San Francisco

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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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

OPENING

Joyful Noise: A Gospel Celebration of Christmas Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center; 345-7575, www.LHTSF.org. $25-50. Previews Fri/10, 8pm. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 31. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a rechristened version of their Black Nativity production.

Siddhartha, the Bright Path The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Previews Sat/11-Sun/12, 3pm; Thurs/16, 7:30pm. Opens Dec 17, 7:30pm. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Marsh Youth Theater presents a holiday celebration, directed by Lisa Quoresimo.

BAY AREA

Arabian Nights Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2549, www.berkeleyrep.org. $34-73. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 30. Tony-winning Mary Zimmerman’s production makes a return to Berkeley Rep.

A Christmas Carol Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-7469, www.centerREP.org. Previews Thurs/9, 8pm; Fri/10, 11am and 7:30pm. Opens Sat/11, 2pm and 7:30pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 19.Center REP presents the holiday classic.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Phoenix Theater Annex, 414 Mason, 4th floor; 433-1235, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $28. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Karen Hirst’s one-person musical about lost love.

Babes in Arms Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $24-44. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. 42nd Street Moon presents John Guare’s adaptation of the musical by Rodgers and Hart.

Christmas in Hell: The Real and True Story About the Guys Who Saved Christmas Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. An original holiday play, written and directed by Jim Fourniadis.

Caligari Studio 385, 385A Eighth St; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Fri, 8pm. Through Fri/10. Promising new company HurlyBurly stages its adaptation of the 1920 German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in a Soma bondage club with productive and not-so-productive results. Production values are enjoyably thoughtful (including lighting designer Amanda Ortmayer’s moody use of small portable lights, laser pointers, and snatches of pure, delicious darkness) as the audience mills around a cement room in which actors stand or lie frozen, and in some cases encased, like some macabre wax museum. Daniel Korth’s script makes up in clever, fluid dialogue what it can lack in narrative coherence. But the doom-clouded storyline, featuring a fated romance between an ardent young man (a likeable Eddie Barol) and his somewhat aloof object of desire (a nicely detached yet powerful Shay Wisniewski), is familiar enough in sporadic outline that this isn’t a big deal. The play demands a certain over-the-top performance style, however, which few of co-directors Korth and Mikka Bonel’s otherwise capable actors really carry off (Gerri Lawlor is one of the more notable exceptions). The freedom to walk around the space as action unfolds on surrounding stages (or inaction in cages) is a visual and atmospheric plus. The production’s real limit is that its neo-expressionist dark-carnival invention comes across at times as too borrowed, as when a late-era Tom Waits song is heard. At least it wasn’t one from The Black Rider. (Avila)

Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Horse and Man White Big Top, adjacent to AT&T Park; www.cavalia.net. $39.50-239.50. Check website for shows and times. Through Sun/12. Over 100 performers, including 50 horses, take the stage in this circus-like show from Montreal.

Christian Cagigal’s Obscura: A Magic Show EXIT Cafe, 156 Eddy; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Magician Christian Cagigal presents a mix of magic, fairy tales, and dark fables.

Cinderella African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Fri/8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. African-American Shakespeare Company presents the classic fairytale, starring Velina Brown.

Cora Values’ Christmas Corral Exit Cafe, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/11. There are Christmas Carol’s and then there are Christmas Carol’s. There are the no-expenses spared varieties with clever rigging and fabulous costumes and larger-than-life characterizations of those classic Christmastide archetypes—the lonely bastard, the beatific poor man, the lovable child. There are the more modest productions, community theatre affairs, with A-for-effort, fun-for-the-whole-family, casual appeal. And then there’s the Cora Values treatment, which throws the whole silly notion of family togetherness out the window and instead throws a party for the orphans of the holiday season—the bah-humbuggers and true unbelievers. In this rock-bottom budget “illiterary

adaptation” of Dickens’ classic in “the most authentic form we know how” a ragtag crew from the Gas ‘N’ Gulp in Rectal, Texas, bumble through a singular interpretation of the tale, punctuated by original comic songs penned by Cora (Sean Owens) and Emmett Cornpike (Don Seaver). Sticklers for textual authenticity or political correctness may cringe at the chorus of the solo song by Tiny Tim (Amanda Ortmayer), “This Won’t Be Another Lame Holiday,” but Dickens wrote a few head-scratching lines himself. Take this description of Marley’s face appearing in Scrooge’s doorknocker: “It&ldots;had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.” “Charles Dickens’ immortal text” Cora remarks dryly. You said it sister. (Gluckstern)

Dirty Little Showtunes! A Parody Musical Revue New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 16. Tom Orr’s adults-only holiday show returns, with direction by F. Allen Sawyer and musical direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn.

Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.ticketfly.com. $25. Thurs-Sat, 7 and 9pm. Through Dec 23. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar return with their stage tribute to the sitcom.

The Lion in Winter Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Actors Theatre of SF presents James Goldman’s play of palace intrigue.

Match Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.matchonstage.com. $12-28. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Expression Productions presents Stephen Belber’s new suspense drama.

The Oddman Family Christwanzaakuh Spectactular! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Guerrilla Rep and Beards Beards Beards present a new twisted musical farce.

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.

A Perfect Ganesh New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 19. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the Terrence McNally play, directed by Arturo Catricala.

Ruth and the Sea Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.ruthandthesea.com. $18-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Wily West Productions presents Gwyneth Richards in a kooky holiday show, directed by Stuart Bousel.

Shrek The Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market; (888) SHN-1799, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Tues, 8pm, Wed, 2 and 8pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performances Dec 24, Dec 25, and Dec 31). Through Jan 2. Eric Petersen stars in the stage version of the animated blockbuster.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm; additional shows Dec 20-23). Through Dec 23. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical in the style of Charles Dickens.

The Tempest Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 19. In Cutting Ball’s latest foray into Shakespearean realms, three entangled subplots and eleven characters are enacted by just three actors, in order to explore the relationships between the principle characters by representing their internal characteristics through the actions of the more minor roles. Set on an enchanted island (or, in Cutting Ball’s interpretation, at the bottom of a swimming pool) The Tempest begins with stormy weather, but quickly grows into a full-blown hurricane of shipwrecked nobles, nymphs, and drunks, plus the turbulent awakenings of a teenage daughter’s libido, and the rumblings of her over-protective papa. The most effective dual-character is Caitlyn Louchard’s Miranda-Ariel, as both characters are quite under the stern control of Prospero (David Sinaiko) and equally deserving of release. Less affecting yet somehow equally congruous is Sinaiko’s comic turn as the buffoonish Stephano, who stumbles through the forest in his boxer shorts, yet somehow maintains an air of mock dignity that does parallel Prospero’s. Donell Hill’s Caliban-Ferdinand endures his lust-love for Miranda and servitude to Prospero alternating between raw physicality and social ineptness. But since “The Tempest” is littered with characters even more minor, the game cast is stretched too thinly to fully inhabit each, and the entire subplot involving King Alonzo, Gonzalo, and Antonio in particular suffers from this ambitious over-extension. (Gluckstern)

The Tender King Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr; www.secondwindtheatre.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/11. The current firestorm over leaked diplomatic cables and exposed government lies and imperial machinations are nothing new in The Tender King. Second Wind’s debut of Bay Area playwright Ian Walker’s new drama takes audiences back to 1945, a critical period in the structuring of the postwar world as dominated ever since by the American Empire. Walker explores the tensions and contradictions attendant on the countdown to American global hegemony in three characters, two rooms, and one fateful decision. President Harry Truman (Brian O’Connor), newly ensconced in office after FDR’s death, sits drinking in a darkened room (mood-inducing lighting by Rob Siemens) as an ambitious young functionary named Will (Stephen Muterspaugh) arrives to get his John Hancock on the order to drop the new A Bomb on two Japanese cities. In shades of Schiller’s Mary Stuart, Truman delays and evades cunningly, filled with the exuberant knowledge and burden of power. Meanwhile, a semi-romantic, semi-sadistic relationship between Will and a French-German prostitute (Natalie Palan) unfolds in a parallel scene—a complex echo of the shock-doctrine advantage Will advocates to Truman in the face of a stunned and helpless European population. Directed by Walker, the production relies not ineffectively on heightened vernacular language and performances, although the latter while sturdy can feel more rote than in-the-moment, and the neat narrative framework and effervescent dialogue strays into formulaic conceits. Nevertheless, the play’s well-researched and articulated detail as well as forceful conviction make it both worthwhile and generally engaging—not to mention as politically au courant as anything on stage just now. (Avila)

The Velveteen Rabbit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/12. ODC/Dance presents Margery Williams’ holiday favorite.

BAY AREA

Becoming Julia Morgan Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 984-3864, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 9. Janis Stevens stars in Belinda Taylor’s play about the trailblazing architect.

A Christmas Carol: The Musical Novato Theater Company Playhouse, 484 Ignacio, Novato; 863-4498, www.novatotheatercompany.org. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 17. Novato Theater Company presents a new adaptation of the holiday classic.

A Christmas Memory TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm (alos Thurs/23, 2pm and Fri/24, 7pm). Through Dec 26. TheatreWorks presents the seasonal tale by Truman Capote.

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 Dec 19. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 15. Berkeley Rep premieres the new musical, written by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey.

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/11. Ann Randolph’s hit one-woman comic show continues its extended run.

Of the Earth – The Salt Plays: Part 2 Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (beginning Dec 19). Through Jan 30. Shotgun Players present the second half of writer and director Jon Tracy’s Odyssey-inspired tale, with music by Brendan West.

*The Play About the Naked Guy La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Impact Theatre presents an off-Broadway hit, written by David Bell and directed by Evren Odcikin.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am (also Dec 20-23, 11am and Dec 26-30, 11am). The Amazing Bubble Man’s show presents flying saucer bubbles and other wonders.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Club Chuckles Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk; 923-0925. Wed/8, 9pm. $7. Club Chuckles turns seven with standup by David Liebe Hart and others.

Comedy Returns to El Rio! El Rio, 3158 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/13, 8pm. $7-20. Lisa Gedulgig hosts a monthly comedy night.

Double-Wide White Trash Christmas Show Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.dragatmartunis.com. Sun/12, 7pm. $5. A holiday edition of the “Bijou” cabaret showcase.

FoolsFURY 12th Anniversary Gala Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; www.foolsfurygala.eventbrite.org. Sat/11, 7:30pm. $30-60. The local theater ensemble celebrates a birthday.

Forking II: A Merry Forking! Christmas Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.pianofight.com. Call for dates and times (through Dec 30). PianoFight presents a holiday-themed choose-your-own-adventure play.

A Funny Night for Comedy Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.NatashaMuse.com. Sun/12, 7pm. Natasha Muse and Ryan Cronin host an evening of comedy.

Ironic/NOT Ironic! Viracocha, 998 Valencia; 374-7048, www.viracochasf.com. Thurs/9, 9pm. Harmon Leon performs.

Literary Death Match – Holiday Bloodbath Special Elbo Room, 647 Valencia; www.literarydeathmatch.com. Fri/10, 7pm. $7-10. An evening of yuletide literary mayhem.

Mischievous Maidens Christmas Skylark Bar, 3089 16th St; 621-9294. Fri/10, 8pm. Free. A Christmas-themed burlesque night.

Project. B. The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. $10-20. Tanya Bello’s company presents Triquetra, a work from this year.

Doug Stanhope Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. Wed/10, 8pm. $20. The vulgar comedian hits the Bay.

Touring Cast of Shrek Theater 19, Pier 39; 273-1620, www.HelpIsOnTheWay.org. Mon/13, 7:30pm.$35-65. A one-night-only cabaret to raise funds for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

Trashina Cann The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/8-Thurs/9, 8pm. $10-20. The company presents a new queer dance theater wok titled Legacy.

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Schedules are for Wed/8–Tues/14 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. $7. “Other Cinema: Dead Media,” innovative works using repurposed material, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Pink Smoke Over the Vatican (Hart), Thurs, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; www.peacheschrist.com. $15. “Midnight Mass:” Christmas Evil (Jackson, 1980), Sat, midnight. With director Lewis Jackson in person.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. La Strada (Fellini, 1954), Wed, 2:30, 7. “Holiday Horrors:” Gremlins (Dante, 1984), Thurs, 7; Black Christmas (Clark, 1974), Thurs, 9:05. “Midnites for Maniacs: Push It to the Limit Triple Feature:” •Just One of the Guys (Gottlieb, 1985), Fri, 7:30; Point Break (Bigelow, 1991), Fri, 9:30; Maniac: The Restored Director’s Cut (Lustig, 1980), Fri, midnight. With director William Lustig in person. •Cabaret (Fosse, 1972), Sat, 2:35, 7, and Xanadu (Greenwald, 1980), Sat, 5, 9:30. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993), Sun, 2, 3:45, 5:30, 7:15, 9. “San Francisco Film Society Presents:” Sir Arne’s Treasure (Stiller, 1919), Tues, 8. With live score by the Mountain Goats; tickets for this event ($22.50) at www.sffs.org.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. “Cerrito Classics:” White Christmas (Curtiz, 1954), Thurs, check website for showtime.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” The Elixir of Love, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Wed-Thurs. These shows, $12. Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sun, 4:15. Director Tom Wyrsch in person.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. “Forbidden Thrills: Creepy Crazy Christmas Classics!:” •Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Webster, 1964), and Santa Claus (Cardona, 1959), Mon, 7:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. “More Bay Area Culture and Performance Art,” presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE 814 Montgomery, SF; (415) 788-7142. $3. “Giallo:” Deadly Sweet (Brass, 1967), Tues, 6:30.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.landmarkafterdark.com. Free. Thurs, 7. “Anime Club:” “Space and Wolf,” Thurs, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Il grido (Antonioni, 1957), Wed, 7; Accattone (Pasolini, 1961), Fri, 8:45; Bandits of Orgosolo (De Seta, 1961), Sun, 3. “Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:” Birdman of Alcatraz (Frankenheimer, 1962), Thurs, 7; A Child is Waiting (Cassavetes, 1963), Sat, 6:30; The Swimmer (Perry, 1968), Sat, 8:40. “Carl Theodor Dreyer:” Two People (1944-45), Fri, 7; Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). Machete (Maniquis and Rodriguez, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Breathless (Godard, 1959), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4). The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003), Dec 14-15, 7:15, 9:15 (also Dec 15, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Wed, 7:15. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “NorCal FreeFly Film Festival,” Thurs, call for times. Bad Santa (Zwigoff, 2003), Fri, 7:15, 9:15. “An Evening with John Waters,” Sat, 7:30. Fundraiser for the Roxie; tickets $250. Home Alone (Columbus, 1990), Sun, 4. Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch, 1980), Mon, call for times. Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984), Tues, call for times.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.eggsploitation.com. $20. Eggsploitation (Lahl), Thurs, 7.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $15-25. “Cinematheque Benefit:” Face (Warhol, 1965) and The Velvet Underground In Boston (Warhol, 1967), Wed, 6:30.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Cast Me If You Can (Ogata, 2010), Dec 10-19, check website for times. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “International Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010:” Shugendo Now (Abela and McGuire, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; •Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden (Junkerman, 1991), and Inland Sea (Carra, 1992), Sun, 2. “Luminous Darkness,” transgressive videos focusing on erotic ritual and performance, curated by Daniel McKernan, Fri, 9pm-2am (screening continuously during YBCA’s “Noel Noir” fundraiser; tickets $25). “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” Meat Grinder (Moeithaisong, 2009), Sat, 7:30.<\!s>

Our Weekly Picks: December 8-14, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 8

MUSIC

Holy Grail

Though you practically need a PhD in metal to keep track of Holy Grail’s ever-shifting lineup, one thing is obvious to anyone — even a layperson — when he or she first hears the band: singer James Paul Luna has one of the best young voices in rock ‘n’ roll, period. Ascending to falsetto heights with polished ease, the siren-lunged Pasadena, Calif., native fronts a band dedicated to the exuberant excess of early eighties speed metal, and his Halfordesque attack on the mic is complimented by the frenetic shredding and double-bass gallop of the band that backs him up. Touring in support of long-awaited debut LP Crisis in Utopia, Holy Grail is not to be missed. (Ben Richardson)

With Blind Guardian and Seven Kingdoms

8 p.m., $32

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

PERFORMANCE

 

David Liebe Hart

Along with James Quall and Richard Dunn (R.I.P.), David Liebe Hart is the cream of the crop of lovingly bizarre actors populating Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! The show takes pride in exposing the world to forgotten Hollywood street performers, bit actors, outsider musicians, and left-field comedians, all of which can be used to sum up Liebe Hart’s career. Armed with his trusty puppet and musical tales of being abducted by Corrinian aliens, he’ll be headlining Club Chuckles’ Seventh Anniversary Show lineup. Be sure to greet him with a friendly “Salame!” (Landon Moblad)

With Hot Panda, Chris Thayer, and Donny Divanian

9 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

FILM

“Andy Warhol: Face and The Velvet Underground in Boston Cinematheque Benefit”

An early look at recent restorations of two of Andy Warhol’s most obscure movies (both long out of circulation) is the hidden jewel of San Francisco Cinematheque’s fall season. Face (1965) is an hour-long expression of Edie Sedgwick’s superstar photogenie. The Velvet Underground in Boston (1967) collects rare footage of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable house-band in its prime. Taken together, the films should present an unusual view of Factory life. The screening benefits Cinematheque’s upcoming programming, so you’ll leave knowing you’ve done your part for underground movies. (Max Goldberg)

8 p.m., $15

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St., SF

(415) 863-7576

www.sfcinematheque.org

 

PERFORMANCE

Legacy, A One Ho Show

Presented by the AIRspace residency program, Trashina Cann (real name: Randen Kane) stars in Legacy, A One Ho Show, a queer-friendly, autobiographical dance theater piece exploring the misfortunes and vices passed down through Kane’s family and their effects on her life today. Journeying through three generations of women and their struggles with abandonment, sexual abuse, unwanted motherhood, prostitution, and incarceration, Kane comes to understand that her troubling past can also save her. Using burlesque, song, dance, and video, Kane manifests her incredible life story and her will to overcome, all the while staying extraordinarily entertaining. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Wed/8–Thurs/9, 8 p.m., $10–$20

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 518-1517

www.975howard.com

 

THURSDAY 9

PERFORMANCE

Adam Carolla

What hasn’t funny guy Adam Carolla done in his show business career? He got his start in radio (Loveline), branched out into television (The Man Show), written and starred in a feature film (2007’s The Hammer), and expanded onto the Internet with his podcast talk show. Carolla’s latest foray finds him as the author of a new book, In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks … And Other Complaints From An Angry Middle-Aged White Guy, which he’ll be promoting and signing during his “Christmas Carolla” tour of the West Coast, bringing his caustic yet sidesplitting and hilarious, stand-up to the raw and uncensored — as it should be — live stage. (Sean McCourt)

Thurs/9, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.;

Fri/10–Sat/11, 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., $32.50–$35.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

FRIDAY 10

VISUAL ART

 

“Boom”

Art is made in all manners of cracks and crevices and four-bedroom apartments. How are we to know that what we have the pleasure of viewing gallery-side is the best of the best, the most succulent bit of Dungeness in San Francisco’s cioppino? Well, we don’t, and now I’m hungry. But events like “Boom” tend to help matters. The event is an entry fee-free juried art show, which means that a) artists don’t gotta have sold a $700,000 piece to kick it (congrats to Chor Boogie, by the way); and b) Southern Exposure has supplied an expert mind to deem said art worthy of your collection or not. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Dec. 18

Opening reception tonight, 6–9 p.m., free

Southern Exposure

3030 20th St., SF

(415) 863-2141

www.soex.org

 

EVENT

“The Lusty Lady’s Kinky Kiss-Mass Party”

Ohhhhh! Uhhhhuh! Fuhkuhhhhhhh … there, no, therrrreee! Ahhhhhhh! Yesssssss! Can’t get enough? Don’t worry, babe, there’ll be plenty to get you off at the Lusty Lady’s ho-ho-holiday fundraiser. Love peppermint? Enter the Candy Cane Suck-Off Contest! Love cheeky 1960s garage rock and ’70s hard glam? See the Minks and Destroyer, covering two great bands named after two great things: the Kinks and Kiss, respectively. Love hot naked women who are unionized, lionized, organized, and revolutionized? Then raise your glass of cheap booze while you help raise funds to keep the shades raised, one hot dollar at a time. (Kat Renz)

With Trixxie Carr, Horror X, and DJ Omar

8 p.m.-3 a.m., $12–$15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

 

SATURDAY 11

MUSIC

“The I Am Donald Tour” with Donald Glover + Childish Gambino

As the man-child Troy on NBC’s Community (and a former writer for 30 Rock), 26-year-old Donald Glover currently stands on the precipice of a breakout comedic acting career. So what’s he doing releasing a non-novelty rap album (under the name Childish Gambino)? Although his current celebrity makes it initially hard to take his music seriously, once you move past the indie-kid stroking (“H.O.V.A. with glasses/Weezy but nerdy”) and TV-star titillation (“NBC is not the only thing I’m coming on tonight”), Glover’s casual willingness to be introspective and examine uncomfortable personal struggles signals that he plans on doing more than vacationing in the genre. (Peter Galvin)

9 p.m., $15

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

THEATER

Siddhartha, The Bright Path

Performed entirely by kids and young adults, Siddhartha, The Bright Path chronicles Siddhartha’s epic journey to becoming the Buddha alongside the story of modern-day Chandra from San Francisco. Chandra finds herself amid a bounty of birthday presents posing questions about the real value of material goods in the face of human suffering. The two meet on the banks of the Ganges River under a bodhi tree where the Buddha helps Chandra find enlightenment relevant to her life. Fused with Indian music, art, and kathak dance, this play combines traditional Indian culture with the warmth of the holiday season. (Wiederholt)

Through Jan. 9

Previews Sat/11–Sun/12, 3 p.m.; Dec 16, 7:30 p.m.

Opens Dec 17, 7:30 p.m. (schedule varies), $10–$50

Marsh Youth Theater

1062 Valencia, SF

www.themarsh.org

 

MUSIC

Gama Bomb

The burgeoning retro-thrash movement has become so overcrowded that it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but hold onto your gigantic white Reebok hi-tops — Gama Bomb is coming. The Dublin, Ireland, quintet is among the best of an uneven bunch, cranking out gleeful, inventive ditties full of machine-gun picking and nerdy, caterwauled vocals. Tales from the Grave in Space (2009) picked up where its previous effort left off, drawing on the band’s love of booze, bawdiness, and pulpy pop culture to weave an adrenalized tapestry shot through with divebombing solos and single-stroke rolls. Hearing the blitzkrieg live will be another matter entirely, and the Bomb is making its first visit to the U.S., so expect an all-out assault. (Richardson)

With Forbidden, Evile, Bonded by Blood, and Fog of War

2:30 p.m., $20

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-2532

www.dnalounge.com

 

SUNDAY 12

EVENT

Jeff Hoke

Alchemy, dreams, psychology, the stars — wrapped up in an enigmatic Myst-like museum and served to you in a picture book that aims to explain all four. Jeff Hoke is a unique mind. He’d have to be to hold his position as senior exhibits designer at Monterey Bay Aquarium, and we’re given an inside track to the inner workings of the man’s cerebellum with his new book, Museum of Lost Wonder (whose basic premise is explained above). On this day, he takes to the Exploratorium, where he plans to “merge the myths of science and nature,” according to the museum’s website. Screw on your thinking cap. (Donohue)

3–5 p.m., free with museum admission ($10–$15)

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

 

MONDAY 13

MUSIC

Tame Impala

Tame Impala describes itself as “the movement in Orion’s nebula and the slime from a snail journeying across a footpath.” Clearly, Tame Impala is a psychedelic rock band, complete with outrageous metaphor and hyperbole. But unlike a number of other noted bands in the resurging genre, its heavy sound derives more from a traditional hard groove than wild, in-studio manipulation. If at times the sound is evocative of the Flaming Lips, there’s good reason: Lips producer Dave Fridmann had his hand in Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker. Adding to the vibe, this bill features Stardeath and White Dwarfs, contributors to the Lips’ 2009 Dark Side of the Moon remake and musical progeny of Wayne Coyne. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Stardeath and White Dwarfs

8 p.m., $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

TUESDAY 14

FILM

The Triplets of Belleville

With luck, January 2011 will bring the release of the much-delayed animated picture The Illusionist. Originally intended for rollout in 2007, director Sylvain Chomet’s second film should be of particular interest to Francocinephiles, based on an unproduced script written by Jacques Tati. Until then, revisit The Triplets of Belleville, a showcase of Chomet’s unique gift for caricature and Tati’s influence, free of excessive dialogue. Nominated for Best Animated Film at the 2003 Academy Awards, it lost to Finding Nemo, but it should have at least won Best Animated Dog of All Time. (Prendiville)

Dec. 14–15, 7:15 and 9:15 p.m.;

Also Dec. 15, 2 p.m., $6–$9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

 

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Sound and silence

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Sound and silence

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC/FILM In the latest chapter of the San Francisco Film Society’s ongoing efforts to present silent-era films with live musical accompaniment, John Darnielle — head honcho of the Mountain Goats — will be scoring the 1919 Mauritz Stiller film, Sir Arne’s Treasure. The beauty of this particular series, which has yielded original scores from Yo La Tengo (Science is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painleve), Stephin Merritt (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and Superchunk (A Page of Madness) among others, lies not only in the conceptual simplicity of marrying music and film, but in the freedom of approach given to each film’s handpicked composer. In Darnielle’s case, scoring a film meant digging up some relics of his own past.

“I don’t generally revisit stuff of mine that’s old,” he says. “But then I realized, soundtracking a silent movie is revisiting stuff that’s old.”

Digging through old notebooks full of unused songs and lyrics, Darnielle stumbled on the blueprints for an unfinished and unreleased collection of songs he’d written in the mid-1990s. The songs were originally to be used as a sequel of sorts to the Mountain Goats’ 1995 album, Sweden. But after rediscovering them, Darnielle realized that the songs’ moods and lyrics meshed well with the themes of the film.

Set in the 16th century, Sir Arne’s Treasure‘s story begins with the murder of a clergyman at the hands of three escaped mercenaries who are after his treasure. Eventually finding themselves trapped in the town — and among its vengeful inhabitants — one of the men becomes drawn to a survivor of their own killing spree, and the lines between justice and love blur.

After a few minor adjustments to his newly unearthed songs, Darnielle knew he’d found the material that would make up the bulk of his film score.

“It’s pretty exciting to dig up these old notebooks, very much like watching an old movie and seeing people dressing and doing things in a different manner,” he says. “Digging through those things for me at this point is like combing through public records or something. I tweaked them a little because I’m a better writer now than I was then. But yeah, I’m expanding this whole album I’d made about loss and catastrophe and incorporating it into the movie which is about loss and catastrophe [laughs].”

Darnielle will be pulling some other songs from the Mountain Goats catalog to use during the film, but he hopes his fans will understand that his approach to this project is different.

“I hope people don’t come expecting a sort of huge, surging Mountain Goats show type thing,” he says. “That’s my biggest fear, because it’s much more contemplative and patient in the presentation. I’ll be singing, but I won’t be stomping around or talking between songs.”

Darnielle’s got a couple tricks up his sleeve as well, only one of which he would reveal during our conversation. He’ll start the score solo on piano, but around the halfway mark he’ll switch to guitar as John Vanderslice joins him onstage for the remainder of the film. The two have worked together in the past, and Darnielle hopes Vanderslice and the two musicians he’s bringing along with him will help amp up the intensity in the latter stages of the film and bring it all to a nice “crescendo.”

His biggest challenge has been in finding that perfect balance between when a score should directly and forcefully impact the film, and when it should take more of a quieter backseat.

“Hopefully there will be sound almost the entire time, just because it’s hard for me to imagine dropping in and out of a silent movie completely,” he says. “When a soundtrack drops out of a current film, it’s fine because there’s dialogue. If the sound drops out of a silent movie, there’s dead silence.”

Whatever the result, Darnielle says this is a one-and-done type deal and has no plans to do anything with the score after this one live performance.

“I like things that exist and then stop,” he says. “So yeah, this will be it.”

SIR ARNE’S TREASURE, WITH THE MOUNTAIN GOATS IN SOLO PERFORMANCE

Tues/14, 8 p.m.; $17–$22.50

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 561-5000

www.sffs.org

Get her if you can

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Get her if you can

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “Where’s the costumes, bitch?”

The voice behind the inimitable Carletta Sue Kay, Randy Walker, has joined me at Deco Lounge in the Tenderloin for costume karaoke. The atmosphere is conjuring memories. “I worked at a self-storage place two blocks from here called Fort Knox,” Walker says. “I worked with every fucking junkie in San Francisco — recovering, mind you.

“This lady, let’s call her Christine, was 59, with long gray lion’s-mane hair. She was very sweet. She’d come in popping Xanax like candy. One day, right before I got fired, Gonzalo who I worked with came up to me and said, ‘Lady upstairs, sleeping — money.’ We jumped on the private elevator and there was Christine, laid out in the middle of her unit, covered in $100 bills. I asked her about it the next day and she said, ‘I had a date!’.”

Though Carletta Sue Kay is familiar with the most delicate strains of Parisian heartbreak, a real-life character such as Christine would not be out of place in a Carletta song. If Antony Hegarty occupies darker rooms, and Baby Dee finds secret places of unsettling whimsy, Carletta more than matches the best of both in a very San Franciscan way, combining a formidable voice with a restless and freely honest — as rock ‘n’ roll as it is chamber-bound — approach to being a singer. One listen to “Sleeping with the TV On” is all it’ll take for her to convince you.

Tonight I’m getting convinced in-person. “Pardon my obligato,” Walker says on his way to the Deco Lounge’s stage, where he’s soon comfortably issuing commands for more reverb to KJ Paul De Jong, who it turns out has booked lucrative hooker-hotel music gigs for Carletta in Port Costa. “It’s not standup,” a boozy wise-ass yells, and then Walker proceeds to sing the hell out of the Patsy Cline classic “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray,” expertly using silence to magnify the sound of sorrow. Afterward, the wise-ass walks over to our table to praise him.

Thanks to Walker, Carletta Sue Kay is the kind of dame who knows Nashville as well as she knows Paris. “My favorite drag queen in the world is in Nashville,” Walker says, when I ask about one of country music’s homes. “Remember the figure skater Oksana Baiul? This queen’s name was Oxona Barstool. She wore this big green M&M outfit and she sounded like Tom Waits.”

Walker has also sung in Memphis’ Sun Studios: “I asked where Roy Orbison stood, and they said, ‘Honey, Roy was all over the place.'” Still, the next Carletta Sue Kay recordings are a homespun Bay Area affair, painstakingly produced by band member Doug Hilsinger. “We’re doing two collections,” Walker explains. “One is an album of ballads titled Incongruent. There’s an also an EP called Incongruous, and all of the songs on it will be up tempo. ” The wordplay in those titles comes naturally to Walker, who shares his boyfriend Lee Reymore’s deep love of literature — particularly Southern Gothic fiction — and lucrative love of book collecting.

At Reymore’s urging, Walker uses the moments before his next turn at the mic to tell the story of his encounter with the late Michael Jackson. “You know [the 1988 movie] Moonwalker? I was in that,” he says. “I come from a theater background and grew up 50 miles outside of L.A. in Fontana, hometown of Sammy Hagar.”

How was Michael? “He was a sweetheart. One day Bubbles got loose on the stage, and another day Yoko was there. I made $18,000 for a 12-day shoot, and I was only an extra.”

Carletta and the man behind her have a lot of stories to tell, whether they’re shared over a cocktail or through the stereo on songs such as the glam-anthemic “Joy Division.” Carletta can knowingly name check Beethoven, Crass, and Echo and the Bunnymen while reminiscing about a doom-laden boy with an Ian Curtis fixation. Walker has no hesitation about visiting the treasure troves of soul.

“My fangs are dripping looking at these costumes,” Walker jokes, after likening Deco’s wardrobe rack to the bars maneuvered by gymnasts. Finally, after someone sings “Killing Me Softly” and someone else sings “A Whole New World,” it’s time for his final costume-karaoke number. The song is “Get Here,” and though it was made famous by Oleta Adams, he makes a point of explaining on stage that it was written by Brenda Russell. This is in keeping with his musical , which is rooted in an appreciation of ’70s singer-songwriters like Tim Hardin, Townes Van Zandt, and Karen Dalton, as well as contemporaries like Kath Bloom.

Important names, one and all — but what did Walker’s real-life cousin Carletta Sue Kay think of her musical namesake? “She didn’t know anything about it until two years into it,” Walker says. “She found out about it through the Carletta Sue Kay MySpace, and wrote verbatim, ‘What the fuck is this!'”

What the fuck is this? Something well worth a listen, bitch.

CARLETTA SUE KAY

With M. Lamar

Sun/19, 8 p.m.; $10–$15

Community Music Center

Capp Street Concert Hall

544 Capp, SF

(415) 647-6015

www.myspace.com/carlettasuekay

Where everybody knows your name

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Where everybody knows your name

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL It can be easy to get cynical about the business side of art, so it’s always refreshing when a local labor of love such as Romer Young — the small Dogpatch gallery formerly known as Ping Pong — demonstrates that growth doesn’t necessarily entail compromising one’s vision.

That vision has always been driven by husband and wife team Vanessa Blaikie and Joey Piziali’s commitment to work that is consistently smart, challenging and often surprisingly personal: from recent Goldie winner Amanda Curreri’s conceptual prompts at forging new social connections, to, most recently, James Sterling Pitt’s table-full of sculpted art-related books and ephemera, an affectionate take on how material possessions can shape creative practice.

“We’ve had very special relationships with our artists because this has always been about putting their work first,” explains Blaikie, when I meet with her and Piziali in the gallery’s cozy back room, which adjoins Piazali’s studio. Inspired by the work of many of their classmates in San Francisco Art Institute’s MFA program, but dismayed by the lack of spaces willing to take a chance on art that was more conceptual or performance-based, Blaikie and Piziali took matters into their own hands and started putting together exhibits.

The gallery’s unusual former name came from the quarterly, ping-pong happy hours Blaikie and Piziali held, a nod to 1970s Bay Area conceptual artist Tom Marioni’s famous statement, “Drinking beer with friends is the highest form of art.”

“We were really trying to activate the space as social sculpture through a non-art event,” Piziali recalls, “but we also had our share of calls asking about equipment rentals.”

Five years later, as the partnerships Blaikie and Piziali formed early on have led to a roster of repeat-showers and a more prominent profile, they decided it was time to change names and reassess how best to shift their operation. “Once you’re not an exhibition space, you start looking at the model of ‘gallery’ and see what that means, “explains Piziali. “But you don’t start a space like this with blood, sweat, and tears only to ask every time, ‘Did we make the bottom line?'”

Though the paddles have been hung up in favor of the, let’s face it, more professional-sounding Romer Young — a combination of Blaikie and Piziali’s mothers’ maiden names — Blaikie’s and Piziali’s core commitment hasn’t changed. Fittingly, they have decided to inaugurate the newly christened space with a solo exhibit by the now New York City-based conceptual artist Chad Stayrook, who contributed one of Ping Pong’s earliest shows.

“It felt only right to honor the growth we’ve undergone,” reflects Blaikie. “When we started, we were doing it because we loved it, and now we’re doing it because we love it and we want it to make sure it can keep growing.”

 

DOWN MEXICO WAY

Upon entering “Disponible — a kind of Mexican show” at SFAI’s Walter and McBean Galleries, you hear Manuel Rocha Iturbide’s sound installation I play the drum with frequency before you see it — what you see is Hector Zamora’s massive arrangement of hanging metal drying racks. Suspended with fishing line in tiered formations, the drying racks play off of the Brutalist, concrete interior of the Walter gallery while imbuing the space with an ethereal density. The ricocheting clinks, low-end buzzes, and sonorous clangs emitted by Iturbide’s piece — installed in a lofted area above the main gallery — bring Zamora’s installation to life as a fog bank-turned-carousel organ.

Both pieces are less impressive, however, when you attempt to view them individually. Without the extra visual accompaniment, Iturbide’s deconstructed drum kit — played via algorithmically-controlled speaker cones whose vibrations sound the cymbals and drum heads they’re attached to — loses its initial impact. Likewise, separated from Iturbide’s soundtrack, Zamora’s piece resembles the forgotten remains of a half-finished install job.

This creeping feeling of “is that all there is?” that both Zamora’s and Iturbide’s pieces evokes seems, at least partially, by design. The exhibit takes its name from the text on empty advertising billboards throughout Mexico, in which disponible is followed by a phone number. Playing off the double meaning of disponible as “available” and also “potentially changeable” or “disposable,” the curatorial team of Hou Hanru, SFAI’s director of exhibitions and public programs, and Guillermo Santamarina, an independent curator based in Mexico City, aren’t so much devaluing the pieces they’ve selected as they are loosening the conceptual strictures implicit in putting on a show of contemporary Mexican art. I can’t wait to see what Hanru and Santamarina have in store for phase two of the exhibit, which opens in February.

CHAD STAYROOK: UNATTAINABLE BEAST

Fri/10 through Jan. 15, 2011

Romer Young Gallery

1240 22nd St., SF

(415) 550-7483

www.romeryounggallery.com

DISPONIBLE — A KIND OF MEXICAN SHOW (PHASE ONE)

Through Jan. 22

Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco Art Institute

800 Chestnut, SF

(415) 749-4563

www.waltermcbean.com

Highbrow-beaten

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Highbrow-beaten

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It has been such a feeble year for movies overall that it’s easy to understand why The King’s Speech would incite near-rapture on the festival and Oscar-countdown beats. Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. Whether derived from literary classics or the historical record, they usually involve aristocracy and British accents, reflecting our perennial escapist jones for Old World gentility.

At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — it would be stupid to lowball the merits of Merchant-Ivory’s Howards End (1992), Terence Davies’ House of Mirth (2000), or Stephen Frears’ The Queen (2006) simply because they’re exquisitely appointed, polite entertainments. At their less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content.

The King’s Speech purveys a particular fantasy not unlike Cinderella‘s (or Twilight‘s): that of the unappreciated “commoner” whose very special qualities prove exactly what is needed by the remote, glamorous, extraordinary — but lonely and misunderstood! — prince or vampire or whatnot who plucks them from the madding crowd. Here, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous.

The special friend he acquires is matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww.

David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow.

The stuffiness lifts when George, exasperated and egged on, lets loose a string of childish profanity, his priggish reserve dissolving at last. Absurdly, this sole moment of naughty-boy silliness earned The King’s Speech — a PG prestige picture if ever there was one — its R rating from our wise protector, the MPAA.

THE KING’S SPEECH opens Fri/10 in San Francisco.

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

In the grand scheme of things — the $400 million budget deficit, the pending selection of a new mayor, that sort of thing — the eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center doesn’t sound like an earthshaking issue. The San Francisco Chronicle’s C.W. Nevius (who is pretty much on the wrong side of everything these days) proclaimed last week that it was just a little neighborhood tiff, nothing to do with the soul of the city.

But it annoys me as much as anything that’s happened this fall — and it says a lot about the way Gavin Newsom governs San Francisco and explains why so many of us will be so happy when he leaves town.

Let me come right out and say it: the HANC eviction is class warfare. It’s not about the appropriate use of park land or the need for a community garden. It’s about the fact that the mayor doesn’t like poor people trundling through an upscale part of town with shopping carts full of recycling.

Let me quote what Rebecca Bowe wrote in a blog post at sfbg.com:

“In its current function, the HANC Recycling Center is empowering to many different kinds of people. Most aren’t homeless. Tough-as-nails Asian grandmas show up with bags full of cans that they can exchange for some extra spending money. Urban gardeners purchase native plants in hopes of pleasing native insects and birds. People on fixed incomes get a small financial boost by turning in recyclables.

“A small number of HANC Recycling Center patrons do sleep outside. In order to earn small amounts of cash for things like food, many of them have to go digging around in garbage cans, which is gross and humiliating. Why would someone paw through the garbage for hours, battling bees and germs, and then haul smelly bottles uphill in a shopping cart just to make a few bucks? My guess is that it’s to ward off desperation. They make their own work and they get to eat.”

Let me focus on that last sentence for a second. As my friend Tiny at Poor Magazine likes to point out, being poor or homeless is a lot of work. Collecting cans, cashing them in, finding a way to survive on that minuscule income … it’s not easy. It takes as much effort and as many hours as most traditional full-time occupations.

But Newsom doesn’t want poor people in his city. He doesn’t want anyone bothering the wealthy. And he doesn’t care about facts or the public sentiment.

City residents — those folks Nevius and Newsom love to celebrate — showed up in large numbers at the Recreation and Park Commission to oppose the closure. There’s no logic to it at all; the center pays rent and creates jobs. The community gardens will cost money — and in the shade (where the center is located), it will be hard to grow much produce.

But never mind: Newsom got what he wanted. A city that will spend millions in public money on yacht races while making life on the streets that much meaner. Good riddance, Gav.

Is your food fair?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Is your food fair?

caitlin@sfbg.com

FAIR FOOD We’ve all worked in a restaurant, haven’t we? I know I have — many — and gosh if they aren’t tricky little employment situations. Overtime, what? Breaks, really? And health care — well who the hell gets health care at a restaurant?

But this being San Francisco, restaurant workers are entitled to all these things courtesy of our hard-won labor laws. Which of course doesn’t mean that workers get them all the time, but that they should. And the bars and eateries that provide these benies — along with job safety, respect, and other luxuries — should be the ones that get the business of the conscientious diner.

Until recently the identity of these decent restaurants was only obtainable by sneaking back into the kitchen to chat. But the advocacy group Young Workers United (www.youngworkersunited.org) is changing that. Its guide to SF restaurants, Dining With Justice, is now in its second year of publication, teaching those who want to know where they can get a nice meal served by someone who is happy and secure in their job.

“It’s kind of a counter to Zagat and Yelp,” YWU organizer Edwin Escobar tells me. Escobar just got done talking about his group’s campaign to a room full of City College of San Francisco students at the school’s “Turn the Tables” teach-in last week. The event was sponsored by CCSF’s labor and community studies program and featured presentations from community groups and SF’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.

To research the guide, YWU members interviewed 250 employees at 32 restaurants. The 58-question survey ranked businesses in five fields: compliance with wage and working hours laws, job mobility, job satisfaction, health and safety, and job security. Only nine businesses received stars in three or more the categories; none received five out of five.

“People think, oh, it’s San Francisco, all the workers get treated well. But that’s not the case. Restaurants and retail businesses get away with murder,” Escobar says. His organization provides labor law education and advocacy for low-wage workers around the city in an attempt to stem workplace violations.

Recently, YWU shed some light on some of the troubles faced by workers in a struggle with one of the city’s most beloved type of snack stop: the taqueria. The group helped the Latino staff of the Taqueria Azteca chain (which has locations in the Castro and Noe Valley) recoup more than $2 million in back pay from owners who had cheated them of overtime compensation and even minimal control over their schedules. Escobar says one mother involved in the legal proceedings had been given a choice by management: return to work one week after giving birth or lose her job.

“The workers who get cheated the most in San Francisco are Asian immigrants,” says Shaw San Liu, another speaker at “Turn the Tables.” Liu is a lead organizer with the Chinese Progressive Association (www.cpasf.org), which since 1970 has worked to empower the Chinatown community to deal head on with social inequities. Earlier this year, the association released a report on the state of employment in Chinatown restaurants based on one-on-one interviews with 435 workers. The results were disheartening: 50 percent had worked under-minimum wage jobs; 80 percent had been cheated out of overtime; 64 percent had received no on-the-job training; a majority had been injured on the job; and more than half were paying all medical costs out of pocket.

That’s just not cool in a town that nominally protects workers against all these things by law. Liu says CPA would like to publish a guide similar to Dining With Justice to reward responsible restaurants but has run into cultural stumbling blocks. Law-abiding businesses didn’t want to be singled out as such because, owners said, it would make their neighbors look bad. “Everyone knows minimum wage in Chinatown is $1,000 a month,” says Liu. “They didn’t want to be known as the goody two-shoes.”

There are clear challenges to improving the lot of the person serving you your brunch, burritos, and dim sum. But everyone has a part to play in making it happen. “At this point, we’re just asking consumers to be aware,” Liu says.

Efforts like Dining With Justice are a real step in the right direction. YWU plans to expand its scope next year into other city neighborhoods. “Surely there are more than just nine restaurants treating their workers right in this city. We want to know about them,” YWU organizer Tiffany Crain tells the room of students assembled before her. Crain added that if anyone in attendance works for a good employer, they should call her — just as they should call her if they are getting cheated out of wages or a healthy working environment.

“You want to make money?” Liu asked SF restaurant owners. “You’re going to make money if people think you’re a good employer.” In San Francisco, diners like to think they’re eating sustainably: organic, local, and fair to workers. Also, a chef who is happy in his or her job makes for a better dining experience.

Here are restaurants that scored four stars in Dining With Justice.

Arizmendi Bakery

1331 Ninth Ave.; (415) 566-3117, www.arizmendibakery.com

Arlequin

384 Hayes; (415) 626-1211

The Corner

2199 Mission; (415) 875-9258, www.thecornersf.com

Frjtz

590 Valencia; (415) 863-8272 and 581 Hayes; (415) 864-7654, www.frjtzfries.com

Mission Pie

2901 Mission; (415) 282-1500, www.missionpie.com

Poesia

4072 18th St.; (415) 252-9325, www.poesiasf.com

Zazie

941 Cole; (415) 564-5332, www.zaziesf.com

Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?

news@sfbg.com

The War on Fun — a term coined by the Guardian in 2006 to describe the crackdowns on nightclubs, special events, and urban culture by police, NIMBY neighbors, and moderate politicians — continues to grind on in San Francisco.

The latest attack was launched by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Police Department, which has proposed a series of measures to monitor and regulate individuals who visit bars or entertainment venues, proposals that the embattled Entertainment Commission will consider at its Dec. 14 meeting.

Perhaps most controversial among the dozens of new conditions that the SFPD would require of nightclubs is an Orwellian proposal to require all clubs with an occupancy of 100 persons or more to electronically scan every patron’s identification card and retain that information for 15 days. Civil libertarians and many club owners call this a blatantly unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

Driving the latest calls for a crackdown is a stated concern over isolated incidents of violence outside a few nightclubs in recent years, something Newsom and police blame on the clubs and that they say warrants greater scrutiny by police and city regulators.

But the proposals also come in the wake of overzealous policing of nightclubs and parties — including improper personal property destruction and seizures, wrongful arrests and violence by police, harassment of disfavored club operators, and even dumping booze down the drain — mostly led by SFPD Officer Larry Bertrand and his former partner, Michelle Ott, an agent with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Those actions were documented in back-to-back cover stories by the Guardian (“The New War on Fun,” March 24) and SF Weekly (“Turning the Tables,” March 17), and they are the subject of multiple ongoing lawsuits by nightclub owners, patrons, and employees, including a racketeering lawsuit alleging that officials are criminally conspiring against lawful activities.

Yet rather than atoning for that enforcement overreach, Newsom and SFPD officials seem to be doubling down on their bets that San Franciscans will tolerate a more heavily policed nightlife scene in the hopes of eliminating the possibility of random violence.

A series of nighttime shootings this year has grabbed headlines and prompted calls to action by the Mayor’s Office and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, whose District 3 includes North Beach. In February, there were shootings at Blue Macaw in the Mission and Club Suede at Fisherman’s Wharf, followed by a shooting at the Pink Saturday fair in June, one outside Jelly’s in SoMa in July, and the high-profile murder of a German tourist near Union Square in August.

Chiu responded with legislation to give the Entertainment Commission greater authority to close down problem nightclubs and, more recently, with legislation to require party promoters to register with the city so that officials can take actions against those who act irresponsibly.

In September, Newsom asked the SFPD for its recommendations and he received a laundry list of proposals now before the Entertainment Commission. That body held a closed session hearing Nov. 30 to discuss a confidential legal opinion by the City Attorney’s Office on whether the identification scan would pass constitutional muster, an opinion that has so far been denied to the Guardian and the public, although officials say it may be discussed in open session during the Dec. 14 hearing.

“Everything is being considered,” Jocelyn Kane, acting executive director of the Entertainment Commission, told the Guardian. Her office already has looked at the different types of scanners that clubs could use and has discussed the idea with several technology companies.

SFPD Inspector Dave Falzon, the department’s liaison to the nightclubs and ABC, told the Guardian that he believes the data gathered from nightclub patrons would allow police to more easily find witnesses and suspects to solve any crimes committed at or near the nightclubs.

“It’s not intended to be exploited,” Falzon said, stressing that the recommendations are a work in progress and part of an ongoing dialogue with the Entertainment Commission — an agency Newsom, SFPD officials, and some media voices have been highly critical of over the last two years.

Along with the proposal for the ID scanners, SFPD proposed many other measures such as increased security personnel (including requiring clubs to hire more so-called 10-B officers, or SFPD officials on overtime wages), metal detectors at club entrances, surveillance cameras at the entrances and exits, and extra lighting on the exterior of the night clubs.

Though this may sound to many like heading down the dystopian rabbit hole with Big Brother potentially watching your every move, Falzon thinks it’s the opposite. “It isn’t that police department is acting as a militant state,” Falzon said. “All we’re trying to do is to make these clubs safer so they can be more fun.”

Yet critics of the proposals don’t think they sound like much fun at all, and fear that employing such overzealous policing tools will hurt one of San Francisco’s most vital economic sectors while doing little to make anyone safer.

Jamie Zawinski is the owner of the DNA Lounge, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. He has been a leading voice in pushing back against the War of Fun, including running a blog that chronicles SFPD excesses. He said the proposed regulations go way too far.

“It’s gang violence happening on the street. The nightclubs are being scapegoated. You don’t solve the problem by increased security in the clubs,” Zawinski told us, adding that the lack of proper policing on the streets should be addressed before putting the financial strain on the entertainment industry.

“It’s ridiculously insulting. I will not do that to my customers. It’s not a way to solve any problems,” Zawinski said. “It sets the tone for the evening when you start demanding papers.”

It’s also a gross violation of people’s rights, says Nicole Ozer, the director of Technology and Civil Liberties Policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. She said that recording people’s personal information when they enter a public venue raises troubling legal issues.

“There are some real implications of tracking and monitoring personal data. The details of what you visit reveal things about your sexuality and political views,” Ozer said, adding that the ACLU would also have issues with how that information is used and safeguarded.

In response to police crackdowns on nightlife, club owners and advocates earlier this year formed the California Music and Culture Association (CMAC) to advocate for nightlife and offer advice and legal assistance to members. CMAC officials say they are concerned about the latest proposals.

“The rise in violence has to be looked at from a societal point of view,” said Sean Manchester, president of CMAC and owner of the nightclub Mighty. He noted that most of the violence that has been associated with nightclubs took place in alleys and parking lots away from the bars and involved underage perpetrators. “In many instances [the increased security measures] wouldn’t have done anything to stop it,” he said.

While there are plenty of ideas to combat crime at nightclubs, nightlife advocates say the city is going to have to look beyond club venues to address what can be done to combat crime without infringing on any civil liberties or damaging the vibrant nightlife. Or officials can just listens to the cops, act on their fears, and make the experience of seeing live music in San Francisco more like boarding an airplane.

The Entertainment Commission meets Dec. 14 at 6:30 p.m., Room 400, City Hall.

The class of 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
The class of 2010

In about a month, the first class of district-elected supervisors since the 1970s will be gone, termed out, done with the transformative politics they brought to San Francisco. It’s a milestone worth marking: in 2000, when the city returned to district elections, everything changed. Machine-driven politics, controlled by money and mayoral power, vanished almost overnight. Constituencies that were virtually shut out of the corridors of power — tenants, labor, environmentalists, economic progressives, public power activists, the list goes on — suddenly had a seat at the table. Neighborhood issues started to matter. And downtown power brokers were no longer the only game in town.

But term limits mean that none of the members of the class of 2000 can remain in office beyond Jan. 8, 2011; and along with the new members elected two years ago, the class of 2010 will feature four new faces. It’s a diverse group. Two (Malia Cohen and Mark Farrell) have never before run for, much less held, elective office. One (Jane Kim) is Asian, one (Cohen) is African American, one (Scott Wiener) is gay. Farrell, who will replace Michela Alioto-Pier in District 2, is the only straight white guy. (Carmen Chu was reelected from District 4).

Overall, it’s safe to say, the ideological balance of the board hasn’t changed much — but the political approaches will be very different. In 2000, the election was all about then-Mayor Willie Brown, about fighting (or appeasing) the Brown Machine. This group of candidates didn’t run against anything in particular — and with the balkanized nature of local politics, they all have divergent bases of support.

So we sat down with the Class of 2010 and asked them to tell us what they plan to do with the next four years. Two trends emerged: all of the new supervisors want to be seen as independent of any political operation. And most have no clear agenda whatsoever for addressing the biggest problem facing the city — a looming budget deficit that will define almost everything they do in their first year.

At a moment of major fiscal crisis and political change, these four people will on center stage — and what they do could determine both the direction of the city and the hopes of the progressive movement. Click below for our exclusive interviews and profiles:

>>CLASS OF 2010: MARK FARRELL

>>CLASS OF 2010: MALIA COHEN

>>CLASS OF 2010: SCOTT WIENER

>>CLASS OF 2010: JANE KIM

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Supervisors punt mayoral decision back a week

Sasha Cuttler
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11
Supervisors punt mayoral decision back a week

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted to delay until Dec. 14 the process of choosing a mayor to succeed departing Mayor Gavin Newsom after taking about 40 minutes worth of public testimony, most of it calling on supervisors to act quickly to choose a public-spirited mayor to deal with a variety of neglected issues.
After Assembly member Tom Ammiano announced earlier today that he would not accept the board’s nomination to become mayor, it seemed unlikely that anyone could get the required six votes. But Sup. Chris Daly, who led the campaign to recruite Ammiano, argued for beginning the process today as agendized.
“While the Board of Supervisors is not prepared today to appoint someone as successor mayor of San Francisco, we shouldn’t truncate the conversation,” Daly argued, reiterating his call last week for a mayor who is experienced, compassionate, and willing to work cooperatively with the board.
But Sup. Sophie Maxwell didn’t want to have that conversation, making the motion to continue the item for one week, a motion seconded by Sup. Bevan Dufty. Neither offered reasons or arguments for the action.
Yet Daly noted that the board has an approved process for selecting a new mayor and “it might be a good idea to try it out and see how it works,” even if six votes aren’t there yet to approve a nominee. “I’m prepared to make a nomination.”
He addressed calls for delaying the mayoral succession decision by noting that Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan and Governor-elect Jerry Brown have both put together transition teams to prepare for taking power at the same time that Newsom will resign as mayor to become lieutenant governor.
“Typically, a mayor would have had about a month to put together a transition team,” Daly said, also noting, “We are now borrowing time against the next administration of San Francisco.”
Sups. David Campos and Eric Mar also spoke in support of this board making the mayoral succession decision “sooner rather than later,” as Campos put it. “We do have a very tough budget year we will be facing and many challenges in front of us,” he said. Campos said he was open to the delay, but he said “it would be a mistake” not to begin dealing with the decision in earnest next week.
Mar said he was open to the delay because he was interested to read the “Values-based Platform for the next Mayor” that a coalition of labor and progressive groups called San Francisco for All distributed at the meeting. The four-page document called for a mayor to value accessibility, consensus-building, making appointments who are accountable to the community, more equitable budget priorities, and transparency.
The motion to delay was approved on a 9-2 vote, with Daly in Sup. John Avalos in dissent.

Mayor? Ammiano says no thanks

Zelda Bronstein
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4
Mayor? Ammiano says no thanks

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano made it official today, Dec. 7th — despite the efforts of Sup. Chris Daly and others to get him to serve as the city’s interim mayor, he’s declining. I just got the official statement:


I sincerely appreciate and understand the recent public efforts asking that I seek the nomination for interim mayor when Mayor Newsom steps down in January to become Lt. Governor but I must respectfully decline any nomination from the Board of Supervisors.


I was sworn in yesterday for my second term in the California State Assembly and I believe that the same strong progressive values that have inspired my twenty years as an elected official are needed now more than ever in the State Capitol.  One of the weaknesses of our current state government is a lack of true investment in the various elected offices due to the revolving door syndrome caused by term limits but I am committed to finishing the work that I have begun in Sacramento, including reforming our antiquated marijuana laws, closing the corporate loopholes in Proposition 13, ensuring adequate funding for the on-going battle against AIDS and continuing the struggle for equal rights for our LGBT community.


Since the board meets this afternoon to start the process of choosing a new mayor, Ammiano clearly wants to be sure that his name isn’t placed into nomination — a move that would force his many allies and supporters on the board either to vote against him (a potential show of disrespect for a man who many see as the father of the modern progressive movement in San Francisco) for vote for him (and push him toward a job he doesn’t want).


I don’t know if Daly will still nominate Ammiano; he was quoted today in the Bay Citizen saying that Ammiano “knows the gravity of the situation … I think if he has to opportunity to let that sink in a bit he might change his mind.” But I do know that Ammiano isn’t happy about being pushed by Daly, and would like to get his name out of the mix and move on.


So with all due respect to the many folks I know who want to encourage Tom (and I personally think he’d be a great mayor), he’s made his decision, and we have to respect that.

Chronicle employees told to accept “substandard” contract

Sasha Cuttler
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1
Chronicle employees told to accept “substandard” contract

After some tough talk about resisting a “substandard offer” from San Francisco Chronicle management, the California Media Workers Guild has decided to urge Chronicle workers to approve a new contract offer that is “essentially the same company proposal” that workers resoundingly rejected just last month. The vote is set for Dec. 13.

Guild representative and longtime Chronicle writer Carl Hall told the Guardian last week that “they basically stiff-armed us” and “refused to negotiate any compromise since October” in contract talks. “We see it as insulting, irresponsible corporate behavior given everything staff has done,” Hall told the Guardian last week.

He told us workers planned to rally against the Chronicle and enlist the help of the community, readers, and local labor leaders. “The company is just not listening, so we’re going to have to get a louder voice to achieve that.” The Guild’s campaign included online testimonials from various Chronicle employees, including conservative columnist Debra Saunders, who began her missive by writing, “I am probably the last person Chronicle readers would expect to see standing up for a union.”

But since then, the Guild has essentially capitulated to management’s demand for a status quo contract, arguing that it’s the best they can get for now despite the 106-29 vote against that contract. “Since then, however, the economy has deteriorated even further, and other media companies in the Bay Area have announced fresh concession demands. At the Chronicle, many Guild members said they were ready to fight, but most recognized it would take some months to build up a potent campaign and public support,” the Guild wrote in a statement on its website. “Given those circumstances, the commitee decided it would be better to accept the current proposed changes — and continue mobilizing in advance of the next round of talks.”

Guardian calls to the Chronicle’s Publisher’s Office were not returned.

Legal fight brewing over HANC Recycling Center eviction

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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4

The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center, located at the Kezar Triangle in Golden Gate Park, received a 90-day eviction notice following a Dec. 2 Recreation and Park Commission meeting approving plans for a community garden in its current location. However, tenant lawyer Robert De Vries, who is representing HANC, submitted in a Dec. 2 letter to Rec & Park Commissioners that HANC could not legally be made to vacate until the end of June.

The eviction has prompted an outcry from progressive groups, environmental organizations, and other HANC supporters, who turned out en masse at the Dec. 2 meeting and voiced strong disapproval over the proposal. It now appears that the issue may wind up in court.

“HANC has no intention of vacating the premises any earlier than legally required,” De Vries wrote to Rec & Park Commissioners. “HANC is also not willing to allow disruptive construction work or other activities to go forward on the leased property while it is in possession.”

In an earlier memo to Rec & Park Commissioners, city staff proposed issuing HANC a 30-day eviction notice, which would have ousted the recycling center by the end of December. That timing was significant, because it would have occurred under the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom, a proponent of the eviction, who will vacate office Jan. 8 to be sworn in as Lieutenant Governor. Citing advice from the San Francisco City Attorney, the memo noted that Rec & Park could proceed with a 30-day eviction without commission approval.

But that initial advice was erroneous, City Attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey told the Guardian, because it did not take into account HANC’s quarterly rental payments. Since the organization pays rent once every 90 days, instead of once a month, it cannot be evicted with just 30 days notice, according to state law. Once it was informed of HANC’s quarterly payments (by city staff, not De Vries’ letter, Dorsey said), the City Attorney advised Rec & Park that it should extend the eviction notice to 90 days.

The extra 60 days doesn’t just buy HANC time, it gives them hope. Newsom will be in Sacramento by then, and it’s possible that he could be replaced with an interim mayor who’s sympathetic to their cause.

De Vries, however, contends that 90 days is still too soon, and that HANC can’t legally be evicted until June 30, 2011. HANC’s original five-year, fixed-term lease ended on June 30, 2001. Since then, it’s been paying rent to the city every 90 days. De Vries wrote that under state law, this arrangement means that “the lease is automatically renewed” for one year, and that it’s renewed annually since 2001. California courts have found that “a tenancy from year to year is created where a tenant holds over after the expiration of a former lease for one or more years and pays rent,” De Vries wrote in his letter. His analysis is based on his reading of California Civil Code Section 1945.

“I don’t really see any other interpretation, frankly,” De Vries told the Guardian. In his view, by issuing a 90-day notice, “they’re putting something into the statute that isn’t there.”

The City Attorney’s office rejects De Vries’ analysis, and insists that the eviction notice is legal. “The lease does not expire on June 30,” Dorsey said, “and Rec & Park delivered a proper notice of termination.”

If this dispute winds up in court, it’s possible that the question won’t be settled until June of 2011 anyhow.

Shroomin’ at the Fungus Fair

Andrew Lam
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2

All photos by Erik Anderson

“See, it’s starting to smell.” It’s day two of the Mycological Society of San Francisco‘s winter Fungus Fair at Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science this weekend and the ‘shrooms are getting a little funky. MSSF member Peter Wegner is showing us around the caps and stems and he sounds a little apologetic for the earthy musk that has descended on us as we enter the fair’s specimen room. 

But he needn’t be – the sight of the room’s fungi, collected by society volunteers in the Bay Area over the past few days from 25 forage sites, more than makes up for any scent it emits. Not to mention the fair’s culinary offerings, educational bonanza, and the ‘shroom gnome hats so delicately worn by gung-ho clan members – this is the cardinal event of the country’s largest amateur mushroom society. 

Fungus Fair, I think I love you.

Wegner himself has been a MSSF member for eight years. His mushroom mania began on a trip to Italy, incensed by the delectable array of edible fungi that lined dinner tables in the area. He is now  happy to tell Fungus Fair newbies that his favorite mushroom is the black chanterelle (“they’re mysterious,” he says). 

Delicious meals are but one type of draw to the study of mycology – other members we spoke with yesterday expressed interest in the taxonomy of the fungi kingdom, in dyeing clothes from the mushroom’s natural pigment, and in the sheer camaraderie that’s inherent in finding roughly 800 others with an atypical attraction to fine fungal growth. 

“There’s a lot of mentoring that goes on,” says Norm Andresen, MSSF member and conductor of the society’s beginner’s forays into the wilds of McLaren Park and other damp corners of the Bay. A Brobdingnagian, white-haired man, Andresen towers above the tables of the specimen room, keeping his distance from a particularly pungent stand of growths as he answers questions on their providence, properties, and shelf life (“you probably wouldn’t want to eat any of these display ones, they’ve been getting touched by little kids all weekend.”)

In a lecture room a few halls down from Andresen’s post, a man introduced as “the best mushroom photographer in the world” by fair chair person J.R. Blair is playing the music video to his self-penned ode to the fungus among us, “Mushroom Fever.” On repeat. “Hopefully we don’t scare anybody away!” he announces blithely into his microphone as he readies his presentation on his recent mushroom-finding jaunt around the Americas.

Such is the intro to the glory that is Taylor Lockwood, who has achieved a near-godlike status in my eyes by having cobbled together a living off of traveling, digging around in the dirt, and hoisting himself up tree-supported ladders to get the best shot of aerially-inclined mysterious mushrooms. The man flips through a Power Point presentation of some of his best clips, which include squishy mushrooms (“good for the kids!”), fungi resembling tropical purple coral (“probably just convergent evolution”), and Brazilian ‘shrooms he captured on illicit night-time jaunts through a nature preserve.

Lockwood’s pitch for his calendars and assorted publications concluded, we wander past the sold-out mushroom soup kitchen and into the realm of Pat George, the society’s culinary chair. George, set up at at a table kitty-corner from an impressive display of psilocybin, is distributing recipes and information on the group’s regular potluck dinners. She explains that the events feature a carefully planned barrage of  the mushroom’s power to sate — mushroom ragus, mushroom desserts flavored by candy cap mushrooms (“cheesecake, biscotti, there’s all kinds of stuff you can make with a candy cap,” she ventures), even the rare bottle of mushroom beer. 

It’s all very tasty, as is the prospect of the MSSF’s other fare for the nascent mycological enthusiast. Beginners are welcome also to the group’s regular forays into the not-quite-wild for ‘shrooms, many of which are located here in the city for extreme accessibility. For the lazy, Far West Fungi has set up a stand in the vendor hall that stocks the farm’s “mini-farms” in oyster and shiitake — simply uncover the germinated logs and let the fungal growth loose in a shady corner of your bedroom. 

Why so much mushroom mania here in the Bay? The answer, says SF State mycology lecturer Thomas Jenkinson, who is stationed at the fair’s “Introduction to Mushrooms” booth, lies in the ubiquity of fungi throughout the year in our fair glens and dales. “The Bay Area’s a real center of mycology,” he tells me. San Francisco State is the site of the West Coast’s longest study of mycology, as well as what he calls “the most prolific mycology professors.”

And mushrooms lend themselves to a real community notion of life in our natural world. “Fungus is a whole other kingdom – we don’t think about it that much because it’s underground, but microscopic threads of it are just everywhere,” says Jenkinson. The ‘shrooms are getting real neighborly down there, due to these interconnected systems. “The concept of individuality that we have – they just don’t have that underground.” Lack of individuality: a trait hardly shared by the mycological aficionados of Fungus Fair.

 

The prop. 8 hearing

Zelda Bronstein
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2
The prop. 8 hearing

Watching the hearing was a couple of hours well spent; it’s not often that you get to see an actual live oral argument before a federal appeals court. And it’s not often that you get to see three judges, not all of them liberals by any stretch, take apart the fundamental claims of the anti-gay-marriage folks.


There’s a nice live-blog and analysis here.


One of the most interesting elements in this case is the possibility that the legality of same-sex marriage in California may hinge on whether a deputy clerk in Imperial County has the right to represent the people of California in a legal appeal. See, the governor and the attorney general usually defend state laws when they’re challenged in court, but in this case, both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown declined. In essence, they both said they thought Judge Vaugh Walker’s decision overturning Prop. 8 was just fine.


So the supporters of Prop. 8 have to make the case they have legal “standing” to appeal — and the judges seemed more than a little dubious about that. The political group that backed Prop. 8 was in trouble from the start, and couldn’t really demonstrate what legal authority it had to handle the appeal. The deputy clerk from Imperial County, which has a population of 166,000, argued through her lawyer that she would have to sign marriage certificates, and that Prop. 8 directly affects her job. That didn’t get very far, either. And if the appeals court tosses the case on the standing issue, nothing else matters. Walker’s ruling is affirmed and same-sex marriage is legal in California.


Then to the meat of the case. Judge Hawkins instantly asked Charles Cooper, attorney for the Prop. 8 proponents, if the voters of the state of California could legally amend the state Constitution to re-segregate the public schools. Cooper: No. The point was pretty clear: The voters have the right to amend the Constitution, but not in a way that violates fundamental rights.


Cooper went on with what rapidly devolved into lunacy, eg: “When a relationship between a man and a woman becomes sexual, society has a profound interest.” In other words, a man and a woman have sex; they might conceive a child, who might be born “out of wedlock” and raised by a single parent, which would be a bad thing. Judge Reinhardt: That’s a good argument for prohibiting divorce — but isn’t really on point here.


Theodore Olson, representing the plaintiffs, pretty much knocked it out of the park in his first few minutes, noting that California has effectively engineered discrimination into the Constitution by eliminating a right that the U.S. Supreme Court has said repeatedly (14 times, according to Olson) is fundamental. He pointed out that in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws, the U.S. Supremes determined that sexual conduct between consenting adults of any gender is protected. So how, he asked, can you take away marriage rights because of a Constitutionally protected activity?


Since the Prop. 8-ers have argued that same-sex marriage would force children to have “a premature interest in sexual activity,” Olson suggested that the court would have to “ban comic books, video games and conversations with other children.”


The judges, as is typical, interrupted all the lawyers to ask questions — until Theresa Stewart stood up, representing the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. She was sharp, quick on her feet, perfectly prepared — and for most of her short presentation, the judges simply listened. Her point: When it comes to children, family law in California treats same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples precisely and exactly the same; why should marriage be any different?


In the end, what I saw was three judges struggling not with the outcome of the case — Walker’s decision seems likely to be upheld — but with how broad they want the final decision to be. Based on the questioning at the end, it seemed as if they’d rather uphold Walker’s ruling without making a sweeping statement that gay marriage is Constitutionally protected and must be the law of the land everywhere in the United States.


But unless they try to duck the real issues and rule only on standing, that’s going to be a stretch. Any honest, logical ruling can only come to one conclusion — that treating lesbians and gay men differently than straight people violates the Equal Protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. And if the Supreme Court agrees, it will be the end of gay marriage bans, the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the beginning of a new era in America.


UPDATE (thanks to Nichole Dial for research);


Lots of news media coverage on the some good, some lame. The Prop. 8 Trial Tracker website had some of the best breaking stuff. The Mercury News did a live blog by Howard Mintz that was full of details. SF Weekly covered the more amusing accounts such as the crowd outside the court room.  The Bay Citizen also had a live blog and analysis.


Brian at Calitics had one of the best quick analyses and the Chron’s Bob Egelko came out with a really fast story that touches on the major themes of the case.



The AP postings on the Huffington Post covered the highlights as well as an overview of the background of prop 8. The New York Times used the same article, then later added a short, fairly superficial piece by Jesse McKinley  (what, the Times had no live blogger on this?)


 


 

Thrown under the bus, Arc sues Redevelopment

Mary Magee
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5
Thrown under the bus, Arc sues Redevelopment

Arc Ecology filed suit today in federal court against the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, citing First Amendment issues and the Commission’s alleged retaliation for Arc’s criticism of the Agency’s Candlestick Point/ Hunters Point Shipyard project

Represented by attorneys from the First Amendment Project, Arc said the purpose of the suit is to hold the Redevelopment Commission accountable on two counts. First, for attaching an unconstitutional condition to the contract that requires silence from its contractors on matters of public concern outside the scope of the contract and second, for taking reprisal actions against Arc Ecology for its award-winning critique of the Candlestick Point Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Plan.

 Redevelopment commissioners threw Arc under the bus this September, when they rejected the recommendation of Agency staff, an independent interagency selection panel, the Hunters Point Citizens Advisory Committee and dozens of Bayview Hunters Point and San Francisco residents to rehire Arc to provide environmental technical and educational services for the cleanup of the shipyard.

At that same meeting, the Commissioners voted to award the contract to Circle Point, a San Francisco-based consulting company that Commissioner Francee Covington worked for, in support of a bridge project near Sacramento, several years earlier.

During the Commission’s Sept. 21 meeting, Commissioners Leroy King, Francee Covington and Darshan Singh joined Commission President Rick Swig in calling for Arc’s ouster, variously accusing Arc’s executive director Saul Bloom of disloyalty and dishonesty, but failing to support their claims with evidence related to the contract in question.

“I’m opposed to giving the contract to Arc,” Commissioner King said, accusing Bloom of talking, “against Lennar.” But Lennar is the developer for the city’s massive Candlestick Point/Shipyard project, and as such it is not in charge of the Navy’s clean-up of the shipyard.

Commissioner Covington pulled out the city’s response to comments on its EIR (environmental impact report) for Lennar’s redevelopment plans, as alleged evidence of Arc’s malfaisance, even though the non-profit’s  Redevelopment contract involved assessing environmental issues related to the Navy’s shipyard clean-up, and not assessing rLennar’s redevelopment proposal.Covington then pointed to, but did not identify, letters she claimed were from individuals who alleged their names were falsely included in a letter supporting Arc’s EIR comments.

(The Guardian subsequently discovered that these missives were form letters. Both were written in identical language. Naim Harrison, who works for Positive Directions, which sent the city one of the form letters, told the Guardian that he signed Arc’s EIR letter, which asked for more time to review the city’s draft EIR. “It seemed a reasonable request,” Harrison said. But Positive Directions director Cedric Akbar, who sent the form complaint letters and was running as a candidate in the hotly contested D10 race, did not return the Guardian’s repeated calls.)

Commission President Swig, a hotel and tourism industry consultant, sought to frame Arc, which was hired as an independent non-profit, as an ungrateful consultant. “As a consultant myself, I don’t agree with all my customers, but I don’t bite the hand that feeds me,” Swig said.
Then the Commission voted 4-0 to reject Arc and award the contract to Circle Point, instead.

“The Redevelopment Commission’s punishment of Arc Ecology sends a message to all contractors that they must now lie for the Commission.” Bloom stated in a Dec. 6 press release. “Just listen to the Agency’s own web-audio of the Commission’s September 21st meeting. This unelected, unaccountable legislative body, one of only a handful of such Commissions in California, is attempting to put responsible criticism in the deep freeze.”

“No matter that the subject of our commentary was outside the scope of our contract, no matter that purpose of the contract was to provide the community with an independent view of the decision-making regarding the Shipyard’s cleanup, and no matter that its own staff found our analysis helpful, the Commission’s action states clearly they prefer public relations to transparency,” Bloom continued. “This is a governmental body with a duty to uphold speech not their private business. The Commission has given notice that to contract with the Agency be prepared to kiss the First Amendment goodbye.”

Arc and the First Amendment Project say their lawsuit will also demonstrate that the Office of Economic and Workforce Development “clearly biased the applicant evaluation score against Arc Ecology but failed in its attempt to rig the recommendation of the Selection Panel” and that the Redevelopment Commissioners “falsely stated the Commission’s policy as always awarding contracts to the highest scoring applicant – even if the difference is only two tenths of one percent out of a possible score of 100.”

First Amendment Project staff attorney Geoffrey King told the Guardian that Arc’s suit focuses on two distinct areas of concern.

“First, there was the attachment of an unconstitutional condition to Arc’s contract, and then there was the taking of retalitory action,” King said. “We allege that statements that Arc made were wholly outside the scope of its contract. But even if its statements were inside the scope of its contract, Arc was hired to be a watch dog and not a lap dog. Arc’s role within that process was to be an independent voice. You can’t condition funding on someone’s silence over something they were not contracting for.”

You could impose conditions like that, King says, if the government hired a public relations firm to disseminate an approved message.

‘That’s where you can control the content,” King said. “But if the government is hiring you to be independent, it can’t get mad at you for providing answers it doesn’t like.”

“And nobody accused Arc of a breach of the duty of loyalty,” King continued, noting that Bloom asked Redevelpment Agency staffers if he was in a breach, and was told that he was not.

“It’s pretty stark when you look at the transcripts of that Redvelopment Commission meeting what the real issue was,” King said.

SIR ARNE’S TREASURE AND THEMOUNTAIN GOATS

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SIR ARNE’S TREASURE AND THEMOUNTAIN GOATS
The San Francisco Film Society presents Mauritz Stiller’s 1919 silent film classic Sir Arne’s Treasure, with live musical accompaniment by indie rock icon John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. The film is Swedish master Stiller’s haunting tale of murder, betrayal and divine redemption, and Darnielle, known for his poignant lyrics and low-fi aesthetic, will perform the world premiere of his score for Sir Arne’s Treasure as part of the Film Society’s ongoing project to present classic silent films with live scores performed by extraordinary contemporary musicians. 
For tickets and full program information, visit sffs.org.
Tuesday, December 14th at 8PM @ Castro Theater, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco

Rec & Park trashes HANC Recycling Center

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Rec & Park trashes HANC Recycling Center

At yesterday’s Recreation & Park Commission meeting on Dec. 2, hundreds of San Francisco residents turned out to urge commissioners not to replace the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center with a community garden. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.

It didn’t matter that a sunnier spot for a community garden had already been identified in the same area, with funding approved by the commission more than a year ago. It didn’t matter that thousands of people use the recycling center every month, and that the nonprofit bolsters community gardens throughout the city with donations and funding. It didn’t matter that we’re in a recession and there were jobs on the line. It didn’t matter that HANC pays rent to a city department facing a $12.5 million deficit, but the community garden would cost $250,000.

All that mattered in the end was that Rec & Park, and Mayor Gavin Newsom, wanted the HANC recycling center out. They thought removing it might discourage homeless people from sleeping in the park and hanging around the neighborhood. After nearly four hours of listening to residents urge them not to do it, the commissioners yawned and pushed the eject button. They unanimously voted in favor of the community garden. A 90-day eviction notice is expected to go out to HANC today.

The fight over HANC’s eviction has been described as a political battle between progressives and moderates, a showdown between heroes who stand up for public safety versus intimidating thugs and the lefties who enable them, and even a sequel to the sit /lie controversy. I think there’s an 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of this fight that no one wants to talk about: Class.

Community gardens are wonderfully empowering. I used to volunteer at one at a public housing complex in North Carolina. It was especially important for people who lived in that low-income community, since they benefited from nutritious produce that also lowered their grocery bills. Under the city’s plan for this new, gated community garden, 30 of the 40 garden plots will go to area residents. Given the affluence of that neighborhood, the garden beds will likely go to people who can afford organic groceries at Whole Foods without breaking into a sweat. For well-to-do San Franciscans, growing produce is not a means of survival — it’s about feeling good, and being green. By itself, there’s nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that it will be installed at the expense of a long-standing community resource that employs 10 people and lightens the load for hundreds of others during a recession, when people are truly struggling to get by. The Rec & Park Commission has essentially decided that this parcel of public space should be taken from a nonprofit that benefits people of all classes, and given to a small number of residents who’ve voiced complaints about “quality-of-life issues.”

In its current function, the HANC Recycling Center is empowering to many different kinds of people. Most aren’t homeless. Tough-as-nails Asian grandmas show up with bags full of cans that they can exchange for some extra spending money. Urban gardeners purchase native plants in hopes of pleasing native insects and birds. People on fixed incomes get a small financial boost by turning in recyclables.

A small number of the HANC Recycling Center patrons do sleep outside. In order to earn small amounts of cash for things like food, many of them have to go digging around in garbage cans, which is gross and humiliating. Why would someone paw through the garbage for hours, battling bees and germs, and then haul smelly bottles uphill in a shopping cart just to make a few bucks? My guess is that it’s to ward off desperation. They make their own work, and they get to eat.

“Some of them may use drugs,” one of the speakers acknowledged last night. “But,” he paused for dramatic effect. “Some of us use drugs, too.”

When sit / lie was under debate, critics wondered where the homeless were supposed to go, if they couldn’t sit on the sidewalks. Often, the reply was that they could go to the parks. But this latest attack on the homeless shows that they aren’t welcome there, either.

This is an opinion piece.

SF Weekly gets it all wrong

Zelda Bronstein
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This is a few days late, but still worth noting. After the Supreme Court ruled in our favor and shot down SF’s Weekly’s final appeal in our predatory pricing lawsuit, the Weekly’s Andy Van De Voorde launched another of his notorious screeds aimed at dismissing all of the proven, factual assertions in our case. Fron day one, Van De Voorde’s been wrong about everything — he said the case was stupid and would be quickly dismissed, he said we’d lost at trial, he said we’d lose on appeal … and every step of the way, he’s been proven wrong. Now he’s going after the judges:


Brugmann certainly has been treated like royalty by the city’s elected judges, who function as the legal arm of the local Democratic machine.


But as Bob Egelko, the Chron’s widely respected court reporter, noted in a remarkable blog post, Van De Voorde is simply factually wrong:


The judge who presided over the trial in San Francisco Superior Court, and more than doubled the jury’s damage award against the Weekly, was Marla Miller — appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The appeals court justice who wrote the ruling upholding the verdict was Robert Dondero — first appointed to the bench by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, and named to the appeals court by Schwarzenegger. And of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to deny a hearing on the Weekly’s appeal, five were appointed by Republican governors.


I can go even further. The first judge who handled the case, Richard Kramer — who refused to dismiss the suit and tossed most of the Weekly’s pre-trial motions out the door — was appointed by a Republican (Pete Wilson). Of the three judges on the Appeals panel, two — Dondero and James Marchiano — were appointed by Republicans. And while the third justice, Sandra Margulies, was elevated to the appelate bench by Gray Davis, her first judicial appointment to the Superior Court came from a Republican, George Deukmejian.


So there really weren’t any elected Democratic judges in the mix. (And the judges certainly aren’t part of any political machine; the entire local bench, including every single judge, Democrat, Republican or Independent, supported the re-election of Judge Richard Ulmer in November, while the Democratic Party, and the Bay Guardian, supported challenger Michael Nava.)


Sorry, Andy — as has been the case from day one, the facts speak louder than your ranting. The Guardian won this case on the evidence and the legal merits, all the way along.

Tax breaks we can’t afford

Zelda Bronstein
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Tax breaks we can’t afford

The big front-page headline on today’s Examiner: “Workers we can’t afford.” It’s a classic story of the Ex genre, a look at how much labor costs are increasing and eating a hole in the city budget. But what gets me is thal it’s not just the Ex; the Chron takes this line, too, and so do news outlets all over the state (and all over the country). The problem is always labor.


You never see a big headline telling the other side of the story: “Tax breaks we can’t afford.”


The thing is, tax cuts and tax breaks are expenses, just like labor costs. The impact the budget in the same way. And at least city workers DO something; a lot of the tax cuts don’t.


I was watching the City Channel last night (yes, Mr. Mayor, I was one of the “ten people” you joked about who were actually watching) and Newsom was giving a speech out at Mission Bay, welcoming a new biotech outfit to the city. And he went on and on about how his administration has attracted all these companies by giving them tax breaks.


He said that, unlike South San Francisco, this city “taxes jobs.” (That’s just silly; we have a payroll tax because you have to have some form of business tax, and the state won’t let us tax corporate income, and a gross receipts tax also has problems, and a payroll tax is at least an approximation of the size of a company. If we taxed gross receipts instead he’d complain that we were “taxing success.”)


And then when he was done with his prattle, the guy from UC who sets up the Mission Bay incubator space for biotech businesses spoke, and talked about all the reasons busineses want to move into the area, mainly the direct connection with UC researchers and experts in business development and the quality of the workforce. He didn’t say a word about taxes.


Because taxes, particularly the very modest payroll tax the city charges, are such a minor factor in business location decisions that tax breaks like Newsom’s don’t do much good in attracting employers. But they do cost the city money.


And those are expenses — yes, expenses — that we can’t afford.


 

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