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Best of the Bay 2009: Arts and Nightlife

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Editors Picks: Arts and Nightlife

BEST BLOODY QUEEN

A gut-spewing zombie drag queen roller derby in honor of Evil Dead 2. An interview with The Exorcist‘s Linda Blair preceded by a rap number that includes the line, "I don’t care if they suck their mother’s cock, as long as they line up around the block!" A virtual wig-pulling catfight with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. All this and more have graced the proscenium of the Bridge Theater as part of the jaw-dropping (literally) Midnight Mass summertime B-movie fun series, brought to us by the always perfectly horrific Peaches Christ. Her wigs alone are usually enough to scare the jellybean-bejeezus out of us, but Peaches combines live craziness with wince-worthy flicks to take everything over the top. After this, her 12th season of disembowelled joy, Peaches is moving on from Midnight Mass to become a director in her own right — she just wrapped up filming All About Evil with Natasha Lyonne and a cast of local fleshbots. Look for it in your googleplex soon, and know that Peaches still stumbles among us.

www.peacheschrist.com

BEST FLAMIN’ FUN

Kids, really, don’t try this at home. Don’t hook up your two-player Dance Dance Revolution game to a row of flamethrowers. Don’t rig said game to blast your dance competitior with a faceful of fire in front of an adoring crowd if they miss a step. Don’t invest in enough propane to fuel a small jet, a flaming movie screen for projecting all those awkward dance moves onto, and a booming sound system to play all the Japanese bubblegum techno you could ever hope to hear. Leave the setup to Interpretive Arson, whose Dance Dance Immolation game has wowed participants and spectators alike from Black Rock City to Oaktown — and will scorch Denmark’s footsies this fall. Do, however, seek out these intrepid firestarters, and don a giant silver fireproof suit with a Robby the Robot hood. Do the hippie shake to the mellifluous tones of Fatboy Slim and Smile.dk, and prepare yourself to get flamed, both figuratively and literally.

www.interpretivearson.com

BEST PENGUIN PARTY, PLANETARIUM INCLUDED

Penguins are damn funny when you’re drunk. They’re pretty entertaining animals to begin with, but after a couple martinis those little bastards bring better slapstick than Will Ferrell or Jack Black. But tipsily peeping innocent flightless birds — plus bats, butterflies, sea turtles, and manta rays — is just one of many reasons to attend Nightlife, the stunningly rebuilt California Academy of Sciences’ weekly Thursday evening affair. This outrageously popular (get there early) and ingenious party pairs gonzo lineups of internationally renowned DJs and live bands with intellectual talks by some of the world’s best-known natural scientists. Cocktails are served, the floor is packed, intellects are high — and where else can you order cosmos before visiting the planetarium? Another perk: the cost of admission, which includes most of the academy’s exhibits, is less than half the regular price, although you must be 21 or older to attend. Come for the inebriated entertainment, stay for the personal enrichment.

Thursdays, 6 p.m., $8-<\d>$10. California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife

BEST LINDY HOP TO LIL’ WAYNE

Retain a fond nostalgia for the 1990s swing revival scene? Swing Goth is the event you’ve been waiting for. Not quite swing and not even remotely goth, Swing Goth gives swing enthusiasts the go-ahead to boogie-woogie to modern tunes at El Rio. This isn’t your grandmother’s fox trot: rock, rap, ’80s, alternative, Madchester, Gypsy punk, and almost anything else gets swung. Held on the first and third Tuesday of each month and tailored for beginners, this event draws an eclectic crowd that includes dudes who call themselves "hep cats," Mission hipsters, and folks who rock unironic mom jeans and Reebok trainers. If you’re new to swing, arrive at 7:30 and take a one-hour group lesson with ringleader Brian Gardner, who orchestrates the event, to get a quick introduction to swing basics before the free dance. Lessons are $5, but no extra charge for ogling the cute dykes who call El Rio their local watering hole. Swing? Schwing!

First and third Tuesdays, 7 p.m., free. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.swinggoth.com

BEST CELESTIAL TRAJECTORISTS

Who can take a sunburst of boomer rock inspirations — like The Notorious Byrd Brothers–<\d>era Byrds and Meddle-some Pink Floyd — sprinkle it with dew, and cover it with chocolaty nouveau-hippie-hipster blues-rock and a miracle or two? The fresh-eyed, positive-minded folks of Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound can, ’cause they mix it with love and make a world many believed had grown hack and stale taste good. Riding a wave of local ensembles with a hankering for classic rock, hard-edged Cali psych, Japanese noise, and wild-eyed film scores, the San Francisco band is the latest to make the city safe once more for musical adventurers with open minds and big ears. What’s more, the Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound’s inspired new third album, When Sweet Sleep Returned (Tee Pee) — recorded with help from Tim Green at Louder Studios — has fielded much press praise for space-traveling fuzzbox boogie blowouts like "Drunken Leaves" and blissed-out, sitar-touched jangle rambles such as "Kolob Canyon." Consider your mind burst.

www.myspace.com/theassembleheadinsunburstsound

BEST DANCE DYNAMO

You can’t miss him. He has legs like tree trunks and arm muscles that ripple like lava. When he leaps you think he’ll never come down, and his turns suggest the power of a hurricane. He is dancer Ramón Ramos Alayo, Six years ago he founded the CubaCaribe Festival that now packs in dance aficionados of all stripes, and he’s one of the shaping forces behind the wild San Francisco Carnaval celebration. He runs Alayo Dance Company, for which he choreographs contemporary works with Afro-Cuban roots, and he teaches all over the Bay Area — as many as 60 people show up for his Friday salsa classes at Dance Mission Theater. But Ramos is most strikingly unique as a performer. Ramos is as comfortable embodying Oshoshi, the forest hunter in the Yoruba mythology, as he is taking on "Grace Notes," a jazz improvisation with bassist Jeff Chambers. No wonder Bay Area choreographers as radically different as Joanna Haigood, Sara Shelton Mann, and Robert Moses have wanted to work with him.

www.cubacaribe.org

BEST BLUEGRASS AMNESIAC

Toshio Hirano packs a mean sucker punch. At first glance he’s a wonderfully eccentric Bay Area novelty, a yodeling Japanese cowboy playing native songs of the American heartland. Yet upon further inspection, it becomes as clear as the skies of Kentucky that Toshio is the real deal when it comes to getting deep into the Mississippi muck of Jimmie Rodgers-<\d>style bluegrass. Enchanted by the sound of American folk music as a Japanese college student, Toshio soon ventured stateside to spend years traveling and playing from Georgia to Nashville to Austin before finally settling in the Bay Area. Today, Toshio plays once a month at Amnesia’s free Bluegrass Mondays to standing-room-only crowds. Stay awhile to hear him play Hank Williams’s "Ramblin’ Man" or Rodgers’s "Blue Yodel No. 1(T for Texas)." It’ll clear that Toshio’s novelty is merely a hook — his true appeal lies in his ability to show that there’s a cowboy lurking inside all of us.

www.toshiohirano.com

BEST COMMUNITY CHOREOGRAPHERS

A collective howl went up in 1995 when it was announced that the annual festival Black Choreographers: Moving into the 21st Century at Theater Artaud was ending due in part to lack of funding. But two East Bay dancers, Laura Elaine Ellis and Kendra Kimbrough Barnes, actually did something about it, working to ensure that African-American dancers and dance-makers received attention for the range and spirit of their work. It took 10 years, but in 2005, Ellis and Kimbrough Barnes helped launch Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now, which takes place every February in San Francisco and Oakland. The three-week event is a fabulous way for a community to celebrate itself and to invite everyone to the party. While the choreographers’ range of talent and imagination has been impressive — and getting better every year — the performances are merely the icing on the cake. Master classes, mentoring opportunites for emerging artists, and a technical theater-training program for local high school and college students are building a dance infrastructure the next generation can plug into.

www.bcfhereandnow.com

BEST MADCAP POP MAIDENS

San Francisco can always use another all-female band — and Grass Widow satisfies that need beautifully, cackling with brisk, madcap rhythms and rolling out a happy, crazy quilt of dissonant wails. Drummer-vocalist Lillian Maring, guitarist-vocalist Raven Mahon, and bassist-vocalist Hannah Lew are punk as fuck, of course — in the classic, pre-pre-packaged noncodified mode — though many will instead compare the trio’s inspired, decentered pop to dyed-in-the-bluestockings lo-fi riot grrrl. Still, there’s a highly conscious intensity to Grass Widow’s questioning of the digital givens that dominate life in the late ’00s, as they sing wistfully then rage raggedly amid accelerating rhythms and a roughly tumbling guitar line on "Green Screen," from their self-titled debut on Make a Mess: "Flying low into trees. We exist on the screen. Computer can you hear me? Understand more than 1s and 0s?" Grass Widow may sweetly entreat the listener, "Don’t make a scene," but if we’re lucky, these ladies will kick off a new generation of estrogen-enhanced music-making.

www.myspace.com/grasswidowmusic

BEST PURPLE SING-ALONG

Karaoke is one of those silly-but-fun nightlife activities that always has the potential to be awesome but usually isn’t. The song lists at most karaoke bars suck, the sound systems are underwhelming, and no matter where you go there’s always some asshole bumming everyone out with painful renditions of Neil Diamond tearjerkers. Well, not anymore! Steve Hays, a.k.a. DJ Purple, is a karaoke DJ — or KJ — who has single-handedly turned the Bay Area’s once tired sing-along scene into a mother funkin’ party y’all. DJ Purple’s Karaoke Dance Party happens every Thursday night at Jack’s Club. Forget the sloppy drunks half-assing their way through Aerosmith and Beyoncé songs. DJ Purple’s Karaoke Dance Party is all about Iron Maiden, Snoop Dogg, Led Zeppelin, and Riskay. No slow songs allowed. An actual experienced DJ, Hays keeps the beats running smooth, fading and blending as each person stumbles onstage, and even stepping in for saxophone solos and backup vocals when a song calls for it. And sometimes even when it doesn’t.

Thursdays, 9 p.m., free. Jack’s Club, 2545 24th St., SF. (415) 641-5371, www.djpurple.com

BEST FLANNEL REVIVAL

In this age of continual retro, it comes as a surprise that listening to mainstream ’90s alternative rock can give you, under the right inebriated circumstances, the kind of pleasure not experienced since heroin went out of vogue. Debaser at the Knockout has become one of the best monthly parties in San Francisco, largely because it gives ’80s babies, who were stuck playing Oregon Trail in computer class while Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland were rocking it out in Portland, the chance to live out their Nirvana-era dreams. Debaser promoter Jamie Jams is the only DJ in San Francisco who will spin the Cranberries after a Pavement song, and his inspired mixology is empirically proven to induce moshing en masse until last call, an enticingly dangerous sport now that lead-footed Doc Martens are back in style. Sporting flannel gets you comped, so for those still hung up over Jordan Catalano and the way he leans, Debaser is rife with contemporary, albeit less angsty, equivalents.

First Saturdays, 9 p.m., Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.myspace.com/debaser90s

BEST CRANIUM MONOPOLY SCRABBLE RISK

The shaky economy’s probably put your $60 concert plans on hold and relegated those high-rolling VIP nights to the back burner. So it’s a great time to return to the simpler forms of social interaction, such as shaking some dice and screaming, "Yahtzee, bitches!" or guffawing maniacally every time some poor fool attempts to pass your two hotels on Boardwalk. Fortunately, game night at On the Corner café on Divisadero fills your staid Wednesday evenings with enough card-shuffling, Pop-o-matic popping, I-want-to-be-the-thimble classics to sink your battleship blues. Plus, there’s coffee and beer. Working in collusion with the colossal collection of neighboring Gamescape, On the Corner provides a plethora of gaming options to fit its large tables and vibrant atmosphere. Stratego, Scattergories, and other trivial pursuits are all available, and the 7 p.m.-<\d>to-<\d>closing happy hour includes $2.50 draft beers and sangria specials. The tables fill up quickly, though — arrive early so you won’t be sorry.

Wednesdays, 7–10 p.m., free. 359 Divisadero, SF. (415) 522-1101, www.sfcorner.com

BEST PARTY OF ONE

Perfect moments are never the ones you work hard to create. Too much effort kills the magic. Instead, the moments we treasure are those that steal up on us, slipping past our defenses to reveal, for just an instant, the sublime wonder of the universe. This is precisely what happens during one’s first encounter with the Lexington Street disco ball, innocuously spinning its multifaceted heart out on a quiet neighborly block in the heart of the Mission District. One moment you’re just walking down the street minding your own business — perhaps rehashing the "should have saids" or the "could have beens" in the muddled disquiet of your mind — when suddenly you spot it, the incongruously located disco ball suspended from a low-hanging branch, throwing a carpet of stars across the sidewalk for anyone to enjoy. All is still, but the music in your heart will lead you. Hold your hands in the air, walk into the light, and dance.

Lexington between 20th and 21st streets, SF

BEST BLOCK-ROCKIN’ BIKE

Amandeep Jawa’s bright blue, sound-rigged party-cycle — Trikeasaurus — is our bestest Critical Mass compadre and bike lane buddy, and an essential component of his impromptu FlashDance parties. This three-wheelin’, free-wheelin’, pedal-and-battery-powered funk machine has been bringing the party to the people — and leading spontaneous Michael Jackson tributes — from the Embarcadero to the Broadway tunnel for the past two years. Even if you’re just out for a stroll or a bit of that ephemeral San Francisco "sun"-bathing, when Trikeasaurus comes rolling along you just have to boogie on down the road, bust a move, get your groove thing on, let your freak flag fly, and insert ecstatic cliché here. We can pretend all we want in the privacy of our own hip sancta sanctorum that Destiny’s Child or OutKast will never move us, but somehow when Trikeasaurus comes bumping by, we just can’t help but bump right back. Don’t fight the feeling! Join the 500-watt, 150-decibel velolution today.

www.deeptrouble.com

BEST HOLES FOR YOUR KRAUTROCK SOUL

If you’ve done ketamine, you know what it’s like to get lost in the cosmic K-hole. To those who have entered the mystical D-hole, however, your ketamine story is child’s play. The Donuts dance party, thrown at various times and locations throughout the year by DJ Pickpocket and visual artist AC, provides adventurous club-goers with that most delicious of drugs: donuts, given away free. First timers, be careful: these potent little sugar bombs are highly addictive and can often lead to an all-night binge of ecstatic power-boogie, which can result in terrible withdrawal symptoms. Like many other popular club drugs, donuts are offered in powdered form, though they can also be glazed, which leaves no tell-tale residue around the mouth. But as long as you indulge responsibly, entering the Hole of the Donut is perfectly safe. Amp up your experience to fever-pitch perfection with Donuts’ pulse-pumping Krautrock, new wave, retro disco, and dance punk live acts and beats.

www.myspace.com/donutparty

BEST PLACE TO PARTY LIKE A SLOVENIAN

If there’s one thing all Slovenians have in common, it’s that they know how to deck a muthafunkin’ hall, y’all. It stands to reason then that Slovenians run one of the biggest and best halls in town. The Slovenian Hall in Potrero Hill is available for all your partying needs — birthdays, anniversary bashes, coming-out fests, etc. The rooms inside the hall are spacious and clean, the kitchen and bar spaces are outfitted to serve an entire army, and there are plenty of tables and chairs. But it’s the decor that makes this place unique: Soviet-era and vintage tourism advertisements are sprinkled throughout the place and banners promoting Slovenian pride hang from the ceiling. The hall also hosts live music events — recently an Argentine tango troupe took up residence there, making things border-fuzzingly interesting, to say the least.

2101 Mariposa, SF. (415) 864-9629

BEST FUTURE RAP CEO

Odds are you’ve not yet heard of East Bay teen hip-hop talent Yung Nittlz — but one day soon you will. The ambitious, gifted Berkeley High student has already amassed five albums worth of smooth and funky material that he wrote, produced, and rapped and sang on. In August 2007, when he was just 13, the rapper born Nyles Roberson scored media attention when Showtime at the Apollo auditions came to town and he was spotted very first in line, having camped out the night before. And while Yung Nittlz wasn’t among the lucky final few to be picked, he did make a lasting impression on the judges with his strong performance of the song "Money in the Air" and choreography that included him strategically tossing custom-made promo dollars that he designed and made. The gifted artist also designed the professional-looking cover for his latest demo CD, which suggests fans should request the hit-sounding "Feelin’ U" on KMEL 106 FM. Stay tuned. You’ll likely be hearing it soon.

www.myspace.com/yungnittlz

BEST B-MOVIE SURVIVOR

The crappy economy has ruined many things. It’s the reason both the Parkway and the Cerrito Speakeasy theaters — where you could openly drink a beer you’d actually purchased at the concession stand, not smuggled in under your sweatshirt — closed their doors this year. But even a bummer cash crunch can’t dampen a true cult movie fan’s love of all things B. Deprived of a permanent venue for his long-running "Thrillville," programmer and host Will "The Thrill" Viharo adjusted his fez, brushed off his velvet lapels, and started booking his popular film ‘n’ cabaret extravaganzas at other Bay Area movie houses, including the 4-Star and the Balboa in San Francisco, and San Jose’s Camera 3. Fear not, devotees of film noir, tiki culture, the swingin’ ’60s, big-haired babes, Aztec mummies, William Shatner, the Rat Pack, Elvis, creature features, Japanese monsters, and zombies — the Thrill ain’t never gonna be gone.

www.thrillville.net

BEST GAY FLIPPER ACTION

Much like travel agents, beepers, and modesty, pinball machines are slowly becoming relics of the past. But it’s difficult to understand why these quarter-fed games would fall by the wayside, since they’re especially fun in a bar atmosphere. What else is there to do besides stare at your drink, hopelessly chat up the bartender, constantly check your phone, and try to catch that one cute patron’s eye. At the Castro’s Moby Dick, pinball saves you from such doldrums. Sure, the place has the requisite video screens blaring Snap! and Cathy Dennis chestnuts, and plenty of hunky drunkies to serve as distractions. But its quarter-action collection — unfortunately whittled down to three machines, ever since Theater of Magic was retired due to the difficulty of finding replacement parts — is a delightful retro rarity in this gay day and age. So tilt not, World Cup Soccer, Addams Family, and Attack from Mars fans. There’s still a queer home for your lightning-quick flipping.

4049 18th St., SF. www.mobydicksf.com

BEST BLAST OF JUSTICE

Founded in 2002, the many-membered Brass Liberation Orchestra has been blowing their horns for social justice all over the Bay Area — from the San Francisco May Day March and Oakland rallies for Oscar Grant, to protests against city budget cuts and jam sessions at the 16th Street BART station. Trombones out and bass drums at the ready, this tight-knit organization of funky folk recently returned from New Orleans, where they played to support community rebuilding projects in the Lower Ninth Ward. With a membership as diverse as they come, the BLO toots their horns specifically to "support political causes with particular emphasis on peace, and racial and social justice" — especially concerning immigrants’ rights and anti-gentrification issues. But the most joyful part of their practice is the spontaneous street parties they engender wherever they pop up, and their seemingly impromptu romps through neighborhoods and street festivals. Viva la tuba-lution!

www.brassliberation.org

BEST WITTY WONG

Is your idea of hell being trapped in a room with a white, collegiate, spoken-word "artist" — or worse yet, being forced to wear an Ed Hardy t-shirt? Are you a veteran of the 30 Stockton and the 38 Geary, with the wounds and the stories to prove it? Can you just not help but stare at someone who somehow can’t resist an act of street corner masturbation? Then you’re ready to lend an ear to Ali Wong, the funniest comedian to stomp onto a San Francisco stage in a long time. Some people get offended by Wong, which is one reason she’s funny — comedy isn’t about making friends, and she’s not sentimental. She draws on her family history and writing and performing experience in implicit rather than overt ways while remaining as blunt as your funniest friend on a bender.

www.aliwong.com

BEST SITE FOR SHUTTERBUGS

Take a picture, it’ll last longer. Especially if you take it to — or even at — RayKo Photo Center, a large SoMA space that boasts a studio, a shop stocked with new and used cameras, a variety of black-and-white and color darkrooms, a digital imaging lab (with discount last-Friday-of-the-month nighttime hours), and classes where one can learn the latest digital skills as well as older and arcane processes such as Ambrotype (glass plate) and Tintype (metal plate) image-making. Devoted in part to local photographers, RayKo’s gallery has showcased Bill Daniel’s panoramic yet raw shots of a post-Katrina Louisiana and has likely influenced a new generation of shutterbugs affiliated with groups and sites like Cutter Photozine and Photo Epicenter. One of its coolest and truly one-of-a-kind features is the Art*O*Mat Vending Machine, an old ciggie vendor converted into a $5-a-piece art dispenser. And of course RayKo has an old photo booth, so you can take some quick candid snapshots with or without a honey.

428 Third St., SF. (415) 495-3773, www.raykophoto.com

BEST RAPPING CABBIE

The great myth about cab drivers is that they’re a bunch of underappreciated geniuses who write poetry and paint masterpieces when they’re not busy shuttling drunks around. Most cabbies, however, aren’t Picassos with pine-scent air fresheners. They clock in and out just like we all do, and then they go home and watch reality TV. There are, however, a few exceptions to the rule: true artists who have deliberately chosen the cabbie lifestyle because it allows them the freedom to pursue their passions on the side. MC Mars is such a cabbie. A 20-year veteran on the taxi scene, Mars is also a hip-hop performer, a published author, and an HIV activist. You can check his flow every Wednesday night at the Royale’s open-mic sessions. Or, if you’re lucky enough to hail his DeSoto, you can get a free backseat show on weekends. And don’t forget to pick up his latest CD, "Letz Cabalaborate," available on Mars’ Web site.

www.mcmars.net

BEST FRESH POETICS

The Bay Area knows poetry. And people in the Bay Area who know poetry today realize that the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats, the Language poets, and even the New Brutalists might inspire contemporary writers, but they don’t own them. You can encounter proof in places like Books and Bookshelves, and read it in publications like Try. As the Bay Area Poetics anthology edited by Stephanie Young made clear in 2006, Bay Area verse is enormous and ever-changing. One year earlier, David Larsen established a space for it in Oakland with his New Yipes Reading Series, which frequently paired poets with filmmakers. He’s since moved to the East Coast, but Ali Warren and Brandon Brown re-energized the concept, simplifying its name to The New Reading Series and refining its content to readings with musical interludes. It’s the best place around to hear Tan Lin and Ariana Reines and confront notions of the self through Heath Ledger. It’s also hosted a kissing booth, for all you wordsmiths who aren’t above romantic trappings.

416 25th St., Oakl. www.newyipes.blogspot.com

BEST HOUSE OUTSIDE

For 15 years, the much-loved and lovable warm weather Sunset parties have shaken various hills, isles, parks, patios, and boats with funky, techy house sounds. Launched by underground hero DJ Galen in 1994, the outdoor Sunset gigs have amassed a huge following of excited party newbies and familiar old-school ravers — and now even their kids. Early on in the game, Galen was soon joined by fellow Bay favorite DJs Solar and J-Bird, and the three — collectively known as Pacific Sound — have kept the vibe strong ever since. This year saw a remarkable expansion on the Sunset fan base: attendance at the season opener at Stafford Lake reached almost 4,000, and Pacific Sound just launched an annual — and truly moving — party on Treasure Island that had multiple generations putting their hands in the air. The recent Sunset Campout in Belden drew hundreds for an all-weekend romp with some of the biggest names in electronic music — true fresh air freshness.

www.pacificsound.net

BEST SECRET OF ETERNAL RAVE
According to murky local legend, sometime in the early ’90s a Finnish archaeologist named Mr. Floppy passed through Oakland on a quest to find an inverted pyramid rumored to hold the secret to eternal life. He didn’t find anything like that, of course, but he did discover a really cool apartment complex run by an obsessive builder named George Rowan. The sprawling place, which housed multiple dwelling units as well as an outdoor dance area and an out-of-use bordello and saloon famously frequented by Jack London in the 1800s, was an interconnected maze of rooms decorated with found objects and outsider art. It was a perfect spot to throw underground raves, which is exactly what Floppy and Rowan did until the day they got slapped with a fire-hazard citation. Nobody really knows what happened to the psychedelic archaeologist after that, although his spirit lives on: Mr. Floppy’s Flophouse has recently re-opened as a venue for noise shows, freaky circuses, and all-night moonlit orgies.
1247 E. 12th St., Oakl

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BEST OF THE BAY 2009:
>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME
>>READERS POLL WINNERS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CLASSICS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CITY LIVING
>>EDITORS PICKS: FOOD AND DRINK
>>EDITORS PICKS: ARTS AND NIGHTLIFE
>>EDITORS PICKS: SHOPPING
>>EDITORS PICKS: SEX AND ROMANCE
>>EDITORS PICKS: OUTDOORS AND SPORTS
>>LOCAL HEROES

Best of the Bay 2009: Classics

0

>>CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS LIST ON ONE PAGE
>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME

449-classics.jpg

Editors Picks: Classics

BEST LEFTOVER HEROES

Hey, are you gonna eat that? If the answer is "no," and you have a commercial kitchen of any kind, call Food Runners, the nonprofit associated with Tante Marie’s Cooking School and its matriarch at the helm, Mary Risley. The volunteer-powered organization picks up leftovers from caterers, delis, festival vendors, hotels, farmers markets, cafeterias, restaurants, and elsewhere, and delivers still-fresh edibles to about 300 soup kitchens and homeless shelters. For more than 30 years, everything from fresh and frozen foods such as produce, meat, and dairy, to uneaten boxed lunches and trays of salads and hot food, to pantry staples ordered overzealously and nearing expiration has been saved from the compost heap and delivered to those who could use a free meal or some gratis groceries. The result has yielded untold thousands of meals and a complete cycle that reduces food waste, feeds the hungry, and preserves resources all around.

(415) 929-1866, www.foodrunners.org

BEST DARKEST KISS

Remember those freaky goth kids your church leaders warned you against in high school? The ones who wore black lipstick, shaved off all their eyebrows, and worshipped Darkness? Well, they grew up, moved to San Francisco, and got really effin’ hot. If you don’t believe it, head to the comfortingly named Death Guild party at DNA Lounge. Every Monday night, San Francisco’s sexiest goths (and baby goths — this party is 18+) climb out of their coffins and don their snazziest black vinyl bondage pants for this beastly bacchanal, which has decorated our nightlife with leather corsets and studded belts since 1992. And even if you dress more like Humbert Humbert than Gothic Lolita, the Guild’s resident DJs will have you industrial-grinding to Sisters of Mercy, Front 242, Bauhaus, Throbbing Gristle, and Ministry. Death Guild’s Web site advises: "Bring a dead stiff squirrel and get in free." Free for you, maybe, but not for the squirrel.

Mondays, 9:30 p.m., $5. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. (415) 626-1409. www.deathguild.com

BEST BLACKBOARD THESPIANS

A completely adorable acting troupe made up of schoolteachers and schoolteacher look-alikes, the Children’s Theatre Association of San Francisco — a cooperative project of the Junior League of San Francisco, the San Francisco Board of Education, and the San Francisco Opera and Ballet companies — has been stomping the boards for 75 years. What the players may lack in Broadway-caliber showmanship, they widely make up for with enthusiasm, handcrafted costumes and sets, and heart. For decades, the troupe has entertained thousands of public school students during its seasonal run every January and February at the Florence Gould Theater in the Palace of Legion of Honor. This year’s production was a zany take on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," which included a wisecracking mirror and rousing original songs. We applaud the CTASF’s bravery for taking on some of the toughest critics in the business — those who will squirm and squawk if the show can’t hold their eye.

www.ctasf.org

BEST AUTO REPAIR QUOTES

We’re not sure if you can get a lube job at Kahn and Keville Tire and Auto Service, located on the moderately sketchy corner of Turk and Larkin. And if you can, we can’t vouch for the overall quality, or relative price point of the procedure. But the main reason we can’t say is also why we love the place so much. Instead of sensibly using the giant Kahn and Keville marquee to advertise its sales and services, the 97-year-old business has been using it since 1959 to educate the community with an array of quotations culled from authors as varied as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Gore Vidal — plus occasional shout-outs to groups it admires, such as the Quakers during their peace vigils a block away. Originally collected by founder Hugh Keville, the quotes range in tone from the political to the inspirational and tongue-in-cheek, and the eye-catching marquee was once described by Herb Caen as the city’s "biggest fortune cookie."

500 Turk, SF. (415) 673-0200, www.kk1912.com

BEST EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

The cozy Molinari Delicatessen in North Beach has been in business since 1896, just enough time to figure out that the secret to a really kick-ass sandwich is keeping it simple — but not too simple. The little piece of heaven known as the Molinari Special starts with tasty scraps, all the odds and ends of salamis, hams, and mortadella left over from the less adventurous sandwiches ordered by the customers who came before you. The cheese of your choice comes next, topped generously with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, roasted red peppers, and even pepperoncini, if you ask nicely. As for bread: we’re partial to Dutch crunch, but rosemary, soft white, and seeded rolls are available. Ecco panino: you get a sandwich approximately as big as a baby’s head — for only $6.25. It’s never quite the same item twice, but always sublime.

Molinari Delicatessan, 373 Columbus, SF. (415) 421-2337

BEST PASSED-ON JEANS

Most clothes turn to garbage over time — but there are a few notable exceptions, timeless garments that actually gain value after being used up, tossed aside, and then rediscovered. Leather jackets are like that, so are cowgirl dresses and butt rock T-shirts. But none of that stuff maintains its integrity, or becomes more appealing when salvaged, like a great pair of jeans. And there’s no place more in tune with this concept than the Bay Area. Why? Well, it’s easy to say that we lead the thrifting pack simply because denim apparel was born here, but the truth is that we wouldn’t be anywhere without Berkeley’s denim guru, Carla Bell, who’s been reselling Levi’s and other denim products for 30 years. What began as a side project in Bell’s garage has grown into a palace of fine thrifting: Slash Denim the first and last stop when it comes to pre-worn pants and other new and used articles of awesome.

2840 College, Berk. (510) 841-7803, www.slashdenim.com

BEST BALLER’S PARADISE

When you think about baseball and food, hot dogs inevitably come to mind, but that’s just because marketers have been pumping them at stadiums for decades. Real baseball fans can see through the bull. Sure, they might shove a wiener in their mouth every now and again out of respect for tradition. But when a true fan gets hungry, she or he wants real food, not mystery meat. Baseball-themed restaurant and bar Double Play — which sits across from the former site of Seals Stadium and is celebrating its 100th birthday this year — makes a point of thinking outside the bun. D.P.’s menu features everything from pancakes and burritos to seafood fettuccine and steak, with nary a dog in sight. Otherwise, the place is as hardcore balling as it gets. Ancient memorabilia decks the walls, television sets hang from the ceiling, and the backroom contains a huge mural depicting a Seals versus Oakland Oaks game — you can eat lunch on home plate.

2401 16th St., SF. (415) 621-9859

BEST TSUNAMI OF SWEETS

Most small businesses fail within the first year of operation, so you know if a spot’s been around a while it must be doing something right. For Schubert’s Bakery that something is cakes and they’ve been doing them for almost 100 years. To say they’re the best, then, is a bit of an understatement. When you purchase a cake from the sweet staff at Schubert’s, what you’re really getting is 98 years’ worth of cake-making wisdom brought to life with eggs, sugar, flour, and some good old S.F. magic. Schubert’s doesn’t stop with cakes — no way. There are cherry and apple tarts, pies, coffee cakes, Danish pastries, croissants, puff pastries, scones, muffins, and more. If it’s sinfully delicious, Schubert’s has your back. Just be careful not to peruse their menu in the aftermath of a breakup or following the loss of a job. Schubert’s may seem nice and sugary on the outside, but it gets a sick thrill out of sticking you where it hurts: your gut.

521 Clement, SF. (415) 752-1580, www.schuberts-bakery.com

BEST ARCHITECTURAL XANADU

If you compete in a category where you’re the only contestant, does it still matter if you win? In the case of the Xanadu Gallery building, yes, it does. The building that houses the gallery is Frank Lloyd Wright’s only work in San Francisco and provides a fascinating glimpse of him evolving into a legendary architect. The structure’s most prominent feature is the spiral ramp connecting its two floors, a surprisingly organic structure that reminds viewers of the cochlear rotunda of a seashell and presages Wright’s famous design for New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Visitors are delighted and surprised upon entering the Maiden Lane building, as a rather small and cramped walkway into the gallery expands into an airy, sun-filled dome: the effect is like walking out from a dark tunnel into a puff of light. The Xanadu Gallery itself features an extensive collection of international antiquities, which perfectly complements this ambitious yet classic gem.

140 Maiden Lane, SF. (415) 392-9999, www.xanadugallery.us

BEST FIRST CUP OF COFFEE

As the poor departed King of Pop would say, "Just beat it" — to ultimate Beat hangout Caffe Trieste in North beach, that is. And while Pepsi was the caffeinated beverage that set Michael Jackson aflame, we’re hot for Trieste’s lovingly created coffee drinks. Founded in 1956 by Giovanni "Papa Gianni" Giotta, who had recently moved here from Italy, Trieste was the first place in our then low-energy burg to offer espresso, fueling many a late night poetry session, snaps and bongos included. Still a favored haunt of artists and writers, Trieste — which claims to be the oldest coffeehouse in San Francisco — augments the strident personal dramas of its Beat ghosts with generous helpings of live opera, jazz, and Italian folk music. You may even catch a member of the lively Giotta family crooning at the mic, or pumping a flashy accordion as part of Trieste’s long-running Thursday night or Saturday afternoon concert series. Trieste just opened a satellite café in the mid-Market Street area, which could use a tasty artistic renaissance of its own.

601 Vallejo, SF. (415) 392-6739; 1667 Market, SF. (415) 551-1000, www.caffetrieste.com

BEST ON POINT EN POINTE

We’re fans of the entire range of incredible dance offerings in the Bay, from new and struggling companies to the older, more established ones (which are also perpetually struggling.) But we’ve got to give tutu thumbs up to the San Francisco Ballet for making it for 76 years and still inspiring the city to get up on its toes and applaud. Those who think the SF Ballet is hopelessly encrusted in fustiness have overlooked its contemporary choreography programs as well as its outreach to the young and queer via its Nite Out! events. For those who complain about the price of tickets, check out the ballet’s free performance at Stern Grove Aug. 16. This year the company brought down the house when it performed Balanchine’s "Jewels" (a repertory mainstay) in New York. We also have to give it up for one of the most important (yet taken for granted) element of the ballet’s productions: the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, which provides the entrancing accompaniment to the oldest ballet company in America.

www.sfballet.org

BEST INTENTIONAL MISNOMER

If the Spinsters of San Francisco have anything to say about it, spinsterhood isn’t the realm of old women who cultivate cat tribes and emit billows of dust when they sneeze. Instead it’s all about stylish young girls who throw sparkling galas, plan happy hours, organize potlucks, and do everything in their power to have a grand ol’ time in the name of charitable good. Founded alongside the Bachelors of San Francisco, the Spinsters first meeting was held in 1929. In the eight decades that followed, the Spinsters evolved into a philanthropic nonprofit that supports aid organizations and channels funds back to the community. Specifications for prospective spinsters are quite rigorous: applicants must be college-educated, unmarried, and somewhere in the prized age bracket of 21 to 35. At the end of the year, members decide by ballot vote to heap their wealth and plenty into the coffers of a single chosen charity. Past recipients include City of Dreams, the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, and the Center for the Education of the Infant Deaf.

www.sfspinsters.com

BEST GHOSTS IN THE WOODWORK

Situated on the shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland, the Scottish Rite Center boasts hand-carved ceilings, grand staircases, and opulent furnishings — hardly the typical ambiance of your average convention center. But if the ornate woodwork isn’t enough to distract you from whatever you came to the center to learn about, its history should: following San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, the East Bay saw a population explosion that quickly outgrew Oakland’s first Masonic temple and led to cornerstone laying ceremonies at this shoreline site in 1927. Today the center’s ballroom, catering facilities, and full-service kitchens — along with an upstairs main auditorium and one of the deepest stages in the East Bay — make it a favorite setting for weddings and seminars. It’s also the perfect place to wonder how many ghosts crawl out of the woodwork at night, and trace the carved wooden petals that decorate the hallways with the tip of a chilly finger.

1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakl. (510) 451-1903, www.scottish-rite.org

BEST GEM OF A FAMILY

For more than seven decades, the name Manis has meant that a jewel of a jewelry store was in the neighborhood. Lou Manis opened Manis Jewelers in l937 at l856 Mission St. Three months after the Kennedy assassination in l963, he moved the store to 258 West Portal Ave. Manis Jewelers is still at this location, still a classic family-owned store with an excellent line of watches and jewelry, and still offers expert watch and clock repair, custom design, and reliable service. Best of all, that service is always provided by a Manis. Lou, now 89, retired six years ago, but his son Steve operates the store and provides service so friendly that people drop by regularly just to chat. Steve’s daughter, Nicole, works in the store on Saturdays, changing batteries in watches and waiting on customers. She was preceded in the store by her two older sisters, Anna and Kathleen, and Steve’s niece and nephew.

258 West Portal Ave., SF. (415) 681-6434

BEST NEVER FORGET
Since 1984, the Holocaust Memorial at the Palace of the Legion of Honor has been a contemplative and sad reminder of one of the biggest genocides in human history. The grouping of sculptures — heart-wrenching painted bronze figures trapped and collapsed behind a barbed-wire fence — sits alongside one of the city’s most breathtaking views and greatest example of European-style architecture. Yet it has never, in our opinion, fully received its due as an important art piece and historical marker. The memorial was designed by George Segal, a highly decorated artist awarded numerous honorary degrees and a National Medal of Honor in 1999. Chances are that many Legion of Honor patrons — plus the myriad brides posed in front of the palace’s pillars for their photo shoot — overlook this stark homage to the six million people exterminated by the Nazis during World War II. But it’s always there as a reminder that as we look to the future, we must remember the past.
100 34th Ave., SF. www.famsf.org/legion

————

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Appetite: Drink on the cheap…with class

0

Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

redwoodroom_0709.jpg
Redwood Room.

EVENTS

RN74’s $1-3 offerings
Didn’t think it was possible? Michael Mina’s newest wine bar/restaurant mecca offers a real deal. Every day after 10 pm, late-nighters are rewarded with $1 shots of Fernet and $3 Kronenbourgs. No, it’s not fabulous wines from the 3000+ list, though you can still order any of those. But Burgundy can wait when Fernet and Kronenbourgs are this cheap.
Daily, 10 pm-close
301 Mission, SF
415-543-7474

www.michaelmina.net/rn74/

5A5’s Steak Lounge happy hour… and once a week $1 champagnes
5A5, downtown’s chic/hip steak lounge, has a 5 at 5 deal going six days a week. Enter the dimly lit bar area, gaze at the striking dome, and fill up on a $2 daily-changing bar bite and $5 appetizers, like truffle fries, beef carpaccio (this is a steak lounge, after all), or 2 for $5 popular hamachi, poke, or oyster shooters. Wash it all down with $5 wines, beers, and cocktails. Bonus "secret": hit 5A5 on Thursday nights between 9-10pm and you can sip as many $1 glasses of champagne as you like.
Monday-Saturday, 5-7:30 pm
244 Jackson, SF

5a5stk.com/promotions.php

Redwood Room’s weekly $8 cocktail
Duck into the Clift Hotel, housing the historic Redwood Room. Though we love those redwood walls and retro-meets-modern ambiance, I know the bar can get touristy — even snooty. That’s why I prefer it on a weeknight for a chance to soak up the gorgeous surroundings while those creepy-cool "live portraits" follow me with their eyes. Redwood is now introducing a different specialty cocktail each week for $8 (their drinks are usually $12 or more). Recent creations include a Clementine Blossom, made with St. Germain and prosecco, or a Blackberry Margarita with Tres Generaciones Plata Tequila, fresh blackberries and lime juice and simple syrup.
Sunday-Thursday, 5pm-2am
Friday-Saturday, 4pm-2am
495 Geary Street

www.clifthotel.com

Nosaj Thing

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PREVIEW A delicate secret lies behind electronic producer Jason Chung’s musical alias, Nosaj Thing. I’ll break it down quickly. Invert Jason from front to back so that the sound rolls off the tongue in an ephemeral two-step hop from palate to teeth. Supplement that spacious beginning with a full-bodied surname, and the paradoxical nature of "Nosaj Thing" is complete. Corporeal sensuality whisked away in nebulous lightness. Might there be such an impossible thing? I point the nonbelievers in the direction of Chung’s full length debut, Drift (Alpha Pup), a brilliant soundscape still building in momentum since last month’s release. A lesson in the elegant aerodynamics of heavy objects, Drift reflects the harmonious relations of galactic bodies floating in space and the unbelievable lightness of human-made aircrafts soaring in the air.

The 24-year-old Chung’s committed but decidedly loose affiliation with the versatile Low End Theory collective has fueled his lift-off into ethereal robotics. But Chung has picked up a free range ethic of self-determination from the L.A. underground more than any ideological doctrine. On Drift, Nosaj Thing’s disembodied mind sets off on an odyssey through eerie, oil-spill melodies and cavernous rhythmic voids. Darkly harmonic sounds are submerged under the android lights of an indigo night sky. The result is a soundtrack for an ancient sci-fi film about a genetically engineered Moses drifting along a river between Virgil’s hell and a raver’s ecstatic heaven. Oh, I can keep going.

BLASTHAUS PRESENTS NOSAJ THING’S DRIFT ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

Fri/31, 9 p.m., $12.50. Mighty, 119 Utah Street, SF. (415) 762-0151, www.mighty119.com

Sonic Reducer Overage: Bowerbirds, N.E.R.D., Themselves, Dorkfest, and more

0

By Kimberly Chun

More music – you got it, SF. Just ‘cause you’re you. Here are a few worthy shows that didn’t make the jam-packed issue. (Psst, pass the tissue.)

Clip’d Beaks
The sometime SF-ers share their latest visions. With Boys IV Men, Vice Cooler, and Emily Hoof. Wed/29, 9 p.m., $5. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. (415) 552-7788.

The Donkeys
Balking? The Dead Oceans combo from San Diego responds to the healing powers of Beach Boys-style harmonies. With Magnolia Electric Company, Val Esway, and El Mirage. Wed/29, 9 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Appetite: Drink on the cheap…with class

0

Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

redwoodroom_0709.jpg
Redwood Room.

EVENTS

RN74’s $1-3 offerings
Didn’t think it was possible? Michael Mina’s newest wine bar/restaurant mecca offers a real deal. Every day after 10 pm, late-nighters are rewarded with $1 shots of Fernet and $3 Kronenbourgs. No, it’s not fabulous wines from the 3000+ list, though you can still order any of those. But Burgundy can wait when Fernet and Kronenbourgs are this cheap.
Daily, 10 pm-close
301 Mission, SF
415-543-7474

www.michaelmina.net/rn74/

5A5’s Steak Lounge happy hour… and once a week $1 champagnes
5A5, downtown’s chic/hip steak lounge, has a 5 at 5 deal going six days a week. Enter the dimly lit bar area, gaze at the striking dome, and fill up on a $2 daily-changing bar bite and $5 appetizers, like truffle fries, beef carpaccio (this is a steak lounge, after all), or 2 for $5 popular hamachi, poke, or oyster shooters. Wash it all down with $5 wines, beers, and cocktails. Bonus "secret": hit 5A5 on Thursday nights between 9-10pm and you can sip as many $1 glasses of champagne as you like.
Monday-Saturday, 5-7:30 pm
244 Jackson, SF

5a5stk.com/promotions.php

Redwood Room’s weekly $8 cocktail
Duck into the Clift Hotel, housing the historic Redwood Room. Though we love those redwood walls and retro-meets-modern ambiance, I know the bar can get touristy — even snooty. That’s why I prefer it on a weeknight for a chance to soak up the gorgeous surroundings while those creepy-cool "live portraits" follow me with their eyes. Redwood is now introducing a different specialty cocktail each week for $8 (their drinks are usually $12 or more). Recent creations include a Clementine Blossom, made with St. Germain and prosecco, or a Blackberry Margarita with Tres Generaciones Plata Tequila, fresh blackberries and lime juice and simple syrup.
Sunday-Thursday, 5pm-2am
Friday-Saturday, 4pm-2am
495 Geary Street

www.clifthotel.com

Fine ideas, at 20 seconds per slide

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By Susan White

pechakucha0709.jpg

This coming Thursday, art aficionados are invited to meet at the Autodesk Gallery for what the SFBG previously referred to as a “hyperintellectual show-and-tell” – otherwise known as Pecha Kucha Night, a worldwide event that started in Tokyo six years ago.

Basically, Pecha Kucha (pronounced “pe-chak-cha” – Japanese for “chit chat”) is a function at which designers each have exactly six minutes and 40 seconds to present 20 slides of their work (giving them 20 seconds per slide). Having no control over the speed of the projector, speakers are forced to make their points quickly and effectively, moving on before the audience gets bored. Their work usually ranges from architecture to furniture – even the occasional science experiment. Anyone can sign up to speak in advance, and the events are usually free (with suggested donations).

Last month’s theme was “Causes,” which, contingent with San Francisco Design Week, sought to promote designers who use their work to affect positive social change. Highlights included Trevor Hubbard, whose 823KEYPROJECT – a collection of vintage keys he sells as necklaces – aims to fund emerging artists “whose vision of a more beautiful world frames a broader perspective of life.” (The number 823 came from the pager code for “thinking of you” – something Hubbard openly deemed “cheesy as fuck.”) Another speaker, Michael Voege, presented cooper.com, which specializes in improving the design and usability of various products. His firm revamps everything from cars to hospital equipment, using consumer frustration with technology as its primary motivating factor. (A refreshing change of pace for someone continually perplexed by the workings of her own capricious gadgets.)

Most speakers had something entertaining and witty to say, and it’s the type of event that tends to attract a cool crowd of people. Thursday’s Pecha Kucha will focus on the theme “Counterpoint,” positing the deep and thought-provoking question, “Isn’t the counterintuitive what counts?” Be sure to get there early. Seats fill up fast, and if you’re not quick enough, you might miss out on some awe-inspiring presentations. (Who thought PowerPoint could be this exciting?)

Pecha Kucha: Counterpoint
The Autodesk Gallery
1 Market, SF (2nd floor)
July 30, 7:30-10:00 p.m.
suggested $5 donation
www.pechakucha-sf.com

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Zach, 18th Street and Valencia

Zach10709.jpg

Sonic Reducer Overage: Of Montreal, Spinnerette, Jessie Evans, and more

0

By Kimberly Chun

Foggy city, music-clogged city – you offer up so much to do and see. And I’m not even counting that hard-working mama in No Doubt. Have a few more worthy shows that didn’t make it to print.

Dragging an Ox Through Water
The oxy lad is just back from opening for Jackie-O Motherfucker in Europe. With Sic Alps, Linda Hagood, and Tom Greenwood. Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.



Extra Action Marching Band and Jessie Evans

No intro needed for the brassy Bay gang – which was graced with David Byrne’s presence at its Uptown show (right after the band opened for Byrne at the Greek). Ex-Vanishing lady Jessie Evans materializes, too, with a healthy supply of sax appeal. With Bronze and Something Experience. Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $10. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880.

SF overdue to put anti-gay discrimination on trial

0

Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

youth2b.JPG
City Attorney Dennis Herrera wants to join the fight to challenge Prop. 8, which eliminates the rights of same-sex couples to wed. Between May and November 2008, couples like Spencer Jones and Tyler Barrick (above) wed legally in California.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has petitioned a U.S. District Court Judge today to allow San Francisco to intervene as a party plaintiff in a federal constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment which eliminated the fundamental right of marriage for gay and lesbian citizens in California.
http://www.sfgov.org/cityattorney/

The American Foundation for Equal Rights filed the original federal lawsuit this May on behalf of two California same-sex couples: Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo of Burbank.

Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on May 22, 2009, the original suit is led by attorneys Theodore Olson and David Boies, who were one-time political foes in the Bush v. Gore US Supreme Court case that decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. They argue that Proposition 8 “denies the basic liberties and equal protection under the law that are guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The City’s motion comes in the wake of a federal judge’s order to develop significant factual evidence in the case – something, Herrera says, his office has already done as a lead plaintiff in the landmark Marriage Cases, which the state supreme court decided last year, in May 2008.

“San Francisco is a singularly well-prepared co-plaintiff in this case, both in terms of the wealth of evidence it has already developed, and its unique public sector perspective in having to enforce a discriminatory law,” Herrera said. “We are long overdue to put anti-gay discrimination on trial based on the facts. The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office has the experience and expertise to aggressively assist in doing precisely that.”

On May 15, 2008, the landmark California Supreme Court ruling In re Marriage Cases, in which San Francisco was a lead plaintiff, struck down previous state statutes that defined marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman.

As a result, thousands of same-sex couples wed in California/

But that discriminatory marriage exclusion was later enshrined into the California Constitution with the passage of Prop. 8 on Nov. 5, 2008, and the state high court upheld it on May 26, 2009.

end2.jpg
After the state high court upheld Prop. 8, couples like Sharon Papo and Amber Weiss, pictured above when they wed in June 2008, said they were relieved their marriage was not invalidated.

” But this is a hollow victory because there are so many that are not allowed to marry those they love,” Weiss said, while her partner Papo added. “I feel very uncomfortable being in a special class of citizens.”

They’re baaack: The dog-cat-rat in SF

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dog cat rat sml 2.jpg

By Kimberly Chun

Why can’t we all just get along – like a dog, cat, and rat? Stop and gawk alert: I spied the dog-cat-rat combo, all draped happily over each other at Geary and Powell last week. Looks like Telluride, Colo., trainer-owner Gregory Pike is settling, for now, in SF. For more of his peace-‘n’-love-in-the-animal-kingdom story:

dog cat rat sml 1.jpg

Street Threads: Look of the Day

4

SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Hannah, 18th and Valencia

Hannah0709.jpg

WiFi at City Hall — but no electricity

9

By Tim Redmond

Okay, so we finally have WiFi at City Hall. This is something some of us have been talking about for years; at one point, Alex Clemens and I even offered to buy and install the routers ourselves. The first step is a pilot project, currently limited to the Board of Supervisors Chamber, but it’s a start. The wireless has unlimited bandwidth at 54G and sppeds of up to 10 megabits.

Only one problem: Unless you’re a reporter in the press box (which has limited space), there’s no way to plug in your laptop. And if you want to live-blog or post video from a board meeting, you’re going to run out of battery time –meetings often go for many more hours than even the best batteries can handle.

Kimo Crossman has asked about the possibility of using one of the electrical outlets in the room; here’s what he got back, from Nilka Julio, administrative deputy director for the board:

We strive to keep everyone safe, including minimizing tripping hazards for the public and employees.
We want to avoid any disruption for the Board, public and staff who attend the meetings and that includes, no one other than the Supervisors having access to the outlets in the well in the Board Chamber or Committee room or the press having access to the outlets in the press box.

Kimo’s response:

A simple policy change to the more contemporary- “all cords should be taped” usually solves the problem.

The SF Library has found this to be a reasonable compromise.

I encourage you to walk around the main branch and see how many people need to plug in their laptops for usage – also when they run on batteries the screens are dimmed to save power so readability goes down.

Look at all the people who plug in their laptops at SFO Airport

Why not try it? that is what Pilots are for – right? How many people are binging their laptops to BOS meetings anyhow?

I get Julio’s point — you can’t have cords running all over the floor. But there has to be a way to solve this, and an easy one comes to mind. The city can purchase a nice extension cord and a power strip (about $40 for the package at Cole Hardware, and I bet Kimo would split the cost with me if it’s too much for the cash-strapped city budget). Plug the cord into the wall, tape it down (I’ve got a full roll of gaffer’s tape I’ll donate to the cause) and set up an area at the back of the chambers where laptop users can plug in. The back row of seats would probably work fine.

Every political convention I’ve been to in the past five years has set aside an area on the floor for bloggers using this exact technique.

I was unable to reach Julio by phone this afternoon, but I’ll keep trying. A lot of things that government seeks to do are incredibly hard; this one’s incredibly easy.

And once we have that settled, we can work to get the WiFi extended to the Light Courts, where reporters work on Election Night.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

0

SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Jen, 18th Street and Valencia

Jen0709.jpg

Anywhere Jarvis

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Truth-telling is one of the most woefully undervalued yet powerful cudgels in an artist’s arsenal — so I can appreciate Jarvis Cocker’s artful, chuckle-inducing application of force on, for instance, "Caucasian Blues," off his second solo disc, Further Complications (Rough Trade). And who doesn’t love a rock star who can proudly bray a line like, "I heard it said /That you are hung like a white man!"

Letting it all hang out from England, Cocker complicated it further: "I was interested in how blues music has gone from the music of protest, of the oppressed, to the blandest, safest music for white people to listen to in bars. I felt like that was a very strange journey that music has been on." His son broke in, searching for socks — the two were just about to leave for a holiday — but the languid, chatty Cocker, 45, sounded like he was in absolutely no hurry to depart. "And then there’s that thing about the mid-’40s — that’s when people start playing a few blues songs. I think people like blues music as they get older because they know when the changes are coming. As people get older, they want to know what’s coming next.

"I try to fight against that. And in perverse way, maybe the best way to fight against that was to write a blues song, but to try to make it be about something."

I could talk to Cocker on a plane, I could talk to him on a train, and I could talk to him about blues music being "used to sell a hell of a lot of cars" in the passenger seat of an Audi tearing back to SF from Point Reyes, via iPhone and earplugs, while tapping on the trusty laptop. He’s that good, that much of a closet mensch keeping it as real as a man of style and taste — who happens to have sold 10 million or so discs with Pulp — can.

But that was the past — and the present is all about Complications, a hearty helping of purely impure, cock-eyed and wiseacre, excruciatingly literate and glittery-eyed, glam-disco-cabaret pop pleasure. The recording draws deeply from the worldly wise cabaret of true-faux intimacy practiced by the Bowie and Gainsbourg schools of Euro-rock, yet also bears the smart, impudent imprint of its complicated maker. "I want to love you while we both still have flesh on our bones /Before we become extinct," he warbles with a wink to the Thin White Duke on "Leftovers," before turning around and confessing, "I love your body /Because I’ve lost your mind" on "I Never Said I Was Deep." The music of a man who enjoys speaking the unspoken while amusing both himself and the listener.

And this listener had to bring up Michael Jackson, whose Christ-like 1996 BRIT Awards performance Cocker famously crashed, shaking his cheeks impertinently in the King of Pop’s presence. But the man deferred with zero drama ("My phone went crazy the day after," he said mildly. "I suppose in a lot of people’s minds, in this country at least, my name will forever be linked to that. I don’t wish it to be."). He was willing, though, to touch on the connection critics have made between the new album and his break with wife Camille Bidault-Waddington. "It just kind of puzzled me, with some of the reviews in the U.K. at least, that go on about ‘he’s having a midlife crisis.’ I suppose it’s partly because I disclosed the fact that I split up with my wife, and that led people to say, ‘This is his breakup album.’ But I did conceive of this record as entertainment, rather than the primal scream of middle-aged angst."

Who knew someone willing to sing to the skies about how superficial he is, would be so … deep? Truth now. "We have so many distractions and so much crap around, you end up having an in-depth knowledge of who played the Riddler in the Batman TV series, and who played drums on England’s entry into the Eurovision song contest in 1973," Cocker drawled helpfully about "I Never Said I Was Deep."

"All this trivia, all this crap my mind is littered with — but for some reason I kind of take delight in knowing all this crap," he continued. "Maybe at the expense of things that might matter a bit more, or may be more rewarding. So often when I’m worried about something or neurotic about something, that might be the time to write about it, maybe to neutralize it. But by giving it utterance, it robs its power to own you.

"Maybe I will attain depth — who knows? Maybe. I’m working on it."

JARVIS COCKER

Tues/28, 9 p.m., $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.livenation.com

De La Soul is alive

0

CHECK ONE Last night, I played De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy/Warner Bros., 1989) for the first time in years. I couldn’t stop laughing.

It was a surprise, even though I always knew that much of De La Soul’s early appeal rested on its humor. Kelvin “Posdnous” Mercer spelled “soundsop” backwards; Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur loved yogurt. (He’s pictured eating yogurt in the album’s liner notes.) They complained about style biters who dug “Potholes in My Lawn”; and called their loopy, circuitous jams “Plug Tunin’.” There were references to soap, water, and Luden’s cough drops. In the first of several “game show” skits that bookended the album, Trugoy remarked that his favorite film was the 1976 sex-and-torture spectacle Bloodsucking Freaks. Twenty years later, De La Soul’s private language — or, to be accurate, “DA Inner Sound Y’all (D.A.I.S.Y. Age)” — still sounds fresh and crazily absurd.

Mainstream rock critics, suspicious of all that hippity-hop stuff, welcomed 3 Feet with restrained praise at first: Rolling Stone, in one of its historic blunders, only gave the album three stars while acknowledging it as “one of the most original rap albums ever.” The yellow-and-turquoise-daisies album art and MTV hype obscured De La Soul’s sharply intelligent sendups of go-go (“Do As De La Does”) and rap clichés (“Take It Off,” which parodied the then-ubiquitous “Funky Drummer” loop). Today, irony is so entrenched in the Generation X-Y-and-Zero lexicon that we forget how pleasurable it is when it’s done right.

Unfortunately, the good vibes quickly turned sour. Shortly after the album’s release, De La Soul ended an Arsenio Hall appearance with “Ain’t Hip to Be Labeled a Hippie,” a refrain first voiced on “Me, Myself and I.” The 1991 follow-up De La Soul is Dead offered a smashed flowerpot and tales of how the crew nearly got kicked off LL Cool J’s tour for fighting, just to prove that, hey, they ain’t no punks. Goofy odes to weed-smoking jostled uneasily with cautionary tales of child abuse and murder. The playful spirit of hip-hop’s so-called golden age was gone, another casualty in the oncoming storm of street realism and gangster aesthetics. (Mosi Reeves)

CHECK TWO I’d dug “Plug Tunin'” when I chanced across it on a mixtape from somewhere. This flow — this new style of speak — was shrouded in slang, occulted, and backed by a sound collage that seemed conjured from a basement where a rusty Victrola played the memories of an old man nodding off in his Lay-Z-Boy.

My boys hated that song. I loved it, but I didn’t “get it.” Armed with more fashion-sense than any of us knew what to do with, Marlon looked over at me and said, “You really like these Oklahoma muthafuckas?” Yes I did. Brothers was dope. From Strong Island, and dope. Rakim dope.

One Sunday, I was cleaning up my place to 3 Feet High and Rising and ran across a roach in an ashtray. Sprawled out on the couch watching the sun stream through my dirty windows, I “got” De La Soul. Every word was deciphered. It felt as if I’d learned a new language, or remembered an old one.

Things changed after that.

The 20th anniversary of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising is a cause for celebration. Anyone else feeling vindicated?

Kelvin “Posdnous” Mercer, David “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, and Vincent “PA Mase” Mason have chronicled the last 20 years through nine studio albums and countless production credits (Camp Lo, Gorillaz and MF DOOM among them). Prince Paul produced them, and in turn their popularity produced Prince Paul. They introduced a sleeping world to the black gale known as Mos Def.

De La is coming back to San Francisco. Witness genius at work. (D. Scot Miller)

DE LA SOUL

With Kenan Bell

Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $29.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com

Hold the pickle

0

superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Enough with the gourmet street food carts, already. What this joint really needs is some gourmet street cocktail carts. I can barely see it now: fixie-powered blenders, home-brewed Fernet shots, "shit coke" smuggled Cuban rum margaritas with powdered-sugar rims and laminated dollar-bill straws, bacon-wrapped hot dog martinis, 5-HTP power boosts … Anyone for an heirloom finger banana and Prather Ranch taurine daquiri? No?

BONER PARTY


DJ Richie Panic promises "cupcakes, piñatas, condoms, fashion tragedies, and those that understand the power of songs like ‘Surfin’ Bird’ recontextualized for these fucked-up times" at this tastelessly amazing Wednesday banger. Trust.

Wednesdays, 10 p.m., free. Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF. www.beautybar.com

RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO


Mashups — in or out? The scene’s still lively, and this SF360 Film + Club night brings together SFs top mashers Adrian and Mysterious D and London’s Eclectic Method, with a screening of mashup doc RiP: A Remix Manifesto.

Thu/23, 7 p.m., $12–$17. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

NICKODEMUS


The leader of the legendary, decade-old Turntables on the Hudson party just dropped the stellar, border-hopping Sun People (Eighteenth Street) disc, full of interesting, upbeat tribal tracks. "Positivity" is no longer a dirty word.

Fri/24, 10 p.m. –4 a.m., $10. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. www.paradisesf.com

GLITCH MOB


The heartthrobs of glitch-hop, now whittled down to a trio, bring their effed-up laser sound to Mezzanine’s tables, with L.A. future bass pioneer Daddy Kev opening up. Gangsta rap meets Burning Man? You better believe it.

Sat/25, 8:30 p.m., $22.50 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

BAY OF PIGS


The night before the raucous and naughty Up Your Alley fair, get your big gay fetish on with this giant man-meet for charity. Am I scared of the kiki party music by DJs Ted Eiel and Luis Cintron? Yes, sir! But scared equals horny here, hello.

Sat/25, 10 p.m. — 4 a.m., $40–$50.181 Eddy, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org

UNITING SOULS


It’s the 12-year reunion of promoters Ramiro Gutierrez and Mikey Tello’s progressive house and chunky techno outfit — get that post-old-school rave feeling back with good ol’ Doc Martin headlining and a roster of other well-knowns.

Sat/25, 9 p.m.- 4 a.m., $15. Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.unitingsouls.com

SUPER HERO STREET FAIR


To the Batmobile (let’s go)! Wonder Woman Underoos are totally go at this huge, charitable outdoor affair. Heroic tunes by Opulent Temple, Afrolicious, Supersonic Salsa Collective, Pacific Sound, Smoove, and more mutant decks X-Men.

Sat/25, 1 p.m.–midnight, $10 with superhero costume, $20 without. Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets, SF. www.superherosf.com

FOR THE FUTURE


This massive gathering of pretty much every Bay techno and house crew benefits NextAid.org, which helps AIDS-affected African kids. Staple, Green Gorilla, Stompy, Dirty Bird, Om … 15 DJs, 14 hours, perhaps a few oxygen tents.

Sun/26, noon–2 a.m., $10–$15. Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.cafecocomo.com

MISS $1.98 PAGEANT


They don’t come any cheaper than drag queens Anna Conda and Monistat — or do they? We’ll find out when they host this koo-koo pageant where all the contestants must put themselves together (and fall apart) for less than the price of an, er, Estonian bride?

Tue/28, 10 p.m., $10. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.endup.com

Not being boring

0

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?

0

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

Stoned love

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

PROFILE "It’s a new wave, and a new positive light," says Kid Cudi of rap’s vaunted new generation. "It’s a different time now. [Jay-Z] was raised in the ’80s when shit was bad. And we grew up when times were much better."

Kid Cudi explains this while riding in a car from Manhattan to upstate New York. Earlier that morning, he appeared on MTV’s talk show It’s On with Alexa Chung, and now he’s en route to Camp Bisco, a three-day camping and music festival in Mariaville, N.Y. The next day, he’ll return to the road and "the Great Hangover," a national tour alongside Asher Roth, Pacific Division, B.O.B. and other purveyors of rap’s fresh optimism.

"Day ‘N’ Nite," Kid Cudi’s laconic ode to smoked-out surrealism, pipes out of car radios everywhere. "The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night," he sings with the chopped, slightly off-tune delivery of a rapper on holiday as producer Dot Da Genius’ spacey electronic beat blips and bloops. Harmonizing rappers isn’t a recent trend, of course, but by focusing on his weed-induced daydreams, Kid Cudi blazes uncharted territory. He tickles the intellect with "dat new new." Radio stations usually censor the word "stoner," but it’s the only element that fits within pop radio’s Babylon of hormonal sexploitation and sophomoric debauchery.

Leaked to Websites and blogs in the fall of 2007 and officially issued by Fool’s Gold Records in early 2008, "Day ‘N’ Nite" took over a year to float into the Top 5 of Billboard‘s singles chart. It’s the best proof yet that the "leaders of the new school" phenomenon isn’t a blog-concocted fantasy. For the past year, such superlatives have followed a wave of fresh-faced emcees and producers flooding the Web with unauthorized "remixes" of pop hits, freestyles, hastily-recorded demos, and periodic mixtapes to collect it all. Until now, with the recent success of "Day ‘N’ Nite," Drake’s "Best I Ever Had" and Roth’s "I Love College," it sometimes seemed like meaningless ephemera, just content for blogs and Web sites (and even some traditional magazines) that demonstrate their marketing skills to win ad dollars.

At the center of it is Scott Mescudi, a Cleveland-raised, Brooklyn-based 25-year-old who professes crippling shyness. "I’ve always been a loner. I always felt like I needed to be alone sometimes to think and meditate a lot," he says. "I know a lot of people feel the same thing. It’s important to address these issues on record because you don’t hear other rappers speaking on behalf of people like that."

Sorry, but these revelations aren’t a Guardian "exclusive." Cudi has repeated this in numerous interviews and in posts on his frequently updated blog, Kidcudi.com. It’s part reality, part image-building. His societal alienation dominates the 2008 mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. "Embrace the Martian," he harmonizes." "I come in peace, but I need you rocking with me." His quest for fame and fortune alternates as a path of redemption, a triumph over the haters and ex-girlfriends who doubted him. "I just kill a bitch with success," he crows on "Save My Soul (The Cudi Anthem)." "While she at home stressed out eating ice cream, I’m at the Grammy’s, living out a nice dream."

Cudi says he’s a child of urban pop who grew up with a steady diet of mainstream hip hop and R&B. "I was influenced by my older siblings and what they listened to," says Cudi, who is the youngest of four. "I was able to get into R&B because my sister was into New Edition and Al B. Sure. My oldest brother was into the Pharcyde and a Tribe Called Quest. My middle brother was into UGK, No Limit, Snoop Dogg, and NWA."

Cudi admittedly slept on the indie scene of the late ’90s that paved the trail for today’s alternative up-and-comers. Unlike Mos Def, he didn’t press up 12-inches and sell them to record stores on consignment. Instead he hooked up with a former Def Jam executive (current manager Patrick "Plain" Reynolds) and launched his A Kid Named Cudi mixtape across the Web’s biggest music sites.

Currently slated for Sept. 15 release, Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day (Mtown), probably won’t disprove the notion that he’s a suburban rapper who has experienced little struggle. But maybe that’s the point. By not pretending to be a ghetto Horatio Alger, he’s free to expand our view of blackness, and hip-hop in particular. The harmonizing vocals, the introspective rhymes, and the hormonally driven R&B (rap & blues) add up to someone who explores hip-hop as a state of mind rather than an inconvertible, street-anchored style. "My whole thing is expressing yourself in any way possible."

THE GREAT HANGOVER TOUR: ASHER ROTH AND KID CUDI

With B.O.B., 88 Keys

Fri/24, 8 p.m., $27.50

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.ticketmaster.com

Bistro St. Germain

0

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

Appetite: Sweet ribs, buckwheat pancakes, Monterey abalone, bagna cauda dip, and more

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Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

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Wexler’s delight. Photo by Virginia Miller.

Wexler’s Saturday Night Cookouts Commence
I’ve been to Wexler’s a few times now, wrote about it in Appetite last month, finding it a delightul addition to downtown for gourmet Southern food and Carlos Yturria’s excellent cocktails. Saturday they launched Saturday Night Cookout, a weekly $26, 3-course feast meant to be ordered by the entire table. Chef Charlie Kleinman is purported to smoke some sweet applewood-smoked Baby Back Ribs, which you’ll each get ½ rack of (add $8 for a full rack) as your main course, accompanied by house BBQ sauce, BBQ-baked Cranberry Beans, Corn Bread with spicy honey butter and Creamy Cole Slaw. Though the menu changes, this Saturday offered first courses of either Smoked Nante Carrot Soup with lime zest and Fresno Chili (which they use a lot of here) Sour Cream, or a Little Gems Salad with house-made ranch, smoked cippolini and cornbread croutons (picking up on the smoked theme?) Dessert is your choice of berry short cake with creme fraiche biscuit, whipped cream and berries, or Hamada Farm’s heirloom watermelon topped with fleur de sel and house chili powder. Wine pairings are an additional $15 and different wineries and winemakers will be featured. Is your mouth watering yet?
568 Sacramento, SF
415-983-0102
www.wexlerssf.com

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Southern Comfort: Gussie’s Chicken & Waffles debuts in Lower Fillmore
When it comes to chicken and waffles, I miss the classic Roscoe days of my youth, hitting the Sunset and Gower location after shows on the Sunset Strip. Haven’t found a comparable Bay Area joint, though there are some good chicken & waffles here. Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles opens today with an owner who once worked at none other than: Roscoe’s. Sidewalk seating for waffles, whether they be buckwheat, banana pecan, sweet potato, or buttermilk (I need NO other reason to go but these), or add crispy fried chicken, maybe even gravy and onions? Bliss. They rope me in further with a long list of classic Southern sides, including grits, mac ‘n cheese, black-eyed peas, red beans and rice, candied yams, collard greens. Other dishes include Buttermilk Fried Chicken Livers, Louisiana Fried Catfish or Red Snapper, Grandma’s Chicken Salad, home-made Chicken Noodle Soup, or desserts like Southern Red Velvet Cake ("done the right way", per the menu) or Miss Pearl’s Banana Pudding made with ‘nilla wafers. The calories may not be comforting, but the food surely will be.
1521 Eddy Street
415-409-2529

Saison – a once a week dinner at Stable Cafe
A beautiful website reflects the ethos of our latest non-restaurant dinner: Saison Sunday nights in an actual rustic, historic stable behind Stable Cafe (making use of a grand gallery room and orange tree-studded garden patio) for a four-course, $60 dinner from Joshua Skenes (of Chez T.J. in Mountain View) and Mark Bright, co-owner and wine expert of Local Kitchen and Wine Merchant. The passion of these two makes this like dinner in a chef friend’s home: they’ll introduce guests to the kitchen staff and explain the night’s ingredients. Opening night menu yesterday included bagna cauda dip with garden vegetables, Monterey abalone with foie gras, four-story poularde (aka hen – not sure how the “four-story” part plays out), and Santa Rosa plum tart with creme fraiche ice cream. Reserve ahead as opening night was sold out in advance…
2124 Folsom Street
415-828-7990
www.saisonsf.com

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