San Francisco

Not being boring

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

There are reasons why John Baldessari has always seemed a little like god. For one, the L.A.-based artist resembles popular visions of the man upstairs. He’s a formidably tall fellow — 6 feet, 7 inches — with white hair and beard, and he exudes an unflappably calm, wise demeanor, characteristics that figure in his role as an influential professor for almost three decades at Calarts and UCLA. In Seven Days in the Art World, the dishy 2008 book-length look at the pre-downturn contemporary art scene, author Sarah Thornton describes Baldessari as "a hippie version of Michelangelo’s representation of the grand old man in the Sistine Chapel." It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to suggest that he makes art that you can faith in, if not always completely decipher.

At 78, Baldessari has amassed quite a body of work, even though he pared things down as one of his important early gestures, famously cremating his paintings to start afresh as a conceptualist. "I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art" was the ironic mantra that fueled a 1971 video and his first print, in which he wrote the phrase repeatedly as if a punishment. Since that time, he has well managed to steer clear of boredom, his own and that of his viewers, with works that playfully address mediated culture and the making of art.

Baldessari received a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award at the current Venice Biennale, and he’ll be honored with a retrospective at London’s Tate Modern this fall. In San Francisco, a thorough selection of his prints is on view at the Legion of Honor. While screenprints and lithographs aren’t usually considered primary works, Baldessari’s approach is so connected to mechanical reproduction — he relies on found images, text, and photography — that the exhibition’s 100-plus examples, all from the collection of Jordan Schnitzer, an Oregon-based Baldessari devotee, comprise a very satisfying survey.

Baldessari’s art is seductive, though surprisingly difficult to parse. His works can play like engaging rebuses that are thwarted by his frequent use of bold, primary-colored dots placed over faces and objects, seriously throwing their meaning into question. Just as often, however, a Baldessari can have a succinct visual/conceptual punch line, like his 1973 Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts), which in classic conceptual art fashion, is just what the title describes. That early work also exemplifies the sense of playfulness and pleasure often present in Baldessari’s art. It shouldn’t seem surprising that his prints can evoke Matisse’s buoyantly colorful Jazz cut-outs.

"I’m glad you saw that, he’s a huge influence on me," Baldessari says when I mention the Matisse connection during a recent interview. At the Venice Biennale award ceremony, he acknowledged his indebtedness to Giotto, Goya, Duchamp, and especially Sol LeWitt, the latter two being similarly playful conceptualists who played with systems to rejigger the way we think about life and art. Baldessari’s mode of operation involves breaking down mass-produced images until they take on new meanings. He has long collected 8 x 10 glossies from forgotten films, advertising campaigns, or various other commercial images that he reconfigures, crops, and/or paints over. Like Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills from the postmodern late 1970s, Baldessari’s sources are coded with meaning and narrative, but are emphatically anonymous. "If I know who it is, it’s ruined for me," he says.

Besides movie stills, Baldessari turns his attention to drab landscapes, mundane table lamps — resulting in a jaunty 1994 series of full-size reproductions with bold patches of color painted over the shades and shadows — and body parts, notably noses and ears (don’t miss the vacuum-formed piece mounted on the ceiling at the entrance of the Legion exhibition).

One room at the Legion is devoted to a 2004 series of prints of men playing guitars. The images are broken into layers, goosing the perspective by having some areas on thicker paper and turning the instruments into solid blocks of color. The story of their making offers a window into Baldessari’s process: "I’ve had these 8 by 10’s of rock and roll musicians for years," he begins. "I collect a lot of stuff because I’m repulsed by it, and that whole rock and roll musician thing does not interest me in the least. I just wonder, why are they popular? I had the photos for years and didn’t know what to do with them, and all of a sudden something clicked — the guitar is an element in art from Cubism, it’s always there with the bottle of wine and newspaper and a loaf of bread. So I thought, how does that work in a more contemporary context?"

He goes on to describe his interest in shapes in photographs, making perspective into a flat plane. "What if I just erase all the gradation and make shapes of color? When the guitars are tilted, they’re pretty interesting shapes, especially in context with gaudy costumes, glitter and bling. It’s an interesting collision."

Perhaps not a lightning bolt from above, but like most of Baldessari’s work, the clash creates subtle sparks. The kind you can believe in.

JOHN BALDESSARI: A PRINT RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF JORDAN D. SCHNITZER AND HIS FAMILY FOUNDATION

Through Nov. 8 (Tues.– Sun., 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.)

free–$10

Legion of Honor

Lincoln Park, 34th Ave. and Clement, SF

(415) 750-3600
www.thinker.org

How healthy is Healthy SF?

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news@sfbg.com

San Francisco is getting national attention for its attempt at universal health care. President Obama even applauded the city’s efforts in a speech: "Instead of just talking about health care, [San Francisco has been] ensuring that those in need receive it."

But Healthy San Francisco — a pioneering effort to do at the municipal level what the federal and state governments won’t — is running into some troubling problems, made worse by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget cuts.

The program was initiated by Tom Ammiano, now a state assemblymember, with backing from organized labor. Ammiano’s goal was to provide easy access to affordable health care for all of S.F.’s 60,000 uninsured. A local version of a single-payer program, he argued, could provide accessible primary and preventative care, alleviating the need for indigent patients to use the overcrowded and expensive San Francisco General Hospital emergency room as their primary medical provider.

Healthy San Francisco was launched on July 2, 2007, at two Chinatown clinics. It has grown dramatically, and now provides services to more than 34,000 residents at 27 clinics.

Although Newsom sat on the sidelines while Ammiano pushed the legislation, the mayor has now unashamedly claimed the program as his own to promote his gubernatorial campaign. On his Web site he boldly declares that "he’s created the only universal health care program in the country" — with no mention of Ammiano.

The $200 million-<\d>a-<\d>year program is partially funded by an employer-mandate requiring businesses with more than 20 employees either to provide health insurance or pay a fee to the city. The fees are broken down according to the size of the business; as of January 2009, employers pay between $1.23–<\d>$1.85 for every hour an employee works.

Like any traditional health insurance program, Healthy SF has annual fees and point-of-service charges paid by participants. The remainder of the program is funded through state grants.

Opposition to HSF surfaced immediately. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association sued the city even before the program started, alleging that the employer-spending mandate is a violation of federal law.

Kevin Westlye, the association’s executive director, claims his beef is not with the health care system, just with the employer mandate. He suggested that the city raise its sales tax to pay for the program — or that the financial burden should fall on the backs of the billionaires that run privatized health care and pharmaceutical companies.

But the city has only a limited ability to raise taxes, and any tax hike would require voter approval. The employer mandates and fees were much more politically feasible.

Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria, who is representing the city on the case, argues, "It is difficult to imagine, in these budget times, that San Francisco could provide universal coverage without employer health care spending requirements."

Federal courts sided with the GGRA initially, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the employer-spending mandate was legal. The GGRA appealed to the United States Supreme Court; the court will announce Oct. 5 whether it will hear the case.

That’s not the only litigation facing HSF. A group of low-income residents are suing the city, saying that the system’s annual fees and co-pays are too high. The program’s fees are scaled to the federal poverty level, which is currently set at an annual income of $10,830. A single person making between 101 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level — that is, between about $11,000 and $20,000 a year — pays $180 a year for HSF membership. People earning between $40,000 and $50,000 pay $1,350 a year.

There are also co-pays of $10 for medical visits and $5 to $25 for prescriptions — again, typical of health insurance plans.

Bay Area Legal Aid and the Western Center on Law and Poverty are representing three San Francisco residents who say those fees violate federal and state mandates, which stipulate that the city must provide free health care to those who can’t afford to pay. Healthy San Francisco is only one element of the lawsuit; it also claims that San Francisco General Hospital charges low-income people too much and that the city’s medical bills and collection practices aren’t fair.

One of the plaintiffs is Robyn Paige, a San Francisco resident with spine, foot, and hip injuries. Paige contends that she can’t afford the co-payments on her multiple medications each month and must either go without pain medication or borrow money. Lisa Qare, 21-year-old resident with MS, had to wait three weeks for medication for an eye condition that developed as a result of her condition.

A $10 co-pay may not seem like much, but when a patient needs several doctor visits a month and must pay $5 to $25 each for multiple prescriptions, it adds up. "As a result," Michael Keys, a Bay Area Legal Aid lawyer, told us, "those who can’t afford the charges are falling into medical debt or skipping services or medication."

And, not surprisingly, the cash-strapped city is having trouble finding enough staff and facilities to meet all the needs. Nancy Keiler, a Mission District resident and HSF participant, complains that clinic visits are too short, and that "the doctor is too hurried and has too many patients." (That’s a common complaint about private health plans, as well.) After waiting three hours, another HSF participant had to leave without her prescription to get back to work on time.

The long lines and waits will only get worse in the face of budget cuts. Pink slips were already handed out to several hundred San Francisco health care workers and 1,000 more may be laid off this fall.

Robert Haaland, who works with the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, told us the staffing cuts will make the situation much worse. Martha Hawthorne, a public-health nurse, said she thinks that there won’t be enough providers to provide good care — and that many health care workers losing their jobs will have to enroll in HSF themselves, putting even more strain on the system.

Ammiano, the author of the plan, is concerned too. "I’m very worried about it," he said. "It seems to me now that if there’s this budget pain, there will be impacts to San Francisco."

Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary, tersely denied that HSF will feel any budget pain. Asked about critics’ allegations, he said, "They’re wrong. We are going to expand Healthy SF this year."

Earlier this month, insurance giant Kaiser Permanente joined HSF — meaning that the health care giant will now participate as a provider in the program. Haaland voiced concern about that move, calling it "privatizing through the back door."

Mitch Katz, the city’s public health director, agrees there are flaws to the system, but defends its success. "It is by no means a perfect program," he said, "but we’ve made a big impact." With national health care costs rising three times faster than wages (some believe that health care costs are rising five times faster than wages) the nation is starting to seriously talk about overhauling the entire system. San Francisco is being considered as a model for national health care reform.

Labor leaders have lauded the basic formula of HSF and pushed for the federal reforms to use it as a model. As San Francisco Labor Council executive director Tim Paulson said in a prepared statement, "In San Francisco we demonstrated that legislation providing public health access and corporate participation creates a real path to universal health care coverage."

Research assistance by Gabrielle Poccia

Bitter medicine

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news@sfbg.com

The Democratic Party has been promising a major overhaul of the health care system for a generation or more. Now, with President Barack Obama and his party’s congressional leaders in a strong position to finally reach that elusive goal by next month, this should be a momentous time for the reform movement.

So why are so many health reform advocacy groups unhappy?

The answer involves policy and process. Rather than pushing for the single-payer system that many progressive groups demand and say is needed, Democratic leaders immediately opted for a compromise plan they hoped would be acceptable to economic conservatives and the insurance industry.

But Republicans are still calling them socialists for doing it, while the insurance industry — which loves the portion of the legislation that requires everyone to buy coverage — is still spending $1.4 million a day to either kill the complicated bills or turn them to its advantage.

When congressional Democrats unveiled America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (HR 3200) on July 14, many reformists thought a long-awaited, dramatic overhaul to a broken system was close at hand. The insurance companies would finally be made to adhere to ethical practices, and the Democrats would defend their plan to establish a government-run health insurance option that could compete with private insurers and keep them in check.

“American families cannot afford for Washington to say no once again to comprehensive health care reform,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who chairs the crucial House Education and Labor Committee.

The Democrats’ bill does address some critical flaws in the health care system. It would greatly expand Medicare to ensure coverage for low-income individuals, and would subsidize coverage for those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, defined as $43,320 for an individual and $88,200 for a family of four. The bill would forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to patients based on a preexisting condition, age, race, or gender. It would eliminate co-pays for preventative care and establish a cap on annual out-of-pocket expenses. To pay for it, the proposal would create a graduated tax on households earning more than $350,000 a year, with the top bracket being a 5.4 percent levy on incomes of more than $1 million.

Progressive members of Congress threw their support behind the bill because — and only because — it included the public option. “The public option is central to our support of health care reform,” read a statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), who chairs the CPC, was quoted in the Huffington Post as saying, “We have already compromised. More than 90 percent of the progressive caucus would vote today for a single-payer system. And so for us to compromise and get behind a really good strong public plan, I mean that’s as far as we’re going.”

While that statement indicates the precarious nature of the current legislation — which will likely be weakened further as it works its way through the process and merges with legislation from the more conservative U.S. Senate — many progressive groups aren’t even willing to go that far.

 

COVERAGE ISN’T CARE

Many single-payer supporters say some reform is better than none, and that the passage of HR 3200 would represent a major win. “We can advance many of the principles that we support with the House bill,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California and an organizer for the national reform advocacy group Health Care for America Now. The nation, he believes, needs to endorse principles such as universally covering Americans and making sure patients aren’t left alone “at the mercy of the private insurance industry.”

Yet other groups fear this cure would be worse than the disease, sending millions of new customers into a private insurance system that simply doesn’t work, and compounding existing problems.

“We’re still pushing for a national single-payer bill,” Dr. James Floyd, a health reform researcher with the nonprofit group Public Citizen, told the Guardian. “While we’re open to other options, we haven’t seen anything [in proposals by Democratic congressional leaders] yet that is acceptable.”

That position has plenty of support among the general public and reform-minded organizations, for whom single-payer continues to be the holy grail.

The current proposal “doesn’t change the system one bit,” said Leonard Rodberg, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, who works in health policy. “These bills are requiring that people buy insurance, but there are no numbers about how much the insurance would cost. And if the cost of the insurance is still too high, you can remain uninsured.”

And as negotiations center on the government-run insurance option, the concept of scratching the status quo and offering free Medicare-like health care to every American instead has fallen to the wayside.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) got 84 co-sponsors for his single-payer bill, HR 676, and hearings were held in June to explore the option. But congressional leaders then took it off the table. The reasons why seem to be as much about political will as they are about campaign contributions from the insurance industry. As one high-level congressional staffer told us, many lawmakers won’t back a single-payer system in part because they “don’t want to have to respond to being accused of being a socialist by the right wing.”

Then there’s the insurance lobby. “They spend hundreds of millions,” the staffer said. “They lobby Congress, and they provide millions to campaigns. They have Fox News. But the single-payer movement is growing leaps and bounds.”

Rodberg said the insurance industry would love to see a mandate to buy insurance approved at a time when insurers are losing customers because the economy is shedding thousands of jobs each month. “This is a bailout for the insurance companies,” Rodberg told us. “But there’s absolutely nothing in this legislation that will control costs, because it just leaves it to the insurance companies and the market.”

Dr. Jim G. Kahn, president of the California Physicians’ Alliance and a professor at UCSF with expertise in health policy, told us he believes the proposed bill falls short of the goal of comprehensive, universal coverage. “‘Universal’ was recently redefined by [Montana Sen. Max] Baucus as 95 percent — i.e., 15 million uninsured,” Kahn told us via e-mail. “Reaching even that level will be hard, due to the complexity of enforcing an ‘individual mandate’ on families with only modest income (and hence no subsidies). And in eagerness to reach that level, more and more people will become underinsured, with inadequate coverage and a further boost in already high medical bankruptcy.”

Medical debt contributed to nearly two-thirds of all bankruptcies in 2007, according to a study in the American Journal of Medicine. The majority of those afflicted were solidly middle-class homeowners at the start of their illness, and most had private health insurance.

Health Care Now, a hub for single-payer grassroots groups, is planning a large rally in Washington, D.C., for July 30, the anniversary of the founding of Medicare, on which many single-payer plans would be based. “Single-payer is the only plan that would truly be universal and contain costs,” said Katie Robbins of Health Care Now, arguing that the current plan pushed by congressional leaders “doesn’t protect us from the ills of the insurance-based system as we know it.”

Other progressive groups are withholding judgment for now, hoping the good aspects will ultimately outweigh the bad. “We’re digging through them now. We support a bill that has a true public option, and the House bill has that,” said Consumer Watchdog’s Jerry Flanagan. “But we really dislike the individual mandate [to purchase health insurance]. The insurance companies really don’t want the public option, but they really want the mandate.”

 

LEAVING OPTIONS OPEN

Even if single-payer isn’t going to be the national model yet, advocates say it’s crucial that states such as California be allowed to experiment with the option anyway. Single-payer advocates in Congress have insisted the health care legislation be amended to explicitly allow states to do single-payer (otherwise, federal preemption laws and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act might prevent states from doing so).

On July 17, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) successfully inserted such an amendment into the bill that cleared the House Committee on Education and Labor with a 25-19 vote, which included significant Republican support. The amendment was opposed by Miller, indicating Democratic Party leaders oppose the change and may ultimately succeed in stripping it from the bill.

“George Miller is a longtime supporter of a national single-payer plan and health care reform. The truth is, however, there are not enough votes in the House or the Senate to pass a final bill that contains single-payer language. That is unfortunate but it is also the truth,” Miller spokesperson Rachel Racusen told the Guardian.

California is a hotbed of single-payer activism. Even a leading candidate for state insurance commissioner, Assemblymember Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) — who appeared on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on July 15 to receive the endorsements of a long list of local elected officials — has made single-payer advocacy a central plank in his campaign.

The movement is so strong in California that it actually had legislators vying for who would get to carry its banner. San Francisco’s own state senator Mark Leno, a longtime single-payer supporter, was selected this year to take over the landmark single-payer legislation previously sponsored by termed-out legislator Sheila Kuehl, which has passed twice, only to be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“The more I dive into this issue, the more convinced I am that the answer has to be single-payer,” Leno told us. “The only reform that truly contains costs is single-payer.”

Leno doesn’t fault Obama for taking a more cautious stance — but he does believe the federal government shouldn’t block states like California from creating single-payer systems. “States should be incubators of trying different proposals. We have a great history with that,” Leno said.

But even with a Democratic governor, there’s no guarantee that single-payer would be approved. Mayor Gavin Newsom is running for governor, featuring health care reform in his platform. He chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors National Health Care Reform Task Force, which is pushing for approval of the Obama plan. But even Newsom won’t promise to back the Leno plan.

“He doesn’t think single-payer is the best option now,” Newsom’s campaign manager Eric Jaye told us when asked whether Newsom would sign the legislation as governor. “He hopes and believes that as governor he will be supporting a national public option.”

But in the end, the governor may not matter. Leno said the political reality in California is that voters, rather than legislators, will need to approve the single-payer system. The funding mechanism for any ambitious health care plan would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature, a political impossibility.

“The difference in California is the voters will have the final say. And I’m excited about that. The voters of California will be able to say to the insurance companies, ‘We’ve had enough, now go away,'” Leno told us. He said he expects a ballot campaign in 2012.

Of course, it won’t be that simple. Leno knows that the insurance industry will spend untold millions of dollars to defend itself and a “status quo that is only working for them, not for anyone else. This is an enormously powerful industry and they control the debates.”

“Our effort here in California is an educational one. We have from now until the election in 2012 to make the arguments,” Leno said.

 

THE COST OF INSURANCE

Testifying at a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee in June, Geri Jenkins, a registered nurse and the co-president of the California Nurses Association, related the story of Nataline Sarkisyan. The 17-year-old girl needed a life-saving liver transplant, Jenkins explained to Congress members. “But CIGNA would not approve it,” she told them, “until I, and hundreds of others, protested. During one of the protests, I was with Hilda, Nataline’s mother, when she got the call of approval.”

Hilda’s relief didn’t last long. By the time the hurdle had been cleared, Jenkins testified, “it was too late. Nataline died an hour later.”

Nataline’s story sparked national outrage, and it has since become a flagship tale highlighting all that is wrong with this country’s health care system. But as the debate about health care reform continues inside House and Senate committee chambers, discussion about “universal health care” — a phrase with a simple ring to it — has grown murkier.

“We have a universal health care system now,” Flanagan said, referring to how all Americans with serious medical conditions have a right to treatment — even if that treatment comes with great expense in an overcrowded public hospital emergency room. “It’s just the most inefficient system imaginable.”

With the August congressional recess coming up fast and Obama leaning on Capitol Hill to shift into high gear on an issue that was a hallmark of his campaign, the pressure is on to vote on the historic health care reform legislation within weeks.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed a health care reform bill July 16 that is similar to the House bill, with the vote split along party lines. Now, national attention has turned to the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Baucus, which continued its efforts last week to achieve a bipartisan bill.

Many of progressive reform advocates simply don’t trust the players in Washington, D.C., to get this right, particularly Baucus. “He’s the voice of the insurance companies in the Senate,” Flanagan said.

A recent article in the Washington Post estimated that the insurance industry is spending an estimated $1.4 million per day to influence the outcome of the health care legislation, and pointed out that many of the lobbyists were Washington insiders who had previously worked for key legislators, such as Baucus.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit research group that tracks money in U.S. politics and operates the Web site opensecrets.org, launched an intensive study of health care sector lobbyist spending, including cataloguing industry contributions to individual candidates from 1989 to the present. Baucus received more industry campaign contributions in that time than any other Democrat, the CRP study reveals, with a total of $3.8 million. Henry Waxman (D-<\d>Los Angeles), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, received a total of $1.4 million in that same time, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) received $1.2 million.

Starting in the 2008 election cycle, the health sector gave more to Democrats than to Republicans, according to the CRP’s analysis.

To overcome that kind of money and influence, advocates say it was crucial to wield a credible single-payer option — a sort of death penalty for the insurance industry — for as long as possible.

“Having single-payer discussions on the table really informs the debate over the public option,” Flanagan said. “But by removing single-payer, it made the public option the left flank.”

Flanagan, like many, is worried about how a 900-page bill will turn out. “There are a thousands ways to get it wrong,” he said. “An easy way to get it right would be to just do a single-payer system.” ————

HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS

• Uninsured Americans: 47 million

• Uninsured Californians: More than 6.7 million (about one in six)

• African Americans without health insurance in California: 19 percent

• Latinos without health insurance in California: 31 percent

• Whites without health insurance in California: 12 percent

• San Franciscans without health insurance: 15.3 percent

• Rise in health-insurance premiums from 2000 to 2007 in California: 96 percent

• Projected rise in health care costs per family without reform: $1,800 per year

• Percentage of bankruptcies attributed to an individual’s inability to pay medical bills: 62 percent

• Percentage of Americans who skip doctor visits because of the cost: 25 percent

• U.S. rank of 19 industrialized nations on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions: 19

• Jobs that would be created by extending Medicare to all Americans: 2.6 million

• Annual U.S. spending on billing and insurance-related administrative costs for health care: $400 billion

Sources: Health Care for America Now, American Journal of Medicine, Physicians for a National Health Program

Bistro St. Germain

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paulr@sfbg.com

Few neighborhoods in Paris are more full of cultural flavor than the Faubourg St.-Germain, the Right Bank district whose main thoroughfare, the Boulevard St. Germain, is the home of the Café Flore (the original!) and the Deux Magots. Picture Sartre thoughtfully smoking a clove cigarette, with a demitasse emptied of espresso sitting on the table in front of him.

Although the Faubourg St.-Germain is very near the Sorbonne, its bohemian life is mostly a relic. These days the area is expensively residential, and its shops and restaurants reflect this affluence. So when our own bistro impresario, Laurent Legendre, recently opened his latest venture on lower Haight Street under the name Bistro St. Germain, was he looking backward or forward, toward nostalgia or aspiration?

If the lower Haight can’t quite claim anyone of Sartre’s stature as part of its boho past, it can claim that it has kept something of a boho present. The neighborhood retains elements of true grit and is full of young people, and its restaurants still tend toward the cheap. But the area’s socioeconomic furniture has been rearranged in recent years, and since the opening of nearby RNM in 2002, the upmarket trend has been palpable. Last year saw the arrival, in the next block, of Uva, a sleek enoteca, and now there is a proper bistro.

Legendre isn’t the only propagator of neighborhood bistros in San Francisco — nearby L’Ardoise, for instance, was launched by Thierry Clement — but he is a force majeure. His previous undertaking, Le P’tit Laurent in Glen Park, is unusually authentic. Before that, he was a longtime principal in Clémentine (in the old Alain Rondelli space) and Bistro Clémentine, both in the inner Richmond.

I do find myself wondering how many traditional French bistros we need in this city, which, as it happens, is not Paris, home of the traditional French bistro. Are others wondering the same thing? The evidence, at least at Bistro St. Germain, suggests not. The place has the boxy spaciousness of a swimming pool or a pool hall, yet it fills up quickly with people and noise. (Sartre: "Hell is other people.") Are the crowds drawn by the tasty location, the huge wall mural (a silhouette of the Paris skyline, including such familiar spectacles as the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, and Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre), or the crisply executed, fairly priced food? The answer to this sort of trick question, or trick rhetorical question, is almost always, all of the above.

The food does not disappoint, certainly. From the arrival of the first basket of bread at the table, it’s clear that care is being taken in the kitchen. The bread is a simple sweet baguette, still warm from the oven, sliced and presented with a pat of softened butter. The addictive properties of warm bread have, I believe, been under-investigated. Your bread basket will be endlessly, cheerfully replenished, but try to save some slices for mop-up duty in the event you have mussels — and you should have mussels. At $9 for a sizable platter, they aren’t expensive and can be had in a number of sauces, among them a basquaise of white wine, tomato, and peppers. Hugely soppable. And don’t forget some frites ($3.50) — sublimely crisp — for some additional counterpoint.

The menu ranges gracefully across the French classics. There are snails ($6.25 for six), served on a dimpled earthenware plate and redolent of raw garlic. There is a roast poussin ($14), beautifully bronzed yet with moist white meat — a quiet miracle — and served with a large stack of frites. Duck confit ($16) is nicely done, with a crisp crust still faintly sizzling; it is set on a broad bed of lentils that are the proper gray-green color but are too big to be the traditional Puy variety. As lentil-cookers will likely agree, a large virtue of Puy lentils is their determined resistance to overcooking. They don’t easily turn to mush. The bigger sorts have to be handled more carefully, but Bistro St. Germain’s kitchen passes this test.

I found a bourride ($17) — a seafood stew, complete with aioli-smeared rounds of toasted bread — to be defined by the presence of what I took to be some form of cheeks, perhaps halibut cheeks. The rest of the players, including shrimp, mussels, and chunks of salmon, I could easily identify by shape, texture, and flavor. The suspected cheeks, however — rectangular tabs of flesh, thumb-sized — offered a strong, almost cheese-like flavor. Can fish be gamey? I offered tastes around the table as a cross-check, and the reactions returned were mild. Nonetheless, I hesitated for a bit before finishing the last piece.

Vegetarians can find French cooking a tough go, but Bistro St. Germain is accommodating. The meatless choices are explicitly identified and aren’t shabby — a shallow bowl of ravioli ($15), say, stuffed with squash purée and bathed in a mushroom cream sauce. Not quite legendary, perhaps, but pretty good.

BISTRO ST. GERMAIN

Dinner: Tues.–Thurs. and Sun., 5:30–9:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5:30–10:30 p.m.

Brunch: Sun., 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

518 Haight, SF

(415) 626-6262

Beer and wine

MC/V

Very noisy if busy

Wheelchair accessible

In the Loop

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REVIEW A typically fumbling remark by U.K. Minister of International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) ignites a media firestorm, since it seems to suggest war is imminent even though Brit and U.S. governments are downplaying the likelihood of the Iraq invasion they’re simultaneously preparing for. Suddenly cast as an important arbiter of global affairs — a role he’s perhaps less suited for than playing the Easter Bunny — Simon becomes one chess piece in a cutthroat game whose participants on both sides of the Atlantic include his own subordinates, the prime minister’s rageaholic communications chief, major Pentagon and State Department honchos, crazy constituents, and more. Writer-director Armando Iannucci’s frenetic comedy of behind-the-scenes backstabbing and its direct influence on the highest-level diplomatic and military policies is scabrously funny in the best tradition of English television, which is (naturally) just where its creators hail from.

IN THE LOOP opens Fri/24 in San Francisco.

Big Rich

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PREVIEW Arriving outside Amoeba Music on Haight Street, Fillmore Rich — also known as the MTV2 rap star Big Rich — is stopped by a total stranger. "Yo! Big Rich. Man, I love "SF Anthem," and "That’s The Business," and all your music," the fan/rapper enthuses, quickly turning the chance sidewalk meeting into an impromptu audition. As the aspiring rapper — who shouldn’t be making any immediate plans to quit his day job — rattles into his second verse, large-framed Rich listens intently. Afterward he offers words of encouragement, and even his phone number, to the upstart.

Big Rich’s Heart of the City (3 Story Muzik) is one of Ameoba’s top-selling hip-hop albums. "I feel like it’s a part of my responsibility to give back to my community," Rich says. "That’s why I call myself Fillmore Rich. It’s not to glamorize anything. It’s just that’s how I feel. All the people I grew up with, they ain’t here no more. I feel like it’s my responsibility to stay here and represent and help where I can. I am the only San Francisco rapper that still has a residence in the neighborhood where they grew up."

This Saturday, Rich will be there when the SF youth AIDS education organization Get Live Stay Live puts on an event at the Bayview Opera House. "There’s [been] a lot of friction going on with my area and Hunters Point," he says. "I’m going to show there ain’t no friction." Rich has two other events booked the same day: he’ll be speaking on a panel at the Bay Area Producers Conference and performing at the car-themed Hot Import Nights mega-event at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds. Catch him if you can.

BAY AREA PRODUCERS CONFERENCE Sat/25, 8.a.m–11 p.m. (Big Rich is part of the "Beats and Rhymes" panel at 5 p.m.), $45. Cathedral Hill Hotel. 1101 Van Ness, SF.

www.bayareaproducersconference.com

SF International Poetry Festival

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PREVIEW San Francisco is known internationally for many things, but top among them are parties, politics, and poetry. We’ve got plenty of events dedicated to the first two, but it’s surprising that we didn’t have a full-blown poetry festival until two years ago. Thankfully, the city, the public libraries, and the Friends of the library are back this year with four days of events dedicated to the medium that made Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti famous — with an intention of continuing the tradition as a biennial gathering. This round features main stage readings by local heroes and international stars like Maram al-Massri, Daisy Zamora, SF Poet Laureate Diane di Prima, and Ferlinghetti himself. Other highlights include an exhibition of artwork and broadsides from participating poets, screening of a documentary about Jack Hirschman, a conversation about the art of translation, an event for youth moderated by California state Poet Laureate Carol-Muske-Dukes, workshops, parties, and a North Beach Poetry crawl that includes stopping in at Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore and other famous haunts of the Beats. Best of all? Like creating poetry itself, all events are free and open to the public.

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL Thurs/23–Sun/26, Various times and locations. Free. www.sfipf.org

“Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004”

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REVIEW I saw my deceased grandfather before I saw Groucho Marx. In Richard Avedon’s 1972 photograph of the aging comedian, Marx’s push-broom mustache, here a baleen of gray bristles, is the only obvious identifying feature in what otherwise looks to be a portrait of an elderly Jewish man. Marx’s eyes — like Marilyn Monroe’s in Avedon’s famous 1957 portrait of the star seeming to want out of her skin — avoid the camera, looking off glassily toward something in the distance. Or perhaps they are trying to look at nothing.

Of all the faces in "Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004," the first large-scale retrospective of the late photographer’s work that makes its only U.S. stopover at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the ones crumpled with age, the ones closest to death, hold my attention most. The ubiquitous white backdrop and large format camera used in many shots allow the viewer an intimate look at the liver spots, wrinkles, fleshy furrows, stray hairs, scars, and other accumulated physical tallies that testify to what Susan Sontag called photography’s ability to depict "time’s relentless melt."

As in my encounter with the Marx portrait, you often notice the physical attributes of Avedon’s subjects before you register who they are. John Ford, replete with eye-patch, resembles a pumpkin caving in. Isak Dinesen (uncannily resembling Little Edie Beale in a brooch-adorned knit cap) is all hollowed cheekbones and cracked lips, and to quote Geoff Dyer’s wonderful catalog essay, "looks like she was once the most beautiful woman in the world — about 2,000 years ago." The exhibit contrasts Avedon’s portrait of Andy Warhol’s scarred torso, gnarled into a Weston-worthy bell pepper by Valerie Solanias’s gunshots, with the Apollonian perfection of the male superstars in the famous panorama of Warhol and his Factory Avedon shot prior to the artist’s near death experience.

Death has been a subject for photographers since photography’s invention, as much as it has developed as trope within writing on photography. Sontag certainly touched on photo-mortality, but it was taken up most melodramatically by Roland Barthes, who declared: "All young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death."

It would be foolish to brand Avedon with such a label, but there is something to be said for his willingness to allow his subjects’ place on this mortal coil to show through so clearly. Avedon was probably the most unsparing of 20th century photography’s great portraitists. But in their calculated presentation of their subject’s imperfections, his photographs manage at the very least to seem uncontrived — perhaps the best compliment a photograph can attract.

RICHARD AVEDON: PHOTOGRAPHS 1946–2004 Through Nov. 29, $9-$15 (free first Tues. and half-off Thurs. evenings). Mon–Tues. and Fri.–Sun., 10 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 10 a.m.–8:45 p.m. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org

Art Listings

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Art listings are compiled by Johnny Ray Huston. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

MUSEUMS

Asian Art Museum 200 Larkin; 581-3500, www.asianart.org. Tues-Wed, Fri-Sun, 10am-5pm; Thurs, 10am-9pm. $10 ($5 Thurs after 5pm), $7 seniors, $6 for ages 12 to 17, free for 11 and under. "In a New Light: The Asian Art Museum Collection." Ongoing.

California Palace of the Legion of Honor Lincoln Park (near 34th Ave and Clement); 750-3600. Tues-Sun, 9:30am-5pm. $8, $6 seniors, $5 for ages 12 to 17, free for 10 and under (free Tues). "Surrealism: Selections from the Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books." Work by surrealist poets and artists. Ongoing.

Cartoon Art Museum 655 Mission; CAR-TOON. Tues-Sun, 11am-5pm. $6, $4 students and seniors, $2 for ages 6 to 12, free for five and under and members. "The Brinkley Girls." Retrospective devoted to early 20th century illustrator Nell Brinkley. Through August 23.

Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission; www.thecjm.org. Mon-Tues, Fri-Sun, 11am-5:30pm; Thurs, 1-8pm. $10, $8 seniors and students, free for 12 and under and members. "Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater." An exhibition of 200 works of art and ephemera. Through Sept 7. "Being Jewish: A Bay Area Portrait." Ongoing.

De Young Museum Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive (near Fulton and 10th Ave); 750-3600. Tues-Sun, 9:30am-5:15pm (Fri, 9:30am-8:45pm). $10 ($27.50 for "Tutankhamun"), $7 seniors, $6 for ages 13 to 17 and college students with ID (free first Tues). "Art and Power in the Central African Savannah." Survey show. Through Oct 11, 2009. "Towards Abstraction: Photographs and Photograms." Survey show. Through Nov 15. "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs." The return of the boy king. Through March 28, 2010. "The Fauna and Flora of the Pacific." Mural by Miguel Covarrubias. Ongoing.

Legion of Honor Lincoln Park, 34th Ave and Clement; 750-3600. Tues-Sun, 9:30am-5:15pm. $20 adults, $7 seniors, $6 youths and students, free 12 and under. "Waking Dreams: Max Klinger and the Symbolist Print." Survey show. Through Sept 6. "John Baldessari: A Print Retrospective from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation." Retrospective exhibition. Through Nov 8.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 151 Third St; 357-4000. Mon-Tues, Fri-Sun, 11am-5:45pm; Thurs, 10am-8:45pm. $12.50, $8 seniors, $7 students, free for members and 12 and under (free first Tues; half price Thurs, 6-8:45pm). "Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’." Exhibition devoted to the photographic classic. Through August 23. "Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities." Show dedicated to the two popular American artists. Through Sept 7. "Matisse and Beyond: The Painting and Sculpture Collection." Museum survey. Through Nov 8. "Paul Klee: Social Creatures." Early line drawings by the artist. Through Nov 8. "Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004." Show dedicated to the iconic photographer. Through Nov 29. "Between Art and Life: The Contemporary Painting and Sculpure Collection." Museum survey. Through Jan 3, 2010. "Art in the Atrium: Kerry James Marshall." Monumental murals. Ongoing.

San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design War Memorial Veterans Bldg, 401 Van Ness, fourth floor; 255-4800, www.sfpalm.org. Tues-Fri, 11am-5pm; Sat, 1-5pm. Free. "Star Quality: The World of Noel Coward." Exhibition dedicated to the icon. Through August 29. "Maestro: Photographic Portraits of Tom Zimberoff." Portraits of national and international conductors. Ongoing. "150 Years of Dance in California." Ongoing. "San Francisco in Song." Ongoing. "San Francisco 1900: On Stage." Ongoing.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission; 978-ARTS. Tues-Wed, Fri-Sun, noon-5pm; Thurs, noon-8pm. $6, $3 seniors, students, and youths, free for members (free first Tues). "Wallworks." Exhibition of local, regional, and international artists, curated by Betti-Sue Hertz. Through Oct. 25.


BAY AREA

Cantor Arts Center Lomita and Museum, Stanford University, Stanford; (650) 723-4177. Wed, Fri-Sun, 11am-5pm; Thurs, 11am-8pm. "Appellations to Antiquity." 19th and 20th century works from the museum collection. Through July 26. "Pop to Present." Survey from the 1960s to the present. Through August 16. "Contemporary Glass." Modern glass works. Ongoing. "Rodin! The Complete Stanford Collection." Ongoing.

Judah L. Magnes Museum 2911 Russell, Berk; (510) 549-6950. Mon-Wed, Sun, 11am-4pm. $4, $3 students and seniors. "Memory Lab." Interactive installation allowing visitors to make family albums from their documents, photographs, and memories. Ongoing. "Projections." Multimedia works from the museums archival, documentary, and experimental films. Ongoing.

Oakland Museum of California 1000 Oak, Oakl; (510) 238-2200. Wed-Sat, 10am-5pm (first Fri, 10am-9pm); Sun, noon-5pm. $8, $5 seniors and students (free second Sun). "Future of Sequoias: Sustaining Parklands in the 21st Century." Panoramic photos with commentary. Through August 23. "Squeak Carnwath: Painting is No Ordinary Object." A solo exhibition dedicated to the Oakland artist. Through August 23. "The Art and History of Early California." The story of California from the first inhabitants through the Gold Rush. Ongoing.

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology UC Berkeley, 103 Kroeber Hall, room 3712, Bancroft and Bowditch, Berk; (510) 643-1193. Wed-Sat, 10am-4:30pm; Sun, noon-4pm. $4, $3 seniors, $1 students, free for 12 and under. "From the Maker’s Hand: Selections from the Permanent Collection." An exploration of human ingenuity found in living and historic cultures around the world. Ongoing.

UC Berkeley Art Museum 2626 Bancroft Way, Berk; (510) 642-0808. Wed-Sun, 11am-5pm. $8 adults, $5 seniors and young adults, free for members and 12 and under. "Galaxy: A Hundred or So Stars Visible to the Naked Eye." Museum survey curated by Lawrence Rinder. Through August 30. "Human Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet." Collaborative exhibition. Through Sept. 27. *

How to help Iran without meddling

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OPINION Two of us, Penn and Erlich, traveled to Iran in 2005 and interviewed numerous ordinary Iranians. People were very friendly toward us as Americans but very hostile to U.S. policy against their country. We visited Friday prayers where 10,000 people chanted, "Death to America." Afterward those same people invited us home for lunch.

That contradiction continues today as Iran goes through its most significant upheaval since the 1979 revolution. Iranians are rising up against an authoritarian system, but they don’t want U.S. intervention.

Many Iranians believe that they have experienced a coup d’état, in which the military and intelligence services have hijacked the presidential election. Through vote-buying and manipulation of the count, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad guaranteed himself another four years in office.

In June more than a million Iranians marched in the streets of major cities across the country. The spontaneous demonstrations included well-to-do supporters of opposition candidates, but also large numbers of workers, farmers, small-business people, and the devoutly religious. They were fed up with 30 years of a system that used Islam as an excuse for breaking union labor strikes, stripping women of their rights, and repressing a nation.

The Iranian government responded to these peaceful protests with savagery, killing dozens of people. Some human rights groups put the number at more than 100. The government admits arresting 2,500 people nationwide and continues to hold at least 500. Most are being held without charges or have simply disappeared.

The repression hasn’t killed the movement. On July 17, more than 10,000 people came to Friday prayers in support of the opposition. Instead of chanting "Death to America," they chanted "Death to the Dictator," a reference to supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Police attacked them with clubs and tear gas.

Meanwhile in Washington, some politicians tried to use the crisis for their own ends. Sen. John McCain criticized President Obama for not taking a stronger position against the Iranian government. It’s ironic to hear McCain and other conservatives proclaim their support for the people of Iran when a few months ago they wanted to bomb them.

That doesn’t exactly build credibility among Iranians.

President Obama faces tough choices on Iran. If he speaks out loudly against Ahmadinejad, he is accused of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. If he says too little, then right-wingers in the U.S. accuse him of being soft on Ahmadinejad.

In reality, the U.S. has very little ability to impact what has become a massive, spontaneous movement for change. And it shouldn’t. The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, bringing the dictatorial shah back to power. George W. Bush’s administration attempted to overthrow the Iranian government by funding and arming ethnic minority groups opposed to Tehran.

The U.S. government has no moral or political authority to tell Iranians what they should do. Iranians are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves.

That’s why citizen diplomacy is so important. Iranian demonstrators welcome the support of ordinary Americans. Joan Baez recorded a Farsi-language version of "We Shall Overcome" that has shot around the world on YouTube. She sang it July 12 at San Francisco’s Stern Grove.

Iranian activists are holding a hunger strike in front of the United Nations in New York from July 22 to 24, demanding that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon send a special commission to Iran.

With hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Americans in California, it would be unconscionable to ignore the nonnegotiable right of peaceful dissent by millions of people in Iran. Join us in the San Francisco Civic Center plaza on July 25, from noon to 4 p.m. Stand in solidarity with Iranians and against U.S. intervention in Iran (www.norcal4iran.org). *

Sean Penn is an actor, director, and writer who visited Iran in 2005. Ross Mirkarimi is a San Francisco supervisor, the first elected Iranian-American to hold that office. Reese Erlich is a freelance journalist and author of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis.

“Common sense is radical” on Reverend Billy Day

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By Steven T. Jones
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Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh

Reverend Billy Talen isn’t just a Green Party candidate for mayor of New York City and performance artist-turned-pastor of the Church of Life After Shopping. He’s also a creative product of the San Francisco’s rich tradition of political theater. And for all these reasons, the Board of Supervisors plans to declare today Reverend Billy Day at its afternoon meeting.

“WHEREAS, Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping teach that consumerism, commercialism, privatization, and corporate greed are destroying our cities, nation and planet,” reads one of the whereases.

If you want to see Rev. Billy in action, stop by board chambers in City Hall this afternoon around 3:30 p.m. or attend his political fundraiser tonight at the DNA Lounge, where a bevy of Bay Area performers will round out the evening’s entertainment. In the meantime, here’s more of the extended interview I did with Rev. Billy in his SoHo campaign office a few months ago.

The SF budget battle continues

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By Tim Redmond

The full Board of Supervisors votes on the San Francisco budget tomorrow (Tuesday), and there are still some serious issues on the table. Among other things, the budget doesn’t include adequate money for public financing of the upcoming supervisorial and mayoral elections, and that’s big deal: Public financing is a crown jewel in San Francisco’s political reform efforts. The Public Defender’s Office is way underfunded (which is silly since criminal defendants are guaranteed legal representation, and hiring outside counsel is more expensive than funding the PD). Key social services are still taking a huge hit. There are still plans for 1,500 layoffs of city employees this fall — and that means a lot of what people depend on San Francisco for won’t get done. (Among the most painful: The loss of recreation directors, who are mentors for hundreds of kids.)

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi wants to find another $4 million to $6 million to fund public financing and some other services — and he’s looking to take that from a few areas that haven’t exactly been sharing the pain. For example, thanks to a push from Budget Committee Chair John Avalos, the Fire Department actually took some cuts. But the Police Department didn’t. While the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 gave back $40 million and is facing 1,500 layoffs, the Police Officers Association gave back nothing.

The problem with that, of course — besides the fact that it isn’t fair — is that the next time the city faces a budget crisis, which is probably going to be next year, the firefighters won’t want to give up a penny. Hey, they took the hit last time, and there was no parity from other public-safety areas. And if you think Local 1021 is going to be coming to the table with more cuts, you’re crazy.

So Mirkarimi told me he thinks that between the police, the Hotel Tax funding for the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the big arts organizations (the opera and symphony, whose patrons by and large can afford to buy tickets without as much city subsidy) there’s enough to fill some critical gaps in the budget.

It’s going to be tricky — Avalos and Board President David Chiu negotiated the budget deal with the mayor, and it will be hard for them to push at this late date for more changes. But Avalos told me he’s “open to” Mirkarimi’s proposals and will give them all due consideration. So, by the way, did Sup. Bevan Dufty: “I’m open to it,” he told me. “I have some concerns about the budget and will listen to any ideas.”

So the budget battle still isn’t over — and tomorrow’s meeting will be fascinating.

They don’t call it Hotlanta for nothing, I guess

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By Juliette Tang

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Folsom Street Fair: Not sexy enough for ya?

If you thought you heard the last of that stupid Trojan sex survey, then maybe you should stop reading this.

For those lucky enough to remain unexposed to this survey of which I speak, the basic gist is that we in SF aren’t boning enough and when we do have sex, well, it sucks and we don’t even like it. We ranked dead last out of 10 cities profiled by Trojan in terms of sexual frequency, and second to last (next to Boston) in sexual satisfaction.

Mike Alvear, host of HBO’s The Sex Inspectors, is the latest blogger to drudge this tired survey up. In a Huffington Post column today, he writes that he’s figured out why San Francisco rated so low, comparable to Atlanta, of all places.

This is the way the budget deal ends — badly

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By Tim Redmond

We all know that the main reason we don’t have a budget deal is that everyone — but particularly the governor and the Republicans — wants to escape from this mess with his or her political hide intact. The GOP members all signed a moronic pledge never to raise taxes, and the ones who wind up voting for even minor tax hikes get slammed in their home districts. The Democrats don’t want to cut education or health or other essential services, but have been far more willing to compromise. The governor just wants to look tough.

Seriously — he just wants to look tough, and the longer the standoff continues, the more he gets this sort of press, and the more his abysmal poll numbers go up.

So now the talks are still stalled and the state is losing $25 million a day just to make a washed-up action-movie star happy with his image.

Even after the “big five” — the leaders of the Legislature and the guv — come to a deal, it’s no sure thing. Because in the past, all of the Republicans have refused to vote for deals that their own leadership and their own governor have put together.

And some Democrats may not vote for it, either. Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco told me he won’t vote for any cuts to education. “The Republicans have drawn a line and said no new taxes,” he told me. “We need to draw a line and say no more cuts to health care and education.”

In fact, in the famous late-night session that almost led to a budget deal last week, Yee was holding out, refusing to go along with the cuts until State Sen. President Darrell Steinberg called the lobbyists from the teacher’s unions at 11:30 pm and told them to tell Yee it was okay to accept the leadership plan.

Yee, of course, wants to be able to say after the dirty deal is done that he refused to accept the cuts. So do a lot of the other Dems — but at some point, most of them will bit the bullet and accept some kind of bad deal to end the IOUs and keep the state afloat. Yee wants to see the GOP take some of the heat, too: “If the governor wants us to vote for a bad budget deal, he needs to make the Republicans vote for it, too,” he said.

Which also won’t happen.

So the most likely outcome is that the Democrats will be the ones voting for a shitty deal that screws all of the traditional Democratic constituencies.

I’m sick of being held hostage by Orange County. It’s time to split up this state.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9 lineup finalized

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This in from the producers; exciting to see Okkervil River, Neko Case, Amadou and Mariam, Marianne Faithfull, and – gasp – Steve Martin, among the performers:

San Francisco, CA – June 30, 2009 – What began as Warren Hellman’s bluegrass fantasy in 2001 as a wonderful gift to the city has now grown into one of the world’s largest and most anticipated festivals for concert goers and musicians alike. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9, the FREE festival in Speedway, Marx and Lindley Meadows in Golden Gate Park, will take place on Friday, October 2 – Sunday, October 4. Starting in 2001 with 2 stages and 9 bands, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass quickly grew by leaps and bounds over the next few years. Soon 3 stages quickly turned into 5, and everyone from Willie Nelson to Ralph Stanley to Dolly Parton has graced them. As the talent continues to impress, so do the crowds. Last year’s attendance estimates were a staggering 750,000+ over the three days. For the first year ever, we are pleased to announce that the festival will be expanding to include SIX stages.

In addition to bringing back those who have been with us from day one (such as Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Hazel Dickens) – we are excited to welcome new faces to this year’s festival – Richie Havens, The Chieftains, Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers, Old 97’s, Marianne Faithfull, Amadou & Mariam and many more!

CitiApartments is once again accused of mistreating tenants

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By Steven T. Jones
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Logo from CitiStop, which organized to oppose the company’s tactics.

San Francisco’s largest apartment landlord – CitiApartments, an affiliate of Skyline Realty and various other corporate fronts — has been exposed by the Guardian for mistreating tenants, sued and investigated by the city for its abusive tactics, and now it has been hit with a class action lawsuit over withholding deposit refunds from tenants.

“Despite admitting that Class Members are entitled to a full refund of their security deposit, Defendants have a business practice of illegally withholding the uncontested security deposits for months after the Class Members move out of their apartments. When Class Members contact the Defendants to assert their legal rights to have the uncontested security deposit refunded within 21 days, Defendants harass and threaten them, tell them there is a long list of people to whom Defendants owe security deposits, and tell them if they want to get their security deposit back, they should file a lawsuit in Small Claims Court,” reads the complaint filed by attorneys Brian Devine and Kenneth Seeger of the firm Seeger Salvas LLP.

The lawsuit tells the stories of two defendants, Joy Anderson and Nicolas Harr, who in separate cases had CitiApartment employees confirm deposits were due but refused to provide them. “When she asked them to tell her when a refund would be made, Defendants became hostile. In front of her eight-year-old son, Defendants threatened to call the police if Ms. Anderson did not leave their office. Defendants told her she should talk to a lawyer about getting her security deposit refunded.”

The suit seeks to recover the deposits for all former CitiApartments tenants, statutory damages for twice the amount of those deposits, actual damages, and for the company to institute procedures for promptly returning deposits in accordance with California law.

More free stuff: Great street art

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By Michael Krimper

Some of the most innovative street art and inspired graffiti in the world calls San Francisco home. For those adventurous city dwellers whose definition of art is not circumscribed by its state of legality, there are thousands of voices that grace the city’s public spaces. I compiled a five-point list of some of my favorites as a crash course in street art exploration.

Defenestration Building – A massive fire burned out the Hugo Hotel — a four-story tenement on the corner of 6th and Howard streets — in the mid 1980s. The building quietly rotted for nearly a decade until artist Brian Goggin decided to transform the mini-behemoth SRO into a jarring public art installation. We now know the Hugo Hotel as the “defenestration” building. The name derives from a surreal picture of street-ravaged furniture desperately leaping in suspension from the skinny windows and roof. But it also means a gesture of throwing out, a spiritual act of release and possible renewal. The Defenestration building still is one of the city’s most dynamic public artworks, due in large part to its diligent curators, the legendary graffiti crew Inner City Phame (ICP). Over the years ICP has demonstrated an incredible talent for beautifying the Defenestration walls with layer after layer of spell-bounding murals. This past winter, Santa Claus and scantily clad elvish ladies bookended intricate Christmas ornamented names. Last year the crew painted a compelling memorial to the late Barbara Bode Falcon, muse and former wife of the eccentric comic book artist and inspirational source for graffiti styled illustration Vaughn Bode. And they’re probably painting something completely new right now as you’re reading this article.

Bluxome Alley — The art corridor lining the capillaries of Bluxome Alley (located between 5th and 6th off Townsend) just entered a new evolutionary stage during its formal grand opening last Saturday. Now officially baptized “Kommunitas”, the allery (alley gallery) strives towards “spreading the revolution one word at a time,” at least according to the domain site. Besides its activist mission statement, what makes Kommunitas different from your typical allery is a curious metal sign posted on the entrances outlining the guidelines to gain permission to paint. Kommunitas’ property manager, Tardon Feathered tells me in simple terms his reasons for opening the walls to artists. “[I] decided that good art looked better than bad tags, in an alley which we could not shut down the tagging.” In turn, the dusty walls, thick windows, pipelines, poles, air ducts, staircase banisters, and all other industrial furniture suddenly lose their grayness and become canvases for mesmerizing street art.

Mac Dre Memorial — Many a surprising mural abounds in SoMa’s seemingly desolate alley ways. One of the most spectacular is an enormous ICP production on the corner of Langton and Harrison in dedication to the life and work of the late Andre Hicks, better known as Mac Dre. The artists painted a monolithic memorial to pay tribute to the Vallejo-born rapper widely credited with founding the hyphy movement. On the Langton side of the warehouse, grandiose “rest in peace” block letters burst forth in all caps, floating just above a double headed thizz facing Dre. The two heads exhibit the antagonistic elements of fire and water, expressing Hicks’ versatile flow and style, combining fiery braggadocio with outlandishly cool comedy.

Oak Parking Lot — In the current social climate where rapid gentrification sterilizes neighborhoods while corporate minded policy limits artistic innovation, very few downtown spaces still allow graffiti to blossom. Nonetheless, a secluded parking lot on Oak St. just north of Market boasts some of the most vibrant, intricately woven murals in the heart of the city’s daily grind. Illegal productions elegantly grace the walls, blending seamlessly with commissioned pieces (maybe). But even if you can’t appreciate the subtle sophistication of spontaneously erupting tags, the heavily caked over walls still tote some finely crafted murals. Visit the endangered species before its imminent distinction.

Lilac Mural Project — The Lilac Mural Project, a two-block stretch between 24th and 26th Streets, is a fresh addition to staple Mission district alleries (and tourist favorites) Balmy and Clarion. But unlike its moderately bloated neighbors, Lilac possesses a youthful energy in anticipation of its open ended future. The murals gracing the walls oscillate between carefully thought out productions, whimsical tags, hastily spayed throw-ups, and the great possibility of empty space. Most recently, a old school styled memorial of New York graffiti luminary, Iz The Whiz (whose untimely death was caused by a medical condition related to breathing in an excess of aerosol spray), blessed the corridor.

“American Idol” interview series: Scott MacIntyre

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Louis Peitzman interviews the latest crop of Idols. Read his interview with Anoop Desai here.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: I’ve decided to ask all of you the same first question, because it seems important. Are you getting enough rest?

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Well-rested Scott MacIntyre.

Scott MacIntyre: I think so. I don’t know what [Anoop Desai] said, but I think I’m doing OK. It’s a little weird because there’s a tendency to stay up a little later or sleep in a little later, because sometimes we don’t actually get to the venues — actually, we never get to the venues until about 1:00, 1:30 in the afternoon. So it’s easy to kind of fall into a different sleep pattern. But I think I’m doing OK so far. We’ll see after the 53 shows. We’ve only done four.

OMFG! “American Idol” interview series: Anoop Desai

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By Louis Peitzman

American Idol is my guilty pleasure — except, well, I don’t feel all that guilty about it. This past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking with five of the top 10 Idol finalists, who are currently traveling across the country for the American Idols Live Tour 2009. As an uber-professional journalist, I kept my fanboy flailing to a minimum. Just know that however composed I seemed, I was a 12-year-old girl on the inside.

In preparing for these interviews, I thought about how difficult it must be to get plunged into sudden reality TV fame. Well, difficult and awesome. I also wondered about the fast-paced touring schedule. Were any of these Idols in over their heads? As it turned out, not really. In fact, the performers I spoke to were some of the mellowest I’ve ever encountered. Read on and see for yourself.

anoop-desai1.jpg
Nice guy Anoop Desai.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: With your busy tour schedule, my first question has to be, are you getting enough rest?
Anoop Desai: Yeah. You know, most nights it’s just like, after you get off stage, obviously the adrenaline rush goes down and then you’re tired, and you have to do meet and greets. We get to go outside and sign stuff for the fans, so that’s cool. But by the time we make it back to the hotel, it’s like one in the morning. You know, I try and work out in the morning and then catch the bus, so — I don’t know, it’s a routine. It is pretty tiring, but I think we’re all getting enough rest.

Journalist bruised by Deputy Sheriff while trying to film Supervisors meeting

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By Rebecca Bowe

Luke Thomas, the journalist behind the popular San Francisco blog Fog City Journal, posted this YouTube video yesterday documenting how a Deputy Sheriff forcefully removed him from the Board of Supervisors Chambers while he was filming a commendation ceremony held during the Board meeting.

According to Thomas, Deputy Sheriff Thompson “dug his left hand fingers into my right side that caused an [excruciating] pain and literally pulled me by my skin and flesh outside Board chambers like a dog on a leash.” The incident began when the Deputy Sheriff told the cameraman to back up from a line of Aztec dancers who were performing, to which Thomas says he complied. But when he was told to step back a second time, Thomas says he complained that he was being prevented from documenting the event. That’s when the Deputy Sheriff grabbed him, Thomas recounts. “It shocked the hell out of me,” the photojournalist told the Guardian later. “I can’t imagine what was wrong with this guy. It was completely unwarranted.”

In the video, Thomas can be heard telling the Deputy Sheriff in disbelief, “Dude, you just assaulted me.”

Eileen Hearst, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department, told us that “the photographer was getting in the way of the Aztec dancers. He was asked several times to please step away from them. He did not.” When asked whether the use of force was warranted in this case, Hearst said, “If [Thomas] feels it was unduly forceful, he … can call the investigative services unit, and we’ll take a look at it.”

The Fog City Journal blogger wasn’t issued a citation. “At the end of it all, [Thompson] capitulated and apologized for what he did,” Thomas told us.

Thomas says the incident left him with “a quarter sized area of broken skin surrounded by reddish contusions.”

Park it on the free way

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

FREE ISSUE/SONIC REDUCER Free. To be you and me. From sea to shining sea. As the wind, as the air, as information, as that music you downloaded through Lime Wire. Careful with the mellow, but the last time we checked our sparsely filled-out wallets, we all realized we can use a little free these days.

And considering the grand triad of free open-air shows in San Francisco — one encompassing the underground gatherings at Toxic Beach/Warm Water Cove and Potrero del Sol Park and the well-funded and organized massives like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Stern Grove (Altamont doesn’t count, grandpaw, ’cause the Speedway is outside city limits), Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival’s first free, all-ages, outdoor concert at Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in John McLaren Park is, honestly, looking pretty awesome.

Full disclosure: I’ve been sitting in at MCMF meetings of late and helping out where I can. But even if I was looking in from the outside, I’d be swayed by the event’s Bay-dominated lineup: Kelley Stoltz, Persephone’s Bees, Bart Davenport, the Moore Brothers, and Leopold and His Fiction, as well as the newly added Birds and Batteries and the Aerosols. Los Angeles’ Dead Meadow will rock the green grasses of the park in the headlining slot, Canada-via-SF combo the Rubies hold down the middle, and Spain’s Xoel Lopez, who some have dubbed the Beck of Spain, teams with chumster Bart Davenport for an intimate turn in the spotlight, but otherwise this local-centric show with an emphasis on psychedelia-tinged indie rock (judging from his freewheeling ways, Garcia might approve) could be considered the leafy spot where the underground meets the overground.

"You can go with a bunch of your friends and hang out and drink wine and enjoy the show," as MCMF producer Kymberli Jensen puts it. She organized the show along with Neil Martinson of SMiLE! "Personally that’s something that’s really appealing for me, and it’s accessible — especially in these hard economic times. People need something to lift the spirit."

And it’s remarkable that it gets done at all, during this nu-depression. Back to those MCMF meetings — rambling affairs consisting of a multitude of eager voices, much wine and snackings, and a slew of passionate opinions. Sponsorship of the fest has been hit particularly hard as a result of the economic meltdown, and few Mission District merchants have coin to spare. As a result, Jensen says MCMF has made a "conscious decision to do fund-raising throughout the year. The economic times have hit everybody — and have hit us very hard. We made a commitment to do this park concert, and many times we were asked to scrap it. But we worked six months on this, so we’re going to do the best we can."

As a result, Jensen and Martinson have put up their own cash to make this free show happen — hoping to recoup some of the costs with a raffle and donations. The dream: that one day of free music extends to two or three next year, with an emphasis on emerging performers and accessibility for music- lovers of all ages and income brackets. Because no one, especially Marlo Thomas, wants great music to become the exclusive reserve of elite patrons able to shell out for cardholder or VIP privileges. After all, MCMF isn’t about the money, as Jensen reminds me. "None of us get paid," the second-year producer explains. "We break even, if that. But we see it as an investment in Mission Creek, and also music in San Francisco."

MISSION CREEK MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL FREE CONCERT

Sat/18, 11:30 a.m.–8 p.m., free

Jerry Garcia Amphitheater

John McLaren Park, Mansell and John F Shelley, SF

www.mcmf.org

—————

FROM FREE TO TWEE

PINK MOUNTAIN

The NorCal/NW avant-indie supergroup of sorts — including John Shiurba, Quasi’s Sam Coomes, Gino Robair, Scott Rosenberg, and Kyle Bruckmann — settles in for a good skronk in honor of its self-titled double-LP/CD on Sickroom. Wed/15, 6 p.m., free. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. www.amoeba.com. Also Thurs/16, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

CAGE

Buttoned-down Cage is still finding his rage on Depart from Me (Definitive Jux). Fri/17, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

UNAGI

The SF MC-producer grilled Reinventing the Eel (442) completely on computer. With Melina Jones, Orukusaki, Gigio, Linkletterz, Substitute Teachers, and DJ Animal. Sat/18, 10 p.m., $10. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART

The new-twee revolution begins with best name to come down the pike since Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits. Tues/21, 7:30 p.m., $12. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

Citric acid rock

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

MISSION CREEK There he was, all cherubic, eating a "beej" — the nickname I’ve affectionately given the burgers at BJ, a.k.a. Burger Joint. Moments before show time, I spotted Ty Segall in the greasy eatery’s Mission District location. He was about to take to the stage at Amnesia, on the eve of an ambitious second solo tour that ventures through the East Coast and the South, even invading Canadian territory for a night in Toronto.

After my own greasy foray into a Popeye’s a few blocks away, I was ready to see the wunderkind, who is freshly graduated from the University of San Francisco. Once upon a time, Segall was a one man band, but he’s expanded his outfit to a three-piece. Clearly the night’s headliner at Amnesia, he packed the joint. After sets by openers Snakeflower 2 and the Rantouls, he mostly played familiar songs from his 2008 self-titled release on CastleFace Records. However, he also delivered a few examples of his self-described "sludgier" work on the brand new Lemons (Goner Records).

Sludge or no sludge, Segall’s solid work ethic is evident. He’s constantly playing gigs at bars like the Knockout, the Hemlock, and the Eagle Tavern — basically anywhere flannel is the prevailing fashion, alongside those straw fedora hats favored by the fixed-gear crowd. Despite his omnipresence on SF’s dive bar scene, he’s pretty modest about his dedication to his music. "There are a lot of ways that I am a slacker," he explains over the phone a month after the fateful Amnesia show as he and his band drive to New Orleans. "But if I’m not doing music, I feel like I’m wasting my time."

Segall’s music is part of a current collective lo-fi/neo-psych/garage rock movement. (I hate to label, but if you’re gonna do it, you might as well go all-or-nothing). At times it’s hard to decipher which bands from this rubric are legit and which are simply riding the wave of a trend. Segall’s contemporaries include his current tour mates Charlie and the Moonhearts, Strange Boys, Gris Gris, Thee Oh Sees, and Memphis’ Magic Kids. Some of these groups lean more toward pop, while others favor punk. But they all seem to draw on the past (particularly sun-dazed stretches of the 1960s) for inspiration and direction.

One highlight of Lemons is the wisely-handpicked Captain Beefheart cover "Dropout Boogie," a countercultural should-have-been anthem from the group’s 1967 release, Safe As Milk (Buddah). Recorded in a mere 20 minutes, Segall’s version of the freakout favorite — and especially its pounding bass line — has a rallying call effect, taking its cue from Timothy Leary’s infamous phrase, "Turn on, tune in, drop out." When I ask Segall why he chose to cover this particular song, especially since he just earned a degree in media studies, his answer is simple: "Beefheart rules." He can’t give the psych-blues band enough praise, citing them along with the Pretty Things and Piper at the Gates of Dawn-era Pink Floyd as major influences on his current reverb-rich sound.

Compared to Segall’s debut album, Lemons has a looser, more experimental sound. Less reliant on melody and catchy hooks, it delves deeper into psych and garage, slowing down Segall’s riff-happy original style. The distortion is still there, but you can tell how different effects and levels were employed on a track-to-track basis. One new song, "Like You," is brilliantly melancholy in tone and lumbering in pace. Basically, it’s a beautiful downer. The varying volume levels can probably be attributed to the use of vintage reel-to-reel equipment and Tascam quarter-inch tapes. "It gives it that blown-out sound," Segall explains. "But in a clean way."

As if to incite hip-hop beef, Spin‘s enthusiastic review of Lemons warns Jay Reatard to look out, calling Segall’s garage rock "scuzzier." Just for kicks, I jump on the beef-wagon and ask Segall who would win if he and Reatard had a fist fight. "I’m a total wuss. I’d probably just sit there and let him punch me," he says, adding, "I actually met him at a party. He was pretty cool." So much for placing your bets. It appears Segall’s a peaceful soul, and that a single encounter at a keg quelled any potential garage rocker-on-garage rocker crime.

TY SEGALL

with Thee Oh Sees, Meth Teeth, Buzzer, Fresh and Onlys

Thurs/16, 9 p.m., $7

The Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

MISSION CREEK MUSIC FESTIVAL

www.mcmf.org

A new ambient

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johnny@sfbg.com

INTERVIEW Maybe it’s in the air? Whatever the case, the subtle morphing of ambient music is bringing some extreme albums. Extremity isn’t a quality one usually associates with ambient, a genre that — Brian Eno or not — is too often thought of as meditative Muzak without melody, or comfort music for snoozers. Yet some of the most unsettling and intense recordings of the past twelve months seep out from the ambient realm. On Labyrinthitis (Touch Tone, 2008), Jacob Kirkegaard generates sound from the act of hearing itself by recording hairs within the cochlea — the result is a slow mad spiral in sound form. On Radioland (Die Schachtel, 2008), Stephan Mathieu uses shortwave radio signals to create a near-symphonic elegy to…radio. Now, with White Clouds Go On and On (Echospace), San Francisco’s Brock Van Wey is adding a direct melodic touch to the extremity of the new ambient.

Listen up: by no means does quiet mean soothing. The intensity and extremity of White Clouds Go On and On stems from Van Wey’s fierce compositional dedication to emotion as a subject and as a source of inspiration. The collection’s six songs (reinterpreted by Echospace’s Steven Hinchell on a companion album) clock in at just under 80 minutes in length. A native of the Bay Area, where he’s made low-key but important contributions to electronic scenes for well over a decade, Van Wey — a.k.a. bvdub — resides in Twin Peaks. That location makes a certain midnight-in-a-perfect-world kind of sense: his latest songs possess a vastness and isolation that suits that part of town. But, as the interview below makes clear, they also deeply reflect his sense of being.

SFBG Can you tell me a bit about the titles of the songs on White Clouds Drift On and On? With instrumental music, a title can color the music, and the ones here have a potent melancholy that gradually shifts into optimism.

BROCK VAN WEY The titles of the songs are the emotion I sit down to try to express. Basically an emotion begins to occupy my thoughts all the time or in some cases pretty much overwhelm me, and then I sit down to try to get it out — sometimes in an attempt to become closer to it, but just as often to try to resolve it or distance myself from it. Whenever I make a track, the title comes first, because that’s what I’m trying to say — then I set about trying to say it.

Since most of my life and thoughts are enveloped in melancholy, it’s no surprise that the majority of my titles reflect that. However, you are very right, in this album, there is indeed a shift from melancholy to hope from the beginning to the end. Most of my personal melancholy comes from hopes unfulfilled or dreams dashed, and if I never had hope in the first place, the sadness wouldn’t be there either, so they are pretty inseparable.

SFBG While vocals aren’t dominant in White Clouds, they are present on tracks such as "Too Little To Late." But they have a diffuse, almost vaporous quality — which makes their sources or original contexts difficult to pin down.

BVW Vocals I use or create for my tracks are always ones that help put that final punctuation on what I’m trying to say. Working with vocals is tricky, because they can easily just seem slapped in or heavy-handed, with no real point. Sometimes it takes me days or weeks to find just one miniscule part of a vocal (sometimes literally one second) that, to me, fits that exact part of the song like it was meant to be there all along. It’s no surprise that their original sources or contexts are difficult to pin down, as the majority of the time, I go through a million different processes to get them how I want them, and they are usually a million miles from the original. That’s a lot of millions.

SFBG What I’m struck by on a track such as "Forever a Stranger" is the amount of teeming chaos within the seeming calm of your sound.

BVW "Forever a Stranger" definitely has more of a feeling of chaos (while still remaining somewhat calm) in comparison to the others on the album. It was only natural, as it’s all about that feeling of always being on the outside, and being a stranger no matter where you are — a stranger in your own life. The knowledge that no matter who you’re with or where you are, you are in fact alone in the world. For me anyway, it’s not only a thought that I struggle with on a daily basis, but it brings up a tempest of different emotions — hence the teeming chaos, I guess. It seems like so many people around me feel so natural in being a person among others, and part of this world of ours that requires us to all interact with other people and be social animals, while in my own head, it’s a great struggle. Some days I could care less and am happy being how I am, but some days I’d be lying if I said I didn’t just wish I could be like everyone else — or at least, how they appear to be.

SFBG "A Gentle Hand to Hold" might be my favorite track on White Clouds — it’s certainly the most hypnotic or even in some ways hallucinatory track. Do you aim for those qualities — meditative and transportive ones — in a compositions’ combo of repetition and slow transformation? Can you tell me a bit about the genesis of that song?

BVW Those qualities you mentioned are my trademark, at least in the ambient I make (which nowadays is pretty much all I make). While many of my tracks may seem like they’re not doing all that much on the surface, if you listen closely, you will find layers of slowly but constantly transforming elements that ebb and flow, which is what gives it that hypnotic or even hallucinatory effect.

SFBG What dictates or influences the length of a track, here and in your other recordings?

BVW There isn’t anything that dictates the length of a track per se, but in my case, they are almost always very long. For me, while a track is one part of the whole story, it is its own whole part in its own right, and needs to be treated as such. It has its own story to tell and its own journey, and to me, that story should be told, and that journey taken, to its completion.

Frankly, it drives me nuts when I’m really starting to get into the story of a track, and where it’s taking me, only to have it fade to silence after 3 minutes. If I love what something has to say or how something sounds, I want to get lost in it, not have it flit away in a matter of moments. I can’t say it’s wrong, because everyone has their own way of doing things, and whichever way the artist wants to do it is right, really. But for me, that’s just not the way I work, nor could I ever. Even back when I DJed, people used to complain that I always played the whole song before mixing out just at the end. Why wouldn’t I? The song was made that length for a reason. And I want to hear all of what it has to say.

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