San Francisco

ENDORSEMENTS: Judicial races

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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ENDORSEMENTS: Judicial races

SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, SEAT 6


LINDA COLFAX


It’s rare to see an open seat on the Superior Court; judges typically retire midterm and allow the governor to appoint their replacement. And with a Republican governor, the more progressive Democrats have had a hard time getting even close to judicial appointments. Four highly qualified candidates are seeking this seat, and all of them make good cases for election.


Since judicial candidates can’t take stands on most political issues or indicate how they might rule on cases, it’s hard to get a sense of where the candidates stand. But they can talk about their backgrounds and experience — and about how the local courts are run. For example, the Superior Court is managed on a day-to-day basis by a presiding judge, elected by the sitting judges on the San Francisco bench. But those elections are secret; nobody except the judges know who the candidates were; who voted for which one; or what the final tally was. Court administration is done in closed meetings. Most of what happens in the courts is public — but there’s no presumption of cameras in the courtrooms to give the public access to the justice system.


Our choices for judge reflect our interest in a diverse judiciary, judges who have both professional and personal experience that will shape fair decisions — and jurists who believe in open government, including open courts.


Our choice for Seat 6 is Linda Colfax, a deputy public defender with a background in community service (she’s been an ACLU board member) and progressive politics. Like all four candidates, she has impressive legal credentials and trial experience. She also strongly supports sunshine in the courts and told us she would allow the press and public into judges’ meetings when appropriate, supports cameras in the courtrooms (except for cases where a witness or crime victim has to be protected), and efforts to make the courts work more efficiently.


Robert Retana, who grew up in East Los Angeles, has worked in both civil and criminal law, as a prosecutor and a civil litigator. He also has extensive community service with La Raza Centro Legal and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights. He was awfully vague on cameras in the courtroom and didn’t seem well-informed on open-government issues, but he’s certainly qualified for the job.


Rod Mcleod, a former San Francisco School Board member, told us he won’t raise any money for this race since he thinks judges shouldn’t be captive to special interests. That’s noble, but it also makes it unlikely he’ll be a factor in the end.


Harry Dorfman, a career prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office, has extensive trial experience but was the least willing of all the candidates we interviewed to expand public access to the courts.


Colfax has the endorsements of Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, Sen. Mark Leno, and Sups. David Campos, John Avalos, and Eric Mar, among others. She would also diversify the bench in a significant way, not just because she’s a lesbian but because she spent her career in the Public Defender’s Office. And since Democratic and Republican governors alike tend not to appoint public defenders to the bench, that background and perspective is rare. Vote for Colfax.


 


SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, SEAT 15


MICHAEL NAVA


Another rarity here: a contested race where challengers are taking on a sitting judge. Richard Ulmer, the incumbent, was a Republican living in Hillsborough when Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed him to the bench last year; he quickly changed his registration to independent and took up residence in Park Merced. But two gay men, Michael Nava and Daniel Dean, saw him as potentially vulnerable and, noting the lack of LGBT appointments coming out of the current administration, filed to challenge Ulmer.


Ulmer’s a smart and appealing person with an impressive legal resume, and we see no scandal that would mandate his removal from office. But we also recognize that this is an elected office, and that it’s perfectly acceptable for candidates who think they would better serve the public and the bench to run against an incumbent. In this case, we’re endorsing Michael Nava.


Nava, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, makes the case that judicial appointments can be just as political as elections: out of some 500 judicial appointments, Schwarzenegger has named perhaps five openly LGBT candidates. Nava also would bring a different perspective to the courts. His career has been in the public sector and he currently works as a staff attorney drafting decisions for Superior Court Justice Carlos Moreno. More than anyone else running for judge this year, Nava is an advocate of openness in the judiciary. He told us the courts are the third branch of government and should be held to most of the same sunshine standards at the executive and legislature.


Daniel Dean also makes a compelling case and has extensive courtroom experience as a litigator and judge pro tem. His accessibility and sense of humor would serve him well on the bench, and we hope he continues to seek a judicial slot. But in this race, we’re endorsing Nava.

ENDORSEMENTS: San Francisco ballot measures

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ENDORSEMENTS: San Francisco ballot measures

 PROPOSITION A

SCHOOL FACILITIES SPECIAL TAX

YES

This measure would extend a 1990 parcel tax that expires in 2010 by another 20 years, keeping it at its current rate ($32 a year for single family homes and commercial enterprises, $16 a year per dwelling unit for mixed use buildings). The tax brings in $7 million a year for San Francisco school facilities and would finance seismic upgrades, structural strengthening and related improvements of its facilities, and child care centers. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION B

EARTHQUAKE SAFETY AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE BONDS

YES

It’s hard to argue against a $430 million bond act to upgrade police, fire, and water facilities to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the city’s most basic public safety infrastructure in the event of an inevitable earthquake. Hard — but not impossible: Sup. Chris Daly, the lone vote against Prop. B, points out that the bond money would be used to upgrade police stations but that the old County Jail at 850 Bryant St. wouldn’t get any help. Prisoners, it seems (even those who are awaiting trial and have been convicted of nothing) aren’t worth protecting. And the Fire Department has been very hazy about where it’s going to spend the cash. So we’ve got some concerns here — but on balance, we’re endorsing Yes on B.

 

PROPOSITION C

FILM COMMISSION

YES

By some accounts, this measure was put together in retaliation for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s November 2009 demand that Film Commission executive director Stefanie Coyote resign — shortly after her husband, actor Peter Coyote, supported Attorney General Jerry Brown over Newsom for governor. But Bill Barnes, who works as a legislative aide for Newsom ally Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, the author of Prop. C, says Alioto-Pier was working on this measure even before Coyote got ousted.

Either way, it’s a positive step. Prop. C would streamline a convoluted permitting process for shooting films in San Francisco — a process that can involve multiple departments — and would create a one-stop shop. It would also split the power to appoint the film commissioners between the mayor and the board (6-5, respectively), and require that all 11 commissioners have specific qualifications or experience. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION D

RETIREMENT BENEFITS

YES

Prop. D is a compromise. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wanted to reform the city’s pension system by mandating higher employee contributions and an end to what’s known as “spiking” — giving some employees a big raise just before they retire. Under current law, that worker would get a pension based on the inflated salary.

Elsbernd wanted to change the calculation and base pensions on an average of the final three years of salary an employee earned. Labor countered that some lower-paid workers only reach their top pay at the end of their careers. The final deal would base pensions on a two-year average. Prop. D would also require future employees to contribute and extra 2 percent to their pensions and require the city to set aside some money every year for the pension and retiree health care systems. In the end, progressive Sups. David Campos and Eric Mar signed on, and the city employee unions aren’t opposed. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION E

BUDGET LINE ITEM FOR POLICE SECURITY

YES

Prop. E would make one simple tweak to the reporting requirements for San Francisco’s annual city budget: a line-item on how much is spent on security for city officials and visiting dignitaries. As things stand, the amount the police department spends to protect people like, oh, say Mayor Gavin Newsom while he is crisscrossing the state campaigning for (lieutenant) governor is kept secret. That’s information the public has a right to know. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION F

RENTERS’ FINANCIAL HARDSHIP APPLICATIONS

YES

Prop. F would allow a tenant facing a rent increase to file a petition with the Rent Board claiming financial hardship. If the tenant was unemployed, or had his or her wages cut by 20 percent or more, or didn’t get a cost of living increase in government benefits and was paying at least 33 percent of his or her income as rent, the rent hike would be delayed for 60 days pending a hearing. If the renter can establish hardship, the landlord would have to hold off on the increase until the tenant’s employment or benefit situation improved. Few San Francisco landlords would be hurt by the delay in what are typically modest rent hikes — but a lot of tenants could avoid eviction. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION G

TRANSBAY TRANSIT CENTER

YES

Prop. G, a policy statement, became a moot point earlier this year, but it’s still good for San Franciscans to affirm the city’s support for bringing high-speed rail service downtown. The California High-Speed Rail Project is moving to create bullet train service from SF to downtown Los Angeles using bond money approved by voters in 2008. Even though that bond measure named the Transbay Terminal as the northern terminus of the first phase, some officials raised doubts about whether the downtown location was the best choice. That rail service was integral to plans for the transit center, which is currently being rebuilt, so the Board of Supervisors placed this measure on the ballot to support that choice. Earlier this month, the California High-Speed Rail Authority considered other alternatives and voted to stay with the Transbay Terminal. That’s the right way to go; vote yes.

ENDORSEMENTS: State ballot measures

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ENDORSEMENTS: State ballot measures

PROPOSITION 13

LIMITS ON PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENT FOR SEISMIC RETROFITS

YES

The primary sponsor of Prop. 13 is Republican Sen. Roy Ashburn, who dominated the news for several days after he was arrested for drunk driving on his way home from a Sacramento gay bar. Needless to say, Ashburn’s dramatic coming out has whipped up far more attention than his noncontroversial ballot initiative.

We’re generally opposed to anything that gives tax cuts or tax deferrals to property owners; thanks to a 1978 measure also called Prop. 13, much of the commercial and residential property in California is badly under assessed. And Prop. 13, 2010 style, is indeed a tax break. But it’s probably justified.

Buildings in this state are typically reassessed for property taxes after they’ve been modified with new construction, except in cases where the modifications are made to comply with earthquake-safety standards. While most buildings that undergo seismic retrofitting are exempt from reassessment until the property is transferred to a new owner, the exemption for unreinforced masonry buildings is limited to 15 years. Prop 13 would remove that 15-year cap.

The fiscal impact on cities is likely to be pretty minor, and the measure might encourage both commercial and residential landlords to bring their buildings up to standard. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION 14

OPEN PRIMARIES

NO

At the height of a royal mess last year when the state budget was long overdue and the two-thirds majority needed to pass it was still out of reach by one vote, Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado struck a deal with Democrats. He said he’d support the budget — if the majority party would meet a few of his demands. One thing he insisted on was Prop. 14 — a ballot measure that would effectively remove political parties from the primary elections process, allowing all voters to cast ballots for any candidate regardless of party affiliation.

Under Maldonado’s plan, all candidates would run on a single primary ballot, and the top two vote-getters would face off in the general election. Heavily funded by the California Chamber of Commerce and marketed by the same spin doctors and corporate lawyers who are rolling in Yes on 16 campaign money, Prop. 14’s backers say it will result in more centrist elected officials.

There are plenty of pitfalls here, the most worrisome being that it would drive up the cost of elections and give more moneyed (and corporate-allied) candidates a sharper competitive edge while elbowing out progressives. It would allow Republicans to play a role in what would normally be Democratic primaries (and vice versa.) The measure would also make it nearly impossible for smaller parties — the Green Party, for example — to offer candidates in the November elections.

Bad idea, bad process, Vote no.

 

PROPOSITION 15

FAIR ELECTIONS ACT

YES

California desperately needs electoral reform. Corporate campaign spending and lobbyists have poisoned the decision-making process and muzzled the voice of the people. Something radical needs to be done — and while this measure is only a small, measured step in the right direction, it’s an important and promising experiment.

Prop. 15 would create a pilot public financing program for the 2014 and 2018 races for California Secretary of State — and the program would be funded by a tax on lobbyists. Right now lobbyists pay only $12.50 per year to register with the state. This measure would increase that fee to $350 annually and use the money to create a fund of about $6 million that candidates for the crucial office overseeing elections in the state could tap after demonstrating their popular support by gathering a number of small contributions. All candidates who qualify would be given the same amount of money and left to compete on the issues. Ideally this public financing program would prove successful and eventually be expanded to other offices. Public financing of election campaigns, which is currently working well in Arizona and Maine, is certainly worth a try in California. Vote yes.

 

PROPOSITION 16

MONOPOLY PROTECTION FOR PG&E

NO! NO! NO!

The deceptively titled “Taxpayer’s Right to Vote Act” was dreamed up and funded entirely by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the monopolistic utility that is worried it could face actual competition here in San Francisco (and elsewhere) from municipal electricity programs that would offer customers a greener energy mix and more accountability than PG&E executives will ever demonstrate.

Rather than accept some healthy competition, this sleazy corporation has opted to spend some $35 million to exterminate all possibilities of municipal electricity programs cropping up anywhere in the state in a bid to preserve its octopus-like grip on the energy market in Northern California. Prop. 16 would require a two-thirds majority vote at the ballot before any community choice aggregation (CCA) program — or any attempt at creating or expanding a public-power system — could move forward. That’s an extreme hurdle — -and PG&E knows it.

In effect, PG&E is trying to buy public policy here, trying to pass a law that will protect its own monopoly interests.

In San Francisco, the CCA being proposed would offer customers 51 percent renewable power by 2017, which means it would blow PG&E out of the water in the green arena and mark S.F. as taking greater strides toward combating climate change than any other major U.S. city. This example could set a precedent for others, which, in turn, could create favorable market conditions for green energy startups that want to harness wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, tidal, and energy efficiency alternatives.

The very existence of Prop. 16 is already threatening the San Francisco CCA; the city’s Public Utilities Commission is trying to delay a final contract until after the June 8 vote on the measure (see editorial, page 5)

Vote no on Prop 16. Not just because it’s an example of a big business single-handedly trying to alter the state constitution for its own economic benefit by pouring millions of dollars into a deceptive advertising campaign. Not just because a two-thirds majority vote requirement is anti-democratic. Not just because there were reports that the signature gatherers who got people to sign on in support of placing Prop. 16 on the ballot were telling people that its purpose was to limit PG&E expansion or encourage solar power. Not just because Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and a half dozen members of the Legislature sent a letter rebuking PG&E CEO Peter Darbee for disrespecting the democratic process by going straight to the ballot to undermine legislation it initially supported that enabled the creation of CCA programs. Not just because PG&E is using $35 million of ratepayer dollars (that’s the check you wrote them for your electricity bill!) to put out slick TV ads for this campaign when it should have been repairing the pipelines under those manholes that keep exploding and messing up your morning commute. Not even just because with CCA, you already have the right to vote whether or not you want to be part of it, a choice PG&E will never give you. And not just because PG&E keeps trying to raise rates, which is much more difficult for municipal energy agencies to do.

If for no other reason, vote no because Prop. 16 flies in the face of everything environmentalists stand for. It’s a measure that will thwart progress on fighting climate change, brought to you by the company that practically invented green-washing. PG&E is a huge nuclear power player; it purchases coal from mountaintop-removal coal mines in West Virginia that are completely devastating biodiverse landscapes in Southern Appalachia and screwing over poor people by tainting their drinking water; and it’s in the process of building fossil fuel-fired power plants in poor communities of color in California. The CCA programs at least represent a glimmer of hope for an alternative model; Prop. 16 kills off that possibility with one fell swoop motivated by pure greed. For the love of justice, democracy, and the planet, vote no on Prop 16.

 

PROPOSITION 17

CAR INSURANCE SCHEME

NO, NO, NO!

Mercury Insurance sponsored this measure and is campaigning for it with tens of millions of dollars, betting it can fool voters and make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by doing so. And if the company is right, insurance rates will skyrocket for new drivers and those who haven’t had continuous insurance coverage, which experts say will increase the number of uninsured drivers on the roadways and end up increasing insurance rates for everyone.

Mercury and its founder George Joseph have been truly malevolent players in California, exploiting their customers to make billions of dollars in profits, attacking California’s landmark insurance reform measure Prop. 103 with lawsuits and corrupting campaign contributions over more than 20 years, and flouting insurance regulators in such brazen fashion that even Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a conservative Republican, recently chastised the company for its “lengthy history of serious misconduct” (see “Buying power,” March 17).

Now, however, the company is hoping its promise to cut the insurance premiums of drivers who have maintained continuous coverage by “as much as $250 per year” will buy their votes and that they’ll overlook the myriad negative impacts of increasing everyone else’s premiums by $1,000 per year or more, based on Mercury’s own estimates.

Think about that. If you’re a driver who missed an insurance payment by even one day, or a soldier returning from boot camp, or someone with a low-income getting insurance for the first time or after ditching your car for a while, what are you going to do when you discover already-expensive car insurance comes with a $1,000 annual surcharge?

Many Californians, those who share our roads, will choose to drive without insurance. Then they’ll be more likely to leave the scene of accidents or declare bankruptcy rather than paying out-of-pocket for their accidents, both of which increase the cost of insurance for everyone else.

That’s how insurance works. If someone pays less, someone else pays more; and the only entity guaranteed to really make money over the long term is the insurance company. Don’t fall for this scam. Vote no on 17.

ENDORSEMENTS: National and state races

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ENDORSEMENTS: National and state races

Editor’s note: the file below contains a correction, updated May 5 2010. 


National races


U.S. SENATE, DEMOCRAT


BARBARA BOXER


The Republican Party is targeting this race as one of its top national priorities, and if the GOP can dislodge a three-term senator from California, it will be a major blow for the party (and agenda) of President Obama. The pundits are happily talking about how much danger Barbara Boxer faces, how the country’s mood is swinging against big-government liberals.


But it’s always a mistake to count out Boxer. In 1982, as a Marin County supervisor with little name recognition in San Francisco, she trounced then-SF Sup. Louise Renne for an open Congressional seat. Ten years later, she beat the odds and won a hotly contested primary and tough general election to move into the Senate. She’s a fierce campaigner, and with no primary opposition, will have a united party behind her.


Boxer is one of the most progressive members of the not-terribly progressive U.S. Senate. She’s been one of the strongest, most consistent supporters of reproductive rights in Washington and a friend of labor (with 100 percent ratings from the AFL-CIO and National Education Association). We’ve had our disagreements: Boxer supported No Child Left Behind, wrote the law allowing airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit, and was weak on same-sex marriage when San Francisco sought to legalize it (although she’s come around). But she was an early and stalwart foe of the war in Iraq, split with her own party to oppose a crackdown on illegal immigration, and is leading the way on accountability for Wall Street. She richly deserves reelection, and we’re happy to endorse her.


 


CONGRESS, 6TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT


LYNN WOOLSEY


It’s odd that the representative from Marin and Sonoma counties is more progressive by far than her colleague to the south, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi. But over the years, Lynn Woolsey has been one of the strongest opponents of the war, a voice against bailouts for the big Wall Street banks, and a foe of cuts in the social safety net. We’re proud to endorse her for another term.


 


CONGRESS, 7TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT


GEORGE MILLER


George Miller has been representing this East Bay district since 1974, and is now the chair of the Education and Labor Committee and a powerhouse in Congress. He’s too prone to compromise (with George W. Bush on education policy) but is taking the right line on California water (while Sen. Dianne Feinstein is on the wrong side). We’ll endorse him for another term.


 


CONGRESS, 8TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT


NANCY PELOSI


We’ve never been terribly pleased with San Francisco’s most prominent Congressional representative. Nancy Pelosi was the author of the bill that created the first privatized national park at the Presidio, setting a horrible standard that parks ought to be about making money. She was weak on opposing the war, ducked same-sex marriage, and has used her clout locally for all the wrong candidates and issues. But we have to give her credit for resurrecting and pushing through the health care bill (bad as it was — and it’s pretty bad — it’s better than doing nothing). And, at a time when the Republicans are trying to derail the Obama presidency, she’s become a pretty effective partner for the president.


Her fate as speaker (and her future in this seat) probably depends on how the Democrats fare in the midterm Congressional elections this fall. But if she and the party survive in decent shape, she needs to take the opportunity to undo the damage she did at the Presidio.


 


CONGRESS, 9TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT


BARBARA LEE


Barbara Lee, who represents Berkeley and Oakland, is co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, one of the most consistent liberal votes in Congress, and a hero to the antiwar movement. In 2001, she was the only member of either house to oppose the Bush administration’s Use of Force resolution following the 9/11 attacks, and she’s never let up on her opposition to foolish military entanglements. We’re glad she’s doing what Nancy Pelosi won’t — represent the progressive politics of her district in Washington.


 


CONGRESS, 13TH DISTRICT, DEMOCRAT


PETE STARK


Most politicians mellow and get more moderate as they age; Stark is the opposite. He announced a couple of years ago that he’s an atheist (the only one in Congress), opposed the Iraq war early, called one of his colleagues a whore for the insurance industry, and insulted President Bush and refused to apologize, saying: “I may have dishonored the commander-in-chief, but I think he’s done pretty well to dishonor himself without any help from me.” He served as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee for exactly one day — March 3 — before the Democratic membership overruled Speaker Pelosi and chucked him out on the grounds that he was too inflammatory. The 78-year-old may not be in office much longer, but he’s good on all the major issues. He’s also fearless. If he wants another term, he deserves one.


 


State races


GOVERNOR, DEMOCRAT


EDMUND G. BROWN


Jerry Brown? Which Jerry Brown? The small-is-beautiful environmentalist from the 1970s who opposed Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon nuke and created the California Conservation Corps, the Office of Appropriate Technology, and the Farm Labor Relations Board (all while running a huge budget surplus in Sacramento)? The angry populist who lashed out at corporate power on a KPFA radio talk show and ran against Bill Clinton for president? The pro-development mayor of Oakland who sided with the cops on crime issues and opened a military academy? Or the tough-on-crime attorney general who refuses to even talk about tax increases to solve the state’s gargantuan budget problems?


We don’t know. That’s the problem with Brown — you never know what he’ll do or say next. For now, he’s been a terribly disappointing candidate, running to the right, rambling on about preserving Proposition 13, making awful statements about immigration and sanctuary laws, and even sounding soft on environmental issues. He’s started to hit his stride lately, though, attacking likely GOP contender Meg Whitman over her ties to Wall Street and we’re seeing a few flashes of the populist Brown. But he’s got to step it up if he wants to win — and he’s got to get serious about taxes and show some budget leadership, if he wants to make a difference as governor.


 


LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, DEMOCRAT


JANICE HAHN


Not an easy choice, by any means.


Mayor Gavin Newsom jumped into this race only after it became clear that he wouldn’t get elected governor. He sees it as a temporary perch, someplace to park his political ambitions until a better office opens up. He’s got the money, the statewide name recognition, and the endorsement of some of the state’s major power players, including both U.S. Senators and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He’s also been a terrible mayor of San Francisco — and some progressives (like Sup. Chris Daly) argue, persuasively, that the best way to get a better person in Room 200 is to ship Newsom off to an office in Sacramento where he can’t do much harm and let the supervisors pick the next mayor.


But it’s hard to endorse Newsom for any higher office. He’s ducked on public power, allowing PG&E to come very close to blocking the city’s community choice aggregation program (See editorial, page 5). His policies have promoted deporting kids and breaking up families. He’s taken an approach to the city budget — no new revenue, just cuts — that’s similar to what the Republican governor has done. He didn’t even bother to come down and talk to us about this race. There’s really no good argument for supporting the advancement of his political career.


Then there’s Janice Hahn. She’s a Los Angeles City Council member, the daughter of a former county supervisor, and the sister of a former mayor. She got in this race way before Newsom, and her nightmare campaign consultant, Garry South, acts as if she has some divine right to be the only Democrat running.


Hahn in not overly impressive as a candidate. When we met her, she seemed confused about some issues and scrambled to duck others. She told us she’s not sure she’s in favor of legalizing pot, but she isn’t sure why she’s not sure since she has no arguments against it. She won’t take a position on a new peripheral canal, although she can’t defend building one and says that protecting San Francisco Bay has to be a priority. She won’t rule out offshore oil drilling, although she said she has yet to see a proposal she can support. Her main economic development proposal was to bring more film industry work to California, even if that means cutting taxes for the studios or locating the shoots on Indian land where there are fewer regulations.


On the other hand, she told us she wants to get rid of the two-thirds threshold in the state Legislature for passing a budget or raising taxes. She supports reinstating the car tax at pre-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger levels. She supports a split-roll measure to reform Prop. 13. She wants to see an oil-severance tax to fund education. She’s one of the few statewide candidates who openly advocates higher taxes on the wealthy as part of the solution to the budget crisis.


We are under no illusions that Hahn will be able to use the weak office of lieutenant governor to move on any of these issues, and we’re not at all sure she’s ready to take over the top spot. But on the issues, she’s clearly better than Newsom, so she gets our endorsements.


 


SECRETARY OF STATE, DEMOCRAT


DEBRA BOWEN


Debra Bowen is the only Democrat running, a sign that pretty much everyone in the party thinks she’s doing a fine job as Secretary of State. She’s run a clean office and we see no reason to replace her.


 


CONTROLLER, DEMOCRAT


JOHN CHIANG


Like Bowen, John Chiang has no opposition in the primary, and he’s been a perfectly adequate controller. In fact, when Gov. Schwarzenegger tried two years ago to cut the pay of thousands of state employees to the minimum wage level, Chiang defied him and refused to change the paychecks — a move that forced the governor to back down. We just wish he’d play a more visible role in talking about the need for more tax revenue to balance the state’s books.


 


TREASURER, DEMOCRAT


BILL LOCKYER


Bill Lockyer keeps bouncing around Sacramento, waiting, perhaps, for his chance to be governor. He was attorney general. Now he’s treasurer seeking a second term, which he will almost certainly win. He’s done some good things, including trying to use state bonds to promote alternative energy, and has spoken out forcefully about the governor’s efforts to defer deficit problems through dubious borrowing. He hasn’t, however, come out in favor of higher taxes for the rich or a change in Prop. 13.


 


ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEMOCRAT


KAMALA HARRIS


There are really only two serious candidates in this race, Kamala Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, and Rocky Delgadillo, the former Los Angeles city attorney. Harris has a comfortable lead, with Delgadillo in second and the others far behind.


Delgadillo is on his second try for this office. He ran against Jerry Brown four years ago and got nowhere. And in the meantime, he’s come under fire for, among other things, using city employees to run personal errands for him (picking up his dry-cleaning, babysitting his kids) and driving his car without insurance. On a more significant level, he made his reputation with gang injunctions that smacked of ethnic profiling and infuriated Latino and civil liberties groups. It’s amazing he’s still a factor in this race; he can’t possibly win the general election with all his baggage.


Harris has a lot going for her. She was among the first California elected officials to endorse Barack Obama for president, and remains close to the administration. She’s a smart, articulate prosecutor and could be one of the few women atop the Democratic ticket this year. We were never comfortable with her ties to Willie Brown, but he’s no longer a factor in state or local politics. These days, she’s more closely allied with the likes of State Sen. Mark Leno.


That said, we have some serious problems with Harris. She’s been up in Sacramento pushing Republican-style tough-on-crime bills (like a measure that would bar registered sex offenders from ever using social networking sites on the Internet) and forcing sane Democrats like Assembly Member and Public Safety Committee Chair Tom Ammiano to try to tone down or kill them (and then take the political heat). If she didn’t know about the problems in the SFPD crime lab, she should have, and should have made a bigger fuss, earlier.


But Harris has kept her principled position against the death penalty, even when it meant taking immense flak from the cops for refusing to seek capital punishment for the killer of a San Francisco police officer. She’s clearly the best choice for the Democrats.


 


INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, DEMOCRAT


DAVE JONES


Two credible progressives are vying to run for this powerful and important position regulating the massive — and massively corrupt — California insurance industry. Dave Jones and Hector De La Torre are both in the state Assembly, with Jones representing Sacramento and De La Torre hailing from Los Angeles. Both have a record opposing insurance industry initiatives; both are outspoken foes of Prop. 17; and either would do a fine job as insurance commissioner. But Jones has more experience on consumer issues and health care reform, and we prefer his background as a Legal Aid lawyer to De La Torre’s history as a Southern California Edison executive. So we’ll give Jones the nod.


 


BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, DISTRICT 1, DEMOCRAT


BETTY T. YEE


Betty Yee has taken over a job that’s been a stronghold of progressive tax policy since the days of the late Bill Bennett. She’s done well in the position, supporting progressive financial measures and even coming down, as a top tax official, in favor of legalizing (and taxing) marijuana. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.


 


SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION


TOM TORLAKSON


Two prominent Democratic legislators are running for this nonpartisan post, state Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles and Assembly Member Tom Torlakson of Martinez. It’s a pretty clear choice: Romero is a big supporter of charter schools who thinks parents should be able to move their kids out of one school district and into another (allowing wealthier white parents, for example, to abandon Los Angeles or San Francisco for the suburban districts). She’s been supported in the past by Don and Doris Fisher, who put a chunk of their GAP Inc. fortune into school privatization efforts. Torlakson wants more accountability for charters, opposes the Romero district-option bill, and has the support of every major teachers union in the state. Vote for Torlakson.


 


STATE SENATE, DISTRICT 8, DEMOCRAT


LELAND YEE


Sen. Leland Yee can be infuriating. Two years ago, he was hell-bent on selling the Cow Palace as surplus state property and allowing private developers to take it over. In the recent budget crisis, he pissed off his Democratic colleagues by refusing to vote for cuts that everyone else knew were inevitable (while never making a strong stand in favor of, say, repealing Prop. 13 or raising other taxes). But he’s always been good on open-government issues and has made headlines lately for busting California State University, Stanislaus over a secret contract to bring Sarah Palin in for a fundraiser — and has raised the larger point that public universities shouldn’t hide their finances behind private foundations.


Yee will have no serious opposition for reelection, and his campaign for a second term in Sacramento is really the start of the Leland Yee for Mayor effort. With reservations over the Cow Palace deal and a few other issues, we’ll endorse him for reelection.


 Correction update: Yee’s office informs us that the senator suports an oil-severance tax and a tax on high-income earners and “believes that Prop. 13 should be reformed,” although he hasn’t taken a position on Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s reform bill. 


STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 12, DEMOCRAT


FIONA MA


Fiona Ma’s a mixed bag (at best). She doesn’t like Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and supports public power, but comes up with strange bills that make no sense, like a 2009 measure to limit rent control in trailer parks. Why does Ma, who has no trailer parks in her district, care? Maybe because the landlords who control the mobile home facilities gave her some campaign cash. She faces no opposition, and we’re not thrilled with her record, but we’ll reluctantly back her for another term.


 


STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 13, DEMOCRAT


TOM AMMIANO


When the history of progressive politics in modern San Francisco is written, Tom Ammiano will be a central figure. His long-shot 1999 mayoral campaign against Willie Brown brought the left to life in town, and his leadership helped bring back district elections and put a progressive Board of Supervisors in place in 2000. As a supervisor, he authored the city’s landmark health care bill (which Newsom constantly tries to take credit for) and the rainy day fund (which saved the public schools from debilitating cuts). He uses his local influence to promote the right causes, issues, and candidates.


And he’s turned out to be an excellent member of the state Assembly. He forced BART to take seriously civilian oversight of the transit police force. He put the battle to reform Prop. 13 with a split-role measure back on the state agenda. And his efforts to legalize and tax marijuana are close to making California the first state to toss the insane pot laws. As chair of the Public Safety Committee, he routinely defies the police lobbies and the right-wing Republicans and defuses truly awful legislation. We’re glad Ammiano’s still fighting in the good fight, and we’re pleased to endorse him for another term.


 


STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 14, DEMOCRAT


NANCY SKINNER


Nancy Skinner has taken on one of the toughest, and for small businesses, most important, battles in Sacramento. She wants to make out-of-state companies that sell products to Californians collect and remit sales tax. If you buy a book at your local bookstore, you have to pay sales tax; if you buy it from Amazon, it’s tax-free. That not only hurts the state, which loses hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue, it’s a competitive disadvantage to local shops. Skinner’s a good progressive vote and an ally for Ammiano on the Public Safety Committee. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.


 


STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 16, DEMOCRAT


SANDRE SWANSON


Sandre Swanson represents the district where BART police killed Oscar Grant, but he wasn’t the one out front pushing for more civilian accountability; that was left to SF’s Ammiano. And while Swanson was generally supportive of Ammiano’s bill, he was hardly a leader in the campaign to pass it. This is too bad, because Swanson’s almost always a progressive vote and has been good on issues like whistleblower protection (a Swanson bill that passed this year protects local government workers who want to report problems confidentially). We’ll endorse him for another term, but he needs to get tougher on the BART police.

The vision thing

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The vision thing

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART All artists, to some degree, are visionaries. They envision something the rest of us can’t or haven’t been able to. That “something” can also be the envisioning itself, a way of seeing made manifest. An articulation of that vision should hopefully leave us questioning what it is we see before us, how we have come to see before this encounter, what we haven’t seen or noticed until now. One measure of an artwork’s efficacy, then, could be to what extent we find ourselves continuing to stumble along this line of inquiry, opened up by the work, long after we have left its presence.

In this respect, the art of Morris Graves (1910-2001), which has so often been hailed as “visionary,” is particularly efficacious. The latest testament to this unsung great of midcentury American art is “The Visionary Art of Morris Graves,” Meridian Gallery’s fantastic retrospective curated by Peter Selz. Taking over the first two floors of the former beaux-arts mansion, the 45 works in this comprehensive survey encourage much pleasurable stumbling.

This exhibit takes its title from San Francisco Renaissance man Kenneth Rexroth’s laudatory 1955 essay, “The Visionary Painting of Morris Graves,” which rightfully recognized that Graves’ art could not be reduced to the sum of its influences: whether the Asian calligraphic and brush painting traditions he studied from primary sources, such as the 15th century master Sesshu, as well as their reinterpretation by fellow Northwestern artist Mark Tobey, or the wilds of coastal Washington, a region from which he drew his color palette and which he called home for a great period of his life.

I will admit that all this talk of Graves’ visionary status colored my initial approach to his art. It was hard not to first fixate on the birds, serpents, chalices, and flowers — enough to fill a tarot deck — with their aura of hermetic significance and iconographic associations. But, as Rexroth’s observations underscore, to regard Graves’ work solely as that of a sylvan mystic, as Life magazine did in its famous 1954 spread “Mystic Painters of the Northwest,” is to see it myopically.

Graves’ vision is legible on the surfaces of his paintings. Many bear traces their initial contact with the tempera, oil paint, or ink, like dampened tissue spread out to dry. One has to get close to see how Graves’ intimately imbricates his figures with the sensuous textures in which they are situated. The spermatic flower delicately zig-zagging atop an ombre sea of undulating ink wash in Effort to Bloom (1943), or the bird buried within a calligraphic nest of white hatch-marks and seemingly endlessly retraced filigree in Bird in Moonlight (1939) are just two of the more dramatic examples of how Graves combines figuration and abstraction to create an insistently tactile whole.

Jarrett Earnest, Meridian’s assistant director (and full disclosure, a personal friend), articulates this quality of Graves’ work in his catalog essay when he writes, “[Graves’ paintings] ask you to experience their surface as you would the anatomy of a lover, looking as if caressing.” This tenderness, so markedly displayed in the large color paintings, also comes through in the simpler ink portraits of animals on the second floor. In Untitled (Hibernation) (c.a. 1954) the sleeping, whiskered donut of fur Graves depicts — in just a handful of measured brush strokes — so vividly evokes a deep sense of peace that I wish it were possible to spoon. To be in its presence makes one take stock of one’s own presence.

It would be reductive and essentializing to dovetail Graves’ deep sensitivity with his openness about his homosexuality, remarkable at a time when same-sex desire was criminalized. And yet, as Earnest also concludes, there is something about the sensuality of Graves’ work — one so removed from the masculine athleticism of Graves’ Abstract Expressionist contemporaries — that makes it truly visionary. Graves’ friend John Cage called his paintings “invitations.” Don’t be afraid to accept their offer to get close.

THE VISIONARY ART OF MORRIS GRAVES

Through May 15

535 Powell, SF

(415) 398-7229

www.meridiangallery.org

From Cleveland with love

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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From Cleveland with love

johnny@sfbg.com

MUSIC Baby Dee is not your generic person in a band, with dull quotes about the process of recording an album. Baby Dee has something to say, and she says it with light power, ever so occasionally punctuating a comment with a machine-gun laugh that’s love-at-first-hearing. Some would say Baby Dee’s music is more of an acquired taste, but the new A Book of Songs for Anne Marie (Drag City) strips her musicality down to its essence, and the result, while owing a generative debt to German Lieder, is crystalline in a manner that trumps more affectation-laden contemporaries like Joanna Newsom and the musician most often compared to Dee, her friend Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. Mabel Mercer comes to mind. On the eve of Dee’s SF visit, I got her on the horn, and the result was good enough that I didn’t want to write or talk around it. So here it is — 100-proof Baby Dee.

On the use of the Baby Dee song “Cavalry” in Joao Pedro Rodrigues’ movie To Die Like A Man: “He told me [it was the heart of the film] when I met him and I thought he was just blowing smoke up my ass. But so many reviews have said that he lavished all his gifts on that one scene.

How truly wonderful. Most people get a song in a movie and just an inconsequential fragment is playing in the background, but here the whole movie stops and everyone listens to the song — you can’t ask for more than that.

On her hometown: “I love Cleveland. It took me a long time to love Cleveland. I hated it all the time growing up. I left when I was 18 years old like a bullet out of a gun and never went back for more than a day at a time for almost 30 years.

The house I actually live in now, my recurring nightmare was to walk into the front door of that house. That was my end-of-the-world dream, instead of a holocaust or a great tsunami.

About ten years ago I went back there and ended up staying because my parents were in such bad shape. I was just experimenting with good behavior. [Laughs]

When they died I was stuck there, I’d lost my apartment in New York. I quit music and had a tree business. Then I woke up one morning and realized that I liked Cleveland. But it took me a lifetime. I’ve loved it ever since.

I never really toured the states, I’d toured Europe, and seeing what the rest of America is like made me love Cleveland. In Cleveland there is zero attitude at all. Nobody is cool in Cleveland, and if they are, it sure as hell isn’t because they live in Cleveland. The cool cities in America are New York, New Orleans — or what’s left of it — and San Francisco. In it’s own crazy way Vegas is cool. And maybe Niagara Falls.

New York is the city that never sleeps. I used to call Cleveland the city that shits the bed.”

On Marc Almond: “I adore, I worship Marc Almond. He’s one of the greatest people in the world in addition to being a great singer. People tend to think he’s a sweetheart, but in his case it’s absolutely true — he’s as good as gold. And we’ve got history — I gave him reasons to not be as good as gold to me. [Laughs] He’s just a prince.”

On German Lieder and classical music: “It had its influence on me, but in strange ways. When I grew up, I would leave the room when people would play Schubert. I couldn’t take it. It was an irrational hatred, and I haven’t had many musical ones. But there was history there — we took piano lessons, and my father had sort of been cast [by life] in the role of the Erl King with the dying child. Ooo, oogedy-boogedy, don’t go there! That kind of thing. We had to play some simple child’s version of Schubert’s Der Erlkönig, and my father was really into it without even having self-awareness why. He’d say “Play that one again” over and over, not even realizing it was about the death of his own soul. Hideous.

I was more at home with really, really old music. As a matter of fact I avoided the entire 19th century. It isn’t that there wasn’t beautiful music — Chopin, Beethoven — but I avoided the whole thing. I discovered Bach and went backwards from there. I was fascinated by Gregorian music and I finally got as a far as the Renaissance and became obsessed with [Giovanni Pieruigi da Palestrina] and the Spanish composer [Juan Evo] Morales [Ayma] and [Tomas Luis de] Victoria.”

On Joey Arias: “It’s not like Joey Arias is underrated. He might be the most beloved living drag singer. But he’s sort of ghettoized, very unfairly. I think he’s one of the greatest vocalists alive. If you’ve ever heard Joey get serious, there’s no greater heartbreaker.”

On her relation to the New York club scene: “The whole time cool things were happening in New York, I was in some dusty old piano loft in the South Bronx playing Palestrina on an organ.”

On her drink of choice: “It depends on when and where. If it’s before dinner, J&B Scotch on the rocks. If it’s after, it would definitely be Armagnac.”

BABY DEE

With Karl Blau, Jeffery Manson

Fri/30, 9 p.m., $12

Amnesia

853 Valencia, SF

(415) 970-0012

www.amnesiathebar.com

Burning the Man

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Burning the Man

steve@sfbg.com

Paul Addis is like the Man he burned: a symbol onto which people project their views of Burning Man, the San Francisco-born event that has become the most enduring countercultural phenomenon of this era. This summer, with the building of Black Rock City in the Nevada desert, marks the 25th annual event.

When Addis illegally torched Burning Man’s eponymous central icon during the Monday night lunar eclipse in 2007, he was either injecting much-needed chaos back into the calcified event; indulging in a dangerous, destructive, and delusional ego trip; or he was simply crazy, depending on the perspective of current and former burners who are still quite animated in their opinions about Addis and his act in online forums.

But Addis is also just a man, one who paid a heavy price to make his statement. After pleading guilty to a destruction of property charge in Nevada court, which became a felony after Burning Man leaders testified to more than $30,000 in damages from having to rebuild the icon, Addis served nearly two years in prison.

Addis was released late last year and recently returned to San Francisco, where this performance artist will debut his new solo show, “Dystopian Veneer,” at The Dark Room on April 30 (a second show is set for May 7). While Addis insists he didn’t seek the notoriety that came from getting caught, it’s clear he relishes this outlaw role, which follows naturally from his last stage incarnation as gun-loving journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

In a nearly three-hour interview with the Guardian, Addis described that fateful night and its implications, as well as why he turned on an event he once loved.

 

BURNING MAN GROWS UP

Addis first attended Burning Man in 1996, the last year in which anarchy and danger truly reigned, when a tragic death and serious injuries caused Burning Man organizers to impose a civic structure and rules, such as bans on firearms and high-speed driving, on future events.

Addis said he immediately became “a true believer,” seeing Burning Man as both a revolutionary experiment in free expression and political empowerment, and as a “wild, risk-taking thing for pure visceral power.” He came from what he called the “San Francisco arts underground” and had a libertarian’s love for guns, drugs, and explosives, but a progressive’s opposition to war and consumer culture.

“When you go to Burning Man, everyone has that feeling at a certain point in time. It is the most incredible thing you’ve been at. You do see the possibilities laid out in front of you,” Addis told me.

Addis poured himself into the event, but became frustrated with the rules and restrictions after three years and stopped going to Burning Man, although he remained in its orbit and closely followed it.

“There are some people who go to Burning Man who have extraordinary ideas and they are extraordinary people. They embody the type of concern and substantial action that I found so wonderfully possible in those early years. And to those people, thank you for what you do. But they are a minority,” Addis said.

Addis shared the anarchist mindset of John Law, who led Burning Man to the Black Rock Desert then left the event in frustration with its growing scale and popularity and never returned after 1996.

“Paul Addis’ early burning of the corporate logo of the Burning Man event last year was the single most pure act of ‘radical self expression’ to occur at this massive hipster tail-gate party in over a decade,” Law wrote on a Laughing Squid blog post after Addis’ sentencing hearing in 2008, one of 185 spirited comments on both sides of the debate.

Among this growing group of Burning Man haters and malcontents, which included self-imposed exiles like Law and provocateur attendees like Chicken John (see “State of the Art,” 12/20/04), there was always talk about burning the Man early as the ultimate strike against how ordered the event had become.

“Everyone knew it needed to be done for lots of reasons,” Addis said of his arson attack. So he returned to Burning Man in 2007 with the sole purpose of torching the Man in order to “bring back that level of unpredictable excitement, that verve, that ‘what’s going to happen next?’ feeling, because it had gotten orchestrated and scripted.”

 

TORCHING THE ICON

Addis can be very grandiose and self-important, prone to presenting himself in heroic terms or as the innocent victim of other people’s conspiracies, such as the police in Seattle and San Francisco who arrested him for possession of weapons and fireworks in separate instances within weeks of his arrest at Burning Man. But when it came to burning the Man, Addis was purposeful.

“Obviously a gesture like burning down Burning Man is very dangerous and very provocative. From my perspective, the No. 1 concern was safety. No one could get hurt unless it was me,” Addis said. Critics of the arson attack often note how dangerous it was, pointing out that there were a dozen or so people under the Man when it caught fire. But Addis said that he was on site for at least 30 minutes beforehand, encouraging people to move back with mixed results, shirtless and wearing the red, black, and white face paint that would later make for such an iconic mug shot.

As a full lunar eclipse overhead darkened the playa and set the stage for his act, Addis waited for his cue: someone, whom Addis won’t identify, was going to cut the lights that illuminated the Burning Man and give him at least 15 minutes to do his deed in darkness.

“I didn’t do this alone,” Addis said. “The lights were cut by someone else… The lights were cut to camouflage my ascent.”

Unfortunately for Addis, the operation didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped. He miscalcuated the tension in a guide-wire he planned to climb and the difficulty in using the zip-ties that attached a tent flap to it as steps, slowly pulling himself up the wire “hand over hand.”

Once he reached the platform at the bottom of one leg, “I reached for this bottle of homemade napalm that I made for an igniter and it’s gone,” dropped during his ascent. And his backup plan of using burlap and lighter fluid took a long time when he couldn’t get his Bic lighter to work under the 15 mph wind.

Then the lights came back on. “And now I know I’m exposed. Because the whole thing was not to get famous for doing this. It was to get away and have it be a mystery. That was the goal,” Addis said.

But then Addis got the fire going and it quickly spread up the Man’s leg, and Addis used nylon safety cables to slide down the guide-wire like a zip-line. “I landed perfectly right in front of two Black Rock Rangers who watched me come down,” Addis said. “And I turned to them and said, ‘Your man is on fire.'<0x2009>”

Addis said he was “furious” to see about nine people still under the burning structure, blaming the rangers and yelling at the people to clear the area before declaring, “This is radical free speech at Burning Man” and taking off running. Addis said he stopped at the Steam Punk Treehouse art exhibit, hoping to get lost in the crowd, but headlights converged on his location. He ran again, with a ranger close behind, and was finally caught, arrested, and taken to Pershing County Jail.

 

AFTERMATH

The arson attack made international news, and there were enough Addis’ supporters out there to convey the message that this was a political statement against the leadership of event founder Larry Harvey and Black Rock City LLC.

But those who run the event didn’t buy into Addis’ narrative. Instead, they ordered new materials to have the Man rebuilt and burned on schedule. And when it came time to testify at his sentencing hearing a year later, they sent LLC board member Will Roger and a tally for replacement costs that greatly exceeded the $5,000 level that bumped the charges up to a felony.

“They didn’t have to do this,” Addis said. “Instead, they decided to deliberately take action they knew would send me to prison.”

Burning Man spokesperson Marian Goodell wouldn’t discuss the charge. “It doesn’t do us or him any good to open that wound again.”

But an internal memo written by Executive Project Manager Ray Allen shortly after the hearing argued that they were required to respond honestly to requests for information from prosecutors and to do otherwise would have required perjury on behalf of an adversary.

“Part of putting on the Burning Man event means maintaining good relations with Pershing County so that we can continue to have the Burning Man event on BLM land within that county. Good relations means cooperating with criminal prosecutions,” Allen wrote to Burning Man employees.

Many of those employees remain profoundly offended by Addis and his act, mostly for the extra work it caused and the principle of such a selfish gesture. “The basic ethos out there is build your own stuff, burn your own stuff,” said Andy Moore, a.k.a. Bruiser, an employee since 2001 who helps build the city. “How would you have felt if he went to your house and burned it down because he didn’t like you?”

Yet as viscerally angry as Moore can still get when speaking of Addis, he also agreed that two years is a long prison term for this. “It seems a bit over the top. After all, it was a structure made of wood that was meant to burn.”

But Addis said that he has let go of the bitterness he felt toward Burning Man and is looking forward to being back on stage, something that he said was his main focus in prison. “It’s a brand new life, and I’ve got all this potential,” Addis said. “And I want to make the most out of it.”

The Daily Blurgh: Staples city

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Staples city

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Shocker! San Francisco-based company set to profit off of humans willing to pay for amorous companionship.

*****

I Live Here: SF to live at SomARTS this fall.

*****

Google Maps gets you where you want to go (without going through Arizona).

*****

The gist: Breaking down the five, big legal questions in the iPhone case

*****

Which staple city would you rather live in: Ephemicropolis

or The Big Apple?

*****

I’ll see your KFC Double Down and raise you a cheesecake-stuffed pancake. (Offer very valid in Qatar.)

*****

But even if you’re only scarfing down the sprouted wheat bread, you’re still gonna die.

*****

Once-local, now big-in-France melancholy chanteuse Emily Jane White gets some love from NPR for her new album Victorian America.

*****

And speaking of sadness: “It is such a secret place, the land of tears.”  — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Burning Man announces its funded art projects

Sasha Cuttler
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Burning Man announces its funded art projects

Black Rock City LLC has announced its art grants for Burning Man 2010, with its theme “Metropolis: The Life of Cities.” Thirty-five projects were funded to the tune of almost $440,000, which is more than most years but not its peak.

Those receiving funding include well-known burner artists such as Michael Christian, Karen Cusolito and Dan DasMann, Kate Raudenbush, and Doctor Megavolt. The venerable SF-based fire arts collective Flaming Lotus Girls isn’t doing a funded project this year, but veteran FLGs Rebecca Anders and Jessica Hobbs (along with PK Kimelman, an architect and principal member of the local Space Cowboys sound collective) are leading construction of this year’s Temple (known as the Temple of Flux) with support from a gaggle of FLGs and many other Bay Area collectives in Oakland’s American Steel warehouse (the home base for Cusolito and DasMann).

I’ll be working with the Temple crew this year and profiling the project in the Bay Guardian later this summer, just as I did for the FLG’s Angel of the Apocalypse project in 2005 (all of which will be part of my upcoming book, “The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the News American Counterculture,” due to be released in November by CCC Publishing).

Like many of the projects, the Temple of Flux is only getting a small portion of its funding through the art grants (which are funded through ticket sales) and will be holding a series of fundraisers in the coming months, the first being this Saturday night, May 1, at Kelly’s Mission Rock.

Meanwhile, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey will be speaking tonight (April 27) at the offices of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, which has been excitedly promoting this year’s Burning Man focus on urbanism.

The CCA “conundrum”

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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The negotiations for the city’s green municipal power program still haven’t resulted in a finalized contract, and time is running out.

In 42 days, voters will decide whether Prop 16, the ballot initiative dubbed the “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act,” ought to be enshrined into state law. If a simple majority votes yes, the state constitution will be changed to require a two-thirds supermajority vote at the ballot before any municipal electricity program can move forward, effectively making it impossible for local governments to offer alternatives to investor-owned utility companies. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the 105-year-old utility that gained infamy with the movie Erin Brockovich after it was accused of causing groundwater pollution which led to a cancer cluster in Hinkley, Calif., is poised to spend $35 million to pass Prop 16.

Here in San Francisco, where the vision for a green municipal power program goes back at least half a decade (and PG&E’s monopolistic grip dates back much farther), the plan’s most dedicated proponents have come to view Prop 16 as “the grim reaper.” At a meeting in City Hall last Friday about CleanPower SF, the community choice aggregation (CCA) program that could provide San Franciscans with 51 percent renewable electricity, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi repeated a mantra he’s intoned since approximately last year at this time: “All hands on deck.” Mirkarimi’s face looked tense, and his anxiety about the closing window of opportunity was plain even as he tried to display optimism. If a CleanPower SF program contract is not signed before June 8, when Prop 16 is decided, years of hard work and effort could be lost. With $35 million worth of carefully crafted PR messaging that reveals nothing about the sole financier of the measure or its anti-competitive intentions, Prop 16 has a decent shot at voter approval.

The race against the clock has been intensified by the fact that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the city agency tasked with implementing CCA, has been unable (or unwilling, some critics charge) to broker a deal with Power Choice Inc., the energy service provider selected for CCA. Negotiating sessions have been ongoing since February, with SFPUC staff members, SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington, three city attorneys, and staff of the Local Agency Formation Commission devoting hours to negotiations. “We are continuing to work hard to secure a contract,” SFPUC Assistant General Manager of Power Barbara Hale told the Guardian.

Yet as the days pass, the absence of a signed contract in hand has program advocates increasingly worried, frustrated, and suspicious of the SFPUC. “My sense, and my fear quite frankly, has been that the level of commitment [from the SFPUC] isn’t there, and if it were there … then we would have a finalized contract,” Sup. David Campos noted at a joint meeting between LAFCo and the SFPUC on Friday.

John Rizzo of the Sierra Club told the Guardian that Harrington approached the environmental group last week requesting that it join the SFPUC in issuing a press release blaming PG&E’s Prop 16 for marring CCA’s prospects. Harrington was ready to announce that the CCA had reached a preliminary contract, but not really a contract at all, since key terms such as a rate structure would not be hammered down till after the June 8 election. The Sierra Club declined to go along with that idea. Such a move would have jeopardized the program’s shot at success. Campos highlighted this problem at the meeting, saying, “Even though there are risks associated with CCA, the risk of not doing this and not having as concrete a contract by the election is greater.”

Green power advocate Eric Brooks noted that he had received a call from Nancy Miller, the executive director of LAFCo, notifying him that the SFPUC felt that Prop 16 had created a climate that made it too difficult to negotiate, and that a press release would be issued explaining as much. In the end, the SFPUC agreed to stay the course at the negotiating table. At Friday’s meeting, there was no mention of pushing the contract back to a later date. Instead, everyone nodded in polite agreement that all hands were, indeed, on deck.

But during his presentation to commissioners, Harrington emphasized the difficulty in meeting the twin program goals: green power on one hand, and competitive pricing on the other. He displayed charts showing how much more expensive wind and solar were than “brown power,” the fossil fuel and nuclear variety currently offered by PG&E. When challenged on the SFPUC’s commitment, Harrington responded tersely, “Staff commitment does not change the economic reality of the world.”

Brooks, who has weighed in and watched the process unfold since the beginning, later charged that Harrington was presenting a wholly different picture from what was originally agreed to as a way of subverting the program. “He purposely showed the numbers so that they would look worse,” Brooks said. “His key trick was … allowing the contractor the option of a 3-to-5 year contract. No one thinks you can pay renewable energy off in three years, that’s ridiculous. … He knows that the plan was to pay this off over 15 years. There’s no way he didn’t know that the idea is to pay it off in 15 years.”

Harrington was not available for comment. But Hale, who did speak with the Guardian, told us, “We’re absolutely open to a longer-term contract.” The problem, she said, has been determining a rate that makes sense both to guarantee the long-term viability of the program while meeting the renewable-energy program goals and the financial commitment necessary to make it worthwhile for the service provider. It’s like a big control board with multiple dials, and the problem seems to lie in twisting the knobs to find the appropriate setting. So far, they haven’t hit the sweet spot.

Meanwhile, the political backdrop of this “conundrum,” as Harrington called it, is that Mayor Gavin Newsom, now a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, would be placed in an awkward position if a Board-approved contract for the CCA program landed on his desk before June 8. If he endorsed the contract with his signature, he would earn the ire of PG&E, a moneyed political ally that could help him reach the office he aspires to. But if he vetoed CCA, it would amount to a stunning display of hypocrisy, since he would be a green mayor rejecting the greenest municipal power program ever attempted. Newsom, who wants to name a street after former Mayor Willie Brown even as Brown is publicly arguing in favor of Prop 16, could avoid that dilemma altogether if the contract negotiations just imploded, or were at least delayed till after June 8.

What’s wrong with taxing car owners?

Zelda Bronstein
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What’s wrong with taxing car owners?

It’s almost as if we need a full-time blogger to monitor the backwards ideas coming from the Chron’s C.W. Nevius. Today’s case in point: Nevius thinks the idea of charging for Sunday parking is “the dumbest idea since the imitation crab meat cocktail.” 


His brilliant investigative observation:


For all the talk about the fees on Sunday turning over parking spaces, you never read very far into one of these parking enforcement stories before you get to the bottom line — an estimated $2.8 million a year in this case if the Sunday-charge system was implemented citywide.


That’s exactly right, Chuck: This is a way to bring in money for Muni. And I don’t get what’s wrong with that. People who drive cars (and I admit, I’m one of them) have an outsized impact on the city; they take up a huge amount of space (San Francisco devotes more urban land to streets than parks), they pollute the air, they increase the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and they contribute to global warming. And they don’t pay anywhere near enough taxes and fees to mitigate the impacts of their behavior.


I’m all for higher gas taxes, for example; taxes should not just be a source of revenue but should, when possible, be targeted to discourage socially detrimental behavoir. And charging people a little money to drive their cars to Sunday brunch instead of walking or taking public transit isn’t a terribly radical, unusual or disturbing idea. (In fact, we ought to charge the churches for the right to turn the streets into private parking lots on Sunday mornings).


Nevius complains that car drivers aren’t bad:


But c’mon. These aren’t evil people. They aren’t trying to scam the city, pee on the street, or break car windows and steal backpacks. We could fine the aggressive panhandler and the petty break-in artists, but they don’t have any money.


And I agree: They aren’t bad. But the same way taxes on cigarettes both defray the social cost of tobacco use and discourage the dangerous and noxious habit, a modest little fee for parking your car helps pay for public transit and might just encourage a few people not to drive their cars. That’s something everyone in the city should support.

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/28–Tues/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-8. “Anxiety and Apple Seeds:” B (Cardenas, 2010), Fri, 8. Hosted by the film’s star, comedian Mary Van Note. “Other Cinema:” The Juche Idea (Finn, 2008), Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $10. Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1990), Wed, 7. Presented by City Lights Bookstore and featuring readings by Barry Gifford, Robert Mailer Anderson, Eddie Muller, and more.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. Donations accepted. “Palestine: Occupied Lives, Non-Violence, and Steadfastness:” Bil’in My Love (Carmeli-Pollack, 2006), Fri, 7.

CAFÉ OF THE DEAD 3208 Grand, Oakl; (510) 931-7945. Free. “Independent Filmmakers Screening Nite,” Wed, 6:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “Kubrick:” •Lolita (1962), Wed, 2:15, 8, and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Wed, 5; •2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Thurs, 2:30, 8, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001), Thurs, 5:05. San Francisco International Film Festival, Fri-Tues. See film listings.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. The Greatest (Feste, 2009), call for dates and times. Vincere (Bellocchio, 2009), call for dates and times. “Red Riding Trilogy:” Red Riding 1980 (Marsh, 2009), Wed, 6:30; Red Riding 1983 (Tucker, 2009), Thurs, 6:30. Touching Home (Miller and Miller, 2009), April 30-May 6, call for times.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Ocean Campus, 50 Phelan, Cloud Hall, Rm 246, SF; (415) 239-3580. Free. City of Borders (Suh, 2009), Wed, 7. HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. A Story From the Deep North (Browne, 2008), Wed, 7:30. JACK LONDON SQUARE PAVILION THEATER 98 Broadway, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. Free. “Oakland Underground Film Festival: Major Music:” Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake (Project Moonshine, 2006), Fri, 8; Kurt Cobain: About a Son (Schnack, 2006), Fri, 9:30. MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Day and Noir:” Act of Violence (Zinneman, 1948), Fri, 6. PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. San Francisco International Film Festival, April 23-May 6. See film listings. PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 464-5980. $5-8. “Cult Classics Attack 5:” Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg, 1984), Fri-Sat, midnight; Sun, 10am. PIEDMONT VETERANS’ MEMORIAL BUILDING 401 Highland, Piedmont; www.works-exercise.com. $25-75. I Know a Woman Like That (Madsen, 2009), Thurs, 7. Benefit for the Works Cooperative dance and exercise studio with special guests including Rita Moreno and Maxine Hong Kingston. Advance tickets only. RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Police, Adjective (Porumboiu, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:20 (also Wed, 2). The Wolfman (Johnston, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:25 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009), Sun-Mon, 5, 8 (also Sun, 2). Food, Inc. (Kenner, 2008), Tues, 5:30. Special benefit for Pie Ranch includes a reception, presentation about Pie Ranch, and movie screening. Tickets are $25; advance purchase at www.pieranch.org. ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (Nguyen, 2008), Fri-Sat, 11. SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF CRAFT AND FOLK ART 51 Yerba Buena Lane, SF; www.mocfa.org. $40. Bamako Chic (Gosling and Downs, work in progress), Thurs, 7. Benefit screening with live Malian food and music. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Canines on Camera:” Best in Show (Guest, 2001), Thurs, noon. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 3030 20th St, SF; www.soex.org. $10. “How-To Homestead Hootenanny,” homesteading movie shorts, food tastings, and live music and dancing, Thurs, 7. STONESTOWN TWIN 501 Buckingham, SF; (415) 221-8182. $7.50-10.25. The Harimaya Bridge (Woolfolk, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times.

Stage listings

David Talbot
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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.

THEATER

OPENING

Echo’s Reach Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St; 665-2275, www.citycircus.org. $14-35. Opens Fri/30, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 4pm); Sun, 4pm. Through May 30. City Circus premieres an urban fairytale by Tim Barsky.

Geezer Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Sat/1, 8:30pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (May 9 show at 8pm). Through May 23. Geoff Hoyle presents a workshop performance of his new solo show about aging.

Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Opens Sun/2, 7pm. Runs Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. Thrillpeddlers work their revival magic on the Cockettes’ 1972 musical extravaganza.

BAY AREA

Terroristka Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (415) 891-7235, www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-20. Previews Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm. Opens Sun/2, 5pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 16. Threshold: Theatre on the Verge performs Rebecca Bella’s drama, based on the true story of a Chechen woman trained as a suicide bomber.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Wy, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Opens Sun/2, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

ONGOING

An Accident Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $25-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm; Tues, 7pm. Through May 9. Magic Theatre closes their season with Lydia Stryk’s world premiere drama.

Andy Warhol: Good For the Jews? Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org. $15-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 16. Renowned monologist Josh Kornbluth is ready to admit his niche is a narrow one: he talks about himself, and more than that, he talks about his relationship to his beloved late father, the larger-than-life old-guard communist of Kornbluth’s breakthrough Red Diaper Baby. So it will not be surprising that in his current (and still evolving) work, created with director David Dower, the performer-playwright’s attempt to "enter" Warhol’s controversial ten portraits of famous 20th-century Jews (neatly illuminated at the back of the stage) stirs up memories of his father, along with a close family friend — an erudite bachelor and closeted homosexual who impressed the boyhood Josh with bedtime stories culled from his dissertation. The scenes in which Kornbluth recreates these childhood memories are among the show’s most effective, although throughout the narrative Kornbluth, never more confident in his capacities, remains a knowing charmer. But the story’s central conceit, concerning his ambivalence over presenting a showing of "Warhol’s Jews" at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, feels somehow artificial. It’s almost a stylized rendition of the secular-Jewish moral quandary and neurotic obsession driving Kornbluth works of the past — or in other words, all surface, not unlike the work of another shock-haired artist, but less meaningfully so. (Avila)

The Diary of Anne Frank Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm. Custom Made performs Wendy Kesselman’s modern take on the classic.

"DIVAfest" Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.theexit.org. Check website for dates and times. Through Sat/1. Small town girls, they’re all so tragically alike: dreaming eternally of escape, whether by land or luck or love. For stranded sisters Finn and Sarah in The Wind and Rain (part of DIVAfest), the seasons slide slowly past, like the river that powers the dead-end mill-town they bide their time in, waiting for an elusive something to change their lives. Acerbic tomboy Finn (Brynna Jourdan) leads the action and their relationship — pushing her timid sister Sarah (Jeanna Bean Veatch) to swim in the river, all the while admonishing her to remember there "is no such thing as a river." Meanwhile a mysterious fiddler (Rebecca Jackson) moves quietly about her isolated office on the periphery of the stage, occasionally underscoring the unfolding story with a mournful pull of her bow across strings. The plot is thin, and slightly scripted, but the delicately structured buildup to the presumptive murder is gently compelling. As summer fades into fall and winter into spring, so does Sarah’s budding romance with Finn’s ex (the nameless Miller’s son of the ballad on which the play is based) blossom quite literally in an explosion of petals sprinkled across the stage, followed closely by the predetermined dose of sororicidal rage and a stirring musical dénouement. (Gluckstern)
Eat, Pray, Laugh! Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Wed, 8pm. Through May 26. Off-Market Theaters presents stand up comic and solo artist Alicia Dattner in her award-winning solo show.

*Master Class New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Terrence McNally’s lovingly clever and thoroughly engaging portrait-play about opera icon Maria Callas takes the inspired notion of post-career Callas (Michaela Greeley) teaching a Julliard master class of eager young singers, while naturally finding herself unable to resist dominating the stage once more. Through a set of arias performed to piano accompaniment (by Kenneth Helman) by a cast of actor-singers (Alyssa Stone, Holly Nugent, Gustavo Hernández), Callas’s unselfconsciously curt and even brutal interactions with the students finally evoke for this deeply proud yet insecure woman both past theatrical glories and backstage heartaches. The play receives an impressive, all-around satisfying production at New Conservatory Theatre under Arturo Catricala’s astute direction. Of course, even with decent to excellent work on and off stage by the entire production team — including a stately mood-setting scenic design by Kuo-Hao Lo — it would no doubt amount to little without a formidable lead actor to fill Callas’s elegant but slightly over-the-top shoes. Here a marvelously imposing yet charming Greeley delivers the part as if she were born to play it, and all goes swimmingly as a result. (Avila)

"A Night of Funny Firsts" Shotwell Studios, 3252A 19th St; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm. A sharp and consistently amusing trio of short plays makes up this Footloose-sponsored "night of funny firsts," which actually leads off with a welcome return: the encore run of Cynthia Brinkman’s Evolution of a Kiss, a clever and charming trans-autobiographical solo flight that builds on the writer-performer’s incarnation of three first-kisses across three generations of Latina women, beginning with her Mexican grandmother’s 1934 snog and ending with her own wayward gropings in the late-80s. Brinkman is a competent, confident and charismatic talent who lets nothing, including the fourth wall, stand between her and a good story. She also proves an able director in the second part of the evening, given over to two expert comedic sketches by playwright Wayne Rawley — Controlling Interest and Happiness Is Like a Beautiful, Bright, Shiny Red Apple — both pretty brilliantly manifested by actors Nick Dickson, Matt Gunnison, Maria Leigh, Tavis Kammet, Jason Pienkowski and Holly Silk. (Avila)

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm, through June 26; starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Extended through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Previews Wed/28 and May 5, 2pm; Thurs/29, 7pm; Fri/30-Sat/1, 7:30pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun/2, 1 and 5pm. Opens May 8, 7:30pm. Runs Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $18-50. Wed-Thurs and May 28, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 30. The Marsh presents the world premiere of Dan Hoyle’s new solo show.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through May 23. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway "Beatlemania" comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The excuse, if one were needed, is that god (voiced in mealy nasal slang by Buddy Hackett, appropriately enough) has deemed a Rat Pack encore of supreme importance to the continued unfurling of his inscrutable plan, and thus unto us a floorshow is given. The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic — and the time-warp didn’t prevent someone in opening night’s audience from laying into Hackett’s opening monologue for a glib reference to suicide. Though talk about killing: thanks to the heckler, the actor — son to Buddy and the show’s co-producer (alongside chanteuse Lisa Dawn Miller, who sings a cameo as Frank’s "One Love") — got more life out of that joke over the rest of the evening than any other bit. (Avila)

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 1-800-838-3006, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Theatre Rhinoceros presents John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $27-29. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. The musical is now in its fifth year at Shelton Theater.

Tartuffe Studio 205 at Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission; 377-5882, http://generationtheatre.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 16. Generation Theatre performs a new English translation of Molière’s classic, in Alexandrine verse.

Tell It Slant Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Marina at Laguna; www.tixbayarea.com. $20-40. Fri-Sun, 8pm (also Sun, 2pm; no 8pm show May 16). Through May 16. BootStrap Foundation presents Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s musical about Emily Dickinson.

"Wanton Darkness: Two Plays By Harold Pinter and Conor McPherson" Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; 335-6087. $24-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 8. Second Wind and Project 9 Productions co-present a double-bill of twisted and mysterious little-big plays under the umbrella title, "Wanton Darkness." The evening begins with Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes, a pas de deux between a fortysomething couple, Rebecca (Lisa-Marie Newton) and Devlin (Lol Levy), wherein Devlin closely questions Rebecca about a certain sadomasochistic relationship and accompanying dreams, in vaguely menacing tones. The scenic design (by Fred Sharkey) suggests a psychiatrist’s office as much as "a New York penthouse apartment," which speaks to the ambiguity in the dialogue but also to the slightly heavy-handed approach taken here by the actors under Ian Walker’s direction. The touch is far more apt overall in the second play, St. Nicholas, also directed by Walker. An early effort by Irish playwright Conor McPherson (Shining City; The Seafarer), the play unfolds as a two-part monologue by a cynical drink-sodden theater critic (tell it, brother) who follows a spiral of self-loathing right down into the company of a set of fetching young vampires. With something like the quality of a gothic-styled AA testimonial, it proves a somewhat roving but intriguing yarn, nicely delivered by the capable Fred Sharkey. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through July 30. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Fri, 9pm; Sat, 8pm. Through May 8. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

Equivocation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Wed/28, 7:30pm; Thurs/29 and Sat/1, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun/2, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company presents playwright Bill Cain’s award-winning hit, a sparksy drama that steeps itself in the history of Shakespeare’s life, labors and times to, among other things, draw pointed references to a barbaric period of fear, witch-hunting and state-sponsored torture ("Politics is religion for people who think they’re god," as one character has it). As staged by artistic director Jasson Minadakis, the play is nervously kinetic and pitched rather high by a cast of first-rate actors delivering surprisingly lackluster performances. The fact is Cain also bites off quite a bit in Equivocation, including "Shagspeare"’s (Charles Shaw Robinson) fraught relationship with his morosely clever daughter (Anna Bullard), neglected twin of the beloved son he lost — which is perhaps why some of it seems only half chewed by the end. The play — set in designer J.B. Wilson’s metallic two-tiered semi-circle representing the storied Globe Theatre, where the Bard wrote and occasionally acted alongside his fellow King’s Men as co-proprietor — has also a wearying tendency to spell its morals in block letters. Some genuine insight into the plays and their meaning then and now lifts interest in the fictionalized action, which otherwise skirts by on mild amusement, somewhat strained dialogue and familiar post-9/11 indignation. (Avila)

Girlfriend Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $27-71. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat and Tues, 2pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 9. If you like Matthew Sweet’s songs you’ll probably like the spirited renditions in this new boy-meets-boy musical, which borrows its title from Sweet’s famous 1991 album. The songs, backed by a solid band in a recessed fake-wood-paneled den at the back of the stage, underscore the fraught but exhilarating emotional bond between two Nebraska teens at the end of their high school careers and the cusp of an anxious, ambiguous independence. The performances and chemistry generated by actors Ryder Bach and Jason Hite under Les Waters’ sharp direction are marvelous, delivering perfectly the inherent honesty and feeling in Todd Almond’s book, while Joe Goode’s beautifully understated choreography adds a fresh, youthful insouciance to the staging. But the story is a small one, not just a small town story, and its short, predictable arc makes for a slackness not altogether compensated for by the evocative tension between the lovers. (Avila)

John Gabriel Borkman Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Tues and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 9. A former bank manager (James Carpenter) who did time for illegally speculating with customer accounts to the ruin of all now paces like a lone wolf (in the operative metaphor) in his upstairs study, planning a return to respectability, as his estranged wife (Karen Grassle) occupies the rooms below along with a testy housekeeper (Lizzie Calogero), where her sister (Karen Lewis) competes for the love and loyalty of the patriarch’s grown son (Aaron Wilton), who contrary to the designs of all his elders is determined to marry a charming widow (Pamela Gaye Walker) and "live," as he is compelled to reiterate. Ibsen’s play has an enduring topicality that is hard to miss of course, but Aurora’s production, directed by veteran hand Barbara Oliver, also inadvertently suggests why this leaden, slightly ridiculous work is so rarely produced, despite some solid acting, especially from an imposing yet slyly comical Carpenter in the title role. (Avila)

Oliver! Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $24-33. Fri, 7:30pm; Sat, 2 and 7pm; Sun, 1 and 6pm. Through May 16. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Dickens-based musical.

To Kill a Mockingbird Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $27-62. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 9. TheatreWorks performs Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s literary masterpiece.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bombshell Betty’s Burlesque Bailout" Glas Kat, 520 Fourth St; 495-6620. Wed, 8pm, $10. Burlesque, dance, comedy, and more to raise money for Bay Area performers hit hard by the economic crisis.

"City Solo" Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun, 7pm. Through May 23. $15. This showcase features works by Monica Bhatnagar, Susan Ito, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Sarah Weidman, and Nicole Maxali.

"Columbia Chasing" Garage, 975 Howard, SF; 518-1517. May 4-5, 8pm, $10-20. Dance Ceres performs a work-in-progress.

"Men Think They Are Smarter Than Grass" Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida; 267-7687. Fri-Sat and May 6, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 9. $20-25. Deborah Slater Dance Theaer performs a world premiere.

"Queerification" Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; www.therhino.org. Sun, 3. Donations accepted. Theatre Rhinoceros and Grooviness Productions present this afternoon of "playlets and musings in progress" by Mercilee Jenkins and Jerry Metzker.

"Toe to Toe: The Grand Slam" Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; www.slimstickets.com. Thurs, 6:30pm. $25-125. Dancers from ODC/Dance and student athletes from UC Berkeley engage in a series of physical challenges to raise money for ODC Dance Commons and Cal Athletics.

Events listings

David Talbot
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0

Event Listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 28

Phases Full Moon Celebration McLaren Park, 2100 Sunnydale, SF; (415) 468-9664. 8pm, free. Join in on this celebration of the passing of the Moon Phases with people from different spiritual traditions and walks of life featuring dancing, drumming, singing, readings, performances, and more.

FRIDAY 30

Journalism Innovations University of San Francisco, Fromm Hall, Golden Gate at Parker, SF; (415) 738-4975. Fri. 1pm-7:30pm, Sat. 8:30am-7:30pm, Sun. 9am-12:30pm; $15-$75 sliding scale. Join over 600 journalists, educators, advocates, and citizens for this conference on shaping the future of journalism featuring workshops, expositions, and showcases of new projects, practices, and ideas. Presented by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Nor Cal.

Poems Under the Dome North Light Court, San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF; www.poemdome.com. 5:30pm, free. Celebrate the last day of National Poetry Month by reading a poem of your choosing at City Hall. Space is limited, so readers are selected by lottery and limited to three minutes per poem. Readings will begin with a poem by Maxine Chernoff.

BAY AREA

"Are We Alone?" UC Berkeley, Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, Hearst at LeRoy, Berk.; (510) 642-8678. 7:30pm, free. Attend this debate where Dan Werthimer, UC Berkeley SETI Program Director, and Geoff Marcy, Professor, UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, will present convincing arguments both for and against the existence of technological life elsewhere in the galaxy. Either the Milky Way is teeming with life or it isn’t; decide who’s right.

SATURDAY 1

May Day Dolores Park, 18th St. at Dolores, SF; www.uainthebay.org. 3pm, free. Celebrate May Day with the anti-authoritarian community at this family friendly event featuring food, drink, activities, speeches, reenactments, and information tables from organizations like Bound Together Books, Homes Not Jails, Indybay, International Workers of the World (IWW), and many more.

National Free Comic Book Day Comic book stores throughout the Bay Area, visit freecomicbookday.com for a list of stores near you. All day, free. Special edition comics from top publishers, like Marvel and DC, will be given away all day. Participating stores include Isotope, Jeffery’s Toys, Caffeinated Comics, Japantown Collectibles, Neon Monster, Comix Experience, and more.

Roots and Culture Shelton Theater, Pier 26, The Embarcadero, SF; (415) 665-8855. 8pm, $2-20 sliding scale. Attend this May Day event that promises to shake loose all the dampness from the rain and economic struggles featuring COPUS, a spoken word, bass, and percussion ensemble, and Heartical Roots, a song-writing collaborative including bass, drums, keyboards, guitar, and Nyahbinghi drums.

Russian Hill Stairways Meet at Hyde and Filbert, SF; www.sfcityguides.org. 10am, free. Learn more about San Francisco history, architecture, legends, and lore on this SF City Guides walking tour featuring magic staircases, gardens, views from 345 feet above the Bay, and stories about the former haunts of writers and artists.

Spring Plant Sale SF County Fair Building, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, 9th Ave. at Lincoln, SF; (415) 661-1316. 10am-2pm, free. Learn about and purchase rare and unusual plants not found at other regional plant stores at this giant sale featuring over 4,000 different kinds of plants, plant related books, treasures, garden gifts, and more.

SUNDAY 2

Art in the Alley Kerouac Alley, Columbus and Broadway, SF; (415) 362-3370. Noon – 6pm, free. Attend this open air art gallery, where over 25 emerging and established artists will showcase their work, including painting, printmaking, glass art, books, photography, jewelry, and more, and celebrate this fabled neighborhood and its artistic roots.

Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon Race begins and ends at Marina Green, Marina at Fillmore, SF; www.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com. 8am, free. Watch as more than 2,000 amateur and professional athletes compete in a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, followed by an 18 mile bike ride out to the Great Highway through the Golden Gate Park, and concluding with an 8 mile run through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The finish is at The Marina Green.

BAY AREA

Go Expo Day Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Suite 290, Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 9th St., Oak.; (510) 501-2701. 1pm, free. Learn about the game "Go," which originated in 4,000 years ago in China. Get free lessons, participate in game sets, and get instructional booklets so that you too can one day compete for some big prizes.

Women Entrepreneurs Showcase David Brower Centre, main lobby, 2150 Allston, Berk.; (510) 809-0900. 10:30am, $4 includes light lunch and raffle ticket. Show your support for local, women-owned businesses of all types, listen to live music, and enjoy some food samples.

TUESDAY 4

Beers, Brats, and Bikes Gestalt Haus, 3159 16th St., SF; www.gestaltsf.com. 7pm, $1 suggested donation. Drink beer, eat delicious sausages (veggie options available and also delicious), and commune with other bike lovers at this fundraiser for Hazon, a non profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable food.

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Aesop, Venture Capitalists, New Humans Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Fix My Head, This Runs on Blood, Useless Children, Gain to Lose Sub-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 9pm, $6.

*"Full Pink Moon Party" Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10. With Sonya Cotton, Honeycomb, Jascha vs. Jascha, and Kris Gruen.

Japanther, Reaction, Dirty Marquee, Street Eaters Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Pomegranate, Fall Risk, Control-R Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $6.

Chad Price, Michael Dean Damron, Micah Schabnel, Piss Pissdofferson Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $5.

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Funk Revival Orchestra Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Volker Strifler Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Anoushka Shankar Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 563-6504. 8pm, $25-$65.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

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

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

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

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

Telephoned Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.harlotsf.com. 7pm. Mash-ups with DJ Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aquaserge, Casper and the Cookies, Grand Lake Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Arcadio, Guns for San Sebastian, Charles Gonzalez Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

C-Mon and Kypski, Frequency, Sweet Snacks, DJ Mancub Independent. 9pm, $12.

A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, Silverstein, Enter Shikari, Go Radio Regency Ballroom. 6:45pm, $23.

Dunes El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

Flood, Hashishian, Days of High Adventure Knockout. 10pm, $6.

49 Special, Big Nasty, TV Mike and the Scarecrowes Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Emily McLean, Quinn DeVeaux, Street Sirens Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $8.

Murs, Sick Jacken Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Photo Atlas, Moog, Smile Radio Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Spill Canvas, Tyler Hilton, AM Taxi, New Politics Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

Sugar and Gold, Nite Jewel, Baron Von Luxxury, DJ Loose Shus Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Sugar Butt Tiger, Bare Wires, Girl Band, MC Meathook and the Vital Organs, SF Rockstar Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Proceeds benefit the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.

Emily Jane White, Helene Renault, Chloe Makes Music Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and old-time jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Jordan Carp Bollyhood Café. 8pm, free.

Jon Rubin with Cal Keaoola Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; (415) 826-6200. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with a live performance by Aphrodesia.

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

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

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

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

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

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

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

FRIDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

David Baron, Dan Vickrey, Blackstone Heist, American Studies Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Clipd Beaks, Sightings, Bill Orcutt Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Flexx Bronco, My Revolver, Bourbon Saints, Electric Sister Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

JFP, Cnote, Mack Misstress El Rio. 10pm, $5.

Kapakahi, Dogman Joe, Stranger Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Lemonade, Solid Gold, Active Child, DJ Aaron Axelsen Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Lord T. and Eloise, Tenderloins, Hottub DJ Set Independent. 9pm, $14.

Ponys, Disappears, Spencey Dude and the Doodles Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Rogue Wave, Man/Miracle Fillmore. 9pm, $19.50.

Joe Rut Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14. With comedian Will Franken.

Shpongle, ADHK, Hallucinogen LIVE Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $30.

Shayna Steele Coda. 10pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

Chano Dominguez Flamenco Jazz Quartet featuring Tomasito Palace of Fine Arts Theare, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-60.

Dan Zemelmen Quartet with Kenny Washington Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Fred Frith and Theresa Wong Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.

"A Night at Birdland" Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm. With the MegaFlame Blue Band.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Eek-a-mouse Rock-it Room. 10pm, $22. With the Holdup and DJ Mr. E.

Lava, Mestizo, Carmen Milagro Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Melees Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

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

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8-10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz mark their night’s third anniversary with Chico Mann and guest DJ Similak Chyld.

Area Codes Element Lounge. 10pm, $10. With DJs Platurn, Doc Fu, and White Mike spinning Bay Area hip hop.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.

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

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

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

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

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

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

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

Quantic Mighty. 10pm, $12. With Disco Shawn and DJ Sake 1.

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

Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.

Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. With DJ Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

SATURDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*AC/Dshe, Total B.S., Honeydust Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Antlers, Phantogram Independent. 9pm, $14.

Mike Beck and the Bohemian Saints Riptide. 9pm, free.

Broken Social Scene Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Grand National, Bonafide, General Jones Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

JC Smith Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

*Laudanum, Worm Ouroboros, Dispirit Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Maus Haus, Rafter, White Cloud Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Outernational Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Plushgun, Music for Animals, Fake Your Own Death, Marissa Guzman Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15.

Warren Teagarden, Collisionville, Charmless Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 3 and 8pm, $5-25.

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.

Marlena Teich Quintet Savanna Jazz. 8pm.

Sanctuary Trio featuring Peter Apfelbaum and guests Coda. 10pm, $10.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Boyd and Wain Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Evangenitals El Rio. 11:30pm, $7.

Gold Live Rockit Room. 9pm, $15. With Ce’Cile, Daddy Rolo, Empress I-Lexis, Danneekah.

Sour Mash Hug Band, Four Inch Pony, Janay Rose Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7pm, $5.

Red Hot Chachkas Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

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

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. Alt-rock hits from the 90s with DJ Jamie Jams and Emdee of Club Neon.

Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm.

Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love and Nicky B. spinning deep disco.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Kontrol Endup. 10pm, $20. With resident DJs Alland Byallo, Craig Kuna, Sammy D, and Nikola Baytala spinning minimal techno and avant house.

Leisure Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $7. DJs Omar, Aaron, and Jet Set James spinning classic britpop, mod, 60s soul, and 90s indie.

New Wave City DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. Erasure tribute with Skip and Shindog and Andy T.

Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5. "Electroindierockhiphop" and 80s dance party for dykes, bois, femmes, and queers with DJ China G and guests.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

So Special Club Six. 9pm, $5. DJ Dans One and guests spinning dancehall, reggae, classics, and remixes.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Soundscape Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. With DJs C3PLOS, Brighton Russ, and Nick Waterhouse spinning Soul jazz, boogaloo, hammond grooves, and more.

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

SUNDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Eluvium, Benoit Pioulard Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Nymph, Three Leafs, Woom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Shootin’ Lucy, Neutralboy, Steel Tigers of Death, Gunner Kimo’s. 5:30pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kenny Lattimore Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5pm, $5-38.

Raul Midon Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-55.

Ray Obiedo and the Urban Latin Jazz Project Coda. 8pm, $10.

*Kronos Quartet Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.performances.org. 11am, $8-15.

Rent Romus and the Emergency String Ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie Chamber Ensemble Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth, SF; www.noertker.com. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Damon and the Heathens, Graves Brothers Deluxe, Doc Holler Amnesia. 8:30pm, $7.

"Wanderlust at the Fillmore" Fillmore. 8pm, $25. With Rupa and the April Fishes, MC Yogi, and DJ Dragonfly.

DANCE CLUBS

Afterglow Nickies, 466 Haight, SF; (415) 255-0300. An evening of mellow electronics with resident DJs Matt Wilder, Mike Perry, Greg Bird, and guests.

Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and guest Spliff Skankin’.

FlashDance SF Glas Kat, 520 4th St., SF; www.flashdancesf.com. 6pm, $25.

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

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

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

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

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

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Futurecop, Keith Masters Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Green River Ordinance, Matt Hires, Angel Taylor Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Garrison Starr, Joey Ryan, Cate Le Bon Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

AaronandJane Rockit Room. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

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

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

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

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

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest Djs.

TUESDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Heartless Bastards, Hacienda, Amy Cook Independent. 8pm, $18.

*Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B. Warfield. 8pm, $40.

MC Frontalot, Brandon Patton, Edible Norris Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Mantles, Dimmer, Weekend Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Mudface, Great American Beast, Motogruv Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Needtobreathe, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Seabird Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $19.
Rangers, Jon Porras, Radiant Husk, Centipede Eest Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Title Tracks, New Trust, Bye Bye Blackbirds Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Zweng, Frisky Disco, Parachute Musical, Winter Sounds Thee Parkside. 8pm, $6.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and Mackiveli.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Housing relief – for tenants

David Talbot
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1
Housing relief – for tenants

OPINION Since the burst of the housing bubble, we’ve seen a lot of attention paid to the plight of homeowners hit hard by the recession and facing foreclosure. Indeed, President Obama recently enacted a protection for homeowners that requires banks to let unemployed homeowners delay their mortgage payments. But until now there has been little talk and even less action on how we can help tenants who are also in danger of losing their homes.

Tenants need economic relief too. Renters have been particularly hard hit by the housing bubble and the ensuing recession. During the bubble, real estate speculation caused San Francisco rents to increase by an average of 50 percent. When the bubble burst, tenants saw their jobs disappear and incomes drop — but rents remained at record high levels. Evictions for nonpayment of rent shot up as renter after renter found it impossible to keep up with San Francisco’s housing costs.

The June 8 election will give voters a chance to change that. Proposition F will give tenants the right to postpone rent increases when they’ve lost their jobs or seen their wages or hours cut.

Many tenants struggle to pay San Francisco’s sky-high rents in the best of times and, when hit with a layoff or reduction in pay, it becomes even more difficult. Any further rent increases would be devastating and put their housing at risk. Prop. F will provide needed relief to those tenants trying to pay high rents with vastly reduced incomes. Unemployed tenants or those who have seen their wages cut by 20 percent or more will be able to get any rent increase delayed simply by filing a petition with the San Francisco Rent Board and documenting that they are unemployed or have had wages cut.

With the difficulties renters face in one of the country’s most expensive housing markets, Prop. F is a mild and measured response to a very real crisis. Prop. F essentially does what any decent landlord would do anyway: give a break to tenants who’ve just lost their jobs and hold off on rent increases until back on their feet.

San Francisco voters should also give a break to tenants on the verge of losing their homes. Vote Yes on Prop. F.

Ted Gullicksen runs the San Francisco Tenants Union.

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28

SF Hep B Free


Attend this kick-off rally for a new hepatitis B ad campaign. The campaign addresses recent federal data confirming that SF has the highest rate of liver cancer in the country, primarily due to the high rate of hepatitis B among Asian Americans. Fiona Ma, Dr. Edward Chow, Ted Fang, and others will be speaking.

5:30 p.m., free

Togonon Gallery

77 Geary, 2nd floor, SF

www.sfhepbfree.org

Workers Memorial Day


Commemorate workers killed on the job and defend injured workers at this protest to reactivate the labor movement, protect the lives and safety of workers in the workplace, and demand healthcare and justice for all.

7 p.m., free

ILWU Local 34

801 2nd St., SF

www.workersmemorialday.org

THURSDAY, APRIL 29

Support SFBG’s slate card


Show your support for the Guardian’s June 2010 slate of endorsed candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) at this fundraiser featuring live music by the Valerie Orth Band and Lumaya, DJs Smoove and Kramer, a performance by Fou Fou Ha, and more. Although the Guardian is not directly affiliated with this event, proceeds go to a Guardian slate card mailer prepared and distributed by the candidates.

7 p.m., $20–$100 suggested donation

CELLspace

2050 Bryant, SF

alixro@yahoo.com

Oakland teachers strike


Join the picket lines at your Oakland neighborhood public school to protest the district’s top-heavy administration, over-reliance on private contracts, and continued cuts to essential programs.

6 a.m. protest at a school near you

11 a.m. march and rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza

14th at Broadway, Oakl.

Oaklandteachers.wordpress.com

FRIDAY, APRIL 30

Project Homeless Connect


Celebrate Arbor Day by taking part in the groundbreaking of a new fruit tree orchard at Project Homeless Connect’s Growing Home Community Garden, a project that aims to provide an ongoing source of fresh fruit for San Francisco’s homeless community.

1 p.m., free

Project Homeless Connect

Octavia between Page and Oak, SF

RSVP to (858) 523-9020 or (510) 601-4211

SATURDAY, MAY 1

International Workers’ Day


This march and rally will demand full rights for undocumented workers; money for jobs and education not war and occupation; and no more budget cuts or fee hikes that are just taxes on the poor. Sponsored by the May Day 2010 Coalition and the ANSWER Coalition.

Noon, free

24th St. and Mission, SF

answersf.org

TUESDAY, MAY 4

HIREvent


Find out about job opportunities in accounting, education, management, public safety, customer service, sales, technology, law administration, and more at this job fair featuring resume recommendations and employers ready to hire.

11 a.m., free

Hotel Whitcomb

1231 Market, SF

1-888-THE JOBS

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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0
Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that there are now almost 10,000 employees with paychecks that totaled more than $100,000 last year. I can already hear the screaming: that’s close to a billion dollars! City workers are all overpaid, fat, and lazy! That’s why we have a budget crisis!

And yeah, I think it would be a lot more fair if the highest earners took the bulk of the pay cuts (5 percent for everyone in that $100K club would be $50 million a year). But Mayor Newsom wants to be sure the lowest-paid folks get their share of the hurt, so the biggest impact of his budget reductions will fall on those least able to handle it.

But I also think it’s worth looking at who these high earners really are.

Now, some of the ones at the top of the scale are political appointees. Do we really need to pay $354,000 to get someone qualified to run Muni? Is the head of the city’s Public Utilities Commission really worth $291,000? Some are getting market rate for their skills — three of the top 20 earners are doctors who work as pathologists in the Medical Examiner’s office.

But the most telling fact is that 11 of the top 20 are either cops or firefighters — and they’re collecting huge amounts of overtime. Four cops alone, all with the rank of captain or deputy chief, accounted for overtime pay totaling $588,000.

I know city employees who work at the senior management level — just like those cops — but they don’t get overtime. Neither do senior managers in most private-sector jobs. And it’s not as if these top cops are working for minimum wage; they all make around $200,000 or more as base salary. Plus they get excellent benefits and get to retire on sweet pensions.

Think of all the money and services you could save with one minor contract change: once you get to the level of captain in the SFPD, you aren’t eligible for overtime anymore.

No more stalling on CCA

David Talbot
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1
No more stalling on CCA

EDITORIAL There’s nothing wrong with city officials taking tough stands in negotiations with private contractors. Hundreds, thousands of times in the past few years, San Francisco department heads have rolled over and given away the store in sweetheart deals that put the city on the hook for all the money, make the public take all the risk, and give a private outfit all the profit. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (remember the Tulock-Modesto sellout contract?), Lennar Corp., Recurrent Energy, and countless other developers, builders, suppliers, and service providers have easily taken the public to the cleaners with contracts that never seemed to get stuck in the due diligence process.

But when there’s a looming deadline, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the city’s energy future and environmental footprint at stake, why is the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission moving so incredibly slowly to hammer out a deal for the city’s community choice aggregation (CCA) program? And why is PUC general manager Ed Harrington doing everything in his power to make sure that nothing happens that might put the city in the power business until after PG&E’s initiative, Prop. 16 — which would block public power efforts — passes at the polls?

It’s infuriating — and the supervisors need to tell the PUC that they won’t approve anything the agency does or wants to do until this contract is completed.

Harrington’s shop has known for more than a year that it needed to work out a business deal with a supplier that could replace PG&E and manage a program to buy greener, cheaper power in bulk and resell it to San Francisco residents. Marin County is setting up a similar program and is far ahead of San Francisco. The city has chosen a vendor, Powerchoice Inc., run by people completely qualified to handle the business.

And now there’s a absolute, drop-deal mandate: the city has to complete negotiations and get the program underway before the June 8 election. That’s because PG&E is spending $35 million to try to pass an initiative that would mandate a two-thirds vote of the public before any new CCA can begin selling power to customers. If San Francisco wants to present a solid legal case that its CCA is already in business, the contract with Powerchoice needs to be completed and signed, now.

But Harrington has, to put it kindly, been dragging his feet. The negotiations are hung up on a few points, although none are deal-breakers; Powerchoice already has agreed to assume some of the financial risk, which was the biggest obstacle to a deal. Now it’s just a matter of hammering out the details — but the PUC staff isn’t acting as if there is any time pressure at all.

In fact, last week Harrington circulated a draft press release all but announcing that he was tossing the whole deal under the bus and postponing negotiations until after the June election. He wanted to say that the "uncertainly" surrounding Prop. 16 made a deal impossible.

But Powerchoice isn’t walking away or complaining about the initiative. The company’s CEO, Sam Enoka, made it clear to us in an interview April 26 that he is eager to move forward. If Harrington — an experienced negotiator with a large staff at his disposal — and his boss, Mayor Gavin Newsom, wanted a deal, it could be finished well ahead of the deadline.

Instead, Harrington showed up at the Local Agency Formation Commission meeting April 23 with charts and a PowerPoint presentation purporting to show that renewable energy is too expensive to sell at rates comparable to what PG&E charges local customers. That misses the point — PG&E’s rates are going up every year and renewables are coming down, and the greatest risk to the city, the ratepayers, and the planet is sticking with the unreliable private utility that relies on fossil fuels and nuclear power for much of its electricity portfolio.

If the city has legitimate issues with Powerchoice, fine: Sit down and begin working them out. Now. But the only thing we can see at this point is the administration of a mayor who wants to be lieutenant governor intentionally delaying the process and giving PG&E exactly what it wants. (We called the PUC April 26, our print deadline, to ask why there were no talks scheduled that day, but Harrington wasn’t available; he was taking the day off.)

Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Campos suggest that the board simply refuse to sign off on any contracts, appropriations, or other approvals for anything the SFPUC does until this contract is completed. That’s a fine idea; they should start today.

No more stalling on CCA

David Talbot
-
0

EDITORIAL There’s nothing wrong with city officials taking tough stands in negotiations with private contractors. Hundreds, thousands of times in the past few years, San Francisco department heads have rolled over and given away the store in sweetheart deals that put the city on the hook for all the money, make the public take all the risk, and give a private outfit all the profit. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (remember the Tulock-Modesto sellout contract?), Lennar Corp., Recurrent Energy, and countless other developers, builders, suppliers, and service providers have easily taken the public to the cleaners with contracts that never seemed to get stuck in the due diligence process.

But when there’s a looming deadline, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the city’s energy future and environmental footprint at stake, why is the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission moving so incredibly slowly to hammer out a deal for the city’s community choice aggregation (CCA) program? And why is PUC general manager Ed Harrington doing everything in his power to make sure that nothing happens that might put the city in the power business until after PG&E’s initiative, Prop. 16 — which would block public power efforts — passes at the polls?

It’s infuriating — and the supervisors need to tell the PUC that they won’t approve anything the agency does or wants to do until this contract is completed.

Harrington’s shop has known for more than a year that it needed to work out a business deal with a supplier that could replace PG&E and manage a program to buy greener, cheaper power in bulk and resell it to San Francisco residents. Marin County is setting up a similar program and is far ahead of San Francisco. The city has chosen a vendor, Powerchoice Inc., run by people completely qualified to handle the business.

And now there’s a absolute, drop-deal mandate: the city has to complete negotiations and get the program underway before the June 8 election. That’s because PG&E is spending $35 million to try to pass an initiative that would mandate a two-thirds vote of the public before any new CCA can begin selling power to customers. If San Francisco wants to present a solid legal case that its CCA is already in business, the contract with Powerchoice needs to be completed and signed, now.

But Harrington has, to put it kindly, been dragging his feet. The negotiations are hung up on a few points, although none are deal-breakers; Powerchoice already has agreed to assume some of the financial risk, which was the biggest obstacle to a deal. Now it’s just a matter of hammering out the details — but the PUC staff isn’t acting as if there is any time pressure at all.

In fact, last week Harrington circulated a draft press release all but announcing that he was tossing the whole deal under the bus and postponing negotiations until after the June election. He wanted to say that the "uncertainly" surrounding Prop. 16 made a deal impossible.

But Powerchoice isn’t walking away or complaining about the initiative. The company’s CEO, Sam Enoka, made it clear to us in an interview April 26 that he is eager to move forward. If Harrington — an experienced negotiator with a large staff at his disposal — and his boss, Mayor Gavin Newsom, wanted a deal, it could be finished well ahead of the deadline.

Instead, Harrington showed up at the Local Agency Formation Commission meeting April 23 with charts and a PowerPoint presentation purporting to show that renewable energy is too expensive to sell at rates comparable to what PG&E charges local customers. That misses the point — PG&E’s rates are going up every year and renewables are coming down, and the greatest risk to the city, the ratepayers, and the planet is sticking with the unreliable private utility that relies on fossil fuels and nuclear power for much of its electricity portfolio.

If the city has legitimate issues with Powerchoice, fine: Sit down and begin working them out. Now. But the only thing we can see at this point is the administration of a mayor who wants to be lieutenant governor intentionally delaying the process and giving PG&E exactly what it wants. (We called the PUC April 26, our print deadline, to ask why there were no talks scheduled that day, but Harrington wasn’t available; he was taking the day off.)

Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Campos suggest that the board simply refuse to sign off on any contracts, appropriations, or other approvals for anything the SFPUC does until this contract is completed. That’s a fine idea; they should start today.

Herrera to San Francisco: boycott Arizona

Mary Magee
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25
Herrera to San Francisco: boycott Arizona

I almost visited Arizona once.
I was in Nevada, visiting the Hoover Dam which crosses the border between Nevada and Arizona and took a photo next to the Arizona state sign.

But I didn’t cross the line. I already suspected that Arizona was groundzero for wingnuts, thanks to the decision of Arizona U.S. senator, Republican John McCain, to choose then Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election.


At least, Democrat Janet Napolitano was still governor of Arizona at the time, and so was able to veto similar attempts to pass racist immigration laws in the state of


But now Republican Jan Brewer, a former Maricopa County supervisor, is governor of Arizona and has signed Arizona’s SB  1070, I think I’ll follow San Francisco city Attorney Dennis Herrera’s advice and implement a sweeping boycott of all things Arizona.


Citing San Francisco’s “moral leadership against such past injustices as South African apartheid, the exploitation of migrant farm workers, the economic oppression of Catholics in Northern Ireland, and discrimination against the LGBT community,” Herrera offered the services of his office’s contracts, government litigation and investigations teams to work closely with city departments and commissions to identify applicable contracts and to aggressively pursue termination wherever legally tenable.


“Arizona’s controversial new law makes it a state-level crime for someone to be in the country illegally, and even criminalizes the failure to carry immigration documents at all times by lawful foreign residents,” Herrera’s April 26 press release observed. “It additionally imposes a requirement for police officers to question those they suspect may be in the United States illegally. Civil libertarians have sharply criticized the law for being an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against all Latinos, regardless of their citizenship. It has also been rebuked by the nation’s law enforcement community, with the president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, San Jose Police Chief Robert Davis, reiterating his organization’s 2006 policy statement that requiring local police to enforce immigration laws “would likely negatively effect and undermine the level of trust and cooperation between local police and immigrant communities.”


“Arizona has charted an ominous legal course that puts extremist politics before public safety, and betrays our most deeply-held American values,” said Herrera, who is the son of an immigrant from Latin America. “Just as it did two decades ago when it refused to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Arizona has again chosen to isolate itself from the rest of the nation. Our most appropriate response is to assure that their isolation is tangible rather than merely symbolic. San Francisco should lead the way in adopting and aggressively pursuing a sweeping boycott of Arizona and Arizona-based businesses until this unjust law is repealed or invalidated. My office is fully committed to work with San Francisco city departments and commissions to identify all applicable contracts, and to pursue termination wherever possible.  And my office stands ready to assist in any legal challenges in whatever way it can.”


Meanwhile, Napolitano, who is serving as Obama’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary, joined Obama in calling Arizona’s new immigration law “misguided.”


Appearing on ABC News, Napolitano said of the bill: “That one is a misguided law. It’s not a good law enforcement law. It’s not a good law in any number of reasons.”
She also warned that Arizona’s law could get other states trying to pass similar legislation, which could create a patchwork of immigration rules, instead of an an overall federal immigration system.


“This affects everybody, and I actually view it now as a security issue,” Napolitano said. “We need to know who’s in the country. And we need to know, for those who are in the country illegally, there needs to be a period under which they are given the opportunity to register so we get their biometrics, we get their criminal history and we know who they are. They pay a fine. They learn English. They get right with the law.”


Here on the streets of San Francisco, immigrant advocates are asking folks to march on May Day in solidarity with the immigrant communities of Arizona.


“In 2006, the immigrant community took to the streets in huge numbers,” a press release from the May 1st coalition stated. “Millions of undocumented working people and their families sought a pathway to legalization and to a life without fear of work-place raids or middle-of-the night deportations that tear families apart. In 2010, conditions have only worsened as hate crimes have increased exponentially; intolerance has been legitimized by the rhetoric of the Tea Party; and governments (like Arizona) have instituted harsh policing and employment practices that terrorize our communities. The federal government has failed to solve the crisis of undocumented workers in this country. In San Francisco, thousands of workers face losing their jobs because of a flawed employment verification process. Our children are deported without due process and now we must fear the codification of racial bigotry in Arizona.  State and federal governments have ineffectively solved the budget crisis on the backs of the lowest paid workers.  We march in solidarity with Arizona’s immigrants; immigrants everywhere; and the hard-working people of San Francisco who’ve unfairly endured the burden of this economic crisis.


The May 1st Coalition invites the community to join them for an April 28 poster-making party at 10 a.m, City College Mission Campus at 1125 Valencia Street in preparation for a May Day march at which Olga Miranda, President of SEIU Local 87, Jane Kim, SFUSD school board president, and Pablo Rodriguez, city college faculty, will speak.


My favorite comment on this unfunny situation comes from Daily Kos contributing editor and Las Vegas resident Jed Lewison.


“What do you call a bunch of people who not only don’t see anything wrong with Arizona’s new hate law, but blame federal inaction on immigration reform for “forcing” Arizona to enact the law while simultaneously trying to block federal immigration reform legislation?” Lewison asks. “You call them conservatives.”


 

Nevius makes the case for a progressive DCCC

Sasha Cuttler
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27
Nevius makes the case for a progressive DCCC

Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius made an excellent argument for supporting the Guardian’s slate of progressive candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee in Saturday’s paper, even though he was trying to do just the opposite. But I suppose that perspective is everything.

Our perspective at the Guardian is one of great pride in San Francisco and its left-of-center values. Nevius looks at San Francisco from his home in Walnut Creek and sees a scary place where people question authority figures and don’t simply trust developers, big corporations, and the Chamber of Commerce to act in the public interest.

“The next two months will see a battle for the political soul of the city. It will pit the progressives against the moderates in a face-off that will have huge implications in the November elections and, perhaps, the election of the next mayor. The key is control of an obscure but incredibly influential organization called the Democratic County Central Committee,” Nevius writes, and he’s right about that.

But he’s wrong when he assumes most San Franciscans agree with him and others who want to make the city more like the sterile suburbs that they prefer. Nevius values “safe streets,” which is his code for giving police more power through the proposed sit-lie ordinance and other unpopular crackdowns, despite the fact that he sat in the back row and watched the DCCC voted overwhelmingly against sit-lie after nobody presented a credible case for it.

Nevius is so utterly blind to the fact that most San Franciscans want adequate mitigation and community benefits from development projects that he recently ranted and raved about the defeat of the 555 Washington project, even though it was unanimously rejected by the Board of Supervisors for inadequately addressing these requirements.

The “moderate values” that Nevius champions are actually quite extreme: give downtown and developers everything they want, never question the behavior of cops or the Fire Department’s budget, keep cutting taxes until city government becomes incapable of providing services or regulating the private sector, ignore the cultural value of nightclubs and artists, and deport all the undocumented immigrants.

This is the Democratic Party that Nevius and his allies like Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier and supervisorial candidate Scott Wiener (a conservative attorney who would be the best friend that the suburban cowboy cops could ever have on the board) want to promote, and it looks more like the Republican Party than a political party with San Francisco values.

But they aren’t honest about that intention, instead trying to fool people into believing that progressives are the extremists. “But when Mrs. Jones receives her Democratic voter guide in the mail…she’s thinking of the party of Barack Obama, not the party of Aaron Peskin and (Supervisor) Chris Daly,” Wiener said.

But in the Democratic presidential primary election, it was Daly and Peskin who were the strongest early supporters of Barack Obama, while Wiener backed John Edwards and Alioto-Pier, Mayor Gavin Newsom, and the rest of the “moderate” party stalwarts supported Hillary Clinton. That’s not a huge deal, but it’s a sign of how the so-called moderates are willing to distort political reality.

So Nevius is right. This is an important election and it is about the soul of the city. Do you support scared suburban twits who disingenuously try to hide behind the “moderate” label in order to seem more reasonable, or do you support progressive candidates who have integrity and won’t moderate their values in order to appease the cops or the capitalists?

If it’s the latter, support the Guardian’s slate (which is substantially similar to the slates approved by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Sierra Club’s SF Bay Chapter, and other progressive groups).

And if you want that slate to have some money to mail out a Guardian slate card, come to a fundraiser this Thursday evening at CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, featuring the candidates and some great exemplars of the culture they support, including amazing singer/songwriter Valerie Orth, the zany dance troupe Fou Fou Ha, and DJs Smoove and Kramer, who regularly rock the best clubs and community-based parties in town.

And by “town,” I mean San Francisco, not Walnut Creek.    

FEAST: 10 kick-ass brunches

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
FEAST: 10 kick-ass brunches

We here at the Guardian don’t survive on green buds and printer ink alone. We eat real food. Sometimes! But we do get up late and hungover. While we often forgo fancy brunch — unless we save our pennies for the amazing eggs-meet-legs “Sunday’s a Drag” buffet at Harry Denton’s (www.harrydenton.com) or dim sum nirvana at Yank Sing (www.yanksing.com) or Ton Kiang (www.tonkiang.net) — we’ll sure as shootin’ shell out for thrifty chilaquiles and bloody marys, especially the way the Bay makes ’em. Here are some of our dearest bleary-eyed, late-morning tummy fillers. (Marke B.)

 

BASHFUL BULL TOO

There are days when you wake up with a bladder full of Jameson’s and a fervent wish to sink into a salty, unglamorous world of egg and cheese. These are the mornings when bottomless mimosas and goat cheese frittatas sound like fightin’ words. Easy tiger, I got you — just slump into a booth at Bashful Bull Too, the most standard of Outer Sunset diners. There’s no live jazz band, no “scene” at all — just you and your greasy calories. Get down on their cheap plates of hash browns and bacon, or better yet, a burger. Slabs of ground beef are acceptable fare when, after all, you’re having breakfast at 2 p.m. (Caitlin Donohue)

3600 Taraval, SF. (415) 759-8112

 

BEAN BAG CAFÉ

In you’re from the Midwest, good brunch spots are distinguished by waitresses who call you “hon” and have your coffee waiting for you before you sit down. Become a regular at Bean Bag Café in the Western Addition, and they’ll do all that and more. Bean Bag’s extensive breakfast and lunch menu and progressive cooking staff means never having to decide if it’s too late for Goldilocks oatmeal (yep, it’s just right) or too early for pancakes and beer. Speaking of pancakes, the Bean Bag buttermilk, customized with bananas and caramelized walnuts on top, is a must-have. Pair it with scrambled eggs drenched in Tabasco, and you’re set until 3 p.m., when Bean Bag kicks off its happy hour with beer for $1.75. Other highlights: sunshine and a petting zoo of scruffy but wuvable dogs outside. (Diane Sussman)

601 Divisadero, SF. (415)-563-3634

 

CAFE DU SOLEIL

Lower Haight — known for its nicoise? C’est vrai! The salad nicoise at Cafe Du Soleil is a stunner, bursting with tender tuna, piquant greens, and enough fresh fixings to ensure some inner sunshine. But don’t stop there — or at the pastry case in front, with delectable goodies like croques madames and hazelnut chocolate croissants. Soleil’s salmon tortilla, a sort of deconstructed-quiche pyramid topped with lovely lox and drizzled with smoky romesco, is this laidback Parisian hang’s brunchtime piece de resistance. Bonus: hunky scruffsters and tattooed ladies. (Marke B.)

200 Fillmore, SF. (415) 934-8637. www.soleilsf.com

 

CHLOE’S

Let’s face it, one aspect of brunch — at least on a Sunday — is the wait. Chloe’s is no exception. The restaurant’s rep and tiny size mean that while weekdays are fine, on the weekend you will be waiting in a (loose) line. The upside is that Chloe’s is on a quiet corner of Church Street, so on a sunlit day, you’ll get fresh air and nothing noisier or more imposing than the people-watching pleasure of the J-Church sliding by. Once inside, indulge your sweet tooth: two highlights of the low-key menu are french toast made with croissants (served with strawberries and powdered sugar) and banana walnut pancakes, a Chloe’s specialty. Chloe’s offers some pleasant, simple variations on scrambled eggs, and the fresh fruit and white rosemary toast to compliment them. This may be Noe Valley, but the coffee is Twin Peaks good. (Johnny Ray Huston)

1399 Church, SF. (415) 648-4116

 

CHOW

The agony of brunch, since it allows for judgment-free consumption of lunch dishes or breakfast dishes, means having to choose between savory or sweet, sandwich or omelet, salad or hash browns. Ten minutes alone can be devoted to the age-old question of pancake or eggs benedict? Coffee or cocktail? Pancake or … This is where Chow ends the cycle of neurosis. At Chow, you can order one egg benedict and one pancake, accompanied by one cup of coffee and one wine mojito. Plus, Chow has two pancakes without peer: the blueberry with warm blueberry sauce and mascarpone cheese, and Marion’s ricotta pancake with lemon. Get one of each! Of course, if you want the chilaquiles or a cheesy scramble, Chow will happily oblige. Watch them start to emit a soft, warm glow when paired with a blushing bellini. (Diane Sussman)

212 Church and 1245 Ninth Ave. 415-552-2469; 415-665-9912, www.chowfoodbar.com

 

HOMEMADE CAFÉ

It’s Saturday morning-slipping-toward-noon, and there are few reasons to expend the effort to pick your fuzzball head up off the pillow it dropped onto in the after-party wee hours. Curled in your cocoon, there is but one comforting thought: breakfast! Few places can revive the soul and satisfy the belly as proficiently as Homemade Café. You’d be wise to choose the spinach, mushroom, and feta omelet. Sweet or spicy is a tough choice, though, since there are spectacularly fluffy blueberry pancakes to be had as well. It’s crucial that you remember this magical phrase: “Upgrade to Home-Fry Heaven.” They’ll arrive smothered in cheese, salsa, sour cream, and a choice of guacamole or pesto. You will feel alive again — at least until naptime. (Rebecca Bowe)

2454 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 845-1940

 

LIME

I love Lime. Not just because it offers a pretty good assortment of belly-filling foodstuffs on Sunday mornings or the hip and lively atmosphere — but because of the bottomless mimosas and bloody marys. Now, I could try to compare Lime’s eggs benedict to others I’ve eaten, but why bother? There are bottomless fucking mimosas and bloody marys, people! Who cares about the food when I can get stupid drunk with my friends at 11 a.m.? In fact, I can’t recall a time when we weren’t asked to leave, albeit very nicely by the wait staff. Just be careful, those drinks will knock you on your ass and give you a hangover by 4 p.m. Guaranteed. (Ben Hopfer)

2247 Market St., SF. 415.621.5256, www.lime-sf.com

 

LYNN & LU’S ESCAPADE CAFE

Lynn and Lu, I heart you. Snag a quaint table under an umbrella on Grand Avenue or find a spot on the back patio for a beautiful sunny brunch. The morning portions are fat, happy, and classic. Three-egg omelets come bursting with your filler of choice and arrive sitting next to a pile of yummy roasted potatoes. Those with stomachs bigger than their eyes will be relieved to see that the Escapade frittatas look more like a crowd-pleasing tower of peppers, veggies, and eggs than a paltry single serving — everyone will waddle away with a smile. The service is fabulous, the price is just right, and the food comes quick enough to whisk away any dream-soaked cobwebs. (Amber Schadewald)

3353 Grand Ave, Oakland, 510-835-5705

 

MAMA’S ROYAL CAFÉ

Imagine a John Waters time warp with rickety counter chairs, a napkin art gallery, and a suggestive painting of female softball players with a giant bat, and you’ve just about captured the quirkiness of Mama’s Royal Café. The home fries, hollandaise dishes, and rib-sticking omelets are consistently satisfying, but weekly specials also offer seasonal and delicious treats like lemon-ricotta pancakes with blood orange curd. The wait staff often serves on hipster time, which, quite frankly, works out perfectly since Mama’s is best enjoyed with friends on a lazy Sunday as you discuss, or help each other remember, last night’s misadventures. (Robyn Johnson)

4012 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 547-7600. www.mamasroyalcafeoakland.com

 

STACKS

After a recent multihour hike around the Presidio, I found myself ravenous. You know the feeling — fully prepared to combine breakfast, lunch, dinner, a multitude of snacks, and dessert into a single meal. Where better to do that than at Stacks, the San Francisco location of a mini-chain (others are in Menlo Park and Burlingame) that looks like a Denny’s that got an upscale makeover, with some of the biggest floral arrangements you’ll ever see. Speaking of gigantic, Stacks’ portions are robust, and their menu is a monster: over a dozen omelet choices; copious varieties of pancakes, crepes, and waffles; sandwiches and burgers; daily specials; and at least seven different smoothies. (Cheryl Eddy)

501 Hayes, SF. (415) 241-9011. www.stacksrestaurant.com

 

TAQUERIA LOS COYOTES

Being on a tight budget has forced me to get creative, and this underdog taqueria located on a block full of distracting alternatives has become my favorite spot for a weekend breakfast burrito. There are never any lines, the food is as cheap as it comes, and the egg and chorizo burrito with beans, cheese, and rice is guaranteed to soak up a whole weekend of leftover mischief hanging. It’s even big enough to share with any co-conspirators still hanging out as well. (Paula Connelly)

3036 16th St., SF. (415) 861-3708. www.taquerialoscoyotes.com

 

ZAZIE

Yes, there’ll be a wait — but it’s more than worth it at Zazie, a French bistro that is San Francisco’s best patio brunch spot. The heart of the menu resides in the poached egg dishes (my favorite is La Mer, with real Dungeness crab, avocado, and green onion), seven to choose from, each with a choice of one, two, or three perfectly poached eggs, wonderfully tangy hollandaise sauce, and a side of potatoes fried up with, get this, roasted garlic cloves. Yum! Everything on the brunch menu is awesome, from challah french toast to scrambled eggs Fontainebleau to the full-on trout du sud. C’est magnifique! (Steven T. Jones)

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

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