Parking

Bicycling set a record in SF today

Sasha Cuttler
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7
Bicycling set a record in SF today

It was only two years ago that bicycle advocates celebrated Bike to Work Day traffic surveys that for the first time counted more bikes than cars on Market Street during the morning commute, a feat repeated last year. But today (5/13), that ratio had jumped to three bicycles for every car. The counts, which found a record-breaking 75 percent of vehicles were bikes, were performed by employees of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority and announced in a press release from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

“I was thrilled to ride alongside Mayor Newsom and scores of smiling people this morning in the newly separated and green Market Street bike lanes. So many more people are bicycling on Market, because they feel safer in these separated, green bike lanes,” Renee Rivera, acting Executive Director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, said in the press release, which also quoted Newsom as saying, “We are taking hold of an incredible opportunity to transform Market Street into one of the greatest streets in the world. San Francisco is an innovator and this newly separated, green bike lane is one example of how we can make Market Street safer and more bike friendly for the tens of thousands of people who use it everyday.”

For his part, Newsom seemed to be riding a cooler bike than in years past, when he rode a Blazing Saddles rental. But some bike advocates still grumbled about his choice of attire: he once again donned a sweat suit, rather than work clothes, which doesn’t exactly send the message that cycling can be an everyday transportation option. But for bike advocates, this was a day for celebration, both of the huge numbers and recent improvements such as the five on-street bicycle parking areas that have been added to Valencia Street in the last week, part of a trend toward rethinking the streets of San Francisco.

Eyes of the city

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Eyes of the city

arts@sfbg.com

STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO Two packs of beer, five cameras, and a ridiculous amount of camera equipment are hauled up the narrow staircase and onto the Guardian’s sunny rooftop on Potrero Hill. The four members of Caliber, a talented group of Bay Area photographers, immediately strap on their cameras and secure their lenses.

Running to the edge of the roof, spinning in circles, pointing up, down, and side to side, they take snapshots. The sunset, the traffic, the sidewalk below — Caliber shows that it’s possible to find a beautiful angle in every direction.

“It’s like we’ve never taken a picture before,” says Caliber member Julie Michelle, smirking after a series of shots. A couple of minutes of later, beer lures the rest of the pack — Stuart Dixon, Travis Jensen, Troy Holden, and his visiting brother, Dylan — around the picnic table to talk about their love for street photography.

Photo by Julie Michelle

The group met through Flickr in October 2009, after admiring each other’s varied styles. They decided to collaborate in an independent fashion, putting up a Web site filled with genuine San Francisco moments only residents can experience. When they aren’t lurking with a camera in alleyways or roaming along sidewalks and through parking lots, Caliber’s male members work 9-to-5’s, while Michelle races around the city photographing for her own Web site. Caliber’s images are a sheer labor of love.

Dixon is all about using “weird gear” and putting a new spin on classic shots of the bridge, Bay landmarks, and traffic. The group describes Jensen as a legit street photographer who captures kick-flips, drug trades, and intimate portraits of wizened or withered people. Holden “defaults to high buildings,” abandoned warehouses, and construction zones. Michelle loves architectural details and stumbling upon “lonely” timeless moments.

Photo by Travis Jensen

“As a group, we’re not taking Hallmark postcard pictures. This is the San Francisco we live in. It’s not a sunset at Crissy Field or the Painted Ladies,” Michelle says.

“It’s the nitty-gritty city stuff,” Jensen clarifies.

Every day, the Caliber Web site features a minimum of four new photos, a click from each member caught in their digital nets while walking to work, riding the bus, or on a Sunday morning stroll. From intimate portraits to the beautiful cityscapes, Caliber’s photos capture the real San Francisco from the dirty ground up.

Photo by Troy Holden

“Getting the perfect shot is very mathematical. And this is me being nerdy, but it’s recognizing when every element is in its right place,” says Troy, noting that sometimes it takes a hundred snaps of a single scene to get it right.

“It’s like panning for gold, finding the nugget,” adds Michelle. “And all you need is one.”

www.calibersf.com

Democratizing the streets

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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26
Democratizing the streets

steve@sbg.com

It’s hard to keep up with all the changes occurring on the streets of San Francisco, where an evolving view of who and what roadways are for cuts across ideological lines. The car is no longer king, dethroned by buses, bikes, pedestrians, and a movement to reclaim the streets as essential public spaces.

Sure, there are still divisive battles now underway over street space and funding, many centered around the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which has more control over the streets than any other local agency, particularly after the passage of Proposition A in 2007 placed all transportation modes under its purview.

Transit riders, environmentalists, and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors are frustrated that Mayor Gavin Newsom and his appointed SFMTA board members have raised Muni fares and slashed service rather than tapping downtown corporations, property owners, and/or car drivers for more revenue.

Board President David Chiu is leading the effort to reject the latest SFMTA budget and its 10 percent Muni service cut, and he and fellow progressive Sups. David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi have been working on SFMTA reform measures for the fall ballot, which need to be introduced by May 18.

But as nasty as those fights might get in the coming weeks, they mask a surprising amount of consensus around a new view of streets. “The mayor has made democratizing the streets one of his major initiatives,” Newsom Press Secretary Tony Winnicker told the Guardian.

And it’s true. Newsom has promoted removing cars from the streets for a few hours at a time through Sunday Streets and his “parklets” in parking spaces, for a few weeks or months at a time through Pavement to Parks, and permanently through Market Street traffic diversions and many projects in the city’s Bicycle Plan, which could finally be removed from a four-year court injunction after a hearing next month.

Even after this long ban on new bike projects, San Francisco has seen the number of regular bicycle commuters double in recent years. Bike to Work Day, this year held on May 13, has become like a civic holiday as almost every elected official pedals to work and traffic surveys from the last two years show bikes outnumbering cars on Market Street during the morning commute.

If it wasn’t for the fiscal crisis gripping this and other California cities, this could be a real kumbaya moment for the streets of San Francisco. Instead, it’s something closer to a moment of truth — when we’ll have to decide whether to put our money and political will into “democratizing the streets.”

 

RECONSIDERING ROADWAYS

After some early clashes between Newsom and progressives on the Board of Supervisors and in the alternative transportation community over a proposal to ban cars from a portion of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park — a polarizing debate that ended in compromise after almost two acrimonious years — there’s been a remarkable harmony over once-controversial changes to the streets.

In fact, the changes have come so fast and furious in the last couple of years that it’s tough to keep track of all the parking spaces turned into miniparks or extended sidewalks, replacement of once-banished benches on Market and other streets, car-free street closures and festivals, and healthy competition with other U.S. cities to offer bike-sharing or other green innovations.

So much is happening in the streets that SF Streetsblog has quickly become a popular, go-to clearinghouse for stories about and discussions of our evolving streets, a role that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition — itself the largest grassroots group in the city, with more than 11,000 paid members — recently recognized with its Golden Wheel award.

“I think we are at a tipping point. All these little things have been percolating,” said San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association director Gabriel Metcalf, listing examples such as the creative reuse of San Francisco street space by Rebar and other groups (see “Seizing space,” 11/18/09), experiments in New York and other cities to convert traffic lanes to bicycle and pedestrian spaces, a new generation of more forward-thinking traffic engineers and planning professionals working in government, and more aggressive advocacy work by the SFBC, SPUR, and other groups.

“I think it’s all starting to coalesce,” Metcalf said. “Go to 17th and Valencia [streets] and feel what it’s like to have a sidewalk that’s wide enough to be comfortable. Or go ride in the physically separated bike lane on Market Street. Or take your kids to the playground at Hayes Green that used to be a freeway ramp.”

Politically, this is a rare area of almost universal agreement. “This is an issue where this mayor and this board have been very aligned,” Metcalf said. Winnicker, Newsom’s spokesperson, agreed: “The mayor and the board do see this issue very similarly.”

Mirkarimi, a progressive who chairs the Transportation Authority, also agreed that this new way of looking at the streets has been a bright spot in board-mayoral relations. “It is evolving and developing, and that’s a very good thing,” Mirkarimi said.

Both Winnicker and Mirkarimi separately singled out the improvements on Divisidero Street — where the median and sidewalks have been planted with trees and vegetation and some street parking spaces have been turned into designated bicycle parking and outdoor seating — as an example of the new approach.

“It really is a microcosm of an evolving consciousness,” Mirkarimi said of the strip.

Sunday Streets, a series of events when the streets are closed to cars and blossom with life, is an initiative proposed by SFBC and Livable City that has been championed by Newsom and supported by the board as it overcame initial opposition from the business community and some car drivers.

“There is a growing synergy toward connecting the movements that deal with repurposing space that has been used primarily for automobiles,” Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King told us.

Newsom has cast the greening initiatives as simply common sense uses of space and low-cost ways of improving the city. “A lot of what the mayor and the board have disagreements on, some of that is ideological,” Winnicker said. “But streets, parks, medians, and green spaces, they are not ideological.”

Maybe not, but where the rubber is starting to meet the road is on how to fund this shift, particularly when it comes to transit services that aren’t cheap — and to Newsom’s seemingly ideological aversion to new taxes or charges on motorists.

“We’re completely aligned when it comes to the Bike Plan and testing different things as far as our streets, but that all changes with the MTA budget,” said board President David Chiu, who is leading the charge to reject the budget because of its deep Muni service cuts. “Progressives are focused on the plight of everyday people who can’t afford to drive and park a car and have to rely on Muni. So it’s a question of on whose back will you balance the MTA budget.”

 

WHOSE STREETS?

The MTA governs San Francisco’s streets, from deciding how their space is allocated to who pays for their upkeep. The agency runs Muni, sets and administers parking policies, regulates taxis, approves bicycle-related improvements, and tries to protect pedestrians.

So when the mayoral-appointed MTA Board of Directors last month approved a budget that cuts Muni service by 10 percent without sharing the pain with motorists or pursuing significant new revenue sources — in defiance of pleas by the public and progressive supervisors over the last 18 months — it triggered a real street fight.

The Budget and Finance Committee will begin taking up the MTA budget May 12. And progressive supervisors, frustrated at having to replay this fight for a second year in a row, are pursuing a variety of MTA reforms for the November ballot, which must be submitted by May 18.

“We’re going to have a very serious discussion about MTA reform,” Chiu said, adding, “I expect there to be a very robust discussion about the MTA and balancing that budget on the backs of transit riders.”

Among the reforms being discussed are shared appointments between the mayor and board, greater ability for the board to reject individual initiatives rather than just the whole budget, changes to Muni work rules and compensation, and revenue measures like a local surcharge on vehicle license fees or a downtown transit assessment district.

Last week Chiu met with Newsom on the MTA budget issue and didn’t come away hopeful that there will be a collaborative solution such as last year’s compromise. But Chiu said he and other supervisors were committed to holding the line on Muni service cuts.

“I think the MTA needs to get more creative. We have to make sure the MTA isn’t being used as an ATM with these work orders,” Chiu said, referring to the $65 million the MTA pays to the Police Department and other agencies every year, a figure that steeply increased after 2007. “My hope is that the MTA board does the right thing and rolls back some of these service reductions.”

Transit riders have been universal in condemning the MTA budget. “The budget is irresponsible and dishonest,” said San Francisco Transit Riders Union project director Dave Snyder. “It reveals the hypocrisy in the mayor’s stated environmental commitments. This action will cut public transit permanently and that’s irresponsible.”

But the Mayor’s Office blames declining state funding and says the MTA had no choice. “It’s an economic reality. None of us want service reductions, but show us the money,” Winnicker said.

That’s precisely what the progressive supervisors are trying to do by exploring several revenue measures for the November ballot. But they say Newsom’s lack of leadership on the issue has made that difficult, particularly given the two-third vote requirement.

“There’s been a real failure of leadership by Gavin Newsom,” Mirkarimi said.

Newsom addressed the issue in December as he, Mirkarimi, and other city officials and bicycle advocates helped create the city’s first green “bike box” and honor the partial lifting of the bike injunction, sounding a message of unity on the issue.

“I can say this is the best relationship we’ve had for years with the advocacy community, with the Bicycle Coalition. We’ve begun to strike a nice balance where this is not about cars versus bikes. This is about cars and bikes and pedestrians cohabitating in a different mindset,” Newsom said.

Yet afterward, during an impromptu press conference, Newsom spoke with disdain about those who argued that improving the streets and maintaining Muni service during hard economic times requires money, and Newsom has been the biggest impediment to finding new revenue sources.

“Everyone is just so aggressive on trying to raise revenue. We’ve been increasing the cost of going on Muni the last few years. I think people need to consider that,” Newsom said. “We’ve increased the cost of parking tickets, increased the cost of using a parking meter, and we’ve raised the fares. It’s important to remind people of that. The first answer to every question shouldn’t be, OK, we’re going to tax people more or increase their costs.

“You have to be careful about that,” he continued. “So my answer to your question is two-fold. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily tax increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily fine increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily parking meter increases. We’re going to look at new strategies.”

Yet that was six months ago, and with the exception of grudgingly agreeing to allow a small pilot program in a few commercial corridors to eliminate free parking in metered spots on Sunday, Newsom still hasn’t proposed any new revenue options.

“The voters aren’t receptive to new taxes now,” Winnicker said last week. Mirkarimi doesn’t necessarily agree, citing polling data showing that voters in San Francisco may be open to the VLF surcharge, if we can muster the same kind of political will we’re applying to other street questions.

“It polls well, even in a climate when taxation scares people,” Mirkarimi said.

 

BIKING IS BACK

It was almost four years ago that a judge stuck down the San Francisco Bicycle Plan, ruling that it should have been subjected to a full-blown environmental impact report (EIR) and ordering an injunction against any projects in the plan.

That EIR was completed and certified by the city last year, but the same anti-bike duo who originally sued to stop the plan again challenged it as inadequate. The case will finally be heard June 22, with a ruling on lifting the injunction expected within a month.

“The San Francisco Bicycle Plan project eliminates 56 traffic lanes and more than 2,000 parking spaces on city streets,” attorney Mary Miles wrote in her April 23 brief challenging the plan. “According to City’s EIR, the project will cause ‘significant unavoidable impacts’ on traffic, transit, and loading; degrade level of service to unacceptable levels at many major intersections; and cause delays of more than six minutes per street segment to many bus lines. The EIR admits that the “near-term” parts of the project alone will have 89 significant impacts of traffic, transit, and loading but fails to mitigate or offer feasible alternatives to each of these impacts.”

Yet for all that, elected officials in San Francisco are nearly unanimous in their support for the plan, signaling how far San Francisco has come in viewing the streets as more than just conduits for cars.

City officials deny that the bike plan is legally inadequate and they may quibble with a few of the details Miles cites, but they basically agree with her main point. The plan will take away parking spaces and it will slow traffic in some areas. But they also say those are acceptable trade-offs for facilitating safe urban bicycling.

The city’s main overriding consideration is that we must do more to get people out of their cars, for reasons ranging from traffic congestion to global warming. City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey said that it’s absurd that the state’s main environmental law has been used to hinder progress toward the most environmentally beneficial and efficient transportation option.

“We have to stop solving for cars, and that’s an objective shared by the Board of Supervisors, and other cities, and the mayor as well,” Dorsey said.

Even anti-bike activist Rob Anderson, who brought the lawsuit challenging the bike plan, admits the City Hall has united around this plan to facilitate bicycling even if it means taking space from automobiles, although he believes that it’s a misguided effort.

“It’s a leap of faith they’re making here that this will be good for the city,” Anderson told us. “This is a complicated legal argument, and I don’t think the city has made the case.”

A judge will decide that question following the June 22 hearing. But whatever way that legal case is decided, it’s clear that San Francisco has already changed its view of its streets and other once-marginalized transportation choices like the bicycle.

Even the local business community has benefited from this new sensibility, with bicycle shops thriving around San Francisco and local bike messenger bag companies Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bags experiencing rapid growth thanks to a doubling of the number of regular bicyclists in recent years.

“That’s who we’re aiming at, people who bike every day and make bikes a central part of their lives,” said Mike Waffenfels, CEO of Timbuk2, which in February moved into a larger location to handle it’s growth. “It’s about a lifestyle.”

For urban planners and advocates, it’s about making the streets of San Francisco work for everyone. As Metcalf said, “People need to be able to get where they’re going without a car.”

Event Listings

David Talbot
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0

Event Listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 12

Bike-In Movie Parking lot across from the Good Hotel, SF; www.disposablefilmfest.com. Good Hotel, 112 7th St, SF; (415) 621-7001. 4pm, free. Celebrate SF Bike Week starting at 4pm with Forage SF’s Underground Market, followed by a raffle at 7pm for cool bike gear, stays at the Good Hotel, and more, culminating in a screening of the Disposable Film Festival 2010 competitive shorts at 8pm. Valet bike parking available from the SFBC.

Write/Walk Meet at Mission High School, 3750 18th St., SF; (415) 252-4655. 6pm, free. Reading at Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia, SF. 7pm, free. Enjoy a walking tour of poems by young poets from WritersCorps workshops at Mission High School that will be displayed in Mission storefronts for the month of May. Participating merchants include Candy Store Collective, Adobe Book Shop, Bombay Ice Cream, Borderlands Books, Dog Eared Bookstore, 826 Valencia, and more. Maps available at participating merchants.

Zhang Huan Sculpture Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza, Civic Center Plaza, Larkin between the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum, SF; www.sfartscommission.org. 10am, free. Attend the dedication of internationally-acclaimed Chinese artist Zhang Huan’s Three Heads Six Arms copper sculpture that will be located in Civic Center Plaza through 2011.

THURSDAY 13

Bike Away From Work Party Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.sfbike.org/btwd. 6pm; free for SFBC members, $10 for non-members. Get the skinny [jeans] on cycling fashion and style at this runway show and Bike to Work Day after party featuring tips on functional finery, complimentary bike valet, DJs, and raffle prizes.

Radical Women on Asian American Heritage New Valencia Hall, Suite 202, 625 Larkin, SF; (415) 864-1278. 7pm, free. Asian vegetarian buffet available at 6:15pm, $7.50. Hear artists Mia Nakano, Lenore Chinn and Nellie Wong discuss turning art into a collective voice for social change and the importance of the visibility of Asian American queers and women to the movements.

Rock the Bike California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., SF; www.calacademy.org. 7pm, $12. Celebrate one of San Francisco’s favorite method of transportation at this cycling themed NightLife featuring fun sustainable displays, including a bike-powered blender, a bike-powered DJ stage where you can take a turn pedaling, a performance by “the bike rapper” Fossil Fuel, bike-powered and inspired art, and more.

FRIDAY 14

BAY AREA

Ferment Change Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oak.; www.fermentchange.org. 7pm, $10-30 sliding scale. Support a more equitable food system at this fermented foods, culture, and urban agriculture series event where you can taste over a hundred different homemade fermented foods and beverages. Proceeds to benefit for urban agriculture heroes, City Slicker Farms. Bring your own fermented food to share and be entered in a raffle.

SATURDAY 15

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Larkin between Ellis and Grove, SF; www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. Celebrate Asian heritage at this street fair featuring two stages with over 100 music, dance, and other performance acts, an Anime area, a mah jong court, food and drink vendors, a cultural procession, an 8-foot high replica of a human colon, and much more.

Dawn Festival 2010 California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF; www.dawnfestival.org. 7:30pm, $20. Reboot and Tablet Magazine host this celebration of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, with Sandra Bernhard, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), and more.

Inner Sunset Street Fair Irving at 10th Ave., SF; www.sfpix.com. 10am-8:30pm, free. Celebrate the Inner Sunset at this inaugural street fair set to feature sidewalk sales throughout the neighborhood, live music performances, dance lessons, art, crafts, food, yoga and tai chi lessons, and more.

MASS Good Vibrations Polk Street Gallery, 1620 Polk, SF; (415) 345-0400. 7pm, free. Enjoy this multimedia exhibit by poet and musician Kevin Simmonds called MASS (Making All Saints Sebastian), where he uses photographs, music, and poetry to recast male sexuality by having a diverse range of men pose as St. Sebastian.

SUNDAY 16

Alameda Backyard Chicken Coop Bicycling Tour Meet at 488 Lincoln, Alameda. 1pm, free. Take a self-guided bike tour of the many chicken coops of Alameda and check out a wide range of chicken coops while learning about urban chicken farming, ecological issues, and slow food on this 4.5 mile route. Maps will be provided at the start location and refreshment will be available along the route.

Bay to Breakers Start lines on Mission between Beale and Steuart, SF; (415) 359-2800, www.ingbaytobreakers.com. 8am; registration $48, group discounts available, free to be a spectator. Enjoy this authentic San Francisco marathon, complete with competitive runners and Mardi Gras style revelers, who follow athletes through the city in themed costumes and floats. Call or visit their website for rules and restrictions on alcohol consumption. Don’t forget to dispose of your own trash.

 

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Author and activist Cornel West appears in Justin Dillon’s doc about human trafficking, Call + Response. It screens Sun/16 at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center.

Schedules are for Wed/12–Tues/18 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7. “Other Cinema:” Leslie Raymond and Jason Jay Stevens present a new A/V performance, Sat, 8:30.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. Iron Man 2 (Favreau, 2010), call for dates and times.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. “Cerrito Classics:” Chinatown (Polanski, 1974), Thurs, 7:15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10. Babies (Balmès, 2010), call for dates and times. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. The Greatest (Feste, 2009), call for dates and times. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), call for dates and times. Vincere (Bellocchio, 2009), call for dates and times. Tenderloin (Anderson, 2009), Wed, 7. OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Hazanavicius, 2009), May 14-20, call for times. Call + Response (Dillon, 2008), Sun, 6:30.

GOOD HOTEL Parking lot, Seventh Street at Minna, SF; www.disposablefilmfest.com/events. Free. “Disposable Film Festival: Bike-In Screening,” short films, Wed, 8.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Destiny (Chahine, 1997), Wed, 7:30.

JACK LONDON SQUARE PAVILION THEATER 98 Broadway, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. Free. “Oakland Underground Film Festival: Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sat, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Heroic Horizons: The View from Australia:” My Brilliant Career (Armstrong, 1979), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Theater closed through May 28.

PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 464-5980. $5-8. “Cult Classics Attack 5:” Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984), Fri-Sat, midnight; Sun, 10am.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. The Last Station (Hoffman, 2009), Wed, 2, 7, 9:25. “Oscar Nominated Short Films 2010:” “Animation Program,” Thurs-Sat, 7:15 (also Sat, 2); “Live Action Program,” Thurs-Sat, 9:15 (also Sat, 4). It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (Kramer, 1963), Sun-Mon, 5, 8 (also Sun, 2). Fish Tank (Arnold, 2009), May 18-19, 7, 9:20 (also May 19, 2). ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. October Country (Palmieri and Mosher, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times. “I Still Wake Up Dreaming! Noir is Dead/Long Live Noir:” •High Tide (Reinhardt, 1947), Fri, 6, 8:45, and Mysterious Intruder (Castle, 1946), Fri, 7:30, 10; •99 River Street (Karlson, 1953), Sat, 1:30, 4:45, 8, and Shield for Murder (O’Brien, 1954), Sat, 3:10, 6:20, 9:45; •Nightmare (Shane, 1956), Sun, 2, 5, 8, and The Mark of the Whistler (Castle, 1944), Sun, 3:45, 6:45, 9:45; •The Lady Confesses (Newfield, 1945), Mon, 6:40, 9:25, and Jealousy (Machaty, 1945), Mon, 8; •The Invisible Wall (Forde, 1947), Tues, 6:30, 9:30, and Treasure of Monte Cristo (Berke, 1949), Tues, 8.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.newpeopleworld.com/films. $8-10. “Kaiju Shakedown: Godzillathon!:” Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Banno, 1971), Wed, 5; Godzilla vs. Gigan (Fukuda, 1972), Wed, 7; Godzilla vs. Megalon (Fukuda, 1973), Thurs, 5; Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (Fukuda, 1974), Thurs, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “To the Limit: Pina Bausch on Film:” The Complaint of the Empress (Bausch, 1989), Thurs, 7:30. Typeface (Nagan, 2009), Sat, 6, 8; Sun, 2, 4.

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12

Fix California’s budget


Ever wonder if you could do a better job balancing the California budget than the professionals? Now’s your chance to take part in a simulated Budget Challenge that mirrors the decisions the Legislature will make in the next few weeks, accounting for all revenue and expenditures, the governor’s cuts, and more. Share your responses with the Legislature.

6 p.m., free

Richmond City Hall

450 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond

(510) 286-1400

THURSDAY, MAY 13

Ride ’em, city slickers


Join thousands of SF commuters in cycling solidarity at this year’s Bike to Work Day. Slip into the commuter convoy, which provides cool company and the safety of riding in a group; stop by an energizer station, where you can fuel up with free coffee, snacks, and goodies; and use the complimentary downtown bike parking station located at Market and Battery streets.

All day, free

Everywhere SF

www.sfbike.org/btwd

FRIDAY, MAY 14

Berkeley Critical Mass


Live in the carfree world you dream of for an evening at this monthly critical mass ride promoting self-powered commuting and community. Fill the streets with human interaction and DIY transportation!

6 p.m., free

Meet at Berkeley BART Station

Center and Shattuck, Berk.

www.berkeleycriticalmass.org

SATURDAY, MAY 15

Mourning Mothers’ March


Help raise awareness for ongoing homicide violence in Oakland and the impact it has on victims, survivors of victims, and the community at large. Mourn the senseless loss of life and spread hope for the future at this march around Lake Merritt.

Noon, free

Meet at Lake Merritt bandstand

Grand and Bellevue, Oak.

(510) 581-0100

Peace Flag-raising Ceremony


Celebrate International Conscientious Objector’s Day at this raising of a second Peace flag with war resisters from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

11 a.m., free

Civic Center Park, flagpole

2180 Milvia, Berk.

www.couragetoresist.org

Stop the Tea Party


Attend "Tea Party: Corporate and Racist Politics in Disguise," a public forum on how to fight back against extremist Tea Party politics. The event features Marsha Feinland from the Peace and Freedom Party, Don Belcher from Single-Payer Now, and Mark Ostapiak from Socialist Action.

7 p.m., $3–$5 donation

Center for Political Education

522 Valencia, SF

(415) 401-7471

TUESDAY, MAY 18

"Oakland’s Health Disparities in Black and White"


According to a report produced by the Alameda County Public Health Department, "compared to a white child in the Oakland Hills, African American children born in West Oakland can expect to die almost 15 years earlier." Hear Dr. Muntu Davis, one of the authors of the report, and representatives from the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF) discuss how the African American community can control of health care as part of the solution to the current community health crisis in Oakland.

7 p.m., free

Humanist Hall

390 27th St., Oakl.

(510) 763-3342 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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1
Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

San Francisco has a lot of streets. Take a look at an aerial picture, or just look at the land-use statistics. More of this city is devoted to paved roads — pathways used largely and designed primarily for private automobiles — than any other single use. Parks, for example, don’t even come close.

That’s partially a matter of urban density. In more suburban-type cities like Berkeley or Portland or Seattle, the lots are bigger, yards are bigger, houses are bigger, and there’s more space between the strips of pavement.

But that density gives us a choice other cities don’t have. Maybe we don’t really need that much pavement.

I know it’s kind of a crazy thought, but imagine what some San Francisco neighborhoods would look like if we closed down, let’s say, one out of every four streets. I don’t mean open that land up for development, either — leave it as a passageway, a thoroughfare — but not for cars. Tear up the concrete, plant grass, make pathways for walking and biking … make the streets places where people can gather, kids can play, stores can enjoy the kind of traffic that only comes with a pedestrian mall, and restaurants can have outdoor seating in what would amount to a strip of mixed-use urban parkland.

Closing streets to cars creates plenty of problems, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable. Seniors and disabled people might have trouble with eliminating bus routes and parking in front of their houses, and that’s a legit concern. (Of course, the number of pedestrian seniors and disabled people killed or maimed by cars might go down too.) So maybe some streets could be turned into one-lane strips, and only people with disabled placards could use them. And ambulances and police and fire vehicles can already drive on car-free pathways in parks. And Muni could run a fleet of electric golf carts to ferry people with mobility issues up and down the grassy lanes.

Those of us who have cars would give up a certain amount of convenience; people without cars would get more of the benefits. That might discourage car use, which is good.

But even for drivers, I wonder. Would I be willing to give up the relative ease of parking near my house in exchange for letting my kids just open the front door of the house and run out and play in a safe, vehicle-free park that used to be a street? Would you?

The world is changing; the days of car culture driven by cheap oil are almost over. More and more people are going to be living in cities (that particular demographic trend is one of the most consistent in modern history). When we talk about the Streets of San Francisco, let’s stop for a moment and ask: does it all have to be about cars?

Muni reform that might actually work

David Talbot
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0
Muni reform that might actually work

EDITORIAL The 2007 ballot measure that was supposed to give Muni more political independence and more money has failed to provide either. It’s time to say that Proposition A, which we supported, hasn’t worked — in significant part because the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn’t allowed it to work. It’s time for a new reform effort, one that looks at Muni’s governance structure, funding, and the way it spends money.

There are several proposals in the works. Sup. David Campos has asked for a management audit of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, and that’s likely to show some shoddy oversight practices and hugely wasteful overtime spending. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wants to change the way Muni workers get paid, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Chiu are talking about changing the way the MTA board is appointed. There are merits to all the reform plans, but in the end, none of them will work if they don’t address the fundamental fact that Muni doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of transit service San Francisco needs.

The basic outlines of what a progressive Muni reform measure would look like are pretty obvious. It ought to include three basic principles: work-rule and overtime reform; a change in the way other departments, particularly the police, charge Muni for work orders — and a sizable new source of revenue.

The work orders are, in many ways, the easiest issue. Last year, the San Francisco Police Department charged Muni more than $12 million in work orders. For what? Well, for doing what the Police Department gets paid to do anyway: patrolling Muni garages, putting cops on the buses, and dealing with Muni-related traffic issues. And a lot of that $12 million is police overtime.

The labor and revenue issues are trickier — mostly because they’re being addressed separately. Elsbernd, for example, wants to Muni workers to engage in the same collective bargaining that other city unions do, which makes a certain amount of sense. But he’s wrong to make it appear that the union and the workers are the major source of Muni’s financial problems — and that approach won’t get far. The bus drivers and mechanics didn’t make millions on large commercial developments that put a huge strain on the transit system — and the developers who profit from having bus service for the occupants of their buildings have never paid their fair share. Nor is it the fault of the union that car traffic downtown clogs the streets and makes it hard for buses to run on time.

We agree that the transit union needs to come to the table and talk, seriously, about work-rule changes. Every other city union, particularly SEIU Local 1021, whose members are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, has given something up to help the city’s budget problems.

But any attempt to change Muni’s labor contract needs to be paired with a serious new revenue program aimed at putting the transit system on a stronger financial footing — and traffic management plans that give buses an advantage over cars. The city can add a modest fee on car owners now, and if a Democratic governor wins in November, it’s likely that state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill to allow a local car tax will become law. That’s part of the solution, as is expanded parking meter hours. (And someone needs to talk about charging churchgoers for parking in the middle of the streets on Sundays.) But Muni also needs a regular stream of income from fees on developers.

And a seven-member MTA appointed entirely by the mayor does nothing for political independence; at the very least, the supervisors should get three of the appointments.

The city badly needs Muni reform — and the elements are all in place. But it can’t be a piecemeal approach.

Muni reform that might actually work

David Talbot
-
7

EDITORIAL The 2007 ballot measure that was supposed to give Muni more political independence and more money has failed to provide either. It’s time to say that Proposition A, which we supported, hasn’t worked — in significant part because the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn’t allowed it to work. It’s time for a new reform effort, one that looks at Muni’s governance structure, funding, and the way it spends money.

There are several proposals in the works. Sup. David Campos has asked for a management audit of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, and that’s likely to show some shoddy oversight practices and hugely wasteful overtime spending. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wants to change the way Muni workers get paid, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Chiu are talking about changing the way the MTA board is appointed. There are merits to all the reform plans, but in the end, none of them will work if they don’t address the fundamental fact that Muni doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of transit service San Francisco needs.

The basic outlines of what a progressive Muni reform measure would look like are pretty obvious. It ought to include three basic principles: work-rule and overtime reform; a change in the way other departments, particularly the police, charge Muni for work orders — and a sizable new source of revenue.

The work orders are, in many ways, the easiest issue. Last year, the San Francisco Police Department charged Muni more than $12 million in work orders. For what? Well, for doing what the Police Department gets paid to do anyway: patrolling Muni garages, putting cops on the buses, and dealing with Muni-related traffic issues. And a lot of that $12 million is police overtime.

The labor and revenue issues are trickier — mostly because they’re being addressed separately. Elsbernd, for example, wants to Muni workers to engage in the same collective bargaining that other city unions do, which makes a certain amount of sense. But he’s wrong to make it appear that the union and the workers are the major source of Muni’s financial problems — and that approach won’t get far. The bus drivers and mechanics didn’t make millions on large commercial developments that put a huge strain on the transit system — and the developers who profit from having bus service for the occupants of their buildings have never paid their fair share. Nor is it the fault of the union that car traffic downtown clogs the streets and makes it hard for buses to run on time.

We agree that the transit union needs to come to the table and talk, seriously, about work-rule changes. Every other city union, particularly SEIU Local 1021, whose members are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, has given something up to help the city’s budget problems.

But any attempt to change Muni’s labor contract needs to be paired with a serious new revenue program aimed at putting the transit system on a stronger financial footing — and traffic management plans that give buses an advantage over cars. The city can add a modest fee on car owners now, and if a Democratic governor wins in November, it’s likely that state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill to allow a local car tax will become law. That’s part of the solution, as is expanded parking meter hours. (And someone needs to talk about charging churchgoers for parking in the middle of the streets on Sundays.) But Muni also needs a regular stream of income from fees on developers.

And a seven-member MTA appointed entirely by the mayor does nothing for political independence; at the very least, the supervisors should get three of the appointments.

The city badly needs Muni reform — and the elements are all in place. But it can’t be a piecemeal approach.

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

FRIDAY, MAY 7

Sacco and Vanzetti


In the wake of May Day, the international working class holiday, watch a screening of this documentary about two Italian immigrant anarchists who were executed in 1927 during a federal crackdown on political dissent. Featuring interviews with Howard Zinn, Studs Terkel, and Arlo Guthrie. Discussion to follow.

7:30 p.m., $2 donation

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, Suite 202, SF

(415) 864-1278

SATURDAY, MAY 8

Remember the WPA


Join the Bail Out the People Movement in remembering the Work Projects Administration (WPA), created in the 1930s as part of the New Deal to employ millions of people to carry out public works projects. Demand a real jobs program now, when joblessness levels are the highest they’ve been since the Great Depression.

Noon, free

New Federal Building

Seventh St. at Mission, SF

(415) 738-4739

Tear Down the Walls


Attend this fundraiser for the Prison Activist Resource Center, an all-volunteer, grassroots prison abolitionist collective. Featuring live music, dance performances, spoken word, a silent auction of art by Death Row artists Kevin Cooper and James Anderson, and more.

7 p.m., $10+ suggested donation

Uptown Body and Fender Shop

401 26th St., Oakl.

(510) 893-4648

SUNDAY, MAY 9

Reclaim Mother’s Day


Join other mothers for this march across the Golden Gate Bridge to answer the call Julia Ward made 140 years ago "to feel tender towards women of other nations and not allow our sons to injure their sons." Mother’s Day is not just a day to take your mother to brunch!

11:45 a.m., free

Golden Gate Bridge

Gather in either north or south parking lots along Highway 101, SF

(510) 540-7007

MONDAY, MAY 10

No Drones Bus Caravan


Hop on the bus for two days of action against war profiteers. The bus goes from the Bay Area to Indian Springs, Nev., stopping along the way at the headquarters of at least seven major corporations that profit from war by making mass-killing devices.

7 a.m., $100

Call for meet up location

(510) 540-7007

bayareacodepink.org

Spring clothing drive


Clean your closet for a good cause — donate to St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program and help provide dignity and essentials to low-income families. St. Anthony’s offers free clothing in a store-like environment to help those in need move toward self-sufficiency.

Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–4:15 p.m.; free

St. Anthony’s Foundation

1179 Mission, SF

(415) 241-2600

www.stanthonysf.org

TUESDAY, MAY 11

"A Right to Home"


Find out how people in the Bay Area and in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are organizing to confront the injustice, inequality, and discrimination that create conditions for homelessness, forced migration, and displacement. Featuring panelists from Priority Africa Network, National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, International Accountability Project, and Just Cause.

5:30 p.m., $10 suggested donation

World Affairs Council

312 Sutter, SF

(415) 824-8384

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

The Chron just wants to cut transit

Zelda Bronstein
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10
The Chron just wants to cut transit

Interesting that the Sfgate.com poll running along with the Matier and Ross item on transit agency deficits only cites four possible solutions: Cut service, cut employee pay, raise fares or “get in the bailout line.” I realize that the Bay Area’s transit agencies don’t always work well together and duplicate some service, and that some managers are overpaid, and some money is wasted on consulting contracts. But I also know that in a recession, the price elasticity of demand for transit (warning — deadly report) is pretty high. That means when you raise prices, fewer people ride — and at a certain point, you wind up losing money by hiking fares.


And I also know that transit systems are one of those government services that, like schools, almost always get better when you throw more money at them.


We have been systematically underfunding public transit in this state and this country for decades — and now we’re surprised that the agencies are running out of money? Of course, the Sfgate readers all want to cut employee pay — that’s an easy scapegoat — but I wonder what would happen if the poll included “raise gas taxes and parking fees to fund fast, clean, efficient public transit.” I know what I’d vote for.


 

The odd couple

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
The odd couple

arts@sfbg.com

STAGE A man gets off work one hot summer day and stops at the supermarket for an air-conditioned diversion, buys a bag of cherries, and on the way out of the parking lot rolls over a woman with his Toyota Corolla. This is not a good way to meet people. But wham, crash, a relationship is born nevertheless. Not necessarily a romantic one, but then not so far away either. In Lydia Stryk’s An Accident, which closes the current season at the Magic Theater, guilt-ridden driver Anton (Tim Kniffin) and paralyzed patient Libby (Arwen Anderson) dance metaphorically and literally around one another like two lovers in a bad breakup. If only the complex collision between their respective pasts, personalities, and shared trauma angled off in our direction a little more. As drama, An Accident ranks disappointingly as a fender-bender.

This is surprising, not only because Stryk reportedly draws here in part on her own experience as the victim of a similar accident, but given the built-in intensity of the situation, which the playwright aims to heighten by keeping the rest of the world off stage. Her two protagonists have exclusive domain over the hospital room — where Libby remains rooted in bed, unable to move her body, her prognosis uncertain, and Anton slumps in a corner chair or moves frenetically about, trying to please, atone, heal (the both of them). The only other setting, until the very end, is a park bench just outside (set downstage in shadow) where Anton initially sits frozen in contemplation before addressing the audience about the day of the accident.

Moreover, Libby, who also addresses us at the outset, is suffering temporary amnesia, and is thus a "missing person" with no one else in the world as far as she knows. Anton, for his part, is a bit of a loner too, a divorced high school history teacher and Civil War buff, a bookworm and library stalker, with a grown daughter in medical school probably not much younger than Libby. In other words, he’s a guy in his head most of the time, confronted with the broken body of a young woman suddenly trapped in her own thoughts and glaring back angrily at his brazenly healthy physique.

The realism is heavily sculpted by this ideal, almost laboratory-like distillation. Director Rob Melrose and scenic designer Erik Flatmo even forgo the usual hospital equipment, sounds from the corridor, or any view beyond the large wall-size windows, which remain hidden by drawn blinds. Indeed, Flatmo’s set — one of the more impressive transformations of the Magic stage in recent memory — recedes enticingly with sloping ceiling and hard angles into the very idea of institutional isolation, rather than some real-world approximation.

Again, such an intense focus promises us something, namely intensity. But that is decidedly lacking. The actors are very expressive — Anderson’s vigorous, slightly zany performance being all the more impressive given the heavy restrictions on her movement — but the tone is oddly noncommittal, a lightness confounding even the ostensibly heaviest of scenes. The gruesome physicality of their encounter comes across in the dialogue, where the details of Libby’s injuries come to light, but the impact, so to speak, remains marginal. At times it seems as if too much realism were forgone: when Anton, desperately and slightly ridiculously pursuing a healing "life force" energy technique, obeys Libby’s command to remove her hospital gown to maximize his effectiveness, we see her body pristine rather than badly beaten, bruised, and surgically scarred.

One ruefully recalls, in way of contrast, Caryl Churchill’s A Number or David Harrower’s Blackbird. These are similarly distilled two-person dramas where the concentrated isolation of characters locked in deeply traumatic relation to one another comes off to much greater effect, laying both parties bare while digging deeply under our own skin. Unlike the characters in either of those plays, and in an intriguing twist, Libby and Anton have no mutual past predating the collision itself, so their individual pasts come to color and inform this backward relationship that begins in trauma and pain. It’s an opportunity that should have led further, but An Accident plays it all too safe.

AN ACCIDENT

Through May 9

Wed.–Sat., 8pm (also Sat., 2:30 p.m.);

Sun., 2:30 p.m., $25–$55

Magic Theatre, Bldg D,

Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF

(415) 441-8822

www.magictheatre.org

What’s wrong with taxing car owners?

Zelda Bronstein
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13
What’s wrong with taxing car owners?

It’s almost as if we need a full-time blogger to monitor the backwards ideas coming from the Chron’s C.W. Nevius. Today’s case in point: Nevius thinks the idea of charging for Sunday parking is “the dumbest idea since the imitation crab meat cocktail.” 


His brilliant investigative observation:


For all the talk about the fees on Sunday turning over parking spaces, you never read very far into one of these parking enforcement stories before you get to the bottom line — an estimated $2.8 million a year in this case if the Sunday-charge system was implemented citywide.


That’s exactly right, Chuck: This is a way to bring in money for Muni. And I don’t get what’s wrong with that. People who drive cars (and I admit, I’m one of them) have an outsized impact on the city; they take up a huge amount of space (San Francisco devotes more urban land to streets than parks), they pollute the air, they increase the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and they contribute to global warming. And they don’t pay anywhere near enough taxes and fees to mitigate the impacts of their behavior.


I’m all for higher gas taxes, for example; taxes should not just be a source of revenue but should, when possible, be targeted to discourage socially detrimental behavoir. And charging people a little money to drive their cars to Sunday brunch instead of walking or taking public transit isn’t a terribly radical, unusual or disturbing idea. (In fact, we ought to charge the churches for the right to turn the streets into private parking lots on Sunday mornings).


Nevius complains that car drivers aren’t bad:


But c’mon. These aren’t evil people. They aren’t trying to scam the city, pee on the street, or break car windows and steal backpacks. We could fine the aggressive panhandler and the petty break-in artists, but they don’t have any money.


And I agree: They aren’t bad. But the same way taxes on cigarettes both defray the social cost of tobacco use and discourage the dangerous and noxious habit, a modest little fee for parking your car helps pay for public transit and might just encourage a few people not to drive their cars. That’s something everyone in the city should support.

Conan O’Brien is employed so the rest of us don’t have to be

Andrew Lam
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6

Yuppies love jokes about homeless people.

Consider that a telling, if ancillary, lesson I learned at last night’s Conan O’Brien “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour, which continues tonight, Fri/23.

In the wake of O’Brien’s sacking from his late night gig at NBC earlier this year, the show marked a return to relevancy for the comedian. His comeback seemed to resonate with the younger, upper middle crowd at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, many of whom are no doubt fighting to maintain their own $79.50 comedy show lifestyle in the face of economic shittiness and uncertain employment.

Before we could see the man himself, we the audience were treated to a video showing an obese, bearded Conan from “a month ago” lolling about in sweatpants and pizza boxes as he waited for the phone to ring that would grant him a chance to spread his snark to the masses once more. No job = letting the dog lick peanut butter off your toes and sweatsuits. I looked around, and the buttoned down, well coiffed crowd around me was chuckling uncomfortably to themselves. Unemployed — and that beard! What a loser Conan was!

But the call comes, and we watch the birth of the 72 city “Legally Prohibited” tour. Barred from TV, radio, and the Internet until the fall (when his new TBS series begins, surely a come down for a man used to the bright lights of network television) by the terms of his contract with NBC, live performances are one of the only options open right now to O’Brien, whose career’s been light on the stand up without the sound stage up to this point.

+ beard + certain degree of world weary grizzle = Conan from last night’s show

His lack of live experience didn’t matter to the folks last night, though. They whooped it up as the man made his entrance onstage, re-energized in a sharp suit, his band behind him once more. The gut was gone, but the beard stayed, a rugged look that seemed to scream ‘this man has been through some shit!’

“We played San Francisco in 2007 in the Tenderloin, at the Orpheum,” O’Brien explains to us. “I had to get to the theater by canoeing through hobo urine!”

Haaaa! “That’s the show it’s going to be,” he tells us, as the crowd cheers his cheekiness. He tells us he can see “some guy in a top hat in the balcony” telling his wife, Mildred “it’s time to go.” Frumpy old people aside “your asses are mine tonight! You can’t change the channel,” he tells us. But no one’s leaving. The bland jokes, humorous musical numbers, and even an appearance from Chris Isaak (omg! He’s like, so cute!) keep the endorphins up and the bright, shiny crowd enthralled.

In crazy times, your late night show will always be there for you. Even if that interview didn’t go so hot, or you’re forced to give up the private parking space, you know your favorite TV host awaits to round out the day with some reassuringly belittling comments on pretty much every single person in popular culture. All the better if he’s cracking wise about the unemployment office and the steps of grieving that happen when you lose your job.

These days, that’s what we call relevant humor. Go get ‘em, Coco.

Conan O’Brien’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour

Fri/23  8 p.m., $39.50-79.50

Nob Hill Masonic Center

1111 California, SF

(415) 630-8496

www.teamcoco.com

FEAST: 6 voluptuous buns

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
FEAST: 6 voluptuous buns

Pools of ink and its electronic equivalent have been expended helping SF’s legions of night-crawlers find the best drinks, beats, and eats. Not so for our less numerous early-risers. But there are plenty of reasons to get up early: seagulls materializing out of the fog, the sun rising over the bay, first pressings at Ritual, parking spaces, and, perhaps most important, morning buns. Specifically, warm morning buns.

Unlike the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana‘s rules on pizza (dough no higher than 1/8 inch thick, hand-kneaded only), the French-inspired morning bun has some latitude. Buns can be made with brioche dough or croissant dough; flavored with cinnamon, or orange, or both. Puff pastry does not raise cries of quelle horreur! But whatever the yeast-risen dough base, the ideal MB should be a “turned” pastry, layered with butter and spices, then dusted with sugar and baked to caramelized crispness. Nuts, raisins, or frosting mean you have strayed — egad — into snail or danish territory.

Like bagels, MBs also are the perfect food ephemera. By 9:30 a.m. the chances of finding a still-warm one have passed. By 11 a.m., they have aged out completely. So set your alarm and get in line. (Diane Sussman)

 

SANDBOX BAKERY

This small Bernal Heights newcomer is already making a name for itself for its superlative sandwiches, kashi pans, and pastries (I’m talking to you, Valrhona pain au chocolat), and its MB is no exception. Starting with a brioche dough, Sandbox MB has a crisp, flaky top that gives way to fragrant, generous layers of cinnamon, sugar, and orange doughy bliss. Even better, this is one bun source where you can still get a warm one even if you sleep in (sort of). Although the bakery opens at 7 a.m., one staffer revealed that its MBs don’t usually come out of the oven until 7:30.

833 Cortland, SF. (415) 642-8580. www.sandboxbakerysf.com

 

TARTINE BAKERY

Scoring an MB at Tartine requires a strategy. Well before it opens (times vary), Tartine has lines out the door. Granted, not everyone is there for an MB, but that doesn’t alleviate fears among MB heads that the person ahead of you line won’t order five dozen. In addition, Tartine Mbers have subgenres of preferences, preferring “light on the bottom.” But not to worry. All colors of Tartine’s MBs (which start with croissant dough) have crisp, sweet, flaky, muffin-like tops with soft, yeasty, buttery centers sprinkled with orange, cinnamon, and sugar. In addition to competition, Tartine’s MBs are also more expensive ($3.75 compared to $2–$2.50 elsewhere).

600 Guerrero, SF. (415) 487-2600. www.tartinebakery.com

 

 

DELESSIO MARKET AND BAKERY

Delessio is the MB slug-a-bed’s dream joint. The combination deli-bakery doesn’t open until 8 a.m., and even then the bakers often run 10 to 15 minutes late. (Value add: sometimes the friendly staff will let you pluck your own MB from the cooling rack — use paper!). Delessio’s offering is moist, flaky (it uses a brioche dough), not too sweet, and generous with cinnamon. Delessio does have one tragic flaw, though: it doesn’t bake those buns every day. Call first or learn a vital lesson in flexibility with the breakfast brioche.

1695 Market and 302 Broderick, SF. (415) 552-5559 and (415) 552-8077. www.delessiomarket.com

 

LA BOULANGE

Stare into one of the pastry cases at Boulange and you’ll see the signs for “morning buns.” But Boulange’s morning bun isn’t really a morning bun, as one staff member readily acknowledged. “We call them cinnamon-orange buns,” she said. “They are our own version of morning buns.” Starting with a croissant dough, Boulange MBs are flatter and rounder than a traditional morning bun, don’t have the crispy, caramelized sugar muffin top, and have a bit more orange than others. While purists may shriek, “Wrong!” iconoclasts are likely to counter with “Nice!” (Whole Foods also carries Boulange’s buns in its bakery cases.)

Various locations, www.laboulange.com

 

MATCHING HALF CAFE

The small neighborhood café at the corner of Fulton and Baker streets in the Panhandle doesn’t bake its own MBs, but it does get a daily stash from Bakers of Paris. Shunning tradition, Bakers of Paris uses puff pastry and rolls its version with orange zest, making for a light, refreshingly acidic, not too sweet treat. Although you can’t get one fresh out of the oven (Bakers of Paris’ bakery is in Brisbane), Matching Half staff will heat it up for you. (Bakers of Paris also sells its buns at the Sunday farmers markets on Grove in the Divis Corridor and Irving in the Inner Sunset.)

1799 McAllister, SF. (415) 674-8699. www.matchinghalfcafe.com

 

SEMIFREDDI’S

Sorry, you can’t go to the source, and you won’t get a warm one. But if you have access to a warming device — and you can wait — you can opt for one of Semifreddi’s goodies. The bakery, which has its baking operations in the East Bay and no retail outlet, trucks its wonderfully carmelized, brioche-based MBs to numerous grocery stores, including Mollie Stone’s, Berkeley Bowl, and Faletti Market. Perfect for when you really slept late. www.semifreddis.com

MTA board approves controversial budget

Sasha Cuttler
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2
MTA board approves controversial budget

By Adam Lesser

City Hall needed an overflow room to accommodate all the disenchanted Muni riders who showed up to protest the two-year San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency budget plan yesterday (4/20). The budget locks in a 10 percent service cut through July 1st, 2011, at which point the MTA board is hopeful that the service cut will be lowered to 5 percent. The controversial budget was adopted on a 4-3 vote, and now goes to the Board of Supervisors, where progressive supervisors have already signaled opposition to the service cuts.

“It still seems and feels as I look at it [the budget], that it’s very tenuously put together. In light of the fact that it’s going to impact the least, the lonely, and the lost of us, I had to say, let’s keep looking at it,” said Director James McCray, who was one of three dissenting votes.

McCray, along with Director Malcolm Heincke who voted for the budget, were the two directors to openly express concern about the pay of transit operators and overtime charges. In a $750 million budget, service cuts wound up providing $29 million in savings, a relatively small number compared to the $456 million that will be spent on salaries and benefits, as well as the $59 million in work orders to other agencies like the police department and the city attorney.

Small revenue measures like adding 1,000 metered spaces, eliminating free reserved parking around areas like City Hall, and window advertising wrap on buses are part of the budget.

Heincke questioned MTA Executive Director Nathaniel Ford about the budget which includes $10 million in labor concessions from MTA employees while locking in a $9 million raise in 2011 and a $9.5 million raise in 2012 for transit operators from Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250-A. Transit operators’ wages and raises are written into the city charter. 

“The bubble over my head says wow,” said Heincke. Ford’s attempts to negotiate with the union over work rules have been unsuccessful. Sup. Sean Elsbernd is pushing a charter amendment for the November ballot that would remove the TWU’s pay rates from the city charter.

Anger over Muni’s payment of work orders to other city agencies was a constant theme among community groups as diverse as the Chinese Progressive Association and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Those work orders have increased from $36 million in 2006 to $66 million in 2010.

“What really happened is the rest of the city had a budget crisis and the mayor went after Muni looking for funds,” said Dave Snyder, coordinator for the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Newsom appoints the directors who sit on the MTA Board. “Muni is paying for service the public doesn’t want them to pay for at the expense of transit service.”

Members of the Latino and Chinese-American community were out in large numbers, not just to protest service cuts that they felt disproportionately impact the Mission and Chinatown, but to complain about harassment by the police. Enforcement of the Proof of Payment program has increased with Muni agents and police checking the amount of time left on riders’ transfer tickets, and issuing fines.

“You have police asking for ID and issuing $75 fines. There have been a few cases of deportation,” Beatriz Herrera, an organizer for People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER). Referring to riders whose transfers expire while riding a bus, Emily Lee of the Chinese Progressive Association said, “They expect folks to get off the bus. That’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s stressful for the community. The police are intimidating.”

The service changes are slated to take effect May 8th.

Rolling forward

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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7
Rolling forward

By Adrian Castañeda

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s Potrero del Sol Skatepark is often packed with skaterboarders, a testament to the sport’s popularity and to the dearth of places in the city where it’s legal to skate. But that will soon change with the city’s commitment to build two new skateparks: one in SoMa and the other in the Haight.

Both have been tentatively approved by the Board of Supervisors. But before any concrete is poured, the skaters will have to overcome budget crises, angry homeowners, and their own bad reputations, particularly in the Haight, where the proposed park has gotten caught up in the furor over vagrants and the proposed sit-lie ordinance.

San Francisco has long been a skateboarding hub, yet there’s always been friction with police, businesses, and everyday city life. Even though it’s legal, there just aren’t that many places to do it anymore, partially because the city and property owners routinely attach barriers to any surfaces that might be appealing to skaters.

Skateboarders, long accustomed to being ignored and disenfranchised, have responded in their usual DIY fashion, such as building a few obstacles in an empty parking lot under a freeway overpass. The city took notice of the demand and after three years of planning and meetings, the newest of San Francisco’s skate parks has finally been allotted the necessary funds to begin construction around the end of summer.

The Central Freeway Skate Park will be located in what is now a parking lot at the intersection of Duboce and Stevenson streets in the north Mission District area. With $2 million collected through the Central Freeway Corridor Housing and Transportation Improvement Act of 1999, which provides for the sale and lease of parcels of city land that were under the now-demolished freeway, officials plan to develop the park to eventually include basketball courts and a dog run.

Rich Hillis of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development said the city is considering a variety of improvements, but confirmed that “we think the skate park is the priority.” He attributes the park’s relatively unopposed approval to the demands of the city’s skaters and to the community as a whole. “They embraced the idea of a skatepark early on,” Hillis said of the forward-thinking residents of the area. He jokingly adds that the park should be named “Hornbeck Park” after Bryan Hornbeck, director of the San Francisco Skateboard Association. Hornbeck and his associates started the SFSA to push the city to build new parks designed with skaters in mind.

“San Francisco has to have a world-class skatepark,” Hornbeck said at one of the many skate events his group organizes. Hornbeck said the city has been receptive, working with skaters on the design of the park, but left SFSA to organize skaters and raise the funds. “It’s bake sale; it’s lemonade stand; it’s the best we can do,” Hornbeck said. “We’re not trying to take anything, we’re trying to make our own thing.”

Plans for the park, drawn up by notable skatepark design firm New Line Skateparks, are currently under review by civil engineers. After the plans are finalized, the project will be bid out to find a contractor. Tentative 3-D renderings have been online for months, sparking heated debate on skateboarding Web sites.

When the acclaimed Potrero del Sol Skatepark opened in 2008, many skaters felt that while it was well-designed and enjoyable, it didn’t have enough terrain that mimicked street riding. New Line has designed a number of skating plazas, most recently in Los Angeles. Its involvement gives many skaters hope that the new park will incorporate obstacles that represent the city’s rich street skating history.

But things are not moving as swiftly for the city’s other planned skate park, just beyond where Waller dead-ends at Stanyan in the Haight, which doesn’t have the same guaranteed funding stream. While bids for a design have been submitted, the Recreation and Park Department needs to get approval for $1 million–$2 million in construction funds before moving forward. The city proposed the 120,000-square-foot cul-de-sac at the end of Waller and next to SFPD’s Park Station after the original site near the Golden Gate Park horseshoe pits was found to be too small and lacking the necessary sight-lines for safety. But according to some residents groups, the parking lot is less safe for youths.

Citing police incident reports, Lena Emmery, president of the Cole Valley Improvement Association, told us the Waller park would be in an area with a high number of reported assaults and drug arrests and would add to noise pollution. “This location puts a skateboard park too close to a dense residential area, as well as some businesses that would be negatively impacted by the noise from the skaters,” she wrote via e-mail.

While the lot is occasionally used for bicycle safety classes and overflow parking at Kezar Stadium, it sits empty most of the year, although a farmers market will hold its grand opening there April 28. Will Keating, a Waller Street resident and skateboarder who works on Haight Street, is excited about the proposed park. He disagrees with claims that the park would be a negative impact on his neighborhood. “I hear homeless mutants going crazy outside my window every night, I would much prefer skateboards,” Keating said of the current noise pollution.

The Haight Ashbury Improvement Association, which is leading the charge for a sit-lie ordinance, conducted a survey on its Web site and found that many of its visitors feel the skatepark would increase noise and safety problems in the Haight. Visitors to the site also said the lot would be better used as a farmers market. Yet city officials say the two are not mutually exclusive, and early designs for the project are said to include a large public plaza adjacent to the park intended for community events.

“We realize this is going to be a multiuse space,” said Nick Kinsey, property manager for the Recreation and Park Department. “Throughout San Francisco there are thousands and thousands of skateboarders but only two places where it is legal to skate.” Kinsey called the park is “a done deal,” citing a 2007 ordinance introduced by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi that mandates the department build a skatepark on the cul-de-sac.

Kent Uyehara, merchant chair for the HAIA and owner of FTC skateshop on Haight, said the community’s fears about pedestrian safety are understandable, but that fears of increased violence and drug use are irrational. “If you can’t have a skate park next to a police station, then basically you are saying you can’t have it.”

If the city enacts the sit-lie ordinance, which Uyehara supports, it would be easy to imagine that a skate park would be a magnet for homeless and others looking to escape police harassment. But Uyehara is adamant that the park would not become a haven for Haight Street refugees. “Skateboarders self-police their own areas,” he said. “We’re not trying to kick the homeless out,” he added. “We’re trying to make the neighborhood attractive for everyone, whether they’re buying something or not.”

Uyehara is no stranger to opposition. When his shop first moved to the Haight in 1994, he had to deal with threats from residents and a neighborhood organization, similar to the one he is now a part of, because of what skateboarding represented to them. Since then skateboarding and his business have prospered, and FTC now has four locations worldwide. “For a city that hosted the X-Games, it’s pathetic how skateboarding has been treated.”

Uyehara says the Waller park, along with the Central Freeway and Potrero del Sol parks, are part of a plan developed by the San Francisco Skate Task Force, created in 2002 by then-Sup. Gavin Newsom to address the growing friction between the city and its skateboard population. The task force envisioned “a series of five parks located in a star pattern, and one in the middle of the city, [that] would make it possible for users to easily get to a park within at least two miles of their home.”

All the meetings and fundraising will be in vain if the park is poorly designed and built, said Jake Phelps, editor-in-chief of Thrasher Magazine. He says locals should design the park “so we have no one to blame but ourselves,” and avoid another flawed park like Crocker Amazon in Sunnydale where, he says, “the fence costs more than the skatepark.” Unimpressed with preliminary designs for the park on Duboce, the notoriously blunt Phelps says, “They’re going to come to our town, drop a turd, and leave.”

The veteran skater is wary of “landscape designers” with grandiose ideas. “There are people who get too involved. They don’t skate. Who are they to tell anybody what it is?” Newer skateparks are too crowded with obstacles trying to please all different kinds of skaters, he said. Instead, he urges a simple design similar to the streets of downtown. “The whole idea of skating is being utilitarian with your environment.” Regardless of the design, he believes it won’t have a dramatic effect on the Haight community: “Homeless people are gonna sleep there,” he said. “People are gonna tag on it and think it’s theirs.”

“The whole city’s a park, but people need somewhere to go when they get kicked out of everywhere,” says pro skater Tony Trujillo, who is able to skate to the Potrero park from his house and thinks others should have the same proximity to hassle-free skating. Julien Stranger, another local pro, feels a park in the Haight would benefit youth in the area by giving them a healthy, creative outlet, something the Haight symbolizes to many. “I don’t think that the neighborhood should be complaining about the energy a skate park will bring,” he said. “Skate parks are pretty positive.”

Earlier this month, an informational meeting hosted by the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, Kinsey, Hornbeck, and other residents raised concerns that noise pollution and property damage would increase because of the skate park. “There’s been no public outreach,” said Martha Hoffman, who lives across from where the park is slated to be built. “If we’d known about it sooner, we would have opposed earlier.”

Thuy Nguyen of the SF Skate Club, an after-school program that promotes skateboarding as a safe and positive activity, urged residents to look beyond their property values and consider the benefits for the city’s youth. “It’s important for kids who feel that traditional sports aren’t for them.” Her partner, Shawn Connolly, added that skateboarding has grown in popularity with children. “It’s right after baseball,” he said.

“If the city doesn’t have a skatepark, the city is the skatepark,” Hornbeck said of the Waller Street lot where he often hosts skate events with donated ramps to ease the community into the idea of skateboarders using the area. But until the city budget can provide for skateboarders, the debate over the park will rage — and the underused parking lot at the end of Waller will remain just that.

Chiu talks MTA reform as agency fails to support Muni

Sasha Cuttler
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3
Chiu talks MTA reform as agency fails to support Muni

With the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors poised to approve a truly terrible two-year budget today (4/20) – one that locks in Muni service cuts, subsidizes the police and other city departments, and fails to seek new revenue sources – there is talk about reforming an agency run exclusively by appointees of Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The most significant figure sounding that call is Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who told the Guardian that he plans to hold hearings this year on the MTA board failures to support transit service, with the goal of placing reform measures on the November ballot. Helping that effort will be his newest board aide, Judson True, who comes from a fire-tested stint as the MTA’s spokesperson and before that was a board aide to then-Sup. Gerardo Sandoval.

“We’re going to have a very serious discussion about MTA reform,” Chiu told the Guardian. “I’ve got some real questions and for the next six months, that will be front and center…I expect there to be a very robust discussion about the MTA and balancing that budget on the backs of transit riders.”

Those discussions will be wrapped into city budget season, a realm in which Chiu is also adding firepower right now by hiring Cat Rauschuber as his other new board aide. Rauschuber has her masters in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, most recently worked for city Budget Analyst Harvey Rose, and earlier worked in the city’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“It’s important that we hire folks who have experience in city government, particularly solid policy experience,” Chiu said, adding that his third board aide, Victor Lim, came from the Asian Law Caucus and has experience in immigration reform, another valuable asset given the ongoing standoff between the board and Newsom over sanctuary city policies. 

True and Rauschuber are also master networkers with strong and extensive connections in the progressive community, as well as more mainstream arts, culture, and political communities (Full disclosure: They’re also friends of mine). Those connections and social skills could help unite the varied critics of the current MTA budget, which range from the downtown-oriented SPUR to the new San Francisco Transit Riders Union (SFTRU) to the radical ANSWER Coalition, all of whom have areas of policy disagreement over the best way forward.

All are expected to weigh in today (4/20) at 2 p.m. when the SFMTA convenes in City Hall Room 400 to discuss and vote on the agency’s two-year budget. And while the groups may differ over partial solutions like extended parking meter hours, they all agree this a truly terrible budget that disproportionately punishes low-income people who rely on Muni.

“The budget is irresponsible and dishonest,” SFTRU project director Dave Snyder. “It reveals the hypocrisy in the mayor’s stated environmental commitments. This action will cut public transit permanently and that’s irresponsible.”

Mayoral press secretary Tony Winnicker has not yet responded to the accusations or to Chiu’s calls for MTA reform, but I’ll post his response in the comments section if I hear back.

Oh my gay!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Oh my gay!

CLUB/MUSIC Gay wads. Sissies. Fatties. Fags. Butches. Twinks. Offended? Don’t be — that’s the guest list for Stay Gold, the sickest queer dance party in the Mission. This month the party celebrates its four-year anniversary, inviting you to self-declare along with the rest of the high femmes, boys, bois, nerd alerts, nellies, and an entire pack of sexy dance-dance revolutionaries.

The all-inclusive party throws down its jams the last Wednesday of each month at the Make-Out Room and has grown from a dedicated crowd of 50 at its start to a full-on 450-person freak-fest in 2010. Stay Gold’s founders/promoters/resident DJs Leah Perloff (DJ Rapid Fire) and Danielle Jackson (DJ Pink Lightning) blame the party’s popularity on its welcoming attitude.

“Stay Gold is a queer party, not a lesbian party,” says Perloff over coffee and banana bread. “We’ve never put imagery on flyers because we didn’t want to rule anyone out.”

“It started out as mainly women, but it’s turned into everybody, which is a hard thing to do — get all queers at one event,” Jackson says.

All queer and all hot, Stay Gold draws in a ridiculously cool crowd. Super rad vintage threads bump and grind with killer style choices of all breeds. The haircuts, the personalities, the dance moves— this crowd is bangin’. “Ya. It’s a super hot queer mix,” Jackson agrees with a smirk, noting the event’s tagline: “White hot cruising and solid gold dancing.”

Stay Gold started as a tribute to a friend of Jackson and Perloff, Sarah Tucker, who was killed on her bicycle by a hit-and-run in 2006. Jackson and “Tucker,” as they called her, had put together PYT, a gay dance party named after a certain Michael Jackson song. After Tucker passed away, Jackson and Perloff decided to keep the party going in her honor, switching the name to reflect their lost friend’s recent golden birthday. “Tucker would totally approve of Stay Gold — minus the fact that we play a little hip-hop. That was always her rule: no hip-hop at PYT,” Jackson says.

To balance it out, Tucker’s favorite song, “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep is the party’s anthem. Other Stay Gold staples include “Finally” by CeCe Peniston, “Walking on Broken Glass” by Annie Lennox, and “Pussy (Real Good)” by Jacki-O. “People want to hear the jams,” Perloff says with a very serious face.

Along with the usual DJ mix, the anniversary party includes a special live set from Double Dutchess, who Perloff describes as an “epic booty bass, babelicious, dance jam duo.” Already packed tit-to-tit during its regular event, this one’s gonna be bananas.

Whether it’s suggestion or a rule, take it from Perloff: “No parking on the dance floor.” 

STAYGOLD FOUR-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Wed/31, 10:30pm, $3

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

www.makeoutroom.com

Nihon Whisky Lounge

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Nihon Whisky Lounge

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE Among the stand-tall, manly-man libations, none stands taller than whiskey, or (for Caledonophiles) whisky. Caledonia was the Roman name for Scotland, of course, and in Scotland the manly men drink whisky. And wear kilts. What is the implication of all this for us fey, pampered, urban Americans? At the edge of our very own Mission District, a five-year-old restaurant called Nihon styles itself a “whisky lounge” and serves the small plates known to the Japanese as izakaya. So: take Japanese food, present it in a gorgeous, moody setting, sprinkle far and wide with Scotch whisky (including 400 varieties of single malt) as if watering your Chia Pet, and and lo! you get hipsters. Hipsters don’t wear kilts — yet — but they do like to wear their tight-fitting shirts untucked. Why?

Nihon’s whisky installation is impressive: a soaring architecture of bottles behind the bar. The bottle battlement dominates the main floor (which you enter through a set of huge, frosted-glass doors trimmed with wrought iron) and rises nearly as high as the mezzanine, the place to go if you seek some coziness. On your way up, note the porthole and, at the rear of the second floor, a semi-private lounge set with comfy chairs and a sofa under exposed roof joists. The only fly in this rich design ointment is the view: the windows gaze onto the unromantic intersection of Folsom and 14th streets and the immense, neon-glare parking lot of Foods Co. No wonder the panes are hung with screens of fine steel mesh.

Izakaya-style food reminds us that Japanese cuisine includes cooked as well as uncooked items, although it’s probably a stretch to call Nihon’s cooking Japanese in any purist sense. Evidence of California whimsy is laced throughout the menu, perhaps nowhere so plainly as in the rolls, which bear clever names and, like the fancier sorts of burritos, emphasize variety and plenitude. The thunderbird roll ($16) is a cornucopia of tempura soft-shell crab, gobo, and daikon sprouts, topped by a roof of eel, avocado, tobiko, and a glaze of tsume — a sweetish sauce made from boiled eel. A bit too sweet, I thought, like over-honeyed barbecue sauce. Better was the quite spicy samurai roll ($13) with spicy tuna, rounds of pickled jalapeño pepper the color of black olives, daikon spicy sesame sauce, and habañero tobiko. The chili heat here was measured but intense and sustained. The kamikaze roll ($15) resembled the thunderbird more than the kamikaze, with the chief difference being salmon instead of tuna. Salads abound. A familiar wakame edition ($5) mixed the blackish threads of seaweed with baby greens for a nice textural contrast; the salad looked like a small wig someone had plugged into an electric socket. We did find the dressing too salty. The Nihon salad ($8), by contrast, a tangle of somen noodles and cucumber slices within a ring of thin-sliced, nori-wrapped rice coins, benefited from a white miso dressing that, like ponzu sauce, found a balance among salt, sweetness, and acid.

You can go spicy or not. On the mild end of the scale, we found that a plate of broccoli and cauliflower florets ($5) had been roasted just enough to give them a hint of give and char while (as with a proper stir-fry) leaving them with plenty of snap. Not much else was done to them beyond a splash or two of ginger-soy sauce; they were left to speak for themselves. At the far end: Dr. Octopus ($10), a row of broiled octopus flaps seated on cucumber coins and squirted with some sort of fiery red chili paste. Red chili paste can be a doomsday weapon, obliterating every flavor around it — and that was pretty much the case here, although (also as here) such obliteration can be exhilarating. Notable was the tenderness of the octopus, which can toughen so quickly when cooked. If it’s beautifully tender, who cares about some chili overload?

Green tea might offer many health benefits, but it’s problematic as a dessert player, with a tendency to be pale and bitter at the same time. Green tea ice cream? Wake me up when it’s over. So when our attentive, smiling server mentioned green tea cheesecake, I saw a set of lips across the table crinkle with distaste. But the cheesecake ($4 for a slender slice) turned out to be sublime, with the tea’s edge wrapped in creaminess and sweetness, like a chef’s knife in a handsome leather sheath. Across the way, those skeptical lips smacked with pleasure.

NIHON WHISKY LOUNGE

Dinner: Tues.–Sat., 5:30 p.m.–2 a.m.

1779 Folsom, SF

(415) 552-4400

www.nihon-sf.com

Full bar

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

 

A blind date with Mama Lion

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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8
A blind date with Mama Lion

Mama Lion had all the characteristics my ears had been searching for: a jaw full of sharp guitars, a soft, Patti Smith-like growl, and a wardrobe of psychedelic, ‘70s melodies. It took only a second, but after our first audio introduction on the ol’ Web, I knew I needed to hear her again. Typing up an email or two, I mustered up the courage and asked Mama Lion— who’ll be performing Mon/22 at El Rio and Tues/23 at Retox Lounge— out to dinner— all three of them. 

I showed up at the restaurant, Pakwan, a Pakistani Indian joint in the Mission, promptly at six-thirty, still a little sweaty from my bike ride there. Mama Lion members, Hannah Frances Healy, Victor Mitrani and Gabe Gipe, met me by the counter a few moments later and we all ordered our chosen items for the anticipated feast. I went for the spinach and lentil combo and Mama Lion picked out an assortment of steamy mushy items that looked strange and smelled amazing. 

 

During the hour that followed, conversation flowed without effort, the nan was devoured, we laughed, I cried (only a little on the inside as I fought off the spiciness of my meal) and when the bowls were left in a stain of reds and browns, not only was my stomach satisfied, but the four of us had really managed to have a successful first date. Even without the goodbye kiss or a promise to call, Mama Lion and I covered all first date bases.

 

 

The Past

The members of Mama Lion all grew up in the same San Diego school district and Mitrani and Frances Healy started a band together in high school. The three of them went to different colleges, but when they all relocated to San Francisco, the band was born. 

 

Careers

Frances Healy (vocals, guitar) is a dog walker, or as I see it, a canine chauffer/soccer mom combo. She drives around the city, picking up dogs in a van and takes them to Golden Gate Park. Mitrani (guitar) went to school for accounting but is totally not down for a nine-to-five in the profession, so he’s been doing maintenance work. Gipe (drums) is still a student, dreaming about one day becoming a history teacher, currently feeding the bank account with PT jobs at Apple and Starbucks. 

 

Personality

Mama Lion thinks it’s pretentious to say their sound is ‘unclassifiable’, but they’re also not comfortable with pinpointing a specific genre. Somewhere under the indie-blanket, the band takes direction from their old school influences: strong guitar attitude from Sonic Youth and the Pixies and more mellow tones from Cat Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel. 

 

Childhood

When Mama Lion was young, the band took on whatever gig they could find, meaning they ended up in some odd, very quiet spaces. A performance at the former Green Earth Café turned out to be the opening act for a group of belly dancers, shocking the crowd of little old ladies drinking tea. 

 

Confessions

Mitrani is a “Riot Grrrl at heart—a riot boi?” While writing his guitar parts, Mitrani imagine he’s pissed off, hanging out in a parking lot with a bunch of feisty ladies. Frances Healy was an anthropology major and likes to analyze people and situations in her lyrics. Gipe gets angry before putting together his drum part and puts himself in the mood to hurt something, like overly picky Starbucks customers. 

 

Looking for a new musical love interest yourself? Mama Lion plays two intimate shows this week.

 

 

Mama Lion

Mon/22, 7pm, $8

El Rio
3158 Mission, SF

www.elriosf.com

 

Tues/23, 8pm

Retox Lounge

628 20th St, SF

www.retoxsf.com

 

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