Pot

The mayor’s race begins

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By Tim Redmond

So now it’s official: Just when San Francisco political junkies needed something other than the generally dull November election to talk about, Bevan Dufty has done us all a favor and fired the opening gun in the 2011 mayor’s race.

It’s no surprise, really — everyone knew that Dufty was running. Just as everyone knows that City Attorney Dennis Herrera and state Senator Leland Yee will be in the race, and that Assessor Phil Ting is looking at it, and that Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and Public Defender Jeff Adachi are mulling their prospects.

With public financing in place, and ranked-choice voting, the race will be fascinating. Dufty has never run citywide, but he’s a nice guy who can be funny and charming and he’s built a reputation as a nuts-and-bolts supervisor who takes government seriously. “Ross Magowan [of KTVU] asked me what my biggest single issue was, and I said Muni,” Dufty told me today. “He said that Muni was getting better, but hey — crime is down 30 percent citywide and still up on Muni.”

Fixing Muni is a Dufty kind of thing — not a grand civic vision, but a basic public service that people use that has problems. (A classic Dufty story: When the city got rid of the crossing guard at the school my kids go to a couple of years ago, which is in Dufty’s district, the principal called Dufty, and the guard was back the next day. He loves that sort of thing.)

“What I try to be is a collaborator,” he said. “I’ve never had the luxury of knowing I had six votes on the board, so I’ve had to reach out to people.”

He also promised that Mayor Dufty would always show up for question time at the board. He joked that “it’s easy for me to promise that because Chris Daly will be off the board by them” but in the next breath told me how much he likes and respects Daly, who he called “incredibly talented.” (Again, classic Dufty.)

It’s going to be a challenge for him to stand out in this race. He’s not going to get a lot of progressive support; he simply hasn’t been there on a lot of progressive votes and issues. It’s rare to see him defy Mayor Newsom and he’s been on the wrong side of many of the key battles of the past ten years.

He has a lot of support in his district, and among the more centrist parts of the gay community. But he’s not a big downtown guy, not a prodigious fundraiser and won’t be the next Newsom, who ran the first time with the unwavering support of the big-business community and all the money he could ever need.

And Herrera and Yee — both with a proven track record of raising money, both with citywide name recognition — will also be sitting in that political center. Neither of them can claim the support of the majority of the progressive supervisors (although Herrera will no doubt have former Board President Aaron Peskin on his team).

If Mirkarimi or Adachi runs, they’ll take the left flank. Yee will be the more conservative candidate, especially when he’s working the west side of town. I don’t see how Dufty finds his niche.

He doesn’t either, right now — except to say that “I’m not running for anything else. I have no desire to go to Sacramento or Washington. I’m humble and I’m going to run a grassroots campaign.”

What he has, clearly, done is given a kind of shit-or-get-off-the-pot push to the other candidates. The race is a long way away, but with Dufty out there, raising money and seeking endorsements, Mirkarimi is going to have to decide if he’s serious, and if not, the progressives are going to have to decide if Adachi is their man, and the race is going to start firming up. There won’t be a Matt Gonzalez late entry this time around. What you see is what you get, and the late-comers will be at a disadvantage.

Jannah

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paulr@sfbg.com

DINE The brightness of Yahya Salih’s new restaurant, Jannah, belies — or redeems — what went before. Jannah’s immediate predecessor was a place called Gabin, a Korean-inflected karaoke bar that drew some spicy Yelp commentary. Before that, it was Café Daebul, also Korean-influenced, maybe a bit less commentable. Both places were, apparently, on the gloomy, claustrophobic side.

Jannah, by contrast, is all about openness. Huge plate-glass windows look onto the lively Fulton-at-Masonic street scene, while the interior consists of a vast, pillarless dining room embroidered by a bar set off by a half-wall. The main floor is an expanse of wood planks worthy of a basketball court, but the ceiling is a little low, so it would probably have to be Nerf basketball. And BYO hoops.

Salih’s other city endeavor, the four-year-old YaYa (on Van Ness at the western edge of Russian Hill), manages to combine Iraqi and Californian influences to impressive effect, and Jannah does much the same thing, at a lower price point, as befits its quasi-college-town location. (USF and its hordes of collegians on budgets is practically across the street.) All the main courses are $11, and, as if that weren’t enough, the list includes dishes and ingredients you don’t often see, including fesenjoon (the chicken dish associated both with Iraq and Iran) and a version of masgouf, the grilled-fish preparation that is one of the gastronomic signatures of Iraq.

Of course, the menu offers plenty of items that will seem familiar, including that trinity of tasty mushes from the Middle East, tabbouleh, hummus, and baba ghanoush — or, as it is spelled at Jannah, ghnooge. There’s even falafel, but it’s not like the falafel we generally see, chickpea fritters the size and shape of golf balls. Instead the batter is worked into a small disk ($5) and, like a pizza, topped with a tasty Mediterranean mélange of eggplant, roasted red-bell pepper, scallions, red onions, shiitake mushrooms, diced tomatoes, and feta and goat cheeses. The crust, in the best triangle-slice tradition, is sufficiently rigid even at the point to support the toppings without wilting or crumbling, and it’s tasty enough to stand on its own. In an odd way, the pie reminded me of the chickpea-flour tort known as a farinata in Liguria and a socca in the south of France.

Kelecha ($3) are ravioli-like dough pockets, stuffed here with dates, cardamom, and cinnamon and topped with yogurt that’s been coarsened with chopped walnuts and subtly eniched with Parmesan cheese. The menu lists this dish as a starter, with other salads and dips, but it’s also just sweet enough to qualify as a light dessert. The yogurt sauce, in particular, is reminiscent of the cream-cheese frosting often found on carrot cakes.

We did think the variety of pickles ($3) tended a little too much toward saltiness — especially the cauliflower florets. But the plate (which also included radish, cabbage, peppers, and olives) was a festival of slightly surreal colors worthy of the Enterprise cafeteria on the original Star Trek, with lime green, bubble-gum red, and electric yellow being well-represented.

The main courses include an array of phyllo-dough preparations that vaguely resemble pot pies: the principal ingredients are sealed in a pastry crust and baked. In the case of kubsee ($11), the pastry is formed into a squat cylinder, then filled with prawns, scallops, fava beans, chickpeas, and rice. The rather staggering roster of seasonings includes cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, almond, tomato paste, hot pepper, and sun-dried lime, and the whole thing is ringee by a smoky tomato-eggplant purée.

Sun-dried lime, incidentally, is one of those ingredients that’s almost unknown in the occidental kitchen and helps give this kind of cooking a lot of its distinctive aura. To get a better idea of its flavor, you can have it as a lightly sweetened drink, a kind of Middle Eastern limeade whose sunset color won’t give you any sort of clue as to what it’s made of.

The masgouf ($11) features a subtly seasoned, butterflied trout — a freshwater fish (often sustainably farmed now) whose pinkish flesh is reminiscent of salmon. The freshwater angle is appropriate here, since Iraqis tend to grill fish taken from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and it also lends the final result a certain similarity to gravlax. The rest of the plate consists of a heap of rice, another of tomato-eggplant compote, and a colorful honor guard of cauliflower and broccoli florets and carrot and yellow summer squash coins, all steamed and arranged around the periphery.

For dessert (assuming you don’t want the kelecha or had them earlier on), how about kahi ($5), a pair of fried pastry triangles, like a child’s set of military hats from the 18th century, bronzed for posterity? They are stuffed with cardamon whipped cream (which has a cheesy-thick texture, neither pleasant nor unpleasant) and are set afloat on a small red sea of raspberry purée, which is nearly an event in itself. Bright, too.

JANNAH

Dinner: Mon.–Thurs., 5–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sun., 5–10 p.m.

Lunch: daily, 11 a.m.–2 p.m.

1775 Fulton, SF

(415) 567-4400

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Echoey noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Ballet without borders

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW For its first appearance — with three new works — at the Jewish Community Center Sept. 3-4, the Courage Group attracted a large, appreciative audience. It’s easy to see why. Over his company’s seven years of existence, Todd Courage has developed a choreographic language that is ballet-based but thoroughly contemporary in the way it tears — sometimes humorously, sometimes sarcastically — at ballet’s edges. He loves its linearity, so he chooses from existing steps and combinations and then stirs them into a melting pot, where they become just one of the ingredients at his disposal.

Musically, he is equally selective. He patches his scores together like a quilter. You quickly learn to forget about context and go along for the ride. Some of the musical transitions may jar, but most of the time they develop something akin to an aural logic. I found myself amused by Bach and Handel playing hopscotch with each other. Chris Fletcher was the program’s excellent sound engineer.

Courage may be more of a mixmaster of dance than an innovator, but he has developed his own voice and the skills to articulate his intentions. This trio of works, at the very least, indicates that he knows where he wants to go. And he is in a hurry to get there. All three are foaming with ideas; they also tend to wander. Tighter control, not necessarily of individual sections but of the overall trajectory, is an issue.

Placing six shallow women and a deep one at the top of the program, with tall Peta Barrett as the odd one out, was a risky choice. The dancers looked awful in the way they stomped through their steps, apparently indifferent to the opening phrases of Bach’s glorious "Violin Concerto in D minor." Then the possibilty arose that Courage has perhaps seen too many students tear mindlessly through ballet class. This may have inspired him to start out with a deadpan version of every teacher’s terminal frustration.

In the second movement, when Barrett calmly unfolded her limbs, the audience could breathe a sigh of relief. Her partnering of the company’s smallest dancer, Christina Chelette — including cantilevering leg hugs — suggested an emotional relationship between equals despite physical differences. The rest of six alternated between Bach and Handel in choreography in which the dancers did just fine. They might momentarily have sunk into a ballet pose, but some of the most effective sections, such as canonic entrances of purposeful walks, were beautifully simple. Courage also recognized one of dance’s great secrets: the beauty of unisons.

dirty girl dug into one of the choreographer’s previous preoccupations — the awkwardness of pubescence. In 2006’s High Anita, it was cheerleaders. Here the cheerleaders went to a slumber party and gave the heroine a sponge bath. girl‘s humor is somewhat creepy as these young women veered between innocence and sex kittens. The choreography was game-based and influenced by teen fashion imagery. Dressed in the tiniest of skirts with flaming ruched red underwear, the dancers negotiated their way between the strictures of the Voice of God (Barrett) and the demands of their budding sexuality. The former yielded a spanking, the latter offered birthday cake frosting to lick. You can read into those images anything you want. The audience, probably remembering their own in-between years, clearly appreciated Courage’s lighthearted approach. I thought it just a tad too silly.
The quite substantial but you can’t hide introduced the evening’s lone male dancers, Nol Simonse and Brendan Barthel. First seen in languid duets, they eventually folded themselves into the women’s ensemble. Simonse, sinewy and liquid, was a joy to behold. This was Courage at his best: mirror images for the men, a violent female duet, whispering voices and moonwalks, full body contact, and a finger to a chin. can’t hide is too episodic and packs in too much material, but John Adams’ splendid "The Chairman Dances" kept them going all the way into the dark.

Prison report: Playing politics

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By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports run twice a week.

“We should not play politics with public safety.” That’s what Assembly member Fiona Ma states as part of her argument against the bill that proposed early releases as part of how California will make up for slashing $1.2 billion from the vast coffers of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Those coffers, incidentally, have more in them than do the coffers for higher education. Oddly, Ma is a Democrat out of San Francisco.

We live in a state that prides itself for its innovation, its technology and its forward thinking. These characteristics have made California great. But I don’t think that innovators and forward thinkers seem to be running the Assembly or Senate.

We are supposed to be progressive, so we decriminalize pot for medical use — but ban gay marriage and pass laws like three strikes?

Forward thinkers, these politicians, so forward that even their hindsight is not 20-20 — because three strikes is what got California into this big prison mess in the first place.

Don’t you remember all those stories about people getting life sentences for stealing bicycles and pizza?
What they really used three strikes (consciously or not) for is to create an industry out of crime and prisons, an industry in which thousands of families now are able to live the American dream and make their very adequate living – and the politicians can create long political lives for themselves by destroying many thousands of other dreams, at the public’s expense.

If public safety were really the number one priority of politicians and those who proclaim it, they would take off their broken glasses and go get a second opinion as to what the results of their pitiful budget and myopic laws are really resulting in: Less public safety in the future.

Amazing that we can see the results of harming the earth through abuse, that we know that if you smoke you’ll probably die, if you beat your kids they will probably beat their kids, etc …. Yet we can’t seem to see that if you spend more on prisons than on higher education, if you take away further money from K-12, from welfare and from health care, that you will be creating more of that, long term, which you say the public needs protection from.
If they were really concerned about your longterm safety, and not their political careers, they would vote for the lesser of two evils — which is to let those people out now that are costing $50,000 a year, and apply those funds to the future of public safety. (I bet if you release 27,000 people and give them each $50,000 a year, not too many will come back!)

Ahh — but what about the redundancies that would be created and the officers that would be laid off because they had to close seven or more prisons? You see the cycle folks, do you? It’s obvious, it’s plain, you can buy it two for one, 24/7/365 at Lenscrafters.

I wonder if Fiona Ma and the others voting against releases up for reelection next year are running on a tough on crime platform.

We should be tough on some crime, but often toughness is predicated on money (Dante Stallworth) and not on the crime.

We are hypocrites, us Californians. We every day we spend more on prisons than college, or have another person do any other day for a victimless crime.

Lastly …. more hypocrisy: Phillip Garrido may not be charged for some of the crimes he committed because the statute of limitations has passed and those crimes will never be prosecuted. But many in prison are doing life, or getting their sentences doubled or tripled, for crimes that happened 10, 20 or even 30 years ago. Why isn’t there a statute of limitations from your past?

Did you ever forgive the high school bully that picked on you because you had four eyes — or are you going to hold that against him forever?

Move on, California. They have corrective surgery now — and maybe that bully is your ophthalmologist.

Liberty Cafe

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paulr@sfbg.com

Not all restaurants have authors — central figures that breathe their essence into a place — but the ones that do tend to be special. They are also uniquely vulnerable, for if that central figure disappears, a restaurant can be left adrift without its animating force, like a fully-rigged sailing ship on a breezeless sea.

In January, Cathie Guntli, the founder and guiding light of the Liberty Café, died. She opened the place in Bernal Heights in 1994, in a woody Victorian storefront space along then-backwatery Cortland Avenue, and the restaurant quickly established itself as one of the city’s new neighborhood jewels. It was the Firefly of Bernal.

Since Guntli’s death, Liberty Café has passed into new hands associated with Hard Knox Café and Sally’s. So far the change in ownership is not visible; the restaurant looks the same and the general new-American tenor of the food is familiar. The menu still features the famous chicken pot pie. The real changes can be found outside the restaurant; Bernal Heights was a sleepy little hill town 15 years ago, but it isn’t anymore. The commercial district along Cortland has bloomed with shiny new restaurants in recent years, and Liberty Cafe, which began as an outpost or beacon of sorts, no longer holds that distinction. These days, in fact, its homey Victorian look seems almost quaint.

The restaurant has long adhered to a no-reservations policy. This can complicate patrons’ planning, but it does help keep tables full, particularly if there is a steady stream of passersby on foot and a loyal clientele. Liberty enjoys both advantages, and it isn’t hard to see why: it’s kid-friendly and modestly priced, and it’s in the middle of a walk-friendly zone.

Still, there are signs of stress. The dining room strikes me as slightly understaffed; although Liberty Café is barely bigger than tiny, with 32 seats divided between two rooms, you can almost see the front-of-house staff — a single server, maybe two, aided by a couple of bussers — panting to keep up. People must be met and greeted, summoned from the wait list, and then seated. The no-reservation system is an efficient way of filling tables, but it adds an extra step or two to the service, and that is enough to stretch the staff.

The food is a quirky mix of modesty and elegance, although the balance now tips more toward the former. As if in compensation, portions are quite generous. If you like caesar salad, for instance, you’d have trouble finding a better deal than Liberty’s ($7): a looming plateful of immaculately crisp romaine spears tossed with croutons and tabs of Parmesan cheese under a light fall of grated Parmesan — like the first snow of winter. No anchovies, though, alas.

The house-baked breads and dinner rolls flow out to the tables in a steady stream. While they are tasty and satisfying on their own if smeared with a bit of softened butter, they’re also useful if you happen to have ordered soup. The soup ($7 for a broad bowl) changes daily; it could be of portobello mushroom, a thick pottage tasting intensely of the earth and decorated only with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I had mixed feelings about this soup; there was no doubting the purity of its flavor, but it looked like mud. A bit of colorful festooning wouldn’t have hurt.

There was plenty of color on a plate of seared ahi ($18): purplish fish in thin slabs, pale-green chunks of ripe avocado, brilliant red pear tomatoes, halved and very ripe. The tuna had been well-coated with cracked pepper for some extra jolt, and the dish as a whole fluently spoke the language of summer. But the tomatoes and avocado didn’t seem quite coherent; they were meant to be a salad, but they behaved like junior-high boys and girls reluctant to mix at a dance.

Impressive coherence was achieved with the vegetarian pot pie ($13), a meatless version of the chicken pot pie. Under a disk of golden pastry (a treat in itself) lurked a potpourri of cauliflower florets, carrots, and lentils in a thick mushroom slurry. The effect was surprisingly autumnal (on a warm night, no less), and at first I hoped for and missed the flavor of curry, but the milder flavor accreted bite by bite in a swelling crescendo. Even so, I couldn’t finish it. Two fairly hungry people could share one and come away happy, and I call that value. They could also probably share — but might end up fighting over — the exceptionally tasty country-fried pork chop ($17), slathered with white gravy and served with cheesy grits and bacon-braised kale.

Given Liberty Café’s bakery chops, the pies — I speak now of the dessert kind — are generally estimable. Cherry ($7), for instance, featured an avalanche of wondrous sour cherries the color of a good red Bordeaux and with just enough sweetness to qualify as a dessert. If not a slice of pie, then perhaps some butterscotch pudding ($7), served in a goblet and deeply tasty despite some feathery remnants of scalded milk. It was good but could have been, should have been better. And for now, that’s the way it is at Liberty Café. *

THE LIBERTY CAFÉ

Dinner: Tues.–Sun., 5:30–9:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5:30–10 p.m.

Lunch: Tues.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m.

Brunch: Sat.–Sun., 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

418 Cortland, SF

(415) 695-8777

www.thelibertycafe.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Somers Town

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PREVIEW Black and white photography born out of technical necessity transforms Somers Town into a stark and poignant portrait of the drudgery and displacement of two wayward youths in modern-day England. Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), a cheeky runaway who perhaps in a past life was a Dickensian street urchin, flees Nottingham and hops aboard a train bound for London, seeking refuge from the banality of life in the Midlands. Cornered in an alleyway, robbed, and beaten, Tomo finally finds a reluctant and unlikely friend in Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a Polish immigrant who just moved to the U.K. Unbeknownst to his father, Marek begins hiding his homeless friend in his flat. Joining forces, the two boys bond by working odd jobs for their cockney landlord, stealing clothes from a local launderette, and fighting for the affections of a charming French waitress. Director Shane Meadows (2006’s This is England) instills Somers Town with humanity and humor mined from class and culture shock, with his subtle comedic stylings springing from simple interchanges like when Marek’s landlord insists that he remove his Manchester United jersey to avoid getting roughed up by soccer hooligans. Despite these comedic moments, Meadows does not shy away from the pain of feeling adrift in a new city or country and beautifully captures the melting pot mentality that is London. From their low-rent apartment overlooking a train station that holds the promise of Paris and love and friendship, Tomo and Marek slowly but surely build a brotherly camaraderie, awakening a dreamlike, limitless world that, in the end, is a little less black and white.

SOMERS TOWN opens Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.

Packing for the trip

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news@sfbg.com

San Francisco has always been a big recreational drug town, from its opium dens of yore to the pill-popping beats and acid-eating hippies to business elites doing bumps in bathrooms to ravers on E and cranked-out clubbers, not to mention the tattered street souls scoring fixes of crack or smack.

But in terms of sheer numbers of Bay Area partiers stocking up on the full illegal pharmacopoeia all at once, it’s hard to top right now, the month of August, the run-up to Burning Man.

Now I know what they say. This event — which started in San Francisco 23 years ago and now occurs in the Nevada boondocks — isn’t simply a big drug fest. Many burners don’t even do drugs anymore. It’s about "radical self-expression" and "radical self-reliance" and all kinds of other radical stuff, like a gift economy, public nudity, and massive fire cannons. Radical, dude.

But let’s get real, m’kay? Burning Man may be many things, but among those things is that it may be the best time and place on the planet to ingest mind-altering substances, something recognized even by attendees who don’t regularly do drugs — although most burners also do them here.

Why? Because DRUGS ARE FUN!!!

OK, so you’re getting ready to head to the playa. You’re part of a mid-sized Burning Man camp that’s giving away peach schnapps Sno-Cones from a big peach-shaped art car and you’re all calling yourself James. Or whatever. Not important.

You got your goggles and combat boots. Your bike is covered entirely in fake pink fur and wrapped in blue electro-luminescent wire. You’ve packed enough costumes for a month, from the fire-crotch thong to an elaborate Ming the Merciless getup, complete with death ray. Again, whatever, not important.

What is important are the drugs. You’re going to spend a week frolicking through the planet’s preeminent adult playground, past all manner of tripper traps and the weirdest, most mind-blowing shit you’ve ever seen, mixing with a multitude of beautiful souls with Cheshire Cat grins. You’ll want one too.

I suppose you could do it sober, and I’ve heard stories about people who do. But why? This particular party environment is a lifeless desert that sucks the moisture out of you and everything around you, so booze just isn’t the best choice of intoxicant. I’ve known many people who have ended up in the medical tent from drinking, but none from using drugs.

In fact, it’s safe to say that drug cocktails are the cocktails of Burning Man.

Everyone has his or her drug combo of choice, but mine is flipping out. Candy-flipping (LSD and ecstasy) or hippie-flipping (shrooms and ecstasy), depending on my mood and agenda. It’s the perfect combo: E for the euphoria and psychedelics to amp up the weirdness. It’s like a wild, joyful ride into a parallel universe.

On a big night, I’ll often re-up several times, taking another dose of one or the other every few hours, balancing my buzz like the pro I am. And then, as dawn approaches after a long night of flipping around the playa, that’s the best time to get into the Ketamine. Believe me, Special K is just the right dessert for a meal like that, bringing all the night’s adventures into a sort of twisted focus.

Of course, you’re going to want to vary your experiences night to night, and for that you’re going to need to be well stocked. One year, I took K, MDA, MDMA, acid, shrooms, pot, Foxy, nitrous oxide (maybe that doesn’t count), cocaine, 2CB, 2CT7, mescaline, and, well, I’m sure there were others. I think I counted 15 in all, all consumed over the course of nine days. At that level, you begin count sobriety as its own drug.

By the end of the week, once the tolerance has been ratcheted up by daily drug use, some burners start to really pile on the chemicals, trying to regain the high highs from the early part of the week. Burn night, the week’s penultimate party, can get downright ugly, walking zombies with glazed expressions and wan, serotonin-depleted smiles.

It can take weeks to fully recover your senses after a run like that. But we do come back. Humans are remarkably resilient creatures.

Serious week-long benders aren’t for everyone, but almost everyone dabbles in the desert. Newbies want to maximize their experience and veterans just know, including the fact that (no matter what they’re intentions going in) they’ll want drugs, which can be tough to score out there.

Cops with night-vision goggles and plain-clothed narcs prowl the playa and we’ve all heard outrageous stories of vile, sneaky busts. As a result, we’re so guarded around people we don’t know that uninitiated newbies sometimes sadly conclude that nobody does drugs at Burning Man, despite all the giddy grins and oversized pupils. Remember: you aren’t paranoid if they really are out to get you.

So we down our drugs carefully and stock up here. But most of us are professionals — more so in the working than party worlds — who don’t have dealers on speed dial. So right now, we’re all banding together to place ridiculously large orders — hundreds of pills, pounds of fungus, all just for personal use — with the handful of multidrug dealers who can make more money in August than the other 11 months put together.

But drugs busts don’t spike in August, and busts at or en route to Burning Man have also been flat in recent years, despite eager law enforcement. That’s because we’re smart, creative professionals who really don’t want to get caught. And we’ve devised crazy, inventive ways of hiding them — systems I won’t reveal. We all have drugs, but bring your dogs and all your cop knowledge, and you still won’t find them.

We are determined and we love our drugs.
For great advice on dosage and warnings about various drug combinations, consult www.erowid.org.

Chronic debate

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sarah@sfbg.com

For decades, proponents of marijuana reform have argued that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes, has legitimate medical uses, and should be decriminalized on the grounds that prohibition doesn’t work.

In 1996, these arguments helped convince California voters to approve Proposition 215, which allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes. And in March, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signaled a major change in federal drug policy when he said that the Justice Department does not plan to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that operate legally under California law.

But the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance that has no medical value and a high abuse potential. As a result, cultivation, distribution, and sales of pot primarily occur on the black market, a shadowy mix of small-timers and powerful cartels.

Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) suggests that U.S. growers produced 22 million pounds of marijuana in 2006, worth $35.8 billion, and that California accounted for almost 39 percent of U.S. pot production.

Now, with California’s economy in the crapper, the state budget a mess, and federal judges ordering substantial reductions in California’s prison population, reform advocates are making an intriguing argument: if state or local governments legalize and tax even a fraction of marijuana sales in California, the state could see billions of dollars in new annual revenue and reduced enforcement costs.

Assembly Member Tom Ammiano recalls some laughter in February when he introduced Assembly Bill 390, state legislation to regulate marijuana much like alcohol. "But the budget fiasco has made some people who were dismissive take a harder look," Ammiano said.

A recent California Board of Equalization analysis of Ammiano’s bill estimates that if the state charged $50 per ounce, California would generate $1.4 billion in marijuana taxes annually.

Voters in Oakland also advanced the marijuana policy discussion last month when they approved a special tax on the city’s medical cannabis dispensaries. And in August, a three-judge federal court ruled that California must develop a plan to reduce its prison population by 44,000 over two years.

The public also seems to support making a change. In April, a Field Poll confirmed that for the first time a majority (56 percent) of California voters support legalizing pot.

Depite these advances, Ammiano says he wants to be strategic with his bill, gradually building support. "That’s why we made it a two-year bill," Ammiano said. His bill is scheduled for its first hearing at the Public Safety Committee, which Ammiano now chairs, by year’s end.

But some Bay Area activists aren’t waiting on Ammiano. Last month, Richard Lee, who operates four medical marijuana dispensaries in Oakland, filed initiative paperwork with the state and hopes to gather enough signatures to qualify a Tax Cannabis initiative in 2010.

Ammiano’s bill and Lee’s initiative allow recreational use of marijuana, penalize driving under the influence, and charge a $50 fee per ounce. But they differ around regulation and how to deal with the overarching problem of federal law. Ammiano’s legislation assumes a statewide system that mirrors the federal Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. Lee’s initiative leaves regulation to each county, similar to the patchwork approach to alcohol in other states.

Lee believes his initiative gives people more options. "We can’t order people to break federal law — that would be thrown out," Lee said. "Forty jurisdictions already permit medical marijuana cooperatives in California. So we already have that system, and we’ll follow that reality."

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who authored San Francisco’s medical cannabis dispensary regulations, believes it’s important to lay the groundwork at the local level. He points to the relative lack of growth in new municipalities that allow medical dispensaries since voters approved Prop. 215, calling it evidence of pot-related NIMBYism.

"Everyone says they support it, but they don’t want it in their own backyards," said Mirkarimi, who wants San Francisco to become the first U.S. city to add marijuana to the list of medicines it dispenses. "But the city Attorney’s Office is shy about pushing this envelope."

Mirkarimi wants to follow Oakland’s example and add a gross receipts tax to medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco.

But the legalization push has its fervent critics. At a recent Commonwealth Club debate on the economics of marijuana, El Cerrito Police Chief Scott Kirkland, who led the charge to ban medical dispensaries in his city, tried to discredit arguments that legalization will save money.

"I’m very disappointed with the state," Kirkland said, claiming that the BOE’s analysis drew almost exclusively on the work of Jon Gettman, a former director of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"We have to have statistics we can rely on," said Kirkland, who then cited the same BOE report — it estimates that pot prices will drop 50 percent and consumption will increase 40 percent — to support his contention that legalization will lead to increased substance abuse.

Kirkland also challenged the notion that Mexican drug cartels will leave once the pot business is legitimized and regulated. "They understand that the money involved is astronomical," he said. "It’s wishful thinking that if you legalize marijuana, all of a sudden the cartels go away."

He also disputed claims that legalization would help empty state prisons. "It’s very common for advocates to associate legalization with reducing the costs of incarceration, but it’s a fallacy," Kirkland said. "It’s very rarely that a person goes to prison for their original offense."

Kirkland topped off his attack by citing the state’s June 19 decision to add marijuana smoke to its Proposition 65 list of substances known to contain carcinogens.

But BOE spokesperson Anita Gore refuted claims that their analysis relied entirely on reform advocates’ research. "Being as this is an underground activity, the resources are limited," Gore said. "But our researchers and economists used econometric models that are generally accepted and looked at all the available resources, which included academic and law enforcement studies."

Gettmann told the Guardian he uses data from NSDUH, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Office of National Drug Control, and the Bureau of International Narcotics — sources the prohibitionists also draw on. He admits that it’s hard to quantify a black market.

"But it’s easy for anyone to understand basic regulatory economic theory," Getmann said. "Marijuana use produces costs for society, but is largely untaxed. So users and sellers reap benefits, while taxpayers bear the costs."

He believes many advantages of legalization are qualitative. "It’s a better regulatory system for financial and fiscal reasons and for restricting access on the part of teenagers," Gettman said.

Stephen Gutwillig, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, points to research by the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, which found that arrest rates for everything in California have declined since 1990 — with the exception of low-level marijuana crimes. CJCJ’s research shows that rates for this group increased 127 percent since 1990, and 25 percent in the last two years.

"It’s a system run amok," Gutwillig said. He notes that of the 74,000 people arrested for marijuana-related offenses, 20,000 are youth. "The marijuana problem is increasingly becoming a mechanism for social control of young black and brown men in California."

"We feel that money is definitely a fine consideration," he continued. "But even if reguutf8g marijuana didn’t produce a dime, these punitive, wasteful laws must end."

Gutwillig’s group has estimated that legalization would save California’s state and local governments $259.7 million annually in court and incarceration costs alone, a figure DPA researcher Betty Lo Dolce said is very conservative.

"I don’t know if folks have a secondary offenses, so I don’t know if marijuana was legalized, if they wouldn’t be in state prison," Lo Dolce said. "Or conversely, if they may not have been arrested for drug-related crimes, but then those charges got dropped and they ended up inside because of secondary drug-related offense."

Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, believes that advocates of California’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) should have to justify that the program does some good.

"The idea that enforcing prohibition and seizing 5.5 million plants last year would be less costly than legalizing is crazy," he said.

But what about the public health costs?

UCLA pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin said that the state added marijuana smoke to its Prop. 65 list, based on finding carcinogens in that smoke. "But you cannot translate chemistry into chemical risk because you have to take into account potential opposing effects," Tashkin said.

His research has found no association between heavy marijuana use and increased risk of lung cancer and pulmonary disease. Conversely, he and Dr. Donald Abrams, a cancer researcher at UCSF, have found that THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient, has an anti-tumor effect.

"The bottom line is that you cannot use pulmonary risk as a justification for not legalizing it," Tashkin said.

Dr. Igor Grant, director of medical cannabis research at UC San Diego, said the question around marijuana smoke is quantity. "It’s not like cigarettes," he said. "Most people don’t smoke 20 joints a day for 20 years. But even if it was declared safe for patients, you wouldn’t want parents filling the room with smoke."

James Gray, an Orange County judge and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, believes marijuana is here to stay. "Instead of moralizing and punishing people for failing on moral chastity grounds, let’s manage its use," Gray said. "If people are using it, they should be able to know what’s in it."

The most harmful thing about marijuana, Gray contends, is jail. "The remedy is far more dangerous than the disease itself," he said. "There are thousands of people in prison because they did nothing but smoke pot, and a dirty drug test was a violation of their parole…. But I understand that some people in law enforcement stand to lose a great deal, and that the Mexican cartels are going to invest a lot of money in Madison Avenue advertising."

Lee, too, acknowledges the opposition, but remains hopeful. "People are coming out of the closet," he said. "That’s what caused the gay rights movement to take off. It’s starting to happen around marijuana use."

LSD as gateway drug

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OPINION I took my first acid trip in 1965 at Tim Leary’s LSD research center in Millbrook, N.Y. He was supposed to be my guide, but he had gone off to India. Ram Dass (then Richard Alpert) was supposed to take his place, but he was involved in preparing to open at the Village Vanguard as a psychedelic comedian-philosopher. So my guide was Michael Hollingshead, the British rascal who had originally turned Leary on.

When I told my mother about taking LSD, she was quite concerned.

"It could lead to marijuana," she warned.

Meanwhile, a whole new generation of pioneers was traveling westward, without killing a single Indian along the way. San Francisco became the focus of this pilgrimage. On Haight Street, runaway youngsters — refugees from their own families — stood outside a special tour bus — guided by a driver "trained in sociological significance."

On the day that LSD became illegal — Oct. 6, 1966 — at precisely two o’clock in the afternoon, a cross-fertilization of mass protest and tribal celebration took place, as several hundred explorers of inner space simultaneously swallowed tabs of acid while the police stood by helplessly. Internal possession wasn’t against the law.

On another occasion, folks from all over the Bay Area were ingesting LSD in preparation for the Acid Test at Longshoreman’s Hall, organized by Ken Kesey and his Band of Merry Pranksters. The ballroom was seething with celebration, thousands of bodies stoned out of their minds, unduutf8g to rock bands amid balloons and streamers and beads, with a thunder machine and strobe lights flashing, so that even the Pinkerton guards were high by contact. Kesey asked me to take the microphone and contribute a running commentary on the scene.

"All I know," I began, "is that if I were a cop and I came in here, I wouldn’t know where to begin…."

My next stop was determined by a press release from the campaign headquarters of Robert Scheer, a Democrat who was running for Congress in Oakland: "Usually informed sources reported today that an outlawed left-wing psychedelic splinter within the Scheer campaign will caucus with Paul Krassner at 2 a.m. Saturday night, at the Jabberwock. These authoritative sources reported that Krassner, who has just returned from Washington, will deliver a preview of the State of the Union Message for 1966."

Although decriminalization of marijuana was one of Scheer’s platform planks, he admitted to the audience that he wouldn’t smoke pot himself as long as it was illegal. I in turn announced that I wouldn’t stop smoking pot until it was legal. The previous year, before I emceed a teach-in at the Berkeley campus, Stew Albert of the Vietnam Day Committee had introduced me to Thai stick, and I became a dedicated toker.

"Now I know why there’s a war going on in Southeast Asia," I observed. "To protect the crops."

That simple quote was enough to land my picture on the cover of the Berkeley Barb, smoking a joint. But my mother was right. LSD did lead to marijuana. *

Paul Krassner was the founder of The Realist (an alternative press prototype), is the author of Who’s to Say What’s Obscene: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today and In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches From the Valley of Porn, and is a monthly columnist for SF Carnal Nation (sf.carnalnation.com)

Worth it

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS He signs his e-mails Romeo. I sign mine Juliet. It’s cute, but you try not to think about how that one ends.

You know … well, you probably don’t know, so I’ll tell ya: if you’re a trans woman dating men, you can spend years and years and years trying to find one who doesn’t either cream his pants or throw up as soon as you take your clothes off. And then, by some miracle of shifting continents and a spectacularly rare alignment of stars, planets, and good hair days, you do! You find, in fact, the one. Now, like everybody else in love, you have to kinda wait. And see. What happens.

There are questions. There is distance. There are Capulets and Montagues, jobs, exes, currents. There are riptides and undertows, sharks, lions and tigers and bears … and there are days when you feel like you are on Cloud 10. I like those days. They’re way better than the other ones, where you feel like you are hacking your way through a jungle of impossibility with a plastic butter knife and without mosquito repellent.

Yo, Shakey, is this what love is supposed to feel like? A million mosquito bites? Probably not, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it because it’s perfect. It’s perfect! It really is — give or take 5,822 miles and a logistical conundrum that would make Alfred North Whitehead reach for his binkie — perfect.

My head hurts. Again. (And again and again.) The last time I remember feeling really physically good, let’s see, I was sitting in my new favorite restaurant with my soccery girlfriends, eating grilled meatball and green apple spring rolls dipped in this insanely delicious orange pork sauce.

And if you think that sounds slightly odd, the next item on the menu is a grilled shrimp Popsicle on sugar cane.

No, it’s not some kind of funky fusion foofoo place, it’s Pot de Pho, Geary and Parker streets, and I love it. Yeah, it’s a little pricier than most Vietnamese restaurants, but worth it because it’s worth it, and fun. They don’t overly worry about authenticity. I like that. It’s like, let’s do Vietnamese food with all the best ingredients possible, well-researched recipes, and a sense of fun.

Our waiterguyperson, like the menu, was full of enthusiasm. He told us he was starting a new happy hour thing, making cocktails and punch and stuff using just wine and sake by way of alcohol.

The pho was good, I didn’t order it, of course, because I’d eaten noodle soup for lunch and dinner the day before, and still had a big pot of it at home in my fridge. But I did taste.

It’s $10 for a large bowl, $8.75 for a medium, and $5 child size. And, although they do offer a chicken pho, a vegan pho, and even (for a couple bucks more) an ahi tuna pho, they don’t offer tendon and tripe as options for their beef pho.

That’s the kind of thing I might have made fun of them for a few years ago — even though I would have been snickering over a bowl with just rare steak, every time.

Oy.

Bean sprouts are in the soup, not on the side. Wide rice noodles instead of vermicelli. They have a Vietnamese sandwich, but in a green onion crepe instead of a crusty French roll … The authenticity snobs will complain. But you know what? The older I get, the more I couldn’t care less about words like authentic and traditional, and grammar in general.

If it wasn’t for inauthenticity and maltradition somewhere down the line, we’d all be having bananas and bugs for lunch. Thank you, I’ll try the green apple spring rolls and green onion crepes.

Speaking of crepes, I’m pretty sure the French gave pho to the Vietnamese, not to mention French bread.

That’s why Pot de Pho is my new favorite restaurant, for giving us grilled shrimp Popsicles. And because the teacups are a pretty shade of green, and the chairs there are cushy and comfortable. I need that right now. Pretty shades of green and a soft, comfy chair.

POT DE PHO

Tues.-Thurs., Sun.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; closed Mon.

3300 Geary, SF

(415) 668-0826

Wine, beer

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

“Legalization is not the answer?” Huh?

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By Tim Redmond

Bizarre story in the Chronicle today about gangs of pot growers using state and federal land for their crops. First of all, this is nothing new — there’s been pot growing on public land for years. And for years, it’s caused environmental problems (and also safety problems; nasty operatives defending crops have been known to shoot at innocent hikers walking through national forests).

But the strangest part was the line at the conclusion. After exlplaining how budget cuts have damaged enforcement efforts and Mexican gangs are getting $3,200 a plant for good bud, writer Peter Fimrite tosses in this:

Legalization is not the solution, Johnson said, given that most of the pot is being grown illegally on public parkland by foreign citizens who cannot be taxed.

Huh? Why, exactly, do these cops and Chronicle reporters think the Mexican gangs are here? Why do they think these guys are getting $3,200 a plant? Isn’t this exactly what happened during Prohibition, when rum-running created the Mob?

“It was the falsest conclusion possible,” Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who has a bill to legalize marijuana, told me this morning.

Folks: Legalization is the quickest and surest way to get rid of the drug gangs screwing up public land. Think about it: We don’t really have a problem with illegal moonshine in this country. We don’t have a major problem with criminal gangs growing and selling tobacco on public land. Make pot legal and this problem goes away, too.

Something for nothing

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>>CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS GUIDE ON ONE PAGE

You can’t get much cheaper than free. And at a time when many of us are counting every penny, the Bay Area is full of free stuff. Some of it’s right in front of your face, but most of it takes a little digging to find. This guide should send you in the right direction.

Oh, and by the way: some economists and political thinkers are suggesting that, as the over-financed, money-driven economy of the last century goes into, well, free-fall, the idea of giving things away could be the model for a more sustainable future.

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FREE FOOD

You can eat like a gourmet for the price of a drink

By Virginia Miller

Eating free doesn’t have to begin and end with soup kitchens. Here are some spots where, for the price of a drink — or sometimes for nothing — you can get good food, and sometimes excellent food, for everybody’s favorite magic number of zero.

ADESSO HAPPY HOUR

Adesso is much more than wine bar with an Italian-centric list of wines by the glass. The drinks are (relatively) inexpensive and creative concoctions. But the best part (besides a Foosball table) is food that comes out continuously from the kitchen during weekday happy hours. We’re not talking about your average free bar food here — this is stuff from the regular menu, like excellent house-made charcuterie, cheeses, hefty arancini (fried Italian rice balls), pates, sardine crostini, and all kinds of goodness. Happy hour, indeed.

Mon.–Fri., 5-7pm. 4395 Piedmont, Oakl. 510-601-0305

ALISHA’S HOME COOKIN’ FRIDAYS AT THE RIPTIDE

It’s happy hour and it’s Friday … what could be better? Especially at dive bar extraordinaire the Riptide, all the way out by the ocean in the Sunset District. From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. (or until the food’s gone), Alisha cooks up down-home goodness that pairs well with the ‘Tide’s PBRs and fireplace (in case — shall we bet on it? — the fog rolls in after a sunny summer day). You get chili con carne, chicken pot pie, and something called "blushin’ bunnies."

4–7 p.m. 3639 Taraval, SF.415-681-8433. www.riptidesf.com

MAYA HAPPY HOUR WITH BOTANAS

The $5 drink specials all night on margaritas, mojitos, and sangria are already a good deal. Add in free all-you-can-eat Mexican snacks and it’s a party. Free stuff includes Mexican bites like guac, quesadillas, taquitos, jicama with ceviche, tamales, and black bean dip. Arriba!

Weekdays, 4–7pm www.mayasf.com

EL RIO’S MONTHLY PANCAKE SATURDAYS

El Rio is one generous bar — the place serves free pancakes from the griddle the third Saturday of the month. Further cool points won by calling it "Rock Softly and Carry a Big Spatula." Breakfast is kindly served at 1 p.m., so after you’ve rolled out of bed and wandered over, ease into wakefulness with soft rock and hot flapjacks. Wear the "funkiest kitchen couture" and you could win their Golden Apron honors. After a meal that costs nothing, it’s easy to feed the tradition with generous tips. There’s also free barbecue at Friday night happy hours until 9 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons during the summer.

3rd Saturdays, 1–3 p.m. 3158 Mission, 415-282-3325. www.elriosf.com

PALIO D’ASTI’S PIZZA

Any two drinks (of the alcoholic kind, $6–$9) and you’re given a generous-sized pizza for two (or one massive eater). Devour the sauceless pizza d’Asti (shaved asparagus, fontina val d’aosta, thyme), a classic Margherita, or a Siciliana (fabulous Berkshire pork fennel sausage, fire roasted peppers, and smoked mozzarella). It’s no trouble drinking cocktails when they’re as playful as rosemary "sweet tea" (bourbon, muddled rosemary, lemon, and a splash of Moscato d’Asti), or a rhubarb margarita with lime and a salt rim.

Mon-Fri, 4–7pm. 640 Sacramento, SF.415-395-9800. www.paliodasti.com

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FREE DRINKS

Sometimes, even the booze is on the house

By Amy Monroe

If you’re curious and thirsty on a Friday, head to Spuntino’s free wine tasting from 4 to 6 p.m. Let the friendly staff pour and explain a flight of wines organized around a different theme each week. Drink free and get educated — imagine that.

1957 Union, 931-0122, www.spuntinosf.com

Cash-strapped social butterflies need only round up a group of friends and bring them to Tropisueno any night of the week to earn free drinks, and lots of them. The host imbibes gratis all evening provided she brings five friends with her to the bar.

75 Yerba Buena Ln., 243-0299, www.tropisueno.com

If you happen to be walking by one of the city’s many Kimpton hotels between 5 and 6 p.m. on a weekday, you might want to wander in and mingle with the guests in the lobby. If you look the part (and nobody asks you to show your room key), you can partake in the hotel chain’s free wine hour. Bonus: many locations pour free Anchor, too.

Nine locations in San Francisco, www.kimptonhotels.com

Like beer, music, and crowds? Then head to tiny Laszlo on the first Friday of the month for GroundSound Happy Hour. Hosts Upper Playground and SonicLiving buy you beer — and good beer at that, Trumer Pils and Shiner Commemorator — from 6 to 7 p.m. while DJs spin for your listening pleasure.

2526 Mission, 401-0810, www.laszlobar.com

upperplayground.com/wordpress/?tag=groundsound-happy-hour

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JOHNNY FUNCHEAP’S FAVORITE WAYS TO ENJOY THE CITY, FREE

By Johnny Funcheap

When you’re broke in San Francisco, sometimes even "cheap" can seem like a four-letter word. So thank God for free. Here are a few ways you can still enjoy the fun of living in San Francisco without cracking open your wallet even once.

GET LECTURED ABOUT YOUR DRINKING

The Mission District bar Elixir hosts a free Thursday night "Cocktail Club" with tastings (whiskeys, vodkas, tequilas … even absinthe) and a guest expert to help guide you through the process of finding new ways to appreciate staying off the wagon. For beer and wine drinkers, most BevMo! locations in the Bay Area have regular free tasting parties with themes like summertime ales and Mexican beers.

Elixir, 3200 16th St. http://www.elixirsf.com

ART GALLERY RECEPTIONS AND WALKS

To help lure in and lubricate casual art fans into being art-buyers, most galleries have regular receptions with free-flowing wine and a tasty platter of things to nibble on while you research art you can’t yet afford. If one reception a night isn’t enough, try sauntering from gallery to gallery during one of several monthly art walks — the most reliable of which clusters around Union Square with regular collective receptions the first Thursday evening of each month.

www.firstthursdayart.com

VOLUNTEERING MADE EASY: ONE BRICK

Unemployed? Got time on your hands? Do something useful with it — and meet new friends in the process. One Brick is a local nonprofit that hosts upwards of 20 different flexible volunteering opportunities each week, ranging from working a short shift beautifying a local park to serving food to the homeless. It’s not just about doing good — One Brick aims to help you make new friends by organizing meet-ups after each event so volunteers can get to know one another in a relaxed setting over a meal or a drink.

www.onebrick.org

GET YOUR GEEK ON: STAR PARTIES

If you’ve ever looked up to the heavens and wondered what the hell was up there, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers might be able to give you some answers. The group gives free lectures the third Wednesday of each month at the Randall Museum. When skies are clear, it hosts free monthly Star Parties at Point Lobos at Lands End with a lecture and a public telescope viewing.

RandallMuseum, 199 Museum Way; Point Lobos, El Camino Del Mar in Lands End;

www.sfaa-astronomy.org

AURAL PLEASURES: MARKET STREET MUSIC FESTIVAL

If the live music at the Stern Grove and Yerba Buena Gardens Festivals make you sad that most weekdays are quiet, the annual People in Plazas festival should help fill in any remaining gaps in your work-week concert schedule. This free July-to-October Market Street music festival puts on more than 145 free lunchtime concerts of all types in 16 different public plazas from the Embarcadero through the Castro.

www.peopleinplazas.org

FRIDAY NIGHT SKATE

Rather than plunking down a big portion of your salary (or unemployment check) on a gym membership (or signing up for a free introductory pass at a different gym each week: a.k.a. "gym slutting"), get sweaty by donning your blades or old-school roller skates and join the Midnight Rollers’ weekly Friday Night Skate. A large group of skaters embark from the Ferry Plaza on a 10-mile dance party/skate tour of the city, which includes plenty of stops for ice cream, Frisbee-throwing, and a chance for slowpokes to catch up.

www.cora.org/friday

TASTE-MAKING

Macy’s Union Square puts on free monthly cooking demonstrations in the Cellar, where top local chefs reveal their secrets for dishing up creative yet healthy meals. Not only do you get to learn skills like how to barbecue like a grill master, expertly pair chocolate and wine, or make a brunch worth waking up early for, you also get to sample the yummy delights the experts have cooked up. It’s like watching your favorite cooking show on the Food Network, but getting to magically reach inside the TV to grab a taste.

www1.macys.com

Johnny Funcheap runs FunCheapSF.com, a free San Francisco-based service that uncovers and shares a hand-picked recommendation list of upwards of 50 cheap, fun, unique Bay Area events each week.

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FIVE FREE THINGS TO DISCOVER IN SF

Urban adventures don’t have to cost money

By Broke-Ass Stuart

Although wasting a day in Dolores Park or purposefully misdirecting tourists might be great way to have some free fun, anything can get redundant after a while. That’s why I put together this list of amazing free things to discover in San Francisco. Whether you’ve been here your whole life or just landed today, you’re bound to find something entertaining on this list.

The Wave Organ at the end of the jetty extending past the Golden Gate Yacht club in the Marina. It’s not bellowing quite like it used to, but the Wave Organ is a perfect particle of San Francisco’s quirkiness. Built by the Exploratorium, the Wave Organ consists of 25 PVC pipes of various lengths jutting through concrete into the bay below. The sounds it makes depend on the height of the tide.

The Seward Street Slides at Seward and Douglass streets in the Castro District. Cardboard: free. Concrete slides: free. Getting bloody scrapes from combo of cardboard and concrete slides: priceless. The two concrete chutes are constructed so that when you get to the top and sit on a piece of cardboard, you slide down. Bring wax paper for even greater velocity.

The Xanadu Gallery at 140 Maiden Lane. If you’re excited about free stuff, chances are you can’t afford anything in this gallery. But looking around is free — and awesome! Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at the same time that he was doodling the Guggenheim, Xanadu Gallery (built as the VC Morris Gift Shop), has a remarkably similar interior to its New York City cousin — seemingly devoid of right angles and full of curving ramps. I’d pay so much money to see Tony Hawk go to town in here.

The Tiled Steps and Grand View Park, 16th Avenue at Moraga. Bring your sweetie and climb the lovely 163 tiled steps. Stop at the top and breathe a bunch. Then climb the next set of stairs to the right, and the ones after that. Now you’re in Grand View Park. Breathe a bunch more while checking out the staggering view. Smooching at the top is optional (but excellent).

The Jejune Institute, 580 California, Suite 1607,. Imagine if Lost took place in San Francisco. But instead of wandering the jungle dodging weird smoke monsters and "the others," you could explore the city in ways you never imagined. The JeJune Institute is kinda like that, only better. I don’t want to ruin anything for you, so all I’m gonna say is go there with a couple free hours, a cell phone, and $1.10 (not technically free but seriously the best $1.10 you’ll ever spend). The Jejune Institute blew my mind so hard that the top of my skull still flaps in the wind.

If you like cheap stuff, check out BrokeAssStuart.com.

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FREE HAIRCUTS

Let the students practice on your head

By Mayka Mei

Has anyone ever said you have a great face for hair modeling? Volunteering as a hair model gives salon trainees a chance to fulfill all their requirements for becoming full-time stylists. True, salons have become more guarded about their freebies, sometimes nixing the programs altogether. But a few freebies are still out there.

A few caveats: you’ll need an open, available schedule. Some salons have casting calls or will screen you for certain characteristics online or over the phone. Decide if you want a cut or color, and exactly what type of styling you have in mind. With specific days devoted to specific lessons, they may not need another graduate specializing in bobs the week you need a cut. Here are two places that still cut hair, absolutely free.

Festoon Salon

Haircuts Mondays at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Coloring second and fifth Mondays at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.

1401 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berk.

(888) 35-SALON or (510) 528-5855, www.festoonsalon.com

Visual Image

Hair modeling vacancies available one or two times a month, or once a quarter

5200 Mowry, Suite C, Fremont

(510) 792-5922, www.visualimagesalon.com

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FREE PHONES, MOVIES, AND WI-FI

Why are you still paying for Internet access?

By Annalee Newitz

Information may want to be free, but Internet service providers want to charge you too see it. That doesn’t have to crimp your style; there’s plenty of free Wi-Fi — and ways to get free movies and phone service.

Let’s start with a little disclaimer: When you’re talking about getting things like free Wi-Fi, or free phone service, even "free" comes with a price. You’re going to have to invest in some equipment to get free stuff later. You might also need some training — but that’s available free.

For free classes where you can learn more about how to build some of the technologies I’ll be talking about below, check out the Noisebridge hacker space near 16th and Mission streets (www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge).

Now, here’s the dirt on how you can stop paying for phone service, cable, Internet, and online media.

FREE INTERNET SERVICE

Novice level: If you have a laptop with a Wi-Fi card, you should never have to pay for an Internet connection while you live in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are countless cafes that provide free Wi-Fi to their customers. Yelp offers a good, up-to-date list of free Wi-Fi cafes in San Francisco at www.yelp.com/list/free-wireless-cafes-in-sf-san-francisco.

In San Francisco, check for free Wi-Fi provided by commercial vendor Meraki using this map: sf.meraki.com/map. Every branch library in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland offers free Wi-Fi.

Techie level: If you’d like to get free Internet service at home and not have to visit your local cafe all the time, you can build a cheap antenna so that you can see countless networks all around your house. Find out how to build such an antenna using this free online guide at www.en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wifi/Building_an_antenna.

If you are going to be borrowing your neighbors’ Wi-Fi service, please observe this cardinal rule: You are a guest, so use their service sparingly. Checking e-mail is fine, surfing the Web is fine, but downloading giant movie files is extremely uncool.

FREE MOBILE PHONE SERVICE

Novice level: Make all of your phone calls over the Internet using an IP phone. You can either invest in an IP phone and make phone calls using free Wi-Fi cafes and free city networks, or you can get the headset and microphone to plug into your laptop so that you can use Skype or another free Internet voice service.

Techie level: Turn your home phone into an IP phone.

Here are other ideas that some people have tried (and we, of course, don’t recommend that anyone does anything against the law). One of the open secrets about cordless phones is that it is extremely easy to steal phone service using them. Many cordless phones use the DECT chipset, and special laptop cards are available that that allow the users to trick cordless phones system into thinking that the laptop user is one of the cordless phones associated with it. www.dedected.org/trac

FREE CABLE

Novice level: Miro is an online service that allows you to turn your computer into a Tivo-like device that will download the shows you want to watch as soon as they are available via file-sharing programs. Find out more here: www.getmiro.com

Techie level: Turn your computer into a television tuner using Myth TV. www.mythtv.org

FREE MEDIA

Novice level: There are plenty of services online that offer free media, from Hulu.com, which offers a lot of free television and movies, to Archive.org, which has a vast collection of public domain films. Neither Hulu nor Archive.org requires you to download any special software. Or if you’d like something classier, you can download free, public domain classical music at MusOpen! www.musopen.com

Techie level: Use a BitTorrent client to download public domain music and movies that you can save on your computer. CreativeCommons.org lists many artists who offer their music for free. Public Domain Movies offers torrents of movies available to you for free. www.publicdomaintorrents.com

Other options people have tried: Some use a BitTorrent client to download any movie, television, music, software, or books that they like, using a popular Torrent search engine like Isohunt. There are a lot of what you might call grey area legal media at the Pirate Bay. That oufit is located in Sweden, a country that recenty elected representatives of the Pirate Party to serve in the European Parliament.

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FREE POT

You may be broke, but you can still smoke

By Rachel Buhner

It’s not well advertised, but if you’re short on money and need your organic herbal medicine, many of the city’s pot clubs will give it to you, free. Some places ask for proof of income or require membership while some are more loose about it. You won’t get big bags, either — typically the freebie is a gram. But while the American Medical Association and the insurance companies argue in Washington, D.C., about how to keep their fingers on the cash, local medical marijuana dispensaries are actually trying to serve needy patients.

The Green Door offers free marijuana every Thursday from 12 noon to 2 p.m. for those who can’t afford it. No proof is required.

843 Howard Street. (415) 541-9590. www.greendoorsf.com

The Market Street Cooperative offers free marijuana every Sunday for those who can’t afford it. No proof is required.

1884 Market. (415) 864-6686 www.marketstreetcooperative.com

The Hemp Center offers compassionate donations to all members when available; no proof of income is required. There’s also free Internet access, free bottled water, and free rolling papers.

4811 Geary (415) 386-4367www.thehempcenter.com

Sanctuary offers free medical marijuana, but there’s currently a waiting list and priority if given to terminally ill patients. Proof of income required; open to San Francisco residents only.

669 O’Farrell (415) 885-4420

Harborside Health Centers offers a care package program to low-income patients. Paperwork showing a fixed low income is required; patients can receive a free gram and a half each week. Additionally, members from any income bracket can volunteer at the center performing general activist work (calling local representatives, writing letters, etc.). After one hour of work, patients receive a free gram.

And there’s more: every Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., the center offers members free how-to-grow classes taught by David Gold, author of The Complete Cannabis. Members also get a free lending library for cannabis-related materials as well as free holistic health services such as hypnotherapy, chiropractic, naturopathy, yoga, reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, Western herbalist consultations, and Alexander Technique classes.

1840 Embarcadero, Oakl. (510) 533-0146, www.harborsidehealthcenter.com

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FREE PAINT

Not many colors, but the price is right

Every wonder what happens to all that old paint that good, responsible San Franciscans drop off at the city dump? It gets recycled, in the best possible way. The dump workers sort it by color, pour it into big buckets, and give it away.

You don’t get a wide color selection (off-white is the big choice) but the price is right and it keeps the stuff out of the landfill. Schools and community groups get priority, but San Francisco residents can stop by and pick some up whenever there’s extra.

501 Tunnel Avenue. 330-1400. www.sfrecycling.com/sfdump

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FREE SEX

Clubs, classes, and clinics dedicated to low-cost lovin’

By Molly Freedenberg

As anyone with a broken bed frame or a broken heart knows, even sex you don’t exchange money for is rarely free. But we’ve compiled a list of sex-related events, resources, health centers, and club nights that are easier on the pocketbook than most.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Good Vibrations is always hosting free events, classes, and book signings at its Bay Area stores. This month, check out Paul Krassner reading from his book In Praise of Indecency on July 15 and Kevin Simmonds presenting his new project "Feti(sh)ame," based on interviews with gay men about sexual fetishes, on July 16, both at the Polk Street location, and a reading/signing of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Prostitues Writing on Life, Love, Work, Sex, and Money (featuring stories by Annie Sprinkle and Tracy Quan, among others) July 30 in Berkeley. www.goodvibes.com

CHAPS

With no cover and nightly drink specials, this SoMa gay bar is the place to ogle hot men on a budget. Ongoing events include Shirts Off Mondays, Trumer Tuesdays (featuring $2 Trumer drafts and specials on Jäger and fernet); the sports-gear and jock-strap-themed Locker Room Wednesdays (with specials on Speakeasy ales, Wild Turkey, and shooters with names like Cock Sucker and Golden Showers); Thursday’s Busted (with whiskey specials and indie, electro, and ’80s remixes); Men in Gear on Saturdays, Cheap Ass Happy Hour every Monday through Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.; and Rubber (hosted by the Rubbermen of SF Bay) every second Friday.

1225 Folsom, SF. (415) 255-2427, www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com

CENTER FOR SEX AND CULTURE

This nonprofit organization provides education and resources across the gender spectrum. Though there’s a fee to attend many of the events hosted here, visiting the extensive library/media archive is free. So is checking out "Erotic Embrace of the Corset," an exhibit featuring 50 years of photography of bodies tied up tight, on display through Sept. 10. Call before you visit (the center is run by volunteers and has irregular hours), or try stop by between 1 and 5 p.m. weekdays.

1519 Mission, SF. (415) 255-1155, www.sexandculture.org

FIRST FRIDAY FOLLIES

Burlesque, by its very nature, is meant to be accessible to the masses — which means it should be not only lowbrow, but low cost. This monthly burlesque, music, and comedy revue takes "low" even lower by cutting out the cover charge entirely.

9:30pm. Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. www.myspace.com/firstfridayfollies

FEMINA POTENS

Part art gallery, part performance space, part community center, this nonprofit dedicated to greater visibility for women and transgendered artists has become a favorite of luminaries like Annie Sprinkle, Michelle Tea, and Carol Queen. Many events are low or no cost, and it’s always free to check out the art, including this month’s "Show Me Your Fantasy," featuring Malia Schlaefer’s photographs addressing contemporary female sexuality.

Thurs–Sun, 12–6pm. 2199 Market, SF. (415) 864-1558, www.feminapotens.org

SF JACKS

When you’re poor and bored, nothing perks you up quite like a good session of self-love. But if you’re tired of the solo mission, join other like-minded men for group "therapy" every second and fourth Monday. Though a $7 donation is suggested (insert "donation" pun here), no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Just remember the rules: mandatory nudity, jack-off play only.

7:30–8:30pm. Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission, SF. (415) 267-6999, www.sfjacks.com

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY

Run by and for sex workers, this 10-year-old nonprofit provides free STI counseling and testing, rapid HIV testing, transgender healthcare and hormone therapy, self-defense classes, legal advice, and much MUCH more to sex workers and their families.

1372 Mission, SF. (415) 554-8494, stjamesinfirmary.org

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FREE TIPS GRAB BAG

More free stuff we love

You can watch Giants games free through the outfield fence; three-inning limit when there’s a crowd … Thrift stores all say "no dumping," but people leave stuff out in front late at night anyway … Ask someone leaving Muni for their transfer (and always take a transfer, even if you don’t need it, to share) … There’s almost always great free music at street fairs …. You can actually ski free at a lot of resorts if you do the old-fashioned thing and hike up the slopes instead of buying a lift ticket; on busy days nobody notices (obviously, this works best for short-run beginner hills) … There’s some great stuff at freecyle.org, but it’s a Yahoo newsgroup and floods your inbox so you have to keep up with it … The free stuff listings on Craigslist are also good … Casual carpools are a great way to get a free ride across the Bay … The Lyrics Born, Toto La Momposina, Kailash Kher’s Kailasa and the San Francisco Ballet all perform free this summer at Stern Grove, Sundays at 2 p.m., see www.sterngrove.org/2009season … Catch Wicked, Beach Blanket Babylon, Killing My Lobster, and more at the SF Theater Festival free shows; see www.sftheaterfestival.com and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival (till Oct. www.ybgf.org) … You can get free movie passes many weeks from the Guardian … Buy a Muni pass before the end of the month, and you can share your old one; it’s good for three days of free rides at the beginning of the month … Almost every used bookstore has a free box; mostly crap, but sometimes some gems …. The Cal Sailing Club in Berkeley offers free introductory sailing sessions on summer Sundays; for the schedule and details check out www.cal-sailing.org. San Francisco Brew Craft offers free beer-brewing classes every Monday night at 6 p.m. 1555 Clement, 751-9338 … You can catch free outdoor movies at Jack London Square in Oakland every other Thurs. night through August (www.jacklondonsquare.com/newscenter/upcomingevents) … Free Shakespeare in the Park performs The Comedy of Errors Sat. and Sun. afternoons in August and September at the Presidio Parade Grounds (schedule at www.sfshakes.org/park/index)

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FREE TRADE

Go ahead, give it away — that’s the way the next economy may work

By Cecile Lepage

The 2003 documentary film The Corporation established that corporations were psychopathic entities, prone to irresponsibility, manipulation, and remorselessness. Now writer Douglas Rushkoff contends that we — the human beings — have started to act like corporations. His new thought-provoking book — Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back (Random House) — retraces how society has internalized the corporate values that disconnect us from one another. The current economic meltdown, he argues, is our chance to overthrow this dysfunctional model. We talked to him about a very different economy — one based on things that are free.

SFBG Your outlook is bleak, but you are still optimistic enough to see a way out. What’s your plan?

Douglas Rushkoff This crisis is an opportunity to start doing things for each other. First we have to be daring enough to enter gift economies, where we exchange favors freely and openly without even keeping track, just assuming that it’s all going to work out. So if someone needs tutoring or help mowing his lawn, you should do it. Eventually we’ll realize how much less money we need to earn to get what we need.

SFBG You acknowledge that accepting favors in exchange for other ones feels messy and confusing to us. Why is that?

DR We’re afraid of being indebted to somebody else. In order to accept something from another person, you also accept your indebtedness and acknowledge your gratitude. Money feels cleaner to us. People prefer hiring a person to babysit for their child rather than accepting a favor from the old lady down the street — because if you accept, what social obligation have you incurred? What if she wants to join you at your next barbecue? What if she now wants to be your friend? So now we all have to work more to get money to buy things that we used to just exchange freely with each other.

SFBG You blame the corporations for convincing us that we are self-interested beings. How did they achieve that?

DR They thought that the mathematician John Nash’s bad game theory applied to real life. A number of experiments tried to show that human beings made decisions like poker players for personal short-term gain and assuming the worst about other people. None of the experiments actually worked: the secretaries they did the experiment on behaved collaboratively and compassionately.

The better scientists, like Dr. Glynn Isaac, an Africanist from Harvard, demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that food-sharing and collaboration are what allowed homo sapiens to survive. Nevertheless, we intentionally built an economy and a scarcity-based currency to promote the self-interest.

People look at the economy we’re living in as a fact of nature. They don’t see it as a set of rules that was put in place by a particular people at a particular time. They look at money the way a doctor looks at the bloodstream. They don’t understand that it’s a social construction and that we can rewrite it.

Pro-pot TV spot censored by stations

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By Steven T. Jones

The Marijuana Policy Project has produced a great new 30-second television ad calling for the legalization and taxation of marijuana and presenting that as a partial solution to California’s financial collapse, but many television stations – including KGO-TV and KNTV in the Bay Area — have refused to air it.

“Instead of being treated like criminals for consuming a substance that is safer than alcohol, we want to pay our fair share,” says a middle-aged female pot smoker in the ad. Assembly member Tom Ammiano’s AB 390 – which is expected to have its first hearings in October – would raise billions of dollars by decriminalizing and taxing pot, making it all the more troubling that stations would refuse to run an ad on this relevant political issue.

MPP’s Bruce Mirken said most Los Angeles area stations – including KABC, KTTV, KTLA, and KCOP – have refused to run the spot (just one, KCBS, will start running it on Saturday) and offered little explanation why. Guardian calls to the KGO and KNTV station managers have not been returned, but we’ll run their responses in the comments section if and when we hear back.

But the ensuing censorship controversy has made news, including a segment featuring the ad on this morning’s Today Show, which ran on KNTV.

Leftovers

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS To a lover, love is bigger than anything, including reality, including practicality, reason, distance, sense, and in many cases, cornbread. So when a lover speaks to a lover of "the reality of," you know, "the situation" … you might understand or even agree, but afterward you will need to put a sweater on.

Reality checks, like hip checks, send you. What can you do but regain your skates and glide along?

What I meant to say about Brick Pig’s barbecue is: yum. Well, like a lotta barbecue, it’s inconsistent. Both times the brisket was great. But the pork ribs wavered from bone to bone. One would be tough and dry, another just fine, and anothernother fantastic.

Same with the beans: first time, great. Second time overly mustarded and therefore not so great.

What was consistent was the sauce. Get hot, you’ll be fine, and it’s excellent. And the brisket. And the place, which is small and perfectly atmospheric, with faux brick wallpaper and a couple of small tables for eater-inners.

How I found it was, well, I already knew about it for a while, because I would always see it after I’d just stopped at Flint’s for barbecue on my way to band practice. And I would always make a mental note, driving by, to check out Brick Pig next time. But I’m not known for my mentality, where barbecue is concerned. It’s more like an animal thing, so, so long as Flint’s entered my field of vision first …

Well, I don’t live in the North Bay anymore. I live in Oakland, meaning I have to drive up Shattuck to get to Flint’s, meaning I now see Brick Pig first. Still, when my new neighbor Lennie asked me where to get barbecue, I said, out of habit, "Flint’s." And then I went to work, which in this case was cooking dinner for the kids downstairs.

Lennie peaked her head in a little later and said, "We’re going to Brick Pig’s. Want us to bring you anything?"

I wasn’t hurt they weren’t taking my advice. I was hurt because I was on duty and would not be able to join them. "No thanks," I said, stirring whatever was cooking. "But if you have any leftovers … "

You don’t have to know me long to know me. She finished my thought, or rather, perfected it. "We’ll save you some," she said.

And she called while the kids were in the bathtub. They’d saved me some. I would only have to run across the street and back, but if anybody drowned or anything on my watch, I knew I would never be able to enjoy barbecue ever again. I decided to play it safe. I said I’d come by once the kids were sleeping.

So story time was hard. I kept losing the thread, and mixing metaphors. My point-of-view character accidentally died, very near the beginning, and then, because I’d stopped talking, perplexed, the kids took over. Once they start telling the stories, forget it. You may as well put on a pot of coffee and light them each a cigarette. They’re that talented.

Meaning my first taste of Brick Pig barbecue was cold and crusty by the time I got to it, but still: I licked the plastic clean. For my second taste, I took the childerns with me, and Lennie took hers, and that equals four childerns. Ma and Pa Brick House were happy to see everyone, at first, and broke out games and puzzles for the little ‘uns while they put our to-go order together.

Kids aren’t known for tranquility. They’re cute, as a rule, but peace is not their strong suit.

By the time we left, of course, Ma Brick House was singing a different tune. The lyrics were, "You know, you can call your order in, next time."

That was the time of the over-mustarded beans and pork-related inconsistency problems. As testament to the resilience and/or forgetfulness of adults, the next time I went, which was just a couple weeks later, first stop back from Berlin, Ma House remembered me and asked where my kids were. She said I shoulda brought them in with me.

I said, "I don’t have kids."

BRICK PIG’S HOUSE

Tue.–Sat.: noon–8 p.m.

5973 Shattuck, Oakl.

(510) 923-1789

No alcohol

MC,V,D,AE

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Aicha

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paulr@sfbg.com

The tagine is something of a unicorn in the kingdom of food. Many people will recognize the word as referring to a stew of Moroccan or other north African provenance, but it also refers to the pot in which the stew is cooked. And, though you may be an inveterate Moroccan-restaurant-goer, chances are you’ve never seen the tagine pot in its full glory. What typically reaches the table is just the lower half of the tagine — a kind of serving platter, probably of glazed ceramic, possibly hand-painted.

But the spectacular part of the tagine is the conical top, which looks like a space capsule or a hat from Beach Blanket Babylon. The top is aesthetically striking, but it also is a mechanism for moisture retention; like a still, it captures condensation and routes it back to the dish whence it came. The top has a knob at its peak that resists heat and so enables the cook to lift it up and see what’s going on in there.

I wish the removal of tagine tops would become a standard tableside flourish at Moroccan restaurants, the way lighting saganaki on fire is at Greek places. Tagine de-topping isn’t standard practice at Aicha, at least not yet, but I did thrill to the spectacle, deep in the open kitchen, of a bare-handed chef pulling off the top of a hand-painted ceramic tagine to inspect its contents. The tagine top looked very much like the one I have at home, and perhaps the tagine dish itself was the one that would soon be brought to me. More on this important matter anon.

Aicha opened late in the spring in a storefront space on Polk Street, in that transitional zone between the Civic Center and Russian Hill. The restaurant will definitely be seen as an upgrade to this emulsification-resistant neighborhood. Although it’s small, it’s handsomely appointed — a crisp, clean spareness with striking copper accents, and, of course, beautifully authentic tagines.

Authenticity is a central theme at Aicha. The restaurant will do its best "to preserve the authenticity of the cuisine," according to a statement on the Web site. This is never an easy undertaking in California, land of bravura salad-tossing, but so far the place is off to an impressive start. The food is modestly priced and not elaborate or precious, but it does offer an intensity of flavor many kitchens charging two or three times as much might envy.

There is great delight to be found not only among the appetizers, which cost between $3 and $6, but even in the more modest side dishes ($3 each) like the simple-sounding white beans. These are of the smaller, navy-bean size; are expertly cooked al dente (i.e. neither hard nor mushy); and are presented in a creamy, well-seasoned sauce whose glints of redness hint at the presence of paprika or some other extroverted but not bitingly hot red pepper. We do not eat enough beans and legumes in this country, perhaps because we associate them with poverty and the old country (whatever that country that might be), but maybe we would eat more if they were this good.

For just a dollar or three more, you can find yourself feasting on comparably gratifying appetizers. Blanched carrots ($4), are peeled, quartered, and tossed with chermoula, the distinctive north African spice paste that usually includes garlic, preserved lemon, and cumin, along with other herbs and spices. Like beans, carrots (one of the notably health-protecting orange foods) are neglected in our culinary culture and are often relegated to lowly duty in mirepoix or soup stock. But if you served these at a party, you would run out in five minutes.

Possibly even tastier, though not quite as finger-friendly, is taktouka ($4), a plateful of grilled red bell pepper squiggles tossed with some tomato, olive oil, and what the menu cryptically calls "spices." Cumin was in there, certainly, but grilled peppers have such a distinctive and alluring flavor that they don’t really need much else.

Somewhat less impressive — yet at the top of the appetizer price scale — was an artichoke salad ($6) consisting of pickled artichoke hearts, peppery green olives, crumblings of feta, and lots of immaculate romaine leaves. Lots. The romaine was too much with us and diluted the potency of other players.

It was thought that the b’stilla ($6), a pizzetta-sized round of phyllo stuffed with pistachio chicken and dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon, was a little too cinnamony. (Frasier‘s Dr. Niles Crane, complaining about a Café Nervosa cappuccino: "Can you believe the incompetence of that man? I very clearly asked for a whisper of cinnamon, and he’s given me a full-throated shout!") But a lamb tagine ($9) — tender shanks on the bone, surrounded by little green hills of peas and artichoke hearts — was all a heart could desire, even if the plate arrived topless.

AICHA

Daily, 11:30 a.m.–11:30 p.m.

1303 Polk, SF

(415) 345-9947

www.aichasf.com

Credit cards pending; call ahead and bring cash

Hard surfaces mean noise

Wheelchair accessible

What’s wrong with San Francisco?

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EDITORIAL In the end, Mayor Gavin Newsom got his way. The San Francisco supervisors made some significant changes to the budget and saved some $40 million worth of programs that the mayor wanted to cut or privatize, but the Newsom for governor ads will still be able to proclaim that the mayor solved his city’s budget problem without raising taxes or cutting police and firefighters.

Instead, this fall some 1,500 city employees are slated to be laid off, 400 of them in the Department of Public Health. Many recreation directors will get pink slips. Human services will lose at least 100 people. Nonprofit service providers will see much of their city funding disappear. The money to pay for public financing of the upcoming supervisorial and mayoral races is gone. Newsom’s pet (and expensive) 311 service will still be open 24 hours a day (with a lot of the money coming from Muni).

Not one of the city’s hugely redundant fire stations will close, even for a few days at a time. The bloated police budget will see no significant cuts, and the cops and firefighters will still get raises. The mayor will continue to employ five people in his press office.

And the only new revenue in the budget comes from fee increases on Muni, public parks, after-school programs, street fairs, restaurants, and the like.

Sup. John Avalos, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, told us this was the best deal the supervisors could get, and it’s true that the board forced Newsom to add back a lot of money he wanted to cut. But the committee stopped far short of doing what it should have done — fundamentally changing the priorities of the Newsom budget.

Campos told us that he had "mixed feelings" about the deal and expressed concern about the board’s ability to shape midyear cuts and the lack of commitment from Newsom to support support placing revenue measures on the November ballot. Mirkarimi said he was happy with the dollar amounts of the add-backs but proposed holding in reserve some funding for the mayor’s pet projects — a tool for ensuring that Newsom consults with supervisors on the midyear cuts as promised — but Avalos opposed the idea.

Avalos said he’s relying on Newsom’s commitment to him: "The mayor has given me the assurance that he will not make unilateral decisions." But Newsom has a history of breaking such promises.

And the supervisors have not included any new tax revenue in the budget projections. Which puts San Francisco far behind Oakland.

The Oakland City Council has plenty of problems, and the mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums, has been missing in action on a lot of the city’s problems lately. But when the mayor and the council had to address the budget problems, they came up with a solution that includes at least $6 million in new taxes. While that sounds like a small number, it’s almost 10 percent of Oakland’s budget shortfall. And the new taxes, which will need voter approval in a special July 21 election, are included as part of the budget plan for fiscal 2009-10.

Two of the new taxes — a levy on pot clubs (which the clubs themselves strongly support) and a loophole-closing measure that forces big businesses to pay their fair share of real estate transfer taxes — require only a simple majority vote to take effect. The reason: the council voted unanimously to declare a fiscal emergency and put the measures on the ballot. That allowed the city to avoid the state law that requires a two-thirds vote on most new taxes.

Measures C, D, F, and H make up a generally progressive package that has the support of Council Members Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan and Rep. Barbara Lee. We’re happy to endorse all four.

Measure C is a 3 percent increase in the city’s hotel tax, which would rise from 11 percent to 14 percent. Half the new money would go to the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau while the other half would be split between the Oakland Zoo, the Chabot Space and Science Center, and cultural arts programs and festivals in the city. We could argue with the distribution (arts festivals should probably get more money and the Visitors Bureau less) but overall, it raises the hotel tax to the level of most other cities in the area and would raise money for the sorts of programs hotel taxes typically fund.

Measure D is a technical amendment to the Oakland Kids First law that mandates spending on programs for children and youth. It changes the spending requirement from 1.5 percent of total city revenues to 3 percent of the general fund. That’s slightly less money than the program currently gets, but a lot more than it has had over the past decade. The coalition that put Kids First on the ballot in 1996 (and modified it in 2008) supports this modest change.

Measure F is a creative new tax. It would impose a 1.8 percent gross receipts tax ($18 per $1,000 in sales) on medical marijuana businesses. Most efforts to hike business taxes face bitter opposition from business owners, but in this case, the pot clubs are happy to pay. In fact, the four dispensaries in Oakland are among the measure’s strongest supporters. Paying taxes tends to legitimize the clubs — and while it’s going to be tricky to track sales in what is still largely a cash business where records have in the past been kept vague to avoid the threat of federal prosecution, this is a strong step in the right direction.

Measure H would prevent big corporations from cheating Oakland out of real estate transfer taxes. Under current law, a business that owns property in Oakland and is bought by another business (or becomes part of a merger) doesn’t have to pay transfer taxes on the property it owns. Closing that loophole could bring in as much as $4.4 million a year.

There’s a lesson here for the much larger city across the Bay.

San Francisco desperately needs new revenue. And while the mayor has talked, in vague terms, about maybe supporting some sort of tax measures in November, he hasn’t committed to anything. There are several proposals floating around the board, the latest of which is a Labor Council-supported tax on alcohol consumption, but no coherent package. The progressives on the board — both those who support the compromise Newsom budget and those who don’t — need to set aside those differences, now, and get to work on finding ways to bring in enough new money to deal with the impacts of further state cuts and stave off some of the layoffs slated for the fall.

The main obstacles are Sups. Sean Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier. Everyone who cares about saving services in this city needs to pressure them to back away from their GOP-style no-new-taxes stands. If those two would at least agree to let the voters decide on new revenue measures, the city would likely get a unanimous board — and the ability to raise taxes with a simple majority vote.

Oakland’s pot club tax and real estate transfer tax are great ideas that can be directly imported to San Francisco. The city’s business tax could be made more progressive (and bring in new revenue) with a simple change in the tax rates (higher on the big outfits, lower on the small ones). We’re dubious about a sales tax increase — even a half-percent hike would bring the local tax rate to 10 percent. And, even though the alcohol tax isn’t exactly progressive, those ideas could be acceptable as part of a package.

The main thing is that the city will need, at minimum, another $100 million this fall, and probably ought to be looking at raising twice that much. Oakland — a city with far fewer resources, a much smaller business base, and radically less wealth — is managing to fight its deficit with progressive taxes. What’s wrong with San Francisco?

P.S.: Sup. Chris Daly was outspoken in his criticism of the budget deal, blasting Newsom and even taking on his former aide and longtime ally, Avalos. But for all his bluster about the mayor, Daly couldn’t bring himself to oppose Anson Moran, Newsom’s nominee for the Public Utilities Commission. Moran was a staunch ally of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. when he was the PUC’s general manager, and the full board should reject him. *

Isthmus insanity

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Roberto Gyemant, a.k.a. DJ Beto, doesn’t need to tell you how extra-zesty Panamanian music is: all he has to do is play "Juck Juck Pt. 1," by Sir Jablonsky, off Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1967-77 (Soundway), the new compilation curated by the San Francisco native. The bubbly calypso-reggae-funk mutant of a track gets its playful tenterhooks into you — and refuses to let go. "If someone can tell me the genre of that song, I’d love to hear it," Gyemant marvels over fruit juice in the courtyard of Haus. "This guy! ‘I juck them in Spanish, and I juck them in English,’ then he speaks in patois. You’re like, ‘OK, this is a special country!’"

Gyemant’s taken his hot shoe back to the burning avenues of Panama more than 20 times since he first discovered the country’s brassy, highly spiced musical hybrids baking in forgotten grooves buried in neglected radio station LP libraries. At the time, in 2003, he was living in Costa Rica, working on a novel. But the music — and an ever-expiring tourist visa — brought him back to root out more old long-players and to get the stories behind the songs, a major endeavor since the pressings in the tiny country were so small and little info existed on musicians like Papi Brandao, whose infectious, accordion-propelled "La Murga de Panama" runs a Puerto Rican bomba through his tipica (folklorico) ensemble’s Afro-Cuban influences. The fruit of Gyemant’s loving labors: Panama! (Soundway, 2006) and now its tipica-flavored sequel, as well as at least one book, a forthcoming encyclopedia on Latin jazz and dance music from 1930 to 1975.

Gyemant — who also put together Soundway’s 2008 comp Colombia! and the upcoming Colombia! 2 — first got bit by the bug in David, Panama, where he stumbled on a radio station willing to part with its old LPs, crammed floor-to-ceiling in a back room. "The guys really let me loose on it," he recalls. Without a portable turntable, Gyemant tried to figure out which albums and 7-inches were worth buying (hint: he stayed away from the ones listing boleros and clung to the records that mentioned, say, Afrofunk). Talking to collectors and fans led him to such players as Francisco "Bush" Buckley of Menique el Panameno con Bush y los Magnificos, who drove him around Panama and took him to old musicians’ hangouts. Still, the writer wasn’t sure if he was on the right track until he started selling funk LPs on eBay, and Soundway head Miles Cleret bought them all. The two began trading MP3s, which led to the comps.

What makes Panama’s musical blend so sizzling? The nation’s complex, fluid multicultural melting pot. The Afro-Antillean workers of Caribbean descent who came to build the canal — and who made up about 20 percent of the small population — played a major part, opines Gyemant. "Per capita, I’ve never found so many calypso boogaloo records," he raves. "It’s like, what?! Or soul guaracha. Or bossa funk. But I think the music speaks for itself."

PANAMA 2 RELEASE PARTY

With DJ Beto, DJ Guillermo, and Vinnie Esparza

Fri/3, 10 p.m., $5

Elbo Room

647 Valencia St

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com

————

TARTUFI GETS ITS FOURTH OFF

Get it straight: Tartufi is not playing the Fourth of July eight-band marathon at El Rio that the duo’s Lynn Angel has organized for four years. Nevertheless, during a break from the rock band summer camp at Sausalito’s Bay Area Discovery Museum, where she and Brian Gorman teach 4- to 7-year-olds how to write songs, Angel makes a case for the holiday. "We have a healthy addiction to fireworks," she says, while Gorman chimes in that he likes the ones the make his stomach shake. San Franciscans must wait until August to shake for Tartufi at the Rock Make Street Festival. Before then, the endlessly creative, good-humored duo hit the U.K., where the excellent rock-symphonic Nests of Waves and Wires (Southern) is garnering raves. "We’ve been getting compared to Animal Collective every other day, which is kind of strange to me," says Angel. "I can’t see the connection myself, but I won’t turn it down!"

BIG TIME FREEDOM FEST

Sat/4, 1:30 p.m., $8

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

www.elriosf.com

ROCK MAKE STREET FESTIVAL

Aug. 23, noon, free

Treat at 17th Ave., SF

www.myspace.com/rockmakestreetfestival

Wading in

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Yeah, it’s a big one — "going boating" — for the working-class castaways in New Yorker Bob Glaudini’s 2007 Jack Goes Boating, a surprisingly poignant comedy now making a strong Bay Area debut at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre. Who would propose such a thing lightly? The word even sounds funny, at least in the mouths of the three friends assembled in the scene — longstanding couple Clyde (Gabriel Marin) and Lucy (Amanda Duarte), and Clyde’s best friend and perennial bachelor Jack (Danny Wolohan). Their tongues trip unfamiliarly on the "t" like it was a pinky finger extending suddenly from their coffee hand.

The two relationships at the center of Jack Goes Boating — one very tentatively setting forth, the other possibly foundering after several years — make for less than smooth sailing, plot-wise, but a class act all around, especially as delivered by director Joy Carlin’s excellent ensemble. And yes, the aquatic metaphors are heavy in the mix, as Jack, with his friends’ encouragement, makes it his mission to finally woo and win a love of his own. That would be Connie (Beth Wilmurt), a mortician’s assistant and, presumably, boating enthusiast whom senior colleague Lucy and Clyde have helpfully pointed in Jack’s direction.

An aging, bashful, lifelong single guy turned dedicated stoner of the reggae-saturated "positive vibes" school, Jack’s vaguely embarrassing enthusiasm for Rastafarianism smacks of the quiet desperation of the well-meaning dork, especially as visually crowned by a budding nimbus of white-guy dreads. But it also points to a crucial motive in Jack’s fledgling love life, namely some sort of anchor of decency and solace in a sea of urban chaos and confusion, a context made palpable in the comically supple Wolohan’s charmingly perplexed, almost painful determination as Jack.

It’s clear early on that some sacrifice is in order. To make everything turn out right for Jack and Connie’s little borough romance, it behooves Jack to first learn how to swim (Clyde to the rescue: when he’s not driving a limo like coworker Jack, he’s a swimming instructor). Moreover, owing to a little misunderstanding on Connie’s part, Jack needs to learn how to cook (Clyde to the rescue again, this time by suggesting Jack study with an assistant pastry chef Clyde knows to have been lately and uncomfortably acquainted with his own dear Lucy). Clyde’s attempts to do good are themselves problematic, however, having at points a competing agenda of their own (conflicting motives Marin plays to superb effect), centered on the baggage he and Lucy (a feisty and sharp-witted match in Duarte’s terrific characterization) have accumulated over many years. In fact, as Jack slowly wades into the deep end of the pool, literally and figuratively, Clyde and Lucy’s increasingly obvious dirty laundry begins to look like unintentional warning flags.

But Jack perseveres. Not yet at the oars, he’s nonetheless set a firm course already. He’s on board for this love thing. And, according to Glaudini, it’s as much a matter of self-survival as self-sacrifice. His swimming lessons with Clyde inch him ever so gently toward the deep end of the pool. But in a sense he’s already there, surrounded by the vortex of urban stress and mayhem as well as his own whirling emotions, all of it manifest in the predatory competition of other men — more often than not reduced to synecdoche in the dialogue: an aggressive erection on the subway, a stray hand on an unsuspecting breast, a philandering cannoli — and his own explosive temper. It’s the dicey but also ennobling power of love that makes Jack and Connie (whose own neurotic complexity gets its full due in Wilmurt’s shrewdly unnerving yet sympathetic characterization) able to navigate these waters finally, rather than merely treading them in a self-induced fog of pot smoke or "positive vibes."

Veteran Bay Area actor-director Carlin guides this beautifully designed production with sure comic instincts, making for an enjoyable ride all the way. But she and her cast also know the play gathers much of its momentum from deeper, darker waters just below its romantic comedy surface.

JACK GOES BOATING

Through July 19

Wed-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 and 7 p.m., $28-$50

Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk.

(510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org

Farallon

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paulr@sfbg.com

Since restaurants tend to age in dog years, a restaurant that reaches its 12th birthday — like Farallon — might be called venerable. It has survived its perilous youth to achieve, perhaps, the stability of middle age, and the good news is that while not all that many restaurants see their 12th birthday, the ones that do stand a reasonable chance of seeing quite a few more.

Mark Franz, who cooked at Stars while that glittering spot was still in the hands of founder Jeremiah Tower, has been the man at Farallon from the beginning — the man, at least, in the kitchen. The designer was Pat Kuleto, and the restaurant’s interior décor shows a definite kinship with other Kuleto projects from the mid-1990s; like Boulevard (1993), it is rich in fanciful lamps and light fixtures, and like Jardiniere (1997), it includes a conspicuous sweeping staircase.

But mostly there is the Captain Nemo effect, the sense of being in some magical grotto at the bottom of the sea. Many of the visual effects are not subtle: the huge faux scallop shell that forms part of the ceiling and the row of lamps like line-caught fish hanging in front of the exhibition kitchen are two that spring to mind. But Kuleto did not neglect the finer touches, even if it takes a bit longer to notice them. The tiled mosaics on the wall arches, for instance, are quietly spectacular in their byzantine colors and details. The mosaics have worn well. They lend an air of permanence and impressiveness, and they’re what you find yourself staring at long after you’ve stopped noticing the more outlandish stuff.

The menu describes the cooking as "coastal cuisine," an au courant designation for imaginative or contemporary seafood. The restaurant’s obvious peers are Aqua and Waterbar; it’s less monumental than the former and cozier than the latter, and because it’s just a few steps from Union Square, I wondered if we would find some pandering to tourists — some version of cioppino, say. I didn’t notice any such over-obviousness. The theme instead is one of discreet sophistication, cleverness that does not call attention to itself.

Sashimi of ahi tuna ($18), for example, is the kind of thing you could get at dozens of restaurants around town. But Farallon’s kitchen gave the glistening ruby tabs of flesh a sly Spanish twist, with an overlay of a boquerón (a white anchovy), a scattering of slivered almonds, and a nearby berm of ñora-chili purée, like an honor guard.

A buckwheat blini (part of a four-course, $65 prix fixe) was soaked — and I do mean soaked — in melted butter, then topped with alternating lengths of gravlax and sturgeon, themselves capped with crème fraîche and a brief hailstorm of salmon roe, like little pebbles of orange glass. The lesson here was butter, its delicate, singular richness. Accept no substitute, because there is none.

The combination of cantaloupe and prosciutto is friendly to the point of cliché, so a little inventiveness is welcome. Farallon’s summer melon salad (also part of the prix fixe) featured a core of cantaloupe dice wrapped in swaths of prosciutto and topped with what looked like simple shaved ice but turned out to be verbena granita. Since we intuitively associate color with flavor, it was startling to find so much punch packed into something that looked as if it had been reclaimed from a hotel ice bucket.

The menu does not beat you over the head with screeds about sustainability, and perhaps this restraint is wise, since seafood choices are so often fraught ones. I love arctic char — a milder, eco-friendly relation of salmon — and I very much liked the way it was handled here ($35): gently roasted, then finished in a cast-iron pot with some white wine and a succotash-like medley of corn kernels, summer squash dice, and cubes of Spanish chorizo. But: the fish had been taken in Icelandic waters, which are quite a few carbon footprints away.

Also carbon-footprinty, though delicious, was soft-shell crab, available as a starter ($18) on a bed of corn kernels, and as the third of the prix-fixe’s four courses, with Puy lentils (a bit overcooked, I thought) and basil-roasted tomatoes. In both cases the crab was fried "naked," which meant without being dipped in batter. Fried batter has its golden, crunchy charms, but it can be overbearing. When you are trying to enjoy crab — especially soft-shell crab, the essence of crab — the best crust is no crust.

Also, crustlessness shaves a few points from the calorie count, which leaves wiggle room for dessert: a warm (prix-fixe) brownie, say, with a pat of malted-milk-ball ice cream bisected by a chewy chocolate tuile, or, for the more restrained, an array of chocolate bites ($6), including a liqueur-filled truffle and two bites of a sublime milk chocolate-peanut butter pavé. Just the sort of thing the 12-year-old in each of us loves.

FARALLON

Dinner: Mon.-Thurs., 5:30-9:30 p.m.;

Fri.-Sat., 5:30-10 p.m.; Sun., 5-9:30 p.m.

450 Post, SF

(415) 956-6969

www.farallonrestaurant.com

Full bar

AE/CB/DC/DS/MC/V

Comfortable noise level

Wheelchair accessible

July 4 Dining Deals

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PREVIEW Fourth of July tends to be a casual, low-brow, pre-packaged-potato-salad-and-cheap-beer kind of holiday. But it doesn’t have to be. This year, Bay Area foodies can celebrate our country without compromising their culinary standards. CAV Wine Bar and Kitchen will host a BBQ with ribs and fixins, as well as vegetarian options. ($35/person. 1666 Market, SF. 415-437-1770, www.cavwinebar.com). That Hayes Valley beacon of class and culture, Jardiniere, will sport red, white, and blue tablecloths and family-style dining while serving haute twists on classic dishes like
pickled watermelon, Berkshire pork ribs, and lobster rolls. ($55/person. 300 Grove, SF. 415-861-5555, www.jardiniere.com). For a bit of French flair (we are a melting pot, after all), La Folie will be open for the first time this July 4 (2316 Polk, SF. 415-776-5577, www.lafolie.com). Or check out Paul K, whose Dine About Town deal has been extended through July 5, for summer classics like heirloom tomato salad, pan-seared white seabass, or flatiron steak ($34.95/person. 199 Gough, SF. 415-552-7132, www.paulkrestaurant.com).

JULY 4TH DINING DEALS. Various times and locations. Check individual

Websites for information.

Juicy gotcha krazy

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superego@sfbg.com

SUPEREGO Oh, who the hell cares what I think this week? It’s summer and our party hormones — partymones — are totally going apeshit. Before I get into the upcoming party musts, though, I will leave you with one quasi-abstract musing. The thing I’ll miss most about analog TV, besides the term "vertical hold," is the sound of someone frantically banging the top of the box to stabilize the picture. If anyone’s thinking of sampling that in a killer track, now’s the time. Slap that bitch!

NINJA TUNE


It’s been a coon’s age since the forward-thinking label threw one of its freaky bashes here in San Francisco, and despite some questionable recent signings (Thunderheist? Er, pass), it’s pulling out its new big guns with this one. Before he brought down the house on the Brainfeeder tour last year, I couldn’t look at foppish L.A. synth-master Daedelus without flashing back to my more ill-starred ’80s sartorial choices. But he proved himself up to the minute with edgy future bassism and over-the-top Beethoven-like symphonic flourishes. New New Romantic? Sure. Montreal dancehall warper Ghislain Poirier is back as well, and will benefit from Mighty’s mighty bass boost. Opening up is Daly City’s underground patron saint, Mochipet.

Thu/18, 9 p.m., $10 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

"THE CREATIVES"


There’s nothing more terrifying to me than a drag queen out of drag. Here I’ll be all gossiping tipsily with someone and say something like, "Oh gurl, that Ambrosia Salad mess truly sucked a big one with her number last Friday." And then he’ll say in a deep voice, "I’m Ambrosia Salad, asshole" — and I’ll have to backtrack faster than Scooby and Shaggy from Bluebeard’s tacky ectoplasm. Luckily, hottie photographer Molly Decoudreaux provides a key with her new exhibition, "The Creatives: Daytime Portraits from a Queer Nightlife," in which she ingeniously snaps notorious movers and shakers in their casual home habitats. Who knew these queens had homes? The opening party should be darling.

Sat/20, 7 p.m.–10 p.m., continues through July 10, free. A.Muse Gallery, 614 Alabama, SF. www.yourmusegallery.com

SUREFIRE


That lively Bay nexus for all things dubstep, Surefire Sound, has gone monthly at Triple Crown (yay) and has a stellar June lineup planned. Distance, a hurricane force from the U.K. whose "Night Vision" track on Planet Mu pummels the darkness into submission, brings his streetwise wobble to the tables. Toronto’s XI gets gnarly, his ragamuffin moments reflective of Canada’s simmering melting pot. And much-admired local DJ Antiserum possesses the just-right combination of longtime jungle and breaks experience and wild viral style to crank the party up madly.

Sat/20, 10 p.m., $10. Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF. www.triplecrownsf.com

GREEN VELVET


True eccentricity is still a rarity on the techno scene, which tends to forego stand-out personalities in favor of mix-friendly assimilation. This can be a good thing: we don’t need another Prodigy, surely. But Green Velvet, the wacky track producer also known as house pioneer Cajmere, gets the balance between dance floor motion and the conceptually bizarre perfectly. The influence of his earworm cuts like "The Stalker," "Flash," and the oddly Eminem-summoning "La La Land" is strongly felt on recent underground Berlin styles and throughout the goofy Dirty Bird label technoverse. He’ll be in town with bonkers duo Designer Drugs, who manage to make electro-sleaze still relevant-sounding, to help celebrate the birthday of one of my favorite SF DJs, Richie Panic.

Sat/20, 9 p.m., $15 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

DJ SAID


A decade ago, when the Internet was still booming, Said Adelekan brought some serious dance floor spirit to that oft-soulless go-go period with his local Afro-House movement, his Fatsouls label, and his lovely Atmosphere parties. I’m absolutely delighted that he and Fatsouls have resurfaced — goddess knows we could use a little more Afro-injection — to release a new full-length Fatsouls joint, Sun of Gao. Joining Said (and many familiar friendly faces from those days, I hope) will be the luminous DJ Dedan of the great Brothers and Sisters party in Oakland. Expect everything deeply felt, from Afrobeat to minimal techno — oh, and Nigerian legend Rasaki Aladokun on the talking drum.

Friday, June 26, 10 p.m., free. Otis, 25 Maiden Lane, SF. www.otissf.com

Harmony Festival: Having your CAKE and eating it too

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By Molly Freedenberg

rudeboyzramp_0609.JPG
Skaters dropped three stories before hitting this 18-foot vert ramp in the Rude Boyz Eco Cup Zone. Photo from the Harmony Festival blog.

Like most of us, I had a hippie phase. I wore Birkenstocks. I lived on a commune … ahem … in an intentional community. And I frequented festivals that featured jam bands and booths full of rasta-colored beanies. Then I graduated from college.

Some of my other interests and habits from high school remain with me: punk rock, cigarettes, skater boys. But my interest in festivals like last weekend’s Harmony went the way of baggy jeans, ankh necklaces, and smoking pot. That is, simply, it went away. Until now.

This year, the annual Santa Rosa event expanded its usual granola-and-glow-sticks offerings (no offense to those of you who went for Michael Franti or The Orb) to include punk bands and a skate park. Be still my 16-year-old heart … Dead Kennedys? Thirty-year-old men in low-slung shorts who dedicate their lives to a wooden stick with four wheels? I had to go. Plus, Cake – one of my all-time favorite bands – was headlining Friday night.

Dazed and confused

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news@sfbg.com

Police officers in the Tenderloin have routinely violated city policies and wasted scarce public money sending people busted for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana to the Community Justice Center (CJC), a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom that was supposed to save money and clean up the Tenderloin.

Instead, all these minor drug possession cases have been dismissed by an already overtaxed court system. And as the police have only just begun to ease up on referring these cases to the CJC in its second month of operations, they continue to bust the homeless for quality-of-life violations.

The Tenderloin police station referred at least 17 cases of simple pot possession cases to the CJC since its inception in March. After only one month of the CJC’s operations in the Tenderloin, Public Defender Jeff Adachi could already see that such police referrals represented a larger misuse of resources occurring throughout the city.

Adachi’s office has handled more than 300 cases at the CJC. Of his caseload, he estimates that "about 80 percent of the cases have involved loitering, illegal camping, possession of marijuana, possession of paraphernalia, and blocking the sidewalk. The remainder of the cases were petty thefts, batteries, and other miscellaneous crimes."

Clarence Wilson, a 67-year-old African American Rastafarian, had his marijuana possession case dismissed at the CJC with Adachi’s help. Wilson’s ordeal began after he finished crossing the street at Hyde and Ellis at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 8. He recalls walking in the crosswalk during a green light. But when he gazed up while reaching the other side, it had just turned red.

Two Tenderloin station police officers stopped him for jaywalking and proceeded to question him to see if he was carrying anything. "Just herbal," he admitted, referring to the small amount of marijuana he had just purchased.

The officers faced Wilson against the wall, handcuffed him, and drove him to the Tenderloin police station where he spent 45 minutes handcuffed to a bench. Before they released him with a court date for the following Monday at the CJC, they booked him under a jaywalking infraction and a misdemeanor violation of marijuana possession of less than 28.5 grams (an ounce).

Wilson’s case stands out because he has lived in the city for 33 years with a clean record, but has now been sucked into Newsom’s costly criminal justice experiment. "I was the guinea pig for that day," he said. "All these other people were crossing the red light walking, and you chose me — and you wouldn’t even tell me why I was being arrested. You wouldn’t even read me my rights."

"If the officer wanted to cite Mr. Wilson for jaywalking, he could have written a citation and released him on the spot," Adachi said. "But to handcuff him, treat him as a common criminal for possession of a small amount of marijuana is exactly what the city’s directive prohibits."

Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum sentence of a $100 fine. But city law, specifically Administrative Code Chapter 12X, calls for police to make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana their "lowest priority" and to focus their resources elsewhere. The Board of Supervisors approved the law in 2006, sponsored by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, who wrote, "the federal government’s war on drugs has failed" and called for a more sensible approach in San Francisco.

Particularly at a time when Newsom is asking every city department to makes budget cuts of 25 percent to cope with a $438 million budget deficit, Adachi said many CJC cases are a waste of precious public resources.

The CJC only takes misdemeanors and nonviolent felony cases in its court system. Modeled after New York City’s Center for Court Innovation, it serves as a one-stop location for the court to refer offenders to social services to address the root causes of criminal behavior — although those programs dealing with substance abuse, mental health treatment, and other social needs are also on the budget chopping block.

CJC only handled violations in four selected central neighborhoods deemed to be burdened by chronic crime: the Tenderloin, SoMa, Civic Center, and Union Square communities. Capt. Gary Jimenez of the Tenderloin Police Station could not be reached for an extensive interview, but told the Guardian that his officers are simply enforcing the law by citing offenders and referring such cases to the CJC.

CJC coordinator Tomiquia Moss has weighed in by facilitating talks between Adachi and Deputy Chief of Police Kevin Cashman, who sits on the CJC advisory board to address which cases get referred. While all 17 of the pot cases have been dismissed at the CJC, Moss believes that Adachi must continue to communicate with Tenderloin police officers to advise on citation referrals. "We don’t have any impact on how the police department administers enforcement," she said. "We can only be responsible for what happens to the case once it gets here."

Moss takes pride in the CJC for providing services even to clients whose cases are dismissed. She believes that almost all the people who have been referred to the CJC accept assistance because caseworkers are respectful and culturally competent, although she has yet to compile comprehensive statistics on CJC cases.

To get a sense on of the big picture at CJC, the Guardian reviewed a report from the Coalition on Homelessness based on the court’s calendar for its first two months in existence. Out of 336 total cases between March 4 and May 1, 100 (30 percent) were for sleeping outside; 71 (21 percent) were for possession of a crack pipe; and 99 (29 percent) were "public nuisance" citations to the court, a subjective violation often given with another citation such as obstructing the sidewalk.

However, among the pending cases that faced trial, the CJC reports that more severe crimes like theft, fraud, disorderly conduct, possession with intent to sell drugs, and soliciting drugs — cases routinely heard in other courtrooms — make up the majority.

Moss acknowledged the limitations of the CJC during tight budget times. "We anticipate people not being able to get all their needs met because there aren’t enough funds. Services are in jeopardy … You gotta consolidate. You have higher client-to-service-provider ratios. It’s a significant issue."

If the CJC is to continue operating with limited resources, Adachi and homeless advocates say Tenderloin police need to focus their resources on serious crimes, rather than quality of life violations that predominately criminalize the homeless.

Bob Offer-Westort, the civil rights organizer for Coalition on Homelessness and coordinating editor of the local paper Street Sheet, says it’s a shame to continue funding the CJC while service centers like the Tenderloin Health drop-in center are being closed due to budget cuts. Offer-Westort acknowledges the laudable social services provided at the CJC, but said "its front-end is conducted by law enforcement officers" who treat it as a "homeless court".

While Newsom hoped the CJC would be popular with city residents concerned about the homeless, 57 percent of San Franciscan voters weighed in last November against allocating extra funding to the CJC with Proposition L.

Although the mayor is proposing a 25 percent cut in the public defender’s budget, Adachi fears this would mean firing 38 lawyers, or one-third of his staff. This could translate to a withdrawal from representing approximately 6,000 clients at his office. In turn, low-income defendants stretched thin by the economic crisis would have to turn to being assigned to private lawyers with costly hourly rates that will still have to be paid for by the city.

Adachi told the Guardian that the marijuana possession cases at the CJC represent the benign types of cases squeezing his office dry, and that Newsom still has not provided Adachi with the two lawyers he promised to handle CJC cases. Newsom’s spokesperson, Nathan Ballard, would not comment on the cases going to the CJC, telling the Guardian, "I’m not going to play along."

Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project, sees San Francisco’s use of scarce resources for marijuana cases as parallel to state and federal policy. "In a sense, it’s a small piece of a larger puzzle, which is that we waste billions and billions of dollars every year in tax money that could be being used for schools, roads, healthcare, etc. in arresting and prosecuting people for possession of a drug that’s safer than alcohol. It’s just crazy, it’s pointless, and every dollar spent on it is a dollar wasted — particularly when government is strapped for cash and cutting vital services to try to balance the budget."

The city and state continue to reassess their marijuana regulations and enforcement on a broader scale. In April, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi proposed legislation allowing the city to sell medical marijuana through the Department of Public Health. And in March, Assembly Member Ammiano began pushing for the state to legalize and tax marijuana.

In the meantime, the CJC, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Public Defender’s Office are still stretching their resources to handle small possession of marijuana cases cited by Tenderloin police station — in spite of the city’s stated priorities. And homeless individuals continue to get cited for quality of life violations while city workers providing social services see their budgets running dry.

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