Protest

Gaza protests this week and next

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Gaza protests this week and next

Activists with Arab Youth Organization and a number of other entities staged a protest Aug. 6 outside the San Francisco Federal Building, where Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco office is located, calling on U.S. government to end aid to Israel.

“We’re here because humans are dying,” said Linda Ereikat, a 17-year-old Palestinian American who was born and raised in the Bay Area and recently spent a month visiting her grandparents in the West Bank.

“We’re not here because we’re part of a political party. We don’t care about Hamas. We care that our people are dying, and our people are under siege. And it’s just crazy. Regardless of politics, regardless of how you feel, humans are dying. And that’s what really gets me.”

Arab youth organizers and other supporters also planned to hold an Aug. 7 candlelight vigil at 7:30pm in San Francisco’s Union Square, in memory of Palestinians who had been killed during the conflict.

And next week, on Aug. 16, a coalition of organizers is planning to move ahead with a protest against violence in Gaza at the Port of Oakland – which could involve blockading a ship.

According to a flier announcing the Aug. 16 event:

“In 2010, after a Turkish flotilla was attacked by Israel for attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, we built on ILWU’s history [from the movement against apartheid in South Africa] and successfully blocked the Israeli Zim ship from being unloaded at the Port of Oakland – the first time in US history an Israeli ship was blocked. We will be continuing this legacy by organizing to block the Israeli ship once again.”

It seems the exact plans are still under discussion. Asked about it, AYO organizer Samha Ayesh told the Bay Guardian, “We’re trying to work with the port workers to make it successful.”

These events aren’t the only examples of Bay Area street demonstrations held in response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict. A group of demonstrators staged a pro-Israel march in San Francisco last weekend.

Democracy wow!

Michael Redmond
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0
Democracy wow!

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER From a certain angle, democracy is just one big bout of audience participation. So when playwright Aaron Landsman, director Mallory Catlett, and designer Jim Findlay started kicking around the idea of somehow staging a city council meeting, of all things, the notion that the audience itself should enact it must have come as a eureka moment.

It is indeed the charm and challenge of City Council Meeting that, while conceived and instigated by the New York–based artistic trio, the show is ultimately a collaboration with whoever shows up, plus a few semi-rehearsed locals in on the running of the thing. These latter include a group of “staffers” who help guide participants through an actual city council meeting — or more precisely, a seamless composite of public transcripts of such meetings held around the US in the past couple of years, plus an artistic flourish or two. For the San Francisco premiere (running this weekend at local co-presenter Z Space), the staffers include Claudia Anderson, Awele, Dwayne Calizo, Jennifer Chien, Sarah Curran, and me.

Moreover, the piece always concludes with an original ending crafted specifically for the locale in which it plays (that, so far, has been Houston, Texas; Tempe, Ariz.; and New York City). This time, the play’s unique final movement, a creative response to what has preceded it, was built in partnership with Bay Area director-choreographer Erika Chong Shuch.

As a staffer, your job is to help facilitate the encounter between the play and its audience. Since that’s kind of what a critic does anyway, I reasoned, and given that everyone in the audience is already at least minimally involved in the production, I signed on for a more inside track on City Council Meeting‘s three-day San Francisco run. At the first rehearsal, director Catlett introduced us to our binders, which contained things we’d need, including something like the script of the performance.

(There is no definitive script. The play is an un-distillable architecture of discrete dialogue, directions on note cards, live and recorded video feeds, and whispered cues, not to mention the unforeseeable but pretty much guaranteed contingency. And perspectives and experiences will vary pretty widely depending on the physical and dramatic space one chooses to occupy: council member, speaker, bystander.)

It was a little confusing, frankly. But halfway through a swift two weeks of rehearsal, I’m seeing more clearly the shape of the show as well as appreciating the subtleties in its construction. Like much contemporary participatory performance, or what’s sometimes called “social practice” art, City Council Meeting moves the bulk of the action and agency onto its audience as a way to simultaneously investigate and manifest our social circumstances and potentialities. It is therefore purposely unsettled — participants are always themselves and yet tasked with enacting the words of other real people like, or more often not like, themselves.

The sheer awkwardness of it is really the point. Is this a study, a parody, an incitement, an invocation? In enacting the form, does the piece share in some of its power? A strange combination of sincerity and dry humor runs throughout it all, as the double-consciousness built into the piece throws everything gleefully up in the air, suspended somewhere between the rehearsal of dead forms (whether political or aesthetic) and the activation of new ones.

That’s a salubrious position, encouraged by the context at large. Or so I couldn’t help thinking. Was it merely coincidence that after leaving rehearsal one night I walked directly into road blocks, sirens, and hundreds of cops — the wake left by a president and secretary of state on political shopping sprees? Is the power that creates such disruption, traffic, and annoyance wherever it goes, like some heedless B-movie giant, even related to the power invested in local government? Was it just coincidence that after leaving another rehearsal a few days later, the Chronicle building was papered over in posters reading, “the media lies as Gaza dies,” this time the unsanctioned wake of a protest on behalf of the powerless?

For a moment there, Occupy took back government from representative bodies and held it in the bodies of real people, acting on their own behalf. It was wild, unexpected, and startlingly easy. It was also strikingly creative — and art was everywhere in the movement. It’s become clearer since then that the relationship between art and politics is a much more serious question than many of us had realized. We can’t afford a paucity of imagination in either. We need the room and wherewithal to ask questions. If nothing else, City Council Meeting asks questions. Including these:

“Are we working together? Are we capable of it? Is that why this structure is here? Or is that what the structure prevents?” *

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Fri/1-Sat/2, 7pm; Sun/3, 2pm, $20

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

 

Of borders and love songs

Steven T. Jones
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Of borders and love songs

esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL The way in which Diana Gameros first came to America is a world away from the heart-wrenching images we’re currently seeing in the news media of children who’ve been sent, on their own, to the U.S. border from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. At 13, she arrived on an airplane from her home city of Juarez, Mexico; the plan was to stay with an aunt who lived in Michigan for the summer. When Gameros visited her cousin’s school there, and saw that it had a swimming pool, among other luxurious-seeming facilities, her aunt asked if she wanted to go to that school and learn English. Gameros couldn’t say yes fast enough. She wound up staying three years, returning to Mexico for the second half of high school, and then moving back to the U.S. for college.

So no, no one ever sent her out on foot for the border, hoping that on the other side lay someone or something that could mean a brighter future.

And yet: “I’m kind of a fanatic when it comes to following this country’s immigration system and its history,” says Gameros, a fixture in San Francisco’s singer-songwriter scene for her thoughtful, melodic story-songs that contain both English and Spanish (she’s been referred to as the Latin Feist).

“I think there’s a lot that most American people don’t know. You hear people judging, calling these parents irresponsible…it’s so much more complicated than that,” she says. “People don’t know how the U.S.’s actions have affected these countries. People are risking their children’s lives because they need to be here. It’s not for the American dream, they’re not here to buy a nice car, a big house. They’re here because they want to eat, have a roof over their heads, fulfill basic necessities. It’s frustrating. There’s so much ignorance.”

Her unique perspective on border issues is one reason Gameros was selected to perform at MEX I AM: Live It to Believe It, a nearly weeklong festival organized by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in conjunction with SF’s Consulate General of Mexico. Bringing together musicians, actors, visual artists, and academics from throughout Mexico from July 31 through Aug. 5, the festival includes classical, indie, and pop music and dance, lectures and discussion of Mexico’s achievements and challenges, and a meeting of minds around border issues.

The program in which Gameros will perform, on the evening of Friday, Aug. 1, is called “Ideas: North and South of the Border,” and aims to explore innovation in the sciences, arts, and culture in Mexico. Among the other speakers: astronaut Jose Hernandez, who grew up in the Central Valley as the son of immigrant farmers; he’ll discuss his journey from childhood (he didn’t learn to read or speak in English until he was 12) through getting a degree in electrical engineering and eventually being tapped by NASA. Rosario Marin, the first Mexican-American woman to serve as Treasurer of the United States, will also be present, along with Favianna Rodriguez, a transnational visual artist whose work “depicts how women, migrants and outsiders are affected by global politics, economic inequality, patriarchy and interdependence” and the director of CultureStrike, an arts organization that works to organize artists, writers, and performers around migrant rights.

On the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 2, actress-dancer Vicky Araico will perform her award-winning monologue Juana In a Million, which chronicles an undocumented immigrant’s quest to find home.

The other musical performances throughout the week run the gamut from Natalia Lafourcade, a two-time Latin Grammy winning pop singer, to Murcof + Simon Geilfus, an electronic audio-visual collaboration, the award-winning percussion ensemble Tambuco, renowned composer and jazz musician Hector Infanzon, and more.

Gameros, whose 2013 album Eterno Retorno (Eternal Return) features a song called “SB 1070” (after the racist Arizona law designed to prosecute undocumented immigrants), says she thinks her music can be a subtle form of education, an artistic entry point for people who might not know or think much about immigration issues.

“It’s a topic that touches me deeply, so my protest music is my offering, my way to say I’m with you and I stand with you,” she says. “Though if you listen to my lyrics you might think many [songs] are love songs, or written to a lover who didn’t treat me right.”

Gameros adds that she hopes the Latino community in San Francisco will embrace the festival and show up, a sentiment that carries a particular weight as housing prices in areas like the Mission are changing the local face of the local Latino population. “Unless its the symphony doing something with a Mexican artist, we don’t really have access to events like this that are mainstream cultural celebrations, normally,” she says. “And there’s such a fascinating group of people all here for it — I just hope as many people as possible take advantage of it, that they come and hear these stories we have to tell.”

 

MEX I AM: LIVE IT TO BELIEVE IT

July 31 through Aug. 5, prices and times vary

Most events at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org/mex-i-am

Anti-war protesters rally against Gaza invasion and rising Palestinian death toll

Sasha Cuttler
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51
Anti-war protesters rally against Gaza invasion and rising Palestinian death toll

As the West Bank erupted today in a “day of rage” against Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza and its lopsided death toll during 18 days of combat with Palestinians, anti-war activists in the Bay Area have been holding daily protests outside the Israeli consulate in downtown San Francisco and preparing for what they hope will be a big demonstration tomorrow [Sat/26].

Anti-war activists will gather tomorrow at 1pm in Justin Herman Plaza (Market and Embarcadero) for a rally and march organized by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition and other groups, including Arab Resource Organizing Center, Arab Youth Organization, and American Muslims for Palestine. The march will go up Market Street and circle around Union Square before returning to the starting point. 

“Israel receives $4 billion in ‘aid’ from the United States each year. This money is being used to commit war crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza. We are demanding that all U.S aid to Israel be ended now! More than 200 people in Gaza have been killed and more than 1,500 have been wounded from Israeli bombs and missiles. This has to end!” ANSWER wrote in its call-to-protest, although The New York Times reports the Palestinian death toll is now at least 800, compared to 38 Israeli deaths.

During yesterday’s daily protest outside the Israeli consulate, from 4-5pm at 456 Montgomery Street, a Palestinian woman named Jaclyn told the Guardian that the US media is to blame for the relatively small number of protesters on the streets. Recent protests have been small compared to massive demonstrations lduring the buildup to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“The problem is the media, they don’t’ have the correct information. People are being brainwashed, frankly,” she told us.

Protester Russell Bates, who was holding a Palestinian flag that he says he’s been flying for the last 10 year in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli occupation, noted that Gaza has been invaded by Israel three times in the last seven years, with lopsided death tolls in each conflict and yet continuing US financial aid.

“The US government Israel-occupied territory, for sure,” he said. “It’s unimaginable to me how people can remain quiet.”

Citizens United measure challenged — does it matter what Californians think about corporate personhood?

Sasha Cuttler
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2
Citizens United measure challenged — does it matter what Californians think about corporate personhood?

Recently, the California Legislature approved a nonbinding question that would allow California voters to show their thoughts – mainly, their disdain – for the 2010 US Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case that allowed corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions.

But on Tuesday, opponents filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the question from the November ballot. They say the ballot should be reserved for laws, not the measurement of non-binding feelings. Meanwhile, advocates say putting the question on the ballot provides California voters with the very voice often quieted and underfunded compared to the corporations that the court decision empowered.

The advisory measure, which would appear as Proposition 49, is threatened by a lawsuit filed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an advocacy group for taxpayers’ rights. Gov. Jerry Brown isn’t a massive cheerleader for the advisory measure, either. He opted not to sign it, pointing out that the Legislature had already approved a resolution asking Congress to convene a constitutional convention to overturn the decision.

He added that the state should not “make it a habit to clutter our ballots with non-binding measures as citizens rightfully assume that their votes are meant to have legal effect.” The HJTA claim the measure is an attempt to increase voter participation in a a mostly mundane statewide election.

“It is very disappointing that the majority in the Legislature views the elections process as their personal plaything,” HJTA President Jon Coupal wrote in a biting statement.

Similarly, the Sacramento Bee wrote that the proposed ballot measure is “designed to lure more Democrats to the polls when legislators are trying to keep their seats.”

But the initiative’s supporters argue that it’s important to bring voters to the polls because citizens could use more of a voice. This argument is not so different than those who think political protests matter because they help voice public opposition and attract political attention. This measure just has a more legislative flavor than the typical street protest, and involves more taxpayers’ cash. But according to Michael Sutter, volunteer organizer for The Money Out Voters In Coalition, it would only cost voters two pennies at most.

“This is one of those issues where Californians know that this is wrong, want to do something about it, and feel that this is a very good way to have the national conversational in an unavoidable way,” Sutter said. “We can make big noise here in California.”

Since the Citizens United decision, cities around California have found comfort in voicing their disapproval through non-binding resolutions at the local level. In 2010, Richmond voted unanimously to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood, and two years later, San Franciscans followed suite, passing Proposition G with 81 percent of the vote.

Yet the Citizens United decision still stands, and the usefulness of such non-binding resolutions remains to be seen.

John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for the People, launched a national campaign opposing Citizens United right after the decision was made. Since then, 11 states have passed some kind of resolution announcing their support for overturning Citizens United.

“It was not a waste to have Montana voters vote on this kind of measure in 2012, nor to have Colorado voters vote on this measure in 2012,” Bonifaz told the Guardian. “This is a critically important measure for the future of our democracy. Are we going to become a nation where only the big money interests and corporations are able to be heard, or are we in fact going to reclaim a basic fundamental promise of government by and for the people?”

Non-binding measures rarely make an appearance on the California ballot. According to Sutter, the last time to come close was in 2007 when the State Senate passed a non-binding ballot measure asking voters if they supported withdrawal of troops in Iraq. “We only use these kinds of measures when national policy is directly at odds with the will of the California people,” Sutter said.

The Iraq ballot measure was promptly vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Critics condemned its usefulness; after all, how could California opposition bring the troops home? And now, how can opposition in California to outrageous campaign contribution help level the political playing field?

The truth is that maybe it won’t.

“By allowing SB 1272 to become law without my signature, it is my intention to signal that I am not inclined to repeat this practice of seeking advisory opinions from the voters,” Brown stated.

But Sutter thinks his attitude is the problem, and that maybe political figures should consider seeking voter feedback more often. “Jerry Brown has a problem with the concept of the people advising their representatives, and that’s an attitude I have a problem with,” she said.

Prop. 49 might not change the Citizens United Decision, but — if it survives the lawsuit — it will make it apparent that a whole lot of California voters want the court decision overturned. The question is whether or not those in power care what people think.

Guardian Intelligence: July 23 – 29, 2014

Michael Redmond
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J-POP ROCKED

The annual J-Pop Summit in Japantown drew a lively crowd of anime and other Japanese pop culture treasures to Japantown last weekend (including Shin, pictured). This year’s festivities included a Ramen Festival portion, featuring noodle cooks from around the world — and lines up to two hours long to sample their rich, brothy creations. PHOTO BY REBECCA BOWE

DA LOBBYIST

Former San Francisco Mayor and current Chronicle columnist Willie Brown, often just called Da Mayor, is widely acknowledged to be one of the most politically influential individuals in San Francisco. But until recently, he’d never registered as a lobbyist with city government. Now it’s official: Brown has been tapped as a for-real lobbyist representing Boston Properties, a high-powered real-estate investment firm that owns the Salesforce Tower. News outlets (including the Bay Guardian) have pointed out for years that despite having received payments for high-profile clients, Brown has never formally registered, leaving city officials and the public in the dark. Da Mayor, in turn, has seemed unfazed.

GAZA PROTEST

On July 20, marked as the deadliest day yet in the Israeli-Gaza conflict, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in San Francisco to march against the ongoing violence. Waving flags, participants chanted “Free, free Palestine!” and progressed from the Ferry Building to City Hall. It was just one of hundreds of protests staged worldwide in response to the bloodshed. As of July 21, the Palestinian death toll had risen to about 500, while 25 Israeli soldiers were killed. PHOTO BY STEPHANY JOY ASHLEY

PET CAUSE

Last year, the SF SPCA (www.sfspca.org) assisted with over 5,000 cat and dog adoptions. With its new adoption center near Bryant and 16th Streets, which opened June 13, it aims to increase capacity by 20 percent — saving 1,000 more furry lives in the process. The new facility features improved condo-style enclosures rather than cages, a small indoor dog park, and SF-themed climbing structures for cats. (So far, there’s a Golden Gate Bridge, a Transamerica Pyramid, a cable car, the Sutro Tower, and the SF Giants logo; a Castro Theatre design is in the works.) These improvements make the shelter life more comfortable for the animals, but they also help entice visitors, making the adoption process “a fun, happy experience,” says SF SPCA media relations associate Krista Maloney. See more kitties and puppies at the Pixel Vision blog at www.sfbg.com. PHOTO BY CHERY EDDY

MIX IT UP

The quarterly SF Mixtape Society event brings together people of all, er, mixes with one thing in common: a love of the personally curated playlist. This time around (Sun/27, 4pm-6pm, free. The MakeOut Room, 3225 24th St, SF. www.sfmixtapesociety.com) the theme is “Animal Instinct.” You can bring a mixtape in any format to participate — CD, USB, etc. (although anyone who brings an actual cassette will “nab a free beer and respect from peers.”) Awards will be given in the following categories: best overall mixtape, audience choice, and best packaging. Hit that rewind!

CODERS FOR KOCH

This week San Francisco plays host to the Libertarian conference/slumber-party Reboot 2014, aimed at — you guessed it — tech workers. Conservatives and government-decrying libertarians are natural allies, wrote Grover Norquist, scion of the anti-tax movement, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Uber swerves around transportation regulations, Airbnb slinks under housing regulations. It’s no wonder politically marginalized libertarians are frothing at the mouth to ally with Silicon Valley’s ascendant billionaires. Reboot 2014 speaker Rand Paul’s recent meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and Peter Thiel should have liberals all worried.

BART CLEANSING

BART announced via a press release they’d begin “ensuring safe evacuation” of downtown BART stations. By this they mean they’ll start sweeping out anyone sitting or laying down in the stations, clearly targeting the homeless. Deflecting those accusations, BART said they are one of the few transportation agencies with a dedicated outreach and crisis intervention coordinator, as if that gives them a pass.

CLIFF JUMPING

At 66, Jimmy Cliff put on one of the most energetic live shows we’ve ever seen on Saturday, July 19 at the Fillmore, high-kicking through newer songs, like “Afghanistan,” an updated version of eternal protest song “Vietnam,” as well as the classics: “The Harder They Come,” “Many Rivers to Cross,” etc. Check the Noise blog at www.sfbg.com for a full review.

 

Drop a house

Michael Redmond
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Drop a house

SUPER EGO Some of us fabulous fairies caught flailing in the ratty-tutu-and-trucker-cap tornado of Pink Saturday, during this year’s Pride celebrations, were like, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Castro, anymore.”

Indeed, the radical roots of the huge 24-year-old celebration — it began as an ACT-UP protest and party — seemed all but washed away in a sea of urine, puke, and shrieks at some points. And, while no one got shot like in 2009, violence tainted the roiling street affair: Even one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the charitably benevolent gay nuns who host Pink Saturday, was physically attacked along with her husband.

(Alas, homophobic violence was everywhere that weekend: Two lesbians were beaten senseless in SoMa, and my friend in Nob Hill got jumped by an SUV-full of assholes. Gross.)

I adore our young allies — and I ain’t mad about straight dudes ripping off their shirts to show support, neither. ‘Mos before bros! I know they’re not all to blame for flooding the Castro’s streets with, er, pink. Hey, we invited them to join us. However. The bad outfits, the worse liquor, and the pushy elbowing need to be checked at the door. (Looking at you, too, mouthy gays.)

Has this year ruined it for everyone? Now that Pink Saturday seems out of control, will it go the way of Halloween in the Castro?

“The Sisters don’t get nearly enough credit for Pink Saturday,” Castro supervisor Scott Wiener told me over the phone. “They plan all year round, working closely with my office, the Police Department, and the Department of Public Works to try to make sure that it’s welcoming and safe. That said, I think we can acknowledge there were a lot of problems — and while the general level of violence was kept low, the attack on the Sister and the human waste issue were definite takeaways as we consider how to keep this event accessible in the future.

“The Sisters meet every year to vote on whether to put on this now-150,000-plus event every year,” Wiener continued. “Pink Saturday holds enormous importance for the LGBT community and raises tens of thousands of dollars in funds. Ten percent of the police force were assigned to it this year.

“But Castro residents put up with a lot. And I think we really noticed how the vibe changed after 9pm, after the Dyke March crowd had filtered away. I’ll be meeting with the Sisters and Police Chief Greg Suhr about viable plans for next year — and nothing’s being ruled out right now.”

 

NIGHTLIFE LIVE: WATER

The biennial Soundwave Fest sweeps over the bay with an awesome series of esoteric-cool sonic installations and head-trip voyages. (This year’s theme is “water,” very prescient in a time of drought.) Your aural-aqueous immersion kicks off at the Cal Academy’s Thursday Nightlife party, with performances by Rogue Wave and Kaycee Johansing and sonic installations throughout the museum. Submerged turntables! Underwater zither! Coral reef data-surfing! Full bar!

Thu/10, 6pm-10pm, $10–$12. California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., SF. www.soundwavesf.com

 

BARDOT A GO GO

Can’t have a Bastille Day celebration without a little Swingin’ Sixties “ooh-la-la.” This insanely fun, 16-year-old annual soiree dazzles with Franco-groovy chic — and classic, decadent French pop tunes (Bardot, Gainsbourg, Dutronc, etc.) from DJs Pink Frankenstein, Brother Grimm, and Cali Kid. Plus, Peter Thomas Hair Design will be there 9pm-11pm to fluff your coiffure for free.

Fri/11, 9pm, $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.bardotagogo.com

 

LAS CHICAS DE ESTA NOCHE

When gay bar Esta Noche closed in March after 40 years, it was a Latin drag tragedy. (The closure, not the bar itself.) In honor of the de Young Museum’s essential show of vintage ’70s photos Anthony Friedkin: The Gay Essay, the Esta Noche scene is being resurrected for a night, with comedian Marga Gomez hosting, classic Noche tunes and drag performances by Lulu Ramirez, Persia, and Vicky Jimenez — aka Las Chicas de Esta Noche — that will shake a few tailfeathers.

Fri/11, 6pm-9pm, free. de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, SF. deyoung.famsf.com

 

THE WIZARD OF OZ

Drag doyenne of darkness Peaches Christ is hosting a screening of this classic at the Castro Theatre. But, as with all Peaches productions, you get an extravaganza. A live pre-show “Wizard of ODD” promises to be bananas, featuring the Tin Tran, The Scare-Ho, Glen or Glenda the Good Witch, and more. Bonus: Peaches herself playing “Peachy Gale” (aka Dorothy?) and one of the only RuPaul drag thingies I can remember the name of, Sharon Needles, as the Wicked Witch of the West. Don’t ask what happens to Toto.

Sat/12, 3pm and 8pm, $30 advance. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. www.peacheschrist.com

 

Reinstate the 42: SF protest in solidarity with Brazilian transit workers

Sasha Cuttler
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7
Reinstate the 42: SF protest in solidarity with Brazilian transit workers

Hey there, lovers and haters of the World Cup, if you missed out on the protest of Google and FIFA at Pride, there’s still time on the clock to score that goal: there will be another protest tomorrow [Thu/3] to support Brazilian transit workers and their quest for higher wages.

In solidarity with Brazilian protestors, a group of queer anarchists blocked the joint Google/FIFA float in the SF Pride Parade on Sunday. The group saw the float protest as an opportunity to draw together two issues linking San Francisco and Brazil: gentrification in the Bay Area and the displacement of Brazilians in order to make this year’s World Cup possible.

As the protestors said, “We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to connect issues of gentrification and evictions in the Bay Area with the violent displacement of Brazilians who live in the Favelas. The Google/FIFA float was a perfect target for direct action to raise awareness about these issues!”

According to Al Jazeera and Solidar Suisse, more than 150,000 people were evicted from their homes to create the World Cup arenas, including parking lots. Following the Brazilian government’s pacification initiative, Brazilian police occupied multiple favelas, or slums, housing around 1.5 million people total, near the airport and roads leading to the World Cup stadiums in order to make the communities more presentable. Besides minimizing gang activity temporarily, there are no programs implemented to help favela residents in the long run.

Brazilian transit workers also felt cheated by World Cup preparations. Despite Brazil’s underfunded transit system and low wages for workers, Brazil’s government poured $11.5 billion into World Cup preparations. Protestors with the Subway Workers Union of Sao Paulo were beaten and attacked with tear gas by police during a five-day strike for higher wages.

Brazilian Justice Ministry declared the strike illegal and implemented a $250,000 per day fee, and allowed the Brazilian government to fire employees that continue to strike. The workers suspended the strike before the Cup, but the 42 transit workers fired during the strike have not been reinstated.

The SF protest joins the Subway Workers Union in asking for the 42 fired workers to be reinstated. You can root for that goal Thu/3 outside the Brazilian Consulate, 300 Montgomery, SF. 4-5pm.

Protest against “Prison of Love” Armory party leads to arrests

Sasha Cuttler
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23
Protest against “Prison of Love” Armory party leads to arrests

At least six people were arrested and taken into custody shortly before midnight on Saturday at the 16th Street Mission BART Plaza following a raucous protest of Kink.com’s pre-Pride party, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesman Albie Esparza.

The protest, put on by LGBTQ activist group Gay Shame, totaled around 150 people who were unhappy with the theme of the Kink.com party, “Prison of Love.” They allege that the company used sexual assault in prisons as a means of revenue, saying it has “turned these genocidal practices into a cash-making joke.” (Tickets to the party were as much as $175.)

Though a statement from Gay Shame said the protesters were arrested “without provocation,” Esparza told us they stemmed from alleged assaults on the security guards at the party by protesters. According to an account of the protest compiled by Armory facilities manager Andrew Harvill and provided by Kink.com CEO and Armory owner Peter Acworth, “protesters were largely peaceful, though unruly. Having said that, at least a dozen were highly militant.” 

Witnesses recalled seeing a Kink.com security guard follow protesters to 16th Street roughly 30 minutes after the protest ended and begin “targeting people who were casually standing on the sidewalk getting ready to go home.” According to the witnesses, “the arrests and police violence were reportedly in retaliation for the night’s protest.”

Esparza confirmed that a security guard followed the protesters down to the plaza, though for the purpose of identifying the offenders when the police arrived. One protester reportedly threw a metal object and made threats toward a security guard during the protest, both of which are being charged as felonies, while another allegedly through an egg and spit on a security guard. When the police attempted to arrest the protester for the alleged felonies, Esparza said two other protesters tried to intervene. They were arrested and charged with lynching—a violation of Penal Code 405a, defined as “the taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer.”

Two other protesters were cited for interfering with an officer and resisting arrest, and released, according to Esparza. The protesters who allegedly threw the egg was cited for battery and released, he said. But those involved in the protest see it a bit differently.

“A friend of mine was standing with a bicycle and they arrested her seemingly at random,” said protester Erin McElroy, who was at the BART station and said the police were simply searching for someone with a bike, which led to her friend’s arrest. Similarly, another person was arrested because the police “were looking for an Asian woman with short hair,” according to McElroy, and the woman was “identified as somebody who had been with a provocateur.”

Those arrested and facing felony charges are Prisca Carpenter, Sarai Robles-Mendez, and Rebecca Ruiz-Lichter, although District Attorney George Gascón is unlikely to pursue the lynching charges, according to Rachel Lederman, president of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

“I can pretty much guarantee that the DA will not be proceeding on those charges. It is the DA who makes the charging decision…[the protesters are] being subjected to preemptive punishment right now,” Lederman wrote in an email.

Video of the Prison of Love pride party provided by Kink.com.

Harvill’s account of the events stated that protesters “used a slingshot to propel objects at security,” and punched and spat in the face of the Armory’s manager of security. The Armory guards reportedly did not retaliate or detain anyone, though they had to “block/deny intrusion onto property a few times.”

In his account, Harvill also wrote, “There was a decent contingent of protesters who were militant and provoking. Our own security was extremely professional in face of numerous provoking acts and assaults. Any claims of police brutality would be highly unlikely, but I will confirm exact details of those arrested.”

Those involved with the protest were unsurprisingly dismayed by the night’s proceedings, including members of Gay Shame.

“Like the Stonewall rebellion 45 years ago, last night’s attack reminds us how trans and queer people of color are criminalized and arrested for simply gathering in public space, like the 16th Street BART plaza,” said Gay Shame representative Mary Lou Ratchet in a statement.

Attorney John Viola, sent as an observer from the National Lawyers Guild, was also arrested, according to Lederman. The NLG is “appalled by all of the arrests…particularly that three people have been held in jail since Saturday night on groundless charges, in violation of their constitutional rights,” wrote Lederman in her email.

Four arrestees have since been released, including Viola, and all were initially medically cleared, indicating that they likely did not sustain injuries. Nevertheless, Lederman said the NLG is still working to get the three women released, with their bail currently set at a combined $178,000, Chief Deputy Kathy Gorwood told the Guardian. (Carpenter’s bail is set at $78,000, while Robles-Mendez and Ruiz-Lichter are each at $50,000.)

Acworth expressed his thoughts about his party in an open letter, stating he believes that “if a group wants to organize a particular kind of party, they should be free to do so without shame,” though conceding that “the extent to which some groups find this theme offensive because the party is happening during the San Francisco Pride weekend has given me cause to reflect.”

The Kink.com CEO has also voiced his support for the protesters’ contention, writing in an email, “I attempted to negotiate directly with the crowd, but this proved unsuccessful. This was frustrating, because I agree with the underlying issue that we are in need of prison reform,” adding, “Had it been possible to change the theme, we would have done so.”

Film Listings: June 25 – July 1, 2014

Michael Redmond
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

FRAMELINE

Frameline 38, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, runs through June 29 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. For tickets (most shows $10-15) and schedule, visit www.frameline.org.

OPENING

Breathing Earth: Susumu Shingu’s Dream Japanese artist Susumu Shingu has built his career through his concerted engagement with the natural world. The wise and eternally smiling 75-year-old creates angular and often gargantuan mobiles that harness the power of wind and water to gyrate in ever-changing directions. In Breathing Earth, German director Thomas Riedelsheimer crafts a deliberately paced rumination on Shingu’s life philosophy that, while devoid of the frenetic facts, figures, and trite biographical rehashes that punctuate hyper-informative pop-docs, uses a beautifully simplistic narrative arc to illuminates Shingu’s attempt to create a hilly, open-air collection of windmills. The sculptor’s impassioned narration and charming conversations with potential landlords and investors (who usually entirely miss the point of his mission to raise environmental consciousness through aesthetic beauty) make Shingu impossible not to fall in love with — he is laid-back, funny, and astonishingly youthful. Riedelsheimer’s camera is similarly relaxed, gliding sumptuously over the green and wild landscapes on which Shingu installs his works. Despite his meditative tempo, Riedelsheimer manages to explore a remarkably wide scope; Shingu’s late-life marriage to a fellow sculptor, his appeals to both Japanese and German schoolchildren to care for the earth and help to avoid environmental disasters, and his intricate technical processes all receive intimate and inspiring sections. (1:37) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (David Kurlander)

Citizen Koch After quietly influencing conservative ideology, legislation, and elections for decades, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers have found themselves becoming high-profile figures — much to their dismay, no doubt. The relative invisibility they hitherto enjoyed greatly abetted their impact in myriad arenas of public policy and “popular” conservative movements. Look behind any number of recent red-vs.-blue flashpoint issues and you can find their fingerprints: Notably state-level union busting; “smaller government” (i.e. incredible shrinking social services); seeding allegedly grassroots organizations like the Tea Party; furthering the Corporations = People thing (see: Citizens United); and generally helping the rich like themselves get richer while fostering working-class outrage at everybody else. This documentary by Trouble the Water (2008) co-directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessen touches on all those matters, while also focusing on Wisconsin as a test laboratory for the brothers’ Machiavellian think-tank maneuvers, following a Louisiana GOP candidate on the campaign trail (one he’s marginalized on for opposing corporate influence peddling), and more. Any one of these topics could support a feature of their own (and most already have). Citizen Koch‘s problem is that it tries to encompass too much of its subjects’ long reach, while (despite the title) leaving those subjects themselves underexplored. (It also suffers from being a movie completed at least 18 months ago, a lifetime in current US political terms.) For the reasonably well-informed this documentary will cover a lot of familiar ground—which is not to say that ground isn’t still interesting, or that the added human interest elements don’t compel. But the film covers so much ground it ends up feeling overstuffed and unfocused. (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Coherence See “Vortex Room.” (1:29) Presidio.

Korengal This companion piece to 2010’s Oscar-nominated Restrepo — one of the best docs about modern-day warfare to date, offering unfiltered access to an Army platoon stationed in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley — uses previously unseen footage shot during the year filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington spent shadowing their subjects. Korengal is structured as a more introspective work, with musings on what it feels like to be a soldier in the Korengal, surrounded by rough (yet strikingly beautiful) terrain populated by farmers who may or may not be Taliban sympathizers, not to mention unpredictable, heavily armed opponents referred to simply as “the enemy.” Interviews reveal sadness, boredom, a deep sense of brotherhood, and the frustrating feeling of going from “100 miles an hour to a dead halt” after the surreal exhilaration of a firefight. Korengal also functions as a tribute to Hetherington, who was killed in 2011 while on assignment in Libya. Not only does his death add a layer of poignant subtext, it also suggests why Junger felt moved to revisit this story. That said, though Korengal‘s footage is several years old, its themes remain distressingly timely. (1:24) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Snowpiercer Eighteen years after an attempt to reverse global warming has gone wildly awry — freezing all life into extinction — the only known survivors are on a one-of-a-kind perpetual-motion train that circles the Earth annually, has its own self-contained ecosystem, and can smash through whatever ice buildup has blocked its tracks since the last go-round. It’s also a microcosm of civilization’s worst class-economic-racial patterns over history, with the much-abused “tail” passengers living in squalor under the thumb of brutal military police. Unseen at the train’s front is its mysterious inventor, Wilford, whose minions enforce “Eternal Order Prescribed by the Sacred Engine.” Curtis (Chris Evans) is default leader of the proletariat’s latest revolt, in which they attempt to force their way forward though the prison section (where they free Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung as the train’s original lock designer and his psychic daughter) on to the wonders of the first class compartments, and beyond. This first (mostly) English-language feature by South Korean Bong Joon-ho (2006’s The Host, 2009’s Mother), based on a 1982 French graphic novel, starts out as a sort of locomotive, claustrophobic Mad Max (1979) variation. But it gets wilder and more satirical as it goes along, goosed by Tilda Swinton’s grotesquely comic Minister Mason, and Alison Pill as a teacher propagandist in a particularly hilarious set piece. In case the metaphor hasn’t already hit you on the head, one character explains “The train is the world, we the humanity.” But Snowpiercer‘s sociopolitical critique is as effective as it is blunt, because Bong handles everything here — visceral action, absurdist humor, narrative left-turns, neatly etched character archetypes, et al. — with style, confidence, and wit. Some of the FX may not be quite as seamless as it would have been in a $200 million Hollywood studio production, and fanboys will no doubt nitpick like nitwits at various “credibility gaps.” (As if this movie ever asks to be taken literally.) But by current, or any, sci-fi action blockbuster standards, this is a giddily unpredictable, risk-taking joy. (2:07) (Harvey)

Third Person A screenwriter, Paul Haggis, pens a script in which a novelist (Liam Neeson) sits alone in a smoke-filled hotel room in Paris struggling over a manuscript about a novelist who can only feel emotions through his characters. What that psychic state would actually look like remains unclear — when the woman (Olivia Wilde) he’s left his wife (Kim Basinger) for shows up, their playful, painful, fraught interactions reveal a man with above-average emotional reserves. Meanwhile, in another hotel in another city, Rome, a sleazy fashion industry spy (Adrien Brody) finds his life turned sideways by a seemingly chance encounter in a bar with a beautiful Romanian woman (Moran Atias) in dire need of money. And in a third hotel, in Manhattan, a young woman (Mila Kunis) cleans up the suites she used to stay in when she was married to a renowned painter (James Franco), with whom she has a son she may or may not have harmed in some terrible way. The film broadly hints at connections between these three sets of lives — in each, the loss or endangerment of a child produces an unrelenting ripple effect; speaking of which, objects unnaturally submerged in water present an ominous visual motif. If the movie poster doesn’t give the game away as you’re walking into the theater, the signposts erected by Haggis ensure that you won’t be in the dark for long. Learning how these characters relate to one another, however, puts considerable drag on the fabric of the plot, exposing the threadbare places, and where Haggis offers his tortured characters redemption, it comes at the cost of good storytelling. (2:17) Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Transformers: Age of Extinction Mark Wahlberg and the Dinobots star in the latest installment of Michael Bay’s action sci-fi series. (2:30) Presidio.

Under the Electric Sky Hey, raver! This 3D concert film enables you to experience the Electric Daisy Carnival without punching any holes in your brain. (1:25)

Violette Taking on another “difficult” woman artist after the excellent 2008 Séraphine (about the folk-art painter), Martin Provost here portrays the unhappy life of Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos), whose fiction and autobiographical writings eventually made her a significant figure in postwar French literature. We first meet her waiting out the war with gay author Maurice Sachs (Olivier Py), one of many unrequited loves, then surviving via the black market trade before she’s “discovered” by such groundbreaking, already-established talents as Jean Genet (Jacques Bonnaffé) and Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain). It is the latter, a loyal supporter who nonetheless retains a chilly emotional distance, who becomes bisexual Violette’s principal obsession over the coming 20 years or so. Devos does her best to portray “a neurotic crazy washed-up old bag” with an “ugly mug” — hardly! — who is perpetually broke, depressed, and awkward, thanks no doubt in part to her mean witch of a mother (Catherine Hiegel). “Screaming and sobbing won’t get you anywhere,” Simone at one point tells her, and indeed Leduc is a bit of a pill. For the most part lacking the visual splendors of Séraphine (this character’s environs weren’t so pastoral), Violette is finely acted and crafted but, like its heroine, hard to love. (2:18) Albany, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

ONGOING

Belle The child of a British naval officer and a Caribbean slave, Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is deposited on the doorstep — well, the estate grounds — of her father’s relatives in 1769 England after her mother dies. Soon she’s entirely orphaned, which makes her a wealthy heiress and aristocratic title holder at the same time that she is something less than human in the eyes of her adopted society. For Belle is black (or more properly, mixed-race), and thus a useless curiosity at best as a well-bred noblewoman of the “wrong” racial makeup. Based on a murky actual historical chapter, Amma Asante’s film is that rare sumptuous costume drama which actually has something on its mind beyond romance and royalty. Not least among its pleasures are a fine supporting cast including Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, and Emily Watson. (1:45) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

A Coffee in Berlin How do you say “mumblecore” in German? Jan Ole Gerster’s debut feature has certain arty pretensions — it’s shot in black-and-white, and scored with peppy jazz — but it’s more or less a rambling day in the life of law school dropout Niko (Tom Schilling). It happens to be the very day Niko’s golf-loving father decides to stop funding his shiftless son’s slacker lifestyle, though that crisis (which, you know, Lena Dunham built an entire HBO comedy around) receives nearly equal heft as a cutesy ongoing gimmick that sees Niko incapable of getting a cup of coffee anywhere in Berlin. Hipster ennui can be compelling if it has some underlying energy and purpose (see: 2013’s Frances Ha, to which this film has been compared), but A Coffee in Berlin comes up short on both. That said, it does offer an intriguing portrayal of Berlin — a city whose modern-chic façade barely contains the history that haunts it — and some of its supporting characters, particularly Friederike Kempter as a former schoolmate of Niko’s who has outgrown him emotionally by about one thousand percent, provide pleasant enough distractions. (1:28) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Fault in Our Stars I confess: I’m no card-carrying, vlog-flogging Nerdfighter in author John Green’s teen-geek army. But one can admire the passion — and teary romanticism — of the writer, readers, and the breakthrough novel that started it all. Much has been made over the cinematic tweaks to the best-selling YA book, but those seem like small beefs: OK, male romantic lead Gus’s (Ansel Elgort) perhaps-understandable brattiness seems to have been toned down a touch, but we’ll all get the somewhat-subversive push and pull of Green’s love story centered on two cancer-stricken innocents. Sixteen-year-old Hazel (a radiant Shailene Woodley) has been battling cancer almost all her life, fighting back from the brink, and now making her way every day with an oxygen tank and her devoted parents (Laura Dern, Sam Trammel) by her side. Her mordant wit, skeptical attitude, and smarts attract Gus, a handsome teen with a prosthetic leg, at a cancer support group, and the two embark on what seems like the most normal thing in the world — sweet, sweet love — albeit cut with the poignancy of almost-certain doom. Would the girl who calls herself a grenade dare to care for someone she will likely hurt? That’s the real question on her mind when the two reach out to the solitary author (Willem Dafoe) of their favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. The journey the two make leaves them both open to more hurt than either ever imagined, and though a good part of Fault‘s denouement boils down to a major puddle cuddle — with solid performances by all, but particularly Dern and Woodley — even a cynic is likely to get a bit misty as the kids endure all the stages of loss. And learning. (2:05) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia Nicholas Wrathall’s highly entertaining documentary pays tribute to one of the 20th century’s most brilliant, original, and cranky thinkers, with extensive input from the man himself before his death in 2012 at age 86. The emphasis here is less on Vidal’s life as a literary lion and often glittering celebrity social life than on his parallel career as a harsh scold of US social injustices and political corruption. (Needless to say, recent history only sharpened his tongue in that department, with George W. Bush dismissed as “a goddamn fool,” and earlier statements such as “This is a country of the rich, for the rich and by the rich” seeming more apt than ever.) He’s a wellspring of wisdoms both blunt and witty, sometimes surprising, as in his hindsight doubts about the virtues of JFK (a personal friend) as a president. We get plenty of colorful archival clips in which he’s seen verbally jousting with such famous foes as William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer, invariably reducing them to stammering fury while remaining exasperatingly unruffled. His “out” homosexuality and outré views on sexuality in general (at odds with an increasingly assimilationist gay community) kept him controversial even among many liberals, while conservatives were further irked by his rock-solid family connections to the ruling elite. In our era of scripted political rhetoric and pandering anti-intellectualism, it’s a joy merely to spend an hour and half in the company of someone so brilliantly articulate on seemingly any topic — but particularly on the perpetually self-mythologizing, money-worshipping state of our Union. (1:29) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Grand Seduction Canadian actor-director Don McKellar (1998’s Last Night) remakes 2003 Quebecois comedy Seducing Doctor Lewis, about a depressed community searching for the town doctor they’ll need before a factory will agree to set up shop and bring much-needed jobs to the area. Canada is still the setting here, with the harbor’s name — Tickle Head — telegraphing with zero subtlety that whimsy lies ahead. A series of events involving a Tickle Head-based TSA agent, a bag of cocaine, and a harried young doctor (Taylor Kitsch) trying to avoid jail time signals hope for the hamlet, and de facto town leader Murray (Brendan Gleeson) snaps into action. The seduction of “Dr. Paul,” who agrees to one month of service not knowing the town is desperate to keep him, is part Northern Exposure culture clash, part Jenga-like stack of lies, as the townspeople pretend to love cricket (Paul’s a fanatic) and act like his favorite lamb dish is the specialty at the local café. The wonderfully wry Gleeson is the best thing about this deeply predictable tale, which errs too often on the side of cute (little old ladies at the switchboard listening in on Paul’s phone-sex with his girlfriend!) rather than clever, as when an unsightly structure in the center of town is explained away with a fake “World Heritage House” plaque. Still, the scenery is lovely, and “cute” doesn’t necessarily mean “not entertaining.” (1:52) Albany, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Ida The bomb drops within the first ten minutes: after being gently forced to reconnect with her only living relative before taking her vows, novice nun Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) learns that her name is actually Ida, and that she’s Jewish. Her mother’s sister, Wanda (Agneta Kulesza) — a Communist Party judge haunted by a turbulent past she copes with via heavy drinking, among other vices — also crisply relays that Ida’s parents were killed during the Nazi occupation, and after some hesitation agrees to accompany the sheltered young woman to find out how they died, and where their bodies were buried. Drawing great depth from understated storytelling and gorgeous, black-and-white cinematography, Pawel Pawilowski’s well-crafted drama offers a bleak if realistic (and never melodramatic) look at 1960s Poland, with two polar-opposite characters coming to form a bond as their layers of painful loss rise to the surface. (1:20) Albany, Clay, Piedmont. (Eddy)

Ivory Tower The latest “issue doc” to come down the pipeline is this very timely and incisive look at the cost of higher education from director Andrew Rossi (2011’s Page One: Inside the New York Times). Rossi is a Yale and Harvard Law grad, and he begins his film in the hallowed halls of the latter to frame the question: In the era of skyrocketing tuition, and with the student loan debt hovering at a trillion bucks, is college still worth it? The answer is left open-ended, though with the very strong suggestion that nontraditional education (including community colleges, online learning, and the Silicon Valley-spawned “uncollege” movement) is certainly something worth exploring, particularly for the non-wealthy. Along the way, we do see some positive tales (a kid from the mean streets of Cleveland gets a full-ride scholarship to Harvard; students at rural Deep Springs College follow philosophy discussions with farm work; African American women at Spelman College thrive in an empowering environment), but there’s a fair amount of cynicism here, too, with a hard look at how certain state schools are wooing deep-pocketed out-of-staters with fancy athletic stadiums, luxurious amenities, and a willingness to embrace, however unofficially, their hard-partying reputations. Segments following a student protest at New York’s Cooper Union, a formerly free school forced to consider collecting tuition after a string of financial troubles, echo Frederick Wiseman’s epic At Berkeley (2013), a thematically similar if stylistically very different work. (1:37) California. (Eddy)

Jersey Boys The musical that turned the back story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — the 1960s hit making machines behind upbeat doo-wop ditties like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and a zillion more; you will recognize all of them — into Broadway gold ascends to the big screen thanks to director Clint Eastwood, a seemingly odd choice until you consider Eastwood’s own well-documented love of music. Jersey Boys weaves a predictable tale of show biz dreams realized and then nearly dashed, with a gangster element that allows for some Goodfellas-lite action (a pre-fame Joe Pesci is a character here; he was actually from the same ‘hood, and was instrumental in the group’s formation). With songs recorded live on-set, à la 2012’s Les Misérables, there’s some spark to the musical numbers, but Eastwood’s direction is more solid than spontaneous, with zero surprises (even the big finale, clearly an attempt at a fizzy, feel-good farewell, seems familiar). Still, the cast — including Tony winner John Lloyd Young as Valli, and Christopher Walken as a sympathetic mobster — is likable, with Young in particular turning in a textured performance that speaks to his years of experience with the role. For an interview with cast members Young, Michael Lomenda (who plays original Four Season Nick Massi), and Erich Bergen (as Bob Gaudio, the member who wrote most of the group’s hits), visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (2:14) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Obvious Child We first encounter the protagonist of writer-director Gillian Robespierre’s funny, original film — a Brooklyn-dwelling twentysomething named Donna (Jenny Slate), who works at a lefty secondhand bookstore and makes regular (if unpaid) appearances at a local comedy night — onstage mining such underdiscussed topics as the effects of vaginal discharge on your garden-variety pair of underwear. This proves a natural segue to other hefty nuggets of embarrassment gold concerning her love life, to the dismay of boyfriend Ryan (Paul Briganti), auditing from the back of the club. He pretty much deserves it, however, for what he’s about to do, which is break up with her in a nasty, well-populated unisex bathroom, taking time to repeatedly glance at the texts coming through on his phone from Donna’s good friend, with whom he’s sleeping. So when Donna, mid-drowning of sorrows, meets a nice-looking fellow named Max (Jake Lacy) at the bar, his post-fraternity-presidency aesthetic seems unlikely to deter her from a one-night stand. The ensuing trashed make-out dance-off in Max’s apartment to the Paul Simon song of the title is both comic and adorable. The fractured recap of the evening’s condom-free horizontal events that occurs inside Donna’s brain three weeks later, as she hunkers down with her best friend, Nellie (Gaby Hoffmann), in the bookstore’s bathroom after peeing on a stick, is equally hilarious — and unwanted-pregnancy jokes aren’t that easy to pull off. Robespierre’s treatment of this extended windup and of Donna’s decision to have an abortion is a witty, warmhearted retort to 2007’s Knocked Up, a couple generations’ worth of Hollywood rom-com writers, and an entertainment industry that continues to perform its sweaty contortions of storytelling in the gutless cause of avoiding the A-word. (1:15) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Ping Pong Summer Eighties teen flicks of the My Bodyguard (1980), smart-dweebs-beat-the-bullies ilk are paid homage in Michael Tully’s deadpan satire, which is closer in spirit to the Comedy of Lameness school whose patron saint is Napoleon Dynamite. Radley (Marcello Conte) is an average teen so excited to be spending the summer of 1985 in Ocean City, Md. with his family that he renames himself “Rad Miracle.” He acquires a new best friend in Teddy (Myles Massey), who as the whitest black kid imaginable might make even Rad look cool by comparison. However, they are both dismayed to discover the local center for video gaming and everything else they like is ruled by bigger, older, cuter, and snottier douchebag Lyle Ace (Joseph McCaughtry) and his sidekick. Only kicking Lyle’s ass at ping pong — with some help from a local weirdo (a miscast Susan Sarandon, apparently here because she’s an off screen ping pong enthusiast) — can save Rad’s wounded dignity, and the summer in general. A big step up from Tully’s odd but pointless prior Septien (2011), this has all the right stuff (including a soundtrack packed with the likes of the Fat Boys, Mary Jane Girls, New Edition, Whodini, and Night Ranger) to hilariously parody the era’s inanities. But it’s just mildly amusing — a droll attitude with lots of period detail but not much bite. (1:32) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Rover Future days have never seemed quite so bleak as they are depicted in the wild, wild Aussie west of The Rover — rendered by Animal Kingdom (2010) director David Michod, who co-wrote The Rover with Joel Edgerton. Let’s just say we’re probably not going to see any primo Burner ensembles inspired by this post-apocalyptic yarn: Michod ventures to a plausible future only a decade out, after a global economic collapse, and breaks down the brooding road trip to its hard-boiled bones, setting it in a beauteous, lawless, and unceasingly violent outback. A heist gone wrong leads a small gang of robbers to steal the car belonging to monosyllabic, ruthless mystery man Eric (Guy Pearce). The latter wants his boxy little sedan back, badly, and, in the cat and mouse game that ensues, seems willing to die for the trouble. Meanwhile, one of the gang of thieves — the slow, dreamy Rey (Robert Pattinson), who has been left to die of a gunshot wound in the dirt — turns out to be more of a survivor than anyone imagined when he tracks down the tracker hunting for his brother and cohorts. Michod seems most interested in examining and turning over the ties that bind, in a mean time, an eminently absurdist moment, when everything else has fallen away in the face of sheer survival. Cineastes, however, will appreciate the elemental, existential pleasures of this dog-eat-dog Down Under out-Western, not the least of which include the performances. Pearce’s rework of the Man With No Name exudes intention in the very forward thrust of his stance, and Pattinson breaks his cool — and the confines of typecasting — as a blubbering, babbling, thin-skinned man-child. Clad in the mystic expanses of the South Australia desert, which tip a hat to John Ford Westerns as well as scorched-earth-of-the-mind movies such as El Topo (1970) and Paris, Texas (1984), The Rover is taken to the level of tone poem by the shuddering, moaning cellos of Antony Partos’s impressive, atonal electroacoustic score. (1:42) Metreon, Shattuck. (Chun)

The Signal Sharing its title with a 2007 film — also a thriller about a mysterious transmission that wreaks havoc in the lives of its protagonists — this offbeat feature from co-writer and director William Eubank belies its creator’s deep affection for, and knowledge of, the sci-fi genre. Number one thing The Signal is not is predictable, but its twists feel organic even as the story takes one hairpin turn after another. MIT buddies Nic (Brenton Thwaites) and Jonah (Beau Knapp) are driving Nic’s girlfriend, Haley (Olivia Cooke), cross-country to California. Complicating the drama of the young couple’s imminent separation is Nic’s deteriorating physical condition (it’s never explained, but the former runner apparently has MS or some other neurological disease). The road trip turns dark when the trio (who also happen to be hackers) realize an Internet troll they’ve tangled with in the past is stalking them. After a brief detour into found-footage horror — fooled ya, Eubank seems to be saying; this ain’t that kind of movie at all! — the kids find themselves embroiled in ever-more-terrifying realities. To give away more would ruin the fun of being shocked for yourself, but think Twilight Zone meets Area 51 meets a certain futuristic trilogy starring Laurence Fishburne, who turns up here to play a very important role in Nic and company’s waking nightmare. (1:37) Metreon. (Eddy) *

 

Sex behind bars

Michael Redmond
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Sex behind bars

Kink.com’s pre-Pride party “Pride at the Armory: Prison of Love” on Sat/28 promises to create the “world’s largest megaclub prison yard” as a backdrop for the festivities. However, this party is doing more than raising the roof — it’s raising concerns about incarceration rates and prison assaults of LGBTQ peoples. Critics argue that the party fetishizes sexual assault in prisons.

The argument is that the Prison of Love theme is turning sexual assault in prisons into a commodity. With tickets ranging from $50 to $175, there’s definitely something being sold. Since the party can be seen as selling BDSM and prison fantasies, critics worry that it condones prison rape and makes it seem sexy. That’s causing an uproar in the LGBTQ community, especially since statistics show that being LGBTQ is a main risk factor of prison rape.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, transgender adult inmates are sexually abused 13 times more often than other inmates and nearly 1 in 6 transgender people have been incarcerated at some point in their lives. The US Department of Justice reports that juvenile LGBTQ prisoners report sexual assault 12 times more often than straight youths. And that’s just what’s reported.

The BoycottSFPride letter posted on Tumblr criticizes the party’s theme and states that one of the main issues with the party is the way it’s marketed. The letter argues that “the party…fetishizes prison sexual assault, a form of violence that primarily affects low-income people of color, particularly LGBTQ people.” But what about sexual fetishes and preferences on a personal level? “While it is certainly appropriate for individuals to participate in scenes, or even larger events that explore prison fetishes, throwing a major event billed as the city’s largest Pride party is inappropriate.”

The Transgender Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project also posted an open letter in response to the event. The letter is, most notably, signed by this year’s SF Pride Grand Marshal, Miss Major. The letter states that it’s not the kinkiness of the party that’s an issue — it’s the theme. “It’s not that we don’t love sex, sex parties, sex workers, and kink. It’s that we love it as much as we love justice, and are appalled by the casual use of the Prison Industrial Complex.”

(A protest march to the Armory during the party is planned by Gay Shame and others, Sat/28, 10pm, starting from the 16th St. BART station. More details at www.gayshamesf.org.)

Kink.com CEO Peter Acworth told the Guardian that his company tries to draw the line between reality and fantasy, sexual justice issues and sexual fantasies. He points out the structural differences between fantasy and reality and, in our interview, pointed out that BDSM has parameters to ensure that it’s consensual: “The notion of consent is central in BDSM—that is, no one is held against their will, everything must be negotiated, there are safe words. None of that exists in actual prison.”

In regards to the marketing issue, Acworth said that Kink is contractually bound to the theme and it’s too late to order new costumes, sets, and props. The closest Acworth gets to saying whether or not the theme is appropriate is this statement: “Had I thought that a prison fantasy party would detract from the very serious issue of the prison industrial complex in this country, I would have insisted on another theme.”

Acworth said that he was particularly chagrined by the protest because “the LGBTQ communities are strongly represented and cherished at the core of Kink.com.” That point was echoed by Andrew Harvill, the main coordinator of the party. Not only does Harvill identify with the LGBTQ community, he worked with prisoners and Death Row inmates as a missionary in Georgia. When asked about his feelings on the theme, Harvill described the prison as a backdrop to the party, as scenery that’s no different from that of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black or gay bars such as Cell Block in Pennsylvania. Harvill also stressed that there are two parts to the theme: “Our detractors skip over the whole love part of the theme. Everyone just wants to talk about one part of a two-part theme.”

We talked to Courtney Trouble, a local indie pornographer, about sexual fantasies involving transgressive realms such as rape, which she said can be useful and enjoyable. Trouble points out that “millions of people in this world are survivors of abuse, and those of them with kinks or fetishes may find solace in their BDSM practice.”

She said an abuse survivor could queer something that happened to them in order to gain control of the situation, but sexual fantasies aren’t limited to victims. “It may be that the person is attracted to the edge, pushing their own boundaries into unsafe space in order to disconnect from the real world and heighten their focus on sexual pleasure.”

So how can the issues with the theme be fixed? Acworth promises that Kink is changing the invitation to add links to highlight the political issue and remove words like “incarceration” and “arrested.” Regarding the economic aspects of the event, Acworth says that Kink is “happy to talk with any groups about ways we can help support them.” Trouble suggests creating a space that allows attendees to define the surroundings themselves. “That way, those queers with prison fantasies could play out their desires in a safe space, while also making space for people who may actually be quite triggered by sexual prison fantasy, but still want to participate in a kinky pride play space. “

Although the party’s theme is controversial, it’s at least opening the discussion around the incarceration rate and prison-related violence toward LGBTQ people. The BoycottSFPride letter provides great facts about sexual assault in prisons and the party invitation will soon help educate as well. Harvill stated that “the point of the party is to have fun, more than it is intended to raise consciousness of a political issue.”

Now, maybe it will do both.

Frameline is underway! Plus: crooners, ping-pong champs, and more, in new movies

Sue Vaughan
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Frameline 38, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, kicked off last night and runs through June 29; check out our big list o’ blurbs right here. Elsewhere, Clint Eastwood directs a musical, Guy Pearce prowls the outback, a very good suburban noir emerges from the Netherlands, a documentary takes on the cost of higher education, and more! Read on for the goods (and bads). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-VBgShBKlY

 Borgman Popping out from his underground hidey hole, narrowly escaping organized armed vigilantes — indicating an ongoing, possibly global secret battle this movie is content to leave entirely unexplained — the titular figure (Jan Bijvoet) shambles to a nearby home and demands comfort. Refused, he persists, and housewife Marina (Hadewych Minis) acquiesces — at first on the sly, as husband Richard (Jeroen Perceval) has already beaten their paunchy, disheveled, weird would-be guest. But soon Borgman is insinuating himself with the well-off suburban couple’s three children, gradually warping the family dynamic until he has everyone under his power. You’ve seen this kind of “Enigmatic stranger invades complacent bourgeoisie home, wreaks liberating and/or terrifying havoc” thing before, both in thrillers and in artier parables from Teorema (1968) to The King (2005). There is nothing wildly original about Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam’s seductive, macabre black comedy in outline, not its satire of oblivious upper-middle-class entitlement or even (perhaps especially) when the too-generous hosts and any unlucky interlopers start getting killed off one by one. You can debate Borgman’s precise point, or whether it has one at all. But there’s a tart, bracing quality to this cruel absurdist joke that is as perversely delightful as the film is utterly misanthropic. (1:53) (Dennis Harvey)

A Coffee in Berlin How do you say “mumblecore” in German? Jan Ole Gerster’s debut feature has certain arty pretensions — it’s shot in black-and-white, and scored with peppy jazz — but it’s more or less a rambling day in the life of law school dropout Niko (Tom Schilling). It happens to be the very day Niko’s golf-loving father decides to stop funding his shiftless son’s slacker lifestyle, though that crisis (which, you know, Lena Dunham built an entire HBO comedy around) receives nearly equal heft as a cutesy ongoing gimmick that sees Niko incapable of getting a cup of coffee anywhere in Berlin. Hipster ennui can be compelling if it has some underlying energy and purpose (see: 2013’s Frances Ha, to which this film has been compared), but A Coffee in Berlin comes up short on both. That said, it does offer an intriguing portrayal of Berlin — a city whose modern-chic façade barely contains the history that haunts it — and some of its supporting characters, particularly Friederike Kempter as a former schoolmate of Niko’s who has outgrown him emotionally by about one thousand percent, provide pleasant enough distractions. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)

Fateful Findings Oh my. With the technical sophistication of Birdemic (2008), Doris Wishman-worthy attention to superfluous detail, and the obliviousness of The Room (2008) toward any semblance of narrative or character continuity, this supernatural drama — or, uh, something like that — is making a bid to be the latest so-bad-it’s-surreal midnight movie hit. Writer-director-producer-editor-star Neil Breen, a man of many hats if no apparent talents, plays Dylan, a writer. As a child, he and friend Leah had found a mushroom that turned into a jewelry box (““Look what I found! A treasure! It’s a magical day!”), and which will come to effect their lives in ways that never make any sense whatsoever. They reunite as re-infatuated adults (Jennifer Autry now playing Leah), which is bad news for the pill-popping wife (Klara Landrat) Dylan is kinda over anyway. Meanwhile, their friends Jim (David Silva) and Amy (Victoria Valene) fight a lot, because he drinks to compensate for their nonexistent sex life, and she’s just incredibly bitchy. Eventually we realize that Dylan is working on a new book that will shockingly expose the rampant global corporate and political corruption that apparently no one has ever noticed before. The climax, which must be seen to be believed, has him triumphantly announcing these (extremely vague) revelations to the cheers of invisible thousands, while disgraced officials are seen committing suicide en masse rather than, you know, retiring to the Canary Islands. There’s a fine line between the hilarious and tortuous that is exactly where Fateful Findings lives. With its flatlined pacing, not-from-this-planet dialogue (Dylan straight facedly tells a dead body “I can’t help you outta this one”), gratuitous nudity, and curious insistence that its characters express emotions by throwing things (laptops, pieces of meat, etc.), this inscrutable vanity project is indeed unique. What it lacks to get you through the (many) boring parts is the compelling personality of a Tommy Wiseau — Breen is (like everyone here) awful, but he’s just a zero onscreen, not a fascinating weirdo. You will want to be drunk for this movie. (1:40) Clay. (Dennis Harvey)

Ivory Tower The latest “issue doc” to come down the pipeline is this very timely and incisive look at the cost of higher education from director Andrew Rossi (2011’s Page One: Inside the New York Times). Rossi is a Yale and Harvard Law grad, and he begins his film in the hallowed halls of the latter to frame the question: In the era of skyrocketing tuition, and with the student loan debt hovering at a trillion bucks, is college still worth it? The answer is left open-ended, though with the very strong suggestion that nontraditional education (including community colleges, online learning, and the Silicon Valley-spawned “uncollege” movement) is certainly something worth exploring, particularly for the non-wealthy. Along the way, we do see some positive tales (a kid from the mean streets of Cleveland gets a full-ride scholarship to Harvard; students at rural Deep Springs College follow philosophy discussions with farm work; African American women at Spelman College thrive in an empowering environment), but there’s a fair amount of cynicism here, too, with a hard look at how certain state schools are wooing deep-pocketed out-of-staters with fancy athletic stadiums, luxurious amenities, and a willingness to embrace, however unofficially, their hard-partying reputations. Segments following a student protest at New York’s Cooper Union, a formerly free school forced to consider collecting tuition after a string of financial troubles, echo Frederick Wiseman’s epic At Berkeley (2013), a thematically similar if stylistically very different work. (1:37) (Cheryl Eddy)

Jersey Boys The musical that turned the back story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — the 1960s hit making machines behind upbeat doo-wop ditties like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and a zillion more; you will recognize all of them — into Broadway gold ascends to the big screen thanks to director Clint Eastwood, a seemingly odd choice until you consider Eastwood’s own well-documented love of music. Jersey Boys weaves a predictable tale of show biz dreams realized and then nearly dashed, with a gangster element that allows for some Goodfellas-lite action (a pre-fame Joe Pesci is a character here; he was actually from the same ‘hood, and was instrumental in the group’s formation). With songs recorded live on-set, à la 2012’s Les Misérables, there’s some spark to the musical numbers, but Eastwood’s direction is more solid than spontaneous, with zero surprises (even the big finale, clearly an attempt at a fizzy, feel-good farewell, seems familiar). Still, the cast — including Tony winner John Lloyd Young as Valli, and Christopher Walken as a sympathetic mobster — is likable, with Young in particular turning in a textured performance that speaks to his years of experience with the role. Interview with cast members Young, Michael Lomenda (who plays original Four Season Nick Massi), and Erich Bergen (as Bob Gaudio, the member who wrote most of the group’s hits), right here. (2:14) (Cheryl Eddy)

Ping Pong Summer Eighties teen flicks of the My Bodyguard (1980), smart-dweebs-beat-the-bullies ilk are paid homage in Michael Tully’s deadpan satire, which is closer in spirit to the Comedy of Lameness school whose patron saint is Napoleon Dynamite. Radley (Marcello Conte) is an average teen so excited to be spending the summer of 1985 in Ocean City, Md. with his family that he renames himself “Rad Miracle.” He acquires a new best friend in Teddy (Myles Massey), who as the whitest black kid imaginable might make even Rad look cool by comparison. However, they are both dismayed to discover the local center for video gaming and everything else they like is ruled by bigger, older, cuter, and snottier douchebag Lyle Ace (Joseph McCaughtry) and his sidekick. Only kicking Lyle’s ass at ping pong — with some help from a local weirdo (a miscast Susan Sarandon, apparently here because she’s an off screen ping pong enthusiast) — can save Rad’s wounded dignity, and the summer in general. A big step up from Tully’s odd but pointless prior Septien (2011), this has all the right stuff (including a soundtrack packed with the likes of the Fat Boys, Mary Jane Girls, New Edition, Whodini, and Night Ranger) to hilariously parody the era’s inanities. But it’s just mildly amusing — a droll attitude with lots of period detail but not much bite. (1:32) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

The Rover Future days have never seemed quite so bleak as they are depicted in the wild, wild Aussie west of The Rover — rendered by Animal Kingdom (2010) director David Michod, who co-wrote The Rover with Joel Edgerton. Let’s just say we’re probably not going to see any primo Burner ensembles inspired by this post-apocalyptic yarn: Michod ventures to a plausible future only a decade out, after a global economic collapse, and breaks down the brooding road trip to its hard-boiled bones, setting it in a beauteous, lawless, and unceasingly violent outback. A heist gone wrong leads a small gang of robbers to steal the car belonging to monosyllabic, ruthless mystery man Eric (Guy Pearce). The latter wants his boxy little sedan back, badly, and, in the cat and mouse game that ensues, seems willing to die for the trouble. Meanwhile, one of the gang of thieves — the slow, dreamy Rey (Robert Pattinson), who has been left to die of a gunshot wound in the dirt — turns out to be more of a survivor than anyone imagined when he tracks down the tracker hunting for his brother and cohorts. Michod seems most interested in examining and turning over the ties that bind, in a mean time, an eminently absurdist moment, when everything else has fallen away in the face of sheer survival. Cineastes, however, will appreciate the elemental, existential pleasures of this dog-eat-dog Down Under out-Western, not the least of which include the performances. Pearce’s rework of the Man With No Name exudes intention in the very forward thrust of his stance, and Pattinson breaks his cool — and the confines of typecasting — as a blubbering, babbling, thin-skinned man-child. Clad in the mystic expanses of the South Australia desert, which tip a hat to John Ford Westerns as well as scorched-earth-of-the-mind movies such as El Topo (1970) and Paris, Texas (1984), The Rover is taken to the level of tone poem by the shuddering, moaning cellos of Antony Partos’s impressive, atonal electroacoustic score. (1:42) (Kimberly Chun)

Think Like a Man Too Kevin Hart and company head to Vegas in this sequel to the 2012 hit comedy based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling relationship tome. (2:02)

City College’s accreditors bow to pressure, amend rules to save CCSF

Erica Hanna
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City College’s accreditors bow to pressure, amend rules to save CCSF

Keep City College of San Francisco open, or else.

That’s the message local and federal officials have drilled into City College’s accreditors in recent weeks. Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Jackie Speier; Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano and Phil Ting; and the state’s community college government have all publicly pressured the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges to give City College an extension to prove its worth.

Finally bowing to pressure, the ACCJC may soon chang their own rules to save City College.

Today the ACCJC announced changes in its policy exclusively for colleges with terminated accreditation, granting a chance for such colleges to request a new “accreditation restoration status.”

“This is new for the ACCJC, but I don’t know if its new for other institutions,” Dave Hyams, a spokesperson for the ACCJC told us. But this new policy may offer new hope for City College.

In 2012 the ACCJC told City College its accreditation would be terminated, putting the school in the fight of its life. A loss of accreditation would mean its degrees are worthless, and the school would lose government funding. Notably, the school has not lost its accreditation yet.

The ACCJC’s policy change is not yet final, as the agency is allowing two weeks for the public to weigh in. The changes will be finalized on June 25, the commission said.

If the policy is adopted though, it means City College would be able to apply for a lifeline.

“If this policy is adopted as expected,” the ACCJC wrote in their statement to the press, “CCSF would have the opportunity to take steps to be designated as being in restoration status.”

Hyams denied the decision has anything to do with the very recent, and very public, emails from Nancy Pelosi and other politicians to demanding the ACCJC give City College more time.

“The ACCJC was looking for a way to balance the impact of termination on students,” he said, “with the needs for the college to meet basic standards.”

The college would need to file its application for restoration status by July 2014, City College’s originally announced accreditation termination date. This may all be moot, however, as City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed for an injunction to stall the college’s closure until the conclusion of the city’s lawsuit against the ACCJC. Legal proceedings are expected to begin in October.

Sara Eisenberg, the deputy city attorney leading the case against the ACCJC, told us this doesn’t affect the case at all.

“Our lawsuit is about the ACCJC’s bad acts, which go to the heart of the fairness and accuracy of the accreditation evaluation process,” she told the Guardian. “These violations of law, policy and fundamental fairness require that the ACCJC’s past decisions concerning City College be vacated and that City College be reevaluated on a clean slate using a fair process.”

Interestingly, the announcement of restoration status by the ACCJC contains a caveat: they will not extend CCSF’s appeal unless the US Department of Education gives them the go-ahead. Hyams said the ACCJC developed this plan while consulting the USDOE, so it may be a slam dunk.

Need some context on the City College fight? Check out the video above for a basic overview.

“The commission and the department had very recent meetings that have been constructive and productive, they’re fully aware of this proposal,” he told us.

One of those meetings was not so peaceful, however, as over 200 City College supporters rallied outside the ACCJC’s semi-annual meeting in Sacramento, demanding the organization rescind its decision to revoke the college’s accreditation. The protest was led by the California Federation of Teachers, the local AFT 2121 and attended by teachers and students alike.

Tim Killikelly, the president of the AFT 2121 had questions about the new policy.

“I’m not sure how this restoration status is different than what appeals already existed,” he said. “The students need to be sure about their academic future, and this doesn’t do that. The students need to breathe a sigh of relief.”

He’s referring to the college’s recent drop in enrollment. At its height City College had over 100,000 students enrolled. But, due in part to its accreditation struggles and (some have said) the economy’s mild upswing, the enrollment has recently dropped to under 80,000 students. 

Killikelly laid much of the blame for that enrollment drop at the feet of the ACCJC. “They should’ve sent a team to verify we’re in compliance,” he said. Instead of this middling compromise, if the ACCJC had instead granted full accreditation Killikelly thinks confidence in the college could be restored.

City College Trustee Rafael Mandelman was also cautious about the decision.

“Its good news,”  he said, but, “the powers that be have rallied and persuaded the ACCJC that they cannot shut City College down now. The ACCJC are not pulling their claws out of the college. We will continue this terrible dance unless the City Attorney wins his lawsuit.”

The college may already have bounced back. California Community College Chancellor Brice Harris and City College Chancellor Arthur Tyler have publicly stated the school is 95 percent done addressing all of the concerns the ACCJC wanted to see fixed.

Mandelman contends the ACCJC’s move to terminate City College’s accreditation did more harm than good. “This whole process has been incredibly and unnecessarily disruptive on City College,” he said. “It’s a horrendous way to reform an institution.”

It should be noted that City College is still open, and remains accredited. For a look at the new policy from the ACCJC, click here.

Guardian Intel: Guardian Clean Slate clip-out guide, Intersection for the Arts halts programs

Erica Hanna
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GUARDIAN CLEAN SLATE

Our clip-out guide to take to the polls for the June 3 election. Read our full endorsements at www.tinyurl.com/SFBGJune2014Endorsements

GOVERNOR: Jerry Brown

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Gavin Newsom

SECRETARY OF STATE: Derek Cressman

CONTROLLER: Betty Yee

TREASURER: John Chiang

ATTORNEY GENERAL: Kamala Harris

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Dave Jones

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS: Tom Torlakson

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION: Fiona Ma

ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 17: David Campos

ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 19: Phil Ting

PROPOSITION 41: Yes

PROPOSITION 42: Yes

SF PROPOSITION B: Yes

SF SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: Daniel Flores

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 12: Nancy Pelosi

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 13: Barbara Lee

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 14: Jackie Speier

MELTING ICE

Family members of federal immigration detainees gathered in downtown San Francisco May 23, calling for the release of three asylum seekers who’ve been detained in Texas for months. Joined by San Francisco Organizing Project activists and other supporters, they rallied outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, and spoke about how tough it’s been to be separated from their loved ones. One detainee, Guatemalan refugee Ricardo Ivan Martinez, who previously lived in San Francisco with his wife and daughter, received death threats after reporting a rape to U.S. Border Patrol. Yeni and Dariela Escobar-Pereira, sisters from Honduras, fled from violence and are now being detained; their mom, a San Francisco resident, is worried sick. The detainees “have been subjected to the ‘hielera’ or the ‘ice box’,” according to a statement issued by faith groups lending support, “where detainees are placed in a cold room for hours and even days with little clothing.”

OCEAN PROTEST LAYDOWN

The best way to become environmentally conscious is to start young. 850 Marin students, grades 2-7, spent the better part of a day last week cleaning up Ocean Beach. After, the students laid down to form a Western Grebe plucking a fish out of the ocean, with the words “Only One Ocean” above it, for an aerial photo. Western Grebe populations are in decline, the California Coastal Commission said. There’s nothing more inspiring than young people doing something to save the world.

INTERSECTION HALTED

In the latest blow to San Francisco’s arts community, one of our oldest alternative art spaces, Intersection for the Arts, has halted its programming and laid off key staff.

“Our financial situation is deeply challenged,” wrote Board of Directors Chair Yancy Widmer in a post on Intersection for the Arts’ website (www.theintersection.org),

“and it has become apparent that the current business model is no longer sustainable.”

“With the specific shifts in the economy and culture of San Francisco, it has been increasingly difficult to operate and sustain a community-based nonprofit arts organization like Intersection,” ousted program directors Kevin B. Chen, Rebeka Rodriguez and Sean San Jose wrote in a joint statement.”

The decades-old studio and artists space will lay off most of its staff and program directors by the end of the month, and will no longer produce its own arts programming.

HOT OPERA

The San Francisco Opera‘s frisky summer season is upon us — this little sister to its annual cavalcade of spectacle is the perfect opportunity to dip your toes into the world of grand song and drama. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s milestone musical Showboat (pictured) kicks the series off June 1, with La Traviata (June 11) and Madama Butterfly (June 15) following close behind. www.sfopera.org

DEFENESTRATION TOSSED

Enjoy it in its final weeks: Artist Brian Goggin’s iconic installation at San Francisco’s former Hugo Hotel at Sixth Street and Howard, “Defenestration” — the one with all the furniture climbing out of the building’s windows — is scheduled to be dismantled June 3. According to Laughing Squid, Goggin is preparing to sell the beloved furniture at the Varnish Fine Art Gallery. (www.varnishfineart.com)

 

Student protesters file claim against City College and SF citing injuries, defamation

Erica Hanna
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Student protesters file claim against City College and SF citing injuries, defamation

Student protesters filed a claim against City College of San Francisco and the city and county of San Francisco today, citing excessive use of force by San Francisco Police Department and City College police officers.

The claim is a first step before filing a lawsuit against San Francisco, and was announced at a press conference earlier today [Tues/27] at City College’s Ocean Campus. The two students filing the claim, Dimitrios Philliou and Otto Pippenger, may seek over $10,000 in damages, according to the claim. They allege they were physically and emotionally injured by police violence in a March 13 protest against City College’s state-appointed Special Trustee Bob Agrella, who entirely replaced City College’s elected Board of Trustees. 

The two students also asked for the college’s chancellor, Arthur Q. Tyler, to retract his public statements they say casts blame for the violence on the protesters.

“I think everyone on the City College campus and in the larger community agree that violence is not a means to solving disagreement,” Tyler wrote in an email addressed to the college’s student body, faculty and staff shortly after the protest. The two students said they were defamed publicly to students and faculty.

“The public statement blaming protesters reached tens of thousands of people at the school I go to,” Pippenger said at the press conference.

Tyler was not available for comment as he is on a business trip in Texas, his staff told us. City College spokesperson Jeff Hamilton would not comment due to the pending litigation.

The two students are represented by Rachel Lederman, the president of the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area chapter.

The protest erupted in response to the special trustee allegedly curtailing democracy at City College. The school is in a fight for its life, and Agrella’s role is to see the college maintains its accreditation. But he said the urgency to save the school was sufficient reason to halt public meetings and public comments which used to be standard practice under the college’s board.

dfornone

Previous coverage: Check out “Democracy For None,” recounting the March 13 City College protest and the state of democracy at the school.

That removed an important place for students to decry policy changes, such as class cuts that harm the most vulnerable, Philliou and Pippenger alleged. Eventually, the protesters’ cries reached Agrella and he partially restored public board meetings, though they are not broadcast nor recorded. 

It’s a small victory, and it took the injuries of the two students filing claims, Phillou and Pippenger, to draw media attention to their plight. Philliou said students and faculty at the protest “were met by attacks from police and were beaten, brutalized, attacked, and arrested.” 

He later experienced sleep deprivation, emotional torment, and has since felt unsafe while at school. Agrella refused to speak to him, Phillou said, and he was instead “met with brutality.”

Pippenger described how he sustained his injuries speaking slowly, and methodically.

“At the height of the violence, right there,” he said at the site of the conflict, pointing behind him to where he was beaten, “I was first struck repeatedly with fists, and then thrown to the concrete and restrained by a number of officers. I was then beaten on the pavement, insensate and unbreathing beneath five or six bodies, as one officer punched me in the back of the head and against the pavement. My fists were broken, and I sustained a concussion.” 

coppunchesstudent

 

In the animated GIF above, student protester Otto Pippenger is held on the ground, face against the cement, while an officer throws a punch to the back of his head. The full video is at the bottom of this post.

It is SFPD policy not to comment once a claim has been filed, police spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza told the Guardian. The City Attorney’s Office, who would represent the city and the police, had not yet seen the text of the claim. 

 

Since the protest, Tyler convened three open meetings aimed at improving campus discourse, and to gain insight into how to handle student demonstrations in the future. A newly formed school task force on “Civil Discourse and Campus Climate” has been appointed and will soon have its first meeting.

For more background, see our previous coverage of the bloody protest in “Democracy for None [3/18].”

The legacy of Harvey Milk, and remembering the “Twinkie Defense”

Erica Hanna
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The legacy of Harvey Milk, and remembering the “Twinkie Defense”

Today is Harvey Milk’s birthday, but are we celebrating the life of a champion for social justice, or only remembering his assassination? As San Franciscans mourn the city supervisor who fought for gay rights and other progressive issues in San Francisco and statewide, we thought we’d share with you selected articles from our “Milk Issue, [11/18/08]” that discussion his death by examining his life. 

The year was 2008, and to commemorate the opening of the biopic film, Milk, we devoted an issue of the Bay Guardian to honoring the man who gave ’em hope.

In the first selected piece, Guardian founding publisher Bruce Brugmann recalls his first brush with Milk, and the last time he saw him alive. In our second piece, the Guardian’s current Publisher Marke B. asks if the LGBT movement canonizes Milk’s death without honoring what his life stood for, an important lesson to remember now. The third selection by current and former Guardian Editors-in-Chief, Steven T. Jones and Tim Redmond respectively, who remember Milk’s progressive politics. Our fourth piece, penned by soon-to-be termed out Assemblyperson Tom Ammiano, a Milk political ally who dissects the oh-too-familiar tone of discrimination rising up from the opposition to naming San Francisco Airport after Milk. Lastly, a reporter who covered the Milk assassination takes us through a first person account of covering the trial of Milk’s killer, Dan White.

And as an extra bonus, we’ve embedded the issue from after the Dan White trial as a PDF at the bottom of this page.

Check them out below, and remember Milk not only as a man who died, but as a man who lived, and raised hell. 

The Bay Guardian “Milk” issue, circa 2008:

 

I REMEMBER HARVEY

Toward the end of the supervisorial campaign in 1973, I got an intercom call from Nancy Destefanis, our advertising representative handling political ads. Hey, she said, I got a guy here by the name of Harvey Milk who is running for supervisor and I think you ought to talk to him.

Milk? I replied. How can anybody run for supervisor with the name of Milk?

Continued here. 

 

THE APATHY AND THE ECSTACY

“OMG! Marriage is the new AIDS!” a friend screeched to me through her cell phone after witnessing West Hollywood’s cop-clashing response to the passage of Proposition 8. She meant, of course, the unexpected, exhilarating, and somewhat clumsy reemergence of queer protest energy that has overtaken many a civic center and public park since the November election and its attendant LGBT letdown.

Continued here.

 

POLITICS BEHIND THE PICTURE

The new Harvey Milk movie, which opens later this month, begins as a love story, a sweet love story about two guys who meet in a subway station and wind up fleeing New York for San Francisco. But after that, the movie gets political — in fact, by Hollywood standards, it’s remarkably political.

The movie raises a lot of issues that are alive and part of San Francisco politics today. The history isn’t perfect (see sidebar), but it is compelling. And while we mourn Milk and watch Milk, we shouldn’t forget what the queer hero stood for.

Continued here.

 

MILK’S REAL LEGACY

Ever since Supervisor David Campos announced his proposal to add Harvey Milk’s name to SFO, there’s been an unending string of criticism — mostly from one source — that has an eerily familiar ring to it.

We heard it years ago when we tried to change the name of Douglas School in the Castro to Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. Believe it or not, it took seven years before the School Board finally voted for the name change — and there was still bitterness. This was a school in Harvey’s neighborhood that Harvey personally helped when he was alive.

Continued here.

 

BEHIND THE TWINKIE DEFENSE

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who wanted to decriminalize marijuana, and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay individual to be elected to public office in America. November also marks the release of a film about the case titled Milk. Although a former policeman, homophobic Dan White, had confessed to the murders, he pleaded not guilty. I covered his trial for the Bay Guardian.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I said “Thank you” to the sheriff’s deputy who frisked me before I could enter the courtroom. However, this was a superfluous ritual, since any journalist who wanted to shoot White was prevented from doing so by wall-to-wall bulletproof glass…

Continued here. 

San Francisco Bay Guardian after Harvey Milk’s death by FitztheReporter

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian after Harvey Milk's death by FitztheReporter

Neighborhood papers tell the story of SF

Michael Redmond
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Neighborhood papers tell the story of SF

 

By Jessica Lipsky

news@sfbg.com

Before many San Francisco residents traded their newspaper subscriptions for Internet media, a dozen monthly papers covered the beat of the city’s distinct neighborhoods. Nine of these papers, whose heyday came with radical changes in the ’70s and ’80s, are being digitally archived by local historical organization Found SF.

“The papers all have their own personalities,” said Found SF organizer LisaRuth Elliott. “You get a sense of even how those change over time too, whether it’s a hard hitting article or it’s talking about the evolution of how the street businesses changed in Noe Valley. Archiving these papers opens up the gates for all the stuff we don’t know, and that you want to find out about, in San Francisco.”

Over the course of six months, Found SF volunteers will archive two decades’ worth of content from papers published throughout the city — the Noe Valley Voice, Tenderloin Times, Visitation Valley Grapevine, Richmond ReView, Potrero View, the New Fillmore, El Tecolote, North Mission News, and the Glen Park Perspective — in partnership with the Internet Archive and San Francisco Public Library. Since beginning the project in January, Found SF has scanned over 200 issues and tagged each with searchable keywords.

 

BILINGUAL VOICES

While several of the papers have come and gone, the publication that inspired the project is still going strong. Born from 1968 riots at San Francisco State for relevant ethnic education, the Mission’s El Tecolote was founded in 1970 as a bilingual paper dedicated to social activism. The paper made great inroads in the mid-’70s fighting for equitable health services, such as a bilingual emergency phone system, while covering Latino arts and civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

“We started El Tecolote to fill the gap of the mainstream media, which wasn’t covering this neighborhood with any real consistency; if it did it was often times negative news,” founder Juan Gonzales said. “The mission was to really be a voice for the neighborhood and hopefully move the spirit of organizing ahead to make some social change.”

In addition to taking a hard line on local politics and immigrant issues, the archives document the evolution of San Francisco from various perspectives. Residents of lower-income neighborhoods were displaced, and many districts leveled, during urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 1960s, while a 1973-75 recession caused further damages. The resulting plight set the stage for journalism driven by demand for hyper-local coverage of LGBT and feminist rights, gentrification, and third-world issues.

“In the mid-’70s there was consciousness around neighborhoods as social centers and places where community organizing was happening,” Elliott said. “People are facing eviction, they’re protesting, there are these vigils happening, and people talking about gaining rights for long-term things. We’re still working with the legacy of some of the housing decisions [San Francisco] made around that time due to the activism,” she added, citing the Tenderloin Times’ advocacy for SROs in the face of hotel development west of Union Square.

 

RESILIENCE IN HARD TIMES

The New Fillmore — established in 1986 as the city became inflicted with crack and AIDS epidemics, just as Reaganism swept in — was at the heart of socioeconomic changes that transformed parts of San Francisco from what felt like a blue-collar town to an increasingly white-collar city. Approximately 30 blocks in the Fillmore and Western Addition were leveled and left vacant until the ’80s, and the monthly paper played an important role in chronicling the return of businesses to the once thriving neighborhood.

“We ended up with the worst of both worlds in the Fillmore,” said Thomas Reynolds, who took over publishing the New Fillmore in 2006. Redevelopment efforts initially provoked no organized public protest, he said, but later “generated a lot of activism. The New Fillmore managed to capture a lot of the change that was coming to the neighborhood, and a lot of the flavor and history of the neighborhood that was being lost.” The paper encouraged civic engagement through a regular architecture column that featured local homes and helped owners register their historic buildings.

Several papers served neighborhoods with large refugee and immigrant populations, many of whom didn’t speak or read English. The Tenderloin Times promoted social services and encouraged activism through coverage of Southeast Asian and local politics, while publishing simultaneously in English, Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese over its two-decade run. Others chronicled changes in demographics, including an influx of Chinese residents into Visitation Valley and a population shift in the Mission from predominately Chicano to more Central Americans.

The Noe Valley Voice also took an international turn when escaped Irish prisoner Liam Carl toured the U.S. to expose harsh conditions in British jails. Carl entered the country illegally and was housed in a Noe Valley home in the fall of 1980, telling the Voice, “If [prisoners] thought that perhaps there was a chance that they could be heard through less drastic measures … and maybe bring about some change without so many people having to die, perhaps I can save lives.”

While the newspapers often differed in their coverage, each featured complementary stories chronicling the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Common features included how to check for damage, profiles on restaurants that fed the neighborhood or, as one Noe Valley Voice headline described the experience of meeting neighbors during a power outage: “We Could See the Stars.” Ahead of the 25th anniversary in October, Found SF has examples of quake coverage online.

“It makes me think that the city is comprised of all these little villages and it’s a little hard to say San Francisco has one direction, one value system,” Elliott said. “The papers show the wide variety of people who live in the city … but it’s all very much at a very personal level. They know each other. They’re telling stories about each other.”

For more information on the neighborhood newspaper archiving project, or to volunteer, visit foundsf.org.

 

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger on going electric and the timeless combination of marijuana and Pink Floyd

Steven T. Jones
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The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger on going electric and the timeless combination of marijuana and Pink Floyd

By Rebecca Huval

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger is out to topple everyone’s expectations. The two-piece band has rather public identities to overcome: Sean Lennon is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl is a world-class model who was the youngest covergirl on Britain’s Harper’s Bazaar.

With their latest release, Midnight Sun, Kemp Muhl has shown she has the pipes and songwriting chops to be taken seriously as a musician, and Lennon has proved he’s more than just his father’s ghost — rather, he’s the inimitable frontman of The GOASTT.

In the trajectory of Sean Lennon’s solo career and The GOASTT’s six-year history, Midnight Sun is their going-electric moment. Sean Lennon’s subdued and minimalist solo music paved the way for The GOASTT’s initial albums to be acoustic and saccharine in what Kemp Muhl now describes as “nerdy folk music.” This April’s album is oh-so-different. Inherited Beatlesque psychedelica meshes with modern-day indie à la Tame Impala and Deerhunter. Midnight Sun rocks in full-fledged electric, with synthy splashes and warped vocal reverb. The album ranges from trippy tracks such as “Devil You Know,” with prismatic texture and thick percussion, to thoughtfully orchestrated ballads such as “Don’t Look Back Orpheus” and Kemp Muhl’s graceful solo, “Johannesburg.”

Ahead of The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger’s show at Great American Music Hall on Tue/20, I spoke with Charlotte Kemp Muhl about meeting Lennon at Coachella, the aha moment listening to Pink Floyd that triggered the band’s psychedelic shift, and how she balances jet-setting modeling and music careers.

San Francisco Bay Guardian You met Sean at Coachella in 2006. How did you strike up a conversation?

Charlotte Kemp Muhl I don’t remember which one of us struck up the conversation, but we were magnetized to each other. We were talking about things like Stephen Hawking, whatever random thing we’d read that week, and claymation. I just thought he was so eccentric and wearing this suit in the middle of the desert. He was with his friend Vincent Gallo, who told him, “Don’t go for that girl, she’s crazy.” I just remember he was really enthusiastic about things and unusual and childlike, even though he was much older than me [30 years old]. I was 17 at the time. We connected immediately.

SFBG Have you put a pause on your modeling career to concentrate on music?

CKM Kind of, it tag-teams. I have to do modeling to support doing music. I would never be able to afford collecting instruments, and unfortunately, it’s really hard to make money as a musician. You don’t! I have to do modeling to do music, but I can’t wait until I can retire and just concentrate on music. In a way the two careers are complementary. Fashion and music are connected like Siamese twins. In the sense that rock n’ roll has been influencing fashion and fashion, rock n’ roll for a long time. They’re incestuous industries.

SFBG Who are some of your musical role models?

CKM Hendrix, Syd Barret, and Bach.

SFBG What have you learned about music from working with Sean?

CKM The area in which I’ve most grown is rhythmically. He’s taught me a lot about being funky and syncopation. He’s an amazing drummer, and I’ve been teaching myself how to play drums by watching him. I learned a lot about arranging. We’ve both influenced each other a lot. It’s been fun.

SFBG Why did you wait until a year after you were dating to share your musical talents with Sean?

CKM I was shy. Everyday someone comes up to him with a demo CD. I didn’t want to be like that. I never thought we’d work together. I thought he’d do his solo career. I showed him one of the childhood songs I wrote, and he loved the melody and insisted that we work together. He quit his solo career to work with his mom and work with me. I hope he goes back to his solo career, fingers crossed for that, but he’s very shy. It’s been fun doing heavier rock music because it’s forcing him to be more of a frontman. We’re not just doing Sonny & Cher melodies. I really want him to be a frontman. He spent so much of his life being a sideman.

SFBG As a solo artist, Sean seemed very minimal and moody. Then, it seemed like The GOASTT started out very sweetly and softly with your acoustic album. Now, The GOASTT is more edgy, percussive, and textured. What do you contribute to his sound?

CKM I pushed us even further into a Pink Floyd, psychedelic direction. When we were doing a tour in France, I discovered the pairing of marijuana and [Pink Floyd’s] Live at Pompeii. We were at some cheap hotel in France, and it was freezing cold. Something just clicked in my mind, and I wanted to be doing psychedelic music and not nerdy folk music. Sean had always been into that shit so he was into that direction. That’s the ultimate cliche, marijuana and Pink Floyd, but it worked! We were opening up for Johnny Hallyday and Matthieu Chedid. He’s huge in France, like the Michael Jackson.

SFBG What was at like playing at Occupy Wall Street?

CKM It was fun. A lot of our friends were doing that at the time, and we were excited that people were getting together to protest because people are placated by their gadgets and they rarely show interest and support. We just came to support anti-fracking and we didn’t even think Sean would get flack for supporting OWS. People online were saying he’s the one percent, which is ridiculous, he’s not in the one percent. I mean technically, anyone with a color TV is in the one percent of the world. We performed a bluegrass version of “Material Girl,” by Madonna. It was supposed to be ironic.

SFBG Have you collaborated with Yoko Ono? What is like working with her?

CKM I played bass for her for a while for her festivals and her shows. We’re around a lot. She doesn’t really collaborate with people, she’s like a singular, visionary person. Sean is much more into collaborating and working with people. She’s more of a leader of an army. She’s like a visionary. You just do what she says kind of a thing.

SFBG What has been your favorite part of working with Sean?

CKM I’ve been working with other musicians without him around. Sean plays every instrument like a virtuoso. In the studio, it’s like a super weapon. I send him in to overdub instrument ideas, and then I’ll edit them all together. We can cover a lot of ground that way. I’ve noticed with other musicians, they’re very limited. They only play one of two instruments, and don’t have a bird’s eye view of songwriting. Sean always have great ideas about rhythm and harmony. We both have a million ideas, and it’s frustrating when you work with someone who’s not that inspired.

SFBG I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist: What instruments do you play on Midnight Sun?

CKM On the record, I play bass, keyboard parts, guitar, percussion, and arranged harmonies. The main instrument I play is Pro Tools. I do all the editing and all that stuff.

SFBG It seems like the album switches between different settings: Xanadu, a missed flight to Johannesburg, traveling to the underworld with Orpheus. Where were you when you wrote these songs? What was your process for collaborating?

CKM I wrote the words for Johannesburg when I was in Johannesburg with a Pirelli shoot for Peter Beard. “Xanadu” and “[Don’t Look Back] Orpheus” we wrote upstate on his farm. We would stay up all night writing acoustic songs in his bed. We would walk down to his studio, which is by a lake, and jam it. Other than “Johannesburg,” I write a part and then he writes a part. It’s like one of those drawings when you fold up a napkin and each of you draw part of a monster.

The GOASTT
With Syd Arthur
Tue/20, 8pm, $15
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
www.slimspresents.com

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