San Francisco

An inconvenient war

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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An inconvenient war

By Christopher D. Cook

news@sfbg.com

For two weeks, in the marble-walled modernist grandeur of the Ninth Circuit U.S. District court in San Francisco, I watched nearly a dozen well-dressed lawyers for the Service Employees International Union — long my favorite union and one I’ve written about and marched with over the years — sue the bejeezus out of two-dozen former SEIU comrades-in-arms, some of labor’s most committed soldiers.

Judge William Alsup’s courtroom was packed and tense every day for two weeks, patrolled watchfully by U.S. marshals as former coworkers shot glares across the aisle and rushed by each other in the hallway outside. “This is like a bad family reunion,” one told me. Indeed, there’s a painful, often quite personal fight inside the family of labor — a fight one can only hope will lead to strong, deep democratic unionism down the road.

In the latest chapter of a saga that’s simmered to a boil over four years, SEIU sued 24 former staffers of its powerful 150,000-member Bay Area local, United Healthcare Workers West (UHW), alleging they used the union’s money and resources to create a rival organization. Since SEIU took over the old local in a bitter trusteeship fight in January 2009, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), led by former UHW president Sal Rosselli, has been organizing workers in droves, challenging SEIU’s hold on health care workers in California.

In the end, following grueling testimonies and cross-examinations, it came to this: on April 9, the jury hit NUHW and 16 of its leaders with a $1.5 million penalty (which might be reduced to $737,850 depending on Alsup’s interpretation of the jury’s intent). It’s a lot of money, but far less than SEIU’s original claim seeking $25 million, and the appeals are likely to drag on into next year.

After dozens of interviews and whispered conversations in the hallways outside Alsup’s courtroom, I was left wondering: how could this be happening? At a time of historic lows in union membership (7.2 percent in the private sector last year) and a recession that may never end for workers, how could SEIU, once the darling of the progressive labor movement, be embroiled in a brutal war with one of its flagship former locals? How could these two unions be tearing each other apart, exchanging ugly accusations that threaten to further tarnish labor’s tenuous reputation? All at a time when California unemployment sits stubbornly at 12.5 percent and more than 90 percent of workers remain unorganized. Hospital executives who are accustomed to tangling with a unified labor front must be thanking their lucky stars.

But this isn’t some union corruption story or simply a scuffle for personal power. Beyond the name-calling lie crucial questions about how unions function, about whose voices are heard both in union offices and on the shop floor. How much voice will workers have in union decisions, not just about break rooms and arguments with the boss, but in the shape and direction of the labor movement?

Ultimately this fight won’t be decided by any jury or judge: despite the verdict, NUHW and its volunteer organizers are pressing on with SEIU for the right to represent California’s health care workers, 400,000 of whom currently pay dues to SEIU. Over the past year, more than 80,000 of those dues-payers have signed petitions to join NUHW, which has won seven of nine elections of health care workers called so far. With more big elections coming soon, most notably among 47,000 Kaiser Permanente workers this June, the stakes are only getting higher.

In a nutshell, the two sides argue thus: SEIU contends that Rosselli and company flouted the will of President Andy Stern, and ultimately its members, by refusing to abide by Stern’s decisions on a union consolidation. That led to a trusteeship of Rosselli’s local, with its leaders allegedly using SEIU resources to form their own union. Rosselli and NUHW insist they were boxed into an untenable corner by Stern’s centralization of power in Washington, D.C., at the expense of locals and workers and that they tried many times to resolve disputes internally, and only broke away to form a new union after they were forced out by Stern.

To convince a jury of its claims, SEIU amassed a formidable legal team drawing from four firms at a cost of roughly $5 million, according to SEIU spokesman Steve Trossman. (An expert witness hired by SEIU testified the union paid him roughly $300,000 just to prepare testimony for the case; defendants say the trial cost SEIU closer to $10 million.) Whatever the number, it’s an awful lot of time and money that could be spent organizing new workers and winning strong contracts instead.

Asked if he thinks the trial is worth the expense, Trossman said, “I think members of the union, when this is over, are going to get the truth of what happened — that they directly used union resources … to hold onto personal power.”

Dan Siegel, NUHW’s chief attorney, casts it differently: “This case is about punishing the defendants and sending a message” to other union dissidents across the country.

 

A LONG-TERM BATTLE

The rift that ended up in federal court has its roots in a 2006 move by Stern to consolidate California’s long-term health care workers, such as home care and nursing home employees, into a single statewide local — a move that would peel away 65,000 long-term care workers from Rosselli’s union.

The most likely beneficiary of the consolidation was the Los Angeles-based Long-Term Care Workers Union, local 6434, headed by Tyrone Freeman, who had been fending off corruption charges (allegedly stealing more than $1 million in union funds for personal gain) since 2002, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Nowhere else but in California did SEIU attempt splitting long-term care and acute care workers into different unions,” said John Marshall, an SEIU strategic researcher who resigned in protest of UHW’s trusteeship, but who remains active in the labor movement. “But it’s worse than that — here SEIU proposed forcing long-term care workers into a local that was widely known to be corrupt, that had contracts with substandard wages and benefits. And on top of it all Stern and SEIU refused to allow those workers to vote on whether or not the transfer should occur.”

When Freeman’s alleged corruption became front-page news in the Times in 2008, and even after SEIU put the L.A. local in trusteeship later that year, Stern continued to push the consolidation. Rosselli resisted, arguing the shift would weaken workers’ voice and standards; wages for workers in Local 6434 were often far lower than those for their counterparts up north, and the mounting corruption charges didn’t bode well for union bargaining power or democracy.

SEIU’s Trossman insists union leaders were not aware of the Freeman allegations until they appeared in the L.A. Times, though one of those stories quotes an unnamed inside source saying Trossman knew of the charges as early as 2002. But Trossman said the issue was not Freeman. “The proposal was to create a new long-term care local in California, and by the time that decision was made in January 2009, Tyrone Freeman was already long out of the picture,” he told us, insisting the long-term care decision was made after hearings and an “advisory member vote.”

Yet 15 months after the takeover of UHW, the consolidation of long-term care workers remains on hold.

Friction between Stern and Rosselli — over the merger, leadership, and labor movement strategy — heated up throughout 2007 and 2008; Rosselli was unanimously booted off of Stern’s “kitchen cabinet” of labor leaders, and removed from his post as president of SEIU’s California State Council.

Then on Jan. 22, 2009, an SEIU-commissioned report by former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall recommended trusteeship — if Rosselli’s union didn’t abide by the transfer of its long-term care workers. A few days later Rosselli and the UHW executive board sent Stern a letter saying they would abide by the merger — if the UHW rank and file could vote on it first. No deal: on Jan. 27, UHW was put into trusteeship: its buildings were locked up, security guards patrolled the perimeters, and many of the deposed union staff camped out on the floors of their old offices.

On the afternoon of the 27th, Rosselli, who had been reelected UHW president earlier that month, spoke to cheering supporters: “[It’s] your right to determine what union you want to be in!”

NUHW members insist it’s never been about Rosselli or the other defendants. “We are not just a bunch of lemmings — we do what we believe,” said Tonya Britton, a Fremont convalescent home worker. “They couldn’t make it this far if there weren’t all of us members … When I heard about the trusteeship, I wanted a union that was for members, not top-down. We were making gains. Now it seems we’re doing nothing but fighting.”

 

Christopher D. Cook is a former Bay Guardian city editor. He has written on labor for Mother Jones, Harper’s, The Economist and others. This story was funded in part by spot.us.

In the company of bees

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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In the company of bees

Sarah@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE On a rainy afternoon in April, I’m standing on an abandoned military base on Alameda Island counting bees on a wild rosemary bush. In the three minutes I’ve been standing here, I’ve spotted five large, furry bumblebees, flitting from flower to flower, performing the function that keeps the whole ecosystem buzzing.

But the honeybees I often see here are absent. I’m not surprised. As I learned from Bernd Heinrich’s Bumblebee Economics (Harvard University Press, 1979) bumblebees are tundra-adapted insects that are better able to forage at low temperatures than sun-loving Italian honeybees.

I’ve been obsessed with bees for years. My sister says it began when I got stung on the bum as a toddler. My daughter says it started the day we rescued a swarm of half-drowned honeybees that had gotten stranded in high winds on a beach in Santa Cruz. All I know is that my bee obsession really bloomed when we lived on a lavender farm on the north coast of California and I found bumblebees asleep on the lavender, at night.

A beekeeper on the farm explained that, unlike honeybees, bumblebees don’t form permanent colonies. Instead, they nest in empty mouse holes and form small social groups that die out each fall. The bees sleeping on the flowers were probably male, he added; they tend to be lazier, while the females do most of the work.

He told me that only the young pregnant bumblebee queens hibernate in the fall, emerging alone the next spring to start new colonies. There are more than 4,000 species of native bees in North America. Some are the size of ants; others are territorial and drive other bees off the flowers they guard. Most are solitary, nonaggressive loners, and some aren’t that busy at all.

Curious, I bought a book about beekeeping from a clerk who told me his father once kept bees in Oakland. “Urban honey is the best,” he said, explaining that urban gardens often contain unusual and diverse collections of plants. “City bees have far more exotic choices of nectar.”

Fast-forward to the present and it seems that the general public also has taken a much more active interest in bees, particularly since 2006 when colony collapse disorder decimated honeybee populations, triggering warnings of a coming agricultural crisis and potential devastation to the ecosystem.

Scientists estimate that bees pollinate nearly three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants. These plants provide food and shelter for many species of animals. A 2008 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that 36 percent of the 2.4 million hives in the U.S. have been lost to colony collapse disorder, which translates into billions of honeybees.

Some species of bumblebees also are vanishing. Robbin Thorp, professor emeritus of entomology at UC Davis, blames their disappearance on commercially reared bumblebees that are imported to pollinate hothouse tomatoes and then escape into the wild, where they leave pathogens on flowers (see “Buzz Kill,” 01/27/10).

But amid such big news, I’m still keeping a diary of notes on bees and focusing on my own backyard on Alameda Island, wondering how I can attract more bees. Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation heeded Thorp’s thesis and petitioned to stop the cross-country movement of bumblebees, but the Portland, Ore.,-based group has also produced handy pocket guides to help people like me identify bumblebees in the field.

So far I haven’t spotted the missing Western bumblebee, Bombus occidentalis. But I did see a bumblebee queen spiraling through a Potrero Hill garden on a mild day in early January. Reached by phone, Heinrich, professor emeritus of the biology department of the University of Vermont, told me that the queen would retreat into her underground hole when the weather got cold and wet again, which it soon did.

When he was writing Bumblebee Economics, which explores biological energy costs and payoffs using bumblebees as the model, Heinrich studied Bombus terricola, the yellow-banded bumble bee that was plentiful around Maine bogs in the 1970s.

“I could see dozens all at once. But since then, for years I didn’t see any at all, and since then I’ve only seen a few,” Heinrich said “Nobody figured out what happened.”

Gordon Frankie, professor and research entomologist at UC Berkeley, told me he’s happy to see the increased interest in urban bees. “People have begun to recognize that bees have a major role to play in agriculture,” Frankie said, as he and Rollin Coville, who has a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley and a passion for photographing insects, showed me around the experimental urban bee garden they created in 2003 at the edge of a field in downtown Berkeley.

“Bees love blues, purples, pinks, and yellows,” Frankie said, explaining that bees can see ultraviolet hues but not red flowers as we observe bees busily foraging on a blue lilac bush.

He also said bees love hanging out in open meadows where the sun shines and where they can see the flowers. “In the forest is no damn good if you’re a bee,” he said.

In July 2009, Frankie, Coville, and Thorp published an article in California Agriculture that outlined the results of bee surveys in gardens in Berkeley, La Canada Flintridge, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Ukiah.

“Evidence is mounting that pollinators of crop and wild land plants are declining worldwide,” they wrote. “Results indicate that many types of residential gardens provide floral and nesting resources for the reproduction and survival of bees, especially a diversity of native bees. Habitat gardening for bees — using targeted ornamental plants — can predictably increase bee diversity and abundance and provide clear pollinator benefits.”

Frankie and Coville also helped produce a 2010 native bee calendar that features Coville’s photographs of bumble, squash, mason, carpenter, leafcutter, mining, wool carder, cuckoo, and ultragreen sweat bees, plus tips on how to attract these pin-ups by planting a variety of bee-friendly plants, avoiding pesticides, and refraining from over-mulching.

Researchers have observed almost 50 species of native bees at UC Berkeley’s bee garden, out of 85 species recorded citywide. UC Berkeley’s urban bee gardens’ Web site, (www.nature.Berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens) notes that bees have preferences for gardens as well as flowers.

“Gardens with 10 or more species of attractive plants attracted the largest number of bees,” the Web site states, cautioning people against hanging around plants too long. “If an observer spends too long in one place hovering over the same patch of flowers, the bees will gradually begin to move on to other flowers where they won’t be bothered. To facilitate counts, it is sometimes a good idea to create little paths through the garden so that all patches are accessible to the observer.”

Here in California, high real estate prices have led to the increased paving over of bee habitat. And bees have come under additional stress in the wake of a 2006 E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 200 individuals and resulted in at least three deaths on the Central Coast. Growers have since been pressured to eliminate hedgerows, wetlands, habitat, and wildlife around farms.

But as a February 2010 Nature Conservancy report on food safety and ecological health notes, “certain on-farm food safety requirements may do little to protect human health and might in fact damage the natural resources on which agriculture and all life depend.”

These concerns have a direct, if hidden, impact on Bay Area residents, whose food supply comes almost exclusively from outside urban limits. Take San Francisco, where crop production consists of $1 million worth of orchids, flower cuttings, and sprouts on two acres of land, according to a 2008 Department of Public Health report.

Missing from that equation is the honey that local bees produced. As San Francisco beekeeper Robert MacKimmie recently noted, mites hit his hives hard in 2009. “And the summer and fall were pretty brutal since we were in the third year of drought,” MacKimmie said.

He hopes El Nino-related rains will be good for this year’s bees: more water means more flowers for bees, which rely on nectar and pollen to sustain themselves and their developing brood.

MacKimmie doesn’t have a garden and uses other people’s yards to keep his bees. “The honey serves as rent,” he said, noting that he only places two hives in each yard to disperse the bees in more equitably and sustainably. He points to the work of Gretchen LeBuhn, a San Francisco State University professor who started the Great Sunflower Project in 2008, as a fairly easy way to gather information about bee populations.

Reached by e-mail, LeBuhn said her project has more than 80,000 people signed up to plant sunflowers this year. “Participants create habitat by planting sunflowers and then contribute data to our project by taking 15 minutes to count the number of bees visiting their sunflower,” she wrote.

“The Great Sunflower Project empowers people from preschoolers to scientists to do something about this global crisis by identifying at risk pollinator communities,” LeBuhn said. “By volunteering to collect data as a group, these citizen scientists provided huge leverage on a minimal investment in science and created the first detailed international survey of pollinator health and its implications for food production.

“Getting this kind of critical scientific data at thousands of locations using traditional scientific methods would cost so much money that it is untenable,” she added.

LeBuhn encourages people to submit their bee count data at www.greatsunflower.org, which recommends growing bee balm, cosmos, rosemary, tickseed, purple coneflowers, and sunflowers. Unfortunately her data shows that “at least 20 percent of the gardens are getting very poor pollinator service.”

The public is encouraged to visit the UC Berkeley bee garden in May when public tours begin. But you might want to brush up on your Latin, the language experts speak when they hang out with the bees.

Coville saw a mason bee land on a lavender-flowered sage and said, “I think I just saw an Osmia on a Salvia mellifera!”

Frankie smiled at me and said, “It’s bee talk.”

Memorial services set for Tricia Taborn–wear a dramatic hat!!

David Talbot
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Memorial services set for Tricia Taborn–wear a dramatic hat!!

Memorial services for Tricia Taborn, the great San Francisco spirit who died April 7, have been set for Saturday, May 1, from 1 to 5 p.m.at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, just south of Solano Avenue in North Berkeley.

Her husband Gerald Baron recommends that, in honor of Tricia’s love for flamboyant hats in dramatic colors, her friends come wearing  a dramatic hat in the Tricia Taborn tradition. More details will follow on this blog.

Click here to read Tricia Taborn’s obituary.

 

Quick Lit: April 14-April 20

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: April 14-April 20

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week — including Alice Walker, Men and Dogs, Marin Poetry Festival, “Adapting to Climate Change,” and more

Wednesday, April 14

Louann Brizendine

Hear Neuropsychiatrist, author, and media commentator Dr. Louann Brizendine discuss her theories on the relationship dynamics that result from the neurobiology of the male and female brains, as outlined by her bestselling books, The Male Brain, and The Female Brain.

8 p.m., $20

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

“Let Our Words Be Heard”

Attend this queer writing workshop and open mic that will take on the empowering, interactive process of discovering the use of words for healing, sharing histories, and celebrating community. Part of CUAV’s Safetyfest.

6 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

www.mtbs.com

 

The Long Man

Best known for his work on DC Comics’ Detective Comics series in the 1970’s that produced many memorable Batman stories, Steve Englehart discusses his writing career and his new novel, The Long Man, a follow up to his first novel, The Point Man.

7 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) CAR-TOON

 

Men and Dogs

Hear San Francisco resident and author Katie Crouch discuss her new book about a girl who’s father went missing on a fishing trip in Charleston and how the mystery of his disappearance tests the whole family’s concept of loyalty and faith years later.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

The Montefeltro Conspiracy

Join a humanities forum to discuss Marcello Simonetta’s The Montefeltro Conspiracy, a Renaissance mystery uncovering a nefarious plot, a murder, and a coded letter. In conjuction with the upcoming Humanities West 25th anniversary program, The Florence of the Medici: Commerce, Power, and Art in Renaissance Italy, starting April 30.

5:30 p.m., free

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, 2nd floor, SF

www.humanitieswest.org  


Thursday, April 15

If You Can Read This: The philosophy of bumper stickers

At this reading of his new book, Jack Bowen explores the philosophical ideals reflected in the most popular bumper stickers and claims that every bumper sticker holds at least a kernel of truth.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Noe Valley Celebrates the Book

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Phoenix Books, an independent bookstore in Noe Valley, at this reading by local authors Allison Hoover Bartlett, Tony DuShane, Clare Willis, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet and with music by Ted Savarese.

6 p.m., free

Phoenix Books

3957 24th St., SF

(415) 821-3477

 

Friday, April 16

Offbeat Bride

Hear Ariel Meadow Stallings discuss her new book, Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, where she offers inspiration, encouragement, and advice for brides on a budget.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Saturday, April 17

“Adapting to Climate Change”

Attend this daylong “BioForum” about the challenges of climate change and prospective actions California could take to make a difference. Experts from UC Davis, NOAA, PG&E, and the California Academy of Sciences will be on hand to talk about impacts on local agriculture, fisheries, and energy policies. You might want to ask the PG&E representative why their company is trying to kill progressive, local Community Choice Aggregation efforts for the sake of preserving profits. 

9 a.m.; $25, lunch and coffee included

Pacific Energy Center

851 Howard, SF

1-800-794-7576

 

Melissa Broder

Hear Broder read from her first collection of poems, When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother.

6 p.m., free

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

 

Poetry at Pegasus

Celebrate National Poetry Month at this reading with poets Stephen Ratcliffe, Erica Lewis, and Benjamin Perez.

7:30 p.m., free

Pegasus Books Downtown

2349 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 649-1320

 

“The Revolution Starts at Home”

Attend this workshop on practicing community accountability in real life with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha discussing partner abuse within queer, politicized communities. Part of CUAV’s Safetyfest.

2 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

www.mtbs.com

 

2048: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together

Hear about author Kirk Boyd’s plant to draft an enforceable international agreement that could allow the people of the world to create a social order based on human rights.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Sunday, April 18

Marin Poetry Festival

Enjoy a free afternoon of poetry and music featuring Avotcja and Pedro Rosales, Dancing Bear, C.J. Sage, Adam David Miller, Michelle Baynes, and more.

2 p.m., free

Old Mill Park Amphitheater

300 Throckmorton, Mill Valley

Later in the evening, attend readings featuring San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima, winner of the 2006 National Book Award in poetry Nathaniel Mackey, and award winning poet Branda Hillman.

7 p.m., $20

Dominican University Campus

Angelico Hall

50 Acacia, San Rafael

marinpoetryfestival.com

 

“Writing and Publishing the Novel”

Attend this adult writers’ seminar lead by author Jason Roberts with panelists Vendela Vida, Daniel Alarcón, Rabih Alameddine, Andrew Foster Altschul, and Danielle Svetcov discussing the writing process, and issues relating to publishing, agents, and publishing houses.

6:30 p.m., $75

826 Valencia, SF

www.826valencia.org

 

Monday, April 19

Get Lit!

Bring your own literary contributions or those of your favorite authors to share at this candle lit, wine bar literary salon.

7 p.m., free

1550 Hyde Café and Wine Bar

1550 Hyde, SF

(415) 775-1550

 

Poetry at Pegasus

Celebrate National Poetry Month at this reading with poets Cheryl Dumesnil, Judy Halebsky, and Tiffany Higgins.

7:30 p.m., free

Pegasus Books Downtown

2349 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 649-1320

 

Tuesday, April 20

Diane di Prima

Hear San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima discuss her career as an activist in the 1960’s, a writer of the Beat movement, author of 43 books of poetry and prose, and many more accomplishments in conversation with Alan Kaufman.

6 p.m., $12

Mechanics Institute

57 Post, SF

(415) 393-0100

 

For you Mom, Finally

In her latest book, food magazine editor, restaurant critic, and memoirist Ruth Reichl examines her mother’s life, giving voice to the painful truth that many women of our mothers’ generation had to sacrifice their dreams.

11 a.m., $10-18

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

Kanbar Hall

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1233

 

Alice Walker

Essayist, poet, fiction writer, and ardent social activist Alice Walker will discuss her upcoming book, Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters “the horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel, about her travels to each of those three regions, charting the aftermath of violent conflict and political upheaval. In conversation with Michael Krasny.

8 p.m., $20

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

 

Events listings

David Talbot
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0

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

WEDNESDAY 14

How to Grow Veggies Baazar Café, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620. 7pm, free. Just because you live in a small apartment in San Francisco with no backyard doesn’t mean you can’t grow fruits and vegetables. Pam Pierce, author of Golden Gate Gardening, will be on hand to teach attendees how to do just that.

Mission Bay Farmers’ Market 3rd Street between 4th and 5th Streets on Campus Way, SF; 1-800-949-FARM, or www.pcfma.com. 10am-2pm, free. Check out the opening of the weekly Mission Bay Farmers’ Market and take home some produce, flowers, seafood, tofu, and more from over two dozen vendors.

THURSDAY 15

“The Americanitis Elixir” Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., SF; (415) 863-2141. 7pm, free. If you are suffering from Americanitis, the cure may be in your own backyard. Bring some hand picked fruits or herbs to share and watch as artist Alison Pebworth and collaborator Jerome Waag debut a San Francisco Americanitis Elixir, distilled from the vital spirits of collected native ingredients.

BAY AREA

Jewish Jokes JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut, Berk.; (510) 848-0237. 7:30pm, $9. Hear performers and scholars tell jokes, look at the history of Jewish humor, and explore the future featuring Jewish comedian Joseph Nguyen, Jewish clown Jeff Raz, and Jewish joke expert Mel Gordon. Jewish joke open mic to follow.

Strictly Sail Pacific Jack London Square, 1956 Webster, Oak.; www.strictlysailpacific.com. Thurs.-Fri. 10am-6pm, $12; Sat. 10am-7pm, $15; Sun. 10am-5pm, $15. Join other sailing enthusiasts for this four day sailing show featuring the hottest new sailboats, gear, and accessories, including the latest in green sailing, and activities, demonstrations, and seminars.

FRIDAY 16

CubaCaribe Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF; (415) 273-4633. Fri. and Sat. 8pm, Sun. 7pm; $15. Through May 2, visit cubacaribe.org for full schedule. Enjoy this festival of dance and music “From Katrina to Port-au-Prince” celebrating the spirit of the Caribbean with artists from Haiti, New York, New Orleans, and Cuba.

World Wide Hustle[rs] Luggage Store Annex, Cohen Alley, 509 Ellis, SF; (415) 255-5971. 6pm, free. Attend the opening reception of collaborative work by Robin David and Angela Angel that pays homage to markets and workers across the globe, inspired by true narratives from Chile, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Tanzania.

SATURDAY 17

Bug Day Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF; (415) 554-9600. 10am, $3 suggested donation. Bring your family or date and explore the incredible worlds of arthropods, creepy crawlies, hoppers, and slitherers. Learn how important bugs are to the earth and our survival, enjoy love entertainment, make bug-related crafts, play bug games, and bring a picnic lunch to enjoy with the view.

Goat Cheese Festival Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market, Ferry Building, One Ferry Building, SF; (415) 291-3276. 10am-1pm, free. Celebrate all things goat at this festival sponsored by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) featuring samples, cooking demonstrations, a reading by Gordon Edgar, author of Cheesemonger: A life on the wedge, a chance to pet baby goats, and more.

“Insight and Inspiration” de Young Museum, Koret Auditorium, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 750-3627. 10am, $10. Attend this panel discussion with Bay Area fiber artist Judith Content, and Studio Art Quilt associates Marion Coleman, Charlotte Bird, and more discussing fiber art, different creative processes for making fiber art, and the history of contemporary fiber art.

Swankety Swank Trunk Sale 289 Divisadero, SF; (415) 932-6615. 11am, free. Part of San Francisco’s “Shop Local SF” program, Swankety Swank will be hosting monthly trunk sales through Labor Day. This month’s sale features DJ Sunshine Jones spinning smooth music and art, furniture, accessories, and clothes made by local artists.

SUNDAY 18

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine San Francisco War Memorial Building, Green Room, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 355-1601 ext. 12. 2pm, free. Celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ACTCM with local politicians, community health organizers, and other members of the community and enjoy performances by the renowned Monks of the Shaolin Temple, Chinese folk dancers, a traditional Lion Dance performance, and more.

Northern California Book Awards San Francisco Public Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; (510) 525-5476. 1pm, free. Find out the winners of this year’s book awards at this ceremony, where all nominated books will be saluted, but only a few will win. Nominees are entered in categories for fiction, general nonfiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, translation, and children’s literature and include Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Joseph Stroud, Catherine Brady, Yiyun Li, and more. To view a full list of nominees, visit www.poetryflash.org.

Tequila and Tamales by the Bay Fort Mason Center, Conference Center, Buchanan at Marina, SF; (415) 695-9296. Noon, $40. Sample tamales from Cocina Poblana, La Espiga de Oro, Tamale Factory, the Whole Tortilla, and Evelia and sip tequilas from Don Julio, Jose Cuervo, and El Relingo at this festival featuring contests, craft vendors, and more to benefit the Benchmark Institute.

MONDAY 19

No

 

TUESDAY 20

“Cool Cuisine” San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4484. 6pm, free. Hear chef Laura Stec and atmospheric scientist Eugene Cordero, Ph.D., discuss how to move to a diet that counters the biggest environmental problems while also eating more healthy and getting more pleasure out of food at this talk titled, “Cool Cuisine: Taking a bite out of global warming.

Music listings

David Talbot
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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 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Beach House, Bachelorette Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $18.

Beatbeat Whisper, Todayokay, Vandella Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Little Dragon, VV Brown, Hottub Independent. 9pm, $20.

Pleasure Kills, Tranzmitors, Facts on File Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Ash Reiter, Y La Bamba, Belly of the Whale Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

La Roux Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

Kevin Russell Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Sia, Body Language Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $33.

Frank Turner, Franz Nicolay, Jonathan Devoto Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Whitest Boy Alive Slim’s. 9pm, $18.

Yogoman Burning Band, Uncle Charlie, Buds Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Yung Mars Project, Wooster Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Infatuation Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 10pm, $10. With DJs Erol Alkan, Sleazemore, Shane King, and White Girl Lust.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

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.

Nacht Musik Knockout. 10:30pm, $5. Dark and minimal with DJs Omar, Josh, and Justin.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

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

THURSDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Apache Thunderbolt, Outlier, Zodiac Death Valley, Damage the Dream, Greg Dale and Sotto Voice Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Proceeds go to Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.

Cast of Clowns Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $10.

Bart Davenport, Kacey Johansing, JL Stiles Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

*Dead Weather, Ettes Fillmore. 8pm, $35.

Foolproof Four, Caldecott, Riot Professor Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

*King Khan and the Shrines, Fresh and Onlys Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $17.

Laurie Morvan Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Passion Pit, Mayer Hawthorne and the County Bear Hands Warfield. 8pm, $29.50.

Petunia and the Vipers, B-Stars, Hotsy Totsy Hillbilly Jazzbos Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Pretty Lights, Eliot Lipp Mezzanine. 9pm, $20.

Psychedelic Horseshit, Dadfag, Murkins Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Corinne Bailey Rae, Daniel Merriweather, Overtone Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $27.50-30.

Rubbersidedown Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

RX Bandits, Builders and the Butchers, Zechs Marquise Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Soft Pack, Male Bonding, Nodzzz Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Steve Taylor-Ramirez, Essence, Ziva, Dogman Joe, Valerie Orth 111 Minna. 9pm, $10-20. Benefit for the American Diabetes Association. Also with RYP, Kindness and Lies, Alice Tong, and more.

Yann Tiersen Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Christian Scott Borders, 233 Winston, SF; (415) 731-0665. 7pm, free.

Snake Plissken Quintet with Pocket Presidents Coda. 9pm, $7.

Terrence Blanchard Quintet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $12-18.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

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

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

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

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

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.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

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

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

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $2-5. Industrial with BaconMonkey, Netik, Mr. Smith, and Holy Filament.

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

Nightvision Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; (415) 777-1077. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Danny Daze, Franky Boissy, and more spinning house, electro, hip hop, funk, and more.

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.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest. Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

FRIDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Lieutenant, Run Run Run Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $27.

Jeff Beck Nob Hill Masonic Center, 1111 California, SF; www.livenation.com. 8pm, $42.50-78.

City Center, Baths, Ben Bracken Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Crime in Stereo, Robbers Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

*Dead Weather, Ettes Fillmore. 8pm, $35.

ii, Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Karina Denike Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $14.

Jonsi Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.livenation.com. 8pm, $36.50.

Love is All, Princeton, Butterfly Bones Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $14.

*Red Meat, Dave Gleason, Golden Cadillacs Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Tea Leaf Green Great American Music Hall. 8:30pm, $25.

*Wolves in the Throne Room, Earth, Lori Goldston Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

*Z-Man, Kirby Dominant, Trunk Drank, Spank Pops, DJ E Da Boss, B-Cause, A-R0N Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Activating the Medium” Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; www.thelab.org. 8:30pm, $8-15. With G*Park, Joshua Churchill, Adam Sonderberg, and a panel-lecture hosted by Cheryl Leonard.

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

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

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

Emily Anne’s Delights Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

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

Monterey Jazz All-Stars Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26-32.

*Pharaoh Sanders Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-50.

Terry Disley Experience Trio Vin Club, 515 Broadway, SF; (415) 277-7228. 7:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Chicago Afrobeat Project Coda. 9pm, $15.

Earl Brothers, Devine’s Jug Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6-$10 sliding scale.

Rob Reich, Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Sila, DJ Jeremiah, Chicago Afrobeat Project Coda. 10pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

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

Deep Fried Butter, 354 11th St, SF; (415) 863-5964. DJs jaybee, David Justin, and Dean Manning spinning indie, dance rock, electronica, funk, hip hop, and more.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

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.

Hubba Hubba Revue DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Disco-themed burlesque.

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

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

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

Major Lazer Mezzanine. 9pm, $30. With Rusko, Mike Snow, and more.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop and one-hit wonders with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Radioactivity 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 440-0222. 6pm. Followed by Warm Leatherette at Space Gallery, 1141 Polk, SF; (415) 377-3325. 9pm. A back to back traveling Cold Wave night with DJs spinning danceable post-punk and psychedelic.

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.

SATURDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Frankie Alpine, Group Rhoda Amnesia. 9pm, $5. Presented by O.K. Hole.

Bananas, Pins of Light, Lenguas Larvae, Underground Railroad to Candyland Knockout. 5pm, $6.

Collie Budz, Phife Dawg Independent. 9pm, $28.

Dust, Mariana Trench Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

*Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jogger, AM Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $37.50.

*Heavy Hindenberg, Inferno of Joy, Smokestacks El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, Ferocious Few, Hudson Bell Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

Debora Iyall, Persephone’s Bees Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Jonsi Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 2:30pm.

Judgement Day, Battle Hooch, 7 Orange ABC Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Paranoids, Midnight Strangers, Pets Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Public Image Ltd. Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $53.

Tea Leaf Green, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers Great American Music Hall. 8:30pm, $25.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Wires in the Walls, Real Numbers, Procrastinators Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Yeasayer, Sleigh Bells Fillmore. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Activating the Medium” Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; www.thelab.org. 8:30pm, $8-15. With Cheryl Leonard, Pedestrial Deposit, Jesse Burson, and Rale.

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.

“Jazz Mafia Presents Remix: Live with Supertaster” Coda. 10pm, $10.

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

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

Caetano Veloso Nob Hill Masonic Center, 1111 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-90.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Clerestory St. Gregory of Nyssa Church, 500 DeHaro, SF; clerestory.org. 8pm, $20.

Ya Elah Women’s Ensemble Seventh Avenue Performances, 7th Ave., SF; (415) 664-2543 ext. 3.

Zoyres 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.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with special guest Moldover.

Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickenson.

Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $6. Locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJ Earworm and hostess Felicia Fellatio.

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.

Fringe Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Blondie K and subOctave spinning indie music videos.

Full House Gravity, 3505 Scott, SF; (415) 776-1928. 9pm, $10. With DJs Roost Uno and Pony P spinning dirty hip hop.

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.

Non Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $20. World beats.

Prince vs. Michael Madrone Art Bar. 8pm, $5. With DJs Dave Paul and Jeff Harris battling it out on the turntables with album cuts, remixes, rare tracks, and classics.

Saturday Night Live Fat City, 314 11th St; selfmade2c@yahoo.com. 10:30pm.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul spinning 60s soul on 45s.

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

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

SUNDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bermuda Triangle Service, Canja Rave, Bouvier Girls Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

Foxy Shazam, Young Veins, Bad Rabbits Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Hungry Merch Band, Kally Price Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

*Overkill, Vader, God Dethroned, Warbringer, Evile, Woe of Tyrants Regency Ballroom. 6:30pm, $30.

Society of Rockets, Little Bridges, Panduh Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Transatlantic Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com.8pm, $49.50-74.50.

Uriah Duffy Band, Jamie Wong and the Emergency Pants, Gentry Bronson Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Yoshitake Expe, Barn Owl, Why Because Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Celia Malheiros Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-55.

“Resonant World: An Afternoon of Music by John Cage” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 3pm, $10.

Anton Schwartz and Grant Levin Noe Valley Jazz at the Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; www.noevalleyministry.org/jazzvespers. 5pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Arborea Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-6066. 9pm, free. With Jeffery Luck Lucas and Lily Taylor.

Birdlips Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Blue Diamond Fill Ups, Ghost Writer Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

*Ceu, Boca Do Rio, DJ Felina Independent. 8pm, $22.

Hungry March, Kally Price Band Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

International Sitar and Tabla Festival Red Poppy Art House. 6pm, 7pm; $10 per show, $40 full day pass.

“Te Gusto Musical … Chelle and Friends” Coda. 8pm, $10.

*Tribute to Buffy St. Marie Make Out Room. 7:30pm, $8. With Emily Jane White, Mariee Sioux, Michele Hannigan, Heidi Alexander, Conspiracy of Venus, and more.

DANCE CLUBS

All Fall Down Knockout. 9pm, free. With DJs Melanie Anne Berlin and Jessica Beard.

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 Maneesh the Twister.

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 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

As Tall As Lions, Bad Veins, Civil Twilight Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Band of Skulls, 22-20s, Saint Motel Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $14.

Bitch, Your Cannons Café du Nord. 8pm, $14.

Echo and the Bunnymen Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

“Felonious Presents: Live City Revue” Coda. 9pm, $7.

John Brown’s Body, Toubab Krewe Independent. 8pm, $22.

Mr. Gnome, Moonbell Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

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!

Ceremony Knockout. 10pm, $10. DJs Deadbeat and Yule Be Sorry, plus live performances by Chameleons Vox, Veil Veil Vanish, and the Magic Bullets.

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with guest DJ Ronan Harris.

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.

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*Almighty Defenders Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Awesome Color, Hair Police, Glitter Wizard Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Cypress Hill Warfield. 8pm, $45.

HIM, We Are the Fallen, Dommin, Drive A Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $33.

Killola, Sick of Sarah, Jonesin’ Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

*Lidtoker, Hazzard’s Cure, Nine Worlds, Burns Red Kimo’s. 8pm, $7.

Megafaun, Trampled By Turtles, Breathe Owl Breathe Independent. 8pm, $14.

Moonalice Slim’s. 7:20pm, $4.20. Gary Numan Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

Rademacher, Sporting Life, Last of the Steam Powered Trains Knockout. 9pm, $5.

Chantelle Tibbs, Tyler Stafford, Nathan Hughes Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ What’s His Fuck and Johnny Repo. 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. 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. *

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/14–Tues/20 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. $5-7. "OpenScreening," Thurs, 8. For participation information, email ataopenscreening@atasite.org. The Life of the World to Come: The Mountain Goats in Solo and Duo Performances (Johnson, 2010), Fri, 7:30 and 9. "Other Cinema:" California is an Island (Cump, 2010), Sat, 8:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. Donations accepted. "Palestine: Occupied Lives, Non-Violence, and Steadfastness:" Checkpoint (Shamir), 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. A Single Man (Ford, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 2:30, 4:35, 7, 9:05. "Epidemic Film Festival," works by Academy of Art students, Fri, 4-8. "Midnites for Maniacs:" •Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Stuart, 1971), Sat, 1:15, and The Witches (Roeg, 1990), Sat, 3. House (Obayashi, 1977), Sat, 7:30, 9:45. "’06 Quake Memorial Evening:" San Francisco (Van Dyke, 1936), Sun, 6. With a live performance by Blackie Norton’s Paradise Club Band.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10. Breath Made Visible (Gerber, 2009), 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. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), April 16-22, call for times. A Night at the Opera (Wood, 1935), Thurs, 7.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Grizzly Road, Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. "CinemaLit Film Series: Day and Noir:" The Accused (Dieterle, 1948), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Film 50: History of Cinema:" Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004), Wed, 3. "Private Lives: The Films of Alain Cavalier:" La recontre (1996), Wed, 7; Thérèse (1986), Fri, 7; •Lieux saints (2007) and Alain Cavalier, 7 Chapters, 5 Days, 2 Rooms w/Kitchen (Limosin, 1995), Tues, 7. "Cine/Spin:" Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924), Thurs, 7:30. "Joseph Losey: Pictures of Provocation:" The Prowler (1951), Fri, 9:10. "Life, Death, and Technicolor: A Tribute to Jack Cardiff:" The Barefoot Contessa (Mankiewicz, 1954), Sat, 6:30. "Celebrating Chekhov:" Chekhov’s Motives (Muratova, 2002), Sat, 8:50; A Hunting Accident (Lotyanu, 1978), Sun, 5:15. "What’s It All Mean: Films by William T. Wiley and Friends:" "Wiley Selects" (1968-70), Sun, 3.

PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 464-5980. $5-8. "Cult Classics Attack 5:" Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004), Fri-Sat, midnight; Sun, 10am.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. "Dennis Nyback’s Forbidden Cinema:" "Terrorism Light and Dark," Wed-Thurs, 7; "I Know Why You’re Afraid," Wed-Thurs, 9:30. "The Hippie Temptation," Fri, 7:15, 9:15. The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998), Sun-Tues, 4:20, 7, 9:25 (also Sun, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. It Came from Kuchar (Kroot, 2009), April 16-22, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO CINEMATHEQUE California College of Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $10. "States of Belonging Program IV," Wed, 7:30. With filmmaker Lynne Sachs in person. Victoria Theatre, 296116th St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $50. "Crossroads: A Festival of New and Rediscovered Film and Video," Fri, 8; Sat, 1, Sun, 2.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. "Canines on Camera:" Hound of the Baskervilles (Fisher, 1959), Thurs, noon.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.newpeopleworld.com/films. $8-10. Eatrip (Nomura, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Gravity’s Clowns (Mori, 2009), April 16-29, call for times.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. "The Word and the Image: Films by Marguerite Duras:" The Truck (1977), Thurs, 7:30. "Independent Inuit Film: The Fast Runner Trilogy:" The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (Kunuk and Cohn, 2006), Sat, 7:30. "Dennis Nyback Presents: So, You Wanna Fight!", Sun, 2.

Stage listings

David Talbot
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0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

An Accident Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $25-55. Previews Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2:30pm; Tues/20, 7pm. Opens April 21, 8pm. Runs 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.

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 1-800-838-3006, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Previews Wed/14-Fri/16 and April 21-23, 8pm; Sun/18, 7pm. Opens April 24, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 2. Theatre Rhinoceros presents John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist.

Tell It Slant Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Marina at Laguna; www.tixbayarea.com. $20-40. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs 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. Opens Fri/16, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 8. 2nd Wind Productions performs Ashes to Ashes and St. Nicholas in repertory.

ONGOING

*…And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi Cutting Ball Theater, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 25. In this inspired poetical-historical counter-narrative from Bay Area playwright Marcus Gardley, Greek mythology, African American folklore, personal family history, and Christian theology are all drawn irresistibly along in a great sweep of wild and incisive humor, passion, pathos and rousing gospel music as buoyant and wide as the Mississippi — or rather Miss Sippi (the impressive Nicole C. Julien), personification of the mighty and flighty river. The Cutting Ball-Playwrights Foundation coproduction, lovingly directed by Amy Mueller, sports exquisite design touches from Cutting Ball regulars like Michael Locher, whose gorgeous plank-wood set serves as the ideal platform for a work both magnificently simple and eloquently evocative. (Avila)

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. Josh Kornbluth performs his new comedic show.

Baby: A Musical Off-Market Theatres, 965 Mission; 1-800-838-3006, www.roltheatre.com. $20-32. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. Ray of Light Theatre performs a comedy about pregnancy.

*Den of Thieves SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $40. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 3pm). Stephen Adly Guirgis has been good to SF Playhouse. The company already scored big with two of the New Yorker’s gritty, dark and sharply funny plays, Our Lady of 121st Street and Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train. Director Susi Damilano continues the streak with SF Playhouse’s latest, the less heavy but very funny Den of Thieves, about an unlikely foursome of inept bandits caught trying to heist a Mafioso’s safe under a discotheque in Queens — a simple tale that gives plenty of scope to Guirgis’s muscular way with dialogue and the clash of characters. It’s a meaty comedy, and the exceptional cast sells the conceit so beautifully they make it a crime to miss. (Avila)

The Diary of Anne Frank Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 1. 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 May 1. The ninth annual festival features plays and performances by women artists.

Eat, Pray, Laugh! Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Wed, 8pm. Through April 28. Off-Market Theaters presents stand up comic and solo artist Alicia Dattner in her award-winning solo show.

Frau Bachfeifengesicht’s Spectacle of Perfection Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.circusfinelli.com. $15-20. Fri-Sun, 8pm. Through April 25. San Francisco’s all-women clown troupe, Circus Finelli, performs their comedy show inspired by European circus acts and American vaudeville.

Lady, Be Good! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $8-44. Wed/14, 7pm; Thurs/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 6pm; Sun/18, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon presents George and Ira Gershwin’s madcap tale of a brother-sister vaudeville team in the 1920s.

*Loveland The Marsh, 1074 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 25. Starting May 8, runs Sat, 5pm and Sun, 2pm at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk. Through June 13. Los Angeles–based writer-performer Ann Randolph returns to the Marsh with a new solo play partly developed during last year’s Marsh run of her memorable Squeeze Box. Randolph plays loner Frannie Potts, a rambunctious, cranky, and libidinous individual of decidedly odd mien, who is flying back home to Ohio after the death of her beloved mother. The flight is occasion for Frannie’s own flights of memory, exotic behavior in the aisle, and unabashed advances toward the flight deck brought on by the seductively confident strains of the captain’s commentary. The singular personality and mother-daughter relationship that unfurls along the way is riotously demented and brilliantly humane. (Avila)

Macho Bravado Thick House, 1695 18th St; http://machobravado.eventbee.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 24. Asian American Theater Company performs Alex Park’s drama about a Korean-American soldier dealing with life on the home front after fighting in the Middle East.

*Master Class New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 2. 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)

Othello African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $20-30. Wed/14-Thurs/15, 10am (school matinees); Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 3pm. African-American Shakespeare Company closes its 15th season with this adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, set during a modern-day military tribunal in Iraq.

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

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $18-50. Wed-Fri, 8pm (Fri/16, show at 9pm; starting April 24, no Fri shows except May 28, 8pm); Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 30. The Marsh presents the world premiere of Dan Hoyle’s new solo show.

*Scalpel! Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $20-35. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm. Only a face full of Botox will prevent you beaming at Scalpel!, the best time you’ll ever have at the surgeon’s, a political fundraiser, or Bergdorf Goodman. A must-see evening of arch escapism from multitalented writer-director D’Arcy Drollinger (Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls, etc.), it’s the kind of balls out, chin tucked musical camp-comedy Off-Broadway legends are made of. After her husband leaves her for a younger woman, New York socialite Jacquelyn Tilton (a graceful, fabulous Cindy Goldfield) succumbs to peer pressure and goes under the knife of eternal youth, wielded by leading plastic surgeon Dr. Bulgari (Drollinger, subbing expertly for Mike Finn). But the Svengali Bulgari has more than liposuction on his mind, surreptitiously drawing Jac into a plot to take over the world, from ugly people. In addition to the post-op infectiousness of the badass score — backed by a band perched atop either side of a massive split-level set — wonderfully low-tech special effects and a dream cast combine to bring Jac’s sordid nightmares, and more than one walking-talking daymare, memorably to life. The wowing supporting work includes razor sharp Arturo Galster, as (Manchurian) candidate for California senate Pepper Van Allen; Leanne Borghesi as Jacquelyn’s loyal, indomitable Puerto Rican maid; and the comically incandescent Sarah Moore as poop-raking TV reporter Kitty Kelly Brown. (Avila)

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.

Vigil American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-82. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Wed/14 and Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2pm. Olympia Dukakis and Marco Barricelli star in Morris Panych’s comedy about a self-involved bachelor and his dying aunt.

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/16, April 30, and May 7, 9pm; May 1 and 8, 8pm; Sun/18 and April 25, 2pm. 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. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/17 and April 24, and May 1, 2pm; no show April 30); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 2. 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. Opens Wed/14, 8pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat and Tues, 2pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 9. Berkeley Rep presents a new musical written around Matthew Sweet’s love songs.

A History of Human Stupidity LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre, 1834 Euclid, Berk; (510) 499-0356, www.randt.org. $16-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 25. Rough and Tumble performs Andy Bayiates’ intellectual vaudeville, an examination of stupidity.

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. Aurora Theatre Company performs Henrik Ibsen’s pointed indictment of capitalism.

The Lysistrata Project Regent House, 2836 Regent, Berk; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-15. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 23. Crowded Fire presents Elana McKernan’s Aristophanes-inspired tale as part of its Matchbox Production development program for new works.

*A Seagull in the Hamptons Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-30. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 25. Emily Mann’s free adaptation of Chekhov’s Seagull captures the essence of his early "comedy" — very much a human comedy, brimming with pain, turmoil and tragedy in equal measure with laughter, love and folly — and yet manages to be completely of its own (our own) time and place, so effortlessly as to seem a little miraculous. It helps, naturally, that director Reid Davis has assembled a very solid and enjoyable ensemble cast for this wonderfully tailored Shotgun Players production. (Avila)

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

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard; 978-2787, www.linesballet.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm; April 21-22, 7pm. Through April 25. The company performs its 2010 spring season.

"Bawdy Storytelling" Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission; www.thebluemacawsf.com. Wed, 8pm, $10. Off-color stories by "lascivious luminaries."

"CubaCaribe Festival of Dance and Music" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm; April 25, 3pm. Through May 2. $12-22. The sixth annual fest showcases Cuban and Caribbean performers from the U.S. and abroad.

"Erotic Friction" Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission; 255-1155. Sat, 8pm, $5-25. With performance artist Frank Moore.

"Hello, Folly Revue 2" Amnesia, 853 Valencia; www.amnesiathebar.com. Tues, 8pm, $5. Cabaret-style variety show with host Ginger Murray, contortionist Tara Quinn, the Cheese Puffs dance troupe, and more.

"Holy Sh*t!" Punchline Comedy Club, 444 Battery; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed, 8pm. $15. Sammy Wegent hosts this comedy night, with Lynn Ruth Miller, Mary Van Note, and Drennon Davis.

*"Love, Humilitation, and Karaoke" Stage Werx, 533 Sutter; http://stagewerx.org. Thurs, 7pm, $20. Writer and solo performer Enzo Lombard looks, by his own admission, a little like Tony Soprano, which amounts to something of a delightful incongruity given the spectrum of characters and eccentric stretch of cultural ground he covers in this smart and witty, no-frills autobiographical show. Even while adeptly embodying a stage full of distinct characters, Lombard, a gay married forty-something with a legitimately colorful past, is ever comfortable in his own skin, exuding a confident, quick-witted, and personable demeanor as he hops from one side of the country to the other in search of, what else, love — tugged at all the while by a messy and troubling relationship with his mother, a karaoke impresario, as it happens. That makes the punctuation of various vignettes by Lombard’s own karaoke stylings more than standard camp and something of a birthright. His renditions of Air Supply, and other seemingly questionable choices, in fact nimbly walk a tightrope line between camp and genuine interpretation. The small stage and the show’s humble properties, meanwhile, give Love, Humiliation, and Karaoke a fringe-fest feel, fresh and intimate, while director W. Kamau Bell ensures the pace is lively, the transitions neat, and the focus sharp. (Avila)

"Porchlight All Stars" San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin; 626-7500. Fri, 10pm. $50. Benefit performance for Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, with urban legend tales from Wilkes Bashford, Frank Portman, Kelly Beardlsey, and more.

"The Self Rose" Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed, 8pm. $10. Ally Johnson performs her solo show.

Shadow Circus Vaudeville Theater Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St; www.shadowcircus.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm, $15. Puppet pop-culture parodies and more.

Sicilian puppet theater Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 345-7575. Thurs, 7pm. $20. The historic company Associazone Figli di Cuticchio performs.

Editorial: No free ride for developers

David Talbot
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0

Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers

The dumbest plan the Newsom administration has cooked up in a long time continues to make its way through City Hall. The mayor wants to defer fees for housing developers as a way to “stimulate” the economy — despite the fact that the city’s own economist concluded the plan would lead to the creation of a relatively tiny number of jobs and perhaps 40 or 50 new market-rate condos over the next two years.

And the cost would be staggering. Over the next 15 to 20 years, depending on how much the housing market picks up, $43 million worth of fees developers typically pay before they break ground could be deferred, an analysis by Fernando Marti, a member of the Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee, shows. The city would get the money eventually — but buildings would go up before the cash to provide water and sewer service, public transportation, schools, parks, and other amenities is in the city’s accounts.

At the same time, information released by the city last week shows that the gap between the cost of the infrastructure needed for the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and the fees developers will pay is at least $100 million, and perhaps as much as $234 million.

The message is clear. Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers. In fact, Newsom’s administration is already suggesting special levies on property in the impacted areas to make up the difference.

In underserved areas like the Eastern Neighborhoods, where transit and open space are already inadequate to meet current needs, the situation is particularly harsh. “They want to have the Eastern Neighborhoods pay higher taxes than anyone else to mitigate the impacts of new stuff that was supposed to pay for itself,” planning activist Tony Kelly, who is running for District 10 supervisor, told us. “This is a non-starter.”

The problem is nothing new — although a lot of pro-development activists have been denying it for years: new high-end housing development doesn’t pay its own way. If more than 40,000 new residents are going to live in the southeast part of town, San Francisco will have to build schools, police stations, firehouses, bus and rail lines, parks, and in some cases new roads. Then the city will have to hire (and train) cops, bus drivers, firefighters, gardeners, and teachers. None of that is cheap — in fact, the Eastern Neighborhoods Infrastructure Finance Working Group estimates that the actual cost of providing basic infrastructure would be about $22 for every square foot of new development.

The developers howl at that sort of number and insist they can’t afford it, so the city is prepared to charge closer to $10 a square foot. To make up the difference in the Eastern Neighborhoods, the working group suggested some form of tax-increment financing — that is, the city would borrow against the expected new property tax revenues from the new development and use that to build infrastructure. The mayor took that off the table, wanting any new revenue to go right to the General Fund.

And, of course, under the mayor’s current plan, the modest fees developers actually have to pay will be deferred for several years, making the problem even worse. So the only way to pay for the costs of new housing development is some sort of special property-tax district in the affected neighborhoods.

Add to this the fact that the mayor’s proposal would mean the immediate loss of at least 400 affordable housing units, and the whole thing becomes untenable.

The supervisors have amended the fee-deferral plan to make it a bit less awful, but the whole approach is still completely backward. City fees aren’t holding up housing construction; the weak market and tight credit are to blame for that. And when those conditions change, developers will be poised — as always — to make a vast amount of money selling overpriced condos for millionaires in San Francisco. And if they can’t pay their own way, the city shouldn’t allow them to break ground.

 

No free ride for developers

David Talbot
-
2
No free ride for developers

EDITORIAL The dumbest plan the Newsom administration has cooked up in a long time continues to make its way through City Hall. The mayor wants to defer fees for housing developers as a way to "stimulate" the economy — despite the fact that the city’s own economist concluded the plan would lead to the creation of a relatively tiny number of jobs and perhaps 40 or 50 new market-rate condos over the next two years.

And the cost would be staggering. Over the next 15 to 20 years, depending on how much the housing market picks up, $43 million worth of fees developers typically pay before they break ground could be deferred, an analysis by Fernando Marti, a member of the Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee, shows. The city would get the money eventually — but buildings would go up before the cash to provide water and sewer service, public transportation, schools, parks, and other amenities is in the city’s accounts.

At the same time, information released by the city last week shows that the gap between the cost of the infrastructure needed for the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and the fees developers will pay is at least $100 million, and perhaps as much as $234 million.

The message is clear. Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers. In fact, Newsom’s administration is already suggesting special levies on property in the impacted areas to make up the difference.

In underserved areas like the Eastern Neighborhoods, where transit and open space are already inadequate to meet current needs, the situation is particularly harsh. "They want to have the Eastern Neighborhoods pay higher taxes than anyone else to mitigate the impacts of new stuff that was supposed to pay for itself," planning activist Tony Kelly, who is running for District 10 supervisor, told us. "This is a non-starter."

The problem is nothing new — although a lot of pro-development activists have been denying it for years: new high-end housing development doesn’t pay its own way. If more than 40,000 new residents are going to live in the southeast part of town, San Francisco will have to build schools, police stations, firehouses, bus and rail lines, parks, and in some cases new roads. Then the city will have to hire (and train) cops, bus drivers, firefighters, gardeners, and teachers. None of that is cheap — in fact, the Eastern Neighborhoods Infrastructure Finance Working Group estimates that the actual cost of providing basic infrastructure would be about $22 for every square foot of new development.

The developers howl at that sort of number and insist they can’t afford it, so the city is prepared to charge closer to $10 a square foot. To make up the difference in the Eastern Neighborhoods, the working group suggested some form of tax-increment financing — that is, the city would borrow against the expected new property tax revenues from the new development and use that to build infrastructure. The mayor took that off the table, wanting any new revenue to go right to the General Fund.

And, of course, under the mayor’s current plan, the modest fees developers actually have to pay will be deferred for several years, making the problem even worse. So the only way to pay for the costs of new housing development is some sort of special property-tax district in the affected neighborhoods.

Add to this the fact that the mayor’s proposal would mean the immediate loss of at least 400 affordable housing units, and the whole thing becomes untenable.

The supervisors have amended the fee-deferral plan to make it a bit less awful, but the whole approach is still completely backward. City fees aren’t holding up housing construction; the weak market and tight credit are to blame for that. And when those conditions change, developers will be poised — as always — to make a vast amount of money selling overpriced condos for millionaires in San Francisco. And if they can’t pay their own way, the city shouldn’t allow them to break ground.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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0
Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

We’ve been talking to people who want to be judges, seven of them. One is already a judge and wants to keep his job; two are challenging him; and four are competing for an open seat. They all talk about their impressive legal backgrounds, life experience, desire to be fair and impartial, and to make the system of justice work for all.

The two who emerge as the winners will take their seats on the bench, and the presiding judge of the San Francisco Superior Court will decide what happens to them next — whether they handle felony murder trials, or juvenile hearings, or family court, or complex civil litigation, or small claims court. The P. J. oversees the court budget and things like the indigent defendant fund. So I asked them all: how does the presiding judge get chosen, anyway?

And all of them, including the sitting judge, said: Dunno.

Now, how can it be that six of the top attorneys in the city and one incumbent jurist don’t know how the person who runs the local courts gets that job? Well, maybe nobody cares — or maybe the whole process is so secretive nobody gets to learn about it.

See, the courts aren’t covered by the Brown Act, which mandates public meetings. So when the judges get together and meet (bimonthly in San Francisco), there’s no meeting notice and no press or public allowed.

I’m told by reliable sources that the P.J. is typically elected by acclamation when there’s only one candidate, and by secret written ballot when there’s competition. The ballots are tallied by the outgoing P.J., then discarded. Nobody knows who voted for whom.

Years ago, when the state Legislature (led by SF senators John Burton and Quentin Kopp) was updating the Brown Act, Ralph Grace, the publisher of a Los Angeles legal paper the Metropolitan News, went to Sacramento to argue that the courts, like any public agency, should operate openly. He got nowhere. "When you’re talking about running a public institution, you should do it in public," Grace told me this week.

There’s no law saying the P.J. has to be elected privately. The California Rules of Court say that local courts can set their own policies and procedures. So it appears that the San Francisco Superior Court could — if the judges wanted — open the doors.
They could. If they wanted to.

Marin County’s water grab

David Talbot
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31
Marin County’s water grab

By Joan Bennett

OPINION In August 2009, the Marin Municipal Water District’s elected board of directors conducted a public hearing to hear and discuss comments on a proposed $432.8 million desalination plant that would be built near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the board unanimously approved the proposal. The stated reason: the dire need for a reliable water supply.

There is no truth to MMWD’s rationale.

This is not just a Marin County issue. The plant would have major impacts on the bay.

The Pacific Institute’s yearlong study, "Desalination, With a Grain of Salt," concluded that "most of the state’s seawater desalination proposals are premature … [such plants] fail to adequately address economic realities, environmental concerns, or potential social impacts."

James Fryer, the former head of MMWD’s water conservation from 1992 to 1999 and a water management and conservationist expert with 20 years of experience in the field, concluded in a separate report that desalination should be pursued only as a last resort.

In response, MMWD paraded before the public the inevitable hackneyed specter of a drought. But MMWD’s arguments are contradicted by the facts:

•MMWD operates seven reservoirs with more than 79,000 acre feet of water. Annual ratepayer consumption is roughly 28,000 acre feet or less. Last year, consumers used 26,000 acre feet.

•Two of those the reservoirs, Phoenix Lake and Soulajoule, have remained untapped for 17 to 20 years.

•Since the 1976-77 drought, MMWD’s reservoirs were expanded by 26,000 acre feet, nearly a 50 percent increase.

•Marin tree-ring studies demonstrate that a severe drought occurs once every 400 years.

As Paul Helliker, MMWD general manager, recently noted: "This year we won’t have any rationing because we are above our thresholds … there is no reason to because there is no problem with water supply."

If these facts alone are insufficient to convince even the most dubious, there are more.

The water source for desalination is the polluted San Francisco Bay. MMWD insists that expensive filters and reverse osmosis membranes will block dangerous contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals, and Central Marin Sanitary Agency’s 11 million gallons of treated sewage (not to mention untreated spills) dumped daily into the bay near the intended desalination intake pipe.

A desalination plant is an energy glutton. MMWD is already the largest energy user in Marin. The plant would increase MMWD’s energy use from 40 percent to as high as 300 percent depending on the facility’s size and operation.

For decades the water district has urged its customers to conserve, and its customers have complied. As a reward, in February, to erase revenue shortfalls from conservation efforts, MMWD ordered a 10 percent rate hike and simultaneously halved its conservation budget on the disingenuous grounds that "conservation doesn’t work." This raises a conundrum: if rates were raised because of shrinking water use, then does MMWD even need a desalination plant? *

Joan Bennett is a lawyer in Marin. The Coalition for the Public’s Right to Vote About Desalination (CPR-VAD) is circulating an initiative for the November ballot to compel MMWD to obtain voter approval for the plant. For more information, see www.marinwatercoalition.com and www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/california/marin.

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com›

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14

Organize against General Atomics


Attend this organizing meeting to learn how you can join the upcoming protest against General Atomics, scheduled for May 18–19 in San Diego, and take a stand against this manufacturer of defense drones that have caused the deaths of many innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

7 p.m., free

Global Exchange Office

2017 Mission, Suite 200, SF

codepinkalert.org

Rally Against Carbon Trading


Protest carbon trading and carbon offsets as false solutions to climate change outside the Navigating the American Carbon World conference attended by bankers, oil industry representatives, financial speculators, and big environmental groups.

Noon, free

San Francisco Marriott Marquis

55 Fourth St., SF

west.actforclimatejustice.org

THURSDAY, APRIL 15

Bike to School Day


Whatever kind of student you are, biking is an easy, healthy way to get to school. Encourage kids to take part in this city wide Bike to School Day with group ride locations throughout San Francisco.

All day, free

Throughout the city

Visit, sfbiketoschoolday.org for more information.

SATURDAY, APRIL 17

Berkeley Shore Cleanup

In preparation for Earth Day, help clean up the planet by taking part in one of the many cleanup activities being organized by Berkeley Earth Day and Shorebird Park Nature Center.

Various times and locations, free

(510) 654-6346

www.bayareaearthday.org

Building Bridges


Take part in this conference to build strategies and plans for successful protest, community organizing, civil disobedience, and direct action on LGBTQ, questioning, intersex, asexual, and related social justice issues. Help build solidarity, connections, and momentum.

10 a.m., free

Mission Cultural Center

2868 Mission, SF

(415) 821-1155

www.lgbtbridges.org

Counter Recruitment Training


Whether you’re a teacher, student, activist, parent, veteran, or family member, learn about the resources and materials on the realities of military service, aggressive military recruitment, and alternative options for youth.

9 a.m.; free, donations accepted

War Memorial Veteran’s Building

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 565-0201, ext. 24

TUESDAY, APRIL 20

Building Materials You Wish You Never Used

Hear a presentation about commonly used building materials that are more hazardous than others and the risk that they pose to the environment and to personal health and safety. Dr. Arlene Blum and Tom Lent discuss the perils of these materials, like PVC vinyl and chemical flame retardants, and offer alternatives.

7 p.m., $10 donation

AIA San Francisco

130 Sutter, sixth floor, SF

(510) 845-1000

International Cannabis Smokers Day


Herb enthusiasts are invited to join fellow ganja smokers in defiant solidarity against the impracticality of enforcing current marijuana laws and to publicly show your support of the upcoming November 2010 statewide ballot initiative to legalize, control, and tax recreational use of marijuana.

4:20 p.m. sharp, free

Hippie Hill

Golden Gate Park, SF

cannabisculture.com

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.

Did Lennar hire an armed security guard from Andrews International?

Mary Magee
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11
Did Lennar hire an armed security guard from Andrews International?

I didn’t attend the April 12 hearing of the Board’s city operations and neighborhood services committee about Lennar’s decision to send an armed ex-SFPD officer to a Feb. 18 community meeting at the Nation of Islam’s mosque on Third Street.

But video footage shows that it was a packed house, during which plenty of folks stated loud and clear that they thought it was a really bad and potentially dangerous idea to send an armed ex-officer into a community meeting in the Bayview.



“What next? Concealed weapons at City Hall?” a member of the public asked.

At meeting’s end, Sups. John Avalos, Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd voted to refer a resolution urging Lennar Corporation to issue a formal, written apology to members of the Stop Lennar Action Movement (SLAM.) to the full Board without recommendation, after Elsbernd voiced concern that the ex-officer may have been threatened and had racial epithets hurled his way.

“If the gentleman was threatened, if racial language was used, in that case it should not be one- sided,” Elsbernd said. “There should be apologies on the other side as well.”

Meanwhile, it’s worth shining light on another question: Who was the ex-officer actually working for?

During the meeting, much was made of the fact that the ex-officer, who told police his name was Bob Tarantino though apparently that is not his real name, gave as his work contact an address in Miami, Florida, where PR agency Sitrick and Company, has an office.

(Lennar once sent a Sitrick employee to talk to me and my editors at the Guardian, after we published the first in a series of reports that showed that the company failed to adequately enforce promised asbestos dust mitigation plans at its Shipyard site.)

But Sitrick managing director Glenn Bunting, who oversees the company’s San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Miami offices, told the Guardian that the ex-officer in question has never worked for or been an employee of Sitrick.

“We know who is on our pay roll and we don’t provide security services,” Bunting said.

He confirmed that Sitrick recently opened an office in Miami and sublets space from another firm in the same building. “We have a very small presence in Miami,” Bunting said.

So, who could Tarantino work for who  also has the same address in Miami, Florida, where Lennar Corporation is headquartered?

The building in question looks pretty big, lies across the street from the court house and is home to Andrews International, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, and bills itself as “a full service provider of security and risk mitigation services” and the “largest private, American-owned full-service security provider in the United States.”

In October 2009, Andrews International acquired Verasys LLC, a Miami-based consulting firm focused on global risk mitigation, investigations and security services.

“The acquisition added new offices in Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Atlanta and Bogotá, expanding service capabilities in all 50 states and Latin America” an Andrews International press release states.“ This followed the June 2009 acquisition of the U.S. and Mexico guarding operations of Garda World Security Corporation (TSX: GW), encompassing 14 offices across the U.S. and abroad. Most recently in January 2010, Andrews International acquired A&S Security, a California-based full service security company, expanding operations in its Western U.S. Region.”

So, it’s possible Bob Tarantino, or whatever his name is, works for these folks?
Lennar Urban’s Kofi Bonner has not replied to this question, as of this blog posting. But in a March 15 letter to Board President David Chiu and D. 10 supervisor Sophie Maxwell, Bonner said he was “working with our vendors to prevent such an episode from happening again.”


Bonner’s letter wasn’t entirely apologetic.

“Lennar has become increasingly concerned that some community meetings have devolved into hostility accompanied by intimidation of our supporters,” Bonner stated. “For that reason, I decided against sending any employees or consultants to the meeting in question.”

“I am truly disturbed by the ensuing physical and verbal abuse directed at the security firm employee,” Bonner continued. “Not surprisingly, he is independently considering his legal options.”

Candidates for judge: Robert Retana

Zelda Bronstein
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0
Candidates for judge: Robert Retana

The final installment of our interviews with candidates for Superior Court Judge in San Francisco: Robert Retana


 


 

Robert Retana by Endorse2010

The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

Zelda Bronstein
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4
The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has released a voting scorecard on the supervisors — and it’s a bad joke. The Chamber says the scorecard shows who are top opponents of business in the city, the ones who don’t support “job creation and government efficiency” — two poll-tested buzzwords the Chamber will try to use in supervisorial campaigns this fall.


But there are only ten votes on the scorecard — and they don’t even remotely represents the most important jobs, business or economic issues the board has addressed in the past year.


Seriously: Does anyone think that naming rights for Candlestick Park has had a huge impact on the ability of businesses to create jobs in the city? How about a resolution supporting a proposed Contemporary Art Museum?


And since small, locally owned independent businesses are the single largest private-sector job generators, how does the Recurrent Energy deal — a giveaway to a big power company — help create jobs?


Of course, that’s not what this is about. The scorecard issues were carefully chosen to make the progressives look bad. And, as always, the Chamber has completely ignored the fact that the largest employers in San Francisco are public-sector agencies, and that cutting government programs and blocking new sources of revenue are the real “job killers.”


We’re putting together our own scorecard, measuring a wider range of votes on key issues in the past year. What were the most important? What really mattered to San Franciscans? The comment lines are open.

Officials accused of destroying public documents on Palin visit

Sasha Cuttler
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2

The lesson of political scandals from Watergate through Monicagate is that the cover-up is often worse than the original crime, and that could once again prove true with the simmering conflict over large speaking fees that CSU-Stanislaus has agreed to pay Sarah Palin, particularly given new revelations that university officials might have destroyed public documents that had been requested by Sen. Leland Yee.

At a press conference convened by Yee this morning, two university students told the story of being informed by fellow students that administrators were shredding and disposing of documents in an administration building on Friday, which was particularly strange because the campus was shut down for a state-mandated furlough day.

So a group of five students started digging into a dumpster adjacent to the building that was being used that day and gathered all the documents in there, some shredded, some intact. And among those documents, they say, were pages four through nine of a contract with the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents Palin. And although they don’t mention her by name, they reference “air travel for two between Anchorage, Alaska and event city.” (Read the document here) Palin — the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate who has become a darling of the Tea Baggers and other right-wing populists — is scheduled to speak at a $500 per plate fundraising on June 25.

That was precisely the kind of document that Yee and attorney Terry Francke of Californians Aware had recently requested of the university through a California Public Records Act request, although their response from the university last week was that it had no documents responsive to their request.

So Yee asked the Attorney General’s Office to look into the matter, which could be what triggered the document destruction session, with officials fearing they might get caught in a lie. The CPRA allows for civil penalties for refusing to disclose public documents, while the Penal Code indicates willful destruction of public records may be considered a criminal act.

“This is an issue of accountability and transparency that is fundamental to our democracy,” Yee told reporters, calling the actions “unconscionable” and “reprehensible.”

Yee has been a strong critic of secrecy in the CSU and UC systems, and has unsuccessfully tried to pass laws requiring college foundations to be bound by open government and public records laws. That’s an issue in this case considering it’s the CSU-Stanislaus foundation that is hosting Palin’s visit, although Yee has pointed out that the university president and other top officials control the foundation, which uses campus facilities and resources.

“What we’re finding is with more and more of these foundations, there’s unethical and illegal stuff going on and nobody knows what’s going on,” Yee said, citing as an example the indictment of former City College of San Francisco chancellor Phillip Day for illegally laundering public funds for private use through the foundation.

But if the students’ story holds up, it now appears that the university itself was in possession of the documents that Yee requested, the first evidence that it wasn’t just the foundation that was involved with the Palin visit. 

Francke told reporters that he plans to file a lawsuit over the matter this week, depending on what the AG’s Office does. “Our purpose is to get a court decision that regards these documents as university documents and not just foundation documents,” he said.

Calls to the CSU-Stanislaus and the AG’s Office have not yet been returned, so check back for more details later.  

The Daily Blurgh: That cat should have won the prize

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
The Daily Blurgh: That cat should have won the prize

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

“We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore,” said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. “And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?”

Now that San Francisco is going to court the tourist dollars of baby boomers descending upon the TL in search of reawakening the pleasure centers of their youth – the music! the drugs! the picturesque squalor! – perhaps City Hall should also consider starting up tourism franchises in other “gritty” parts of the city? 

(But gawking humorously at the poor, addicted, and metally challenged makes for such a sensational blog post! –Ed.)

Also: Drubbing! This headline is the second Google hit that comes up for the search: “slumming San Francisco.” Take that, spendy New York Times (which seems to have a long history of reporting on slumming in other cities).

 
There are too many golden nuggets to choose from in Roger Ebert’s account of working on the Russ Meyer-directed Sex Pistols film that never was, but this exchange is one of them:
 
Meyer opened up by informing Johnny Rotten that with his stovepipe arms he wouldn’t have survived one day in the army.

“What do I want with the fucking army?” Rotten said.

 “You listen to me, you little shit. We won the Battle of Britain for you!”

I reflected that America had not been involved in the Battle of Britain, and that John Lydon (his real name) was Irish, and therefore from a non-participant nation. I kept these details to myself.

 
The anxiety of influence: The debate going on in the comments on this Fecal Face interview with local artist Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch is heated. Holyoke-Hirsch doesn’t seem to lack faith in his abilities (he is quoted as referring to himself as, “the hardest working illustrator and artist based in San Francisco, California”), although irony is sometimes lost in transcription. Hubris aside, there is still the question of whether or not his art, as some comments posit, swagger-jacks Chris Johansson and Barry McGee. But kids, it’s OK. Put down those rocks! Didn’t you know street art has already jumped the balaclava’d shark?

(Kidding!)

We love our cat
for her self
regard is assiduous
and bland
 
Congrats to personal fave Rae Armantrout for winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Cat people, this may be finally be your salve for the incredibly raw wounds from our canine-centric Pets issue.

Will Obama help Kamala Harris?

Zelda Bronstein
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12
Will Obama help Kamala Harris?

President Obama is coming to California to help raise money for Sen. Barbara Boxer, who already has more than $8 million on hand. The president has to do this; Boxer’s seat is critical to the Democrats hopes for hanging on to a majority in the Senate,and Obama will pull out all the stops in this fall’s campaign to help Dems in tough races.


And while Boxer’s not going to get an easy pass, she’s still the front-runner — whatever the polls may show, she’s always been a great campaigner and has overcome tough odds plenty of times before. And unless Tom Campbell pulls it out in the GOP primary, she’s going to face either Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore, and both of them are too far to the right for California.


But there’s another key race this fall where Obama could also be a huge help. I think San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris is going to win the Democratic primary for attorney general, but in the general election, she’s going to get hit hard by the GOP dirt machine. It’s going to be death penalty and cop killers all day long. Harris is tough, and knows what’s coming, but I can guarantee that race will be nasty, mean, dirty, ugly and as negative as you can imagine.


And Harris is going to need to raise a lot of money to fight back.


Now let’s remember: Harris was one of the first California elected officials to support Obama for president. She was the co-chair of his state campaign. And this fall, he could return the favor by making a visible endorsement — and by coming to town for a major Harris fundraiser. The president of the United States can raise $5 million in one night for a candidate — and that kind of boost, along with the positive press it would generate, might make the difference.


Of course, Obama, who (sadly) won’t come out against the death penalty, will have to take some hard questions and a few hits himself, in a tough national election year for Democrats, if he gets to close to Harris. And she’ s enough of a pragmatist that she’ll understand if he ducks this one.


But he really shouldn’t.

Just out of prison, Addis returns to SF with a message

Sasha Cuttler
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60

Paul Addis is a playwright and performance artist best known for prematurely igniting Burning Man‘s eponymous central effigy during a Monday night lunar eclipse at the event in 2007, a crime for which he served two years in a Nevada prison. He was recently released and returned to San Francisco, where his new one-man show debuts at The Dark Room on April 30.

Last week, Addis sat down for an extended interview with the Guardian to discuss that momentous night – when he grabbed the Holy Grail of burner malcontents, lighting the Man early, and paid a heavy price for it – and its aftermath, including developing his play, “Dystopian Veneer,” while in a prison work camp near Las Vegas.

“It’s a brand new life and I’ve got all this potential and I want to make the most out of it,” said Addis, an intense guy who exhibited a wide range of emotions during the three-hour interview, from easy laughter to frustrations with what he sees as the lack of risk-taking in San Francisco to excitement over his future to flashes of real menace when discussing those who have done him wrong.

Addis is a lightning rod whose torching of the Man still elicits strong reactions from those who attend Burning Man. Some angrily condemn an act they see as destructive and dangerous, while others appreciate the ultimate symbolic assault on an event that they think had become too orderly and calcified.  
Paul Addis's mug shot after burning The Man.

Addis’s post-burn mug shot.

“Everybody knew it needed to be done for lots of reasons,” Addis said of an action that was his sole purpose in attending Burning Man that year. “I felt like Burning Man as an event was starting to coddle people way too much.”

But the event’s leaders certainly didn’t coddle Addis, instead testifying at his 2008 sentencing hearing about the high cost of replacing the Man (high enough to bump the destruction of property charge up to a felony) and the early burn’s negative impact on the event. “They didn’t have to do this,” Addis said of Burning Man board member Will Roger’s testimony at the hearing. “Instead, they decided to deliberately take action they knew would send me to prison.”

Marian Goodell, the director of business and communications for Burning Man, declined to discuss the accusation, or Addis’ complaint that she and others have publicly misrepresented the role of Burning Man brass in sending him to prison, including statements in the film “Dust & Illusions” that the sentencing was beyond their control. “It doesn’t do us or him any good to open that wound again,” Goodell told the Guardian. “We’re not going to discuss it.”

Starting the fire wasn’t Addis’s only crime of that era. Within weeks of returning to Burning Man, he was arrested in Washington for carrying guns in public (he says they were props for the one-man play about Hunter S. Thompson he was doing at the time) and for possession of fireworks and an air gun near Grace Cathedral (which police said at the time was a plot to burn down the stone church, a notion that Addis calls preposterous). Addis has innocent narratives for each incident, blaming others for overreacting.

Yet Addis now says that he’s let go of his old grudges, describing a moment of clarity and peace that came over him while driving his motorcycle through the Nevada desert on his way back to San Francisco. He said that he feels most happy and alive when he’s on stage, a passion that he said sustained him while in prison, “so it’s imperative for me to get back to what I love doing.”

Addis posted a promotional video for his new show on Laughing Squid (whose owner, Scott Beale, Addis has known for many years). It opens with Addis looking up at the camera, his mouth covered in duct tape that he slowly rips off and begins speaking. “In a society whose foundation is free expression under the First Amendment and liberty under the Constitution, this is probably the most desperate, despicable and disgusting thing that can be done to an outspoken and risk-taking performance artist,” he says, indicating the tape in his fingers, before tossing it aside and saying, “Well, that’s over now.”

He goes on to criticize how sanitized San Francisco has become, singling out the police crackdown on SoMa parties and nightclubs that we’ve been covering in the Guardian and calling for people to join him in pushing the edge. But just how San Franciscans will greet this controversial figure is still an open question. 

I’ll have more from my interview with Addis, along with reactions from other figures in the Burning Man world, in the Guardian in coming weeks; and even more in my upcoming book, “The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture,” due out later this year from CCC Publishing.  

Fashion Armageddon? Nah, it’s just the great American Apocalypse

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3

By Chhavi Nanda

The majority of mankind is under the misconception that an apocalypse is primarily associated with the end of the world – some sort of eschatological final battle. Perhaps it’s the slew of movies such as 2012 or The Road influencing our mind to veer into that territory. But an apocalypse doesn’t necessarily mean an ending — even adherents of the Book of Revelations know there’s a next chapter. An apocalypse is defined as “the lifting of a veil or a revelation.”  Late last month, a fashionable veil was lifted: a new collective Web site of vintage fashion, entitled American Apocalypse, was exposed to the world.

I attended the first editorial shoot for American Apocalypse. The motif of the shoot was “Clown, Chola”. Although Urban Dictionary defines chola as “the girls my brother gets pregnant,” there’s much more to a chola than that, obviously. The chola aesthetic includes thick eyeliner, thin drawn on eyebrows, lip liner, gelled hair, high pony tails, gold chains, piercings, tattoos, flannel shirts, Converse or Nikes. And of course she has to be a ruthless gangbanger. You know, like that Lean Like a Chola song says “lean like a chola way up high, thick eye liner in my eye, cruise all day, drink all night, got four kids with three guys.”

I walked down Geary Street at around 11:30am; the models were standing outside of Harput’s Union smoking their cigarettes in anticipation for the shoot to start. None of them had their makeup on yet and their hair wasn’t done either. I didn’t feel as guilty walking into the shoot hung over from the Friday night before. The owner of the store, Gus, greeted me kindly. Then the models, photographers, clothing stylist, make up artist, and the rest of the crew scurried down to the gritty basement of Harputs, where the shoot took place.

There were boxes, bags, and racks full of beautiful clothes and accessories. I was overwhelmed, and for a brief second wanted to jeopardize everything to run away with all these clothes, hoping no one would notice, but in my better judgment, I just stuck around for the shoot. The hairsprays, gels, doorknocker earrings, and – yes! — the paisley bandanas came out. As hair and make-up was being done, a nice mix of Spice Girls, Gucci Mane, and indubitably Bone Thugs and Harmony played in the background, to get the girls in a “Thug Life” mood.

Witnessing all the make-up and hair getting done I could finally see the vision coming in clearly. Envision this scenario with me: Bozo the Clown meets Frida Kahlo, if Frida Kahlo lived in this day in age and was a little more badass. After hours and hours (and several eyeliners), the girls were ready.  They modeled both in the basement and on the busy streets around Union Square. People in traffic and pedestrians watched curiously.

The shoot included some of San Francisco most exclusive models; Fernanda Toledo, Alexis Hutt, Alexandra Kammen, Annalise Lundeen, and Ali Lovell. The mastermind that painted their faces so they were ready to perform in the Chola Circus was Matt Wanaraksa. The hair was a collective effort from the models and stylists.

The creative minds behind the shoot were Sam Banks along with Brooke Candy, also assisting on the set was Rachel Esterline. Esterline has been a stylist for the last six years and has generously opened up not only her own wardrobe, but also several of her clients’ to give a helping hand while American Apocalypse builds up its stock. Her clients include some of San Francisco most elite and fashion-conscious women that strut down Maiden Lane after their weekly yoga and meditation classes. Although Rachel is a prominent stylist, Brooke Candy and Sam Banks were the visionaries behind this shoot. Sam and Brooke, coordinated, conducted creative direction, and styled the models head to toe, while Rachel directed and did the photography for the shoot.

At some point in this decade, the word vintage was added to the fashion bible. Vintage used to be a word that was applied to wines or some grandfather’s Bentley. But somehow between drinking vintage wine and driving vintage cars, a woman walking in to a room with a vintage dress suddenly gained the right to have a holier-than-thou persona. If you admire my dress, I would retort with a smirk, “I know you want it, but too fucking bad, it’s vintage.  You can’t have it. “  There is just something about rummaging through an obscure thrift shop or junk yard, or the closet of a underground fashionista that gives one a thrill of being an individual. American Apocalypse gives us the opportunity to have those pieces in our closet that we know no one else out there has, while still remaining fashionable. It isn’t the end of the world, just a fashion revelation.  

AMERICAN APOCALYPSE

www.americanapocalypse415.com

Uncovering visions with SFMAPP

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Maybe we’re a little too old to go searching for chocolate eggs and ginormas white bunnies in grassy fields, but last weekend there was an alternative Easter scavenger hunt for grown-ups, thanks to SFMAPP, the San Francisco Mission Arts & Performance Project. This bi-monthly art event brings together artists, musicians and poets and scatters them among cafes, backyards, and galleries for a diverse evening of music and art in sometimes the most unexpected places.

With my buddy Clairebear, we headed out into the cold April night. First we stopped at Red Poppy Art House where we listened to Benn Bacot sing some classy jazz tunes, while we mused over our recently acquired treasure map. After consulting our map we both agreed that our next stop must be the Secret Garden. I mean how cool is that — we were off to a Secret Garden and, yes, we got lost on the way. It was that secret.

After a few wrong turns, we finally walked down a sweet smelling path to the garden and found a small crowd of people (or should we call them garden elves?) listening to Jonathan Stephen and his friend Josh play a lovely cover of a well-known mandolin piece by Chris Thile. The stage was perfectly centered under a canopy of trees draped in twinkling lights, which created a truly magical ambiance.

Back en-route, we headed to Area 2881, where we were greeted with a sign that read “Rotating Amusement Devices by Carl Pisaturo.” Sweet. What the heck does that mean? When we got inside the gallery, we encountered metallic sculptures whirling and twirling at varying velocities that were incredibly entertaining to look at. With added spacey music and pink and purple light filling the room, it was a totally awesome experience.

Back to the mapp! Trotting along, we stopped at Galeria de la Raza for a movie overload in a piece called “Hollywoodpedia” by Mexican artist Artemio, that collaged together clips from thousands of popular films, based on themes like Love, Failure, and War. The project took years to make and millions of hours of movie-watching to complete, but was definitely worth the oh-so-clever final product.

By that time, Clairebear and I were hungry, but luckily there was a foodie stop on the mapp, so we headed to La Victoria Bakery for live music and snacks from “Sweet Corazon De La Mission” that included delightful edibles by local food cart vendors. We ended the evening at Precita Eyes, to gaze over the colorful mural-style art pieces filling their gallery. Clairebear and I both agreed, it was best scavenger hunt we’d even been on, despite the lack of chocolate bunnies.

White Walls gives street art a place to hang its hat

Andrew Lam
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Since writing my article in this week’s Guardian on the state of street art in San Francisco, the definition of the term has been… not rankling me, but sitting in my head like things that can’t be resolved tend to do. But a recent conversation I had with the owner of White Walls and Shooting galleries, Justin Giarla gave me a good look at why street artists go indoors. He took me through his current exhibition of works by the legendary stencilist Blek Le Rat, Hush, and Above — “street” artists all, who are finding brave new worlds through work on canvas.

“Once these guys get older, they don’t want to be going to jail anymore,” the proprietor of the Tenderloin gallery told me. Giarla has long been interested in the artwork of graffiti artists, and has been putting shows on like this one since White Walls opened in 2005. “Plus, you need to make money to do bigger and better things.”

…and this one outside the gallery? 

We’re standing beneath a forest of arrows suspended in mid air. They’re the work of Above, who at 27 years old has been placing them in improbable urban junctures for the past eight years. “He’d put them in places where you’d think, ‘how the hell did he do that?’” Giarla tells me. “Over the intersection of Market and Geary, places like that.” Before us is a canvas rendering of one of Above’s life size stencils, a young girl blowing expanding heart bubbles to a boy who rises with them into the air. The original of “First Love,” as the work is titled, was an unauthorized piece on the wall of an elementary school in So Cal. Above threw it up in the middle of the night to escape notice from the authorities. This one is retailing for more money than I’ve spent on art, like, ever.  That’s a big change in the art’s intent, isn’t it?

“Once you take it out of the street, it’s no longer “street” art, it’s fine art,” Giarla says. “That’s not to say what’s in the street isn’t fine art — it’s more like the difference between free art and fine art.” Street artists find a whole different set of artistic challenges, he tells me, when they start showing in galleries. Giarla notes that for artists like Above, whose White Walls exhibition is his first gallery show, “it changes the art visually. All of a sudden, all these limitations get put on it. Sometimes street art doesn‘t translate visually when it‘s altered to fit gallery format.”

“First Love” by Above — the indoor one. 

And Giarla is the first to admit that the audience of the art is altered by the change. “What art is, is dictated by the people who see it. The neighborhood you put it up in determines who sees it.”

Giarla was drawn to this kind of interaction with the world of public art because of a respect for the form. He says he finds street art “the most free expression of art, meant for everyone, not elitist,” and in a way, he’s furthering the capabilities of artists like Above and Hush (whose geisha murals and paintings decorate the room next to Above’s arrows) to do more, travel more, and create more public works by providing them a forum to sell to big money art collectors. Which is cool.

And I guess it answers some of my questions about why street art wants to hang with the denizens of fine art. It helps though, when they keep their original audience of public passers-by in mind. 

An eloquent nod to this kind of access splashes across the back entrance of White Walls. Giarla had Hush paint one of his shy geishas on the gallery’s doorway in the slightly seedy TL alley. Nearly identical copies of her hang on the walls inside, but this geisha can still enjoy an audience not overly given to wine and cheese receptions. 

Blek Le Rat “Faces in the Mirror,” Hush “Passing Through,” and Above “Transitions”

Through June 5

White Walls/Shooting Gallery

839 Larkin, SF

(415) 577-1275

www.shootinggallerysf.com

 

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