Dave Goelz, the voice and puppeteer of The Great Gonzo will be appearing for a talk and Q&A — and he is bringing a real Gonzo Muppet with him! Don’t miss your chance to make a “Rainbow Connection” with the legendary performer (who also worked on The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Emmett Otter) and his iconic, chicken-loving creation. (Sean McCourt)

11am, $10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.sfsketchfest.com

 

 

 

Civil War Living History Day

The band called the Civil Wars may have broken up, but the dream of the 1860s is alive in San Francisco. No need to adopt the fashion trends of years past for this American Civil War enactment. (Just dress appropriately for the city’s August weather and be glad you don’t have to deal with the South’s humidity.) In a condensed jump back into time, the day offers regular infantry drills and artillery discussions throughout the day and plenty of demonstrations of soldier and civilian life way back when. Highlights include historical music (characterized by heavy reliance on the drums) and medical treatment (which may not be up to snuff to deal with Ebola). (Amy Char)

10am – 5pm, free

Fort Point National Historic Site

999 Marine, SF

(415) 556-1693

www.nps.gov/fopo

 


SUNDAY 17

 

Name Drop Swamp Records + Quiet Lightning

This new collaboration between independent SF record label Name Drop Swamp Records (Fox & Woman, Split Screens) and the long-running lit and spoken word series Quiet Lightning brings together live music, poetry, and performance for an evening that’s sure to draw a crowd full of all kinds of artists — in addition to those being featured on stage. Featured performer Luz Elena Mendoza of Y La Bamba is someone you won’t get to see in a small room for too much longer, thanks to her unique, rich vocals and skilled storytelling through song. The door is sliding scale and the aim is for this evening to be the first in a bimonthly series at the Emerald Tablet (sorry, “Em Tab,”) so get in before it blows up. (Emma Silvers)

5 – 9pm, $10-20; no one turned away for lack of funds

The Emerald Tablet

80 Fresno, SF

(415) 500-2323

www.emtab.org

 

MONDAY 18

 

Built To Spill

Boise’s Built To Spill has been churning out heartbreakingly lovely indie rock songs for over 20 years. Doug Martsch, formerly of Treepeople, formed the group in 1992. Since then, the band has gone through a whirlwind of lineup changes with Martsch as the only constant, but have managed to create seven equally beautiful, reverb-heavy studio albums. Martsch’s music has been cited as a major inspiration by such indie rock royalty as Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. Though it’s been five years since they’ve released an album, Built To Spill’s live show hasn’t declined a bit. This three-night run at Slim’s is a very special event, and certainly not to be missed. (Haley Zaremba)

With Slam Dunk, The Warm Hair

8pm, $28

Slim’s 333

11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com


TUESDAY 19


Fucked Up

Toronto’s Fucked Up might be the most ambitious punk band on the planet. This six-piece hardcore band has been releasing more and more epic and boldly experimental records since their explosive entrance to the scene in 2001. The group has even been recognized by the Canadian government, winning the prestigious Polaris Prize in 2009 for its incredible, sprawling punk-rock opera The Chemistry of Common Life. Their most recent effort, Glass Boys, maintains their hardcore edge while finding more rock depth, borrowing simultaneously from Dinosaur Jr. and Negative Approach. The record asks questions about what it means to be an aging and successful punk band. Known and notorious for their tempestuous relationship and wildly unpredictable live shows, Fucked Up is one of the best hardcore bands and certainly one of the best live acts on the road. (Zaremba)

Tijuana Panthers, The She’s

8pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.independentsf.com

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