San Francisco

Danny Glover, DCCC stand up for HANC

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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9

The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center has gained some powerful allies in its ongoing fight against eviction.

A YouTube video posted over the weekend shows actor Danny Glover, a resident of the Haight, sitting in his car at the recycling center. If it were shut down, “I would be dismayed,” Glover tells a staff member. He also says, “It would be a tragedy. It would be a great loss to this city.” (Scroll down to watch.)

On Jan. 26, the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) voted in favor of a resolution calling for the HANC recycling center to stay at its location behind the Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park. The statement noted that “San Francisco is notoriously underserved by recycling centers,” adding that “people want to receive their California Redemption Value deposit, especially in this depressed economy, which can only be done at recycling centers.”
 
In recent weeks, Sup. Eric Mar told the Guardian he was strongly supportive of the recycling center’s continued operation in the park. He added that he planned to encourage Mayor Ed Lee to overturn the eviction.

The San Francisco Recreation & Park Commission voted in December 2010 to evict the recycling center from a paved lot in Golden Gate Park, where it has been operating for more than three decades. Since the center was originally on a quarterly lease, it was given 90 days notice — but HANC’s lawyer contends that it could legally occupy the property till June.

The eviction, supported by former Mayor Gavin Newsom and a commission composed of his appointees, was widely viewed by recycling center supporters as a form of political payback. HANC, a progressive organization that was at odds with the Newsom administration on a variety of issues, was particularly outspoken against the sit/lie ordinance, which Newsom placed on the ballot.

A neighborhood group, the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors, also supported the ouster of HANC, citing quality-of-life issues such as aggressive panhandling and public safety concerns that the group believes to be linked to recycling center patrons. Rec & Park plans to use the lot for a community garden, at a cost of $250,000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l09tUCChOiA

Protest in solidarity with Egypt and Tunisia uprising

Mary Magee
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30
Protest in solidarity with Egypt and Tunisia uprising

As President Barack Obama insists that governments must maintain power “through consent and not coercion” organizers have announced a protest this Saturday, January 29, in San Francisco, in solidarity with people in Egypt, Tunisia, and other countries struggling against 30 years of dictatorship, poverty, unemployment and torture–and are condemning what they call Obama’s “refusal to condemn the Mubarak regime.”

In a press release, Mohammed Talat, an Egyptian organizer of Saturday’s protest commented that “Despite the extreme Egyptian government repression of its citizens on the streets, mass police violence, killings, and arrests, the blocking of internet and cell phone communication, the US government is still refusing to condemn the Mubarak regime.  As individuals in the US, we protest this inaction and express support for our brothers and sisters in Egypt.”

The protest begins noon, Saturday, at Montgomery BART, followed by a march to the UN Plaza.

Obama addresses DREAMer Steve Li’s video

Mary Magee
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0

Earlier this week, I posted a video clip that Community College nursing student Steve Li, who narrowly avoided deportation from San Francisco to Peru last year, submitted to the White House in answer to Obama’s groundbreaking online State of the Union outreach effort. And yesterday, Obama addressed Li’s video (featured at 33.10 minutes into a Jan. 27 interview that YouTube’s Steve Grove moderated) as he answered questions on a wide range of issues submitted by and voted on by YouTube users.

Li is a supporter of the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented youth who attend college and/or serve in the military to apply for citizenship. And while the DREAM Act failed to get the necessary votes last year, advocates like Li have vowed to keep up the pressure until it becomes law. And Obama indicated yesterday that he believes expelling undocumented youth who are ready to serve in the military or at college makes no sense.

“Let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses and further enrich this nation,” Obama said

DREAMers like LI and their allies will doubtless take Obama’s words and try to get the president to back them up with concrete actions, so stay tuned as the seemingly endless fight to reform the federal immigration system in a humane way continues.

Don’t nobody give a damn: day 3

Mary Magee
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1

Unemployed construction workers protested outside UC Mission Bay’s Hospital building for the third day straight—but by early afternoon seemed to have got some clarification from UC officials over upcoming job opportunties at the site.


At issue is the tension between UCSF’s stated desire to be a good neighbor and put local residents to work, and the reality that while unemployment remains high throughout the construction industry, the communities immediately neighboring UC’s Mission Bay campus have been hard hit.


.“I want them to set up a system where we have a referral mechanism that includes CityBuild, and for UC to discontinue using DPR’s subcontractor Cambridge and other consultants,” James Richards, President of Aboriginal Blackmen United (ABU), said shortly before he met with UC officials. “Because if you don’t have a community-based organization helping UC make good on its commitment to be a good neighbor, then you are going to see stuff like UC’s voluntary local hire system. The idea that you can have a voluntary system without someone like ABU, which organizes folks from the community, is why this system is going to fail. And it’s why we only see token folks on the site. Because if you don’t work with the community, you won’t get the community to work. Really it’s an easy proposition: you have unemployed union workers at the gate. So put them to work.”

Just then Dwayne Jones, who worked in the Mayor’s Office when Gavin Newsom occupied Room 200, stopped by to chat with Richards and the ABU crew. 
Jones, who is now with Platinum Advisors, told the Guardian that he works as consultant for DPR Construction, UC’s prime contractor at Mission Bay. Fortune recently ranked DPR number 22 in its list of Top 100 companies to work for in the U. S.


Jones noted that his work with DPR had nothing to do with ABU’s local hire protest. “I’m only involved because I have worked with all these folks in the past and know all the players,” Jones said. “So, I’m helping these folks. At the end of the day, DPR’s concerns and mine are the same: I want to facilitate a process that maximizes opportunities for local folks.”

“These are all great people,” Jones continued. “I’ve worked for them for 15 years.”

Asked what the city can do to get the state-owned UC to hire more folks from economically disadvantaged communities on a project that isn’t financed by city funds, Jones said, “I agree that there is little leverage that the city has, given the constraints of the contract, so people need to be creative.”

Jones said he was not aware that Dr.Arelious Walker and the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative has issued a flier stating that they were gathering lists of names to be submitted to UC for jobs, amove that angered ABU members since they have been protesting for jobs at the site for over a year


“I was not aware of this group but there are a multitude of organizations trying to do good work,” Jones said. “And frankly this [multitude] was one of the things that led to the end of the lead agency methodology, because it caused so much division in the community. I hope we build a really strong coalition in the community that leverages its strengths.”

Jones gave UCSF credit for trying to move the local hire process forward
“I’m glad that they accepted the initial recommendation to do whatever they can to mirror the city’s local hire legislation,” he said. “Because although it’s voluntary, if it’s part of your culture and you embrace it, it’ll get done. And these are the people who have been out here for a year.”

Last December, the Board approved local hire legislation for city-funded projects. Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign the legislation, which met stiff opposition from the building trades, and it’s fallen to Mayor Ed Lee to mplement this new law, which does not apply to state agencies,but had led to a parallel dialogue with UC.


“Much like any policy, implementation is the biggest challenge,” Jones observed. And until we do some inventory of which organizations, contractors, individuals and groups can do each piece of the work, it’s going to be a struggle. What I’m praying for is that local hire legislation allows us to get a bigger table. What I’m interested in doing is creating a pipeline of qualified workers, so that whenever something like this happens, I don’t have to hear the excuse that folks aren’t ready to work.”

Then Richards took off for a meeting with UC Vice Chancellor Barbara French that lasted two hours during which time rumors started circulated that Mayor Ed Lee had called French to try and help move the conversation along, as ABU members continued their protest and shared stories with reporters of how they came to be standing on a picket line in Mission Bay.

One worker, who preferred to remain anonymous, said he was frustrated by UCSF’s plea for workers to remain patient because jobs are coming soon. “We’ve been out here for one and a half years, so since before they did their demolition, and they have been playing games with us,” he said. “ Folks with ABU were promised jobs. But then they didn’t get anything. That’s what UC does. They try to pacify you and tell you stories, then the money gets taken out of the community, and another year goes by. So, if anybody says, why aren’t you more patient, the answer is that the whole area has been built with only a handful of people from our community. Especially now, when no one has jobs, and everybody wants to work here. We are not going into other communities and trying to steal their jobs. We just want to work here. But we could be protesting every day, until this whole stuff has been built. It’s a city within a city. Just look around you. We was patient. And all this stuff has been built and we got no jobs.”

Michelle Carrington, 58, a flagger and an operating engineer from the Bayview, said Dwayne Jones helped her graduate from Young Community Developers. “He got me in tears, he dropped me in the mud at 5 in the morning and made me do push ups, but I fought and kept on and graduated at the top of my class out of three women and 15 men,” she said. “But now we got people going behind the gate, folks who used to work for Dwayne Jones, like Dr. Arelious Walker, who are trying to say that they are the ones who have got the sign-up list for jobs here. But you ain’t been here marching, or down at City Hall fighting for local hire. And I saw Rodney Hampton Jr. on the number 54 bus, and I let him have it. I said, what’s this I heard about you and Walker? And he said he went to UCSF and tried to get a bid but was told ABU had it. So the only way to get in was for him and Marcellus Prentice to go to God’s house.  But Walker’s not out here. Meanwhile, we see folks coming from Hayward, Sacramento and Vallejo and working on this yard. Why is it such a hard decision to try and put us to work? It’s easy. Just take 5 or 10 of us, put us to work, and we will go away. Work smarter, not harder.

Laborer Sharon Brewer, who was born and raised in the Bayview and has been out of work for two years. She helped her granddaughter, Akira Armstrong, hold a protest sign and talked about losing her apartment because she lost her job.
“I had to move back in with my daughter because nobody lets you live for free,” she said. “I used to work for UCSF as a patient coordinator for physical therapy but I got laid off. Now I have to dummy down my resume to try and get a job making $8 an hour selling coffee and donuts .”

Jesse Holford said he had reached the fourth level of his apprenticeship as a Carpenter.
‘There are eight levels between an apprentice and a journeyman,” he said.

Jason Young and Alonzo McClanahan said they were unemployed laborers from  Bayview Hunters Point resident. Robert English, a carpenter journeyman from the Bayview, had been out of work 6 months. Tina Howards, a carpenter’s apprentice from the Bayview with four kids,  had been out of work for a year. And Keith Williams, a carpenter from the Bayview, had been out of work for nine months.


Fred Green, who has lived in the Bayview for 50 years and has five kids, said protesters were trying to remain as peaceful as possible.


“But an empty belly makes you do strange things,” Green said. “If there’s enough work for everybody, why should we be stuck at home while someone comes into my community and takes food out of my kids’ mouths. I got five kids and they all go hungry.”

Bayview resident Carlos Rodriguez has three kids and has been out of work for two years.
“They called me to work before Christmas but never hired me, “ he said.


Bayview resident Truenetta Webb has two kids and has been out of work for four months.
‘Some guys called me and took my information, but there’s been no work,” she said.

Troy Moor, who has lived in the Bayview for 47 years and has two kids, worked in January on Lennar’s shipyard development for 17 days.


“Two weeks ago, UC said they were going to hire four folks on ABU’s list, but they didn’t,” he said. “We don’t want it to get ugly out here. All we want to do is feed our families.”

Moor said he believes Mayor Ed Lee will ensure local hire is implemented on city-funded projects. “Ed don’t want no problem, we know him personally, we used to work for him when he was at DPW (the city’s Department of Public Works),” he said. “He’s a decent guy, as long as you keep the pressure on him.”

Moor speculated that if ABU blocked both gates to the UC Mission Bay hospital project, it would cost UC thousands of dollars.“Here at the front gates, we are visible, but we figure that if by next week, nothing is happening, we’ll start making them lose money,” he said.

Ed Albert, a retired painter and a Bayview resident for 57 years, said he was protesting for folks in his community.
“I grew up in the Bayview, I’m a servant of the Bayview,” he said. “I went from paperboy to contractor. I was a painter for Redevelopment and the San Francisco Housing Authority. But I don’t want a job. Who’d hire a 67-year-old guy with one eye? But I want to see my people get a job.”

James Amerson, a laborer with Local 261, said he worked on the Transbay Terminal in July, then got transferred to Pier 17.
“But when that was over, they didn’t bring me back to the Transbay, so I’ve been out of work since the end of December,” Amerson said. “They sent me to the Transbay as a flagger, and I rode by the other day, and saw they had an apprentice operator doing flagging.”


“When we are not working, we always come back to James [Richards]’s church at Double Rock,” he continued. “We meet at 9 a.m., Monday through Thursday. James is sick with diabetes. But he ain’t asking for anything. He’s here for the people, coming out here, buying food every day. We feed everybody. Yesterday he was feeding the police officers.”

Finally, Richards emerged from his meeting with UC officials. After he crossed 16th Street slowly, Richards was encouraged take a swig of orange juice from the back of ABU’s flatbed truck before giving folks an update.


“When DPR needs someone for a job, they’re gonna call Dwayne Jones, and then Dwayne will let us know,” Richards finally said. “There’s enough work for everybody. There’s hundreds of jobs, but I don’t know if they are in every trade. So, I feel good. But not so good that I can say that ten carpenters will be hired tomorrow. There’s not enough need for that, right now. But the work that’s there, when they call, you’re going to know it. Laborers, there are going to be no others going first. You guys are going first. So, I suppose next week, more laborers should be going, then more carpenters.”

Asked if ABU was going to continue its protest, Richards ‘said he thought folks needed to regroup.


“I think we got enough to not have to come out here tomorrow again. So, we’ll come back to church on Monday and let everyone know what happened. Then we’ll make a decision about what we are going to do. If the majority says, fuck this man, make ‘em hire 10 or 20 more folks, then that’s what we’ll do. But for now, we gotta regroup.”

Reached by phone, as ABU members prepared to pack up for the day, Cindy Lima, executive director of UC Mission Bay Hospitals Project, said she felt UC’s meeting with Richards was positive


“We clarified some misunderstandings and made some progress,” Lima said. “Our goal is still to create jobs for San Francisco residents and make this project happen. So, we are continuing to try and match people who need to go to work with available job opportunities. The bottom line is that there are a lot of people in this city who are out of work and a lot of groups with different intentions in mind and we get tangled in that process. So, maybe we need to have more dialogue about when jobs will become available. And we have made a commitment to talk more.”










BART removes anti-Palestinian ad

Sasha Cuttler
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39
BART removes anti-Palestinian ad

Offensive advertisements promoting a right-wing Zionist viewpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were removed from all BART stations this week. “They could be commonly interpreted as disparaging or demeaning to Palestinians as a whole,” according to BART spokesperson Jim Allison told us, saying the violated the district’s advertising standards.

The ad featured the words “Stop Palestinian Terrorism” above a picture of a face covered with a traditional Arab scarf, known as a keffiyeh, and the words “Teach Peace” above the picture of children playing soccer. The keffiyeh has evolved into a symbol of Palestinian resistance to occupation after former PLO leader Yasser Arafat began regularly wearing one. StandWithUs, a self-purported pro-Israel advocacy organization, produced and paid for the ad.

Per BART policy, StandWithUs was informed about the decision to remove the ads and asked to provide substitutes, which it did. The organization’s CEO, Roz Rothstein, told us she felt BART’s evaluation of the ad was “unfair…It would only be disparaging if you don’t look at it properly… the Palestinians deserve a future too, that was the message of the ad. Just as it is not disparaging for an Iranian to point a finger at a [Iranian President Mamhoud] Ahmadinejad, it is not disparaging to point a finger at Hamas.”

However, three individual who did find the ad offensive enough that they complained to BART, initiating the reevaluation of the ad’s content, according to Allison. One Palestinian American who thought they were offensive was Miriam Zouzounias who is the membership coordinator for San Francisco’s Arab Resource and Organizing Center.

She said the ad made her feel “sick to her stomach.” The keffiyeh is a common cultural and political item of clothing, she said, and she happened to be wearing one on her backpack when she noticed the ad. “I hate that [the keffiyeh] is being targeted, portrayed as what terrorists wear.” According to Zouzounias’s interpretation, the ad’s message was that Palestinians do not but should start to invest in productive and peaceful activities for their children, a message that was markedly untrue to her. “Kids playing sports…and doing art are the kind of outlets…Palestinian civil society works really hard for,” she said.

In responding to claims the ad might be offensive, San Francisco’s StandWithUs lay leader Mike Harris told us, “I don’t think that claiming [the keffiyeh] is cultural in that instance is really justified…You don’t see many people in their routine, everyday lives, even if they are Arab American, wearing scarves covering their faces.” He agreed the keffiyeh could be considered a cultural symbol if was adorned on someone’s head rather than covering a face because that it is how the scarf is normally worn.

The StandWithUs ad was response to a previous ad by a group with an opposing view of the conflict. That ad by Friends of Sabeel-North America, a organization that supports the Palestinian Christian liberation theology movement, advocated that “peace and justice” requires an “end to U.S. military aid to Israel,” referring to decades-long aid which has transferred more than $100 billion from the United States treasury to the state of Israel.

Harris said, however, that the ad was “very misleading. The website connected to it promoted BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel) and [mentioned] groups that cannot be considered as promoting peace and justice.” Harris said true peace is “peace between Israelis and Palestinians” and not “peace without Israel.”

FOSNA administrative officer Sister Elaine Kelley said the problem with the StandWithUs ad is that it “turns the focus away from the topic of the occupation and toward the unfortunate violence of some Palestinians.”

Century-old smut hits the Red Vic

Andrew Lam
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Century-old smut hits the Red Vic

Sex education, y’all. Despite the fact that today’s parents outsource math lessons to Blue’s Clues, play time to iPhones, and secret homosexual programming to Gabba Gabba Hey!, the continuing furor over sex education in schools just refuses to quit talking, finish its drink, and go home. But, as a reclaimed 1900s reel of French brothel movies showing at the Red Vic Movie House this weekend (Fri/28 – Mon/31) proves, sex ed has always been around – it just used to happen in whorehouses.

The Good Old Naughty Days is a 69 (ha! Really!)-minute collection of silent shorts that were found in a well-to-do French family’s attic nearly a century after they were filmed. Most likely, according to the film’s producer Michel Reilhac, they were shot by conventional film crews on their day off. They’re low-budget affairs whose most salient expense was the fees of the prostitutes who starred in them — men and women whose bodies are un-siliconed and unaware of the histrionic boinking that would some day pass for erotic film. The movies were co-opted by brothels, who would play them in their waiting rooms as young gentleman killed time before their whoring. 

Which was, of course, where young cats learned about sex back in those days. When they showed up as virgins to the bordello, berets and handlebar mustaches a-twitchin’, these were the films to at least prevent them from shouting “qu’est-ce que c’est!” when their lady of the evening shuffled off her chemise (or their gentleman of the night his breeches, lest we forget). There’s gay and lesbian couplings, even priests and nuns — these last having a good time with candles.

Judging from The Good Old Naughty Days, them last century folk even got down in ways that we cultured cyborgs might find a wee bit mutt-like – apparently there’s a scene with a pooch unconcerned with which species recieves his Rover. In an interview with the UK Guardian (our namesake, holler), Reilhac says a few women took offense at this inter-mammal consorting at an early screening, to which he had this to offer: “thank God I took out the duck scene.”

But do not mourn the loss of this duck scene, San Francisco. Go out and be ever so naughty at the Red Vic – the two and four p.m. showings on Saturday and Sunday might make for a tasty post-brunch educational session. Just remember there is no sex-for-money waiting for you by the popcorn machine. Just wooden bowls, probably.

 

The Good Old Naughty Days

Fri/28 – Mon/31 7:15 and 9:15 p.m. (also Sat/29 – Sun/30 2 and 4 p.m.), $8

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

 

Don’t nobody still give a damn?

Mary Magee
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33

For the second day in a row, Aboriginal Blackmen United (ABU), a community organization that represents unemployed construction workers from Bayview Hunters Point, embarassed University of California officials by blocking the front gate of UC’s $1.7 billion Mission Bay hospital project.


ABU members claim UCSF is refusing to hire workers from local neighborhoods and they say they are prepared to go to jail if their demands aren’t met.

“At 6: 30 this morning, we were full of energy,” ABU President James Richards said on the first day of the protest. And ABU members recalled that they saw ” nothing but skunks”  when they arrived outside the construction site at 6 a.m.


“They’d locked up everything and guarded back fence, so we stopped everyone from coming in this front entrance, including management and cars,” Richards said, as he stood outside UC’s 16th Street and Fourth Street construction site, while ABU members chanted, “If we don’t work, nobody works.”


Richards said the police told employees to go around to the site’s back entrance, as they made calls, trying to figure out what was going on.

“We’ve been out here every day for almost a year and nothing has changed except the paperwork,” Richards continued. “We have qualified union workers standing outside the job site that are ready, willing, and able to work and if the community doesn’t work, no one works.”

But UC officials say they want the Mission Bay Hospitals project to be a model for the nation of how to put people to work, even though, as a state agency, they cannot mandate local hire requirements or give preference to any particular domicile.

“UC is very committed to maximizing local hire where we can,” Cindy Lima, executive director of the Mission Bay Hospitals project, said. “It’s unfortunate that there is a protest because it gives the sense that we haven’t been working with the community, when in fact we have been working with the Mayor’s Office, CityBuild and every stakeholder interested in this project, including ABU.”

Richards said ABU decided to mount their protest this week for two main reasons: to challenge UC’s claims that it has been hiring more local residents at the site, and to register anger over the distribution of a  flier that encouraged local residents interested in working at the UC site and other construction projects in town to sign up with a group called the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative.


The flier, which fueled suspicions that UC is trying to divide the city’s disadvantaged communities, named Dr. Arelious Walker as President of BayView Hope Community Development Corporation.


“We at the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative partnered with BayView Hope CDC are currently doing sign-ups in ALL trades to afford you the opportunity to work on these projects,” the flier stated.


Richards was particularly outraged that Walker was calling his group “the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative,” since this was the name UC used to describe its community outreach efforts last year.


“We guys were with Walker when he was fighting the Nation of Islam’s attempt to stop development at the shipyard, so it hurts so bad to see this,” he said, pointing to a copy of Walker’s flier, which listed Jan. 25 and Jan. 27 as sign-up dates at Walker’s Gilman Avenue building.

“All I know is that ABU is here for the long run and we’re prepared to go to jail,” Richards said. “Never again will we stand by and let people come into the southeast community and take our jobs. We’re going to fight until the end.”


“When Dwayne Jones was with the City, DPR [which is UC’s construction contractor] was trying to notify him about requirements for job hire, and Jones was supposed to notify ABU for job placements, but now we find out that they have brought in another consultant,” Richards said, noting that Jones has left the city and now works for Platinum Advisors. “And now all of a sudden, UC hires this company and is giving this list to DPR?” Richards continued, noting that UC has hired a consultant called Marinus Lamprecht to handle job submissions at its hospital site, but no one from ABU had been hired, despite the fact that Richards submitted five names to UC, months ago.


“We’ve been demonstrating at this site and marching down the street, and UC was telling us at that time, we’re gonna put some of your folks to work,” Richards said. ” All I know is that ABU is working diligently to try and get our people hired. We want to be the first organization, not the only organization to have people work here. After demonstrating and protesting for over a year, we feel that the people who brought UC to the table and supported the city’s new local hire legislation have the right to work first. But it always seems that the powers-that-be go outside our community to cause division amongst the community.”

“We’ve been here since 6 a.m. today and this is the community,” Richards continued. “No so-called community leaders have joined forces with us, including pastors and political leaders. And that’s why we say, don’t nobody give a damn about us, but us.”

Reached by phone, UCSF’s news director Amy Pyle clarified that in recent weeks UC has committed to voluntary hiring goals at the site. The goals start at 20 percent, and increase 5 percent each year until the completion of the project in 2014, Pyle said.

This means UCSF’s voluntary local hiring plan was put together shortly after the Board of Supervisors approved Sup. John Avalos’ mandatory local hire legislation for city-funded projects. Former Mayor Gavin Newsom refused to sign Avalos’ legislation, leaving Mayor Ed Lee to figure out how to implement Avalos’ legislation, which mandates 20 percent local hire this year, increasing 5 percent each year until mandatory 50 percent goals are reached. And UCSF officials stress that, as a state agency, UC can’t have quotas and isn’t subject to the city’s local hire mandates, since its hospital project is not city-funded. But they note that the university has set voluntary local hiring goals, held monthly meetings with stakeholders, and is currently working on carving out financial incentives to encourage contractors to achieve these voluntary goals.

“Our voluntary goals are not a result of their protest,” UCSF news director Pyle said. “We have been aware of the local hire concerns since before they were protesting. So, I don’t think people should expect there to be a quid pro quo.”

And Lima observed that UC has tried to maximize local hire on construction sites, since 1993. “It’s ranged from 7 to 24 percent, so the average has been about 12 percent,” she said, stressing that a lot has changed in recent years, regarding UCSF, local hire, and the overall economy.

“For a start, this project is six times larger than anything we’ve done,” Lima said. “There’s been a shift in capacity of community groups. The city has centralized its actions, concerning local hire efforts. And now it’s advancing its local hire goals, and then there’s the economy.”

Lima said that it’s because of this changed landscape that UCSF is ramping up its efforts to hire local residents.

“While we cannot mandate that our contractors hire locally, we are holding monthly meetings that are open to all community stakeholders,” she said. “We are doing extensive outreach to offer any stakeholders to submit names. We are keeping a list so as jobs become available. We are able to provide those names to unions for job call opportunities. And we have tried to carve out part of our payment to contractors to put it into an incentive program if they hit those goals.”

Lima said the final details of the incentive plan haven’t been worked out.
“But they are substantial,” she said.

She insisted that ABU did not succeed in completely shutting down UC Mission Bay Hospitals’ construction site in the last two days, and she claimed that if the goals of UCSF’s voluntary local hire program are reached, UC will double its historical local hire average, eventually.

Lima pointed to UC Mission Bay’s website where minutes of a Jan. 13 meeting between UCSF and representatives for the local workforce are posted.

Those minutes show that UCSF has agreed to work with its Mission Bay construction contractor DPR “to ensure that qualified San Francisco residents have access to jobs, Lima said, and that names can be submitted to consultant Marinus Lamprecht, using submission forms available here.

UCSF also intends to prepare trade-by-trade name call opportunities and has promised to report on actual local hiring progress at monthly community workforce meetings to be held the second Thursday of each month, she said.


UCSF’s news director Amy Pyle clarified that under UC’s voluntary local hire program,  “local residents mean people who live in San Francisco generally.”


“Of course we are looking to be good neighbors and hire people from an area we know has been hard hit,” Pyle said.

Meanwhile, Lima said UC has not entered into any contract with BayView Hope CDC and requested a copy of Walker’s flier to see if his group “overstepped.”
“For many years, UC did have a memorandum of understanding with the community and was working with a group called the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative,” Lima clarified. “The name has lasted, but the organization has changed. It was very successful historically, and there’s been an effort in the community to resurrect that group and make it stronger, but the landscape has changed, so we decided to open the doors to everybody.”

According to Lima, any interested party can now submit names to UC’s sign-up list.

“I carry that list around with me,” Lima said, promising folks will be hired in the order their names are received, if they match available opportunities.

“The contractors talk to the subcontractors who give them their best monthly estimates,” Lima said, noting that the subcontractors arrive with a core crew and then call the unions to fill their remaining needs.


Lima said part of the current uproar over local hire at UC Mission Bay’s hospital site stems from the misperception that there are lots of jobs available now.


“Job opportunities should ramp up in May, but right now, they are installing 1,052 structural piles,” she said. “So if there is an opportunity for a carpenter or a laborer to get decks built, we call the union.”

Lima added that folks are welcome to review data that UC’s compliance officer gathers.
‘It’s in our and the community’s best interest to put people to work,” she said.

But so far UCSF’s stance has continued to angered ABU members. They note that the university’s local hiring rates hovered at less than 10 percent until a series of ABU-led community protests in late 2010 forced UCSF and its contractor DPR  to request voluntary reporting of worker residency. 

And while UCSF claims that local employment is on the rise at the site, ABU questions the reliability of the university’s self-reported performance at the site. As a result, ABU imembers continued to protest at the site Jan. 26, even as efforts appeared to be underway to address their concerns.

“Dr. Walker called us, he was apologetic,” ABU’s Ashley Rhodes told the Guardian Jan. 26, referring to BayView Hope CDC’s flier. “And the Mayor’s Office just called, saying they wanted to talk with James [Richards, ABU’s leader]. So, that’s where he is right now. But tomorrow we may go to jail.”

Rhodes noted that on Jan. 26, DPR hired one carpenter from ABU’s list.  “And a female receptionist is being interviewed, but we still have three out of five names we submitted last year to bring in,” he said.

Outside UC’s Mission Bay construction site , Michelle Carrington, a 58-year-old Hunters Point resident, continued her protest for a second day straight.

“I’ve been out of work for ten years,” Carrington said, noting that she has over a decade of construction experience as a flagger and an operating engineer.
“I graduated from YCD in 1999,” she said, referring to Young Community Developers. “Dwayne Jones trained me. He just left the Mayor’s Office and now he is working to help us get jobs.”

Haute pot

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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9
Haute pot

steve@sfbg.com

CANNABIS Marijuana edibles have come a long way in a short time.

Just a few years ago, the norm was still brownies of uncertain dosage that tasted like eating weed, right down to the occasional stem or lump of leaf, served in a wax paper envelope. But now the foodies have gotten into the game, producing a huge variety of tasty treats that are incredibly delicious even before the munchies kick in.

San Francisco could be on the verge of a culinary revolution that would parallel those being experienced in the realms of boutique eateries, gourmet coffee, and high-end street food vendors — except for the fact that makers of cannabis edibles still reside in a legal limbo.

As long as they’re operating under the umbrella of a cannabis collective, getting marijuana from its growers and selling through its dispensaries, then the weed bakers are in compliance with state law. But they’re still illegal under federal law, and even California law doesn’t allow them to operate independently as wholesalers, making it difficult to scale up operations and do more than just break even financially.

Judging from the skittishness of some of San Francisco’s top edibles producers — who didn’t want to be identified by their real names and were wary of letting us know too much about their operations — they perform this labor of love under a cloud of understandable paranoia.

“Unfortunately, secrecy is a rule we have to live by, day in and day out,” said the founder of Auntie Dolores, who we’ll call Jay. She makes a line of popular, strong, and yummy products that include pretzels, chili lime peanuts, caramel corn, and cookies of all kinds.

Yet the legal threats haven’t stopped producers from professionalizing the edibles industry — in terms of quality control, packaging, consistency, and innovation — and drawing on foodie sensibilities and their own culinary training to develop creative new products that effectively mask or subtly incorporate that bitter cannabis taste.

“We’re all about masking the flavor of the cannabis because I really don’t like the flavor that much,” Jay said of products that are stronger than most but somehow without a hint of weed in them. “People here have a high standard. It’s their medicine and their food, and we have a lot of foodies who are really into our products.”

Choco-Potamus is an example of this new generation of edibles, combining gourmet chocolate-making with the finest strains of cannabis, using only the best buds rather than the leaves and other plant matter that have often gone into edibles. Mrs. Hippo, the pseudonym of the chief baker, has worked for a national company in the food industry for about a decade, mostly doing branding, and it shows in this eye-catching product.

“I’m kind of a foodie. We have friends who roast whole pigs and brew their own beer, that kind of thing,” she said. “Really good high-grade marijuana has some really great flavor qualities, particularly when combined with cocoa. I really want the patients to enjoy the flavor, not just the feeling.”

 

EAT YOUR MEDICINE

Steve DeAngelo, founder of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, one of the Bay Area’s biggest dispensaries, said edibles have been increasingly popular, particularly among older users, patients with medical conditions that make smoking problematic, or those who prefer the longer body highs of eating it.

“Our sales of edibles has trended steadily upward since we opened,” DeAngelo said, noting that last year the club sold $1.2 million in edibles, about 5.5 percent of total sales, compared to $306,000 (3.2 percent) after they opened in 2006. “As an absolute amount, we’ve seen the amount of edibles quadruple in the last four and a half years. As percentage of sales, we’ve seen it double.”

He said the main difference between eating and smoking marijuana is duration and onset. Smoking it brings on the high within minutes and it usually last for less than two hours, whereas eating it takes about 45 minutes for the effects to kick in, but they can then last for six to eight hours.

“There are different forms for different symptoms,” he said, noting that edibles are perfect for someone with insomnia or other symptoms that disturb normal sleep patterns, while someone who needs marijuana in the morning can smoke or vaporize it and have the effects mostly gone by the time they go to work.

“When you eat it, it goes through your limbic system, so it hits your brain differently,” said Jay of Auntie Dolores, saying that she and many others prefer the subtle differences in the high they get from eating cannabis. Others who prefer edibles are those looking to just take the edge off without being too stoned. “A lot of the people who like the edibles are moms. They don’t want to smell like pot or be too high,” Mrs. Hippo said.

She noted that her chocolates are not as strong as many of the edibles out there, with each candy bar containing two doses. “It’s a personal preference for how I want the bars to taste,” she said, although she has been working on making a stronger version as well, which many dispensaries and their customers prefer.

But Mr. and Mrs. Hippo say they think taste is becoming as important as strength, calling it an emerging area of the market. “I have a dream that there could be just an edibles dispensary,” Mr. Hippo said, envisioning a pot club with the look and feel of a high-end bakery.

For now, demand for edibles is still driven by “potency and packaging,” says SPARC founder Erich Pearson. “I think people eat food to eat food and enjoy. They don’t eat to get high.” Yet as long as they’re getting high in this competitive marijuana marketplace, the edibles makers have been making better and better tasting products.

Jade Miller makes 12 flavors of cannabis-infused drinks under the Sweet Relief label, with spiced apple cider being her top seller. She draws other training at New York City’s Institute for Culinary Education to make some of the best-tasting drinks on the market.

“I got into it because I needed alternative pain relief when I had whooping cough and a torn shoulder muscle,” Miller told us.

She was injured while on a cooking job with Whole Foods Catering in September 2006. She hated the opiates that she was prescribed for her shoulder pain, preferring marijuana. But when she contracted whooping cough, she couldn’t smoke pot anymore without painful coughing, so she got into making edibles.

At the time, many of the pot-laced foods out there weren’t very good or professionally made. “Some edibles were inedible,” she said. “I became a one-woman campaign against brownies.”

 

QUALITY CONTROL

With a background in homeopathy and appreciation for marijuana, Jay started making edibles 10 years ago, informally helping two aunts battling cancer. But in the last couple of years she’s honed her recipes, improved her packaging, and transformed her Auntie Dolores snacks into some of the best on the market, available in several local dispensaries, such as Medithrive, SPARC, Bernal Heights Dispensary, and Shambhala.

“I just knew I could make stronger and better-tasting stuff,” she said. “The demand from the patients is really high for great products.”

Horror stories abound about users who overdosed on edibles and ended up being incapacitated all day or night, but that’s mostly been a problem of dosage, which modern technology has helped overcome. Choco-Potamus and other makers routinely send their batches to a lab for testing.

“The idea is we can be helping an edibles producer or a tincture maker quantify the cannabis in the product,” said Anna Ray Grabstein, CEO of Steep Hill Laboratory in Oakland, which tests cannabis and related products for strength and purity. “They’re able to use that information to create consistency in their recipes.”

It’s been difficult to meet the rising demand given the current legal framework.

“Yes, we would love to scale up. I’d love it if more people had access to our product. We’d love to sell it outside of California,” Jay said. “But it’s tricky because there’s so many gray areas,”

Larry Kessler is the program manager for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Medical Cannabis Dispensary Inspection Program, which reviews the procedures of edibles makers and requires those who work with one than one dispensary to get a certified food handler license from the state.

“We just want to make sure they know what they’re doing,” Kessler told us.

San Francisco has some unique rules, banning edibles that require refrigeration or other special handling, granting exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Unlike Oakland and some other jurisdictions, San Francisco also requires edibles to be in opaque packaging. “It was to get rid of the visual appeal to children,” he explains.

All the edible makers say they can live with those local rules, and they praise San Francisco as a model county for medical marijuana regulation. The problem is that state law doesn’t allow them to be independent businesses.

“It’s against state law. There’s no wholesaling allowed, and that’s a big issue around edibles,” Kessler said. “It’s a complicated issue.”

All the edibles makers in this story say they are barely getting by financially, and all have other jobs to support themselves. Jay says she’s thought about giving up many times, but she’s been motivated by stories they’re heard from customers about the almost miraculous curative properties of their products, particularly from patients with cancer and other serious illnesses.

“I get an e-mail like this and then it’s back to the kitchen,” Jay said, referring to a letter from a customer who credits her with saving his life. “There are so many positive properties it has. There’s really no other plant like it.”

State of the weed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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22
State of the weed

steve@sfbg.com

CANNABIS When we did our first Cannabis Issue a year ago, the Bay Area’s medical marijuana industry was booming, and there was high anticipation that California would soon legalize weed for everyone.

Proposition 19 divided even those who fully support decriminalizing cannabis — partly because the existing system was working so well in San Francisco and many other cities, so people were wary of an uncertain future — and voters rejected the measure in November.

But only the most dogmatic anti-drug warrior would take that vote as a repudiation of the wonder weed, because California’s love affair with its top crop today is stronger than ever. And the burgeoning industry that grows, processes, and delivers marijuana continues to expand rapidly amid a stagnating larger economy.

Three new high-end cannabis dispensaries have opened in San Francisco in the last six months, bringing to 25 the number of licensed clubs, and the selection and quality of indoor and outdoor buds, concentrates, and edibles has never been greater. The industry’s many opportunities are starting to attract top talent from unrelated sectors of the economy, such as Mark Williams and Nic duTemps.

Williams recently quit his job at Apple to start CloudNine, which is developing a high-quality portable vaporizer called Firefly that will be assembled here in San Francisco and released this summer. Unlike current vaporizers made of plastic that use butane heaters to release the cannabanoids from the weed without burning it, Firefly is made of metal and glass with customizable wood inlays, uses advanced batteries in its heating element, and will retail for about $300.

“I decided now is the time,” Williams, 42, said of his decision to leave the corporate cubicle world after 20 years. “The market is maturing and the users’ ability to make a discerning choice about how they’re going to take marijuana is maturing.”

DuTemps worked in public relations for many years and she also jumped ship to do something she loves a few years ago: landscaping backyard gardens. “But then the bottom fell out of the economy,” she said, and people growing marijuana were the only ones who still wanted her expertise.

Yet the supply of cannabis products had grown faster than the number of dispensaries and delivery outlets in recent years. “The clubs were becoming incredibly flooded,” duTemps said. “People have found themselves with copious amounts of product and nowhere to sell it.”

So she decided to marry her PR expertise with her cannabis connections and last month started Sweeter Made, a medical marijuana cooperative and delivery service that uses an old meter maid vehicle for deliveries. DuTemps said she loves “the secret thrill of delivering medical cannabis, hash, and edibles in something that used to give people parking tickets.”

They’re just a couple of the countless Bay Area residents involved in the pot business, an expanding and evolving sector of the economy that even cash-strapped government agencies are getting involved in.

Oakland city officials recently stepped back from their ambitious plan to permit large-scale pot farms in industrial warehouses, mostly because of legal concerns, but that city and Berkeley last year moved forward with plans to legitimize and tax the industry at a higher rate. And the big next step — full legalization of weed for even recreational users — is still lingering on the horizon.

Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee, who bankrolled placing Prop. 19 on the ballot, has announced that he’ll try again on the November 2012 ballot. He told the Guardian that he’s currently developing his battle plan, consulting his allies, and determining what the measure will look like.

“We’re still doing research on what went right and what went wrong,” Lee told us. “There were lots of people who were for legalization that didn’t like the details [of Prop. 19].”

For example, the measure allowed counties to set different legal standards, potentially creating a logistical nightmare for distributing the product. Lee said the new measure will probably include statewide standards and some degree of local control, but he’s still working with groups ranging from the Drug Policy Alliance to the NAACP to develop it. Meanwhile, CaNORML, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, will be gathering movement leaders together in Berkeley on Jan. 29 for a daylong conference titled “Marijuana Reform: Next Steps for California.”

While there are differing visions for where the movement is headed and over how hard and quickly to push for full legalization, it’s undeniable that the industry is thriving and here to stay.

Mayor Lee and Big Pharma

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Mayor Lee and Big Pharma

EDITORIAL A piece of simple, logical legislation that would protect San Francisco consumers, public safety, and the environment appears headed for the desk of Mayor Ed Lee — and his signature would be the first clear sign that he’s not going to let powerful lobbyists (or the legacy of Gavin Newsom) guide his decisions.

The bill, by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, would establish several secure places where people can drop off unused, unwanted, or expired pharmaceuticals for safe disposal. It seems so simple: every year, huge amounts of prescription meds are flushed down toilets or left around in medicine cabinets or drawers in the city. As much as one-third of all medicine purchased in the country is never used. The stuff that goes down the drain already has had a proven impact on aquatic life; the pills that never get thrown away are a hazard, particularly in households with small children.

But under current law, the only safe way to get rid of old meds is to return them to a pharmacy — and pay a fee. The cost of returning old drugs is enough of a deterrent that most consumers don’t bother.

If you have used motor oil in California, you can drop off and recycle it free. Many hardware stores recycle old batteries, light bulbs, and paint. Computer makers have to pay for recycling their products. Why can’t the city mandate the same rules for medication?

The easy answer: because it would cost about $200,000 a year to set up drop-off sites in drug stores and police stations — and the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want to pay.

It’s a trivial amount of money, a fraction of what the industry spends on lobbying. In fact, with Big Pharma lobbyists from Washington and Sacramento crawling all over City Hall to block the Mirkarimi bill, it’s possible that the drug companies have already spent more fighting the legislation than it would cost to implement it.

The bill would charge companies that sell pharmaceuticals in the city a very modest fee to pay for the drop-off program. Similar programs in other places (San Mateo County, Washington State) have been highly successful — but nobody yet has asked the companies that make billions of dollars selling these products to underwrite the cost. San Francisco would be the first.

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has been fighting hard against the measure, claiming it would discourage biotech firms from investing in the city. That’s a huge stretch, but the chamber’s lobbying had an impact. When the measure came up at the end of 2010, four supervisors — Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Bevan Dufty — voted with the Chamber and Big Pharma. So the bill would not have survived a Newsom veto.

But thanks to the oddities of scheduling, the legislation comes up for second reading Jan. 25, giving the new board a chance to weigh in. That will be a test for the new supervisors, but Mirkarimi is confident he’s got the six votes to give the measure final approval.

Then it goes to Lee. And if he can stand up to the chamber and the misinformation campaign from Big Pharma and sign the measure, he’ll not only help San Francisco take a national stand on an important consumer and environmental issue, he’ll also demonstrate that he’s not going to fall in line the way Newsom did every time downtown calls.

Getting free

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Getting free

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal have been held captive in Evin Prison in Tehran for more than 540 days, and their friends and supporters in the Bay Area have been mounting an extraordinary campaign pushing for their release.

On July 31, 2009, Bauer and Fattal were hiking with Sarah Shourd, who is Bauer’s fiancée, through green mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan. The three UC Berkeley graduates had traveled from Damascus for a recreational visit. They were wandering nearby Ahmed Awa, a popular tourist destination where hundreds of people had flocked to camp, to visit a waterfall and enjoy the peace and quiet of the mountains.

They say they didn’t realize how close they were to Iran, which has no diplomatic ties to the United States.

Shourd told the Guardian she’s not sure whether they accidentally traversed the Iranian border, because it was unmarked. “We had no intention of being anywhere near Iran,” she said. “And if we were, we’re very sorry.”

Iranian officials surrounded them, speaking in Farsi, which they couldn’t understand. They were arrested on suspicion of spying and taken into custody. Before being taken to prison, one phoned a friend, Shon MeckFessel — who had been traveling with them but opted not to go on the hike because he wasn’t feeling well — to alert him that something had gone wrong. That would be the last communication any of them would have with close friends or family members for months.

Shourd was finally released on bail Sept. 14, 2010 on humanitarian grounds after spending 410 days in solitary confinement. She was reunited with family and friends — but Bauer and Fattal have remained in detainment ever since.

Since returning to the United States, Shourd has thrown her energy into advocating for their release — and she’s not alone. “Everyone in the family has been working tirelessly for all 18 months,” she said, “which is far, far longer than we ever imagined in our worst nightmares.”

 

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

While Shourd was still in prison, her mother, Nora, gave up her home and job to move in with Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey, and work for their release full-time. Fattal’s older brother, Alex, suspended his graduate studies at Harvard to dedicate himself to the campaign. His mother, Laura Fattal, stopped working to devote herself to the campaign.

“That’s just family alone,” Shourd noted. “If you start to look to how many people have contributed to our campaign and how many ways, it just blows your mind.” Soon after her release, Shourd put out a call for people to hang banners proclaiming the innocence of Bauer and Fattal and calling for their release. In response, nearly 60 banners were unfurled in 25 different countries.

Shourd has made countless media appearances since her release, and even put out an MP3 of a song she composed while in solitary confinement, which can be downloaded as a way to support the Free the Hikers campaign. Their story has drawn the interest of prominent figures. On Jan. 19, Noam Chomsky released a video offering to testify on their behalf if a trial is held, saying Bauer and Fattal “have dedicated themselves to advocating for social and environmental justice in Africa and elsewhere, and they truly embody the spirit of humanitarianism.”

Others who have publicly defended the trio include President Barack Obama, who issued a statement in July saying none of the hikers ever worked for the U.S. government, addressing Iranian accusations that they were there to commit espionage. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called for their release. A documentary has been produced about their plight, and a second one is in the works.

In San Francisco, artists and musicians have responded in droves to a call for support. An art auction that will benefit the campaign is planned for Jan. 29, featuring the work of more than 80 artists, plus live musical performances. As a nod toward Bauer’s work in photojournalism, the event will emphasize photography, and notables such as Mimi Chakrova, Taj Forer, Roberto Bear Guerra, Ken Light, the LUCEO Photo Collective, Susan Meiselas, Lianne Milton, Mark Murrmann, Alec Soth, and others have donated work. Among the artists who donated pieces are Marianne Bland, Mark Brecke, Teresa Camozzi, Andreina Davila, Eric Drooker, and former Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez.

In early February, a music benefit will be held at the Bottom of the Hill to benefit the campaign. Titled “They Sing These Songs In Prison,” the event will feature performances of The Nightwatchman — that’s Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine — plus Jolie Holland, accordionist Jason Webley, and Ryan Harvey & Lia Rose.

“The funding is to support the campaign to free Shane and Josh, and it goes to a wide array of needs that we have, like translation into Farsi, travel for media, and meeting with some various embassies and governments that are involved in advocating for Shane and Josh’s release,” Shourd explained. “Also, some of the money will probably go toward legal fees, and website fees, and materials for the campaign from flyers to business cards to t-shirts.”

 

WHO ARE THE HIKERS?

The campaign to advocate for their release has been tagged Free the Hikers, but the identities of the three young people (Bauer and Fattal are both 28, Shourd is 32) go much deeper than that. They’re social-justice advocates, antiwar activists, writers, environmentalists, travelers, and creative thinkers with deep ties to the Bay Area.

Shourd, who lives in Oakland, was teaching English to Iraqi refugees when she was in Syria, as well as practicing some journalism. Fattal, who taught at Aprovecho — an education center in Oregon focused on sustainability and permaculture — had been traveling to India, South Africa, and other places through the International Honors Program to lead workshops on health and sustainable technology before visiting his friends in Syria.

“Josh is an environmentalist, he’s a teacher, he’s an incredible, incredible, generous and selfless man,” Shourd said. “As soon as you meet him, you feel what an extraordinary and unique human being he is. I was friends with him for years before he came to visit us in Damascus, and he decided to travel with us to Northern Iraq to Iraqi Kurdistan to learn about Kurdish culture, to see another diverse aspect of the Middle East.”

Bauer wrote for publications such as The Nation, Mother Jones, and the Christian Science Monitor. A photojournalist who has won multiple awards and had his work published internationally, Bauer has documented everything from tenant conditions in San Francisco SROs to conflict-ridden regions in Africa and the Middle East. Bauer also wrote an article for the Guardian about an Oakland residence that is famous among East Bay anarchists (See “Hellarity burns,” May 27, 2008).

“Shane has an incredible passion for pursuing truth and complicating our ideas about other parts of the world, about conflicts around the world and at home,” Shourd noted. She added that many of his stories serve to highlight “some of the very specific ways that the U.S. presence in Iraq has taken a toll on innocent people.”

Before their ill-fated excursion, Shourd said she’d heard from multiple westerners and her Arabic tutor that Iraqi Kurdistan was a safe and enjoyable place to visit. “It’s often referred to as ‘the other Iraq’ because it’s a semiautonomous region designated as a no-fly zone by the U.S. government,” she explained. “It’s actually a part of the Middle East that has a very positive fingerprint from the U.S. government because they helped protect the Kurdish people from Saddam Hussein. So Northern Iraq is not a dangerous place for Americans or westerners to go, and no American has ever been killed in Northern Iraq, which is just phenomenal after a decade of war and occupation.”

She said Bauer, Fattal, and MeckFessel were all enthusiastic about the trip, and after researching it online, the four felt they had enough information to travel there. “We ordered a special Lonely Planet guide of Northern Iraq, and a friend of ours who went a month before we did borrowed it and lost it, so we didn’t have the Lonely Planet guide,” she noted. “But we still felt we had enough information about it to travel there and really believed we had nothing to fear.”

 

SOLITARY

Shourd credits her fiancé and her friend with helping her through “every minute of prison,” even though she was alone in her cell for 23 hours a day. At first she wasn’t allowed to see them at all, but after some time had passed, guards allowed her to visit with them in an outdoor courtyard for 30 minutes a day. Later, that brief time together was increased to an hour.

“There’s no way I could have maintained hope and maintained my own sanity and the strength that it took to get through every day of isolation and depravity and uncertainty and fear,” she said. “The emotional strength that that took, and the discipline that it took, really Shane and Josh and I all created together in the little time that we had, through the unconditional support and love we had for each other.”

Since they didn’t speak Farsi and the guards spoke very little English, it was difficult to communicate basic needs, and Shourd described the experience as being surrounded by hostility.

“Whenever I just started to slip away mentally, Shane and Josh would bring me back, and the knowledge that they were going to be there for me was the only thing that got me through 410 days of solitary confinement,” she said. The three thought up activities to give themselves something to look forward to, like marking time with small courtyard celebrations and special food they saved to share together or discussing topics in an organized format. “We had almost like a curriculum that we followed of study, and sort of intellectual exploration,” she explained.

They were only allowed to have pens for one month — that was the easiest month, Shourd said. But the rest of the time, even though they weren’t permitted to write things down, they were allowed to read. “Books were our lifeline. We read the same books in concert, we took turns reading books and passed them back and forth when we saw each other in the courtyard. And we would memorize dates and memorize poetry and recite poetry to each other and test each other on dates,” Shourd said.

“Josh would give me math problems to do in my head because he knew I was trying to get better with algebra. We had a dictionary that we passed back and forth, and we would make stories from words in the dictionary and tell each other these really intricate fantastical stories that we came up with. Anything to keep your mind busy.”

Beginning in her second month in prison, Shourd also passed the time by composing songs. A month went by before she was able to share the first one with Bauer and Fattal, but when she did finally sing it for them, they learned the words and sang it with her. “When we were together in the outdoor courtyard, they would just tell me to sing louder,” Shourd said. “I know they’re singing those songs now.”

The intellectual drills, storytelling, math problems, and singing weren’t merely a remedy for boredom. “You have to really keep your mind strong and busy so that you don’t get sort of swallowed up by the abyss of fear and loneliness that encroaches on you day by day in that kind of situation,” she said.

 

LOOKING AHEAD

Despite the time, energy, and effort spent on the campaign to free all three, no one can say for sure just when Bauer and Fattal will finally be reunited with family and friends. In November, Iranian authorities said that a trial previously scheduled for that month had been postponed, but the Free the Hikers campaign is calling for them to be released without a trial.

“They don’t deserve to be there one minute longer than I was, and they never deserved to be there in the first place,” Shourd said. “They should be shown the same kind of humanitarianism that they have put into action in their lives, through their work.”

Amnesty International is among many of the groups that have called for the Iranian government to release the two young men. “One year after their arrest, the Iranian authorities’ failure to charge them with illegal entry into Iran or more serious charges, such as espionage, has fueled speculation that the Iranian authorities are holding them as a bargaining chip,” notes a statement released July 2010 by Amnesty International, an international human rights organization.

Meanwhile, Shourd has been contemplating what her experience would have been like if the U.S. and Iran actually maintained diplomatic ties, and she published an opinion piece on CNN International calling for greater communication between the governments.

“I think it’s their responsibility to their people to do that, and I think it’s a tragedy that there’s been 30 years of practically no relationship between Iran and the U.S.,” Shourd said. “It’s a tragedy for countless Iranian Americans in this country who have a hard time visiting their relatives in Iran, sending them money, even just getting information about them or visiting their homeland.”

She began her opinion piece by recounting the time that a prison guard brought her freshly picked roses, an uncommon gesture of kindness during her incarceration. “In the worst of circumstances, the most extraordinary acts of human kindness emerge,” she told the Guardian. “They were rare. The vast majority of my experience was empty and desolate. But the times that the guards were kind to me … will stay with me for the rest of my life.” *

ART AUCTION TO FREE ALL THREE

Saturday, Jan. 29, 7 p.m.

SomArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

Musical performances by The Ferocious Few, Devon McClive and Sons, Grant Hazard and Lorin Station

www.artforssj.tumblr.com/#about

THEY SING THESE SONGS IN PRISON

Featuring The Nighwatchman, Jolie Holland, Jason Webley, Ryan Harvey & Lia Rose

Thursday, Feb. 10, 8:30 p.m., $12–$18

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17 St., SF

www.bottomofthehill.com

To learn more, visit www.freethehikers.org, www.freeourfriends.eu

Remembering John Ross

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Remembering John Ross

P>John Ross — poet, journalist, hell raiser, and iconic San Franciscan — died Jan. 16 of liver cancer, on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro in Mexico. He had been writing for the Guardian fairly consistently since 1982, for the last 25 years as our Mexico City correspondent.

I wrote a fairly lengthy obituary for him that’s posted on the politics blog at sfbg.com. There are so many stories to tell about John that it’s hard even to begin, but my favorite was his tale of the day he left Terminal Island, the federal prison near Los Angeles where he served more than two years for refusing the draft during the Vietnam War.

The warden saw him to the gates, he told me, and than shook his head and said, “Ross, you never learned how to be a prisoner.”

And that was pretty much the story of his life. He lived every day in the spirit of freedom and social justice. He was beaten by the police in the streets of San Francisco and lost an eye. He went to Baghdad to stand in the way of the bombs when George W. Bush invaded. He dodged Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bullets in Chile. He was madly fearless and would go wherever the story was.

I wanted this page to be about his life, not his death, so I’m reprinting some of my favorite John Ross poems. They were all self-published, some in booklets photocopied and stapled together, some done at cut-rate printers, but none still available from anyone. They are all labeled “anti-copyright.” I just hope my copies aren’t the last ones on Earth.

There will be a memorial in San Francisco soon. I’ll publish the details when I have them. you can also e-mail obispa@gmail.com for updates.

P.S.: John, as I expected, left very specific instructions for his remains. I quote:

I ask that my body be rendered into ashes and the ashes distributed in the following locations: Trinidad, California, both flow from the bluffs and sprinkled atop the gravesite of my old comrade, E.B. Schnaubelt, a noted anarchist.

San Francisco, strewn along the Mission 14 route between 24th and 16th streets and deposited in the planter boxes outside the Café Bohème.

Mexico, some of my ashes can be dumped in the ashtrays outside the Hotel Isabel and on the sidewalk outside the Cafe la Blanca. A handful can be spread in the zócalo plaza. Other ashes can be spread at the Zapatista caracol in Oventik, on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro, and in the boneyard at Santa Cruz Tanaco, where my first-born, Tristram, is buried, both in Michoacán.

New York City, my place of birth: I ask that my ashes be strewn in Washington Square Park and other pertinent venues in the East and West Village in addition to Union Square.• The remainder of my ashes should be rolled into marijuana cigarettes and smoked by participants in these scatterings. *

 

THE VIEW FROM MISSION ROCK

The big gray ships

They move so powerful slow

It almost seems We are not getting There.

This gives one hope.

(From At The Daily Planet, 1981)

 

RONCO Y DULCE

Coming out of the underground On the BART escalator, The Mission sky Is washed by autumn, The old men and their garbage bags Are clustered in the battered plaza We once named for Cesar Augusto Sandino. Behind me down below in the throat of the earth A rough bracero sings Of his comings and goings In a voice as ronco y dulce As the mountains of Michoacan and Jalisco For the white zombies Careening downtown To the dot coms. They are trying to kick us Out of here Again They are trying to drain This neighborhood of color Of color Again. This time we are not moving on. We are going to stick to this barrio Like the posters so fiercely pasted To the walls of La Mision With iron glue That they will have to take them down Brick by brick To make us go away And even then our ghosts Will come home And turn those bricks Into weapons And take back our streets Brick by brick And song by song Ronco y dulce As Jalisco and Michaocan Managua, Manila, Ramallah Pine Ridge, Vietnam, and Africa. As my compa OR say We here now motherfuckers Tell the Klan and the Nazis And the Real Estate vampires To catch the next BART out of here For Hell.

(from Against Amnesia, 2002)

 

PINOCHET MEETS THE PRESS

If the eye

inside the camera

offends thee,

pluck it out,

pluck out the eye

pluck out the film,

smash the camera,

slash the images,

pour gasoline over those

who framed the images

then strike a match.

Make sure there are

no witnesses,

that those who look

for witnesses disappear.

Silence the people,

cut out the tongues

of those who would complain

about being silenced.

Swear on blazing bibles

that none of you

will ever tell anyone

what you have seen here.

Empty out the nation.

Bury those who insist on staying

in unmarked graves.

Pretend that no one

will ever know.

Turn off the lights.

Try to sleep.

(from Heading South, 1986)

 

11TH SUICIDE POEM IN NOVEMBER

The next child I won’t father we will name

Nomathamba. We will call her Thembi for short

She will be exactly like Pharaoh drew her. She

Will smile several hours each day. Her teeth

Will come on like white Christmas. She will crawl

Into bed with us to see if we

Are fucking. She will never be scared. She will

Speak Xhosa. I will buy her a dog named Mardi Gras

And she will learn what it is to lose something

You love. She will grow up.

(Unpublished, undated)

Derailment

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Derailment

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS The last thing I did before I left San Francisco, I promised Earl Butter that this time I would not kiss any gangsters on the train. I didn’t say anything about self-proclaimed hillbillies who burp a lot and don’t have front teeth — or luggage — so you wonder if they just escaped from prison or are only on parole.

This one, he flirted with me all the way from Emeryville to Chicago. That’s a long way to not kiss someone!

He was going on to Detroit and had less of a layover than me, but helped nevertheless with my luggage, which was considerable. He wanted to help more, but when he went outside to smoke, I stuffed my stuff in a locker, stepped out into the Windy City, and promptly got my nails done. Which was one of the best decisions I ever made.

One of the worst was early next morning when I stepped off the train into a frozen shit town not unlike, or far from, the frozen shit town where I was born. Did you hear me scream? Henceforth, when East Coast people in California say that they miss the seasons, I will put lettuce in their ears and flick them on the forehead.

Probably, to the residents of Erie, Penn., this snow was a non-event. But to an overtired, underdressed California girl without boots, it was the Big One, blizzardwise. To his credit, the snot-nosed station master did ask, before locking me out of the station, if I needed a ride.

“My friend is coming,” I said.

“Can I drop you somewhere?” he said. “Where are you going?”

“New York.”

He laughed at my apparent joke, pointed to where the Post Office was, in case I needed it, and left. In retrospect, I would have licked that booger off his upper lip for a ride to New York. Instead, I stood in the blowing snow and freezing cold, stomping my feet and, yeah, screaming, until the Post Office opened. Then I stood in there.

Probably I should have stayed on the train. I could have stayed on the train. It was going very close to where I wanted to get, but I’d thought I would keep my old ex-bandmate and good friend Rube Roy company on his way there and eat in diners for a day, instead of dining cars.

Rube Roy was two hours late and partially blind in one eye, but did buy me breakfast. On our way out of town we found a diner called Somebody’s “Dinor,” where, over eggs and potatoes and sausage and coffee and such, we talked about the old times, and the new times, and even some of the upcoming times.

There is so much time. So much time to think, in a car spinning around and around on a snowy interstate highway in Pennsylvania, bouncing between guardrails like a complicated bank shot off the cue of someone named Chuck or Lefty.

One of the things I thought about, boom, spin, was how I didn’t think I was going to die, but you never know, bang, spin. I never did like merry-go-rounds, or whirligigs, but the bumper cars I guess were all right. Now, I get motion sickness facing backward on BART. I didn’t think we were going to die, but when our car came to rest finally, facing traffic in the passing lane, I don’t know. I wondered.

Before I go, I would like to spell Papi’s name right, at least once, in the paper. They didn’t exact any promises from me, but Papi, Papa, and Coach did want one last dinner together before I left. So I said, “Brothers! Korean barbecue!”

And, like magic, that was where we went. For meat and meat for me and Papa, and some other kinds of things for the vegetarians. Ah, you know, it was all pretty good and everything, but not as probably good as the last time I went. Does it matter?

Not here.

“Rube Roy?” I said, as a semitruck whizzed by in the right lane. “Can I drive now?”

He flashed his headlights at the next one and said, “No.”

I write to you from New York City. Hi. Next time, I promise you, dear reader, dear gangsters, dear hillbilly, I will stay on the train. 

BROTHERS RESTAURANT

Daily 11 a.m.–midnight

4128 Geary, SF

(415) 387-7991

AE/D/MC/V

Beer and wine

Working to dance, dancing to live

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
Working to dance, dancing to live

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE When people ask what I do, I tell them I dance. I don’t tell them I work as a receptionist part time, or that I work events in a restaurant. I tell them I dance because, although it’s more glorious-sounding than my odd jobs, it’s also more important. These side jobs exist merely to facilitate the dance. They are expendable; dancing is not. But while dance fuels me physically and emotionally, it fails me financially. For better or worse, there is a whole community of dancers and choreographers in the Bay Area who share this same conundrum to lesser or greater degrees.

So what do Pilates instructors, nannies, dog walkers, waitresses, and personal assistants have in common? They are all jobs with variability in work scheduling, and they are just a handful of the flexible jobs employing Bay Area freelance dancers. Over the past month I’ve interviewed about 20 of my fellow dancers and have been heartened at the abounding courage found in the local dance community to pursue alternate lifestyles to continue dancing.

Daria Kaufman has an MFA in Dance from Mills College. She teaches Gyrotonic, works as a receptionist at a yoga studio, and does administrative work for the Subterranean Art House. “One of the major challenges for dancers and choreographers is money — how to afford classes, rehearsal space, and theater rentals, to name a few,” Kaufman says. “I’ve done a lot of work-study over the years to combat the issue of affording dance classes. Most studios have a work-study program — clean for an hour and a half, get a free class, that sort of thing. Some studios offer a similar deal for renting out rehearsal space.”

Adaptability is necessary. Schedules vary day to day and month to month according to who’s teaching which classes, who’s working on what project, and what jobs will work around those opportunities. Often the most flexible jobs can be found in the food industry. Evening shifts allow dancers and choreographers to take morning classes and rehearse through the day, while variability in shifts provides flexibility when it comes to evening performances.

Angela Mazziotta, a dancer with Cali & Co., works at Squat and Gobble Cafe and Crepery in the Marina. “Although I don’t work enough to be considered full time, I make enough to pay rent, eat, and dance,” Mazziotta says. “There are days that I long to have a ‘big girl’ job for security, insurance, and more financial cushion. The reality is that those full-time jobs don’t offer a lot in terms of flexibility, and the hours of operation coincide with dance classes and rehearsals.”

The downside of the restaurant business is the relentless fatigue it piles on a body. Foundry dancer Joy Prendergast discovered that a café job was too taxing and now primarily teaches dance and baby-sits. Project Thrust choreographer Malinda LaVelle also found the strain to be too much. “I stopped working restaurants because the physical aches and pains of dancing were compounded by the strain of standing on my feet until 2 a.m. and then getting up the next morning and dancing again.” After working five nights a week, LaVell quit the restaurant scene to walk dogs and pursue receptionist work.

Fitness-related instruction jobs are another popular money-making source. Many dancers are certified in Pilates, Gyrotonic, or yoga as a way to subsidize their income. “Teaching’s a great way to make consistent money,” says Gyrotonic instructor Andi Clegg. “I’ve been able to constantly shift my teaching schedule around shows or other dance-related work I am involved in.” SF Conservatory of Dance student Emily Jones finds Pilates adaptable to her lifestyle: “I sometimes wish that I had a job where I could just turn off my brain and go on autopilot. But then I think about all the people I know who have café jobs and how they wish they could do something a little less numbing.”

Perhaps the most obvious way for a dancer to make money is to teach dance. Gretchen Garnett, director and choreographer of Gretchen Garnett and Dancers, taught dance 25 hours a week at three different studios around the Bay Area when she first moved here. Since getting married, she has been able to teach a more reasonable 14 hours a week at two dance studios and dedicate more time to her company. Whitney Stevenson, who moved to SF within the past year to dance, enjoys teaching gymnastics to children because she gets to be active.

Although an active job like teaching classes or working in a restaurant might seem perfect for someone physically inclined, many dancers find it essential to sit down and rest their bodies while working. Gabby Zucker does transcription and reads drafts for author and music critic Jeff Chang. “It may sound silly, but I prefer desk jobs to waiting tables or working retail because I feel it’s important to rest my body when I’m not dancing,” Zucker says.

A more common sedentary line of work for dancers is administration. Maggie Stack works as the administrative assistant for the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and for her, the support and promotion of dance goes hand-in-hand with the medium. But for Julia Hollas, dancer and administrator for Dandelion Dance Theater, the realm of arts administration also became a bane. “There is always too much work, not enough funding, and the incredibly good people who stay in the field consistently take on more than they can comfortably handle,” says Hollas, who is currently seeking Pilates certification. “There is something quite noble about that fact, and I will always feel admiration for anyone who works as an administrator in the dance world. But what I was beginning to see in myself was a consistent state of burnout that took away from the inspiration I needed to pursue my art as I wanted.”

There are also those who take on jobs that are out of the ordinary. Darya Chernova moved here from Russia and was amazed by all the dance opportunities and classes available. Luckily, she found a job to facilitate that interest. “I have been working at the farmers market for an apple orchard farm for five years,” Chernova says. “Farmers market work is great but tiring. It can be very physical and socially exhausting. But I love fruit and being outside.”

Kaitlin Parks, who worked as an EMT before the job became too overwhelming, is another example. “Lights, sirens, and the glory of helping fellow humans are great, but the 10-hour shifts and the physical and emotional demands were dipping into my energy and attention for dance,” she says. “I currently dance with Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, the courage group, baby-sit for six different families, teach young children’s dance classes, and teach both EMT skills and CPR.”

When it comes down to it, making a life in dance is often an act of creativity in itself. Rachel Dichter helps organize people’s closets. Tyson Miller works room service at the Mandarin Oriental. Ri Molnar models for art classes, gardens, and assists people with disabilities. Paul Laurey lives in a theater basement with low rent to redirect time and financial resources to dance. While some may respond to his living situation with pity or concern, for him the luxury of pursuing dance outweighs any sacrifice in creature comforts.

Of course, pursuing dance becomes a whole different story when a family is involved. InkBoat dancer Dana Iova-Koga found that having a life in dance took on new meaning with a daughter. “Now that I am a mother, I’ve had to get more intentional with dancing,” Iova-Koga says. “It’s much harder to find the time to do it, and it has to be very planned out. But now, when I get to perform, it feels more essential and I appreciate being there in a whole new way.”

“Until recently, the key to making dance possible in my life was seeking out alternative lifestyles that allowed me to step aside from the money equation for the most part,” she continued. “This was much simpler to do as a single person, before becoming a family. We are still figuring out how we can keep the dance growing and maintain a sense of stability for our daughter.”

Although it’s a difficult balance to maintain, Bay Area dancers are more than up to the challenge of cultivating a life around a physically demanding art form with few monetary payoffs. Though it may demand fortitude, creativity, and a willingness to diverge from a more conventional lifestyle, the personal rewards of a life filled with inspiration and love-filled work are indeed great.

Mission Chinese Food at Lung Shan

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Mission Chinese Food at Lung Shan

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE As a rule, I am wary of restaurants where you order items by the number — especially when the numbers run into the hundreds. You start to think it’s like an automotive plant back there in the kitchen, where they’re slapping on option groups (fog lamps, alloy wheels, a leather-wrapped steering wheel) according to some big book of codes. Of course restaurant kitchens are like factories — are factories — we all know this, but there is such a thing as too much choice and too much process, even in America. I’m not sure anyone truly needs, or even wants, DishTV’s 500-plus channels, or a restaurant menu that has to be printed on several folios, like a poetry chapbook.

Chinese restaurants are notable, in my experience, for being more likely than other kinds of restaurants to offer a far greater number of dishes than any restaurant kitchen could be expected to cook with attentive passion, but a notable exception is Mission Chinese Food at Lung Shan. On any given night — even a cold weeknight — you might think you’ve stumbled on a crowd of people waiting to audition for “Brooklyn: The Musical.” Every hipster for miles around seems to be wedged into the dining room waiting for a table. It is a veritable hipsterama, and I mean this in the best possible way.

Hipsters have a certain reputation for shunning math — or is that meth? — and (perhaps because of being raised in a culture of shopping-mall vapidity) show a craving for any validating experience that can be described with the adjective “street.” So maybe their massive presence here is a response to the street-food menu, which numbers just a few dozen items. Or maybe they just know good food, at a good price, when they find it. There is plenty of agreeably mediocre Chinese food to be had in San Francisco, but not at MCF. The cooking here is clever and forceful, and it’s also gently incendiary. This is the kind of food that makes your nose run. You can also get Chinese beer for $3 a bottle; as Bart Simpson once put it after agreeing to let the vet spay Homer and give him a flea bath for $20, “shop around, you can’t beat that price!”

Even the cold items carry a chili charge. Tiger salad, for instance ($7) — an irresistible name; who could resist having it? — consisted of four squat pillars of herbed lettuces, red perilla (a kind of shiso leaf), and roasted seaweed in a puddle of chili oil, as if the plate’s previous tenant had been some greasy chorizo. But even with all the exhilarating heat, even cold heat, you soon understand that this is Chinese-influenced cooking, not Chinese cooking.

Salt cod fried rice ($10), for example, sounds like something the Vikings might have cooked up ago while sailing across the north Atlantic. Despite the fancy emendations, including confit of escolar, the dish seemed very much like other fried rice dishes you’d find around town, with little rounds of Chinese sausage, like a sliced-up red pencil, lending a defining presence, along with scallion for color contrast.

The menu’s signature dish could well be the sizzling cumin lamb ($12.50), served on a sizzling iron platter that keeps gently cooking the onion slivers and slices of jalapeño pepper as you pluck out chunks of the highly scented lamb. The meat is from the belly and is therefore quite fatty; it takes the form of jointed spindles whose two arms are glued together by the melted fat. It is rich, intensely perfumed, spicy-hot, and (for an auditory thrill) actually sizzling. We could not ask more from any meat dish.

Still, after working your way through a plate of such weighty food, a bit of relaxation would be in order — a bath, say, in a broad bowl of broth filled with pork dumplings ($10). The steam itself was — a kind of pork aromatherapy — and there was a strong temptation to put towels over our heads and hold our faces in the steam flow.

Lung Shan’s street face is about as prosaic as it gets. It doesn’t look to have been freshened for decades and gives no hint of the crowd that gathers there when the sun goes down. But thrill-seekers know that there’s no thrill quite so thrilling as the unadvertised one.

MISSION CHINESE FOOD AT LUNG SHAN

Thurs.–Tues., 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m.

2234 Mission, SF

(415) 863-2800

www.missionchinesefood.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Loud

Wheelchair accessible

Gorgeous George

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Gorgeous George

TRASH She’s an unstoppable force, that Sherri Frankenstein. As embodied by Linda Martinez in an anything-but-soggy serial by George Kuchar, Sherri is endlessly buffeted by life — shoved, mutilated, or worse by rapacious characters ever-eager to administer injections. She’s prone to oracular gestures so lengthy and dizzyingly impulse-driven that their conclusions directly contradict the reality around her. But whether she’s carousing at a go-go club or distractedly presiding over a Dracula’s castle-turned-home for wayward women, Sherri’s is a spirit that will not be snuffed.

Sherri’s odyssey begins in 2003’s Kiss of Frankenstein, a screen adaptation of a 2003 play’s torrid and torrential vomitous verbiage. Shot in three hours for $500 and post-dubbed in a bathroom, Kiss is an orgy of all that Kuchar in dramatic mode has to offer — a DayGlo video update of the old dark house scenario of his and Curt McDowell’s classic Thundercrack! (1975) with live action-meets-animation interiors that outdo Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) in terms of lurid décor. Martinez’s sheer organza negligee is only the raciest fabric in a dance of the 700 veils to rival Kenneth Anger’s Puce Moment (1949). The dreamy-eyed male lead’s hairy chest and right nipple peeks out from a torn pajama top. A maze of maniacal monologues and mythical machinations — listening to Kuchar’s characters rattle off narration, one can’t help but ponder the narcissistic nature of memoir — in the form of a hungry Hungarian “pilgrimage for the palate,” the first chapter in Kuchar’s monstrous equivalent to Wagner’s Ring includes a sudden ax attack rendered in the style of William Castle.

Fresh from an acid facial, Sherri is back and pig-biting mad in 2005’s The Fury of Frau Frankenstein, another of Kuchar’s collaborations with his students at San Francisco Art Institute. Abandoning Kiss‘s monologues for title cards and visual tale-spinning, Fury introduces Sherri’s buxom niece Leticia, whose fate is watched by a Ryan Gosling-like newspaper reporter named Bruce. (In a bit part, young filmmaker Sarah Hagey almost steals the movie while her man is stolen.) Kuchar unleashes a blitz of post-production video effects, placing party scenes within envelopes and sprinkling digital glitter on Sherri’s face. Shot for $100 less than its predecessor, Fury is pure cinematic gluttony on a budget: a stew is stirred with a dismembered hand, a glimmering spider web curtain from the previous movie returns as one character’s cape, and a bat scurries across a floor in a manner that evokes not just the ravenous killer brains of the 1958 British horror flick Fiend Without a Face, but also furry slippers.

Technical difficulties prevented a viewing of the climax of Kuchar’s Frankenstein Cycle, 2008’s Crypt of Frankenstein. But Sherri returns in a sequel to the series, 2010’s Jewel of Jeopardy, whose cast includes an M.D. A little weary and slurry and lost in the length and relentlessness of her monologues, she’s soon helpless — gleefully so — to stop a Dracula who “burns quite easily” as he feasts on the “nubile necks” of her female charges, administering “hellish hickeys.” Here, the prop-mad and pixelated fervor of Kuchar’s meta-montage reaches its apex: digital blood drapes the screen, hairdos morph into spider webs, a character is beaten with his own severed leg, a Santa Claus wall hanging beams green rays from its eyes, Martinez’s flesh is visually rhymed with a Frankenstein mask, and the cast is momentarily lost in a blizzard of animated hearts and stars that would bring a blush to the face of the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

It’ll end in puke, of course, but anyone with a hungry eye should welcome the Roxie’s decision to put three nights of movies by George Kuchar on its menu. Or a hungry heart: the cheerful gastric onslaughts of Kuchar’s Frankenstein cycle are countered by the disarmingly poignant mortal attention to digestion and bodily function in his recent diary films, Vintage Visits, The Nutrient Express, and Dribbles, all from 2010. The time is right to gorge with George. 

BY, FOR, AND ABOUT GEORGE KUCHAR

Fri/28–Sun/30, $6–$10 (Fri/28: The Frankenstein Cycle; Sat/29: It Came From Kuchar plus two Kuchar shorts; Sun/30: new video diaries by George Kuchar)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

DREAMer Steve Li asks Obama for a moratorium

Mary Magee
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0

Steve Li is a nursing student at San Francisco’s City College who narrowly avoided deportation to Peru last November, after a massive outpouring of community support and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s decision to introduce a private bill to delay his removal from the United States. Now,  Li has issued a short video in anticipation of the President’s State of the Union address, in which he asks Obama  if he can commit to a moratorium on deportations of DREAM Act-eligible youth.

Watch Li’s video:

then watch the President’s address to see what happens.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. 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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

ONGOING

Audition – A Play Exit Theater, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Call for price. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Feb 13. GenerationTheatre presents a comedy of the absurd by Roland David Valayre.

Bone to Pick and Diadem Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Feb 13. Cutting Ball Theatre presents a pair of plays by Eugenie Chan.

Clue Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm. Through Feb 19. A play based on a film based on a board game is just the kind of tangled genealogy much goodtime theater is made of these days. So there’s nothing too new about Boxcar’s stage adaptation of the manic 1985 comedy derived from a once popular Parker Bros. diversion. In fact, it’s at least the second stage adaptation of same to be offered in San Francisco. (Impossible Productions remounted its version at the Dark Room just last year.) Nevertheless, led by adapter-director Nick A. Olivero, Boxcar’s production pursues its vision like a mad yen, with a loving fidelity and self-referential glee that are not so much inspired as just plain zealous (although Olivero’s scenic design does reach new heights: a TV-toned board-game set that the audience peers down on from six-feet-high balconies ringing the stage). Performances are dutiful and solid for the most part, with especially nice work from Brian Martin (as the butler) and J. Conrad Frank (as Mrs. Peacock). Although there’s something vaguely and not unpleasantly hypnotic about it all, groups of cult-film line-gleaners may be the best audience for this one. (Avila)

*The Companion Piece Z Space at Theatre Artaud, 450 Florida; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Call for price. Thurs 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Feb 13. Z Space presents the world premiere of a new play by Mark Jackson, with Beth Wilmurt and Christopher Kuckenbaker.

*A Hand in Desire Viracocha, 998 Valencia; www.viracochasf.com. $10-20. See website for dates and times. Through 1/29 Even though the card game of choice in Tennesee Willams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is poker, it’s fitting that the five-member cast of EmSpace Dance’s adaptation A Hand in Desire should play at hearts instead. After all, as Mitch (Christopher White) reminds us, “poker shouldn’t be played in a house with women” And besides, hearts are very much the core of each character: the heart of Blanche, a flighty bird, the heart of Stella, a string of colored lights, the heart of the doomed Allen Grey (Kegan Marling), an open wound. As the cast plays onstage with a custom-designed deck, each trump card is turned over to a laconic narrator/conductor (Heather Robinson) who names the scene they are to play next. Each evening promises a different sequence of scenes, some of which stick more closely to the original script than others. However, the ensemble is at it’s best when it lets go of text altogether, such as the scene “a cleft in the rock of the world I could hide in,” during which Stella (Natalie Greene) and Stanley (Peter Griggs) get it on, and Blanche (Rowena Richie) awkwardly waltzes with Mitch as Alan insinuates himself into their duet. Musicians Joshua Pollock and Chris Broderick tie the whole experiment together with aplomb. (Gluckstern)

Out of Sight The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Feb 13. The Marsh presents a new solo show by Sara Felder.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $10-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Feb 19. Custom Made Theatre presents stories by the late writer and performer.

Treefall New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctsf.org. $24-40. Call for dates and times. Through Feb 27. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents a tale of erotic attraction by Henry Murray.

BAY AREA

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs Berkeley Rep, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Call for dates and times. Through Feb 27. Storyteller Mike Daisey spins a yarn about the Apple head.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Call for times. Through Feb 13. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Heartbreak House Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-0999, www.berkeleyrep.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Feb 13, 2pm; Feb, 17, 8pm). Through Feb 19. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents the George Bernard Shaw comedy set just before World War I.

The Last Cargo Cult Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Call for dates and times. Through Feb 20. As fans of J. Maarten Troost have learned, life on an island “paradise” is far less idyllic than the imagination yearns to believe. So it’s hardly surprising that Mike Daisey’s monologue The Last Cargo Cult begins with a white-knuckle ride in a prop plane piloted by a man with a milky eye. Daisey’s destination, the Pacific island of Tanna, is the location of one of the world’s last so-called “cargo cults”, and their big celebration “John Frum Day” is approaching. Daisey’s intention to hang out at the festivities smacks a little of entitled voyeurism, but the parallel he manages to draw between the complexities of a religion dedicated to a mythical cargo of “awesome shit”, and our own dedication to the acquisition of same, is a striking one. From our almost blind faith in the value of basically valueless currency, to our even blinder faith that indenturing ourselves by debt will enrich us, the foundations of our own “cargo cult” are revealed smartly by Daisey to be just as precarious as if built at the base of a volcano as in Tanna. Still, I found the most revealing thing about the evening to be the moment when the couple next to me took off with a $100 bill they’d acquired free-of-charge at the door, to which I can’t help but ask them: “Did you get your money’s worth?” (Gluckstern)

No Good Deed Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Pear Avenue Theatre presents a world premiere noir-inflected play by Paul Braverman.

*Of the Earth – The Salt Plays Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sun/30. If those whom the gods favor die young, it’s probably just as well for Odysseus (Dan Bruno) that Zeus (Rami Margron) happens to be irked at him. That Zeus occasionally manifests as a scary nurse with a penchant for ballroom dance is one of but many mysterious angles Jon Tracy teases out of the standard Odysseus myth. Another involves the instant-messaging potential of paper planes; a third, a blunt addiction metaphor for warmongering. In what must surely be a happy coincidence, the design elements and staging of Of the Earth are curiously similar to those of the recent Cutting Ball production of The Tempest. Characters leaping about from floor-to-ceiling ladders to physically embody shipwrecks and monsters, a handful of actors playing multiple roles, watery video installations, even the allusion to mental illness and modern psychiatry are threads that tie the two productions, however unsuspectingly, together. Happily for The Shotgun Players, their version floats above the comparison with a host of extra tension-drivers—the sinuously menacing fighting-style of Posiedon (Anna Ishida), the heart-throb pounding of Taiko drums, the sensual machinations of Circe (Charisse Loriaux), the clever usage of Penelope’s (Lexie Papedo) “tapestry” to weave together the action. And though at times the thread is broken mid-scene, we are finally given to understand that this epic tale of war’s fallout is first and finally a story of love. (Gluckstern)

Strange Travel Suggestions The Marsh Berkeley, Cabaret, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Feb 19. Jeff Greenwald stars in a one-man show about the vagaries of wanderlust.

The 39 Steps TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-79. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Feb 13. TheatreWorks presents Patrick Barlow’s comic adaptation of the book and movie of the same name.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through April 3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Gush Brava Theater, 2783 24th St; 6470-2822, www.brava.org. Call for dates and times (through Jan 29). $15-35. Brava presents a dance series curated by Joe Goode.

A Hand in Desire Viracocha, 998 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm (through Jan 29). EmSpace Dance presents a “remix” of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Women of the Way Festival Shotwell Studios, 3252-A Shotwell; and The Garage, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.ftloose.org. Call for dates and times (through Jan 30). $15-20. The dance festival celebrates it 11th anniversary with 23 new shows.

BAY AREA

Marga’s Funny Mondays The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/31, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series.

 

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/26–Tues/1 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. Broken Windows, Open Doors (Karewicz), Thurs, 8. “ATA Art and Action FUNraiser,” with live music by Grass Widow, an art auction, and more, Sat, 5.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-20. “Noir City 9:” •The Woman on the Beach (Renoir, 1947), Wed, 7:30, and Beware My Lovely (Horner, 1952), Wed, 9; •The Two Mrs. Carrolls (Godfrey, 1947), Thurs, 7:30, and My Name is Julia Ross (Lewis, 1945), Thurs, 9:30; •Crashout (Foster, 1955), Fri, 7:30, and Loophole (Schuster, 1954), Fri, 9:30; •Blind Alley (Vidor, 1939), Sat, 1, 4:30, and Secret Beyond the Door (Lang, 1948), Sat, 2:30; •The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (Siodmak, 1945), Sat, 7:30, and So Evil My Love (Allen, 1948), Sat, 9:15; •Angel Face (Preminger, 1952), Sun, 1, 5, 9, and The Hunted (Bernhard, 1948), Sun, 3, 7. For complete program information, visit www.noircity.com. “SF Sketchfest Great Collaborators Series: Airplane! Tribute to Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker,” Mon, 7; “SF Sketchfest Comedy Writing Award:” Broadcast News (Brooks, 1987), with James L. Brooks in person, Tues, 7. For more info on these events (tickets, $25), visit www.sfsketchfest.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Illusionist (Chomet, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. August to June (Valens and Valens, 2010), Thurs, 7. Filmmakers Amy and Tom Valens in person. Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (Schulberg, 1948/2010), Jan 28-Feb 3, call for times.

EXPLORATORIUM McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; www.asifa-sf.org. Free. “Open Screening for Animators,” Fri, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: New Year’s Revolutions:” Sade (Jacquot, 2000), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema: Fantasy Films and Realms of Enchantment:” The Thief of Baghdad (Powell, Berger, and Whelan, 1940), Wed, 3:10. Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (Chodorov, 2010), Wed, 7:30. “African Film Festival 2011:” One Small Step (Vaughan-Richards, 2010) with “Me Broni Ba” (Owusu, 2008), Thurs, 7; Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (Ocelot and Galup, 2005), Sat, 4:30. “Suspicion: The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock:” Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951), Fri, 7; Les Cousins (Chabrol, 1959), Fri, 9; Le Boucher (Chabrol, 1970), Sat, 8:20. “World Cinema Foundation:” Touki Bouki (Djop-Mambéty, 1973), Sat, 6:30. “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area:” “Punk, Attitudinal: Film and Video, 1977-1987,” Sun, 5:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. Tiny Furniture (Dunham, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:25 (also Wed, 2). “The Good Old Naughty Days,” vintage porn from the early 1900s, Fri-Sun, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4). The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (Pennebaker, 1973), Feb 1-3, 7:15, 9:15 (also Feb 2, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Two in the Wave (Laurent, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “Bringing Up Léaud: The Antoine Doinel Cycle:” Love on the Run (Truffaut, 1979), Wed, 6:45, 8:45. “By, For, and About George Kuchar,” film series, Fri, 7; Sat, 6:45; Sun, 4. Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale (Ness), Mon, call for time. “SF Film Society Education presents: Herzog in Focus,” Mon, 7. Educational program; visit www.sffs.org for additional info. Lemmy (Olliver and Orshoski, 2010), Feb 1-2, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. A Sea Change: Imagine a World Without Fish (Ettinger, 2009), Wed, 6; Sat, 2.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (Anno, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 5, 7:15.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Volume 14: Middle East,” nine videos focusing on the Middle East compiled by ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, Jan 13-March 27 (gallery hours Thurs-Sat, noon-8; Sun, noon-6). “British Television Advertising Awards 2010,” Thurs-Sun, 2, 4, 6 (also Thurs-Sat, 8).

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alvon Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Apopka Darkroom, Little Mercury, Brain on Fire Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Blowfly Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Domeshots, Kajillion, Ilona Staller Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Grand National, Outlier Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Handsome Family, Sean Rowe Café Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

Tanya Morgan, Big Pooh, Roc C 330 Ritch. 9pm.

Religious Girls, Actors, Thralls, Spiro Agnew Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 8pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Christine and Nathan Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Jazz Guys Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Jorge Drexler Mezzanine. 9pm, $32.50.

Victoria George, Tom Luce, Jeremy D’Antonio Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Audio1 Underground SF. 10pm, $5.

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike and guest DJ Eli Glad.

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10:30pm, $45.

“Finger Gunsapalooza” Stud. 9:30pm, $3. With Zoo, Moira Scar, Prizehog, Broads, and more.

Free Energy, Postelles, AB and the Sea Independent. 8pm, $14.

Kyro, Ben Fuller Band, Chelsea TK and the Tzigane Society Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Phil Manley Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free.

Moe. Fillmore. 7pm, $27.50.

JT Nero, Suzanne Vallie Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

*Pansy Division, Minks, Bad Backs Eagle. 9:30pm, $8.

Pebble Theory, Whitney Nichols, Kindness and Lies, Keely Valentino Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Garrett Pierce, Miller Carr with Nico Georis Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Suzanne Vega Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.palaceoffinearts.org. 8pm, $25-100.

Walking in Sunlight, New Heirlooms, Middle Maki, Hugo Hotel Utah. 7:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Savanna Jazz Trio and Jam Session Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and Old-Time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Elaine Romanelli with Josh Fox Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8:30 and 10pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, Prince Aries, Boogie Brown, Ammbush, plus food carts and community creativity.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene Loves the Smiths and Joy Division Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With live sets by This Charming Band and Dead Souls, plus DJs Aaron and Omar.

FRIDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Blues at the Crossroads: Robert Johnson Centennial Concert” Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $33-50.50. With Big Head Todd and the Monsters, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and more.

Con Brio Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Deerhoof, Ben Butler and Mousepad, Nervous Cop Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Darwin Deez, Fol Chen, Friends Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12.

Dopecharge, Rat Face, Desperate Hours, Mundo Muerto, Neighborhood Brats Kimo’s. 9:30pm, $7.

Ian Hunter Fillmore. 9pm, $35.

Monotonix, Ty Segall, Nodzzz Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12.

Robert Randolph and the Family Band Independent. 9pm, $25.

Rx Bandits, Fake Problems, Native Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $17.

Thingers, Reptiel Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Tip of the Top Sheba Lounge, 1419 Fillmore, SF; www.shebalounge.com. 9pm.

21st Century, Sloe, Roosevelt Radio Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Walter Trout Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Wallpaper, K. Flay, Dance Party Slim’s. 9pm, $19.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino!, DJ Jeremiah Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Kitka and Milla Milojkovic with the Chicago Tamburasi Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga, SF; www.croatianamericanweb.org. 8pm, $20.

Aaron Novik Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

Chuchito Valdes Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10pm, $25-45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

*Royal Crown Revue Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Marlena Teich Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

DANCE CLUBS

DJ Nik Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Lovetech + Slayers Club Two Year Anniversary Party Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm. With Mochipet, Flying Skulls, Slayers Club, and more.

Meat vs. Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $4-8. Industrial, gothic, and more with Decay, BaconMonkey, Joe Radio, Netik, and Melting Girl.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Toxic Avenger, Autoerotique, Girls N Boomboxes Mezzanine. 9pm, $25.

*True Skool 1015 Folsom. 10pm, $30. Celebrating 12 years of true hip-hop music with Black Thought of the Legendary Roots Crew, DJ J. Perios, Zumbi of Zion I with DJ Vinroc, and more.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

ALO Fillmore. 9pm, $22.50.

Burnt, Synrgy, Santos Perdidos El Rio. 9pm, $5.

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10:30pm, $45.

Get Up Kids, Steel Train, River City Extension Slim’s. 8:30pm, $25.

Hot Toddies, Attachments, Scrabbel Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10.

Michael Landau Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8:30 and 10:30pm, $5.

Mazer, Hyde Street Band El Rio. 6pm, free.

Robert Randolph and the Family Band Independent. 9pm, $25.

Rx Bandits, Fake Problems, Native Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $17.

Spanish Bombs, Chuck Prophet and Chris Von Sneidern Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $17.

Weekend, Terry Malts, Speculator Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Feldman Webern Jones San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfsound.org. 8pm, $15.

Linda Kost Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Bill Ortiz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Chuchito Valdes Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10pm, $25-45.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

Zoyres Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

La Gente Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Big Top Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $5. Nicki Minaj tribute night with DJs Heklina and Josh Sparber.

Boston Beat Anu, 46 Sixth St, SF; www.anu-bar.com. 10pm, free. House, techno, and trance with Doppelganger, Tari, ndK, and David West.

Dance Party Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; www.p1sf.com. 11pm. With Orange Drink Music’s Chicago house chiptunes and more.

DJ Dtek Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

Industry Turns Five! Mighty. 10pm, $30. With DJ Tony Moran, Jamie J. Sanchez, and Luke Johnstone.

120 Minutes Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-8. With Gatekeeper, oOoOO, Whitch, Nako, Robert Disaro, and Sara Toon.

Pop Roxx DNA Lounge. 9pm, $5-10. With a live performance by My First Earthquake, plus DJ sets by KidHack, Aaron, Mitch, and Starr.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blows, Sonny and the Sunsets Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

Bonjay, Casy and Brian, Ghosts on Tape, Lurv Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $7.

Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub Independent. 8pm, $27.

44s Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Get Up Kids, Steel Train, River City Extension Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $25.

Glitter Weekend, Smoke and Feathers, Lecherous Gaze Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $30.

Underoath, Thursday, A Skylit Drive, Animals as Leaders Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $22.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

John Santos, Larry Vuckovich Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Savannah Jazz Trio and Jam Session Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 7pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Go Van Gogh Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Andre Thierry and Zydeco Magic Knockout. 3pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Ludachris, and guest DJ Theory.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Superbad Sundays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With DJs Slopoke, Booker D, and guests spinning blues, oldies, southern soul, and funky 45s.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Against Me!, Cheap Girls, Fences Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Arctic Flowers, Face the Rail, Livid, Hooray for Everything Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Kacey Johansing, Bird by Bird, Sean Smith, Revenge of Light Wilderness Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

*Tift Merritt and Simone Dinnerstein Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Swinget with Jules Broussard Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; (415) 982-6223. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers. Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs. TUESDAY 1 ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP Against Me!, Cheap Girls, Fences Slim’s. 8pm, $16. Guverment, Curse of Panties, Broken Cities Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Lotus Moons, Electric Shepherd, These Hills of Gold Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8. Michael Rose, Mysic Roots Band, cvDub Independent. 9pm, $25. Wobbly, Blanketship, Teenage Sweater Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7. JAZZ/NEW MUSIC Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5. DANCE CLUBS Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro. Extra Classic DJ Night Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm. Dub, roots, rockers, and reggae from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house. Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx

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