Pride

We walk with a zombie

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PHENOM In our heads, in our heads: zombies, zombies, zombies.

Don’t blame me for taking a bite out of your brain and inserting an annoying tune in its place — once again, not long after the last onslaught of undead trends, our culture is totally zombie mad.

The phrase "zombie bank" is multiplying at a disturbing rate within economic circles. In music, the group Zombi — hailing from the zombie capitol Pittsburgh — is reviving the analogue electronics of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead while the British act Zomby brings dubstep to postapocalyptic dance floors. A comedy of manners possessed by ultraviolent urges, Seth Grahame-Smith’s "unmentionable" Jane Austen update Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books, 320 pages, $12.95) has set up camp on the trade paperback New York Times best sellers list, with S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament — currently being movie-ized by Diablo Cody — on its trail. On a smaller scale, Yusaka Hanakuma’s manga Tokyo Zombie (Last Gasp, 164 pages, $9.95) has caught a zombie plane over to the United States.

Most of all, posthumous Michael Jackson mania is bringing the corpse choreography of the 1983 video for "Thriller" to life, as the media and masses fluctuate between the worst facets of grave-robbing and best facets of revival and death celebration. A Friday, July 3 party in Seattle that aimed to top the 3,370-participant world record for largest "zombie walk" included a mass dance performance to the song.

When journalist Lev Grossman first noted the shift in bloodlust from vampirism to zombiedom in a Time trend piece this April, he ticked off some of these activities but steered clear of visual art. Zombies are around in galleries and museums, too. In Los Angeles last month, Peres Projects presented Bruce LaBruce’s "Untitled Hardcore Zombie Project" in which stills from a forthcoming movie by the director of last year’s Otto; or, Up with Dead People were blown up, framed, and hung on the space’s blood-spattered white cube walls. Here in San Francisco, Michael Rosenthal Gallery is hosting a variety of zombified works by another Canadian artist, Jillian Mcdonald.

Active revisions of cinema are central to Mcdonald, whose past projects find her staring down, mimicking and making out with male screen icons such as Billy Bob Thornton. "Monstrosities" makes room for vampires, but hunger for flesh is dominant over thirst for blood. The five-minute video Zombie Apocalypse brings the zombie back to the beach, its eerily effective primary haunting ground in Jacques Tourneur’s classic 1943 Val Lewton production I Walked with a Zombie — which, incidentally, is being remade, with Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre now explicitly cited as its source material. In 2006’s Horror Make-up, Mcdonald plays with the image of a woman putting on makeup in public by using her compact to turn herself into a zombie while raiding the New York subway. "Monstrosities" also includes zombie wall portraits that aren’t exactly static. Through lenticular photography, Mcdonald taps into the zombie within an acquaintance, a creature that often appears more animated than its "living" counterpart.

"Monstrosities" and much of Mcdonald’s current work mines horror as a source of catharsis. The tactic is most overt in 2007’s The Scream, where her screams scare off a variety of slasher killers and monstrous adversaries. Art world attempts at tapping into filmic horror can be dreadful in the sterile and blah sense (see Cindy Sherman’s 1997’s Office Killer — or better, don’t see it). But when Mcdonald bites zombies, she gives them love bites, borne out of and energized by genuine appreciation. (Johnny Ray Huston)

JILLIAN MCDONALD: MONSTROSITIES

Through July 22

Michael Rosenthal Gallery

365 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-1010

www.jillianmcdonald.net

www.rostenthalgallery.com

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Brain appetit: Fine reading and viewing for the discriminating zombie lover

Twilight (haven’t read it) and True Blood (haven’t seen it) are grabbing all the headlines, including a fawning New York Times story entitled "A Trend with Teeth." But fuck this newfangled passion for vampires. (Apologies to Let the Right One In: you are awesome, despite the massive English subtitle fail on your DVD.) Go back to the graveyard, sexy supernatural critters. There’s a far more terrifying and fiendishly disgusting army of coffin-rockers afoot these days. And though they’ll happily drink your blood, they’ll also help themselves to the rest of your delicious mortal flesh.

Granted, zombie movies are almost as old as cinema itself. Glenn Kay’s recent Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (Chicago Review Press, 352 pages, $25.95), which features a forward by Stuart Gordon, director of 1985’s Re-Animator, is a pretty good jumping-off point for the uninitiated — and a steal for anyone who’s shy about paying $280 on eBay for Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (FAB Press). Generously illustrated chapters — with a full-color photo section in the book’s center — cover the genre’s history, starting with 1932’s White Zombie (fun fact: star Bela Lugosi earned $500-ish dollars for playing the sinister plantation owner improbably named "Murder.") There are spotlights on the turbulent 1960s (the era that spawned 1968’s immortal Night of the Living Dead), the insane 1970s (with an index of "the weirdest/funniest/most disturbing things" seen in zombie films, including my own personal fave: the underwater shark vs. zombie battle in 1979’s Zombie), Italy’s reign of terror in the 1980s (the decade that also brought us, lest we forget, "Thriller"), and the rise of video game zombies in the 1990s. Sprinkled throughout are interviews with horror luminaries like makeup master Tom Savini.

Zombie Movies‘ biggest chapter is devoted to the new millennium, with shout-outs to Asian entries like Versus (2000), cult hits like 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, and mainstream moneymakers — 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake brought in $59 million. Less successful (in my book, if not apparent George Romero fanatic Kay’s) was 2007’s Diary of the Dead, the least-enjoyable entry in Romero’s esteemed zombie series. Blame it on an annoying cast, and an even more annoying reliance on the hot-for-five-minutes "self-filming" technique. Aside from producing a Crazies remake (nooo!), Romero’s next project is titled simply … of the Dead, release date unknown, zombie subject matter an absolute certainty.

Still, ammo enough for walking-dead fans sick of all this fang-banging comes in two forms: the hilarious trailer for Zombieland (due in October), featuring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg as slayers of the undead, and the eagerly-anticipated arrival of Dead Snow. Currently available as an On-Demand selection for Comcast customers (in crappy dubbed form), this Norwegian import — a comedy with plenty of satisfying gore — opens July 17 at the Roxie (in presumably superior, subtitled form). Nazi zombies, y’all. Get some! (Cheryl Eddy)

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Zombie playlist: Music to eat flesh by

For whatever reason, America is possessed by a another wave of fascination with the living dead. Is increased anxiety about a devastated economy manifesting as comic book fantasy? Or do we just think zombies are kinda neat? Either way, like so many (or few) survivors barricaded inside an abandoned country home, we’re captivated by the brainless hordes. In the mood for some mood music? Here’s a brief celebration of zombiedom in the world of rock. It ain’t authoritative — no self-respecting zombie respects authority.

MISFITS

"Braineaters"

(from Walk Among Us, Slash, 1982)

Yes, Walk Among Us also features "Night of the Living Dead" and "Astro Zombies," but neither of those tracks captures the profound ennui of existence as a walking corpse. Democratically sung from a zombie’s perspective, "Braineaters" laments a repetitive diet of brains. (Why can’t a zombie have some tasty guts instead?) The Misfits actually made a primitive music video for "Braineaters" that shows the band engaged in what has to be the most disgusting food fight ever filmed. If you’ve ever wanted to see a young Glenn Danzig covered in what appear to be cow brains, have I got a YouTube link for you!

ANNIHILATION TIME

"Fast Forward to the Gore"

(from II, Six Weeks, 2005)

One of the standout tracks from II, "Fast Forward to the Gore" makes excellent use of singer Jimmy Rose’s frantic vocal delivery. Rose’s raw lyrics, belted out over the hardcore guitar assault of Graham Clise and Jamie Sanitate, celebrate the subtle artistry at play when zombie meets chainsaw. In the event of an actual zombie apocalypse, this song should serve as nostalgic reminder of simpler times, when zombies were merely a source of entertainment that didn’t leave the TV screen.

THE ZOMBIES

Entire discography

Self-explanatory.

DEATH

"Zombie Ritual"

(from Scream Bloody Gore, Combat, 1987)

The second track on the seminal Scream Bloody Gore, "Zombie Ritual" helped establish the nascent death metal scene’s predictable love affair with the titular braindead hellspawn. Chuck Schuldiner’s lyrics — as awesomely repulsive as anything the genre has to offer — deal with some sort of zombie creation ceremony, though the only discernable part is the Dylanesque chorus ("Zombie ritual!" screamed four times in succession). While Death’s later albums saw Schuldiner grow by leaps and bounds as a songwriter, "Zombie Ritual" remained a live staple up until the band’s final days. (Tony Papanikolas)

Respect your queer elders, child

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By Marke B.

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A photo from SAGE, the LGBT senior advocacy group

Every year around Pride, I get a little teary about all the show of LGBT elder power in the parade (and berate myself for not including more gay senior content in our annual Queer Issue, though I try — and this year we got to look indepth at the Stonewall and Gay Liberation Front generation). In the current issue of the New Yorker, Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg commemorated Stonewall’s 40th and got in a few jibes at Obama’s campaign promise foot-dragging. I could have done without some of Hertzberg’s “daddy” tone (apparently we’re overreacting to that awful DoJ DoMA brief that equated anti-same-sex marriage statutes with incest injunctions — although who knows if it’ll help us out in the long run once people see what we’re up against?) but he did come out swinging.

The thing that really caught my eye though, was this snatch Hertzberg included from a heinous, unsigned 1966 Time article called “The Homosexual in America”:

[Homosexuality] is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste—and, above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness.

I just adore that “pathetic little” formulation. It makes me feel so BDSM bottom. Via Hertzberg’s blog, Hilzoy over at Washington Monthly has followed up on the Time story to dig up the original atrocity (take your blood pressure pills before you read it), and pull out this precious nugget:

Your happy Pride gay-bashing roundup

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By Marke B.

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Joe Holladay, beaten June 29, in New York. Image via Towleroad

Well, I guess it wouldn’t be the 40th anniversary of Stonewall if a few “fagits” (sic) didn’t get their heads bashed for daring to be all gay about it, right? Some sad reports coming in on the tinsel-footed heels of this week’s celebrations (see below). My thoughts — beyond the usual initial rage and helplessness — are that, just like right-wing wingnuts with liberals, the idiot perpetrators are coming out of the woordwork because they feel threatened by our continued uptick in acceptance, visibility, and flair. Plus they’re probs hella gay.

So of course we have to keep the burners on high and continue the fight (but always keep your eyes open and your heels short). Another thought is that a lot of the commenters on some of the blogs breaking these stories are starting to advocate bashing-back violence — which dismays. By all means we should get riled up by all this and use our anger constructively. But let’s pass on the late-’80s testosterone-blind posturing, please. A, it’s dated, darling. B, yuck.

1. Fort Worth, WTF? Twenty-six-year-old Chad Gibson was put in intensive care with a blood clot in his brain after Fort Worth cops raided a gay bar (old school!) and roughed up the customers on June 30, for nebulous, yet pretty damning, reasons. (Basically no reasons at all.)

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A cell phone capture of Gibson grounded by police at Fort Worth’s Rainbow Room

FTW police chief Jeff Halstead actually claimed the gay panic defense. To whit:

“You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive,” he said. “I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.”

Appropriate hysteria ensued. Then, under heat, Halstead kind of freaked out and claimed there would be a full, in-depth investigation. Hopefully the touchy, advance-y kind.

Assessing the city budget deal

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By Steven T. Jones

Progressives aren’t feeling much joy over the city budget deal that was cut yesterday between Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sups. David Chiu and John Avalos (respectively the board president and chair of the Budget Committee), and that’s not just because it gave the gubernatorial candidate the chance to shamelessly crow, “The contrast is stark, isn’t it? In Sacramento, it’s a state of emergency. In San Francisco, a budget deal.”

It’s true that the deal to restore $43.7 million in Newsom-proposed cuts – more so-called “add-backs” than a Board of Supervisors has ever made to a mayor’s budget — was a real compromise, not coincidentally about half of what the board’s progressive majority was looking for, and it averted bloody budget standoff that neither side wanted.

But the cuts to progressive priorities are still deep and Newsom’s wasteful pet projects and taxpayer-funded political operation remain intact (Paul Hogarth has a good analysis of the numbers here). And the whole episode just feels a little like it was scripted by Team Newsom, starting on June 1 when the mayor unveiled his budget and said, “I count on you to add back a lot of the things I don’t want to see cut.”

Of course, that was followed by an aggressive butting of heads: the police and fire unions slammed the rookie supervisorial leaders hard, even running a sound truck through Avalos’ neighborhood calling for his recall, which progressive activists and union leaders responded to with increasingly confrontational tactics, even blocking Newsom’s Pride Parade vehicle with a “die-in.”

Ultimately, the clashes led to a compromise that Avalos described to us as: “It’s as good as we could possibly get.”

More Pride pics than you’ll ever need!

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Photos by Neil Motteram

Ahem. So, we kind of just “came to” from Pride — we seem to have lost our pink bunny slippers, and also pants and innocence, at Juanita More’s Pride pool party — and boy/girl was it all a blur. Fortunately, rad photog Neil Motteram was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed enough to snap some pics, which we’re now posting days late. Because we’re cool that way. — Your editrix, Marke B.

PINK SATURDAY

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DYKE MARCH

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PRIDE SUNDAY

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Protest HIV program cuts

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By C. Nellie Nelson

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Pride At Work protests the mayor’s budget on Pride day. Photo: Luke Thomas, Fog CIty Journal

Today at 5 pm the LGBT labor group Pride at Work will hold a vigil on the steps of City Hall protesting the mayor’s deep budget cuts to programs that are vital to much of the queer community. The vigil runs until midnight, so you can stop by after work.

As Fog City Journal reports, this is the second major Pride at Work protest over the budget cuts — the group staged a die-in in front of Mayor Newsom’s car in the Pride Parade. As Newsom attempted to step around the protesters, they let him have an earful on the effects of his budget cuts that slashed funding for the Departments of Public Health and Human Services

“The die-in demonstrated reality. When you cut HIV programs, people will sero-convert. When you cut the drug programs, people will die,” Harvey Milk Club president Rafael Mandelman told the Guardian today. He said the protest indicates that the mayor “can’t ride same-sex marriage forever. We’re grateful for the mayor’s efforts in that area, but we need budgets that will protect vulnerable populations and queers. People’s lives are at stake.”

Despite the passage of Prop. 8, Newsom does indeed seem to still be riding the crest of same sex marriage. In a recent fundraising letter for his gubernatorial campaign, a supporter enthuses: “Mayor Newsom married S– and I in his office in 2004. He always held our relationship equal to his own… S– and I will always love him for standing with us and fighting for us.”

But some LGBT leaders are starting to feel that the choices of what departments to cut back are not equal in the least.

Robert Haaland is a labor activist and long time leader of the local chapter of Pride at Work. He told us the budget cuts “are no different from what Schwarzenegger is doing. No new revenue, deep cuts to health and human services. It’d be fine if he was running as a Republican governor.”

Haaland pointed out that when Newsom ran against Supervisor Matt Gonzales in 2003, Newsom was neutral on gay marriage, and Gonzales got the majority of votes in District 8, which includes the Castro.

“He changed his position on marriage, but that doesn’t give him license to use marriage as a shield for budget cuts affecting LGBT and poor people,” Haaland said.

And Mandelman sums up, “It’s great to celebrate marriage, but for a lot of people it’s a luxury.”

Designer drugs: HomoChic unleashes piggy poppers

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By Juliette Tang

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Just in time for your big gay Pride weekend, the talented artists at the HomoChic collective have launched their and improved site, now complete with an online store where you can get your very own designer poppers top. Created by SF’s Leo Herrera and NYC artisan Blue Bayer, these simultaneously classy and slutty swine-themed poppers tops are available in 14K gold plate or sterling silver, and come with a little chain so that you can conveniently wear your poppers around your neck (the coke necklace from Cruel Intentions is so ten years ago). Says Leo Herrera, co-founder of HomoChic, “”This piece of gay history is the best thing to happen to messy sex and sweaty dance floors since the pump lube bottle & the hanky code.” Herrera sat down with the SFBG to talk about the history of HomoChic, the innocent fun of poppers, and what it’s like to be a “chubby chasing feeder twink”.

SFBG: Can you describe, in your words, what HomoChic is? (And it’s absolutely gorgeous gorgeous, by the way). From my perspective, HomoChic is a little bit of everything, from photography to video to design to music to writing to fashion. From a creator’s viewpoint, what are you going for with the site?

LH: HomoChic.com is an artist collective, production house, and as of June 09, an online store for prints and gay artifacts. We produce events, films, costumes and images with a focus on gay anthropology and history. We are also planning on representing artists and performers through online promotion and commerce.

SFBG: How did HomoChic take off?

LH: HomoChic has taken off because of our focus on gay history and repackaging it in a way that isn’t too focused on looking toward the past (i.e. AIDS activism, “traditional” Pride) to shape ways of taking the Gay Movement to the future. At the same time, we are finding the resources and opportunities to create more of our own projects, so it’s something gay men of all ages can identify with. HomoChic started with myself, Jacob Sperber (co-founder of HoneySoundSystem) and my gay brother Allan producing art pieces that revolved around events and vice versa. Whether it is an after-party for an art show, or a film piece produced specifically to be a trailer for a nightlife event. The notion of Chic has always been associated with being a homo. As a lot of us, especially the younger generation, assimilate, we become too focused on being part of mainstream culture and forget that for a long time, the industries have looked to us to show them what’s cool and sellable, not the other way around. Think Madonna’s Vogue, or disco for example.

SFBG: How were you inspired to make your lovely pig-topped poppers bottles?

Madison Young: our favorite art slut

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By Juliette Tang. Check out Madison in this our Hot Pink List 2009!

Madison Young: renaissance porn star. She is most famous for being an adult entertainment performer and director, but she’s also a writer, blogger, sex educator, artist, and the founder of San Francisco’s Femina Potens Gallery, an art space dedicated to bringing visibility to the artwork of female, queer, and trans artists in our community. For Madison’s work as an advocate of queer empowerment in our community – and for personally making sure (via her www.madisonbound.com Web site) that we have plenty of access to hot queer BDSM – we’re showcasing Madison in our upcoming Queer Issue (this Wednesday!) in honor of Pride Week.

Madison recently sat down with the San Francisco Bay Guardian to discuss her work in pornography, the philosophy of Femina Potens, and the importance of art and advocacy in our community.

SFBG: You founded Femina Potens in 2001. How did you come up with the concept of the gallery, one that advances the art of women, queer, trans, and kink communities in SF? Why do you personally feel it is important for these artists to have a space to express themselves and showcase their work?

MY: I always knew that I wanted to create a physical space for artistic growth, collaboration and community connection. When I moved to San Francisco in 2001, I realized the focus that I wanted that space to have due to a lack of existing physical spaces for women and trans community dialogue around art and sex. Femina Potens fills that void. We have created an accessible and visible physical space in the heart of the Castro where the voices of visual, literary, and cinematic artist are being heard. We are breaking down barriers between the artist and audience, creating interactive art works, blurring the lines of gender and alternative sexual cultures, and creating a space for artistic growth of emerging artists who are exhibiting or reading side by side with queer literary and artistic legends like Michelle Tea, Annie Sprinkle, Carol Queen, Inga Muscio, Daphne Gottlieb and more. Its important for us not only to have transitory festivals and events at other organizations spaces but for our community to have a physical space where their work is celebrated. Creating spaces like Femina Potens allows women and trans community an honest reflection of their experiences and their lives. It also encourages more people in the community to exhibit their work. Our audiences range in gender and sexuality, attracting a crowd that is drawn to cutting edge art, alternative sexuality, avant-garde performances, and flocks of tourists who are interested in the “San Francisco Experience”.

SFBG: What sparked your interest in art? How would you describe your level of involvement with the general artistic community?

MY:I grew up in a very small conservative farm town and then the suburbs of Ohio. I always felt like an outsider. I was constantly trying to stretch my wings for something more. I was instantly drawn to theater and art from my first elements of exposure to this world. In a life where I felt unable to to express myself emotionally, I found art in its many forms to be the purest most honest expulsion of what was going on inside of me. Art was a way to connect to others and to communicate. Art was a way to get out of my head and into my body. I convinced my mother to let me attend a performance art school in downtown Cincinnati for my junior and senior year. That is where I truly found myself and knew that art would always be a part of my life. I often tell people that the first sexual experiences that I had were those that happened on a stage in a black box theater. That is where I first was able to let myself go and to energetically connect in an intimate way with another person.

SFBG: Do you think there are noted artistic, political, or ideological differences between the work exhibited at Femina Potens and that of more mainstream galleries?

Our Hot Pink List 2009!

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By Marke B.

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Each year, we at the Guardian highlight some of our favorite delicious queers who really represent the community — and also have a lot of stuff going on. Check ’em out here, and look for their events in our Big Queer Week listings.

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MADISON YOUNG

Queer kink and BDSM educator, film star, and director (www.madisonbound.com). Owner of the amazing Femina Potens Gallery in the Castro (www.feminapotens.org), dedicated to fostering dialogue about queer women’s and transgender people’s art (see Femina Potens new show “Identity” "Ongoing" in our listings).

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JUAN GARCIA

Party producer for Beat Box Events (www.beatboxevents.com), entertainment guru for the Castro Street Fair (www.castrostreetfair.org), and fashion activist with Nice Collective (www.nicecollective.com). Wear your bushiest mustache to his notorious MR. Party (Fri/26).

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AMELIA MAE PARADISE

Fabulous bearded lady and burlesque pioneer with world-renowned vaudevillian troupe Diamond Daggers (www.diamondaggers.com). Catch her at the Bearded Lady’s Trans March Freak Show (Fri/26), the Dyke March After Affair (Sat/27), and on the main stage and at the Women’s Pavilion at Sunday’s Pride Celebration.

March madness

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I can tell you where to get pork tacos if your car breaks down in Petaluma and you have to wait for Kragen to test your battery, which for some reason takes an hour. I speak from experience; it’s just not mine. My only experience with experiences like this are vicarious. Now. As you know, I drive a new car and have gotten in the bad habit of getting where I’m going.

Which is nice, in a way, but my chances of marrying a tow truck driver are greatly reduced. Not to mention a Good Samaritan with a wrench. Not to mention early lunch at an unexpected hole-in-the-wall next to Kragen’s. How am I supposed to discover such discoveries?

That’s where friends with unreliable cars come in. And where would I be without them? Not at Taqueria Los Potrillos No. 1 in Petaluma, contemputf8g soccer posters, soccer trophies, and pictures of a guy named Hector Murillo with his arm around various and sundry soccer stars and, for all I know, stars who are stars of other things that aren’t soccer, such as …

Well, I can’t think of any examples right now.

"Today I got up at 6, left at 7, and broke down in Petaluma," my friend the Jungle had written in his e-mail. He described his consolation tacos as "out of this world" and "amazing" — "the best al pastor taco I’ve ever had in my life, I swear."

And to think he was having it at a time of frustration and despair. And for breakfast!

I had mine later that same day, for dinner, and I would agree with my buddy’s alacritous taco take whole-stomachfully, except that in my life, "the best al pastor taco I’ve ever had" doesn’t amount to very many beans. I’m more of a carnitas chica.

Or was. Now I don’t know.

I love it when life or pork shakes you up like this. Don’t you? You think you’re straight, and then you’re gay, or vice versa, or you think you’re bi and then it turns out that in fact, you are bi, but your favorite kind of taco is al pastor, not carnitas.

Happy pride!

As you may know, I am hyperbolically fickle when it comes to food, incoherently queer when it comes to sex, insane in love, and queerly incoherent as a writer. What else is there? For me, pride is not possible. But I wish you all the very best. While you’re reading this I will be dancing with animals, I’m pretty sure, at the Berlin Zoo. Not being proud so much as slightly drunk, I predict, and very very happy.

I’ll be being the B and the T. You bring the lettuce.

I write to you from an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean, at twilight. Tomorrow morning I will wake up, if I sleep, 5,658 miles away from the nearest Guardian news box. In other words, now would be the perfect time to say something really really offensive. I wish I could think of a way to piss off almost everyone, but I’m in this sort of uncaffeinated slow and soupy Ativan cloud right now, and, realistically, the best I can hope to do from here would be to mildly annoy a handful of lesbians.

I’ll pass.

Well, let me just pose it as a question, and then finish talking about tacos. What’s the difference between a march and a parade? That’s the question. My thinking is a parade is for showing off, being proud, putting on a show … and a march is all that too, only less organized and more to the point: the point being to rally the troops, gather momentum, numbers, spontaneous support. No? Now go look at the Web page for the dyke march that happens here every Pride weekend on Saturday night, and wonder with me: they talk a lot of talk about inclusion, then ask roughly half the population of San Francisco to politely stand on the sidelines and clap.

Sounds like a parade to me. Sounds like, if you don’t need men out there in the street with you, congratulations, your work is done.

The tacos were awesome. The green salsa was delicious. The chips were fresh. Oh, and check out the bleeding Jesuses in the window of the grocery store/carniceria two doors down, all crucified and shit, sad eyes turned toward heaven, wondering: "Is there a bi march?"


TAQUERIA LOS POTRILLOS

Mon.–Fri., 9 a.m.–10 p.m.;

Sat.-Sun., 8 a.m.–10 p.m.

355 E. Washington, Petaluma

(707) 763-4220

Beer & wine

MC/V

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

Editor’s Notes

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marke@sfbg.com

So, OK, I just got engaged. Gay engaged. Engayged.

So weird.

First, this may be the worst time ever to plan on jumping the lavender chuppah knot or whatever. As far as legality goes, California’s up in the air until maybe the November 2010 elections and perhaps for a long time after that. Then there’s the whole federal kerfuffle to go through. And Iowa might be tempting right now — but gurl, I don’t have enough something blues for three ceremonies. Iowa, then Cali, and then federal — sheesh! Two is enough! At least when we were illegal, we only had to plan for one polka band. Miss you, "commitment ceremony."

Then there are the political equivocations. Plus or minus a few episodes of America’s Next Top Model, I’ve considered myself near the front lines of radical queer resistance ever since my friends started dying of AIDS when I was 17. I’m all for ethical non-monogamy, get queasy at the thought of official state-sanctioned relationships, and definitely believe that marriage, with all its financial benefits, discriminates against people who haven’t fallen in love. Or turns them into liars for money. Or makes them scream a lot during Sex and the City reruns.

Hunky Beau and I aren’t really after the cash and perks, anyway. Hospital visitation rights and insurance discounts would be cool (and are available locally already), and who knows if we’ll have kids who’ll require federal protection. But I’m pretty sure we’ll never need the legal right to “enlarge accommodation estimates for foreign dignitary missions” only available to married couples now. And as far as political statements go, there are a lot more things in my personal life that I’d like to see being used to help change the world for the better. Housing homeless queer kids and seniors and restoring the recent awful AIDS services cuts seems much more necessary right now as well. But this is the fight our community’s in — and whether it’s because I was raised that way by two incredibly supportive parents, or because I get a real rash when my government says I can’t do something other people can, or because within every loud-mouthed queen lives a hopelessly traditional romantic, I’ve got a dog in it. Not a chihuahua, mind you. More like golden retriever. Totally butch.

As some of our writers eloquently point out in this issue, same-sex marriage may be a boondoggle, sapping our community’s strength to confront real issues of poverty and inequality. It’s certainly not for everyone. But in a truly dark time in my life, when I thought the whole world was falling apart, I suddenly fell in deeply in love with someone almost annoyingly perfect for me in every way. To my continued astonishment, he seems to feel that way about me as well. We’ve been together a long time now and marriage seems, to us, the logical next step for whatever reason. It just feels right. Love is a crazy, crazy thing, full of diversity, surprise, and wonder. Isn’t that what Pride’s all about?

Super Ego: Grab your Ongina, it’s Pride

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By Marke B.

We all love drag gadabout Monistat — even if we want to pinch her little chubby cheeks to death for sending us 20 texts a week demanding to be on the Guardian cover. Love! Now, she’s making up for all her cray-cray by starting a weekly Tuesday night affair called Chaser, which offers a safe haven at EndUp for transgender people on the prowl, and dishes up some fierce drag performances to boot (recent theme nights: “The Aporkalypse: Swine Flu vs Avian Flu” and “Steampunk Circus.”) Basically, it’s almost beloved Trannyshack all over again. And Monistat possesses some real talent.

To kick off Pride — or continue kicking off, if, like me, you went to far too many Pride kickoffs this past weekend (Kick it already, Lucy!) — she’s bringing in someone, someone apparently big, from RuPaul’s Drag Race to make us all a bit fiercer, if perhaps also more amateur-fabulous. This person is named Ongina.

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I think she’s gonna do a few numbers? According to her bio: From one of the thousands of tiny islands in the Philippines comes a mighty, powerful force called Ongina! She’s a mighty wind!

Chaser with Ongina
Tue/23, 10 p.m., $10
The EndUp
401 Sixth St., SF
www.theendup.com

Quickies

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FRI/19


The Lollipop Generation (G.B. Jones, Canada, 2008) To truly appreciate G.B. Jones’ decades-in-the-making solo follow-up to her 1991 queer punk classic collaboration with Bruce LaBruce No Skin Off My Ass, you probably have to be a fan of Doris Wishman. Jones is on record as a major admirer of the woman behind Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965) and the Chesty Morgan vehicle Double Agent 73 (1974), whose singular directorial style had no need for dramatic momentum, synced-up dialogue, or sensible camera angles. (In a scene with dialogue, Wishman was more likely to lavish close-ups on nearby furniture than on the humans involved.) Lollipop Generation skewers the lust for youth at the rotten core of pop culture through its look at a loose gang of candy-licking teen and preteen trick-turners and the suckers who would like to prey on them. The cast includes writer Mark Ewert and Calvin Johnson, but Vaginal Davis steals a sizeable portion of the movie by throwing her all into a molester role in a sequence that shifts back and forth between Super 8 and video. My favorite aspect of Lollipop Generation is Jones’ eye for funny or dirty signs or landmarks, from giant smiling balls on the sides of freeways to sites with double entendres for names. By placing what story there is within this framework, she creates her own world with no need for special effects. (Johnny Ray Huston) 10:45 p.m., Roxie.


Making the Boys (Crayton Robey, USA, 2008) Whether you adore it as a nostalgic, pre-HIV throwback or despise it for its self-loathing and slew of gay stereotypes, The Boys in the Band was revolutionary for its time as the first play to revolve around a homosexual circle of friends and to present an honest examination of the gay community. In director Crayton Robey’s compelling and insightful new documentary, Mart Crowley, the playwright of Boys, recounts his days rubbing shoulders with the Hollywood elite as a burgeoning screenwriter only to be cast aside after a failed Bette Davis pilot and a film deal fell through. New York theater proved to be his salvation as he struggled with perceived personal and professional failure as well as alcoholism. With nothing to lose, he bravely penned Boys, secured the producer from Edward Albee’s equally controversial Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and released it off-Broadway on April 14, 1968 to commercial acclaim. Robey interviews both Broadway and Hollywood mainstays such as Albee, Terrence McNally, Robert Wagner, and Dominick Dunne, who reflect on the impact of Boys, for better and for worse, and its role in challenging mainstream opinions of homosexuality as a mental illness and in jumpstarting the gay rights movement. In the middle of the film, I started wishing Robey had interviewed more of the cast of Boys. After all, they were the ones who experienced the highs of being in an exciting and subversive new play as well as the lows of later being essentially blacklisted from Hollywood. Then it dawned on me that five of the nine original cast members of Boys have since died from AIDS. Ultimately though, their cause to validate the gay community’s presence in society is forever immortalized with the legacy of Boys, the play that Vincent Canby hailed "a landslide of truths." (Laura Swanbeck) 7 p.m., Victoria. Also Mon/22, 1 p.m., Castro.

SAT/20


Greek Pete (Andrew Haigh, U.K., 2009) A deadpan serving of real-life drama, this night-and-day portrait is a 21st-century update of Andy Warhol’s Flesh, the 1968 movie that made Joe Dallesandro a star. In Flesh, Dallesandro is a hustler named Joe in New York. Here, Peter Pittaros is an escort named Pete in London. In Flesh, we see Joe school comparatively naïve and weak street corner boys on the tricks of rough trade. Here, Pete is a responsible breadwinner in comparison to his drug-spun chicken boyfriend. Both Flesh‘s Joe and the title character of Greek Pete hang with trannies, though Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis are more camera-ready than Pete’s goth gal pals. But whereas a strange optimism radiates from Flesh, which is understandably too smitten with its charismatic star to knock the hustle, Greek Pete has a strong undertow of melancholy. Its sadness doesn’t stem from a moral tut-tut stance about whoring but from a sense of modern emptiness that haunts Pete whether he’s with friends, alone in his apartment, or watching footage of himself winning a competition that’s the male escort equivalent of Miss America. Well-shot and anchored by a performance that’s just deep and ordinary enough to remain compelling, Greek Pete isn’t just easy meat. (Huston) 10 p.m., Victoria. Also Tues/23, 2:30 p.m., Castro.

SUN/21


Training Rules (Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker, USA, 2009) Homophobia in sports is, depressingly, still an enormous issue. But compared to the macho world of the NBA, you’d think that women’s college basketball would be a comparatively safe realm for queer players. In the case of Penn State, you’d be dead wrong. For 27 years, coach Rene Portland intimidated and harassed players who were lesbians — and those she thought might be lesbians, or who had lesbian friends. As players from past teams recall (often through tears), Portland was an outspoken homophobe who revoked scholarships as she pleased and made basketball a joyless pursuit for those she targeted. In 2006, former player Jennifer Harris, a star athlete and standout student, sued the school for discrimination. Though Harris can’t speak at length due to the terms of her settlement (and of course Portland, who resigned in 2007, did not agree to an interview), Training Rules is an eye-opening document, exposing not just the ugly truth about one coach, but a systemwide crisis that those in power (athletic directors, the NCAA) have been painfully slow to address. (Cheryl Eddy) 3:30 p.m., Castro

TUES/23


City of Borders (Yun Suh, USA, 2009) Forty-five minutes away from Middle Eastern "gay mecca" Tel Aviv lies Jerusalem, ancient religious center and, unfortunately, bastion of equally time-tested attitudes toward homosexuality. Many Tel Aviv gays don’t even see the point of living, let alone fighting for rights, in Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem’s sole gay bar, Shushan, was one place where Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, mingled as equals. Yun Suh’s documentary focuses on a few diverse patrons, plus Shushan’s owner Sa’ar Netanel, who became Jerusalem’s first openly gay elected official (as a city councilman) on the same day it elected its first ultraright Orthodox mayor. He endures routine death threats, Gay Pride parades attract violent protest, and the other principals here have their problems and flaws too: lesbian couple Samira and Ravit try to stay together despite major cultural differences; Palestinian youth Boddy fears he’ll eventually have to leave for his own safety; Adam, an Israeli activist since being queer-bashed, doesn’t see any ethnical conflict in building a house on occupied territory with his boyfriend. Borders is a vivid snapshot of a gay rights struggle that is still very much an uphill slog. (Dennis Harvey) 7 p.m., Roxie

Patrick, Age 1.5 (Ella Lemhagen, Sweden, 2008) Freshly settled in suburbia, gay couple Goran (Gustaf Skarsgard) and Sven (Torkel Petersson) are eager to adopt a child — or at least Goran is, with Sven reluctantly caving in. But when against the odds they’re informed a native-born boy is available, a misplaced bit of bureaucratic punctuation means they get not the 18-month-old toddler expected but 15-year-old Patrik (Tom Ljungman). He’s a foul-tempered foster home veteran who makes it clear he’s no happier cohabiting with two "homos" than they are with him. Nevertheless, they’re stuck with each other at least through the weekend, allowing a predictable mutual warming trend to course through Ella Lemhagen’s agreeable seriocomedy. While formulaic in concept, the film’s low-key charm and conviction earn emotions that might easily have felt sitcomishly pre-programmed. (Harvey) 7 p.m., Castro

JUNE 24


Prodigal Sons (Kimberly Reed, USA, 2008) When Kimberly Reed (who studied film at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University) set out to make Prodigal Sons, she was probably pretty certain the doc would be deliberately self-focused. The film’s first act takes place in Helena, Mont., at Reed’s 20-year high school reunion — amid former classmates who remember Kimberly Reed as Paul McKerrow, a football star who was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" (and, indeed, a success she has been; though she alludes to a difficult period during her transition, she’s clearly arrived at a happy and confident place in life). But Prodigal Sons is plural for a reason, and not because of brother Todd (who happens to be gay). Instead, it’s adopted brother Marc — who is given to terrifying rages as a result of a personality-altering brain injury; remains eternally resentful of Kimberly’s high school-era smarts and popularity; and (as is shockingly discovered) the grandchild of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth — who becomes Prodigal Sons’ focus. He is the most heartbreaking figure in an intimately personal (sometimes uncomfortably so) film that’s ultimately about identities lost and found. (Eddy) 7:30 p.m., Castro

JUNE 27


Off and Running (Nicole Opper, USA, 2009) Teenager Avery, an African American, was adopted as an infant by a single white mom, who soon afterward meets another single white mom who had recently adopted an African American baby boy. Before long, a family (nicknamed "the United Nations," especially after a Korean child joins the mix) was formed. A track star who dreams of running in college, Avery loves her moms, but she’s curious about her biological parents. She knows she’s from Texas and was originally called Mycole Antwonisha, facts that hint at a cultural experience far removed from her upbringing as a Brooklyn Jew. After a few letters are exchanged with her birth mother, Avery is crushed when the woman mysteriously ends communication. A profound identity crisis ensues. "It’s like something really traumatic happened to her, and nothing did," Avery’s caring if clueless adoptive mother says. But Off and Running suggests otherwise. The doc may not speak for every adopted child’s experience, but it’s eye-opening nonetheless, and is blessed with a subject who is sensitive and articulate even in her darkest moments. (Eddy) 2:15 p.m., Roxie

Pop Star on Ice (David Barba and James Pellerito, USA, 2009) Yay, Johnny Weir! If you don’t share my sentiments about the sassy, sparkly, outspoken (but not on-the-record out) figure skater, then you might want to skip this documentary, which was filmed over a two-year period and offers an up-close-and-personal (like, you see him in a tanning bed) look at the three-time national champ. Or maybe not, actually — haters might come around after realizing how hard he’s worked to achieve his ice-rink dreams, born after watching Oksana Baiul win Olympic gold on TV and learning to skate (at the ancient age of 12) on the frozen-over cornfield in his Pennsylvania backyard. Competition footage backs up claims by longtime coach Priscilla Hill (with whom he breaks up over the course of the film) and others of Weir’s extraordinary talents; backstage clips and off-the-cuff interviews establish the fact that he’s one of the sport’s most fun personalities, probably ever. Weir pouts, jokes, struts in a fashion show, speaks in a Russian accent, discusses his collection of furs, and lands quadruple jumps with ease. Gay or (ahem) nay, he’s clearly 100 percent comfortable with who he is. (Eddy) 11 a.m., Castro

Jane of The Jungle: Zookeeper Jane Tollini on life, love, and sex in the animal kingdom

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By Justin Juul. Read part two of this interview here.

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Woo at the Zoo, the afterparty

Being a part-time sex writer is tough because there’s only so much you can say about the topic. Lovemaking is a lot like eating in that way; we all have peculiar ways of doing it, specific attractions to wildly different things, and often-clashing ideas about what’s good and bad, right and wrong, etc. But it’s not like we’re breaking a lot of new ground when we talk about these things; we’re just sharing stories and ideas about an urge and all the weird stuff that happens when we try to satisfy it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that sex is boring or that I don’t enjoy writing about it; it’s just that sometimes I need a break. That’s why I tracked down this month’s featured sexpot, Jane Tollini. Tollini is not a sex worker. She doesn’t do porn and she doesn’t work for a dildo company. Why interview her for a sex blog then? Well, Tollini offers something that bookish porn stars, ex-manwhores, and transsexual southerners don’t. She offers a sex writer the chance to talk about something other than humans fucking. Instead I get to talk about animals fucking. Yay!

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Jane talks facts of life

As a life-long veteran of the San Francisco Zoo (she lived next to it as a child, served almost 20 years there as a penguin keeper, and now works as a consultant), Tollini has seen it all. From donkey shows, to masturbating raccoons, to highly questionable cross-species relationships; you name it and Tollini’s got a story. By the time she’d been at the zoo for a year, Tollini realized she had enough material to host her own beastly sex forum so she grabbed a microphone and never looked back. Tollini’s “Sex Tour,” now known as “Woo at The Zoo,” is an annual romp through the world of sex in the animal kingdom. It happens every Valentine’s day at The San Francisco Zoo, but you can check it out early this year on June 25th when Tollini will be hosting a special kick-off to Pride Week at The California Academy of Sciences called “How Animals Do It.” Tickets available here.

Part One: Gay penguins, animals with two dicks, and the way it used to be

SFBG: So how did you become San Francisco’s premier animal sex guru?
Jane Tollini: I met a pair of lesbian geese named Alice and Gertrude. They stood out to me because, even thought hey had full access to a male goose named Henry Miller, they didn’t want to be with him. Alice and Gertrude laid eggs for each other and then they took care of them as a couple. It was such strange behavior; I just couldn’t help wondering what other kinds of kinky things animals got into. Well, as an animal keeper, I soon found out. When you get to the zoo first thing in the morning, you see a lot of things other people don’t see, believe me. I remember thinking things like “My God, it’s longer than my arm! It’s got a flowering doohickey on the end of it!” Soon after I started at the zoo, I was put in charge of the penguins and that’s when I really started to notice some weird behavior.

Tears of a thug

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The first time I interviewed Shaheed Akbar, a.k.a. the Jacka — in December of 2007, during a midnight session for Tear Gas (Artist Records/SMC), due June 16 — he was rolling purple and green weeds plus two types of hash into a Sharpie-sized blunt. I felt like Paul Bowles interviewing Bob Marley. Having known him three years, I can assure you that even in the Bay’s smoky atmosphere, Jacka blazes like a forest fire.

I dwell on this because it’s one facet of the Tear Gas concept, beyond the title’s literal meaning. The perpetual cloud enveloping Jacka is as much a part of his persona as his mobbed out tales of street life, based on experience. Like many artists, the MC enlists his favorite plant in the service of music.

"Weed helps you concentrate on certain things," Jacka observes, during a follow-up interview last month. "Nothing that contains too much multitasking. But if you don’t rap, try writing one; it’s hard as fuck. Weed gets you outside your normal realm so you coming up with crazy shit."

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?


Yet, considering his consumption, Jacka barely raps about weed, or at least no more than most rappers; he has other things on his mind. When I e-mail Paul Wall, one of several big-name features on Tear Gas, to ask why he wanted to work with Jacka, he emphasizes the authenticity of his collaborator’s verses.

"He speaks from experience when he rhymes," Wall writes. "Like he’s rapping from a hustler’s perspective for other hustlers."

The experience Wall cites consists of details which, in the aggregate, might make for improbable fiction. Jacka’s rise to local notoriety at age 18 as a member of C-Bo’s Mob Figaz — whose eponymous debut (Git Paid, 1999) moved something like 140,000 units — is fairly well documented. But the story begins much earlier. Born of 14-year-old parents, young Jacka saw his mother get addicted to crack, and his father go to prison for a decade only to be murdered shortly after release. The result was an impoverished childhood in various hoods in Oakland, Richmond, and finally Pittsburg, where the Mob Figaz began.

"As a kid, everywhere I lived was in the projects," he says. "A nigga’s whole thing is to get out of there." Such ambition led Jacka to start dealing crack as early as age 11.

"Say you’re in school," Jacka continues. "Moms ain’t working. Pops ain’t around. The other kids at school have everything you don’t, as far as clothes and packing they own lunch. All that matters when you’re a kid. You go to junior high and you eating free lunch, people are like, ‘What kind of nigga is you?’ So when you’re from the hood and can hustle, that’s definitely helping your self-esteem. You pulling out wads of cash and motherfuckers who used to laugh at you ain’t got shit. That made me feel hella good."

"Things I had to do to survive is one thing," he says. "But how I feel about it now is another."

BLUNT (OR DEEP) EMOTION


Jacka’s willingness to probe psychological wounds reveals another implication of Tear Gas. Paradoxically or not, in a genre where emotions are usually limited to elation and anger, a large part of Jacka’s appeal is his emphasis on the melancholy ambivalence of street life. It’s subtle, of course, sprinkled into stories of coke-dealing and cap-busting. But contrary to his assertion on the Traxamillion-produced "Girls," an infectious thug-pop remake of the 1986 Beastie Boys classic, Jacka doesn’t just "knock hoes and live it up."

"You can only shoot the breeze so much; you gotta drop a jewel on people," says Jacka, citing 2Pac, to whom he pays homage in "Hope Is for Real." "He had to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing because he had to reach me, the niggas in the hood, but look what you learn from him. So I have to study and get wiser to even make a song."

To be sure, Tear Gas isn’t a sociological treatise; like the blues, it voices the despair of a culture rather than proposing solutions. But such articulation is exactly what makes the music of both Pac and Jacka so powerful.

"Listen to Marvin Gaye," Jacka continues. "I guarantee he’s going to grab your soul. He knows something and could put it together with the music. And what he talked about was the struggle, the pain. I try to make shit that’ll stick to your soul. Like the music my parents used to listen to."

Besides his social consciousness, Jacka’s success rests squarely on quality. Last year, his single "All Over Me" — included on Tear Gas — hit No. 7 on KMEL’s playlist and No. 15 on Billboard’s "Bubbling Under" singles chart. Yet he refused to rush his album to capitalize on this exposure. Instead, he released 11 side projects. Two of them debuted on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart: Drought Season (Bern One), a collaboration with rapper Berner, at No. 55, and The Street Album (Artist Records), a "mixtape album" with KMEL DJ Big Von, at No. 91.

"Motherfuckers like shit that make them think," Jacka says, when asked about his appeal. They also like real albums and, taken as whole, Tear Gas is among the best rap discs in recent history, major or indie. Despite its array of producers and perhaps a few too many guests, Jacka has fashioned a tight, coherent album where every track is vital — an extreme rarity in contemporary hip hop. With its minor-key, exotic flute and harp textures, the new single "Glamorous Lifestyle," also produced by Traxamillion and featuring André Nickatina, epitomizes the overall feel.

"It’s not an easy process unless you really listen to music, and follow all kinds of genres," says Jacka. "Some people just listen to rap, but other music helps you grow as an artist."

THE VOICE


Being a rapper, Jacka’s voice is ultimately his most important asset, an instantly recognizable, rounded, mellow drawl — even when he raps fast — that is never raspy, despite the steady diet of blunts. His melodic, half-sung delivery, moreover, perfectly fits his vocal texture and mournful themes.

"My style really comes from the struggle," he says. "I’m not trying to make you like what I’m saying — I’m trying to get into your soul." This spiritual goal reflects what he credits as his primary influence: chanting the Koran. Surprising or not, given his gangsta themes, smoking, and even drinking, Jacka is a devout Sunni Muslim. It’s the result of a spiritual quest he began at age 9, when he joined the Nation of Islam.

"They showed me how to be black, because I really didn’t know," he explains. "I just knew we were in America, we used to be slaves, but I didn’t know why it was so tough for us. They made me read books that taught me to be proud of who I am. They can be a little strict sometimes, but they have to be; there was so much taken away from us."

When Jacka began intensively reading the Koran, however, he began to question some of the Nation’s teachings. "I realized that what it said in the Koran is what I should do," he says. "Not that plus something else."

The development of Jacka’s faith toward more orthodox Islam accelerated circa 2000. The Mob Figaz’ momentum slowed when C-Bo went to prison and Jacka caught a robbery case that landed him in county jail for a year.

"In jail, I was reading the Koran and realized the Sunni Muslim way is for me," Jacka remembers. "It’s the way I can pray directly to God." Following his release, Jacka took his shahada, declaring his formal adherence to Islam. But as rap money dried up in the Bay during its leanest years (2000-04), he returned to crime at a whole new level, even while beginning his solo career with The Jacka (Akbr Records, 2001).

"When I started working on my album, things changed for me — I really got into the streets," Jacka says. Rap celebrity gave him connections he otherwise would have lacked. "Whatever rap niggas was talking about, we were living," he says with some pride, although he feels he’ll one day have to answer to Allah for his misdeeds. Details of his criminal past are necessarily vague, though if you consider that fellow Mob Figa Husalah was arrested for transporting "over five kilos" of cocaine, a case culminating in his 2006 sentence to 53 months in federal prison, you get the picture.

"The streets are dried up for me," says Jacka. "Once the feds knock your boy, you can’t fuck around for the rest of your life. I’m hot. So I stay with the music now."

"I didn’t take the business as seriously as I should have," he admits. "So I had to start from ground zero." Fortunately, by the time Jacka’s second "official" solo album The Jack Artist (Artist Records, 2005) was ready to drop, the Bay began to heat up again. Even in the heyday of hyphy, the conspicuously non-hyphy Jack Artist sold some 20,000 copies, or "more than all those niggas put together," in the words of the man behind it. Yet despite this success, Tear Gas sounds little like its predecessor. Instead, it reflects Jacka’s artistic growth now that he’s settled down to music full time.

"I wouldn’t trade this for those times again — never," Jacka says, when asked to weigh yesterday and today. "This is something legit we’re doing that’s real. My dream as a child was to do this."

www.myspace.com/thejackamobfigaz

Hot sex events this week: June 10-16

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

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Dottie Lux will shake and shimmy at Spookshow A-Go-Go’s first all-gay show on Sunday. Photo by M. Ulto and Tigger.

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>> Night of Mayhem
Viriginia Suicide hosts this weekly burlesque revue by Barbary Coast, featuring Pin Key Lee, Flame Cynders, sASSy Hotbuns, Flying Fox, and more.

Wed/10, 8-11pm. $5.
Annie’s Social Club
917 Folsom, SF
www.anniessocialclub.com

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>> MythFits
Writers, filmmakers, and performance artists queerify classic myths and seek out the deviant threads in tales of yore in this three-week series, this time featuring gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Robin Coste Lewis, and Sadie Lune.

Wed/10, 6pm, free.
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.queerculturalcenter.org

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>> Cocktails and Burlesque Aerial Arts
Back by popular demand, Kate Law and Alayna Stroud’s Bow and Arrow present Cirque Noir (yes, the lovely ladies we recently saw at the Gold Club Anniversary Party), in their lower Pac Heights/upper NoPa dance studio. Expect cocktails as delicious as the burlesque is sensuous.

Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm. $20.
DanceGround Keriac
1805 Divisadero, SF
(336) 391-6610
www.alaynastroud.com

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>> Lusty Lady Pride Float Benefit Party

Come support SF’s Lusty Lady Theater, the one and only unionized worker-owned peep-show co-op, and their saucy presence in SF Pride 2009! Strippers, dancers, performance, DJ Durt, dykes, debauchery, raffle, panty and date auction, lapdances, bodyshots, and you….

Sat/13, 9pm. Free.
Lexington Club
3464 19th St, SF
www.lexingtonclub.com

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>> Spookshow A-Go-Go: Lezbo-A-Go-Go
In honor of Pride Month, Lux-Killmore Entertainment presents their first ever all-gay show: an evening of chicks, dicks, and flicks. Performers for this unprecendented Spookshow A-Go-Go include Ruby Vixen, Dottie Lux, Ophelia Cour de Noir, Kitty Von Quimm, Steven Satyricon, and many more, all hosted by Virginia Suicide (yes, she’s busy this week).

Sun/14, 7pm. $7.
The Stud
399 9th St, SF
www.myspace.com/spookshoagogo

“Boob in a Glass” new “Dick in a Box”

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“Come support SF’s Lusty Lady Theater, the one and only unionized worker-owned peep-show co-op, and their saucy presence in SF Pride 2009! Strippers, dancers, performance, DJ Durt, dykes, debauchery, raffle, panty and date auction, lapdances, bodyshots, and you….”

Lusty Lady Pride Float Benefit Party
Sat/13, 9pm
Lexington Club
3464 19th St, SF
www.lexingtonclub.com

Bull feathers

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superego@sfbg.com

SUPEREGO I recently found myself in Navajo Nation, munching on frybread at Kate’s diner in Tuba City with Hunky Beau after rocking out to, I shit you not, tech-navajo on the local FM station in the rental. I looked fantastic. We’d just witnessed a fierce two-spirit working the sandwich counter at the Bashas’ supermarket down the street. She/he looked fantastic. Back here in the city, on the nightlife scene, things weren’t so fantastic — another big underground party got busted, Pink Saturday ran into permit snafus, and neighborhood complaints mooted even more regular shindigs. And has anyone else noticed the skyrocketing price of a drink in this town? I’m not saying you need a buzz to bust out (alcohol sales are banned on the rez, so I’m grateful for the option), but dropping a Hamilton for a weak well screwdriver certainly has me rethinking my hollow leg. Still, as immortal shamans ABBA sang, "I can fly like an eagle, I can learn to spread my wings". Spread ’em, children, toss your hair, and let’s keep flying high.

ROLLER DISCO!

The only party in the city where I’m never alone falling on my luscious ass returns — skate rental provided, balance and expertise optional. I can’t lie, I have a total blast at this gig, even if the tunes are fun-yet-familiar and there’s always that one amazingly cute girl whose backspins and pirouettes make me bite my knuckles and wish I were a lot gayer. Like, Brian Boitano gayer.

Thu/4, 9 p.m., $5. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

"25 YEARS OF HOUSE MUSIC"

Dates and times, dates and times — why quibble? Most approaches to the evolution of house are more organic than any "x" on a calendar. But if a quarter-century celebration, complete with art exhibition, of the underground global movement that foretold the Internet’s interconnectivity is a big enough excuse to get Chicago genius Jesse Saunders behind the decks at Club Six, I’m way down.

Fri/5, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $15. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

ZOMBIE BEACH PARTY

"Guaranteed to put the laughter in slaughter" is a tagline that’ll get me every time. And so will any appearance by the Living Dead Girlz, those jaw-dropping undead dancer with a taste for semi-clothed flesh. They’ll be waving, not drowning, from the stage at this tongueless-in-cheek beach blanket bingo bacchanal, along with Sparkly Devil, Honey Lawless, and a mass grave of others. Plus: an undead beachwear costume contest. Paging Annette Funicello …

Fri/5, 9 p.m.– late, $10 street clothes/$7 surfer zombies. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

BIG IDEA: RITUAL AND REDEMPTION

Oh, crap. Is it really Pride month again? Time to haul that sequined rainbow thong from out the mothballs and try to get married or whatever. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is going homo-humongous for its latest, starlet-studded Big Idea party — rounding up the city’s fiercest alternaqueers with its golden lasso, including fab drag disasters Anna Conda and Monistat, DJ Dirty Knees, Pansy Division, Honey Soundsystem, Ex-Boyfriends, and the ever-present, never-sleeping Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Fellini-inspired spectacle also promises free tattoos, after-hours dancing, a taco truck, and "Project Nunway," heh. Best of all, the whole shebang is free — and not sponsored by Miller Lite, Altoids, 2Xist, Olivia Cruises, or Tylenol PM.

Sat/6, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., free. YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. www.ybca.org

WIGHNOMY BROTHERS

Monthly throwdown Kontrol at EndUp breeds absolutely bonkers dancefloor results that are far less fussy than its minimal techno focus, meticulous taste in talent, and somewhat daunting prevalence of miniscule eyewear would suggest. For the party’s fourth anniversary, it’s bringing in Germany’s superstar Wighnomy Brothers, two proudly unkempt vodka-swillers whose Seth Rogen-like public image belies a sizzling bromance with the more lovable, devil-may-care side of dance. The tipsy pair of teddy bears with a penchant for unpronounceable titles (recent release: Metawuffmischfelge) refused to visit the U.S. during that whole Bush thing. Laudable, but we could have used their balls-to-the-wall wig-outs to help us through such foulest ick. Good thing we’ve still got problems!

Sat/6, 10 p.m.–6 a.m., $20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.kontrolsf.com

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.

TICed off

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news@sfbg.com

San Francisco tenants who are supposed to be protected by city and state laws are now facing eviction as a result of real estate speculators working hand-in-hand with banks in a scheme that has been implicitly endorsed by federal regulators and the courts.

Kaushik Dattani, whose company owns multiple properties throughout San Francisco, won a summary judgment to use the Ellis Act to evict four families from their rent-controlled apartment. Judge Charlotte Woolard’s April 21 ruling, denying the low-income Mission District families a jury trial, could leave the 12 longtime residents — seniors, disabled, single mothers, and children — homeless within a couple of weeks.

In August 2007, court records show Dattani secured an 18-month, interest-only $1.3 million loan from Circle Bank of Marin to buy the Victorian building at 19th and Lexington streets. The loan included an agreement that he would pull the units from the rental market using the Ellis Act, renovate the building, and sell the five Victorian units as tenants-in-common (TICs).

Traditionally banks haven’t offered loans to individual TIC owners, but Circle Bank of Marin was one of the first banks to start offering such "fractional" loans in 2005, a practice that created a strong market for TICs, loan officer Mark Skolnick (who says he’s an independent contractor and not a bank employee) told the Guardian.

In making the loan to Dattani, court documents show Skolnick predicted a 42 percent profit, which would require all five TIC units to be sold for $3.3 million. But according to Tenderloin Housing Clinic attorney Steve Collier, Dattani has not yet paid off the balloon payment — due April 1 — putting the building at risk of getting handed over to the bank, emptied of residents.

Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, said the lending scheme is contrary to the federal Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages banks to meet the credit needs of the low-income communities. "It’s within the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s power to say these kinds of loans that result in the displacement of low and moderate income tenants are not helping to meet the community’s credit needs," he said, noting that the FDIC has refused to get involved.

Others argue the importance of creating home ownership opportunities in a city where about two-thirds of residents rent.

"Here we have what looks like a condo, feels like a condo, but it’s a TIC. It’s a way of creating affordable housing," Skolnick said. "Some people lose their home, some people gain a home. The TIC platform is proving to be a very affordable option for this different subset of people."

But for the subset of people being displaced using the Ellis Act — a state law intended to allow existing landlords to get out of the rental business, not to encourage real estate speculation — the affect can be devastating in a city where little new rental or affordable housing is being built.

"They just come in out of nowhere and they see this place, buy it and kick everyone out. There’s no soul there," said Luise Vorsatz, who lived in the house for 30 years before being evicted.

This is not Dattani’s first Ellis Act eviction (when the Guardian contacted Dattani for comment, he hung up on us). In 2000, he hired infamous antitenant lawyers Wiegel & Fried to evict senior Alma Augueles from her flower shop in the Mission. In 2007, he evicted a group of tenants living above Revolution Café on 22nd and Bartlett streets. That building has sat empty for over a year, something that could also happen with his new property given the slumping real estate market.

Under the Ellis Act, if the unit go back on the rental market within five years, the evicted tenants have first priority at their old rent level, but that’s up to the tenants to enforce. "It’s possible the landlord won’t be able to sell and will end up renting it at higher rents," Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, told us.

"They don’t look at the fact that we have pride of tenancy—that we have lived here all these years," said 23-year resident Ronny Ruddrich, who raised her children here and walks to her job as a Noe Valley shoe store manager for the past 22 years. "He drives up in his Mercedes and shows no respect whatsoever."

‘The Soloist’ director Joe Wright makes beautiful music with Downey, Foxx

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By Kimberly Chun

Encore! Much respect to filmmaker Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) for The Soloist, a passionate take on homelessness, journalism, and a Los Angeles on the skids and still in love with art. The movie is based on Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez’s book on his friendship with schizophrenic musician Nathaniel Ayers. I spoke with the energetic, well-crumpled English director recently when he came through San Francisco on a press tour.

SFBG: The Soloist marks a big change from Pride and Prejudice and Atonement – it’s not a period film?

Joe Wright: No, but it is – it’s 2005. It’s a specific time. And actually it was quite difficult to try and capture the specifics of that period.

SFBG: What attracted you to project?

JW: I’ve always been fascinated by mental illness and extreme perspectives on reality. I was 20 or 21 when a friend of mine had a psychotic breakdown, and we spent 10 days together walking around the streets of London while he had delusions and paranoias. It scared the living shit out of me, really. And I think I partly make films as a way of confronting my fears, really.

joewright.jpg
Right on: Joe Wright.

Do the right thing, Dianne

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OPINION At the end of World War II, approximately 36 percent of American workers belonged to a union. Today that number has shrunk to about 12 percent, lagging behind the world’s other industrial democracies. But now, with a Democratic president in office, we have a realistic chance of enacting the most significant piece of labor legislation in decades, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would protect the right of workers to organize into a union.

The opposition, of course, is well organized and well funded. Opponents will spend more than $200 million to defeat the bill in the Senate. They will argue that EFCA is just a special interest bill that helps big labor. But the truth is that the legislation should be part of the long-term economic recovery plan and is key to rebuilding the middle class.

In 1980, average CEO pay was 42 times that of the average blue-collar worker. By 2006, CEO pay had grown to 364 times the average blue collar worker’s pay. A survey of median weekly earnings in 2007 revealed that union workers make 30 percent more than their nonunion counterparts, and are 59 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage than other workers.

The key EFCA reform, and the one that has generated the most controversy, is called “card-check.” Under EFCA, if the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finds that a majority of employees have signed written authorization forms designating the union as their collective bargaining representative, the union is certified.

Opponents of card-check often argue, erroneously, that EFCA will deprive workers of their right to a so-called secret ballot. In fact, EFCA preserves both options, but it places the choice in the hands of workers, not employers. Moreover, the history of these “secret ballot” elections shows that they are often anything but democratic. Too often employers use their power over unorganized employees to intimidate them into voting against the union. Such documented employer tactics have included mandatory attendance at antiunion meetings, one-on-one meetings, threats to close the business if the union wins the vote, and harassing or even firing workers engaged in organizing activity.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has an 87 percent lifetime voting record from the AFL-CIO and has co-sponsored EFCA in the past. But now, with EFCA finally within reach, she has announced that she is looking for a “less divisive” option.

Say it isn’t so, Senator.

For many years progressive activists have had concerns about Feinstein, even going as far as to seek her censure at a state Democratic convention two years ago. In 2007, the party leadership reminded the activists that although she may stray occasionally, Feinstein is really a good Democrat who shares our basic values and commitments. There was no censure.

But workers’ rights is no side-issue in our Democratic Party. Economic justice is the issue. This is a moment of truth for Feinstein — and all of us who are her constituents have an obligation to help her get to the right answer.

On April 28 at 7 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, the SF Labor Council, Pride at Work, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club are sponsoring a community briefing on our campaign to urge Feinstein to support working people. Join us. *

Robert Haaland is the co-chair, SF Pride at Work. Rafael Mandelman is president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.

 

SFIFF: Shots in the dark

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THURS/23


La Mission (Peter Bratt, USA, 2009) A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, 46-year-old Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place, and the affectionate location shooting makes this an ideal SFIFF opening-nighter. (Dennis Harvey) 7 p.m., Castro.

FRI/24


It’s Not Me, I Swear! (Philippe Falardeau, Canada, 2008) Ten-year-old Leon Dore (Antoine L’Écuyer) is a Harold without a Maude, forever staging near-fatal "deadly accidents" that by now no one blinks twice at — whether they’re expressions of warped humor, cries for attention, or actual (yet invariably failed) suicide attempts). Mom and dad are forever at each others’ throats, while their older son pines for a domestic normalcy that ain’t happening anytime soon. One day mom simply announces she’s splitting for Greece to "start a new life," pointedly without husband and children. This event rachets Leon’s misbehaviors — which also encompass theft and vandalism — up a few notches. Set in kitschily-realized late 1960s Quebec suburbia, director Philippe Falardeau’s adaptation of two linked novels by Bruno Hebert is a very deft mix of family dysfunction, preadolescent maladjustment (or maybe budding sociopathy), and anarchic comedy. (Harvey) 5:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also Sat/25, 2:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; Tues/28, 1 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

SAT/25


Adoration (Atom Egoyan, Canada/France, 2008) When orphaned teenager Simon (Devon Bostick) writes a paper for French class in which he imagines himself as the son of real-life terrorists, his teacher (Arsinée Khanjian) tacitly encourages its being taken for fact. The resulting firestorm (largely taking place on the Web) raises questions about the boy’s actual parents, free speech, religio-political martyrdom, and so forth. This is the first Atom Egoyan feature based on his own original story — as opposed to literary sources or historical incidents — in 15 interim years. While his fame has certainly risen in the interim, some of us haven’t liked anything so well since that last one, 1994’s Exotica. Adoration recalls such early efforts in the cool intellectual gamesmanship with which characters and technologies are manipulated toward a hidden truth. Yet provocative as it is, there’s something overly elaborate and ultimately dissatisfying about his gambits that makes Adoration less than the sum of its parts. (Harvey) 6:15 p.m, Sundance Kabuki. Also Mon/27, 6:30 p.m., PFA.

Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, Kazakhstan/Switzerland/Germany/Russia/Poland, 2008) Possible new genre alert: the docu-comedy. Documenatarian Dvortsevoy turns his camera on his native Kazakhstan, and nothing depicted suggests anything Borat might’ve broadcast. The country’s stark, southern steppes form the backdrop for a family of nomads, including married-with-children Samal and Ondas, and Samal’s brother Asa, who returns from his Russian naval service longing for his own flock of sheep. Alas, he can’t get a flock until he lands a wife — and the only local prospect, Tulpan, rejects him on the basis of his "big ears" (and the small fact that she would like to move out of the sticks, into the city, and maybe even attend college). Traditional ways bump up against more ambitious ones (as when Asa dreams of a satellite dish), just as comedic moments trade screen time with grittier scenarios (including actual footage of a sheep giving birth). The end result is an intimate and somehow totally relatable look at a fascinatingly foreign world. (Cheryl Eddy) 6:15 p.m., PFA. Also Mon/27, 9:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; April 30, 4:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

TUES/28


In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, England, 2009) A typically fumbling remark by U.K. Minister of International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) ignites a media firestorm, as it seems to suggest war is imminent even as both Brit and U.S. governments are downplaying the likelihood of the Iraq invasion they’re simultaneously preparing for. Suddenly cast as an important arbiter of global affairs — a role he’s perhaps less suited for than playing the Easter Bunny — Simon becomes one chess-piece in a cutthroat game whose participants on both sides of the Atlantic include his own subordinates, the prime minister’s rageaholic communications chief, major Pentagon and State Department honchos, crazy constituents, and more. This frenetic comedy of behind-the-scenes backstabbing and its direct influence on the highest-level diplomatic and military policies is scabrously funny in the best tradition of English television, which is (naturally) just where its creators hei from. (Harvey) 9:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 2, 9:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

APRIL 30


California Company Town (Lee Anne Schmitt, USA, 2008) This land isn’t your land, or my land, and it wasn’t made for you and me — such is the insightful and incite-full impression one gets from California Company Town. Schmitt’s beautifully photographed, concisely narrated, and ominously structured look at the Golden State and the state of capitalism is labor of love, shot between 2003 and 2008; it’s a provocative piece of American history. On a semi-buried level, it’s also an extraordinary act of personal filmmaking that subverts various stereotypes of first-person storytelling by women while simultaneously learning from and breaking away from some esteemed directors of the essay film. (Johnny Ray Huston) 8:35 p.m., PFA. Also May 2, 6:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; May 4, 3:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Rudo y Cursi (Carlos Cuarón, Mexico, 2008) A who’s-who of Mexican cinema giants have their cleats in soccer yarn Rudo y Cursi: stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and producers Alfonso Cuarón (whose brother, Carlos, wrote and directed), Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro. But while Rudo is entertaining, it’s surprisingly lightweight considering the talent involved. Bernal and Luna play Tato and Beto, rural half-brothers discovered by a jovially crooked soccer scout (Guillermo Francella) who gets them gigs playing on Mexico City teams. But athletic achievement seems barely a concern. Of far more importance are Tato’s crooning dreams and high-profile romance with a vapid TV star, and Beto’s left-behind wife and kids — not to mention his raging gambling addiction. Though the drama boils down to one final game (of course), Rudo is really about the bonds and brawls between brothers, not sports teams. Goal? (Eddy) 6:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 1, 4 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 1


D Tour (Jim Granato, USA, 2008) There’s been many a band-on-the-brink doc about groups torn apart by substance abuse, or creative differences, or just plain nuttiness (see: 2004’s DiG! and Some Kind of Monster, and any number of Behind the Music eps). In D Tour, local indie popsters Rogue Wave face, and are drawn together by, an entirely different brand of crisis: drummer Pat Spurgeon’s urgent need for a kidney transplant. Director Granato is given full access to subjects who are very open about their feelings (and, in Spurgeon’s case, unpleasant medical procedures). The result is a music- and emotion-filled journey that’ll no doubt inspire many to check off the "organ donor" box on their driver’s licenses. A sadly ironic, late-act twist involving a different band member will come as no surprise to Rogue Wave followers, but D Tour incorporates the tragedy into its storyline without ever exploiting it. (Eddy) 9 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 4, 3:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; May 7, 5:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 2


The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (David Russo, USA, 2009) Animator Russo’s first feature is a (mostly) live-action whimsy about rudderless Dory (Marshall Allman from Prison Break) who gets fired from his white-collar job and lands in the much scruffier employ of Spiffy Jiffy Janitorial Services. Its punky artist-type staff clean a high-rise’s offices, including one for a test-marketing trying out "self-warming cookies." When our protagonists develop an addictive liking for these treats, strange things begin to occur — like hallucinations and, eventually, male pregnancies of mystery critters. Depending on mood, this arch quirkfest with an ’80s feel (think of all the similar, mildly surreal indie comedies that rode 1984 release Repo Man‘s coattails) may strike you as delightful or just plain irritating. (Harvey) 11 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 6, 3:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Tyson (James Toback, USA, 2008) Director Toback is picking up this year’s Kanbar Award for "excellence in screenwriting," but his latest film is a doc scripted largely in the mind of its subject. To call Mike Tyson a polarizing figure is an understatement (and raises the question: Does anyone really like him except Toback, whom he’s known for two decades?). This film — narrated by Tyson, the sole interviewee — won’t endear him to a public that’s seen him besmirch his glorious boxing-ring talents with an array of bad behavior, from a rape charge (here, Tyson calls his accuser a "wretched swine of a woman") to the chomping of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Though he chokes up on occasion and admits at one point that he starting taking fights just for the money, he’s still about as unsympathetic as humanly possible. Fun fact: a friend convinced him to go tribal with the face tattoo. Tyson himself wanted hearts. (Eddy) 4 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 3


Moon (Duncan Jones, England, 2008) The Bay Area’s own Sam Rockwell has quietly racked up a slew of memorable performances in variable films — including 2002’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and 2008’s Choke — so the fact that he’s pretty much the whole show in this British sci-fi tale is reason enough to see it. A one-man space saga à la Silent Running (1972), it has him as Sam Bell, the lone non-mechanical worker (Kevin Spacey voices his principal robot assistant) on a lunar mining station in the not-too-distant future. He’s just about to finish his long, lonely contracted three-year stint and return home to a desperately missed family when strange things begin to occur. First there are hallucinations, then physical disabilities, then finally the impossible — there’s company aboard the station. Debuting feature director Duncan Jones orchestrates atmosphere and intrigue, though despite one major game-changing twist his original story seems a little thin in the long run. Nevertheless, Rockwell commands attention throughout as a character whose exhaustion, disorientation, and eventual panic feel alarmingly vivid. (Harvey) 9 p.m., Castro.

The Reckoning (Pamela Yates, USA/Uganda/Congo/Colombia/Netherlands, 2008) Yates’ latest documentary chronicles the long-delayed launch and bumpy first years of the International Criminal Court, a Hague-based body founded to prosecute (primarily) war crimes that member nations were unwilling or unable to do so themselves. Its authority is not yet recognized by several nations — including the Big Three of U.S.A., Russia, and China — while prosecutions of various military or political leaders who ordered crimes against civilians are often hampered by political minefields. Nonetheless, the still-struggling court is a beacon of hope for peace and justice around the globe. Yates lays out its work so far as an engrossing series of detective stories investigating instances of mass murder, rape, plunder, etc. in Uganda, the Congo, Darfur, and Colombia. (Harvey) 5:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 5, 6 p.m., PFA; May 6, 6:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2008) It’s no joy for Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) to bring his wife and stepson up from Tokyo on an annual visit to his elderly parents. The occasion is to commemorate the passing of an older brother who’s been dead for decades but is still held up as the yardstick by which Ryo will always fall short. Mom (Kiki Kirin) is well intentioned enough, if often insensitively blunt-spoken. But retired dad (Yoshio Harada) is an imperious grump who resents Ryo’s not following him into medical practice, disapproves of his marrying a widow, spurns her son from that prior union as less than a "real" grandchild, and is generally kind of a dick. This latest from Hirokazu Kore-eda (2004’s Nobody Knows, 1998’s After Life) is a quiet seriocomedy with lots of discomfiting moments. Yet it’s suffused with enough humor, warmth and surprising joy to easily qualify as one of SFIFF’s best 2009 picks. (Harvey)

8:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 5, 6:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

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