Today on SFBG.COM Radio: Tim and Johnny talk about why Nancy Pelosi isn’t more of a progressive — and how Gavin Newsom could follow the lead of a Republican from Utah and cut down dramatically on car use in San Francisco. You can listen after the jump.
SFBG.COM Radio 5/14/2010 by SFBGProgressive
Democratizing the streets
steve@sbg.com
It’s hard to keep up with all the changes occurring on the streets of San Francisco, where an evolving view of who and what roadways are for cuts across ideological lines. The car is no longer king, dethroned by buses, bikes, pedestrians, and a movement to reclaim the streets as essential public spaces.
Sure, there are still divisive battles now underway over street space and funding, many centered around the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which has more control over the streets than any other local agency, particularly after the passage of Proposition A in 2007 placed all transportation modes under its purview.
Transit riders, environmentalists, and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors are frustrated that Mayor Gavin Newsom and his appointed SFMTA board members have raised Muni fares and slashed service rather than tapping downtown corporations, property owners, and/or car drivers for more revenue.
Board President David Chiu is leading the effort to reject the latest SFMTA budget and its 10 percent Muni service cut, and he and fellow progressive Sups. David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi have been working on SFMTA reform measures for the fall ballot, which need to be introduced by May 18.
But as nasty as those fights might get in the coming weeks, they mask a surprising amount of consensus around a new view of streets. “The mayor has made democratizing the streets one of his major initiatives,” Newsom Press Secretary Tony Winnicker told the Guardian.
And it’s true. Newsom has promoted removing cars from the streets for a few hours at a time through Sunday Streets and his “parklets” in parking spaces, for a few weeks or months at a time through Pavement to Parks, and permanently through Market Street traffic diversions and many projects in the city’s Bicycle Plan, which could finally be removed from a four-year court injunction after a hearing next month.
Even after this long ban on new bike projects, San Francisco has seen the number of regular bicycle commuters double in recent years. Bike to Work Day, this year held on May 13, has become like a civic holiday as almost every elected official pedals to work and traffic surveys from the last two years show bikes outnumbering cars on Market Street during the morning commute.
If it wasn’t for the fiscal crisis gripping this and other California cities, this could be a real kumbaya moment for the streets of San Francisco. Instead, it’s something closer to a moment of truth — when we’ll have to decide whether to put our money and political will into “democratizing the streets.”
RECONSIDERING ROADWAYS
After some early clashes between Newsom and progressives on the Board of Supervisors and in the alternative transportation community over a proposal to ban cars from a portion of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park — a polarizing debate that ended in compromise after almost two acrimonious years — there’s been a remarkable harmony over once-controversial changes to the streets.
In fact, the changes have come so fast and furious in the last couple of years that it’s tough to keep track of all the parking spaces turned into miniparks or extended sidewalks, replacement of once-banished benches on Market and other streets, car-free street closures and festivals, and healthy competition with other U.S. cities to offer bike-sharing or other green innovations.
So much is happening in the streets that SF Streetsblog has quickly become a popular, go-to clearinghouse for stories about and discussions of our evolving streets, a role that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition — itself the largest grassroots group in the city, with more than 11,000 paid members — recently recognized with its Golden Wheel award.
“I think we are at a tipping point. All these little things have been percolating,” said San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association director Gabriel Metcalf, listing examples such as the creative reuse of San Francisco street space by Rebar and other groups (see “Seizing space,” 11/18/09), experiments in New York and other cities to convert traffic lanes to bicycle and pedestrian spaces, a new generation of more forward-thinking traffic engineers and planning professionals working in government, and more aggressive advocacy work by the SFBC, SPUR, and other groups.
“I think it’s all starting to coalesce,” Metcalf said. “Go to 17th and Valencia [streets] and feel what it’s like to have a sidewalk that’s wide enough to be comfortable. Or go ride in the physically separated bike lane on Market Street. Or take your kids to the playground at Hayes Green that used to be a freeway ramp.”
Politically, this is a rare area of almost universal agreement. “This is an issue where this mayor and this board have been very aligned,” Metcalf said. Winnicker, Newsom’s spokesperson, agreed: “The mayor and the board do see this issue very similarly.”
Mirkarimi, a progressive who chairs the Transportation Authority, also agreed that this new way of looking at the streets has been a bright spot in board-mayoral relations. “It is evolving and developing, and that’s a very good thing,” Mirkarimi said.
Both Winnicker and Mirkarimi separately singled out the improvements on Divisidero Street — where the median and sidewalks have been planted with trees and vegetation and some street parking spaces have been turned into designated bicycle parking and outdoor seating — as an example of the new approach.
“It really is a microcosm of an evolving consciousness,” Mirkarimi said of the strip.
Sunday Streets, a series of events when the streets are closed to cars and blossom with life, is an initiative proposed by SFBC and Livable City that has been championed by Newsom and supported by the board as it overcame initial opposition from the business community and some car drivers.
“There is a growing synergy toward connecting the movements that deal with repurposing space that has been used primarily for automobiles,” Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King told us.
Newsom has cast the greening initiatives as simply common sense uses of space and low-cost ways of improving the city. “A lot of what the mayor and the board have disagreements on, some of that is ideological,” Winnicker said. “But streets, parks, medians, and green spaces, they are not ideological.”
Maybe not, but where the rubber is starting to meet the road is on how to fund this shift, particularly when it comes to transit services that aren’t cheap — and to Newsom’s seemingly ideological aversion to new taxes or charges on motorists.
“We’re completely aligned when it comes to the Bike Plan and testing different things as far as our streets, but that all changes with the MTA budget,” said board President David Chiu, who is leading the charge to reject the budget because of its deep Muni service cuts. “Progressives are focused on the plight of everyday people who can’t afford to drive and park a car and have to rely on Muni. So it’s a question of on whose back will you balance the MTA budget.”
WHOSE STREETS?
The MTA governs San Francisco’s streets, from deciding how their space is allocated to who pays for their upkeep. The agency runs Muni, sets and administers parking policies, regulates taxis, approves bicycle-related improvements, and tries to protect pedestrians.
So when the mayoral-appointed MTA Board of Directors last month approved a budget that cuts Muni service by 10 percent without sharing the pain with motorists or pursuing significant new revenue sources — in defiance of pleas by the public and progressive supervisors over the last 18 months — it triggered a real street fight.
The Budget and Finance Committee will begin taking up the MTA budget May 12. And progressive supervisors, frustrated at having to replay this fight for a second year in a row, are pursuing a variety of MTA reforms for the November ballot, which must be submitted by May 18.
“We’re going to have a very serious discussion about MTA reform,” Chiu said, adding, “I expect there to be a very robust discussion about the MTA and balancing that budget on the backs of transit riders.”
Among the reforms being discussed are shared appointments between the mayor and board, greater ability for the board to reject individual initiatives rather than just the whole budget, changes to Muni work rules and compensation, and revenue measures like a local surcharge on vehicle license fees or a downtown transit assessment district.
Last week Chiu met with Newsom on the MTA budget issue and didn’t come away hopeful that there will be a collaborative solution such as last year’s compromise. But Chiu said he and other supervisors were committed to holding the line on Muni service cuts.
“I think the MTA needs to get more creative. We have to make sure the MTA isn’t being used as an ATM with these work orders,” Chiu said, referring to the $65 million the MTA pays to the Police Department and other agencies every year, a figure that steeply increased after 2007. “My hope is that the MTA board does the right thing and rolls back some of these service reductions.”
Transit riders have been universal in condemning the MTA budget. “The budget is irresponsible and dishonest,” said San Francisco Transit Riders Union project director Dave Snyder. “It reveals the hypocrisy in the mayor’s stated environmental commitments. This action will cut public transit permanently and that’s irresponsible.”
But the Mayor’s Office blames declining state funding and says the MTA had no choice. “It’s an economic reality. None of us want service reductions, but show us the money,” Winnicker said.
That’s precisely what the progressive supervisors are trying to do by exploring several revenue measures for the November ballot. But they say Newsom’s lack of leadership on the issue has made that difficult, particularly given the two-third vote requirement.
“There’s been a real failure of leadership by Gavin Newsom,” Mirkarimi said.
Newsom addressed the issue in December as he, Mirkarimi, and other city officials and bicycle advocates helped create the city’s first green “bike box” and honor the partial lifting of the bike injunction, sounding a message of unity on the issue.
“I can say this is the best relationship we’ve had for years with the advocacy community, with the Bicycle Coalition. We’ve begun to strike a nice balance where this is not about cars versus bikes. This is about cars and bikes and pedestrians cohabitating in a different mindset,” Newsom said.
Yet afterward, during an impromptu press conference, Newsom spoke with disdain about those who argued that improving the streets and maintaining Muni service during hard economic times requires money, and Newsom has been the biggest impediment to finding new revenue sources.
“Everyone is just so aggressive on trying to raise revenue. We’ve been increasing the cost of going on Muni the last few years. I think people need to consider that,” Newsom said. “We’ve increased the cost of parking tickets, increased the cost of using a parking meter, and we’ve raised the fares. It’s important to remind people of that. The first answer to every question shouldn’t be, OK, we’re going to tax people more or increase their costs.
“You have to be careful about that,” he continued. “So my answer to your question is two-fold. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily tax increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily fine increases. We’re going to look at revenue, but not necessarily parking meter increases. We’re going to look at new strategies.”
Yet that was six months ago, and with the exception of grudgingly agreeing to allow a small pilot program in a few commercial corridors to eliminate free parking in metered spots on Sunday, Newsom still hasn’t proposed any new revenue options.
“The voters aren’t receptive to new taxes now,” Winnicker said last week. Mirkarimi doesn’t necessarily agree, citing polling data showing that voters in San Francisco may be open to the VLF surcharge, if we can muster the same kind of political will we’re applying to other street questions.
“It polls well, even in a climate when taxation scares people,” Mirkarimi said.
BIKING IS BACK
It was almost four years ago that a judge stuck down the San Francisco Bicycle Plan, ruling that it should have been subjected to a full-blown environmental impact report (EIR) and ordering an injunction against any projects in the plan.
That EIR was completed and certified by the city last year, but the same anti-bike duo who originally sued to stop the plan again challenged it as inadequate. The case will finally be heard June 22, with a ruling on lifting the injunction expected within a month.
“The San Francisco Bicycle Plan project eliminates 56 traffic lanes and more than 2,000 parking spaces on city streets,” attorney Mary Miles wrote in her April 23 brief challenging the plan. “According to City’s EIR, the project will cause ‘significant unavoidable impacts’ on traffic, transit, and loading; degrade level of service to unacceptable levels at many major intersections; and cause delays of more than six minutes per street segment to many bus lines. The EIR admits that the “near-term” parts of the project alone will have 89 significant impacts of traffic, transit, and loading but fails to mitigate or offer feasible alternatives to each of these impacts.”
Yet for all that, elected officials in San Francisco are nearly unanimous in their support for the plan, signaling how far San Francisco has come in viewing the streets as more than just conduits for cars.
City officials deny that the bike plan is legally inadequate and they may quibble with a few of the details Miles cites, but they basically agree with her main point. The plan will take away parking spaces and it will slow traffic in some areas. But they also say those are acceptable trade-offs for facilitating safe urban bicycling.
The city’s main overriding consideration is that we must do more to get people out of their cars, for reasons ranging from traffic congestion to global warming. City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey said that it’s absurd that the state’s main environmental law has been used to hinder progress toward the most environmentally beneficial and efficient transportation option.
“We have to stop solving for cars, and that’s an objective shared by the Board of Supervisors, and other cities, and the mayor as well,” Dorsey said.
Even anti-bike activist Rob Anderson, who brought the lawsuit challenging the bike plan, admits the City Hall has united around this plan to facilitate bicycling even if it means taking space from automobiles, although he believes that it’s a misguided effort.
“It’s a leap of faith they’re making here that this will be good for the city,” Anderson told us. “This is a complicated legal argument, and I don’t think the city has made the case.”
A judge will decide that question following the June 22 hearing. But whatever way that legal case is decided, it’s clear that San Francisco has already changed its view of its streets and other once-marginalized transportation choices like the bicycle.
Even the local business community has benefited from this new sensibility, with bicycle shops thriving around San Francisco and local bike messenger bag companies Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bags experiencing rapid growth thanks to a doubling of the number of regular bicyclists in recent years.
“That’s who we’re aiming at, people who bike every day and make bikes a central part of their lives,” said Mike Waffenfels, CEO of Timbuk2, which in February moved into a larger location to handle it’s growth. “It’s about a lifestyle.”
For urban planners and advocates, it’s about making the streets of San Francisco work for everyone. As Metcalf said, “People need to be able to get where they’re going without a car.”
Music listings
Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.
WEDNESDAY 12
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Barrel Riders, Fusebox, Tentacle Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.
Beehive Spirit, Common Loon, Alright Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.
Tia Carroll and Hard Work Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Jakob Dylan and Three Legs featuring Neko Case and Helly Hogan, Felice Brothers, Honeyhoney Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.
Fuck Buttons Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.
Lime Colony, Passenger and Pilot, Blood and Sunshine Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Man/Miracle, Yellow Dress, Quite Polite Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
*MDC, Restarts, La Plebe, Dopecharge Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $10.
Tender Few, Spidermeow, Rabbles Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $6.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Sang Matiz Red Devil Lounge. 8:30pm, $8.
Somerville and Keehan Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.
Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.
Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.
Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.
RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.
Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.
Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.
Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.
THURSDAY 13
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Acorn Project, Sourgrass Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $7.
Altars Knockout. 9:30pm, $4. With guest DJs Primo, Kat, Bertie, and Melanie Ann Berlin.
Roger Clyne and PH Naffah, Jason Boots Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.
Meklit Hadero, Quinn Deveaux and the Blue Beat Review Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $18.
Hydrophonic, Gas Mask Colony, Murkins Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Jugtown Pirates, Tell-Tale Heartbreakers, Project Pimento, Franco Nero, Swamees Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Proceeds benefit the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.
Bill Ortiz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Roy G. Biv, Billy Schafer, Chi McClean, Alex Karweit Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $10.
Whitechapel, Son of Aurelius, I Declare War, Fallujah Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $15.
Zoo, Entropy Density, Didimao Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Big Possum Atlas Café. 8pm, free.
John Calloway, Loco Bloco with Claudinho Smile Roccapulco Supper Club, 3140 Mission, SF; www.locobloco.org. 8pm, $15.
Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.
CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.
Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.
Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.
Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.
Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.
Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.
Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.
Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.
Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.
Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.
Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.
Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.
FRIDAY 14
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Annuals, Most Serene Republic, What Laura Says Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.
Apache, Wrong Words, Midnight Snaxx, Off Campus Knockout. 9pm, $7.
Café R&B Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.
Disastroid, Famous, Gentlemen Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
Front Street featuring Stu Allen, Jugtown Pirates Independent. 9pm, $15.
Fun., Audrye Sessions, Heartsounds Slim’s. 8:30pm, $16.
Johan Johannsson Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.
Michael McIntosh Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Freedy Johnston Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $15.
Starfucker, Butterfly Bones, Silver Swans, Fake Drugs Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.
*Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue with Zigaboo Modeliste and Ivan Neville Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $75-150. Proceeds benefit Blue Bear’s youth music education programs.
Michael Zapruder, Grand Lake Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; http://snobtheater.tumblr.com. 10pm, $10. With comedians Bill Coladonato, Kelly McCarron, Kevin Munroe, and Brandon Lynch.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
Bruno P.B. Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Revolution All-Stars Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
Scott Amendola Band Red Poppy Art House. 8 and 9pm, $12-20.
Stanley Clarke Band with Hiromi Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26-32.
Terry Disley Experience Trio Vin Club, 515 Broadway, SF; (415) 277-7228. 7:30pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Brother Lekas Plough and Stars. 9pm.
Lucha Vavoom Fillmore. 9pm, $32.50.
"That Night in Rio: A Samba Party" Café du Nord. 9pm, $15. With Grupo Samba Rio and DJ Fausto Sousa.
Wunmi Coda. 10pm, $15.
DANCE CLUBS
Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.
Beat Market Mighty. 7pm, $10. With DJs Gravity, Jonathan W, Spirit Catcher, eug, and Al Veilla.
Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.
Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.
Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.
Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris, Makossa, and Quickie Mart spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.
Fort Knox Five, Breakestra Mezzanine. 9pm, $15.
Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.
Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.
Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.
Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.
Lawnchair Generals DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. House, downtempo, and dub.
Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.
M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.
Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.
Strictly Video 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. With VDJs Shortkut, Swift Rock, GoldenChyld, and Satva spinning rap, 80s, R&B, and Dancehall.
Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop, fun, Latin, and more with DJs Vinnie Esparza, B. Cause, and guest DJs Mr. E and Relly Rels.
SATURDAY 15
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
*Converge, Coalesce, Lewd Acts, Black Breath Slim’s. 8pm, $18.
Gil Mantera’s Party Dream, Triple Cobra, Go-Going-Gone Girls Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.
Kali$$ian Coda. 10pm, $10.
Billy McLaughlin Marriott, Fisherman’s Wharf, 1250 Columbus, SF; www.billymacmusic.com. 7:30pm, $20.
1995 Forever, Aerosols, Ryan Pettigrew and the Ladyboys Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7. Also with comedians Brent Weinbach and Louis Katz.
Octomutt Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Pins of Light, Moses, Boar Hunter El Rio. 10pm, $7.
Portal, Morbosidad, Sanguis Imperem, Dispirit Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $12.
Reaction Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.
Ruse, Honor By August, Johnny Hi-Fi Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.
Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Vienna Teng and Alex Wong Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $28.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Kathy Sanborn Borders Westfield Center, 845 Market, SF; (415) 243-4108. 2-4pm.
Sexmob with DJ Olive Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25.
Tin Cup Serenade Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Courtney Andrews and friends Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
Bernal Hill Players Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-$15.
Gas Men Plough and Stars. 9pm.
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Black Nature, DJ Jeremiah Independent. 9pm, $20.
DANCE CLUBS
Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.
Bassnectar, Jef and Odd Nosdam Mezzanine. 9pm, $30.
Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups plus the Hubba Hubba Revue.
Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickenson.
Club 1994 Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $10. With DJs Jeffrey Paradise and Richie Panic spinning like it’s 1994.
Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $7. Locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJs Earworm and Matt Hite.
Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.
Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.
Fringe Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Blondie K and subOctave spinning indie music videos.
Full House Gravity, 3505 Scott, SF; (415) 776-1928. 9pm, $10. With DJs Roost Uno and Pony P spinning dirty hip hop.
HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.
Non Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $20. With Dholrythms and DJ Jimmy Love.
Prince vs. Michael Madrone Art Bar. 8pm, $5. With DJs Dave Paul and Jeff Harris battling it out on the turntables with album cuts, remixes, rare tracks, and classics.
Puma’s World House Music Tour Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, $10. With DJs Sultan and Jasonn.
Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.
Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.
Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.
Xeno and Oaklander, Epee Du Bois, Soft Moon Milk. 10pm. With DJs Omar, Justin, and Josh.
SUNDAY 16
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Bullet for My Valentine, Chiodos, Airborne, Arcanium Regency Ballroom. 6:30pm, $27.
Clipd Beaks, Vampire Hands, Shattered by the Sun Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Crash Kings Independent. 8pm, $12.
Faun Fables, Charming Hostess, Siamese Sirens Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Ben Folds and a Piano, Kate Miller-Heidke Warfield. 8pm, $38.
*Hypocrisy, Scar Symmetry, Hate, Blackguard, Swashbuckle DNA Lounge. 6pm, $18.
Set Your Goals, Comeback Kid, Title Fight, Story So Far Slim’s. 7pm, $16.
*Shattered Faith, Harrington Saints, Stagger and Fall, Psychology of Genocide Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.
Sippy Cups Yoshi’s San Francisco. 2pm, $5-16.
Vienna Teng and Alex Wong Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-28.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Sheila Jordan with Steve Kuhn Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-40.
SF Jazz High School All-Stars Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 2pm, $5-15.
Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet Coda. 8pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
El Deora, Rich McCully Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.
Marla Fibish, Erin Shrader, Richard Mandel and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Bay to Breakers Breather Madrone Art Bar. 2pm, free. With DJs Kap10 Harris and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, hyphy, rap, and more.
Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.
DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with J Boogie and Vinnie Esparza.
Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.
Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?
Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.
Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.
Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.
Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.
Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.
MONDAY 17
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Michael Burns Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Meta, Stirling Says, Burnt Thumbs Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
*Nashville Pussy, Dave Rude Band, Butlers Independent. 8pm, $15.
Unnatural Helpers, E-Zee Tiger Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $5.
DANCE CLUBS
Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.
Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.
Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.
Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.
Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.
Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.
Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.
Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.
TUESDAY 18
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Flood, Razorhoof, Asada Messiah Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Groundation, Orgone, DJ Jeremiah Independent. 9pm, $27.
Inca Ore, Norman Conquest, Cartoon Justice, Strippers Amnesia. 9pm, $5.
Jackstraw, TV Mike and the Scarecrows, Forest Fire Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $14.
Shout Out Louds, Freelance Whales, Franks Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.
Terry Malts, Dirty Cupcakes, Sydney Ducks Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
*Toots and the Maytals, Rey Fresco Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Brazilian Wax, DJs Carioca and Fausto Sousa Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.
Seisiún Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ What’s His Fuck and DJ Chrome Dome.
Ceremony Presents "ICB" Knockout. 9pm, $5. Tribute to Ian Curtis and Factory Records with DJs Deadbeat, Yule Be Sorry, and Melanie Ann Berlin, with a live performance by Jealousy.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.
Muni reform that might actually work
EDITORIAL The 2007 ballot measure that was supposed to give Muni more political independence and more money has failed to provide either. It’s time to say that Proposition A, which we supported, hasn’t worked — in significant part because the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn’t allowed it to work. It’s time for a new reform effort, one that looks at Muni’s governance structure, funding, and the way it spends money.
There are several proposals in the works. Sup. David Campos has asked for a management audit of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, and that’s likely to show some shoddy oversight practices and hugely wasteful overtime spending. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wants to change the way Muni workers get paid, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Chiu are talking about changing the way the MTA board is appointed. There are merits to all the reform plans, but in the end, none of them will work if they don’t address the fundamental fact that Muni doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of transit service San Francisco needs.
The basic outlines of what a progressive Muni reform measure would look like are pretty obvious. It ought to include three basic principles: work-rule and overtime reform; a change in the way other departments, particularly the police, charge Muni for work orders — and a sizable new source of revenue.
The work orders are, in many ways, the easiest issue. Last year, the San Francisco Police Department charged Muni more than $12 million in work orders. For what? Well, for doing what the Police Department gets paid to do anyway: patrolling Muni garages, putting cops on the buses, and dealing with Muni-related traffic issues. And a lot of that $12 million is police overtime.
The labor and revenue issues are trickier — mostly because they’re being addressed separately. Elsbernd, for example, wants to Muni workers to engage in the same collective bargaining that other city unions do, which makes a certain amount of sense. But he’s wrong to make it appear that the union and the workers are the major source of Muni’s financial problems — and that approach won’t get far. The bus drivers and mechanics didn’t make millions on large commercial developments that put a huge strain on the transit system — and the developers who profit from having bus service for the occupants of their buildings have never paid their fair share. Nor is it the fault of the union that car traffic downtown clogs the streets and makes it hard for buses to run on time.
We agree that the transit union needs to come to the table and talk, seriously, about work-rule changes. Every other city union, particularly SEIU Local 1021, whose members are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, has given something up to help the city’s budget problems.
But any attempt to change Muni’s labor contract needs to be paired with a serious new revenue program aimed at putting the transit system on a stronger financial footing — and traffic management plans that give buses an advantage over cars. The city can add a modest fee on car owners now, and if a Democratic governor wins in November, it’s likely that state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill to allow a local car tax will become law. That’s part of the solution, as is expanded parking meter hours. (And someone needs to talk about charging churchgoers for parking in the middle of the streets on Sundays.) But Muni also needs a regular stream of income from fees on developers.
And a seven-member MTA appointed entirely by the mayor does nothing for political independence; at the very least, the supervisors should get three of the appointments.
The city badly needs Muni reform — and the elements are all in place. But it can’t be a piecemeal approach.
Muni reform that might actually work
EDITORIAL The 2007 ballot measure that was supposed to give Muni more political independence and more money has failed to provide either. It’s time to say that Proposition A, which we supported, hasn’t worked — in significant part because the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn’t allowed it to work. It’s time for a new reform effort, one that looks at Muni’s governance structure, funding, and the way it spends money.
There are several proposals in the works. Sup. David Campos has asked for a management audit of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, and that’s likely to show some shoddy oversight practices and hugely wasteful overtime spending. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wants to change the way Muni workers get paid, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Chiu are talking about changing the way the MTA board is appointed. There are merits to all the reform plans, but in the end, none of them will work if they don’t address the fundamental fact that Muni doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of transit service San Francisco needs.
The basic outlines of what a progressive Muni reform measure would look like are pretty obvious. It ought to include three basic principles: work-rule and overtime reform; a change in the way other departments, particularly the police, charge Muni for work orders — and a sizable new source of revenue.
The work orders are, in many ways, the easiest issue. Last year, the San Francisco Police Department charged Muni more than $12 million in work orders. For what? Well, for doing what the Police Department gets paid to do anyway: patrolling Muni garages, putting cops on the buses, and dealing with Muni-related traffic issues. And a lot of that $12 million is police overtime.
The labor and revenue issues are trickier — mostly because they’re being addressed separately. Elsbernd, for example, wants to Muni workers to engage in the same collective bargaining that other city unions do, which makes a certain amount of sense. But he’s wrong to make it appear that the union and the workers are the major source of Muni’s financial problems — and that approach won’t get far. The bus drivers and mechanics didn’t make millions on large commercial developments that put a huge strain on the transit system — and the developers who profit from having bus service for the occupants of their buildings have never paid their fair share. Nor is it the fault of the union that car traffic downtown clogs the streets and makes it hard for buses to run on time.
We agree that the transit union needs to come to the table and talk, seriously, about work-rule changes. Every other city union, particularly SEIU Local 1021, whose members are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, has given something up to help the city’s budget problems.
But any attempt to change Muni’s labor contract needs to be paired with a serious new revenue program aimed at putting the transit system on a stronger financial footing — and traffic management plans that give buses an advantage over cars. The city can add a modest fee on car owners now, and if a Democratic governor wins in November, it’s likely that state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill to allow a local car tax will become law. That’s part of the solution, as is expanded parking meter hours. (And someone needs to talk about charging churchgoers for parking in the middle of the streets on Sundays.) But Muni also needs a regular stream of income from fees on developers.
And a seven-member MTA appointed entirely by the mayor does nothing for political independence; at the very least, the supervisors should get three of the appointments.
The city badly needs Muni reform — and the elements are all in place. But it can’t be a piecemeal approach.
If Nancy Pelosi’s such a ‘progressive’ ….
… and even though Randy Shaw has become convinced that she is, I’ve never bought it, and I still don’t. A progressive in Congress would never have privatized a national park. A progressive wouldn’t have ducked same-sex marriage. But whatever — here’s my question for the day:
If Pelosi really believes in progressive causes, why doesn’t she do anything about it at home?
Pelosi’s almost never on the progressive side in local races. She never helps local progressive causes, raises money (which she’s really, really good at) for local progressive campaigns or takes visible stands on local progressive issues. Would it kill the Democratic Party if she helped defeat Prop. 16? Would it be the end of the Democratic majority if she went to bat for her own city’s sanctuary policies (and tried to block the horrible new policy on deporting anyone who gets arrested?)
Pelosi helped push health-care reform through, and that’s a fine thing. But unless you want to redefine “progressive,” I don’t think Nancy Pelosi fits the bill. (And I’m still proud I voted for Harry Britt for Congress.)
More fun with political ads
You don’t have to look far to find creative parodies of the famous Carly Fiorina demon sheep ad. But now the Democratic Party — finally stepping up — has released it’s own weirdo ad, called Demon Sheep II. It attacks both Fiorina and Tom Campbell, and has a toss-off at the end about Chuck DeVore, but it’s clearly aimed first and foremost at Carly — which suggests, no surprise, that the Dems (that is, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) is getting out of the box, now, with attacks on Barbara Boxer’s likely November foe. Carla Marinucci calls the ad “hysterical,” and while I wasn’t laughing that hard, you have to admit: The goofiness level of big-time California campaign ads is on the rise.
The ad hints at what Boxer’s camp is going to focus on this fall — and it’s similar to what Jerry Brown needs to do to defeat Meg Whitman. The ad is all about Carly Fiorini, rich business excutive who owns two yachts, flew around in corporate jets and moved 28,000 jobs offshore — then got fired. That works pretty well for Boxer, who can contrast her progressive stands on economic issues to the GOP’s pro-rich agenda. Now Brown needs to start taking a more populist stand (on Prop. 13 reform, for example) if he wants to make his attacks on Whitman stick.
Check out Demon Sheep II:
Pigs in Oakland
arts@sfbg.com
LIT/NCIBA One gets the sense that Novella Carpenter can do anything. A girl from rural Idaho, she knows how to hack it in "scruffy, loud, and unkempt" Oakland, the murder capital of the United States, amid the drug deals, gun fights, and open prostitution on the urban fringe. She also maintains a healthy, active relationship with her auto mechanic boyfriend (described as "a love sponge"), her many friends, and her local community.
On top of these already impressive competencies, she probably knows as much as Laura Ingalls Wilder about farming: she can grow more types of vegetables than most of us have eaten or even heard of; harvest rainwater; keep bee colonies; make honey; and raise and slaughter chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, goats, and — Jesus Christ! — pigs. You learn all this and more in Carpenter’s urban farming memoir, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer (Penguin, 288 pages, $16), winner in the Food Writing category of this year’s Northern California Independent Bookseller Awards. Unlike many others who’ve published books on their stellar accomplishments, Carpenter is bitingly funny, an immensely gifted storyteller, and likeable throughout.
Carpenter always knew that farming made her happy. But recalling the solitude she felt as a child growing up on a farm in Idaho, "a place of isolation, full of beauty — maybe — but mostly loneliness," she "chose to live in the city." At first she couldn’t decide which city she wanted to live in, despite the dearth of progressive cities to choose from. Portland was out of the question for being "too perfect." Austin was "too in the middle of Texas," and in Brooklyn there was "too little recycling." San Francisco was "filled with successful, polished people." So she chose to move to Oakland, which was "just right." In Farm City, Carpenter points to Oakland’s "down-and-out qualities" — the music scene, the scruffy citizenry "who drove cars as old and beat-up as ours" — that made it feel most like home.
Moving to Oakland was the first leg of Carpenter’s journey. The next was to turn her small part of the city into a "modified, farm animal-populated version." Indeed, it is Carpenter’s relationship with her fellow animals that provides the biggest, most startling revelations in Farm City. If you’re an animal lover at heart, as Carpenter is, it seems nothing short of barbaric to raise your own animals, grow to love them, and then stoically kill them one day. But Carpenter thinks the matter through in philosopher’s terms, describing animal husbandry as "a dialogue with life." Raising her animals to be eaten is not a matter Carpenter takes lightly — she recalls the many hours spent Dumpster diving for enough food to feed her ravenous pigs — and, part and parcel, she assumes their slaughter as her responsibility. To render the experience is one of her duties as a writer.
But turning her Oakland habitat into a farm was not an easy process. Farm City, which begins with a cheeky nod to Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa ("I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto"), chronicles the obstacles, frustrations, fumbles, and profound satisfactions of achieving a major accomplishment through innumerable and successive trials and errors. Carpenter may have a clucking henhouse today, but at one point she had to use Q-Tips and, when they failed, her own fingers to remove backed-up fecal matter from the "blocked buttholes" of her baby chicks (when you have them shipped, they tend to develop digestion problems). In her learning process, Carpenter leaves no stone unturned and no detail — not even baby chicken butts — unexamined.
Crossing over
news@sfbg.com
Tensions over the issue of how cities and states should treat undocumented immigrants have been simmering in San Francisco since the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom began clashing over the issue almost two years ago. But they have recently boiled over in response to a draconian new law in Arizona, quickly altering the political dynamics of the issue, here and across the country.
Thousands flooded into the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District on May 1 to march for immigrant rights, part of a May Day celebration that seemed infused with collective outrage at Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, an anti-immigration measure signed into law April 23 that has touched off a firestorm of protests nationwide.
The predominantly Latino crowd waved American flags and flew banners denouncing the law, which makes it a state-level crime to be in the country illegally and criminalizes the failure to carry immigration documents at all times. The march occasionally erupted into chants of “Si Se Puede!” (Yes we can), and “Obama, escucha: estamos en la lucha,” (Obama, listen: We’re in the struggle).
While immigrant rights marches are held every year on May 1, the 2010 rallies had a tremendous turnout. San Francisco’s immigrant rights movement seemed galvanized by the new legislation, which is widely perceived as racist and ill-advised. Yet it has also been seen by advocacy groups as an opportunity for federal immigration reform.
Despite the cultural and geographic chasms separating San Francisco and Phoenix, SB 1070 also has emerged as a pivotal issue in a big election year as Latino and progressive communities gauge politicians’ reactions to a bill that has made national headlines.
San Francisco was the first city in the country to call for a boycott of Arizona. But Newsom proved out of step with City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Sup. David Campos, who first independently called for the boycott. While Campos and Herrera sent a clear message urging city departments to boycott Arizona-based companies, Newsom warned of the “complicated” aspects surrounding this idea then put forth a proposal to form a working group to analyze the idea.
“What we need is action, swift action,” Campos told the Guardian when we asked what he thought of Newsom’s plan. “We did not need a working group deciding whether or not to do same-sex marriage. We don’t need a working group to tell us what we should do here.”
SPEAKING OUT
Campos delivered a rousing speech, in Spanish, at the May 1 rally at Civic Center Plaza, saying San Francisco had to send a clear message to Congress and emphasizing his support for a boycott. As he spoke, the high-energy, tightly packed crowd waved flags, banged on pots and pans, cheered and applauded.
Ramon Cardona, a Salvadoran who directs a San Pablo immigrant outreach organization called Centro Latino Cuzcatlan and helped organize the event, said the underlying message was to urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. “Deportations are creating so much suffering and pain,” he said. “The captures and deportations are dividing up families, and leaving children as orphans.”
Cardona noted that the number of people getting deported has increased — in 2006, more than 180,000 deportations were carried out; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has declared a target of 400,000 for this year. But Cardona said he doubts if crackdowns or intensified border militarization would deter those with an eye toward illegally crossing the U.S. border because the economic conditions in Central America have decimated most alternative means of earning a living.
“If globalization policies were not so unbalanced, millions of campesinos [country people] and workers would not be in a position right now where they had to leave their families in order to work,” Cardona said. “When you have armies of unemployed people without a prospect … people will take desperate measures.”
Giselle Perez, a young woman who participated in the rally, said she was there in support of workers who risk their lives to come to the U.S. “As a child of immigrant parents, I feel our attention should be toward the forces that have created this destruction, and we shouldn’t be persecuting those … who are just coming here to work and to provide the services that we all benefit from,” Perez said.
But even in San Francisco, there were signs of how divisive the immigration issue is. As speakers and hip-hop groups took turns onstage at Civic Center Plaza, a crowd of at least 20 counter-protesters set up camp across the street in front of City Hall, standing behind police barricades and displaying banners which read “We need more ICE at this fiesta” and “Golden Gate Minute Men.”
A self-proclaimed white separatist organization calling itself the Bay Area National Anarchists (BANA) — pinpointed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and bitterly hated by local anarchists — made its presence known. A scuffle occurred when BANA members wound up in a physical clash with a group of individuals as they left the rally, resulting in two arrests.
In the wake of the boycott announcement, Herrera was deluged with angry e-mails from throughout the country, expressing angry sentiments toward “illegal aliens” and threatening to boycott the city of San Francisco.
CHANGING DYNAMICS
SB 1070 empowers police officers to detain and arrest anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is in the country without immigration papers. The bill makes transporting and employing undocumented immigrants a crime. And it allows individuals to sue municipalities where they believe law enforcement is not pursuing undocumented immigrants.
Reactions to the Arizona law continue to reverberate nationwide. And the uproar has forced the debate about federal immigration reform into the headlines and created a string of potential pitfalls for politicians just ahead of the 2010 elections.
President Barack Obama immediately called the law “misguided” and ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to determine whether the new law violates people’s civil rights. Former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano — whose January 2009 decision to resign to become Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary caused then-Lt. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, to ascend to the state’s top post — framed SB 1070 as a “cry of frustration” from state and local officials who need federal immigration reform.
“They’ve already amended the law over the course of the week, so even the Arizona Legislature is starting to recognize there are problems,” Napolitano said last week.
But the amended bill, which is scheduled to go into effect later this summer, has already opened up a Grand Canyon-sized rift within the Republican Party: GOP officials in at least seven other red states, including Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma, have vowed to introduce similar legislation. Their pronouncements have forced even some conservative Republicans like strategist Karl Rove to make statements critical of the law.
In Phoenix, opponents of SB 1070 smeared the state building with swastikas made of refried beans. Around the nation, online social media networks rocked with a gale-force response. More than 1 million SB 1070 opponents banded together on a dozen Facebook pages clamoring for boycotts, a demand championed by a galaxy of civil liberties groups.
San Francisco political consultant Bob Brigham circulated an online petition urging California’s state pension fund to divest from Arizona. “I started thinking about the State of California’s role in helping end apartheid by pulling money out of South Africa,” Brigham said in an online statement. “Then I knew the move.”
The reaction to SB 1070 turned out to be a litmus test on leadership in San Francisco. Herrera, whose father is from Colombia, and Campos, who was born in Guatemala and came to the U.S. as an undocumented youth, separately called for a boycott of Arizona within days of the law’s approval.
But Newsom, in what turned out to be a major political miscalculation, waffled, first questioning the wisdom of a boycott, then scrambling to take baby steps when his opponent in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, Los Angeles City Council member Janice Hahn, authored a boycott resolution.
“The notion of boycotting a state and every business that does business in the state is an extraordinarily complicated matter,” Newsom said in an April 27 San Francisco Chronicle article.
That was the day Hahn held a press conference calling for L.A. to cut off all business ties with Arizona.
Seven L.A. City Council members and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed the measure — and Hahn was invited to be a keynote speaker at a May 1 immigration rally in downtown L.A.
Newsom swiftly sought to save face, issuing a press release shortly after Hahn’s announcement stating that he had hatched a “smart, effective” response to the Arizona legislation: the mayor was immediately banning official city travel to the state, with exceptions for essential travel related to law enforcement and public health or safety.
Mayoral spokesperson Tony Winnicker told the Guardian that he did not have information on how much the city travels to Arizona. “Travel has been cut significantly, of course, because of the city budget situation. But Henry Alvarez from the Housing Authority did cancel a trip to Scottsdale set for this weekend for a housing authority conference,” Winnicker said.
Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda estimated that when it came to the annual number of official trips to Arizona, “I would doubt that it would be more than just a handful.” San Francisco has made payments to 81 companies headquartered in Arizona since 2007, totally roughly $16 million, according to a list compiled by the city purchaser.
But it was the message that seemed to matter more than the actual impact on Arizona, at least for the politicians involved.
Newsom also announced plans to assemble a working group to analyze the impact of potential boycott measures against Arizona. The working group includes city Purchaser Naomi Kelly, Controller Ben Rosenfield, Treasurer Jose Cisneros, Theresa Sparks of the Human Rights Commission, representatives from the City Attorney’s Office, the mayor’s Director of State and Federal Legislative Affairs Nancy Kirshner-Rodriguez, and Newsom’s Latino Community liaison Joaquin Torres.
“The purpose of the workgroup is to develop boycott recommendations that are smart and effective and that won’t hurt SF businesses and residents or hurt those who are the victims in Arizona of this terrible law,” Winnicker said.
City Attorney Matt Dorsey took offense at the implication that Herrera’s boycott call was premature or motivated by his own mayoral ambitions. “Dennis was thinking about doing this as early as April 23 because of the outrageousness of the legislation,” Dorsey said.
Michael Trujillo, Hahn’s campaign manager, faulted Newsom’s waffling. “If Arizona legalizes slavery, is he going to form a working group?” Trujillo asked. “It wasn’t a question of whether [Hahn] would do it or not do it. In L.A., it’s a no-brainer. In San Francisco, it requires a working group.”
The incident also served as a vivid reminder to those who support immigration reform and the city’s sanctuary city law that Newsom hasn’t been on their side for a long time.
OPENING OLD WOUNDS
Immigrant rights advocates are expressing renewed concern about Newsom’s failure to implement a Campos-authored and board-approved amendment to his policy on turning juvenile immigrants over to federal authorities before they’ve had their day in court.
Since Newsom ordered his new policy, more than 160 youth have been referred to federal immigration authorities for possible deportation. As a result, kids who subsequently see all felony charges against them dismissed or reduced, find themselves ripped from their families and in danger of being deported.
Advocates also noted that they have not seen any evidence that language they believe is an open invitation to racial profiling has been removed from the mayor’s policy, which Newsom ordered without public review in July 2008, the day after he announced his failed bid to become the next governor of California.
Juvenile Probation Department Chief William Siffermann assured the Guardian in March that such language was being removed following a contentious March 4 hearing. Campos questioned the JPD chief about the origin of language in Newsom’s policy. The language states that in determining whether there is reasonable suspicion that youth is undocumented, one of the criteria listed is the “presence of undocumented persons.”
Siffermann replied that the policy was based on review and approval of the City Attorney’s Office.
Campos asked if Siffermann could see “how something as open-ended as this could lead to racial profiling?”
“It could,” Siffermann replied. “It requires vigilant oversight. If that criterion was taken alone, we’d have a problem with that.”
That concern echoes those of critics of the Arizona law, which purports to ban racial profiling while requiring police officers who suspect people of being an undocumented immigrants to ask for their citizenship papers. Those parallels are uniting San Francisco officials on the otherwise divisive issue.
Tensions arose between Campos and Herrera’s office following Newsom’s refusal to implement Campos’ due process amendment for immigrant youth, with Campos and immigrant advocates saying Herrera should do more to force its implementation. Now Campos said a renewed push for action could be the silver lining in Arizona’s otherwise bad legal situation.
“I think there has been a respectful disagreement between my office and Herrera’s about just how far they could go,” Campos said. “We believe the city attorney can and should advise Newsom that the Mayor’s Office doesn’t have the authority to do what he is doing [requiring probation officers to notify ICE when juveniles suspected of being undocumented are arrested, in violation of Campos’s legislation]. But I appreciate what the city attorney is doing around Arizona.”
Campos and Herrera note that a boycott proved to be an effective model in forcing Arizona to rethink its refusal to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 20 years ago.
Asked if Arizona’s SB 1070 will change the national immigration debate and the city’s local policy toward immigrant juveniles, Herrera said, “I don’t think anything with respect to the state of our immigration laws could get any worse. Otherwise, we’ll probably end up with draconian policies being put forward by other states.”
Herrera also believes the national debate could allow quicker implementation of San Francisco’s sanctuary city reform, telling us, “Obviously the debate will provide the vehicle to have the discussion to clarify the distinctions between state and federal law.”
Angela Chan, staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, an immigrant advocacy group, hopes the outcry in San Francisco and throughout the country will be the match that lights the fire for humane and comprehensive immigration reform. “We can no longer wait and allow states and local governments to try — often foolishly, like in the case of Arizona — to take matters in their own hands,” she told us.
Chan sees parallels between Arizona and what happened during the civil rights movement when police attacked African American demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala. “When there is gross injustice, the hearts and minds of Americans are moved by these images now, as they were then,” Chan said. “I do believe comprehensive immigration reform will come about, if not now then very soon, as a result.”
But she notes that what is happening in Arizona is not isolated.
“In San Francisco, for almost two years now, we have had a policy instituted by Mayor Newsom that requires probation officers to report youth to ICE based only on ‘reasonable suspicion’ that they are undocumented,” Chan explained, echoing language from the Arizona law. “The good news is, with the mayor’s strong stance against the Arizona bill, it is an opportunity for him to reevaluate his own policies in San Francisco and do the right thing here. San Francisco can and should be a leader on immigrant rights.”
Music listings
Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.
WEDNESDAY 5
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Bane, Alpha and Omega, Wolves and Thieves, Streetwalkers Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12.
*Cannibal Corpse, 1349, Skeletonwitch, Lecherous Nocturne Slim’s. 7:30pm, $28.
Coheed and Cambria, Circa Survive, Torche Warfield. 7pm, $32.
Ferocious Few, Mississipi Man, Sermon, DJ Ted Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $5.
Flobots, Trouble Andrew, Champagne Champagne Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $15.
Guella, Soda Pop Junkies, DudeHouse Hotel Utah. 8pm, $6.
Lambs, Splinters, Honey Knockout. 9pm, $5.
Michael McIntosh Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Ronaldo Morales Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Owen Pallett, Snowblink Independent. 8pm, $16.
Street Pyramids, Watchdawg, Purrs, Symbolick Jews Kimo’s. 9pm.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Bluegrass Country Jam Plough and Stars. 9pm.
Nathan Hamilton McTeague’s Saloon, 1237 Polk, SF; (415) 776-1237. 9pm.
La Colectiva featuring Toqueson Elbo Room. 9pm, $8. With DJs Soniada Diablo, Laonzo, and Rabeat.
Sang Matiz, Trio Paz, Gema de los Deseos El Rio. 8pm, $7.
DANCE CLUBS
Afreaka! Attic, 3336 24th St, SF; (415) 643-3376. 10pm, free. Psychedelic beats from Brazil, Turkey, India, Africa, and across the globe with DJs MAKossa and Om.
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.
Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.
Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.
Q-Burns Abstract Message Triple Crown. 11:30pm, $5. Spinning house.
RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.
Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.
Slump Night Coda. 10pm, free. Hip-hop with L.I. Aspect and DJ Centipede.
Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.
Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.
THURSDAY 6
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Josh Clarke, Naysayers Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.
Dosh, White Hinterland, Baths Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.
Hold Steady Fillmore. 8pm, $25.
Denise Perrier Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Paulie Rhyme Rock-It Room. 8pm, $5.
Reckless Kelly, Brothers Comatose Slim’s. 9pm, $16.
Reuben Rye Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Shondes, Ex-Boyfriends, Excuses for Skipping, Bruises Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.
Mariee Sioux, Dead Western, Aaron Ross Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.
Tussle, Javelin, Bronze Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.
Yung Mars, Mugpush, Karmo, Double Take Coda. 9pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Heather Combs, Elliott Randall, Alden Schell, Jeff Campbell Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.
Savannah Blu Atlas Café. 8pm, free.
Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.
Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.
Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.
Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.
Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.
Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.
Holy Thursday Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Bay Area electronic hip hop producers showcase their cutting edge styles monthly.
Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.
Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro.
Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.
Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.
Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.
Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.
Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.
Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and Sergio.
FRIDAY 7
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
"Battle of the Bands" DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With High Volume Dealer, Baysic Wonder, Apothesary, and more.
Trevor Childs and the Beholders, American Professionals, Headslide Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.
Los Campesinos!, Signals Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $22.
"Devil-Ettes a Go Go" Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10. Dance troupe with live music by the Royal Deuces, Ron Silva and the Monarchs, and Riff Ditties Orchestra.
Fast Times Maggie McGarry’s, 1353 Grant, SF; (415) 399-9020. 9pm, free.
Here Come the Saviours, Victory and Associates, Control-R Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.
Mark Hummel and Rusty Zinn 8 and 10pm, $20.
Impalers, Inciters, Titan-Ups, Revival Sound System Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.
J-Billion, Odd Future Wolf Gang, DJs Mally Jesus and Roost Uno Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.
Menew, Lilofee, Frail Mezzanine. 9pm, $7.
Kally Price Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
Red Sparowes, Fang Island, Oxbow Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14. Acoustic show.
Martin Sexton Fillmore. 9pm, $26.50.
Wallpaper, Oona, DJ Morale Independent. 9pm, $15.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
Conscious Contact Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-32.
Shotgun Wedding Symphony Coda. 10pm, $10.
George Winston Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.gracecathedral.org. 8pm, $36.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
JimBo Trout and the Fishpeople Plough and Stars. 9pm.
Left Coast Special Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.
Braza! Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, $10.
Deeper 222 Hyde, 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 345-8222. 9pm, $10. With rotating DJs spinning dubstep and techno.
Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.
Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.
Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.
Freqo de Mayo Mighty. 10pm, $25. With DJs Tipper, Motion Potion, Absurge, Mycho Cocoa, Victor Vega, Tim Dietz, Big$Bill, and Digital Rust.
Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.
Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.
Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.
Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.
M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.
Mochipet vs. Polish Ambassador and Deceptikon Elbo Room. 10pm, $10-12. Electro.
Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.
Strangelove: Vinyl Night Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF; (415) 703-8965. 9:30pm, $6. With DJs Tomas Diablo, Mitch, Lowlife, Andy T, and more spinning goth and industrial.
SATURDAY 8
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Damn Near Dead Ireland’s 32. 9pm, free.
Aram Danesh and the Superhuman Crew Coda. 10pm, $10.
Drive By Truckers Fillmore. 9pm, $25.
Flakes, Tropical Sleep, Only Sons Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.
Hurricane Bells Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.
Illness, No Captains, Wasteland Saints Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.
*Ludicra, Kowloon Walled City, Fell Voices Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.
Mono, Twilight Sad Slim’s. 9pm, $16.
Kate Nash Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 2pm, free.
Old and In the Way, Ten Mile Tide Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.
Ash Reiter, Dead Westerns, Ian Fays Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.
Eric Sardinas Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Rambler, Fool Proof Four, High Winds Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.
Stanton Moore Trio, Good Band Independent. 9pm, $18.
Tied to the Branches, Aan, Upward House of Shields. 9pm, $6.
Young Offenders, La Urss, N/N, Ruleta Rusa Bender’s, 806 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Aca Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
Emily Anne Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Beth Custer Ensemble Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 454-5238. 8:15pm, $18.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Celina Reyes Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
Mars Arizona, Ken Will Morton Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.
Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with Loo and Placido.
Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7. DJ Nuxx and guests spin for queers and their friends.
Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.
Electricity Knockout. 10pm, $4. Eighties jams with DJs Omar, Deadbeat, Yule B. Sorry, and guest Aidan.
Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.
HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.
Mini Non-Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. Noon-3pm, $5-10. Family-friendly dance party.
Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.
Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.
Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.
Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.
Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $4-10. Electro cumbia with DJs Orion, Disco Shawn, and Oro 11.
SUNDAY 9
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Analog Rebellion, Mansions, Poema Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Cloud Archive, Atomic Bomb Audition, Sleepy Eyes of Death Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Karina Denike Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Fucked Up Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $14.
Lloyd Gregory Biscuits and Blues. 7:30 and 9:30pm, $15.
Sara Haze Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.
Tallest Man on Earth, Nurses Independent. 8pm, $14.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-32.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Jack Gilder, Kevin Bemhagen, Richard Mandel and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.
Kat Parra and the Sephardic Experience Coda. 8pm, $10.
Pa Sevilla Bollyhood Café. 7pm, $15. With DJ Sandrella spinning flamenco rock, rumba, and salsa.
DANCE CLUBS
Autobahn Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9pm, free.
DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Maneesh the Twister and Vinnie Esparza.
Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.
Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?
Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.
Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.
Lonely Teardrops Rock n’ Roll Night Knockout. 9pm, $4. Doo-wop, R&B, jivers, and more with DJs dX the Funky Granpaw and Sergio Iglesias.
Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.
Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.
MONDAY 10
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Alexisonfire, Trash Talk, Therefore I Am, La Dispute Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.
Besnard Lakes, Happy Hollows, New Slave Independent. 8pm, $14.
"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.
Ed Jones Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.
Rattlesnakes, Cellar Doors, Atom Age Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.
*Red Fang, Hot Fog, Hazzard’s Cure Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
DANCE CLUBS
Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.
Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.
Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.
Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.
Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.
Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.
TUESDAY 11
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
*Embers, Ninth Moon Black, Blackwaves, Nero Order Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $8.
Fromagique featuring Bombshell Betty Elbo Room. 9pm, $8. Live music and burlesque.
Tom Goss, Dudley Saunders, Daniel Owens, Jeremiah Clark Metropolitan Community Church, 110 Gough, SF; www.tomgossmusic.com/tickets. 7:30pm, $15.
Hamilton Loomis Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
MC Meathook and the Vital Organs, Hammer Horror Classics, Trashkannon Knockout. 9:30pm, free.
Midnite Independent. 9pm, $28.
Minks, Bang, She’s Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Phantom Kicks, Skeletal Systems, Sunbeam Road Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
*Wiz Khalifa, Fashawn, Jasmine Solano Slim’s. 9pm, $15.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Barry O’Connell, Vinnie Cronin and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ What’s His Fuck, H-Bomb, and Big Dwayne.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.
SFBG radio: Johnny Angel and Tim Redmond on Whitman and SF’s mayor
Johnny Angel Wendell and Tim Redmond talk about Meg Whitman’s oil-spill and immigration policy problems, why Jerry Brown isn’t getting on the stick and why San Franciscans have trouble electing a progressive mayor.
Newsom’s puppet show
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has been doing exactly what Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants at City Hall, is complaining that some of the supervisors are Bay Guardian puppets.
Campos and Mirkarimi pushed the move after the San Francisco Bay Guardian posted an online editorial about two hours before the meeting that ended with:
Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Campos suggest that the board simply refuse to sign off on any contracts, appropriations, or other approvals for anything the SFPUC does until this contract is completed. That’s a fine idea; they should start today.
Newsom blamed the editorial for Tuesday’s parliamentary moves.
“That happened yesterday. Why? Because at (11:44 a.m.) the San Francisco Bay Guardian … wrote an online op-ed saying that’s what they should do,” Newsom said. “I’ve never seen puppeteering like this is my life.”
I’m glad to know we’re so immensely powerful, cuz man, do I have an agenda. Now that the supervisors are going to do everything we want, I’m going to pull some strings and get maybe $1 billion in new taxes on the rich, to fund free Muni for all, and take over not just PG&E’s sytem but Comcast, too — municipal broadband and cable TV! And a moratorium on all new market rate condos, and a massive bond act to build 10,00 new units of affordable housing … let’s do it! Now!
And as soon as the mayor starts doing what we say, too, it’s all possible!
Now then: Let’s be serious here for a moment. Our editorial simply endorsed an idea that Campos and Mirkarimi were already pushing; they were planning to introduce their measure anyway. We just said it was a good idea. And although I haven’t talked to Mirkarimi today, I know that Campos hadn’t even read the editorial when he went into the board meeting.
Not that the Guardian editorials aren’t brilliant,influential, and important, and I’d like to think that city officials read them and are impressed by the logic and cogency of our arguments, but I’m afraid we can’t take credit for everything good the progressive supervisors do.
And it’s a little odd for a mayor who is clearly doing PG&E’s will to be calling someone else a puppet.
CounterPULSE’s three day maypole
It’s a big weekend for celebration. May 1st is International Worker’s Day, it’s the day when winter has finally left the Northern Hemisphere building, and marks the dawn dances of the pagan Beltane. All in all, it’s an apt time for rejoicing in the people and places what that make our world beautiful.
And given that we’re in the Bay, one of the Earth’s great cradles of populist art, there may be no better place to do that than CounterPULSE, the community art performance space that is celebrating 20 years (five in their current location) of helping cool artist do what they do. CounterPULSE has been sponsoring classes, performances, and residencies for some of our most progressive and exciting artists over the past decades — and they’re making it easy for you to throw some dough their way with three days of diverse, exciting programming that could really only happen here in San Francisco
“We’ve planned the weekend with three events that show the three sides of CounterPULSE,” says PULSE Executive Director, Jessica Robinson Love. In her ten years with the group, Love has seen it through a relocation from it’s old haunts of 848 Community Space to it’s current perch on Mission Street, as well as a tenfold increase in budget.
Simply put, here’s the schedule: Friday = politics, Saturday = art as experience, Sunday = movement. But screw putting it simply — it’s all so much fun that you should hear about each night in detail:
Friday: “This night is going to be about really big issues, but it will be a really fun show,” says Robinson Love of CounterPULSE’s political agitprop cabaret night, which highlights the center’s focus on free speech. The San Francisco Mime Troupe will be performing, along with W. Kamau Bell, famous for racially charged comedic performances, and porn star Annie Sprinkle.
Saturday: “We’re calling it the Happening — we modeled Saturday on the Andy Warhol events at the Factory. It’ll be a sequence of surprises,” says Robinson Love. Wandering attendees will bumble about from room to room — a trapeze artist here, crocheting there, Fauxnique over yonder, maybe even bumping into Philip Huang to hear a rant about Jesus Christ and Pink Floyd keeping Jews and homosexuals off the moon.
Sunday: Dance party! “It’s all our favorite dance companies from the Bay area,” Robinson Love tells me. Tapping their feet to the beat will be many of the groups that CounterPULSE has provided a warm nest to over the years, who are now flapping their wings mightly around the city. Among those that will be represented; ODC Dance, Axis, and the Joe Goode Performance Group.
May Day @ CounterPULSE
Fri/30 – Sun/2 8 p.m., $25-200
CounterPULSE
1310 Mission, SF
(415) 626-2060
www.counterpulse.org
ENDORSEMENTS: Judicial races
SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, SEAT 6
LINDA COLFAX
It’s rare to see an open seat on the Superior Court; judges typically retire midterm and allow the governor to appoint their replacement. And with a Republican governor, the more progressive Democrats have had a hard time getting even close to judicial appointments. Four highly qualified candidates are seeking this seat, and all of them make good cases for election.
Since judicial candidates can’t take stands on most political issues or indicate how they might rule on cases, it’s hard to get a sense of where the candidates stand. But they can talk about their backgrounds and experience — and about how the local courts are run. For example, the Superior Court is managed on a day-to-day basis by a presiding judge, elected by the sitting judges on the San Francisco bench. But those elections are secret; nobody except the judges know who the candidates were; who voted for which one; or what the final tally was. Court administration is done in closed meetings. Most of what happens in the courts is public — but there’s no presumption of cameras in the courtrooms to give the public access to the justice system.
Our choices for judge reflect our interest in a diverse judiciary, judges who have both professional and personal experience that will shape fair decisions — and jurists who believe in open government, including open courts.
Our choice for Seat 6 is Linda Colfax, a deputy public defender with a background in community service (she’s been an ACLU board member) and progressive politics. Like all four candidates, she has impressive legal credentials and trial experience. She also strongly supports sunshine in the courts and told us she would allow the press and public into judges’ meetings when appropriate, supports cameras in the courtrooms (except for cases where a witness or crime victim has to be protected), and efforts to make the courts work more efficiently.
Robert Retana, who grew up in East Los Angeles, has worked in both civil and criminal law, as a prosecutor and a civil litigator. He also has extensive community service with La Raza Centro Legal and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights. He was awfully vague on cameras in the courtroom and didn’t seem well-informed on open-government issues, but he’s certainly qualified for the job.
Rod Mcleod, a former San Francisco School Board member, told us he won’t raise any money for this race since he thinks judges shouldn’t be captive to special interests. That’s noble, but it also makes it unlikely he’ll be a factor in the end.
Harry Dorfman, a career prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office, has extensive trial experience but was the least willing of all the candidates we interviewed to expand public access to the courts.
Colfax has the endorsements of Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, Sen. Mark Leno, and Sups. David Campos, John Avalos, and Eric Mar, among others. She would also diversify the bench in a significant way, not just because she’s a lesbian but because she spent her career in the Public Defender’s Office. And since Democratic and Republican governors alike tend not to appoint public defenders to the bench, that background and perspective is rare. Vote for Colfax.
SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, SEAT 15
MICHAEL NAVA
Another rarity here: a contested race where challengers are taking on a sitting judge. Richard Ulmer, the incumbent, was a Republican living in Hillsborough when Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed him to the bench last year; he quickly changed his registration to independent and took up residence in Park Merced. But two gay men, Michael Nava and Daniel Dean, saw him as potentially vulnerable and, noting the lack of LGBT appointments coming out of the current administration, filed to challenge Ulmer.
Ulmer’s a smart and appealing person with an impressive legal resume, and we see no scandal that would mandate his removal from office. But we also recognize that this is an elected office, and that it’s perfectly acceptable for candidates who think they would better serve the public and the bench to run against an incumbent. In this case, we’re endorsing Michael Nava.
Nava, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, makes the case that judicial appointments can be just as political as elections: out of some 500 judicial appointments, Schwarzenegger has named perhaps five openly LGBT candidates. Nava also would bring a different perspective to the courts. His career has been in the public sector and he currently works as a staff attorney drafting decisions for Superior Court Justice Carlos Moreno. More than anyone else running for judge this year, Nava is an advocate of openness in the judiciary. He told us the courts are the third branch of government and should be held to most of the same sunshine standards at the executive and legislature.
Daniel Dean also makes a compelling case and has extensive courtroom experience as a litigator and judge pro tem. His accessibility and sense of humor would serve him well on the bench, and we hope he continues to seek a judicial slot. But in this race, we’re endorsing Nava.
ENDORSEMENTS: San Francisco ballot measures
PROPOSITION A
SCHOOL FACILITIES SPECIAL TAX
YES
This measure would extend a 1990 parcel tax that expires in 2010 by another 20 years, keeping it at its current rate ($32 a year for single family homes and commercial enterprises, $16 a year per dwelling unit for mixed use buildings). The tax brings in $7 million a year for San Francisco school facilities and would finance seismic upgrades, structural strengthening and related improvements of its facilities, and child care centers. Vote yes.
PROPOSITION B
EARTHQUAKE SAFETY AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE BONDS
YES
It’s hard to argue against a $430 million bond act to upgrade police, fire, and water facilities to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the city’s most basic public safety infrastructure in the event of an inevitable earthquake. Hard — but not impossible: Sup. Chris Daly, the lone vote against Prop. B, points out that the bond money would be used to upgrade police stations but that the old County Jail at 850 Bryant St. wouldn’t get any help. Prisoners, it seems (even those who are awaiting trial and have been convicted of nothing) aren’t worth protecting. And the Fire Department has been very hazy about where it’s going to spend the cash. So we’ve got some concerns here — but on balance, we’re endorsing Yes on B.
PROPOSITION C
FILM COMMISSION
YES
By some accounts, this measure was put together in retaliation for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s November 2009 demand that Film Commission executive director Stefanie Coyote resign — shortly after her husband, actor Peter Coyote, supported Attorney General Jerry Brown over Newsom for governor. But Bill Barnes, who works as a legislative aide for Newsom ally Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, the author of Prop. C, says Alioto-Pier was working on this measure even before Coyote got ousted.
Either way, it’s a positive step. Prop. C would streamline a convoluted permitting process for shooting films in San Francisco — a process that can involve multiple departments — and would create a one-stop shop. It would also split the power to appoint the film commissioners between the mayor and the board (6-5, respectively), and require that all 11 commissioners have specific qualifications or experience. Vote yes.
PROPOSITION D
RETIREMENT BENEFITS
YES
Prop. D is a compromise. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wanted to reform the city’s pension system by mandating higher employee contributions and an end to what’s known as “spiking” — giving some employees a big raise just before they retire. Under current law, that worker would get a pension based on the inflated salary.
Elsbernd wanted to change the calculation and base pensions on an average of the final three years of salary an employee earned. Labor countered that some lower-paid workers only reach their top pay at the end of their careers. The final deal would base pensions on a two-year average. Prop. D would also require future employees to contribute and extra 2 percent to their pensions and require the city to set aside some money every year for the pension and retiree health care systems. In the end, progressive Sups. David Campos and Eric Mar signed on, and the city employee unions aren’t opposed. Vote yes.
PROPOSITION E
BUDGET LINE ITEM FOR POLICE SECURITY
YES
Prop. E would make one simple tweak to the reporting requirements for San Francisco’s annual city budget: a line-item on how much is spent on security for city officials and visiting dignitaries. As things stand, the amount the police department spends to protect people like, oh, say Mayor Gavin Newsom while he is crisscrossing the state campaigning for (lieutenant) governor is kept secret. That’s information the public has a right to know. Vote yes.
PROPOSITION F
RENTERS’ FINANCIAL HARDSHIP APPLICATIONS
YES
Prop. F would allow a tenant facing a rent increase to file a petition with the Rent Board claiming financial hardship. If the tenant was unemployed, or had his or her wages cut by 20 percent or more, or didn’t get a cost of living increase in government benefits and was paying at least 33 percent of his or her income as rent, the rent hike would be delayed for 60 days pending a hearing. If the renter can establish hardship, the landlord would have to hold off on the increase until the tenant’s employment or benefit situation improved. Few San Francisco landlords would be hurt by the delay in what are typically modest rent hikes — but a lot of tenants could avoid eviction. Vote yes.
PROPOSITION G
TRANSBAY TRANSIT CENTER
YES
Prop. G, a policy statement, became a moot point earlier this year, but it’s still good for San Franciscans to affirm the city’s support for bringing high-speed rail service downtown. The California High-Speed Rail Project is moving to create bullet train service from SF to downtown Los Angeles using bond money approved by voters in 2008. Even though that bond measure named the Transbay Terminal as the northern terminus of the first phase, some officials raised doubts about whether the downtown location was the best choice. That rail service was integral to plans for the transit center, which is currently being rebuilt, so the Board of Supervisors placed this measure on the ballot to support that choice. Earlier this month, the California High-Speed Rail Authority considered other alternatives and voted to stay with the Transbay Terminal. That’s the right way to go; vote yes.
ENDORSEMENTS: National and state races
Editor’s note: the file below contains a correction, updated May 5 2010.
National races
U.S. SENATE, DEMOCRAT
BARBARA BOXER
The Republican Party is targeting this race as one of its top national priorities, and if the GOP can dislodge a three-term senator from California, it will be a major blow for the party (and agenda) of President Obama. The pundits are happily talking about how much danger Barbara Boxer faces, how the country’s mood is swinging against big-government liberals.
But it’s always a mistake to count out Boxer. In 1982, as a Marin County supervisor with little name recognition in San Francisco, she trounced then-SF Sup. Louise Renne for an open Congressional seat. Ten years later, she beat the odds and won a hotly contested primary and tough general election to move into the Senate. She’s a fierce campaigner, and with no primary opposition, will have a united party behind her.
Boxer is one of the most progressive members of the not-terribly progressive U.S. Senate. She’s been one of the strongest, most consistent supporters of reproductive rights in Washington and a friend of labor (with 100 percent ratings from the AFL-CIO and National Education Association). We’ve had our disagreements: Boxer supported No Child Left Behind, wrote the law allowing airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit, and was weak on same-sex marriage when San Francisco sought to legalize it (although she’s come around). But she was an early and stalwart foe of the war in Iraq, split with her own party to oppose a crackdown on illegal immigration, and is leading the way on accountability for Wall Street. She richly deserves reelection, and we’re happy to endorse her.
CONGRESS, 6TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT
LYNN WOOLSEY
It’s odd that the representative from Marin and Sonoma counties is more progressive by far than her colleague to the south, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi. But over the years, Lynn Woolsey has been one of the strongest opponents of the war, a voice against bailouts for the big Wall Street banks, and a foe of cuts in the social safety net. We’re proud to endorse her for another term.
CONGRESS, 7TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT
GEORGE MILLER
George Miller has been representing this East Bay district since 1974, and is now the chair of the Education and Labor Committee and a powerhouse in Congress. He’s too prone to compromise (with George W. Bush on education policy) but is taking the right line on California water (while Sen. Dianne Feinstein is on the wrong side). We’ll endorse him for another term.
CONGRESS, 8TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT
NANCY PELOSI
We’ve never been terribly pleased with San Francisco’s most prominent Congressional representative. Nancy Pelosi was the author of the bill that created the first privatized national park at the Presidio, setting a horrible standard that parks ought to be about making money. She was weak on opposing the war, ducked same-sex marriage, and has used her clout locally for all the wrong candidates and issues. But we have to give her credit for resurrecting and pushing through the health care bill (bad as it was — and it’s pretty bad — it’s better than doing nothing). And, at a time when the Republicans are trying to derail the Obama presidency, she’s become a pretty effective partner for the president.
Her fate as speaker (and her future in this seat) probably depends on how the Democrats fare in the midterm Congressional elections this fall. But if she and the party survive in decent shape, she needs to take the opportunity to undo the damage she did at the Presidio.
CONGRESS, 9TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT
BARBARA LEE
Barbara Lee, who represents Berkeley and Oakland, is co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, one of the most consistent liberal votes in Congress, and a hero to the antiwar movement. In 2001, she was the only member of either house to oppose the Bush administration’s Use of Force resolution following the 9/11 attacks, and she’s never let up on her opposition to foolish military entanglements. We’re glad she’s doing what Nancy Pelosi won’t — represent the progressive politics of her district in Washington.
CONGRESS, 13TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT
PETE STARK
Most politicians mellow and get more moderate as they age; Stark is the opposite. He announced a couple of years ago that he’s an atheist (the only one in Congress), opposed the Iraq war early, called one of his colleagues a whore for the insurance industry, and insulted President Bush and refused to apologize, saying: “I may have dishonored the commander-in-chief, but I think he’s done pretty well to dishonor himself without any help from me.” He served as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee for exactly one day — March 3 — before the Democratic membership overruled Speaker Pelosi and chucked him out on the grounds that he was too inflammatory. The 78-year-old may not be in office much longer, but he’s good on all the major issues. He’s also fearless. If he wants another term, he deserves one.
State races
GOVERNOR, DEMOCRAT
EDMUND G. BROWN
Jerry Brown? Which Jerry Brown? The small-is-beautiful environmentalist from the 1970s who opposed Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon nuke and created the California Conservation Corps, the Office of Appropriate Technology, and the Farm Labor Relations Board (all while running a huge budget surplus in Sacramento)? The angry populist who lashed out at corporate power on a KPFA radio talk show and ran against Bill Clinton for president? The pro-development mayor of Oakland who sided with the cops on crime issues and opened a military academy? Or the tough-on-crime attorney general who refuses to even talk about tax increases to solve the state’s gargantuan budget problems?
We don’t know. That’s the problem with Brown — you never know what he’ll do or say next. For now, he’s been a terribly disappointing candidate, running to the right, rambling on about preserving Proposition 13, making awful statements about immigration and sanctuary laws, and even sounding soft on environmental issues. He’s started to hit his stride lately, though, attacking likely GOP contender Meg Whitman over her ties to Wall Street and we’re seeing a few flashes of the populist Brown. But he’s got to step it up if he wants to win — and he’s got to get serious about taxes and show some budget leadership, if he wants to make a difference as governor.
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, DEMOCRAT
JANICE HAHN
Not an easy choice, by any means.
Mayor Gavin Newsom jumped into this race only after it became clear that he wouldn’t get elected governor. He sees it as a temporary perch, someplace to park his political ambitions until a better office opens up. He’s got the money, the statewide name recognition, and the endorsement of some of the state’s major power players, including both U.S. Senators and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He’s also been a terrible mayor of San Francisco — and some progressives (like Sup. Chris Daly) argue, persuasively, that the best way to get a better person in Room 200 is to ship Newsom off to an office in Sacramento where he can’t do much harm and let the supervisors pick the next mayor.
But it’s hard to endorse Newsom for any higher office. He’s ducked on public power, allowing PG&E to come very close to blocking the city’s community choice aggregation program (See editorial, page 5). His policies have promoted deporting kids and breaking up families. He’s taken an approach to the city budget — no new revenue, just cuts — that’s similar to what the Republican governor has done. He didn’t even bother to come down and talk to us about this race. There’s really no good argument for supporting the advancement of his political career.
Then there’s Janice Hahn. She’s a Los Angeles City Council member, the daughter of a former county supervisor, and the sister of a former mayor. She got in this race way before Newsom, and her nightmare campaign consultant, Garry South, acts as if she has some divine right to be the only Democrat running.
Hahn in not overly impressive as a candidate. When we met her, she seemed confused about some issues and scrambled to duck others. She told us she’s not sure she’s in favor of legalizing pot, but she isn’t sure why she’s not sure since she has no arguments against it. She won’t take a position on a new peripheral canal, although she can’t defend building one and says that protecting San Francisco Bay has to be a priority. She won’t rule out offshore oil drilling, although she said she has yet to see a proposal she can support. Her main economic development proposal was to bring more film industry work to California, even if that means cutting taxes for the studios or locating the shoots on Indian land where there are fewer regulations.
On the other hand, she told us she wants to get rid of the two-thirds threshold in the state Legislature for passing a budget or raising taxes. She supports reinstating the car tax at pre-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger levels. She supports a split-roll measure to reform Prop. 13. She wants to see an oil-severance tax to fund education. She’s one of the few statewide candidates who openly advocates higher taxes on the wealthy as part of the solution to the budget crisis.
We are under no illusions that Hahn will be able to use the weak office of lieutenant governor to move on any of these issues, and we’re not at all sure she’s ready to take over the top spot. But on the issues, she’s clearly better than Newsom, so she gets our endorsements.
SECRETARY OF STATE, DEMOCRAT
DEBRA BOWEN
Debra Bowen is the only Democrat running, a sign that pretty much everyone in the party thinks she’s doing a fine job as Secretary of State. She’s run a clean office and we see no reason to replace her.
CONTROLLER, DEMOCRAT
JOHN CHIANG
Like Bowen, John Chiang has no opposition in the primary, and he’s been a perfectly adequate controller. In fact, when Gov. Schwarzenegger tried two years ago to cut the pay of thousands of state employees to the minimum wage level, Chiang defied him and refused to change the paychecks — a move that forced the governor to back down. We just wish he’d play a more visible role in talking about the need for more tax revenue to balance the state’s books.
TREASURER, DEMOCRAT
BILL LOCKYER
Bill Lockyer keeps bouncing around Sacramento, waiting, perhaps, for his chance to be governor. He was attorney general. Now he’s treasurer seeking a second term, which he will almost certainly win. He’s done some good things, including trying to use state bonds to promote alternative energy, and has spoken out forcefully about the governor’s efforts to defer deficit problems through dubious borrowing. He hasn’t, however, come out in favor of higher taxes for the rich or a change in Prop. 13.
ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEMOCRAT
KAMALA HARRIS
There are really only two serious candidates in this race, Kamala Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, and Rocky Delgadillo, the former Los Angeles city attorney. Harris has a comfortable lead, with Delgadillo in second and the others far behind.
Delgadillo is on his second try for this office. He ran against Jerry Brown four years ago and got nowhere. And in the meantime, he’s come under fire for, among other things, using city employees to run personal errands for him (picking up his dry-cleaning, babysitting his kids) and driving his car without insurance. On a more significant level, he made his reputation with gang injunctions that smacked of ethnic profiling and infuriated Latino and civil liberties groups. It’s amazing he’s still a factor in this race; he can’t possibly win the general election with all his baggage.
Harris has a lot going for her. She was among the first California elected officials to endorse Barack Obama for president, and remains close to the administration. She’s a smart, articulate prosecutor and could be one of the few women atop the Democratic ticket this year. We were never comfortable with her ties to Willie Brown, but he’s no longer a factor in state or local politics. These days, she’s more closely allied with the likes of State Sen. Mark Leno.
That said, we have some serious problems with Harris. She’s been up in Sacramento pushing Republican-style tough-on-crime bills (like a measure that would bar registered sex offenders from ever using social networking sites on the Internet) and forcing sane Democrats like Assembly Member and Public Safety Committee Chair Tom Ammiano to try to tone down or kill them (and then take the political heat). If she didn’t know about the problems in the SFPD crime lab, she should have, and should have made a bigger fuss, earlier.
But Harris has kept her principled position against the death penalty, even when it meant taking immense flak from the cops for refusing to seek capital punishment for the killer of a San Francisco police officer. She’s clearly the best choice for the Democrats.
INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, DEMOCRAT
DAVE JONES
Two credible progressives are vying to run for this powerful and important position regulating the massive — and massively corrupt — California insurance industry. Dave Jones and Hector De La Torre are both in the state Assembly, with Jones representing Sacramento and De La Torre hailing from Los Angeles. Both have a record opposing insurance industry initiatives; both are outspoken foes of Prop. 17; and either would do a fine job as insurance commissioner. But Jones has more experience on consumer issues and health care reform, and we prefer his background as a Legal Aid lawyer to De La Torre’s history as a Southern California Edison executive. So we’ll give Jones the nod.
BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, DISTRICT 1, DEMOCRAT
BETTY T. YEE
Betty Yee has taken over a job that’s been a stronghold of progressive tax policy since the days of the late Bill Bennett. She’s done well in the position, supporting progressive financial measures and even coming down, as a top tax official, in favor of legalizing (and taxing) marijuana. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
TOM TORLAKSON
Two prominent Democratic legislators are running for this nonpartisan post, state Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles and Assembly Member Tom Torlakson of Martinez. It’s a pretty clear choice: Romero is a big supporter of charter schools who thinks parents should be able to move their kids out of one school district and into another (allowing wealthier white parents, for example, to abandon Los Angeles or San Francisco for the suburban districts). She’s been supported in the past by Don and Doris Fisher, who put a chunk of their GAP Inc. fortune into school privatization efforts. Torlakson wants more accountability for charters, opposes the Romero district-option bill, and has the support of every major teachers union in the state. Vote for Torlakson.
STATE SENATE, DISTRICT 8, DEMOCRAT
LELAND YEE
Sen. Leland Yee can be infuriating. Two years ago, he was hell-bent on selling the Cow Palace as surplus state property and allowing private developers to take it over. In the recent budget crisis, he pissed off his Democratic colleagues by refusing to vote for cuts that everyone else knew were inevitable (while never making a strong stand in favor of, say, repealing Prop. 13 or raising other taxes). But he’s always been good on open-government issues and has made headlines lately for busting California State University, Stanislaus over a secret contract to bring Sarah Palin in for a fundraiser — and has raised the larger point that public universities shouldn’t hide their finances behind private foundations.
Yee will have no serious opposition for reelection, and his campaign for a second term in Sacramento is really the start of the Leland Yee for Mayor effort. With reservations over the Cow Palace deal and a few other issues, we’ll endorse him for reelection.
Correction update: Yee’s office informs us that the senator suports an oil-severance tax and a tax on high-income earners and “believes that Prop. 13 should be reformed,” although he hasn’t taken a position on Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s reform bill.
STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 12, DEMOCRAT
FIONA MA
Fiona Ma’s a mixed bag (at best). She doesn’t like Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and supports public power, but comes up with strange bills that make no sense, like a 2009 measure to limit rent control in trailer parks. Why does Ma, who has no trailer parks in her district, care? Maybe because the landlords who control the mobile home facilities gave her some campaign cash. She faces no opposition, and we’re not thrilled with her record, but we’ll reluctantly back her for another term.
STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 13, DEMOCRAT
TOM AMMIANO
When the history of progressive politics in modern San Francisco is written, Tom Ammiano will be a central figure. His long-shot 1999 mayoral campaign against Willie Brown brought the left to life in town, and his leadership helped bring back district elections and put a progressive Board of Supervisors in place in 2000. As a supervisor, he authored the city’s landmark health care bill (which Newsom constantly tries to take credit for) and the rainy day fund (which saved the public schools from debilitating cuts). He uses his local influence to promote the right causes, issues, and candidates.
And he’s turned out to be an excellent member of the state Assembly. He forced BART to take seriously civilian oversight of the transit police force. He put the battle to reform Prop. 13 with a split-role measure back on the state agenda. And his efforts to legalize and tax marijuana are close to making California the first state to toss the insane pot laws. As chair of the Public Safety Committee, he routinely defies the police lobbies and the right-wing Republicans and defuses truly awful legislation. We’re glad Ammiano’s still fighting in the good fight, and we’re pleased to endorse him for another term.
STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 14, DEMOCRAT
NANCY SKINNER
Nancy Skinner has taken on one of the toughest, and for small businesses, most important, battles in Sacramento. She wants to make out-of-state companies that sell products to Californians collect and remit sales tax. If you buy a book at your local bookstore, you have to pay sales tax; if you buy it from Amazon, it’s tax-free. That not only hurts the state, which loses hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue, it’s a competitive disadvantage to local shops. Skinner’s a good progressive vote and an ally for Ammiano on the Public Safety Committee. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.
STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 16, DEMOCRAT
SANDRE SWANSON
Sandre Swanson represents the district where BART police killed Oscar Grant, but he wasn’t the one out front pushing for more civilian accountability; that was left to SF’s Ammiano. And while Swanson was generally supportive of Ammiano’s bill, he was hardly a leader in the campaign to pass it. This is too bad, because Swanson’s almost always a progressive vote and has been good on issues like whistleblower protection (a Swanson bill that passed this year protects local government workers who want to report problems confidentially). We’ll endorse him for another term, but he needs to get tougher on the BART police.
Burning the Man
steve@sfbg.com
Paul Addis is like the Man he burned: a symbol onto which people project their views of Burning Man, the San Francisco-born event that has become the most enduring countercultural phenomenon of this era. This summer, with the building of Black Rock City in the Nevada desert, marks the 25th annual event.
When Addis illegally torched Burning Man’s eponymous central icon during the Monday night lunar eclipse in 2007, he was either injecting much-needed chaos back into the calcified event; indulging in a dangerous, destructive, and delusional ego trip; or he was simply crazy, depending on the perspective of current and former burners who are still quite animated in their opinions about Addis and his act in online forums.
But Addis is also just a man, one who paid a heavy price to make his statement. After pleading guilty to a destruction of property charge in Nevada court, which became a felony after Burning Man leaders testified to more than $30,000 in damages from having to rebuild the icon, Addis served nearly two years in prison.
Addis was released late last year and recently returned to San Francisco, where this performance artist will debut his new solo show, “Dystopian Veneer,” at The Dark Room on April 30 (a second show is set for May 7). While Addis insists he didn’t seek the notoriety that came from getting caught, it’s clear he relishes this outlaw role, which follows naturally from his last stage incarnation as gun-loving journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
In a nearly three-hour interview with the Guardian, Addis described that fateful night and its implications, as well as why he turned on an event he once loved.
BURNING MAN GROWS UP
Addis first attended Burning Man in 1996, the last year in which anarchy and danger truly reigned, when a tragic death and serious injuries caused Burning Man organizers to impose a civic structure and rules, such as bans on firearms and high-speed driving, on future events.
Addis said he immediately became “a true believer,” seeing Burning Man as both a revolutionary experiment in free expression and political empowerment, and as a “wild, risk-taking thing for pure visceral power.” He came from what he called the “San Francisco arts underground” and had a libertarian’s love for guns, drugs, and explosives, but a progressive’s opposition to war and consumer culture.
“When you go to Burning Man, everyone has that feeling at a certain point in time. It is the most incredible thing you’ve been at. You do see the possibilities laid out in front of you,” Addis told me.
Addis poured himself into the event, but became frustrated with the rules and restrictions after three years and stopped going to Burning Man, although he remained in its orbit and closely followed it.
“There are some people who go to Burning Man who have extraordinary ideas and they are extraordinary people. They embody the type of concern and substantial action that I found so wonderfully possible in those early years. And to those people, thank you for what you do. But they are a minority,” Addis said.
Addis shared the anarchist mindset of John Law, who led Burning Man to the Black Rock Desert then left the event in frustration with its growing scale and popularity and never returned after 1996.
“Paul Addis’ early burning of the corporate logo of the Burning Man event last year was the single most pure act of ‘radical self expression’ to occur at this massive hipster tail-gate party in over a decade,” Law wrote on a Laughing Squid blog post after Addis’ sentencing hearing in 2008, one of 185 spirited comments on both sides of the debate.
Among this growing group of Burning Man haters and malcontents, which included self-imposed exiles like Law and provocateur attendees like Chicken John (see “State of the Art,” 12/20/04), there was always talk about burning the Man early as the ultimate strike against how ordered the event had become.
“Everyone knew it needed to be done for lots of reasons,” Addis said of his arson attack. So he returned to Burning Man in 2007 with the sole purpose of torching the Man in order to “bring back that level of unpredictable excitement, that verve, that ‘what’s going to happen next?’ feeling, because it had gotten orchestrated and scripted.”
TORCHING THE ICON
Addis can be very grandiose and self-important, prone to presenting himself in heroic terms or as the innocent victim of other people’s conspiracies, such as the police in Seattle and San Francisco who arrested him for possession of weapons and fireworks in separate instances within weeks of his arrest at Burning Man. But when it came to burning the Man, Addis was purposeful.
“Obviously a gesture like burning down Burning Man is very dangerous and very provocative. From my perspective, the No. 1 concern was safety. No one could get hurt unless it was me,” Addis said. Critics of the arson attack often note how dangerous it was, pointing out that there were a dozen or so people under the Man when it caught fire. But Addis said that he was on site for at least 30 minutes beforehand, encouraging people to move back with mixed results, shirtless and wearing the red, black, and white face paint that would later make for such an iconic mug shot.
As a full lunar eclipse overhead darkened the playa and set the stage for his act, Addis waited for his cue: someone, whom Addis won’t identify, was going to cut the lights that illuminated the Burning Man and give him at least 15 minutes to do his deed in darkness.
“I didn’t do this alone,” Addis said. “The lights were cut by someone else… The lights were cut to camouflage my ascent.”
Unfortunately for Addis, the operation didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped. He miscalcuated the tension in a guide-wire he planned to climb and the difficulty in using the zip-ties that attached a tent flap to it as steps, slowly pulling himself up the wire “hand over hand.”
Once he reached the platform at the bottom of one leg, “I reached for this bottle of homemade napalm that I made for an igniter and it’s gone,” dropped during his ascent. And his backup plan of using burlap and lighter fluid took a long time when he couldn’t get his Bic lighter to work under the 15 mph wind.
Then the lights came back on. “And now I know I’m exposed. Because the whole thing was not to get famous for doing this. It was to get away and have it be a mystery. That was the goal,” Addis said.
But then Addis got the fire going and it quickly spread up the Man’s leg, and Addis used nylon safety cables to slide down the guide-wire like a zip-line. “I landed perfectly right in front of two Black Rock Rangers who watched me come down,” Addis said. “And I turned to them and said, ‘Your man is on fire.'<0x2009>”
Addis said he was “furious” to see about nine people still under the burning structure, blaming the rangers and yelling at the people to clear the area before declaring, “This is radical free speech at Burning Man” and taking off running. Addis said he stopped at the Steam Punk Treehouse art exhibit, hoping to get lost in the crowd, but headlights converged on his location. He ran again, with a ranger close behind, and was finally caught, arrested, and taken to Pershing County Jail.
AFTERMATH
The arson attack made international news, and there were enough Addis’ supporters out there to convey the message that this was a political statement against the leadership of event founder Larry Harvey and Black Rock City LLC.
But those who run the event didn’t buy into Addis’ narrative. Instead, they ordered new materials to have the Man rebuilt and burned on schedule. And when it came time to testify at his sentencing hearing a year later, they sent LLC board member Will Roger and a tally for replacement costs that greatly exceeded the $5,000 level that bumped the charges up to a felony.
“They didn’t have to do this,” Addis said. “Instead, they decided to deliberately take action they knew would send me to prison.”
Burning Man spokesperson Marian Goodell wouldn’t discuss the charge. “It doesn’t do us or him any good to open that wound again.”
But an internal memo written by Executive Project Manager Ray Allen shortly after the hearing argued that they were required to respond honestly to requests for information from prosecutors and to do otherwise would have required perjury on behalf of an adversary.
“Part of putting on the Burning Man event means maintaining good relations with Pershing County so that we can continue to have the Burning Man event on BLM land within that county. Good relations means cooperating with criminal prosecutions,” Allen wrote to Burning Man employees.
Many of those employees remain profoundly offended by Addis and his act, mostly for the extra work it caused and the principle of such a selfish gesture. “The basic ethos out there is build your own stuff, burn your own stuff,” said Andy Moore, a.k.a. Bruiser, an employee since 2001 who helps build the city. “How would you have felt if he went to your house and burned it down because he didn’t like you?”
Yet as viscerally angry as Moore can still get when speaking of Addis, he also agreed that two years is a long prison term for this. “It seems a bit over the top. After all, it was a structure made of wood that was meant to burn.”
But Addis said that he has let go of the bitterness he felt toward Burning Man and is looking forward to being back on stage, something that he said was his main focus in prison. “It’s a brand new life, and I’ve got all this potential,” Addis said. “And I want to make the most out of it.”
Music listings
Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.
WEDNESDAY 28
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
*Aesop, Venture Capitalists, New Humans Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Fix My Head, This Runs on Blood, Useless Children, Gain to Lose Sub-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 9pm, $6.
*"Full Pink Moon Party" Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10. With Sonya Cotton, Honeycomb, Jascha vs. Jascha, and Kris Gruen.
Japanther, Reaction, Dirty Marquee, Street Eaters Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.
Pomegranate, Fall Risk, Control-R Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $6.
Chad Price, Michael Dean Damron, Micah Schabnel, Piss Pissdofferson Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $5.
Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Funk Revival Orchestra Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.
Volker Strifler Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Anoushka Shankar Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 563-6504. 8pm, $25-$65.
DANCE CLUBS
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Omar, Nako, and Justin.
Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.
Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.
Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.
RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.
Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.
Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.
Telephoned Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.harlotsf.com. 7pm. Mash-ups with DJ Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn.
Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.
THURSDAY 29
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Aquaserge, Casper and the Cookies, Grand Lake Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
Arcadio, Guns for San Sebastian, Charles Gonzalez Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.
C-Mon and Kypski, Frequency, Sweet Snacks, DJ Mancub Independent. 9pm, $12.
A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, Silverstein, Enter Shikari, Go Radio Regency Ballroom. 6:45pm, $23.
Dunes El Rio. 8pm, $5.
Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.
Flood, Hashishian, Days of High Adventure Knockout. 10pm, $6.
49 Special, Big Nasty, TV Mike and the Scarecrowes Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.
Emily McLean, Quinn DeVeaux, Street Sirens Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.
Murs, Sick Jacken Fillmore. 8pm, $20.
Photo Atlas, Moog, Smile Radio Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.
Spill Canvas, Tyler Hilton, AM Taxi, New Politics Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.
Sugar and Gold, Nite Jewel, Baron Von Luxxury, DJ Loose Shus Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Sugar Butt Tiger, Bare Wires, Girl Band, MC Meathook and the Vital Organs, SF Rockstar Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Proceeds benefit the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.
Emily Jane White, Helene Renault, Chloe Makes Music Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Bluegrass and old-time jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.
Jordan Carp Bollyhood Café. 8pm, free.
Jon Rubin with Cal Keaoola Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; (415) 826-6200. 8pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with a live performance by Aphrodesia.
Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.
Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.
Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.
Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.
Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.
Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.
Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.
FRIDAY 30
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
David Baron, Dan Vickrey, Blackstone Heist, American Studies Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.
Clipd Beaks, Sightings, Bill Orcutt Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
Flexx Bronco, My Revolver, Bourbon Saints, Electric Sister Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.
JFP, Cnote, Mack Misstress El Rio. 10pm, $5.
Kapakahi, Dogman Joe, Stranger Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.
Lemonade, Solid Gold, Active Child, DJ Aaron Axelsen Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.
Lord T. and Eloise, Tenderloins, Hottub DJ Set Independent. 9pm, $14.
Ponys, Disappears, Spencey Dude and the Doodles Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.
Rogue Wave, Man/Miracle Fillmore. 9pm, $19.50.
Joe Rut Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14. With comedian Will Franken.
Shpongle, ADHK, Hallucinogen LIVE Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $30.
Shayna Steele Coda. 10pm, $10.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
Chano Dominguez Flamenco Jazz Quartet featuring Tomasito Palace of Fine Arts Theare, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-60.
Dan Zemelmen Quartet with Kenny Washington Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Fred Frith and Theresa Wong Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.
Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.
"A Night at Birdland" Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm. With the MegaFlame Blue Band.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Eek-a-mouse Rock-it Room. 10pm, $22. With the Holdup and DJ Mr. E.
Lava, Mestizo, Carmen Milagro Slim’s. 8pm, $16.
Melees Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
Stairwell Sisters Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with Chico Mann and guest DJ Similak Chyld.
Area Codes Element Lounge. 10pm, $10. With DJs Platurn, Doc Fu, and White Mike spinning Bay Area hip hop.
Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.
Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.
Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.
Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.
Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.
Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.
Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.
M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.
Meat Vs. Death Guild DNA Lounge. 8:30pm, $4-8. Industrial, gothic, EBM, and more with Decay, BaconMonkey, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.
Quantic Mighty. 10pm, $12. With Disco Shawn and DJ Sake 1.
Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.
Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.
Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. With DJ Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.
SATURDAY 1
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
*AC/Dshe, Total B.S., Honeydust Slim’s. 9pm, $14.
Antlers, Phantogram Independent. 9pm, $14.
Mike Beck and the Bohemian Saints Riptide. 9pm, free.
Broken Social Scene Fillmore. 9pm, $25.
Grand National, Bonafide, General Jones Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.
JC Smith Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.
*Laudanum, Worm Ouroboros, Dispirit Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
Maus Haus, Rafter, White Cloud Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.
Outernational Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.
Plushgun, Music for Animals, Fake Your Own Death, Marissa Guzman Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15.
Warren Teagarden, Collisionville, Charmless Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.
Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 3 and 8pm, $5-25.
Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.
Marlena Teich Quintet Savanna Jazz. 8pm.
Sanctuary Trio featuring Peter Apfelbaum and guests Coda. 10pm, $10.
Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Boyd and Wain Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.
Evangenitals El Rio. 11:30pm, $7.
Gold Live Rockit Room. 9pm, $15. With Ce’Cile, Daddy Rolo, Empress I-Lexis, Danneekah.
Sour Mash Hug Band, Four Inch Pony, Janay Rose Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7pm, $5.
Red Hot Chachkas Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.
Brazil Vox Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.
Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.
Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. Alt-rock hits from the 90s with DJ Jamie Jams and Emdee of Club Neon.
Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics.
Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.
Foundation Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm.
Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love and Nicky B. spinning deep disco.
HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.
Kontrol Endup. 10pm, $20. With resident DJs Alland Byallo, Craig Kuna, Sammy D, and Nikola Baytala spinning minimal techno and avant house.
Leisure Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $7. DJs Omar, Aaron, and Jet Set James spinning classic britpop, mod, 60s soul, and 90s indie.
New Wave City DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. Erasure tribute with Skip and Shindog and Andy T.
Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5. "Electroindierockhiphop" and 80s dance party for dykes, bois, femmes, and queers with DJ China G and guests.
Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.
So Special Club Six. 9pm, $5. DJ Dans One and guests spinning dancehall, reggae, classics, and remixes.
Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.
Soundscape Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. With DJs C3PLOS, Brighton Russ, and Nick Waterhouse spinning Soul jazz, boogaloo, hammond grooves, and more.
Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.
SUNDAY 2
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Eluvium, Benoit Pioulard Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Nymph, Three Leafs, Woom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Shootin’ Lucy, Neutralboy, Steel Tigers of Death, Gunner Kimo’s. 5:30pm, $6.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5pm, $5-38.
Raul Midon Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-55.
Ray Obiedo and the Urban Latin Jazz Project Coda. 8pm, $10.
*Kronos Quartet Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.performances.org. 11am, $8-15.
Rent Romus and the Emergency String Ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie Chamber Ensemble Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth, SF; www.noertker.com. 7:30pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Damon and the Heathens, Graves Brothers Deluxe, Doc Holler Amnesia. 8:30pm, $7.
"Wanderlust at the Fillmore" Fillmore. 8pm, $25. With Rupa and the April Fishes, MC Yogi, and DJ Dragonfly.
DANCE CLUBS
Afterglow Nickies, 466 Haight, SF; (415) 255-0300. An evening of mellow electronics with resident DJs Matt Wilder, Mike Perry, Greg Bird, and guests.
Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.
DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and guest Spliff Skankin’.
FlashDance SF Glas Kat, 520 4th St., SF; www.flashdancesf.com. 6pm, $25.
Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.
Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?
Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.
Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.
Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.
Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.
Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.
MONDAY 3
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.
Futurecop, Keith Masters Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.
Green River Ordinance, Matt Hires, Angel Taylor Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Garrison Starr, Joey Ryan, Cate Le Bon Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
AaronandJane Rockit Room. 8pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.
Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.
Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.
Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.
Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.
Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest Djs.
TUESDAY 4
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Heartless Bastards, Hacienda, Amy Cook Independent. 8pm, $18.
*Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B. Warfield. 8pm, $40.
MC Frontalot, Brandon Patton, Edible Norris Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Mantles, Dimmer, Weekend Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
Mudface, Great American Beast, Motogruv Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.
Needtobreathe, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Seabird Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $19.
Rangers, Jon Porras, Radiant Husk, Centipede Eest Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Title Tracks, New Trust, Bye Bye Blackbirds Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Zweng, Frisky Disco, Parachute Musical, Winter Sounds Thee Parkside. 8pm, $6.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and Mackiveli.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.
Nevius makes the case for a progressive DCCC
Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius made an excellent argument for supporting the Guardian’s slate of progressive candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee in Saturday’s paper, even though he was trying to do just the opposite. But I suppose that perspective is everything.
Our perspective at the Guardian is one of great pride in San Francisco and its left-of-center values. Nevius looks at San Francisco from his home in Walnut Creek and sees a scary place where people question authority figures and don’t simply trust developers, big corporations, and the Chamber of Commerce to act in the public interest.
“The next two months will see a battle for the political soul of the city. It will pit the progressives against the moderates in a face-off that will have huge implications in the November elections and, perhaps, the election of the next mayor. The key is control of an obscure but incredibly influential organization called the Democratic County Central Committee,” Nevius writes, and he’s right about that.
But he’s wrong when he assumes most San Franciscans agree with him and others who want to make the city more like the sterile suburbs that they prefer. Nevius values “safe streets,” which is his code for giving police more power through the proposed sit-lie ordinance and other unpopular crackdowns, despite the fact that he sat in the back row and watched the DCCC voted overwhelmingly against sit-lie after nobody presented a credible case for it.
Nevius is so utterly blind to the fact that most San Franciscans want adequate mitigation and community benefits from development projects that he recently ranted and raved about the defeat of the 555 Washington project, even though it was unanimously rejected by the Board of Supervisors for inadequately addressing these requirements.
The “moderate values” that Nevius champions are actually quite extreme: give downtown and developers everything they want, never question the behavior of cops or the Fire Department’s budget, keep cutting taxes until city government becomes incapable of providing services or regulating the private sector, ignore the cultural value of nightclubs and artists, and deport all the undocumented immigrants.
This is the Democratic Party that Nevius and his allies like Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier and supervisorial candidate Scott Wiener (a conservative attorney who would be the best friend that the suburban cowboy cops could ever have on the board) want to promote, and it looks more like the Republican Party than a political party with San Francisco values.
But they aren’t honest about that intention, instead trying to fool people into believing that progressives are the extremists. “But when Mrs. Jones receives her Democratic voter guide in the mail…she’s thinking of the party of Barack Obama, not the party of Aaron Peskin and (Supervisor) Chris Daly,” Wiener said.
But in the Democratic presidential primary election, it was Daly and Peskin who were the strongest early supporters of Barack Obama, while Wiener backed John Edwards and Alioto-Pier, Mayor Gavin Newsom, and the rest of the “moderate” party stalwarts supported Hillary Clinton. That’s not a huge deal, but it’s a sign of how the so-called moderates are willing to distort political reality.
So Nevius is right. This is an important election and it is about the soul of the city. Do you support scared suburban twits who disingenuously try to hide behind the “moderate” label in order to seem more reasonable, or do you support progressive candidates who have integrity and won’t moderate their values in order to appease the cops or the capitalists?
If it’s the latter, support the Guardian’s slate (which is substantially similar to the slates approved by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Sierra Club’s SF Bay Chapter, and other progressive groups).
And if you want that slate to have some money to mail out a Guardian slate card, come to a fundraiser this Thursday evening at CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, featuring the candidates and some great exemplars of the culture they support, including amazing singer/songwriter Valerie Orth, the zany dance troupe Fou Fou Ha, and DJs Smoove and Kramer, who regularly rock the best clubs and community-based parties in town.
And by “town,” I mean San Francisco, not Walnut Creek.
FEAST: 10 kick-ass brunches
We here at the Guardian don’t survive on green buds and printer ink alone. We eat real food. Sometimes! But we do get up late and hungover. While we often forgo fancy brunch — unless we save our pennies for the amazing eggs-meet-legs “Sunday’s a Drag” buffet at Harry Denton’s (www.harrydenton.com) or dim sum nirvana at Yank Sing (www.yanksing.com) or Ton Kiang (www.tonkiang.net) — we’ll sure as shootin’ shell out for thrifty chilaquiles and bloody marys, especially the way the Bay makes ’em. Here are some of our dearest bleary-eyed, late-morning tummy fillers. (Marke B.)
BASHFUL BULL TOO
There are days when you wake up with a bladder full of Jameson’s and a fervent wish to sink into a salty, unglamorous world of egg and cheese. These are the mornings when bottomless mimosas and goat cheese frittatas sound like fightin’ words. Easy tiger, I got you — just slump into a booth at Bashful Bull Too, the most standard of Outer Sunset diners. There’s no live jazz band, no “scene” at all — just you and your greasy calories. Get down on their cheap plates of hash browns and bacon, or better yet, a burger. Slabs of ground beef are acceptable fare when, after all, you’re having breakfast at 2 p.m. (Caitlin Donohue)
3600 Taraval, SF. (415) 759-8112
BEAN BAG CAFÉ
In you’re from the Midwest, good brunch spots are distinguished by waitresses who call you “hon” and have your coffee waiting for you before you sit down. Become a regular at Bean Bag Café in the Western Addition, and they’ll do all that and more. Bean Bag’s extensive breakfast and lunch menu and progressive cooking staff means never having to decide if it’s too late for Goldilocks oatmeal (yep, it’s just right) or too early for pancakes and beer. Speaking of pancakes, the Bean Bag buttermilk, customized with bananas and caramelized walnuts on top, is a must-have. Pair it with scrambled eggs drenched in Tabasco, and you’re set until 3 p.m., when Bean Bag kicks off its happy hour with beer for $1.75. Other highlights: sunshine and a petting zoo of scruffy but wuvable dogs outside. (Diane Sussman)
601 Divisadero, SF. (415)-563-3634
CAFE DU SOLEIL
Lower Haight — known for its nicoise? C’est vrai! The salad nicoise at Cafe Du Soleil is a stunner, bursting with tender tuna, piquant greens, and enough fresh fixings to ensure some inner sunshine. But don’t stop there — or at the pastry case in front, with delectable goodies like croques madames and hazelnut chocolate croissants. Soleil’s salmon tortilla, a sort of deconstructed-quiche pyramid topped with lovely lox and drizzled with smoky romesco, is this laidback Parisian hang’s brunchtime piece de resistance. Bonus: hunky scruffsters and tattooed ladies. (Marke B.)
200 Fillmore, SF. (415) 934-8637. www.soleilsf.com
CHLOE’S
Let’s face it, one aspect of brunch — at least on a Sunday — is the wait. Chloe’s is no exception. The restaurant’s rep and tiny size mean that while weekdays are fine, on the weekend you will be waiting in a (loose) line. The upside is that Chloe’s is on a quiet corner of Church Street, so on a sunlit day, you’ll get fresh air and nothing noisier or more imposing than the people-watching pleasure of the J-Church sliding by. Once inside, indulge your sweet tooth: two highlights of the low-key menu are french toast made with croissants (served with strawberries and powdered sugar) and banana walnut pancakes, a Chloe’s specialty. Chloe’s offers some pleasant, simple variations on scrambled eggs, and the fresh fruit and white rosemary toast to compliment them. This may be Noe Valley, but the coffee is Twin Peaks good. (Johnny Ray Huston)
1399 Church, SF. (415) 648-4116
CHOW
The agony of brunch, since it allows for judgment-free consumption of lunch dishes or breakfast dishes, means having to choose between savory or sweet, sandwich or omelet, salad or hash browns. Ten minutes alone can be devoted to the age-old question of pancake or eggs benedict? Coffee or cocktail? Pancake or … This is where Chow ends the cycle of neurosis. At Chow, you can order one egg benedict and one pancake, accompanied by one cup of coffee and one wine mojito. Plus, Chow has two pancakes without peer: the blueberry with warm blueberry sauce and mascarpone cheese, and Marion’s ricotta pancake with lemon. Get one of each! Of course, if you want the chilaquiles or a cheesy scramble, Chow will happily oblige. Watch them start to emit a soft, warm glow when paired with a blushing bellini. (Diane Sussman)
212 Church and 1245 Ninth Ave. 415-552-2469; 415-665-9912, www.chowfoodbar.com
HOMEMADE CAFÉ
It’s Saturday morning-slipping-toward-noon, and there are few reasons to expend the effort to pick your fuzzball head up off the pillow it dropped onto in the after-party wee hours. Curled in your cocoon, there is but one comforting thought: breakfast! Few places can revive the soul and satisfy the belly as proficiently as Homemade Café. You’d be wise to choose the spinach, mushroom, and feta omelet. Sweet or spicy is a tough choice, though, since there are spectacularly fluffy blueberry pancakes to be had as well. It’s crucial that you remember this magical phrase: “Upgrade to Home-Fry Heaven.” They’ll arrive smothered in cheese, salsa, sour cream, and a choice of guacamole or pesto. You will feel alive again — at least until naptime. (Rebecca Bowe)
2454 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 845-1940
LIME
I love Lime. Not just because it offers a pretty good assortment of belly-filling foodstuffs on Sunday mornings or the hip and lively atmosphere — but because of the bottomless mimosas and bloody marys. Now, I could try to compare Lime’s eggs benedict to others I’ve eaten, but why bother? There are bottomless fucking mimosas and bloody marys, people! Who cares about the food when I can get stupid drunk with my friends at 11 a.m.? In fact, I can’t recall a time when we weren’t asked to leave, albeit very nicely by the wait staff. Just be careful, those drinks will knock you on your ass and give you a hangover by 4 p.m. Guaranteed. (Ben Hopfer)
2247 Market St., SF. 415.621.5256, www.lime-sf.com
LYNN & LU’S ESCAPADE CAFE
Lynn and Lu, I heart you. Snag a quaint table under an umbrella on Grand Avenue or find a spot on the back patio for a beautiful sunny brunch. The morning portions are fat, happy, and classic. Three-egg omelets come bursting with your filler of choice and arrive sitting next to a pile of yummy roasted potatoes. Those with stomachs bigger than their eyes will be relieved to see that the Escapade frittatas look more like a crowd-pleasing tower of peppers, veggies, and eggs than a paltry single serving — everyone will waddle away with a smile. The service is fabulous, the price is just right, and the food comes quick enough to whisk away any dream-soaked cobwebs. (Amber Schadewald)
3353 Grand Ave, Oakland, 510-835-5705
MAMA’S ROYAL CAFÉ
Imagine a John Waters time warp with rickety counter chairs, a napkin art gallery, and a suggestive painting of female softball players with a giant bat, and you’ve just about captured the quirkiness of Mama’s Royal Café. The home fries, hollandaise dishes, and rib-sticking omelets are consistently satisfying, but weekly specials also offer seasonal and delicious treats like lemon-ricotta pancakes with blood orange curd. The wait staff often serves on hipster time, which, quite frankly, works out perfectly since Mama’s is best enjoyed with friends on a lazy Sunday as you discuss, or help each other remember, last night’s misadventures. (Robyn Johnson)
4012 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 547-7600. www.mamasroyalcafeoakland.com
STACKS
After a recent multihour hike around the Presidio, I found myself ravenous. You know the feeling — fully prepared to combine breakfast, lunch, dinner, a multitude of snacks, and dessert into a single meal. Where better to do that than at Stacks, the San Francisco location of a mini-chain (others are in Menlo Park and Burlingame) that looks like a Denny’s that got an upscale makeover, with some of the biggest floral arrangements you’ll ever see. Speaking of gigantic, Stacks’ portions are robust, and their menu is a monster: over a dozen omelet choices; copious varieties of pancakes, crepes, and waffles; sandwiches and burgers; daily specials; and at least seven different smoothies. (Cheryl Eddy)
501 Hayes, SF. (415) 241-9011. www.stacksrestaurant.com
TAQUERIA LOS COYOTES
Being on a tight budget has forced me to get creative, and this underdog taqueria located on a block full of distracting alternatives has become my favorite spot for a weekend breakfast burrito. There are never any lines, the food is as cheap as it comes, and the egg and chorizo burrito with beans, cheese, and rice is guaranteed to soak up a whole weekend of leftover mischief hanging. It’s even big enough to share with any co-conspirators still hanging out as well. (Paula Connelly)
3036 16th St., SF. (415) 861-3708. www.taquerialoscoyotes.com
ZAZIE
Yes, there’ll be a wait — but it’s more than worth it at Zazie, a French bistro that is San Francisco’s best patio brunch spot. The heart of the menu resides in the poached egg dishes (my favorite is La Mer, with real Dungeness crab, avocado, and green onion), seven to choose from, each with a choice of one, two, or three perfectly poached eggs, wonderfully tangy hollandaise sauce, and a side of potatoes fried up with, get this, roasted garlic cloves. Yum! Everything on the brunch menu is awesome, from challah french toast to scrambled eggs Fontainebleau to the full-on trout du sud. C’est magnifique! (Steven T. Jones)
941 Cole Street, SF. (415) 564-5332, www.zaziesf.com
PBS’s Frontline edits out single payer
Documentary misrepresented advocates as supporters of a public option
4/23/10
Silencing supporters of single-payer, or Medicare for All, is a media staple, but PBS’s Frontline found a new way to do that on the April 13 special Obama’s Deal–by selectively editing an interview with a single-payer advocate and footage of single-payer protesters to make them appear to be activists for a public option instead.
The public option proposal would have offered a government-run health insurance program to some individuals as an alternative to mandatory private health insurance. Not only is this not the same thing as Medicare for All, it’s an idea many single-payer advocates actually opposed, arguing that it would leave the insurance industry intact as dominant players in the healthcare business (PNHP.org, 7/20/09).
In the report, Frontline explained that insurance industry lobbyists pushed a bill in the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Montana) “that would include the mandate to buy insurance and kill the public option.” That “didn’t sit well with the president’s liberal supporters,” the Frontline narrator told viewers. After a clip from public-option supporter Howard Dean, a full minute and a half focused on protests: “The left counterattacked in May…. Liberal outrage arrived in Baucus’ own hearing room as healthcare activists, one after another, shouted him down.” Several of these protesters are seen in action, with a clip of an interview with Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) saying that these were members of her group shut out of the hearings.
Now, Flowers and PNHP are leading single-payer advocates–but you’d never learn that from watching the Frontline program, which never mentions the single-payer concept. Instead, viewers were left to assume that Flowers and the protesters were public-option proponents, since that was the only progressive proposal that had been discussed. As Flowers explained (Consortium News, 4/15/10):
When the host, Mr. [Michael] Kirk, interviewed me for Obama’s Deal, we spoke extensively of the single-payer movement and my arrest with other single-payer advocates in the Senate Finance Committee last May. However, our action in Senate Finance was then misidentified as “those on the left” who led a “counterattack” because of “liberal outrage” at being excluded.
Viewers saw more footage of protesters being handcuffed and led away, with an unidentified voiceover from Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! describing the arrests, and finally a voice was heard saying: “This option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong.”
The audience could only conclude that “this option” referred to the public option, but this conclusion would be incorrect; this voice was actually MSNBC host Ed Schultz, a single-payer supporter, and a fuller version of his quote (5/7/09) would have made it clear that he was complaining about single-payer being excluded from the hearing:
Now, let me explain single-payer for just a minute. The money comes from one source, the government. Now, you and I pay taxes, OK. The government pays the bill. It’s that simple. Patients are not caught in the middle between doctors and insurance companies, no game-playing here. There’s no middleman. You know? There’s no decision-makers between you and your doctor. It’s a clean deal.
So what Chairman Baucus has decided, this option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong. I don’t think it’s fair.
Frontline’s editors responded to Flowers’ complaints, saying that they “understand the frustration of Dr. Flowers and others in what she calls the ‘single-payer movement,'” but that “it’s the work of journalism to report widely on a topic, then find the sharpest focus for the reporting, unfortunately leaving out much strong material along the way to shaping the clearest communication possible in the time or space allowed.”
The statement also argued that
the section that included Dr. Flowers was focused on the power of the insurance lobby and showed how activists like Dr. Flowers were excluded from the debate over the bill. The protesters themselves said they were protesting the fact that they had been excluded from the debate, so we believe we presented the protests in the proper context.
But in Frontline’s presentation, “activists like Dr. Flowers”–that is, single-payer advocates–didn’t even exist. Having itself excluded their perspective from the debate–and even misrepresented them as supporters of a position that many of them actually oppose–there’s some irony in Frontline claiming to have put this exclusion in the “proper context.”
This is not the first time that Frontline has decided that a conversation about healthcare reform should exclude single-payer (FAIR Action Alert, 4/7/09). The March 31, 2009, Frontline special Sick Around America avoided discussions of national healthcare plans. This omission led Frontline correspondent T.R. Reid–who had hosted a previous Frontline special (4/15/08) that examined various public healthcare models–to withdraw from the project.
When Frontline pushed single-payer out of the debate last year, PBS ombud Michael Getler (4/10/09) weighed in on the side of critics, calling it a “missed opportunity.” Getler today (4/23/10) published a column about the latest Frontline omissions, once again finding that ignoring a popular policy like single-payer is problematic:
It seems to me that to ignore something that was out there and popular with millions of people and thousands of healthcare professionals, but not really on the table, was a mistake. Although obviously tight on time, the producers should have found 30 seconds to take this into account, because many Americans support it, yet the deal makers never mention it, nor is the politics of discarding it addressed.
We’re thankful that Getler has once again taken this view and encouraged a more inclusive discussion of healthcare on PBS. However, his criticism misses the critical journalistic fact that single-payer advocates were not only marginalized by Frontline–they were misrepresented.
ACTION:
Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.
CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org
You may also want to write to PBS ombud Michael Getler (ombudsman@pbs.org).
TAKE ACTION!
ACTION:
Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.
CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org
MTA board approves controversial budget
By Adam Lesser
City Hall needed an overflow room to accommodate all the disenchanted Muni riders who showed up to protest the two-year San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency budget plan yesterday (4/20). The budget locks in a 10 percent service cut through July 1st, 2011, at which point the MTA board is hopeful that the service cut will be lowered to 5 percent. The controversial budget was adopted on a 4-3 vote, and now goes to the Board of Supervisors, where progressive supervisors have already signaled opposition to the service cuts.
“It still seems and feels as I look at it [the budget], that it’s very tenuously put together. In light of the fact that it’s going to impact the least, the lonely, and the lost of us, I had to say, let’s keep looking at it,” said Director James McCray, who was one of three dissenting votes.
McCray, along with Director Malcolm Heincke who voted for the budget, were the two directors to openly express concern about the pay of transit operators and overtime charges. In a $750 million budget, service cuts wound up providing $29 million in savings, a relatively small number compared to the $456 million that will be spent on salaries and benefits, as well as the $59 million in work orders to other agencies like the police department and the city attorney.
Small revenue measures like adding 1,000 metered spaces, eliminating free reserved parking around areas like City Hall, and window advertising wrap on buses are part of the budget.
Heincke questioned MTA Executive Director Nathaniel Ford about the budget which includes $10 million in labor concessions from MTA employees while locking in a $9 million raise in 2011 and a $9.5 million raise in 2012 for transit operators from Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250-A. Transit operators’ wages and raises are written into the city charter.
“The bubble over my head says wow,” said Heincke. Ford’s attempts to negotiate with the union over work rules have been unsuccessful. Sup. Sean Elsbernd is pushing a charter amendment for the November ballot that would remove the TWU’s pay rates from the city charter.
Anger over Muni’s payment of work orders to other city agencies was a constant theme among community groups as diverse as the Chinese Progressive Association and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Those work orders have increased from $36 million in 2006 to $66 million in 2010.
“What really happened is the rest of the city had a budget crisis and the mayor went after Muni looking for funds,” said Dave Snyder, coordinator for the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Newsom appoints the directors who sit on the MTA Board. “Muni is paying for service the public doesn’t want them to pay for at the expense of transit service.”
Members of the Latino and Chinese-American community were out in large numbers, not just to protest service cuts that they felt disproportionately impact the Mission and Chinatown, but to complain about harassment by the police. Enforcement of the Proof of Payment program has increased with Muni agents and police checking the amount of time left on riders’ transfer tickets, and issuing fines.
“You have police asking for ID and issuing $75 fines. There have been a few cases of deportation,” Beatriz Herrera, an organizer for People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER). Referring to riders whose transfers expire while riding a bus, Emily Lee of the Chinese Progressive Association said, “They expect folks to get off the bus. That’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s stressful for the community. The police are intimidating.”
The service changes are slated to take effect May 8th.
Editor’s Notes
Tredmond@sfbg.com
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce decided this month to release a scorecard ranking the members of the Board of Supervisors on business-related issues. The idea was pretty clear: make the progressives on the board appear “anti jobs” — although some of the selections (naming rights for Candlestick Park?) weren’t really jobs issues at all. And the scorecard wasn’t about jobs (after all, the biggest employers in San Francisco are public agencies); it was about the downtown agenda.
We typically wait until election time to review how the supes voted over the past two years, but since the Chamber is launching its assault early, we thought we’d add a dose of reality. On page 13, you can find our list of 20 key votes on a broad range of progressive issues and see how the district supervisors did.
There’s another guide in this issue, too — our annual look at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And in honor of the festival, we’ve done something unusual. There are two different versions of the Guardian cover, highlighting two different movies. Go ahead — collect ’em both.