San Francisco

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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yael@sfbg.com

THURSDAY 12

Dinner for the 99 percent

Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell, will speak with her brother, long-time activist and OccupySF organizer David Solnit, about “hope, strategy and actions to build a better world.” A dinner featuring gluten-free spaghetti and real or tofu meatballs will be served. Following dinner, hosts will screen a documentary of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr.. This event will raise money for the San Francisco 99% Coalition.

6 p.m., $10-20

Unitarian Universalist Center

1187 Franklin, SF

(415) 608-1585

www.occupysf.org/2012/01/09/spaghetti-dinner-for-the-99


FRIDAY 13

The shame of Guantanamo

Historian, journalist, and author of The Guantanamo Files, Andy Worthington, will join investigative reporter Jason Leopold for a “freewheeling interview” discussing the history of torture and illegal detention without accountability spanning the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies. This event marks the 10-year anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay Prison.

Noon-2 p.m., free

Louis B. Mayer Lounge, UC Hastings College of the Law

198 McAllister, SF

www.andyworthington.co.uk


SATURDAY 14

Run on the banks

The Occupy Housing Coalition will demonstrate to protest evictions of renters for condo conversions in the Mission District. Join them to demand that Wells Fargo stop all pending evictions for profit.

Noon, free

16th and Mission, SF

www.occupysf.org/2012/01/07/run-on-the-banks-mission-district-january-14

 

SUNDAY 15

Mission community forum

For the first time, Occupy SF will hold its weekly community forum, a space to air general concerns and foster discussion, outside the Financial District. Come speak about topics specific to the Mission community, and discuss how to build a broad movement that “mirrors the diversity of San Francisco.”

6-8 p.m., free

Location TBA

Email Lisa Guide: lgru3221@gmail.com


MONDAY 16

MLK Day gathering

Celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and “call for a ceasefire in the streets” after a tragic year of 110 homicides in Oakland. A community gathering will include gospel, spoken word, drama, and time to talk with your neighbors.

10 a.m.-noon, free

Regeneration Church

238 E. 15th, Oakl

(510) 508-4888

www.regenerationweb.com/node/86

The state (and local) tax measures

Zelda Bronstein
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The state (and local) tax measures

The state of the state tax measures is more and more confusing; as Calitics notes, Jerry Brown, who has a half-assed tax plan that relies too much on sales taxes, wants everyone else out of the way, but you don’t say things like that to really, really rich people, and a really rich person wants her own tax measure, which is much more progressive but earmarks the money just for schools, which isn’t particularly helpful.

And there may be more.

The always-insightful and hardly-ever wrong folks at CalBuzz say Jerry’s got to stop everyone else from cluttering the ballot, else all of the plans will fail. Which is definately CW — but it doesn’t always work that way. There were five competing ballot measures aimed at insurance reform (some of them industry fakes) in 1998, and the voters still approved the real one, Prop. 103.

But taxes are a bit different — and if the voters see the various options not as alternatives but as many ways to raise taxes higher and higher, they might all go down.

And there’s another factor here: I’m hoping that there’s a serious business-tax reform measure on the San Francisco ballot. And if there are several state tax measures (attracting intense and big-money opposition) and there’s another one on the local ballot, we might be in trouble.

Maybe Jerry should get with Molly Munger and cut a deal: The guv makes his plan more progressive, Munger helps fund it — and local governments can join in the fight to “tax the 1 percent.” Then we can all win. Maybe.

The 49ers in SF? Give it up

Zelda Bronstein
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The 49ers in SF? Give it up

Some folks just won’t accept the reality that the 49ers are gone. It’s over: The team is moving to Santa Clara. And you know what? It’s not the end of the world.

There’s not going to be a new billion-dollar football stadium in San Francisco, and for one very good reason: Nobody wants to pay for it. With all the financial problems facing this city, there’s no way the taxpayers are going to cough up that kind of money. Mike Antonini’s shadowy “investment company” doesn’t seem likely to put up the money; that’s not how stadiums are built. And the Niners owners, who could afford it, have made it clear they want public money to pay for their grand spanking new private castle.

When the Giants were talking about bulding a new stadium downtown, team representatives got the message loud and clear: San Francisco wasn’t going to pay the tab. So the team raised the money itself, got the approvals and built a park that has brought a significant amount of new economic activity into the city. It’s helps immensely that the Giants did something else — they didn’t try to build a parking lot. No public money, no parking — and look what we got: A stadium people walk or bike or ride transit to — and a thriving business district that lives off the money people spend drinking and eating before and after the games.

You don’t get that at Candlestick. Everyone drives in, watches the game, and drives away. That’s partially a football culture thing — football fans tend to like tailgate parties. But businesses in the area don’t get a whole lot of patronage from Niners fans (many of whom come from the Peninsula anyway).

So losing the team — other than the indignity of somebody talking about the “Santa Clara 49ers” — isn’t such a big deal for San Francisco. It’s too bad — done right, in the right location, a privately funded football stadium with very limited parking could be a cool thing for this city. But that’s not what the York family wants. So let the suckers in Santa Clara spend their money on it — and deal with the traffic and the fact that nobody will stick around after the game for a beer or a burger in any local restaurant.

Besides: Anyone with any sense knows that baseball is better live and football is better on TV.

How to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the Bay

Andrew Lam
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Use your national day of service wisely —  jump in one of of the day’s volunteering fairs, take in a black history flick, catch some awe-inspiring youth spoken word, learn about colleges 

“In the Name of Love” MLK musical tribute

Mavis Staples, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Youth Speaks (that group’s going to be busy! See below), and Oakland’s Children’s Community Choir occupy the deco wonderland of the Paramount for this stirring tribute to the great man’s work. Hyped as the only non-denominational musical tribute to MLK Jr. in Oakland, the program also features the presentation of humanitarian awards. 

Sun/15 7 p.m., $18 

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

www.livingjazz.org


Freedom Trains

Planning on spending your MLK Day in the city? Every year, the Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara sponsors the Freedom Trains so that everyone can afford to make it to the celebrations. Instead of paying $17.50 for a round-trip ticket on Caltrain, today it’s just $10 – and you’ll be treated to in-route presentations on the importance of the civil rights movement in our lives. 

Mon/16, $10

Departs San Jose 9:30 a.m., arrives in San Francisco 10:55 a.m. (see website for stops in-between)

Rod Diridon train station

65 Cahill, San Jose

www.scvmlk.org

 

“Renewing the Dream” MLK Jr. birthday celebration

A health fair, a civil rights film festival, children’s reading celebration, interfaith commemoration, special presentations, and free entry to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Children’s Creativity Museum give you and yours plenty to do if you feel like spending your Monday in San Francisco’s (greener, sorry Union Square) living room. Down to attend? Check your local transportation agency for possible discounts to the event.

Mon/16 11 a.m.-5 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Gardens

Mission between Third and Fourth Sts., SF

www.norcalmlk.com

 

“What is Your Dream?” MLK Jr. day of service

Soak in the spirit of the day by spending it at MoAD. The regular museum offerings (currently featuring “Collected: Stories of Acquisition and Reclamation,” about the contributions of people of African descent to the American zeitgeist) will be free to the public, there will be screenings of MLK films and a documentary on a barber who turned into a civil rights leader during the 2008 elections, chalk drawings outside on the sidewalk, and vision boarding galore. But the day’s not just for remembering and dreaming – the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Fair will be providing concrete information on education for tomorrow’s march-leaders and soul-freers. 

Mon/16 11 a.m.-5 p.m., free

Museum of the African Diaspora

685 Mission, SF

(415) 358-7200

www.moadsf.org


Parks Conservancy’s MLK Jr. day of service

Let the Parks Conservancy plug you into a wildlife restoration project – you’re too late to sign up for restoring the gardens on Alcatraz, but there’s still time to help out at Crissy Field, Fort Baker, Muir Woods, Ocean Beach, and the Presidio. Contact volunteer@parksconservancy.org to reserve your spot. 

Mon/16 various times, free

Various locations, SF

(415) 561-3077

www.parksconservancy.org


MLK Jr. Day service fair

Spend your day off work (if you have it off work) with your family making a difference in the Bay Area. Organizers of this event have made it easy for you: choose from over 25 different projects from serving food at shelters, planting trees – even making toys and biscuits for homeless puppies and kitties. All ages welcome. 

Mon/16 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., free

Oshman Family Jewish Community Center

3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

www.paloaltojcc.org


Piedmont’s annual MLK Jr. Day celebration

First: eating. All comers are invited to bring a dish that reflects their own cultural heritage to this lunchtime potluck at the Piedmont Community Center. Once those pressing matters have been tended: music. Oaktown Jazz will provide some lilting melodies, and Piedmont students will make presentations on the significance of the day. Capping off the festivities, the 1993 movie At the River I Stand, which revolves around the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and concurrent assasination of King. 

Mon/16 noon-3 p.m.

Piedmont Community Center

777 Highland, Piedmont

(510) 420-1534

loiscorrin@gmail.com


“Bringing the Noise for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” 

If you haven’t been to a Youth Speaks spoken word event, pack tissues and your future-seeing 3-D goggles – the young people that the organization gives an opportunity to perform are the truth. On no other day of the year should this be more evident, because these kids are all about having a dream. Today’s event brings performers to the stage who have worked up pieces on what they’d like the future to bring, imbued as ever with the fire of Youth Speaks performances. Could there be a more relevant forum to attend on today’s holiday?

Mon/16 7 p.m., $16

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 621-6600

www.youthspeaks.org

 

“Martin Luther King Jr. Day Double Feature”

“All of us have something to say, but some are never heard” — Richard Pryor, Wattstax (1973). MLK Jr. Day calls into question how we remember the past. The Wattstax concert is sometimes recalled derivatively as “the black Woodstock.” But while soul music may have been the response, the event was put on by Stax Records to commemorate and come to terms with the seventh anniversary of the Watts Riots in LA, which challenged the limits of MLK Jr.’s nonviolent philosophy. As a double feature the Wattstax documentary will be shown with The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011), a revelatory look at a movement’s era that sadly took the distance of continent and a few decades to make. 

Wattstax 3, 7p.m.; The Black Power Mixtape 4:55, 8:55 p.m., $7.50–$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com


Martin Luther

It’s the second coming! Not really, no relation actually. But this R&B-funk crooner spins out tunes appropriately uplifting for this day of rememberance and looking forward. Bliss out, eyes closed, mind on the change you want to make, at this smoothed-out groovefest. 

Mon/16 8-9:30 p.m., $15

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200

www.yoshis.com

Guardian editorial: Mixed report on Mayor Lee

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EDITORIAL Mayor Ed Lee’s first big decision — the appointment of a District 5 supervisor — demonstrated something very positive:

The mayor knows that he can’t do what his predecessor did and ignore and dismiss the progressive community.

His inauguration speech demonstrated something else: That he has no intention of being a mayor who takes on and defies the interests of downtown.

Part of the reason Gavin Newsom was a failure as mayor is that he was constantly at war with the left. He ran the city as if his was the only way, as if there were no good ideas coming out of anywhere except his office — and as if anyone who disgreed with or voted against him was his enemy.

That didn’t work, and it doesn’t seem to be Lee’s style. He was under pressure to appoint a supervisor who would go along with him on key votes, but he also knew that a moderate or a lackey would deeply offend the voters in D5, who supported John Avalos for mayor and remain among the most progressive voters in the city. The choice of Christina Olague shows a willingless to accept that progressives play a significant role in San Francisco politics. (It also shows that he is better than any mayor in recent memory at keeping a secret — nobody outside of his inner circle had any idea who his choice was until he announced it Jan 9.)

Olague was, overall, an excellent planning commissioner, and has the potential to be an excellent supervisor. But she will need to make clear from the start that she is representing the district, not the person who gave her the job. Because on some of the key issues that will come before the board this spring, her constituents are well to the left of the mayor. If she can’t vote against his wishes, she’ll have trouble in November.

Olague also needs to be sure that some of the issues her predecessor, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, championed (public power and community policing, for example) don’t fall by the wayside. Her expertise in land use issues should be helpful as the board wrangles with waterfront development, affordable housing and the giant California Pacific Medical Center hospital project.

Lee’s inaugural speech was mostly a typical political speech for a new mayor, but it contained a nugget that’s worthy of note. He proclaimed that San Francisco should be a “city of the 100 percent,” a takeoff on the Occupy movement’s 99 percent slogan. And while that’s mostly rhetoric, it’s also a sign that the former housing activist is not going to be a mayor who wants to make a legacy of challenging the economic and political powers of San Francisco.

Working together is fine — but there are a small number of very wealthy and powerful people who have interests that are utterly opposed to the interests of the rest of us. Economic injustice is every bit as real in this city as it is elsewhere in the country — and that’s something the mayor didn’t even mention or acknowledge. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the big real-estate developers, the landlords out at ParkMerced, the Chamber of Commerce,  and the Board of Realtors … they don’t want to work together. They want their way.

So it’s a mixed report for Mayor Lee — and over the next few months, he’s going to have to realize that everyone in the city can’t and shouldn’t work together, that there are battles where politicians have to take sides, and that all of us will be watching very closely to see where he draws the line.

Live Shots: Starfucker and Painted Palms at Great American Music Hall

Tony Robles
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Though Starfucker hails from Portland, Ore., it’s easy to see why the band feels at home here. If a bunch of hip, pasty dudes performing in drag doesn’t scream “San Francisco,” I don’t know what does. Its name is edgy enough to elicit parental concern (the less offensive STRFKR is often used instead), but Starfucker’s trendy synth-pop is catchy and sweet.

Every time the band rolls through town, it seems like more resident scenesters have been bitten by the Starfucker bug. Maybe it was the release of the delightful Reptilians (Polyvinyl) in March, or its appearance at last summer’s Outside Lands festival that ignited Starfucker pandemonium. Whatever the reason, the group was inspired to put on three Bay Area shows to accommodate voracious fans this time around.

Friday night’s sold-old show at the Great American Music Hall was jam-packed enough to quell the most insatiable appetite. As the band appeared in gaudy thrift store dresses and wigs, the young, attractive crowd went ape. Joints were sparked, beers were lifted, and the band made it impossible to have a bad time.

At every Starfucker show I’ve seen in the past (I’ve seen a lot), the band seemed to rely heavily on the seductive charisma of former lead vocalist Ryan Biornstad. Without Biornstad, the boys mostly resigned to their respective positions on stage with no one taking a lead position. There was, however, plenty of tambourine shaking and wig tossing.

Though slightly less exciting visually, Starfucker sounded better than ever. Melodic synthesizers and guitars meshed with founding member Josh Hodges’ gentle, androgynous vocals. The extremely long set featured a bunch of tracks from Reptilians, including the Passion Pit-esque “Julius,” a hand-clap inciting “Death as a Fetish,” and many older selections from the Starfucker catalog. With its lusty bassline and celestial synths, “Isabella of Castile” served as a reminder that the band’s name was aptly chosen. Other highlights were the Target commercial jam “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” and cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

When the set finally concluded, we were a sweat-soaked, satisfied bunch. Those on stage were likely sweatier and undoubtedly more exhausted. There wasn’t much between song banter, but the night began with Hodges declaring the band’s love for San Francisco. Hey Starfucker, the feeling is mutual.

Opener: I spent most of Painted Palms’ set trying to figure out why keyboardist Reese Donohue was giving me major déjà vu. I realized that I’d seen Donohue doing lead vocals during electronica outfit Butterfly Bones’ opening set for Starfucker at the Rickshaw Stop years ago. I’m pretty sure I also saw him on stage with absurd joke rap ensemble Flophouse when it opened for Starfucker side-arm Skeletron at Milk Bar. Painted Palms was, however, the most promising act I’ve seen Donohue perform with so far. A relatively new band with only one EP under its belt, the duo cranked out a short set filled with bright loops and chill vibes, which was a nice way to warm up for Starfucker’s crazy energy.

All photos by Wolfgangg Photography.

Coachella lineup revealed, many reunited acts

Tony Robles
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Coachella lineup revealed, many reunited acts

It’s official: the Coachella lineup for 2012 is out and it’s a doozy. The mix of acts in the sunbaked California desert will surely please all camps; there’s the hip new guard, and more importantly, there are some thrilling reunions.

Friday night headliners include the Black Keys, Pulp, Refused, Arctic Monkeys, and Mazzy Star; the mid-range boasts Tim Armstrong, Girls, Rapture, Frank Ocean, Yuck, and Neon Indian, and below those some newbies such as WU LYF, EMA, and LA Riots are listed (along with dozens of others).

Saturday brings back Radiohead and gains the elusive Jeff Mangum, along with the Shins, Bon Iver, fIREHOSE, Andrew Bird, Feist, A$AP ROCKY, Buzzcocks — the list surely goes on and on.

Sunday seems perhaps the most eclectic lineup with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg headlining, softly below that a reunited At The Drive-In, along with Justice, Florence and the Machine, Beirut, the Hives (huh?), Wild Flag, Greg Ginn, araabMUZIK, and just gaggles more.

I’m running out of ways to say additional bands here. Why not take a look for yourself.

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PST. Or you could stay in San Francisco and soak up our cooling fog.

Ed Lee’s 100 percent

Zelda Bronstein
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Ed Lee’s 100 percent

I expected a lot of talk about togetherness at the mayor’s inauguration, but Ed Lee went a step further: He acually announced that he wants to be the mayor “for the 100 percent.” That’s a remarkable statement when you think about it, and it indicates to me that Lee doesn’t want to be, and isn’t going to be, and activist leader.

It’s nice to talk at political events about how we’re all in this together, how everyone in San Francisco is part of the same nice big city family, how we all really love each other and can hold hands and build a better city and all that happy horsehit. But the truth is, we aren’t, and we can’t.

San Francisco is a divided city, increasingly split between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. The politics are bitterly divided — and not because the progressives fought with former mayor Gavin Newsom. No: There are people who are used to getting their way in this town, and they have been for years, and they make up an oligarchy that stands with big landlords, and big developers, and big corporations, often using terms like “job creation”  to disguise an agenda of tax breaks, minimal regulation and a disdain for social justice.

That’s not conspiracy theory; it’s fact, and anyone who has been a part of this city for a long as me knows it.

It’s about political power. An activist, progressive mayor would acknowlege that fact — and the fact that power is never surrendered voluntarily. Sorry to spoil your spirit of togetherness, Ed, but Willie Brown and his clients, including Pacific Gas and Electric Company, have very little in common with me; I want to kick PG&E out of San Francisco and replace it with a publicly-owned utility. There is no compromise here, no middle ground — PG&E has to lose for us to win.

Not every issue in San Francisco is like that — some of the 1 percenters are all in favor of bicycle lanes and same-sex marriage and a lot of other wonderful things. There are plenty of areas where everyone in San Francisco can work together for the glory of our collective greatness.

But there are also issues that involve, yes, class warfare. Ed Lee must know that; he’s been around long enough, fought enough bad guys, stood up for the poor people. But he also apparently thinks he can be mayor and be pals with Brown and the billionaires — and still be on the side of the 99 percent. And it doesn’t work that way. Not if you want to make economic justice a part of the local agenda.

I think Lee’s going to be a lot better than Gavin Newsom, who was intractable and a jerk. But this notion that you never have to pick sides, that there is no 99 percent on one side up against a 1 percent on the other, is either cluelessness or bullshit. And I don’t think Lee is clueless.

BREAKING: Lee appointing Olague to D5 seat

Sasha Cuttler
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BREAKING: Lee appointing Olague to D5 seat

Sources say Mayor Ed Lee will appoint Christina Olague, the Planning Commission president and longtime progressive, to the District 5 seat on the Board of Supervisors that was vacated by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Formal announcement set for 10 am. More after the ceremony.

UPDATE 11:30 AM: Lee announced his decision and administered the oath of office to Olague this morning at City Hall before a large crowd of mostly progressive political activists who said they were pleasantly surprised to see one of their own get the nod, taking it as a positive gesture from a moderate mayor who has pledged to work with all sides.

In their remarks, both Lee and Olague talked about the need to get past political labels and stressed her detailed knowledge of planning and land use issues, which they hope will help with Lee’s main focus on job creation.

“This is not about counting votes, it’s about what’s best for San Francisco and her district,” Lee said. Olague echoed the sentiment: “I think this is an incredible time for our city and a time when we are coming together and moving past old political pigeonholes.”

She pledged to get right to work on pressing issues facing the city and with winning the “respect and trust” of voters in District 5, one of the city’s most progressive.

We’ll have more analysis and reaction to this appointment and Lee’s inaugural address yesterday in this week’s Guardian.

Who will push progressive taxes in 2012?

Zelda Bronstein
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Who will push progressive taxes in 2012?

Mayor Ed Lee talked to the Examiner about his plans for the next year, and it’s a lot of the usual political crap: I’m going to create jobs, I’m going to bring people together and promote civility, ho hum. But he did mention, briefly, the need to change the city’s business tax, and here’s how he put it:

We have given ourselves four months to reach out to all the business groups. There will be different views and opinions. You can have a hybrid [between a payroll and gross receipts tax], and you can also have a phase-in period of time. We want to have a good conversation with everybody and get their best ideas, and then use those ideas to craft what we think could be on the ballot. We’re not saying it has to be on the November ballot, but it could be. We want to have something that is not job punishing, but also something that does not decrease our revenue.

First: He’s going to reach out to all the business groups — but what about everyone else in the city? The level of business taxes has a direct impact on city services; is that not part of the equation? Clearly, he’s talking about something that’s at best revenue-neutral, something that “does not decrease our revenue.”

And please, don’t tell me about “job punishing” — it makes me even crazier than I already am. Look: There has to be a business tax in San Francisco. And any time you tax businesses, you take money for the city that could be used for other things. In some cases — not that many — the extra money might be used to hire a few people. In reality, for most businesses, the payroll tax is absolutely NOT a factor in job creation. It sounds bad — Gasp! a tax on jobs! — but the truth is that payroll is a rough approximation for the size of a company, and that’s what the city uses as a tax base.

Of course, we could change that to a gross receipts tax — another rough approximation for the size of a company. It’s also imperfect — some companies have a lot of money (VC funding, for example) and a lot of employees, but at this point not much in the way of sales. Some companies (supermarkets, for example) have high gross receipts but relatively low profit margins. And, of course, if you do a gross receipts tax the same people who complain about the payroll tax will have a new line: The GR tax penalizes growth! It penalizes success! The more money you make the more you pay! Unfair! Un-American! Job killer!

Because some people in this town (mostly big business types) just want lower taxes, period — not different taxes, lower taxes

So let’s get rid of the “job killer” rhetoric and start talking about what the city’s tax policy should be. And it should go like this: The individuals and businesses with the most money should pay the highest tax rates. The rich don’t pay their fare share anywhere in the U.S., and while the mayor and the supervisors can’t change federal policy, they can do their part on a modest level at home.

This a great year for tax reform in San Francisco. The spirit of Occupy is very much alive. There is, for the first time in decades, a national discussion about income and wealth inequality. There’s strong evidence that the middle class is vanishing in San Francisco. And, thanks to the wierdness of state law, in 2012, when there’s an election for the Board of Supervisors, a tax measure can pass with a simple majority vote In many ways, this is the single most important policy issue in the city, the one that defines who pays for what and who gets what and whether (public sector) jobs are created or destroyed and what kind of a city we want to be.

So let’s take it seriously. Instead of allowing Mayor Lee and the (big) business folks set the agenda, the progressives really need to move forward on a tax-reform plan that looks at making big business pay more and small business pay less — and that brings in another $250 million a year for the local coffers If gross receipts is the flavor of the day, I’m good with that — but not a flat tax. Exempt, say, the first $250,000 (or the first $500,000, whatever, run the numbers and see what we can afford). Put a 1 percent tax on the next million, a 1.5 percent tax on all receipts between $1.5 million and $5 million, a 2 percent tax on $5 million to $10 million and 3 percent on everything higher. Adjust the numbers either way, but that’s the general idea. Then add in a tax on commercial rents (again, exempt the first $500,000 or whatever) to make sure the the big landlords (who get away with murder under Prop. 13) are paying, too. And yes, based on market supply and demand, some will try to pass that on to their tenants, but companies (including a lot of law firms) that rent enough space to be paying millions of dollars a year in rent can afford to modest tax hike.

It will take the city controller or the city’s economist to do the math and see what the options are and how you get to $250 million net new revenue, so my proposal is just a start. But somebody needs to take this on, some member of the Board of Supervisors — or else we’ll just be responding to what the Chamber of Commerce wants. Who wants to be the champion of Tax Reform for the 99 Percent? Time is getting short.

Daly is back in a progressive leadership role

Sasha Cuttler
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Daly is back in a progressive leadership role

Chris Daly, a pivotal organizer of progressive politics during his decade on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has returned to a high-profile role in the movement. Last month, he went to work for Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the city’s largest public employee year. And today, he was named its interim political director.

“I’m excited and I think everyone here is excited to have Chris’s talent and experience and energy on this team,” local President Roxanne Sanchez, who was elected as part of a progressive reform slate in 2010, told the Guardian. “Part of the vision of the executive board, and the mandate that we were elected on, is to build a long-lasting sense of power at the rank-and-file level.”

Even before lending support to the Occupy movement and its challenge to the power of the richest 1 percent of society, Local 1021 was targeting banks and other downtown financial institutions with its Fight for a Fair Economy campaign. Now Daly can continue pushing that agenda and connecting the dots between the consolidation of wealth and the hardships faced by workers and local government.

“The spark has been the Occupy movement, but it’s been 1021 that has been helping to instigate some of these possible next steps…It has an opportunity to be successful if there’s some institutional support for it,” Daly said of San Francisco’s progressive movement, which suffered a setback when he and other board progressives were termed out, and a bit of a revival in the fall with the emergence of OccupySF.

“Occupy is going to need some foundation to continue its work,” Daly said. “Without organizational or structural support, that could have been a one-time thing.”

But now, during an important election year when the union’s contracts with the city expire, Daly sees an opportunity to forward the interests of both union members and the broader progressive movement. Both Daly and Sanchez say educating their members and the general public about the importance of progressive issues is essential to advocating for their members, who are among the city’s lowest paid workers and those who have suffered the most layoffs in recent years.

“If there’s not a notion of the distribution of wealth and the 99 percent, we won’t be successful,” Daly said. “Downtown is powerful, and labor needs to be here to offset the power of downtown. Without that, we’re stuck.”

Sanchez said the reorganization now underway in her union, of which hiring Daly is a key component, is about turning the clock back on the labor movement and returning to an agenda of broadly building working class power, as unions did in the ’30s and ’40s before becoming more bureaucratic institutions in the ’50s.

“Chris, and his perspective of building community strength, is our focus,” Sanchez said. “This is the time when unions have to help move a working family agenda and to push back on the opportunistic wealthy interests in this society.”

In the year since he left the board, Daly has been running the bar he purchased, The Buck (formerly Buck Tavern) – which became like a progressive clubhouse and gathering spot – as well as helping John Avalos’s mayoral run and other campaigns. Daly says he wants to maintain that role by continuing to tend bar on Friday nights, but he plans to pour most of his energies into a new role that is really a continuation of his old role.

“For me, it was never about being on the Board of Supervisors. It was about trying to make the progressive movement strong and more effective…In some ways, I was one of the unofficial political directors of progressive San Francisco,” Daly told us. “I have a strong motivation to build a progressive political program, and now I have the opportunity to do that.”

What? Glenn Beck in for Strephanie Miller on Green 960

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As we were driving to work this morning (1/4/2012), we were surprised and angered to find Glenn Beck, the rightwing  broadcaster who was too much for Fox News, replacing Stephanie Miller, the liberal, articulate, and clever talk show host on Green 960. How in the world could that be?  How in the world could the Clear Channel broadcast conglomerate put Beck on morning drive time on Green 960, which up to now had “proudly” proclaimed itself as the progressive radio station in progressive San Francisco? .How could it make this crucial political change at the very start of the presidential electon season?  Was it because Clear Channel is now owned by another conglomerate involving Mitt Romney? (In 2008, a Boston-based private equity firm purchased Clear Channel in a leveraged buyout, according to the Bradblog.)  Has Clear Channel/Romney no shame?

I have often tried in vain through the years to contact Clear Channel for explanation or comment on news stories. This time, I  am happy to turn the job over to the Bradblog below, operated by Brad Friedman, who runs an excellent independent blog specializing in investigative reporting, broadcast analysis, and election integrity issues.

Read what he has to say and get good and mad. Clear Channel is screwing the City and County of San Francisco yet again. Resist! B3
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8974


Stuck in reverse

Sasha Cuttler
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Stuck in reverse

Some days, you wake up, check the news, and wonder just what the hell happened to this country. And I’m not talking about that nutty right-wing view that we’ve strayed from the original vision laid out for us by the authors of the Constitution or the Bible. I have just the opposite view: I’m wondering why those people seem so intent on dragging us back into the bad old days of bygone centuries, when white male property owners ran things as they saw fit.

A dangerously intolerant religious fundamentalist who longs for the Puritan days, Rick Santorum, essentially tied for first place in the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. And he was part of an entire field of candidates that wants to revoke women’s reproductive and LGBT rights, deny that industrialization has affected the environment and should be addressed, dismantle already decimated government agencies, simply let the strong exploit the weak, and hope that Jesus comes back to save us from ourselves. Their strange reverence for the Constitution apparently stems from wanting to drag us back into the 18th century.

And don’t even get me started on President Barack Obama and his worthless Democratic Party, which is only a bit better than the truly heinous Republicans. At least Obama says some of the right things – like wanting to raise taxes on millionaires, reverse Bush-era attacks on civil liberties, respect states’ medical marijuana laws, and use diplomacy rather than only bellicosity with concerning countries like Iran – even though he acts in contradiction of those statements, over and over again.

It’s no better in the Golden State, where the yestercentury crowd now wants to abandon plans for a high-speed rail system that has already been awarded $3.5 billion in federal transportation funding and for which California voters authorized another $10 billion in bond funding. Why? Because a panel headed by an Orange County douchebag says the business plan isn’t detailed enough and the money for the entire $100 billion buildout isn’t nailed down yet. Well guess what? California also doesn’t have a plan for when its highway and airport systems get overwhelmed by population growth over the next 20 years. And criticizing the viability of high-speed rail – something most other advanced countries figured out how to build decades ago – isn’t exactly going to help secure private equity commitments. It’s a super fast train, folks – not some scary satanic iron horse from the future – people will pay to ride it.

But the situation must be better here in liberal San Francisco, right? Wrong! Mayor Ed Lee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and all their business community allies continue to relentlessly push their belief that the main job of government is to create private sector jobs, even though most economists say a politician’s ability to do so is limited at best.

Lee is pushing for all city legislation to be measured by whether it creates private sector jobs, as if protecting the environment, preserving public sector jobs, or safeguarding the health, welfare, and workers’ rights of citizens weren’t also under the purview of local government. A Chronicle editorial today called Lee the most “realistic city leader in memory. He’s all about creating jobs, repaving streets, sprucing up faded Market Street and fixing Muni’s flaws,” the same goals the paper was focused on a century ago.

But the main trust of the editorial was calling for Lee to also focus on homelessness. Not poverty, mind you, but homelessness. “A decrease in jobless numbers is important, but so are fewer shopping carts pushed along sidewalks and a drop in the numbers of mentally ill in doorways and on park benches,” they wrote. In other words, they just don’t want to see poor people on the streets, because that newspaper and its fiscally conservative editorial writers and base of readers certainly haven’t been calling for a fairer distribution of this city’s wealth, or even higher taxes on the rich that might fund more subsidized housing programs or mental health treatment. I get the feeling they’d be content to just allow shanty towns on our southern border where our low-wage workers can live, just like the Third World cities that they seem to want to emulate.

Ugh, so depressing, so ridiculous, so regressive. I think I’m going back to bed now.

Current events

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Current events

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER In early December, Christopher W. White, artistic director of Bay Area ensemble theater company Mugwumpin, showed me around the cool, slightly fusty basement rooms of San Francisco’s Old Mint. Used apparently for storage now, this large subterranean area beneath the Doric columns and Greco-Roman grandeur of “the Granite Lady” was where, beginning in the latter 19th century, the action really happened: the white-hot smelting of money, in one of the most active U.S. mints in its day. You wouldn’t know it now to look around at the gutted rooms with their odd detritus, dim walls, and sunken cement chambers, but in the 1930s one-third of the country’s gold was housed here. It’s a kind of catacomb of local and national history, and especially the history of money power.

Theater, by contrast, is not a moneymaking enterprise, generally speaking. For that matter, neither is free wireless energy from the air — one of the grandest ideas to motivate the stunningly brilliant and influential mind of Nikola Tesla, the little remembered Serbian-American inventor, Thomas Edison rival, and father of alternating current (AC). But the two come together quite naturally here, underground, where the spirits of industrial wealth and labor commingle so forcefully.

This weekend, which marks the anniversary of Nikola Tesla’s death in 1943, also marks the opening of Future Motive Power, an original ensemble-driven work that culminates a year of research and experimentation by one of the Bay Area’s foremost practitioners of devised theater. Mugwumpin’s production takes place in a section of this very basement, where audiences will alternately sit in and wander around a site-specific piece built from the ground up, with painstaking fidelity to historical details — and a commitment to reaching toward aesthetic and dramatic possibilities in concert with one of the most imaginative minds of the modern age.

His approach to science, like many a great innovator, had much in common with an artistic impulse. Exhibiting a transcendent creative ability, he worked with blueprints in his head, visualizing an idea for a new machine in unfathomable detail. He worked obsessively, often going with little or no sleep. His wide-ranging imagination was prodded by a consistent desire to serve humanity, but he had few close relationships and found everyday forms of physical contact unbearable. He’d probably merit a few psycho-clinical acronyms today, but let’s just say he was eccentric. Tesla’s brilliance, under-appreciated influence, idiosyncrasies, and sad fate have made him a compelling figure to artists and writers for years, even as his achievements remain historically obscured by, among other things, the legacy of savvy self-promoter Edison.

Alternately supported and bounded by the capitalist forces represented in these serious granite walls under the Old Mint, Tesla had a mind and heart remarkably free of the normal limits. His amazing career — balancing tenuously the forces of nature, social idealism, and the capitalist marketplace — speaks to some of the weightiest themes confronting the world today.

But those come later. Chris White — who plays the thin, fastidious inventor with a primly sympathetic mien, his eager certainty chastened by the half-lost alertness of the outsider — says the idea for the piece simply began with a song he couldn’t get out of his head: “Tesla’s Hotel Room,” by neo-country act the Handsome Family.

 

“In the last days of wonder

When spirits still flew

Where we sat holding hands

In half-darkened rooms

Nikola Tesla in the Hotel New Yorker

Nursing sick pigeons in the half-open window”

 

The song’s particular brilliance lies partly in connecting Tesla’s scientific genius with a spiritualist age, when science, philosophy, and religious mysticism commingled lustily in séances, theosophy, Swedenborgianism, and the like. It churns tragedy and prophesy in the tradition of the American ballad, channeling that “old weird America” Greil Marcus writes about. That deep stream of popular culture (as opposed to top-down manufactured mass culture) has inspired great things from Mugwumpin before (Frankie Done It 291 Ways, for instance, whose wildly disparate theatrical riffs on the “Frankie and Johnny” ballad was a highlight of the 2006 season.) This is Mugwumpin territory par excellence.

In keeping with Mugwumpin’s modus operandi, the yearlong process for Future Motive Power involved research and input from each member of the ensemble (Misti Boettiger, Joseph Estlack, Natalie Greene, Rami Margron, and White). By the time final rehearsals began inside the Mint, the piece contained a purposefully anti-linear, fragmented set of scenes very much in the vein of Mugwumpin’s past work — a kind of archeological approach to storytelling in which an intricately choreographed and physically dynamic set of vignettes and movement-designs extrapolate freely from certain evocative material fragments.

“At one point the J.P. Morgan character [I play] was just a table and tablecloth with my head sticking out of the top,” notes founding company member Estlack. “I’d move around everywhere with this table. I liked that a lot, but we can’t keep everything.”

The piece also has a director — something not every Mugwumpin production has used. Susannah Martin, an accomplished local director making her company debut, has come onboard to help guide the shaping of the piece, though she happily admits it’s not a typical gig working with such a highly collaborative, anti-hierarchical ensemble. Much initial time was spent, she says, “figuring out how I can be of best use to everybody. [Unlike productions with other companies,] it’s not my responsibility to hold the vision of this piece — it’s all our responsibility.”

It is rare to see so much discussion among all parties during a rehearsal, but it seems to contribute to the unusual dynamism of the results. To watch the actors rehearse, it’s as if the fluid staging aspired to Tesla’s own poetical, mercurial mind — represented here, aptly enough, not just by White but by three female characters (Boettiger, Greene, and Margron) personifying not muses so much as the willful, vaguely unhinged creative forces working with and through him.

Rehearsal continues with these three characters pulling a long electric cord into a square, as Tesla’s tussle with rival radio-technology pioneer Guglielmo Marconi (Estlack, who incarnates all Tesla’s principal antagonists including Edison) becomes a rumble inside a boxing ring. A moment later the boxing ring has morphed again into an image of Tesla raising Wardenclyffe, the wireless energy tower he partly erected on Long Island with Morgan’s money — that is, until Morgan discovered it was power to the people Tesla had in mind, and pulled the plug.

FUTURE MOTIVE POWER

Through Jan. 29

Previews Fri/6-Sat/7, 8 p.m.; opens Sun/8, 8 p.m.

Runs Fri.-Sun., 8 p.m., $15-$30 (previews, pay what you can)

Old Mint

88 Fifth St., SF www.mugwumpin.org

Time is now

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Time is now

emilysavage@sfbg.com

Music Last spring there was no end in sight. The future seemed bleak for what was once a promising project — the chance of a lifetime for Bay Area septet the 21st Century. Now, a full year after its intended release, the colorful debut album, The City, will see the light of day.

The struggle for The City began in 2010 with Kickstarter. Well, technically it began with an idea. Multi-instrumentalist Bevan Herbekian had been bouncing around the world since graduating from U.C. Santa Cruz. He’d come to San Francisco, the city closest to his Northern California-born heart, then promptly traveled to Europe, back to SF, next out to the Middle East — Israel, Egypt, Jordan — a quick stop in New Orleans and he was again back to the Bay. During those years, he was collecting sound. A guitarist, bassist, pianist and singer-songwriter since age 12, he fiddled with mandolin and banjo. In Jerusalem, he was gifted a small guitar and ended up busking a few times at a local shuk.

Upon Herbekian’s return to San Francisco, he decided to create the band of his dreams, an expansive folk-pop act with intricate arrangements, multi-part harmonies, and plenty of acoustic instruments. He gathered up friends, former bandmates, and a few Craigslisters, and created the 21st Century. The band now includes a lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardists, a trumpet player, a set of musical sisters, and the occasional live saxophonist.

Herbekian then worked on a set of creamy folk-pop tunes with abstract lyrics touching on the darkness and ebullient light of moving to a new city, specifically San Francisco (though he now resides in Berkeley). Sitting in the eternally packed Mission Pie, Herbekian recounts crafting the songs for The City, while he was living just down the street from the restaurant, near 25th and Bryant. “[the song] ‘We Are Waiters’ has some specifics about living in San Francisco, in the Mission,” he pauses, taking a moment to collect his thoughts, “[it’s] about being young, living in this city, and going back and forth between feeling exuberant and like you don’t know how to reconcile that with adulthood.” A common refrain in this adult-kid city of ours.

He recounts the battle to release The City. “It honestly felt like this project was fated to never be completed. There was always some catch, some snag.” In the summer of 2010 the band met a producer who wanted to record and promote the album. Void of funds enough to travel and record, the 21st Century turned to Kickstarter and brought in $11,000, which Herbekian describes as “nuts” and “truly amazing.”

With funding in place, the band flew to Texas, recorded the album, then returned home to await mixing. Something got lost in translation however, and the mixes, which was returned to them months after recording (in spring of 2011) were “way off the mark.”

“[Our music] is relatively pop-based, but I like to think that there’s a sense of artistry to it. We really pay attention to the details and do all these big arrangements, but the mixes just sounded like glossy top 40 pop,” explains Herbekian. He wanted more Brian Wilson, less Justin Bieber. He next made the difficult decision to part ways with the producer, gather the loose tracks, and find another way to finish the album. A few band members left at this point, and Herbekian felt the pressure weighing down.

“Four weeks after that decision was made we were left with a fraction of our musical family, still in debt, and no relationship with the person who we were hoping was going to be our ticket to something — and all these sessions we had no idea what to do with.” Herbekian had worked on home recording projects, but nothing of this scale.

By chance, one of the band members was pals with Ben Tanner, a touring musician and producer who works at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “I had him take a shot at the song that I thought was the absolute worst and he resurrected it.” Tanner continued to resurrect the album, piece by piece, working closely with Herbekian. The two wrote tireless emails and many late night phone calls transpired; they were sending mixes back and forth for months. “I’ve never met him in person but he’s a saint to me,” Herbekian enthuses.

The hard work has paid off, and Herbekian beams as he finally holds the completed album in his hands. The City‘s release party is this weekend at Red Devil Lounge and he can hardly believe it. At this point the process has taken so long that the band already has a batch of new songs, two full albums-worth. For this one, Herbekian says, “We might just go back to recording it ourselves.” *

 

The 21st Century

With the Blank Tapes, Mark David Ashworth, and Muralismo

Fri/6, 8 p.m., $10

Red Devil Lounge

1695 Polk, SF

(415) 921-1695

www.reddevillounge.com

Lights, Jolie, action

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Lights, Jolie, action

arts@sfbg.com

FILM The grudging, occasionally outright hostile tone some critics, culture vultures, and fan types have taken toward In the Land of Blood and Honey points toward a fundamental problem most of them have, though few admit it: the belief that Angelina Jolie is just too damn famous, too much a figure of public speculation and private fantasy, to be taken seriously — let alone to make a movie about rape and genocide during the War in the Balkans.

That bleak historical chapter occurred about the same time that Jolie was a Beverly Hills goth teen into knife play, too many recreational drugs, and her brother (eww), with a fledgling professional resume consisting of modeling gigs, music videos, and an inglorious starring role in 1993’s Cyborg 2. Since then she has grown up a lot, and in ways that count (adopting children as well as bearing them, actually working at her “humanitarian causes” rather than using them as photo ops), is sort of a model world citizen as far as ginormous movie stars go. She also paired off with another such example, Brad Pitt — World’s Sexiest Woman, meet World’s Sexiest Man, cue celestial chorus — and while it may be a coincidence, shortly after that event he started consistently behaving onscreen like a real actor and less like an International Male model.

Jolie, too, can act, but since becoming a big star (circa 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), it’s been disappointing how seldom she’s been called upon to do so — as opposed to bringing the near-cartoonish va-voom and ass-whup in movies like 2003’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 2008’s Wanted, and 2010’s Salt. Truth be told, when she has gotten a serious part in a serious film such as 2008’s Changeling or 2007’s A Mighty Heart, the stubborn glare of celebrity hobbles our ability to let her disappear into the role. It’s not fair, but there ya go. Those are highly competent, versatile performances that nonetheless might be more effective if delivered by someone whose first name alone seems to call for an exclamation point.

This is all beside the point when it comes to In the Land of Blood and Honey, or ought to be. But the fact is, her narrative debut as writer and director (she’s also credited with a little-seen 2007 documentary, A Place in Time) would probably be getting reviews in the respectable-to-rave range if created by anyone else. It’s certainly gotten some of those, but you’d be hard-pressed not to glimpse a certain “Who does she think she is?” resentment behind others who see the film as heavy-handed do-gooderism from a chick who should leave cinematic commentary about profoundly tragic historical events to people who are less … er, sexy.

Not that Blood and Honey doesn’t have its genuine faults. There’s contrivance in the way that young Muslim painter Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Serb cop Danijel (Goran Kostic) have a first date just as the war reaches 1992 Sarajevo — we never do find out how they met or how well they already know each other — then intersect again when she’s a POW and he’s an officer in the Serbian Army. This allows him to save her from the regular rapes other women prisoners suffer at the hands of guards, and eventually to set her up as his protected mistress, a breach of code that is unwelcome news to the ears of his powerful father General Nobosjsa (Rade Serbedzija), a fanatical “ethnic cleanser.” This premise is typical movie exceptionalism, even if it’s still a good step above the usual device of casting a Western character-star as our guide in unpleasant foreign affairs (see: Christian Bale in Zhang Yimou’s new Rape of Nanking drama The Flowers of War). The queasy but passionate love under impossible circumstances between Danijel and Ajla is compelling, but never as powerful as several instances of madness and cruelty that befall subsidiary characters, like the brutalization of a young woman who volunteers her sewing services, or an infant’s thoughtless fate simply for crying. The shocking senselessness of war atrocities depicted in scenes like these have some of the gut-punch impact of similar bits in Schindler’s List (1993). Keeping herself off camera (unlike many an actor turned director), Jolie also keeps stylistic flourishes likewise; Blood and Honey isn’t impersonal, but eschews any vestige of auteurist “personality.” (Comparisons may be odious, but it’s worth noting the seriousness Jolie achieves this way is the diametrical opposite of the superficial showiness displayed by Madonna’s directorial calisthenics to date.) It’s immaculately crafted, though, and the assurance with which the director tempers her own screenplay’s potential for excess suggests a refined intelligence beyond what can be condescendingly explained away by having the funds and ability to hire first-rate collaborators.

While not a great movie, Blood and Honey is a very good one; an honorable achievement, not just a vehicle for honorable intentions. Of course the point is nothing more complicated than “War is hell,” but how often do movies actually punch that across, as opposed to pouting a bit while making war look exciting?

Don’t hate her movie because she’s beautiful, rich, freaky, not Jennifer Aniston, or anything else related to the larger-than-lifeness of being Angelina Jolie. If someone else made In the Land of Blood and Honey, there would be little question about admiring its stark effectiveness. Of course, if someone else had made it, you probably wouldn’t be interested in seeing it, or even able to — the one positive her celebrity brings to bear here.

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY opens Fri/5 in San Francisco.

Our Weekly Picks: January 4-10

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 4

Starfucker

Reptilians, the latest LP from Portland, Ore.’s Starfucker, shows a clear obsession with death. But, you might not realize it from the opening track, “Born,” which takes a Flaming Lips style approach and brings some rock skuzz to a child-like stare into the abyss. This band keeps getting bigger (as does its audience — this Oakland date was added after two scheduled shows this week sold out,) and now with five touring members, the sounds gotten more expansive: euphoric electronica, Australian/Minogue-ish pop, 8bit arpeggios, Pixies’ bass lines, plus the signature Alan Watts samples. It could be a little much for a synth rock group, but for now, considering impending annihilation, Starfucker doesn’t seem to give a fuck. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Painted Palms, and Feelings

9 p.m., $20–$23

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(415) 371-1631

www.thenewparish.com

 

Week End

Yes, there was a standout 2011 movie called Weekend — Nottingham guy meets bound-for-America Nottingham guy for a one-night stand that turns out to be something more — but this screening is of another film with a very similar name, 1967’s Week End. Pro-tip: add Weekend to your Netflix queue and add Week End to your weekend plans. Jean-Luc Godard’s surreal, prescient satire of our ever-declining civilization, featuring cinema’s most epic (and most epically-filmed) traffic jam, unspools on the big screen in the form of a brand-new 35mm print. Oui-kend! (Cheryl Eddy)

Fri/6-Sun/8, 7 and 9:15 p.m. (also Sat/7-Sun/8, 2:30 and 4:45 p.m.), $7.50–<\d>$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

 

Grass Widow

Celebrate the first Friday of 2012 in Oakland with a free performance by San Francisco’s popular harmonizing punk trio, Grass Widow. Traipse through forward-thinking art instillations at nearby galleries as part of Art Murmur, then pop into the Uptown for an early start — doors are at 6 p.m. so there’s ample drinking time before bands. And those bands are high quality. Every time I see Grass Widow live, I’m smacked with its sheer blistering force; last catching the act upon its return from tour at a Public Works show featuring the resurgent Erase Errata, I was again swept up by the pummeling skills of guitarist Raven Mahon, drummer Lillian Maring, and bassist Hannah Lew. Art, drinks, and cheap-o rock’n’roll, it’ll be a solid First Fridays escape from reality. (Emily Savage)

With Culture Kids, Churches, and Wave Array

9 p.m., free

Uptown 1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 451-8100

www.uptownnightclub.com

 

Stripmall Architecture

The video for Stripmall Architecture’s “Radium Girls” features a neon-painted Rebecca Coseboom making weird “come hither” faces as she sings into the camera. It’s trippy and alluring, and it’s precisely how I would describe the local quartet’s dark-tinted pop music. Though Stripmall Architecture might be somewhat under your radar, founding couple Rebecca and Ryan Coseboom have worked with DJ Shadow, and Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie, and toured the country with Bob Mould. The group wails on guitars and synthesizers, but Rebecca’s angelic voice is the driving force of its sound. After watching “Radium Girls,” I found a bunch of clips of the freaky light show the band puts on for live performances. So, you should probably check them out. (Frances Capell)

With Return to Mono and TIGERcat

9 p.m., $10

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


FRIDAY 6

Frank & Tony

Francis Harris (a.k.a. Adultnapper) has a gift for building minimal tracks. One of the best songs of the last year, “Idiot Fair (feat. Black Light Smoke)” was a restrained bit of deep tech house released on Berlin’s Poker Flat Recordings. A steady bump with a little shake and some alternating clipped keys and snares for five minute — it didn’t slow build, it pleasantly idled — until a pair of brooding, stressed male vocals dropped into play. While Scissor and Thread — a Brooklyn-based label Harris started with players including French DJ (Tony) Anthony Collins — bills itself as an independent rather than dance imprint, the releases so far from Harris and Black Light Smoke sound quite promising. (Prendiville)

With Adnan Sharif (Forward), Michael Perry (Fedora)

9:30 p.m., $10–$15

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

The Proud

Local playwright Aaron Loeb’s previous work was entitled Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party and featured a chorus line of dancin’ beardos in stovepipe hats. His latest, The Proud, workshopping at Dance Brigade’s Dance Mission Theater, features a more serious subject matter (presented in collaboration with Iraq Vets Against the War, the play is about post-traumatic stress disorder) — but a no less memorable chorus, in the form of Dance Bridgade’a formidable drummers and dancers. The Proud is drawn from interviews with Bay Area veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, focusing on both PTSD and — in keeping with Dance Brigade’s commitment to feminist themes — the treatment of women in the military. Even in “staged reading” form, The Proud promises to be powerful stuff. (Eddy)

Sat/7, 8 p.m.; Sun/8, 6 p.m.; Mon/9, 5 p.m., free

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 826-4441

www.dancemission.com


SATURDAY 7

“Primo”

What gentle vibrations run through a family that produces a plural of career artists? Somewhere back in the generations was a genetic seed planted, later blooming into progeny given to walking the world with paint-spattered paws and dreamy gazes fixed on rooftops or the curvature of a cat’s cheekbones? Pending a scientific conclusion, we can look to the new art exhibition by cousins Hugh and David D’Andrade for clues. Budding geneticists will find comparisons of the two’s bodies of work — Hugh’s illustrative dream world most recently featured on an iconic Occupy flier, David’s sweeps of pigment that seem almost sculpture-like — to be catnip for the dabbler in DNA studies. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Feb. 18

Opening reception: 6-9:30 p.m., free

a.Muse gallery

614 Alabama, SF

(415) 279-6281

www.yourmusegallery.com


“Accordions with Love II”

This event is actually a double whammy, two full shows of squeezebox pride. First, there’s the early show, “Accordion Babes Review” which kicks off at happy hour and includes accordion-filled sets by Yeti, Amber Lee & the Anomalies, Luz Gaxiola & Circus Finelli, Vagabondage, and more. Next up, there’s “The Big Squeeze,” the nighttime show beginning at 9 p.m. This one features Mark Growden, Gabrielle Ekedal & Angus Matin, Eggplant Casino, and yes, even more. It’s a packed lineup, one that should envitably lead to your perfect come-on for the night, “My, how your accordion bellows.” (Savage)

5 p.m. and 9 p.m., $10 per show

Amnesia

835 Valencia, SF

(415) 970-0012

www.amnesiathebar.com

Phonte and 9th Wonder

It’s a little hard to wrap my head around the notion that Charity Starts At Home, released in September, is the debut solo album from North Carolina Justus League rapper Phonte. One of the most straight-talking, artistically varied artists around, Phonte has done practically everything but a solo album: classic underground records with the group Little Brother, the electronic R&B project Foreign Exchange with Dutch producer Nicolay (hip-hop’s answer to the Postal Service), and alter-egos like Tigallo and the hilariously authentic old school soul singer, Percy Miracles. Among it’s highlights, Charity sees the MC once again collaborating (after a 6 year break) with top-tier producer and former Little Brother member 9th Wonder. (Prendiville)

With Median, Rapsody

9 p.m., $22-40

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(415) 371-1631

www.thenewparish.com


SUNDAY 8

The Future of Motive Power

Nikola Tesla died at the New Yorker Hotel in 1943, alone and without a cent to his name. In the last years of his life, the “electric wizard” behind wireless communication and the induction motor had been promoting a death ray, subsisting on vegetable potions, and obsessing about pigeons (he claimed to love one pigeon like “a man loves a woman”). Future Motive Power, a play by the local performance ensemble Mugwumpin, is inspired by the inventor-wizard’s life, its peculiarities and myths, and the science that lives in its wake. Created specifically for the historic Old Mint, it’s a self-proclaimed “performative fever dream.” (James H. Miller)

8 p.m., $30 includes drinks and hors d’oeuvres

Old Mint

88 Fifth St., SF

(415) 967-1574

www.mugwumpin.org


MONDAY 9

Soft White Sixties

A congregant at the church of classic, mind-reeling Seventies rock, Soft White Sixties once described its sound as “Rock ‘n’ roll, heavy on the roll, dipped in soul.” This audio-fanatic show is particularly fitting for SWS and its followers for it’s part of Communion, a live music forum began in the UK by Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett, Kevin Jones, and noted producer Ian Grimbl. Established in 2006 London, Communion began as a monthly showcase for emerging singer-songwriters, a modern-day creative salon. It came to San Francisco near the end of last year, and continues to produce unique lineups and fanciful collaborations monthly at Cafe Du Nord. (Savage)

With Zane Carney, Big Eagle, Gabriel Kelly, and Amy Blashkie

8:30pm, $12.

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com


TUESDAY 10

Thee Cormans

In the grand tradition of costumed surf punk bands that straddle rock’n’roll and comedic timing (Phantom Surfers, Mummies), here comes Thee Cormans, a green-skinned, gorilla-masked, bug-eyed gang of wily monster motorcyclists in ripped vests riding curling waves of reverb. And like its rowdy foreparents, this fuzzed out Southern California based band has a live show that puts tender mumbling indie acts to shame. That exuberance also fits in neatly with Thee Cormans’ label, In the Red, which itself is making waves for a future-retro mishmosh output of eccentric weirdos, cultured punks, and generally genre-less acts. Viva costumery. (Savage)

With the Shrouds, the Khans, and Swiss Family Skiers

8:30 p.m., $6

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Police foot patrols help with crime drop in SF

Sasha Cuttler
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Police foot patrols help with crime drop in SF

The Mayor’s Office and San Francisco Police Department this morning sent out a press release announcing a decrease in violent crime in 2011, citing a number of factors for the drop but failing to mention an important and once-controversial one: increased police foot patrols.

But Police Chief Greg Suhr told us that foot patrols are a big part of the community policing techniques – and “community policing” was indeed mentioned in the release – responsible for the drop.

“They’re big. When we talk about increasing community involvement, that definitely includes foot patrols,” Suhr told the Guardian, explaining his policy of having a visible police presence in high-crime corridors like mid-Market, 3rd and Palou streets, and parts of the Mission District. “People should always see a cop on foot or on a bike in some places.”

For a long time, the SFPD resisted getting cops out of their cars and onto the streets – even in the first couple years of then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s tenure, when the city had almost twice the 50 murders it experienced each of the last two years — until it became a pitched political battle in the city.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and other progressives on the Board of Supervisors and the Police Commission locked horns with Newsom and then-Police Chief Heather Fong over the issue in 2010. After Newsom vetoed legislation to require foot patrols, Mirkarimi and Sup. David Campos co-authored a ballot measure requiring them, Measure M, which was narrowly defeated after SFPD began to implement them on its own.

“I believe that any analysis will eventually show – and they should really do this study – that community policing and foot patrols have a lot to do with this drop,” Campos, a former Police Commissioner, told us. “Community policing and foot patrols are the most pro-active way to reduce crime in any given neighborhood.”

Suhr agrees, something that Campos recognizes and praises the new chief for, saying he’s much better than his predecessors on the issue. “Chief Suhr has been very supportive of community policing,” Campos said. “He’s been very good about working with us to make it happen.”

Suhr said that the department needs to have enough personnel in the stations to take calls, do investigations, and otherwise process information. “Everyone else should be on the street trying to get in front of this stuff,” he told us.

He does still defend the department’s opposition to Prop. M, noting that it would have micromanaged SFPD in a way that he didn’t think was appropriate. But he’s also a true believer in foot beats and other community policing techniques, and he said things are better today than “years ago, when there wasn’t as much open communication as there is now.”

As for the Mayor’s Office and its failure to give credit directly to foot patrols, Press Secretary Christine Falvey told us, “Foot Patrols, the Ambassador Program and other efforts are all critical pieces of Community Policing, which is referenced as part of the success we have seen in getting the crime rate down in San Francisco.”

Her office’s press release follows:

MAYOR LEE & CHIEF SUHR ANNOUNCE SAN FRANCISCO’S CONTINUED HISTORIC CRIME RATE DROP
Year End Statistics Show Continued Historic Lows for Homicides & Violent Crime Rates Overall Since 1960s

San Francisco, CA— Today Mayor Edwin M. Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr released the year end crime statistics showing continued historic low crime trends for the City. Mayor Lee and Chief Suhr announced that 2011 violent crime rates in San Francisco are down 6 percent from last year.

“Violent crime in San Francisco remains at historic lows because of stronger community partnerships, targeted approaches to violent crime and aggressive crime prevention strategies,” said Mayor Lee. “Despite some tough economic times, Chief Suhr and the San Francisco Police Department are working to make our City the safest big city in the United States through the best use of 21st century technology, strategic deployment of police resources, the use of innovative crime fighting strategies and successful partnerships with our diverse communities and neighborhoods.”

Homicides were at their second lowest annual rate of any year in San Francisco since the 1960s again in 2011.

In 2011, total violent crime in San Francisco was down six percent from 2010 and shows a reduction of 18 percent compared to 2008:
·        Homicide showed no statistical change; there were 50 homicides in both 2011 and 2010;
·        Aggravated Assault is down nine percent in 2011 from 2010;
·        Robbery is down two percent in 2011 from 2010;
·        Rape is down 12 percent in 2011 from 2010; and
·        Burglary is down five percent in 2011 from 2010.

In 2011, total property crime in San Francisco was up three percent from 2010.

The SFPD continues to pursue innovative crime reduction strategies including a “task force style” response to all crimes of violence. Increased community policing efforts, improved approach in assisting those suffering from mental illness and those with limited English proficiency, town hall community meetings and the decentralization of traffic officers and Beach/Park Patrols for safer streets and neighborhoods are also critical to the reduction of crime in San Francisco. In addition, the formation of the new Special Victims Unit allows our City’s most vulnerable populations the compassion and consideration they deserve.

“The year end crime statistics are an indication to the people of San Francisco of how well the men and women of the San Francisco Police Department are serving this City,” said Chief Suhr. “Our goal is for San Francisco to be the safest big city in America, and the men and women of the SFPD in partnership with our communities are committed to this end. We will achieve this goal by reducing crime and the perception of crime through the use of innovative crime fighting strategies, accessing the best technology available, predictive policing, strategic planning, and working collaboratively with all those concerned. There is nothing we cannot achieve when we all work together for the common good.”

Shining season

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Shining season

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE In its opening weeks, AQ in SoMa* reminds me of lauded Commonwealth and Sons and Daughters. At all three restaurants, precision marries inventiveness — at a reasonable cost. AQ’s starters are $9 or $13, while entrees are $24. After dining in cities the world and country over, I can vouch that it is rare to see this level of skill and creativity at this price.

Seasonal menus are a dime a dozen here, but how often do you see seasonal trees and plants with seasonal bar glassware, and a seasonally changing bar top? As AQ’s bar morphs from copper to Italian marble for the winter and fall leaves enliven, the space exudes celebratory beauty. There’s exposed brick, funky whisk lighting, open kitchen, and a ridiculously cool basement lounge with mid-century lamps and couches viewable from a mini-bridge walkway at the restaurant’s entrance.

Then there’s the food. Owner-executive chef Mark Liberman combines New York and San Francisco sensibilities with Mediterranean and French influences. But when it comes to style and ingredients, he’s decidedly Californian. (Liberman has cooked on both coasts, as well as in France and Napa, and with Daniel Boulud and Joël Robuchon in Vegas). Nuance prevails without getting mired in overwrought fussiness. Starters are small, but entrees are as filling as they are complex.

All this comes into focus when you taste Monterey squid and charred avocado ($9). Parsnips and grapefruit add brightness, while black sesame char over silky avocado ushers in a dish rich, earthy, unusual. A delicate starter, it is rife with flavor.

I adore boudin noir (blood sausage or black pudding, depending on if you’re from the US or UK-Ireland) and Liberman’s version is a thrill. A warm, spiced pile of tender meat (not in a sausage casing) is companion to chestnuts done three ways ($9): raw, confit, and as a cream sauce. With quince and sorrel, the dish pops. At this point, I’m catching my breath at the level of detail and sapidity, recalling countless basic salads or sandwiches I’ve had for the same price.

Not as revelatory as the charred avocado or boudin noir, a toasted barley and Dungeness crab dish ($13) tossed with mushrooms and Douglas fir, still pleased, as did the cauliflower ($9) in various iterations from charred to raw, doused in vadouvan spices with golden raisins. In the Autumn spirit, roasted pumpkin ($10) sits alongside carrots, ancho cress greens, with a heaping scoop of mascarpone cream. Even a little gem salad in buttermilk dressing ($10) fends off typicality with poppy seeds, watermelon radish, and cured sardines.

On the entree front, one witnesses Liberman’s range in a juicy, utterly satisfying slow-cooked veal breast (all entrees $24), subtly candied in orange, accompanied by unfried, plump sweetbreads and broccoli. He does not leave vegetarians in the shadows with Kohlrabi “Bourguignon.” Kohlrabi, a brawny German turnip, stands stoically in the center of the plate, a root sprouting from the dish with flair. Notes of horseradish and star anise peek out, but it’s the red wine sauce that must be lapped up.

Desserts ($8) are equally expert in detail but didn’t wholly captivate. I enjoyed ginger cake with Asian pear and salted toffee, cooked in Amaro Montenegro, and a devil’s chocolate cake dusted in coffee and smoked streusel, with shavings of roasted white chocolate — although I could have used more smoked streusel to bring out the earthiness of the cake.

A winning team of talented bartenders, helmed by Timothy Zohn, is worth a visit alone and should be a new go-to for cocktailians. (All menu cocktails are $10.) Winter’s chill diminishes when sipping a New Amsterdam # 1: raisin-infused Bols Genever, maple syrup, Old Fashion bitters, and a splash of apple cider. Head south with Mexican Piano: Espolon blanco tequila, huckleberry syrup, lime, and tarragon, topped with a torched bay leaf. The menu contains lovely aperitif and digestif cocktails, many amaro based, with a section of classics given seasonal treatment, like a sazerac of date-infused Russell’s Reserve Rye, sugar, and Peychaud’s winter bitters. (The vintage glassware is gorgeous)

Already, AQ feels like “the whole package.”

AQ

Mon.-Sun. 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m., Sunday brunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m.,

1085 Mission, SF.

(415) 341-9000

www.aq-sf.com

MC/Visa

Full bar

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

*Due to an editing error, AQ’s location was misstated in the paper as being in the Mission. Since the time of this review, AQ has since discontinued the lunch service referred to in the paper edition. 

 

King of the beach

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King of the beach

emilysavage@sfbg.com

Music In the beginning, the ocean was quiet. And before Dick Dale, the chords were thin, flat, and sweet. A young surfer growing up in picturesque 1950s Southern California, Dale changed the course of rock’n’roll with the thick, wet reverberating sound of Middle Eastern-influenced surf guitar and a little song called “Misirlou.”

On that same album, 1962’s Surfer’s Choice (Deltone), he released crashing waves of perma-hits, from the similarly instrumental first hit “Let’s Go Trippin'” with its walking guitar line, to juicy-hippie pop track “Peppermint Man.” In the decades that followed, Dale influenced an expanding scope of musicians with innovative style, new amp sounds created with the help of pal Leo Fender, and his own signature guitars. He’s lead a paradoxical life, the eccentric icon keeping exotic animals (most notably, a pet jaguar), but also a ’60s-famous rocker who never touched a drug in his life. Thanks to healthy living and strong values, he’s in a continuous prime despite lifelong illnesses; he keeps playing, keeps touring, and has hopes to get back to the beach soon.

I spoke with the maestro on the phone days before the holidays in anticipation of his Oakland show this weekend; in a friendly, frank, and meandering conversation he openly discussed his storied past, his eternal love for the water, and a surprising favorite instrument:

San Francisco Bay Guardian You’re about to go back out on tour?

Dick Dale We just finished another tour — 20 concerts on the East Coast where I was born. And now I’m going up to Washington and back. I go to Solana Beach, San Jose, and Oakland at the Uptown. We play all over the world though. In Europe we play to 490,000 people outdoors, then we go play fairs. But I like the club circuit, I’ve been doing it so many years. It’s good because it’s a personal thing. I’ve been dealing with cancer for the last five years and diabetes on top of that, and when they see me on stage, it’s like a big club [atmosphere], and they say ‘how can he do that without taking drugs?’

I’ve never had a drug in my body in all my life. I don’t take pain pills, never had alcohol in my body in my life. Your body is your temple. I’ve been a vegetarian for many years, never ate anything with a face. That’s what gave me the strength to fight the cancer. The people, they see me performing and say ‘wow, how do you keep doing that?’

When I was 20 they gave me three months to live from rectal cancer. I’m still here at 74, doing 30 concerts in a row. When I get to performing I just don’t leave. I get at the doorway with my wife Lana and I talk with the people and sign until everybody leaves.

SFBG Where’s your home base now?

DD I live near Twentynine Palms, actually Wonder Valley above Palm Springs. I still have my boats in Balboa in Newport Beach though, I came there in 1955. I came first to Southwest LA then to Balboa where I created what I created in the Rendezvous Ballroom — [it was] where all the big bands played in the late ’50s.

I created the first power amplifiers with Leo Fender, we put transformers and big 15-inch speakers. That’s why they call me not only the King of the Surf Guitar — ’cause I was surfing everyday — but also the Father of Heavy Metal because I played on 60-gauge guitar strings, and strings are normally small, thin, but mine, they called ’em telephone cables, because I wanted a big, fat sound.

SFBG When did you first discover an interest in music?

DD When I was a kid back in Boston. I’m self-taught. Never took a lesson. Piano being my favorite. And I always played trumpet, sax, accordions, and harmonicas — you name it! I was just inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville. That’s the real deal, that’s where you’re voted upon by over a hundred thousand players, musicians.

SFBG And how’d that feel? It must’ve been exciting.

DD That was the real thing! That other [rock history museum], that’s just governed by a dozen people around a table. I really never paid attention to any of these though really, I’ve always been a rebel in the business. The big agencies and recording companies, they don’t like me, haven’t liked me since I was a beginner in this business because I knew what they were doing when they had these kids sign — they were taking away all their royalties. I tell the kids now, don’t sign with a big company, the minute you sign, you sign over your rights.

SFBG Do you meet a lot of younger bands? Do you see your influence on their music?

DD Yeah, they all open up for me. It’s been going on and on though. I found Jimi Hendrix when he was playing bass for Little Richard in a bar in Pasadena for 20 people. Stevie Ray Vaughan, his first records he learned on were Dick Dale records. I’m the guy who created the first power amplifiers with Leo Fender. In fact, I just got through doing one of the songs on the album for Glen Campbell’s last album. Glen played backup guitar in my recording sessions back at Capitol [in the 1960s].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCCJtR-RjHg&feature=fvst

SFBG Do you ever think about releasing new material?

DD My son, Jimmy [who’s 19], he matches me note to note, but I also taught him drums like Gene Krupa. Jimmy and I, we do dueling guitars. We just created two new guitars. Jimmy has one called the Jimmy Dale Signature Kingman guitar, and I have the Dick Dale Signature Malibu guitar. And my guitar is about three-quarters size so you can put it in a car and play it. It’s something I’ve been screaming about for 20 years, nobody would listen. Finally Fender wanted to me to do something and I said I won’t do it unless you make this guitar.

On acoustic guitars it’s usually six-to-eight inches deep to make a big sound, but they don’t realize its unnatural for the average human to put their arm over the top of the guitar and start strumming, you get a cramp in your back, the older you get, the quicker that comes. I’ve always said ‘why can’t I just drop my arm straight down?’ Instead of eight inches deep, make it three inches. They all said ‘you’re not going to get the sound.’

When you have molecules for mahogany, they’re a certain shape, you strike a note with a string, it’ll go ‘BING!’ The note wants to travel like a tsunami wave, a continuation, so it travels through the back, up the side, but when it goes to the top base with a different wood, it’s like somebody changed the recipe for your soup. You’re going to hear the string, but you’ll never hear the color of the sound, the pureness, undisturbed.

I tried to explain that to them using one wood so it’ll be all the same molecules. I convinced them to do that, they made that guitar then I had them put on two pick guards, one on top, so you save the face of the guitar, then I had them put on a tuner. Then I had them strum it and those techs, their jaws just dropped. I said, ‘see? The world is no longer flat, fellas.’

The last tour we did, was only just Jimmy and I doing dueling guitars. We sat in two chairs like the Smothers Brothers, picking on each other, father and son. Now we’re doing the tour with my band, and now he’s doing drums for me.

SFBG I saw that you were inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach.

DD Yeah, everybody can walk all over me now. No, I’m just joking, I make fun of everything. I used to surf the pier all the time. I’ll be back in the water again, it’s just that we’ve been on such a hellacious schedule that I don’t even have time. When I go back, I’ll be back in the water. To me that’s the greatest healer.

 

Dick Dale

With The Bitter Honeys, and the Dirty Hand Family Band

Sat/7, 10 p.m., $20

Uptown

1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 451-8100

www.uptownnightclub.com

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Future Motive Power Old Mint, 88 Fifth St, SF; www.mugwumpin.org. $15-30 (previews, pay what you can). Previews Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm. Opens Sun/8, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sun, 8pm. Through Jan 29. Mugwumpin takes on the life of Nikola Tesla in its latest performance piece.

The Two-Character Play Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $10-25. Previews Wed/4-Fri/6, 8pm. Opens Sat/7, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Jan 15. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Tennessee Williams’ backstage drama about a brother and a sister torn apart by secrets.

ONGOING

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5 and 8:30pm. Extended through Feb 25. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/1). Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

*God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 15. Playwright-director Mark Jackson excavates a bit of deep history for Occupy USA, an episode in the annals of colonial American theater and jurisprudence that played, and plays, like a rehearsal for a revolution — this time with music. Capping Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season of new work, God’s Plot comically animates and literally underscores (through song, and irresistible banjo and bass accompaniment courtesy of Josh Pollock and Travis Kindred) the story surrounding “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” a play performed in 1665 Virginia but now lost. The legal battle that engulfed this satire of the English crown and its economic and political domination of the colonies was an early instance of the close but little acknowledged relationship between art and politics in proto-American society, with much too of religious conflict in the mix (personified here by a powerfully smoldering John Mercer as closet-Quaker Edward Martin). The playwright, a brash self-inventor named William Darby (a sure, charismatic Carl Holvick-Thomas), colludes with a disgruntled merchant (Anthony Nemirovsky) and a former indentured servant climbing the social ladder as a new tenant hand (Will Hand). Darby, meanwhile, is secretly wooing — and even more, being wooed by — Tryal Pore (an ebullient, magnetic Juliana Lustenader), a young woman even braver and more outspoken than he. As an expression of her novel and unbridled spirit, Tryal alone breaks into song to express her feelings or observations. Her temperament is meanwhile a source of worry to her father (a comically deft Kevin Clarke) and mother (Fontana Butterfield), but also attracts an unwitting suitor (a compellingly serious Joe Salazar). The play’s overarching narrative of nationalist ferment, which reaches an overtly stirring pitch, thus comes mirrored by the tension in two dramatic triangles whose common point is the precocious, golden-throated Tryal Pore. More of the private drama might have served the overall balance of the play, but a good part of the achievement of director Jackson and his generally muscular cast is making a complex play of enduring ideas and conflicts look so effortless and fun. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Sat/7, 8:30pm. Runs Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Feb 12. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

*The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun/8 and Jan 15, 2pm; Jan 22, show at 2pm only). Extended through Jan 22. In the first act of Kneehigh Theatre’s The Wild Bride, the destinies of an innocent girl (Audrey Brisson), her moonshine-making father (Stuart Goodwin), and a predatory devil in a cheap suit (Stuart McLoughlin) become inextricably entwined by an ill-fated bargain. Steeped in European fairytale logic and American folk and blues music, Bride is inventively staged at the base of a giant tree, combining mime, puppetry, dance, live music, Cirque du Soleil-style vocals, acrobatics, and taut verse into a swooping, expressionistic fable. Accidentally promised to the devil by her doting but drink-dulled dad, “The Girl” suffers first the creepy indignity of being perved on by her preternatural suitor, and secondly the horror of having her hands chopped off by her own father, actions which drive her to flee into the woods, morphing into a character known only as “The Wild” (played by Patrycja Kujawska). After a stint as an unlikely, Edward Scissorhands-esque queen, The Wild too is driven from comfort and morphs a second time into a third character “The Woman” (Éva Magyar), an experience-toughened mother bear who kicks the devil’s ass (literally), and triumphs over adversity, without even uttering a single word. At turns dark, dexterous, fanciful, and fatal, Bride rises above the usual holiday fare with a timeless enchantment. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: Jan 15, Jan 21, Feb 12, 19, 26, March 11, and 18, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Café Royale 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. Free. Fri, 8pm: Spoken word with Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye. Mon, 7pm: Comedy with Cara Tramontano.

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Fri/6 and Jan 13, 8pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“A Funny Night for Comedy” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287. Sun, 7pm. $10. With host Natasha Muse.

“The Proud” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; (415) 826-4441, www.dancemission.com. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm; Mon, 5pm. Free. Dance Brigade’s Dance Mission Theater and Iraq Vets Against the War present this workshop production of Aaron Loeb’s new play about post-traumatic stress syndrome.

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