SF Archives — Page 305 of 427 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Local Artist of the Week: Mike Kuchar

April 14, 2009

LOCAL ARTIST Mike Kuchar

TITLE Myth Men

BIO Mike Kuchar, cinematographer, painter, writer, and brother of George Kuchar, was born in New York City. He began making 8 mm movies in the 1950s, switching over to 16 mm film production in 1960, and continues now, producing short motion pictures in the video and digital formats. He has also done illustrations for various erotic publications, including Manscape, Gay Heartthrobs comics, First Hand, and Meatmen.

SHOW "Dark Americana," through May 9. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, 172 Minna, SF. (415) 777-1366.

WEB www.baerridgway.com

SF Weekly’s deadbeat dad

April 13, 2009

The company that owns SF Weekly is positioning itself to become the greatest deadbeat in the history of the alternative press.

Village Voice Media, the 16-paper chain, owes the Bay Guardian close to $20 million as the result of a year-old jury verdict in a predatory-pricing lawsuit.

After a six-week trial in the spring of 2008, the jury found that the Weekly had intentionally sold ads below cost over a period of years, losing millions in the process, in an effort to put the locally owned competitor out of business.

But while the case is on appeal, VVM hasn’t posted an appeal bond — that is, a guarantee that the defendant will pay up after the appeals are over. That’s highly unusual for a business that isn’t claiming insolvency – and since there’s no bond, the Guardian is free to start collecting the money.

However, the Guardian lawyers have gotten a clear message from VVM’s legal team in a variety of communications over the past months. In a July 18, 2008 legal filings and subsequent disclosures, VVM claims that it owes a consortium of banks, led by the Bank of Montreal, $92 million — and that those banks have a prior claim on all of the company’s assets.

That suggests that the entire chain is worth less than $92 million — something that stretches credibility even in these difficult economic times. In 2007, the company listed assets of $191 million, documents presented during the trial showed.

If the current claim is true, then VVM has lost more than half its value in just two years and is technically underwater, much like the homeowners whose mortgages exceed the value of their property.

The VVM lawyers are also claiming that the company’s assets are set up in such a way that the Guardian will never be able to reach the money.

That leaves the largest alternative newspaper publisher in America in the remarkable position of saying that it’s prepared to duck a legitimate debt, to defy a jury and court order and hide its assets — like a media version of Bernard Madoff.

Asset-protection is a booming area of law, and in some cases, it’s considered entirely appropriate and ethical. Plenty of businesses — and increasingly, surgeons, dentists and others subject to a high risk of lawsuits — set up subsidiary companies, limited liability companies and other corporate structures to protect them from potential creditors.

But creating such a scheme to avoid paying a valid debt, particularly a court judgment, is frowned on both by legal experts and courts.

“It is never ethical to devise or implement a scheme to deprive a legitimate creditor of access to your assets,” Marjorie Jobe, an El Paso, Texas business litigation attorney and an expert on asset protection, told us by email. “It is never ethical not to pay or satisfy a legitimate debt.”

Adds Jay Adkisson, a Newport Beach lawyer and the author of a leading book on asset-protection: “Typically, it is considered unethical to transfer assets to harm a legitimate creditor.”

There are, experts point out, asset-protection programs that are both legal and ethical — and while Jacob Stein, a Los Angeles attorney who lectures regularly on the topic, told us there’s no “bright line,” it typically depends on the timing.

“If a business has a legitimate reason for setting up an asset-protection plan, that’s entirely proper,” Stein told us. “But if it’s done after a judgment is in place, it’s not a good idea.”

Added Jobe: “the asset protection plan needs to be deliberate and not aimed at only one creditor.”

At this point, only VVM executives and their lawyers and bankers know for sure when the asset-protection scheme was devised. The Guardian‘s legal action began in 2002; if the program had been in place prior to that, it would be easier to defend. But if money is moved out of a company to frustrate a creditor, that can run afoul of laws that govern improper transfers.

“If you do something to stiff your creditors, the fraudulent transfer laws come into play,” Adkisson said.

When companies have debt that exceeds their ability to pay, a typical option is bankruptcy – that’s what more than 70 asbestos companies have done in the United States. Bankruptcy isn’t perfect for creditors, and there’s a lot of controversy over the practice, but at least it allows a court to supervise a plan to pay some of the debt. And in a bankruptcy, the shareholders of a corporation are wiped out.

In this case, VVM is placing itself in a strange and potentially perilous situation. The company is saying that it’s protected from any judgments, and thus from any creditors — meaning that any vendors, suppliers, contractors or other creditors that VVM decides to stiff would have no easy legal recourse.

But there’s no bankruptcy and as far as we know, the company is paying its other debts. So VVM is apparently seeking to stiff a single creditor – which in itself is a legal issue — and is doing so while the shareholders, including those who participated in an illegal predatory pricing scheme, pay no penalty at all.

The ultimate problem with these schemes is that, in the long run, they don’t always work. “There are very few ways to do this that are bulletproof,” Stein, who creates asset-protection programs for a living, explained. Instead, the experts tend to agree, asset-protection is mostly about delaying justice — it’s a way to make it expensive and time-consuming for a creditor to get to the money. It’s a legal game, a tactic to frustrate a less-well-funded individual or company by dragging the legal issues out even further.

“It’s my perspective that if a debtor has money, there’s a way to get to it,” Richard Goldstein, a lawyer and expert in collections, told us. And, of course, the Guardian is mounting an aggressive collection effort.

It’s quite a length to go to in an effort to avoid paying a competitor who was harmed by illegal pricing and predatory competition. “In the end,” Goldstein said, “there are only two ways to avoid a judgment. You can have no assets at all, or you can undermine your own business and your own company to make it hard for someone to collect a debt.”

Calls to the Bank of Bank of Montreal, were not returned by press time. However, VVM Executive Editor Mike Lacey posted a long response to our written questions on SF Weeky’s blog.

In between insults, he responded — sort of — to a few points we raised.

He said, for example:

“The case is on appeal. You are not entitled to a penny.”

That’s wrong. By law, if VVM had posted an appeal bond, The Guardian would be unable to collect until the appeals had run their course. Of course, a bond would guarantee that the Guardian ultimately would get the money if the verdict were upheld.

With no bond posted, the Guardian has every legal right to begin collecting the judgment.

Lacey states that “I’m not going to discuss our banking relationship with a miscreant who makes up slander. Perhaps your lawyers can enlighten you. (But if your lawyers have led you into a blind alley, do you really trust their insight?)”

Interesting comment, considering that our lawyers — Ralph Alldredge, Richard Hill and E. Craig Moody — not only won the case, in front of a jury, but won a California Lawyers of the Year award from California Lawyer magazine for the case, which the magazine called one of the most important lawsuits of the year.

Most of the rest of his statement is a rehash of the claims VVM threw out in court — all of which were proven false. The final word on those claims came from a jury of 12 San Franciscans, who agreed unanimously that Lacey’s company had engaged in illegal predatory pricing and awarded the Guardian damages.

PS: The other banks in the consortium led by Bank of Montreal are BNP Paribus, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Rabobank, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and Westlb AG. If we hear from any of them we’ll let you know.

SF Weekly’s deadbeat dad

April 13, 2009

By Tim Redmond

I can’t even send a couple of questions to the executive editor of Village Voice Media without setting off a premature ejaculation.

That’s right — Mike Lacey was attacking my story on how VVM is ducking payment in our lawsuit before I even had the story written. And he even quoted Dire Straits! From 1985! How incredibly hip!

So here’s the deal: VVM owes us $20 million and doesn’t want to pay.

I email Lacey to get a comment – -which is only fair, and which I have always done, even though most of the time he ignores my questions — and he responds with this.

The guy’s got a thing for “brain vomit,” which seems to be his standard comment on anything he doesn’t like.

I particularly like the comment about “class bitterness,” which works so well these days. And of course, he ducks the point: VVM owes us a bunch of money. If Lacey wanted to wait until after the appeal, he could have posted an appeal bond — but if he did that, then we’d be guaranteed payment if we won the appeal.

This way, even if we win (which I think we will) he can try to slime away without paying.

Hell of a guy. Hell of a company.

Oh, and by the way: His description of the trial testimony isn’t terribly accurate either. You can read the whole history here.

On the point about the building, Bruce and the rent, I have to weigh in since Lacey and his cohorts have been trying to retail this crap for years. In the late 1980s, when office space in the Mission was dirt cheap, the Guardian signed a ten-year lease on a building on Hampshire St. When the lease ran out, the market for office space in the Mission (and all over town) had changed, dramatically. Our rent was going to double, or more; and every place we looked at offered about the same (high) rates.

We figured out that we could buy a building, lease out the space we didn’t need, and pay LESS every month than what we would have had to pay to rent, either at our old place or anywhere else. So yes: The rent the Guardian was paying went up after we bought the building. It could have gone up even more, and the cash could have gone to a commercial landlord. Instead, we got a great deal on a building, gained some equity, and have kept our costs LOWER ever since.

Bruce and Jean don’t make any money from the Guardian on the building. Anyone who thinks they would try to squeeze their own newspaper for their personal gain is either nuts, doesn’t know them, or is just trying to be an asshole.

I suspect Mr. Lacey fits in category three.

Cruising Craigslist: Muses, models, and art sluts

April 10, 2009

Each week, Justin Juul combs the SF Craigslist Personals and Missed Connections for true gems that prove there’s enough love for everyone. View his last installment here

“Fancy a threesome?”

It’s weird when you have one of those crazy jobs that lets you work from your laptop because, after a while, you really do begin to lose touch with whatever lies beyond the cafes, bars, and dining patios in your comfy little art hood. And I’m not talking about that weird alien feeling you get when you go back to Iowa or Michigan for the holidays. No. All it really takes to get a sense for how uh, queer, you’ve become is to take a little trip to Union Square. I mean, the ads for soda pop and fast food are enough to make you puke right off the bat. But dude, what’s up with the luxury industry? Fancy-pants Romanian guys with five-o-clock shadows hawking Rolexes, scrawny chicks with waxy skin pumping hair-care products and denim, David Beckham, Jessica Simpson?! Are these people really supposed to represent the pinnacle of beauty and success? Are they supposed embody what we want to fuck and/or be? Seriously…can you imagine how bad it would suck to hang out with one of these idiots or –even worse– one of their painfully normal admirers?

Obviously, you can. That’s why you holed up in the Mission (or the Lower Haight, or Oakland, or wherever) and that’s why you never go downtown until you have to get your MacBook serviced or buy some crack. It’s also why The Bay Area stands out –parts of it at least—as a hothouse for new beauty ideals. There’s the whips-n-chains bondage set in SoMa, the hula-hooping fire-eaters in The Haight, the buff dudes with Canadian tuxedos in The Castro, and of course, the coveted “super sexy artist type” you find in galleries, museums, and dive bars throughout the city. We all want one of those, right? The problem is that there simply aren’t enough of them to go around. And then of course there’s the flipside: artsy types actually have a hard time finding love themselves because everyone’s too intimidated to ask for a date. No worries. That’s what Craigslist is for.

Bhutan Exhibit – Asian Art Museum (from Tuesday) – w4m (downtown / civic / van ness)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-04-01, 8:41PM PDT
Hello. This is a total shot in the dark, but it’s worth a try. We were both looking through the Bhutan exhibit by ourselves, but we kept crossing paths. I said something when we were looking at the Phurbas like “these are really amazing!” We kept looking at each other but didn’t talk besides that. You have long, dark beautiful hair, and quiet, soft brown eyes. I had my hair pulled back and was wearing a brown top and jeans. I didn’t see you again after I sat down for a few. I’m curious about you.

Hot girl with long brown hair and a great ass – m4w – 23 (New Montgomery)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-04-07, 1:16AM PDT
You came out of Academy of Art and used someone’s lighter and walked off. I had the pleasure of walking behind you for the rest of the block. Then I turned. [I just want you to know] this handsome black guy thinks you’re hot!

You were wearing a blue top and blue jeans. I think you might’ve had sunglasses too.

Help a bored artist – m4w – 24 (anywhere)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-03-25, 10:34PM PDT
I am a design student that loves to draw. I’m looking to draw something a little more interesting than landscapes, buildings, or the occasional live model we get in studio that is never that pleasing to the eye. So here’s what I’m asking. I’m looking for some lovely ladies to send me some more, lets say, erotic pictures I could sketch from; nude, partial nude, costume, whatever, make it interesting. I’d be happy to send you my drawings when I’m done. Help a bored artist.

The Sisters explode!

April 10, 2009

By Cheryl Eddy

It’s Easter time, which means drugstore aisles are bloomin’ with Peeps, bonnets are being bedecked, and aspiring Hunky Jesuses (the Biblical kind, not the Madonna-datin’ kind) are frantically doing ab exercises prior to the annual Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence celebration in Dolores Park. This year, the annual bash is extra-special, marking 30 years of good works (and fabulous accessorizing) by the organization, which has gone global — the theme is "Nun World Order" and some 150 national and international Sisters will be in attendance. Can’t get enough Sisterhood? Make sure you check out "Under a Full Moon: 30 Years of Perpetual Indulgence," on view at the San Francisco Library and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Featured are archival materials chronicling the group’s three decades of colorfully-dressed, white-faced, charity-supporting, queer- and sex-positive, Pope-exorcising, boundary-pushing history.

UNDER A FULL MOON: 30 YEARS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE Opening party Fri/10, 8 p.m., free. Installation on view Tues–Wed and Fri–Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Thurs, noon–8 p.m., $5–$7. Through June 28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Also: through May 7. Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Mon and Sat, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Tues–Thurs, 9 a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri, noon–6 p.m., free. San Francisco Main Library, third floor, James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4499.

NUN WORLD ORDER: THE SISTERS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. Sun/12, 11 a.m., free
Dolores Park, 19th St at Dolores, SF (after-party, 6 p.m., free, Noe at Market, SF); www.thesisters.org

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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April 10, 2009
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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Jenny, 20th Street Station

Tell us about your look: “I’m a big thrift store person. I’ll never pay full price.”

SF to allow Big Wheel event after all

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April 9, 2009
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By Steven T. Jones

Under pressure from the community, the Mayor’s Office, and Sup. Sophie Maxwell, organizers of this Sunday’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel event say the San Francisco Police Department has reversed its position and will allow the event to happen as long as organizers promise to apply for permits next year, which they have agreed to do.

“This could be the start of something really cool,” said Tom Price, who has been lobbying City Hall on behalf of the event, whose organizers have reached out to neighbors, rented porta-potties, stressed responsibility, and promised a vigorous cleanup effort.

As we reported yesterday, the SFPD had taken a hard line on this increasingly popular annual event. Capt. John Loftus told organizers, “We will barricade the street and you won’t be able to go two feet anywhere on that block. If downtown wants to come up with another solution, fine.”

But downtown apparently intervened. Earlier in the day, I spoke with top mayoral adviser Mike Farrah, who had been working with Price to reach a resolution. “These events are important to San Francisco. I think they are vital to the foundation of our economy, not to mention, they’re fun,” Farrah, who has become something of a City Hall liaison to the Burning Man community, told me. “And I think there’s been an effort to try to be responsible.”

“Blossom”: fashion, beats, and eats

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April 9, 2009
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By Molly Freedenberg

Too classy for BRC? Blanket by Tamo Design.

Faux fur’s not just for Burning Man anymore. Not when it’s in the capable hands of Tamo, who not only uses her extremities to helm her namesake clothing company but also to DJ with the Angels of Bass. The blonde beauty’s hoodies, jackets, and blankets are soft, beautiful, well-constructed, and as appropriate for dinner in Potrero as they are for dancing on the playa (if not more so). Plus, her line of baby items is so damn adorable, it almost makes me want to have a little tike just to outfit him in fuzzy, eco-friendly goodness. (I said almost.) But perhaps what’s best about Tamo is her constant drive to support the independent fashion community through collaborative events like this weekend’s “Bloom” at The Triple Crown. Along with S&G Clothing, Tamo will host a full afternoon of beats, eats, and kickass clothes from 15 designers, including Silver Lucy Design, Steam Trunk, Lemon Twist, and Miss Velvet Cream.

Blossom: Come out and Bloom
April 11, 2-8pm
free, all ages
The Triple Crown
1760 Market, SF
Click here for event link

Species twists at Move(men)t: A Men’s Dance Festival

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April 9, 2009
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By Rita Felciano

In the history of dance, the male of the species occupies a curious position. In some cultures only men were allowed to dance in public. In Western aristocratic education, dancing was a requirement for a future courtier. But until fairly recently, ballet choreographers consistently undervalued male dancers, and it was women who pioneered modern dance. In the 1930s, however, Ted Shawn’s all-male ensemble did much to break down the prejudice against men in dance. In the Bay Area, every decade or so brings about a refocusing on masculine performances. There is an energy — both virile and tender — to these presentations that, in the past at least, made them very special experiences for men and women alike. Some of that, unquestionably, had to do with the testosterone that just bounced off the walls. Even so, to see so many guys cooperating with each other is still not something we are accustomed to seeing on stage. The latest incarnation of all-male dancing, "Move(men)t: A Men’s Dance Festival," now in its second year, includes Mark Foehringer, who has long choreographed for men; Folawole Oyinlola, of Nigerian descent, who excels in improvisation; Kegan Marling, perhaps best known in his partnership with Jane Schnorrenberg; and Joe Landini’s new San Francisco Moving Men. Ten choreographers in all will show their chops in the tiny but hopping Garage performance space.

MOVE(MEN)T: A MEN’S DANCE FESTIVAL Fri/10–Sat/11, 8 p.m., $10-$20. The Garage, 975 Howard, SF. (415) 885-4006. www.brownpapertickets.com

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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April 9, 2009
4

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

Today’s Look: Faith, Civic Center

Tell us about your look: “I’m a thrift store connoisseur.”

Gui Boratto comes back to the Bay

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April 8, 2009
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Gui Boratto‘s Chromophobia (Kompakt, 2007) was the sound of minimal techno going pop, its array of sonic colors gorgeous enough to cure the titular malady. With the new Take My Breath Away (Kompakt), Boratto ventures further into pop’s immediacy and epic aspects. Though the eco-pun cover image might be the worst art for any Kompakt release, I love more than enough of it, especially the portentously named "Opus 217" and his latest collaboration with wife Luciana Villanova, "No Turning Back." The Brazilian Boratto has SF ties, another reason why a visit by him should be a party to remember.

Fri/10, 10 p.m.-4 a.m., $13

Paradise Lounge

1501 Folsom, SF

(415) 252-5017

www.paradisesf.com

Hot sex events this week: April 8-14

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April 8, 2009
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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Let Mistress Tatiana teach you the ropes at her “Spanking and Paddling” class.

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>> RADAR reading series featuring Lorelei Lee
Michelle Tea’s reading series featuring emerging, underground writers and artists gets even hotter this week when Renee Hahn, Patrick O’Neil, and Bucky Sinister are joined by porn performer Lorelei Lee.

Wed/8, 6pm
Free
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.myspace.com/radarreading

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>> Taoist Energetic Healing & BDSM
Expand your knowledge and expertise in sensation, energy, and Eros with information, education, dialogue, and demonstration by Tahil Gesyuk.

Fri/10, 7pm
$20 sliding scale
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
sexandculture.org

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>> Spanking and Paddling
Learn one of the most basic and versatile skills in the S&M repertoire with Mistress Tatiana Belodyne (of Fantasy Makers Academy), including different positions, pacing, safety tips, and demonstrations with models.

Mon/13, 8-10pm
$25
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo, Berk.
(510) 841-8987
www.goodvibes.com

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>> Ink & Metal
Hot men with tattoos and piercings get special discounts at this weekly bar night.

Tue/14, open-close
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

Sonic Reducer Overage: Brit, Devendra, Japanther, Fleet Foxes, and more

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April 8, 2009
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Brooklyn cheer: Japanther’s “Challenge.”

“Rising above the smoke and debris” – yes, we can. More to do, see, and hear…

Undebateable: Eef Barzelay’s “I Love the Unknown.”

Clem Snide
Hungry Bird (429), the latest release by the Boston-born band, almost succeeded in killing Clem Snide. Yet Eef Barzelay carries forth – sweet Snide ‘tude in hand – alongside Brendan Fitzpatrick and Ben Martin. With the Heligoats and Pepi Ginsberg. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $10-$12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Love X Nowhere
Immaculate shoegaze and anthemic pop stream from the SF fivesome’s new self-released High Score Blackout. With Headlights and the Love Language. Thurs/9, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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April 8, 2009
0

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

Today’s Look: Elizabeth, City Hall

Tell us about your look: “I’ll wear anything as long as it’s comfortable.”

Dance cocktail

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April 8, 2009
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If you asked a member of the dozens of ethnic dance groups that make their home in the Bay Area (103 of them auditioned in January for the yearly San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival) why they are willing to rehearse many hours and perform for little or no money, they’ll tell you that they like the dances. But of almost equal importance is the sense of community these ensembles create. No doubt nostalgia for a better and simpler world may be factors as well. Even so, it’s the sense of being with people who share similar values that creates powerful bonds.

As in any other tight-knit community, however, in order to thrive you need to fit in. In ethnic, or as they are called these days, world dances, there is often not much room for individual expression. What little there is sprouts from within prescribed parameters. Yet some dancers reach beyond these boundaries. Perhaps, as does Wan-Chao Chang, they love Indonesian and modern dance. Ramon Ramos Alayo is the Bay Area’s best Afro-Cuban dancer, but he takes his choreography well beyond the traditional modes. What if you want to combine flamenco and tango? "There is no place for us — we don’t fit into established categories," says Holly Shaw, who is trained in flamenco as well as Middle Eastern, Romani, Balinese, and a slew of other styles. "So we perform in coffee houses and private homes."

To give space to these "homeless" artists, Shaw two years ago started "Eve’s Elixir," which highlights contemporary choreographers of world dance. They performed at the open-minded CounterPULSE in the Mission District. For its second incarnation, a grant from the Fort Mason Foundation’s In Performance series enables the young enterprise to move into the dance-friendly Cowell Theater.

"EVE’S ELIXIR: EYES OF EVE"

Fri/10-Sat/11, 7 p.m., $25

Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF

(415) 345-7575, www.eveselixir.net

Morality

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April 8, 2009
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le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

Morality

CHEAP EATS Intoxicated by how pretty flowers are in the dark and wowed by the sheer size of the lit TVs in all my neighbors’ windows, I accidentally hit my head on a tree. Hard. The rest of my life is going to be a dream.

Here’s the part where Earl Butter sends a messenger pigeon saying he’s sick, but not sick, and will be sitting home and crying unless anyone comes over and drinks and eats vegetables with him.

Well, I have no particular plans for the evening. I was planning to stay home and cry, myself, so I tell Earl Butter’s bird to tell Earl Butter I’ll be right over. If I don’t hit my head too hard on too many trees, walking to BART.

Which I didn’t. One tree. Hard, but not hard enough to make my life much more than dreamy. What I failed to account for was all the distractions that would bonk and bewitch me on the other side of the pond, walking from BART to Earl Butter’s. Namely, and in no particular order: Pizzeria, the Mission’s first (that I know of) stone oven pizza, good ol’ Good Vibrations, and of course New Yorker’s buffalo wings because I needed some lube.

Butter and hot sauce, babe. That’s what I’m made of.

Buffalo wings remind me of Earl Butter, who got made in upstate New York and introduced me to buffalo wings and bowling as a way of life.

But a friend of a friend of mine died yesterday of either cancer or knife wounds. She had cancer and then got mugged and stabbed, see, and then died in her sleep after she got out of the hospital, hard to say why. So my friend wrote to me, even though I never knew her friend, and it was like an obituary.

"She loved camp comedians, naughty jokes, show tunes, Ireland, bubble baths, and take-out curry," my friend said of her friend. She said she wished she had a blog because she finds herself wanting to talk and write about her deceased pal. A lot.

And a light went on over my head. It’s rare that you get to do something concrete for a friend in need. But the thing is that I kind of do have a blog, or something very much like one. So why don’t I make myself useful for a change and write about my friend’s friend for her, a lot, in this restaurant review?

Her name was Mandy. She died at home, at night, in bed with her long-distance girlfriend Kristen, who had come that day from Kansas City to be with her, to help her get well.

Mandy was a psych nurse and sometimes kept baby hedgehogs under a heat lamp in her guest room, according to her friend (my friend), "rising during the night to bottle feed them." She didn’t have any brothers or sisters, yet had eight godchildren. Think about it. So whoever stabbed her stabbed someone who didn’t have any brothers or sisters, yet had eight godchildren and nursed both baby hedgehogs and human head cases.

Plus there’s the take-out curry factor. Nothing pokes the unfunny bone like an extinguished hankering for curry. Or the smell of paint. I could go on and on, on my friend’s behalf.

But I know a lot of my readers are muggers, so I’ll be succinct: If you take anything at all from this important restaurant review, take this: stop stabbing people, you fucking morons. We’re all dying anyway, of breast cancer and heart disease, and we don’t need knife wounds on top of it all, so fuck the fuck off. If you lack the skill or finesse to eke a living or pick a pocket cleanly, turn the knife inward and cut your gutless bowels out.

For those of you who aren’t muggers, your moral is quite different. When your friend sends a messenger pigeon, and sometimes even if they don’t, go to them. Bring lube, and/or vodka. Bring buffalo wings. Bring pizza.

Yes, Pizzeria has a dumb name, and a posh (and therefore empty) interior. But its pizza has that nice, thin, stone oven crispness. Which I so so so so love.

My friend’s friend Mandy did not like pizza.

PIZZERIA

Tue.–Thu., 3 p.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., noon–11:30 p.m.; Sun., noon–10 p.m.

659 Valencia, SF

(415) 701-7492

Beer & wine

AE/D/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Law vs. Justice

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April 8, 2009
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steve@sfbg.com

City Attorney Dennis Herrera relishes his reputation as a crusading reformer. For several years, his official Web site prominently displayed the phrase "Activism defines SF City Attorney’s Office," linked to a laudatory 2004 Los Angeles Times article with that headline.

"Doing what we can do to ensure civil rights for everyone is not something we are going to back away from," was the quote from that piece Herrera chose to highlight on his homepage, referring to his work on marriage equality. The article also praises the City Attorney’s Office practice of proactively filing cases to protect public health and the environment and to expand consumer rights.

But more recently the City Attorney’s Office also has aggressively pushed cases that create troubling precedents for civil rights and prevent law enforcement officials from being held accountable for false arrests, abusive behavior, mistreatment of detainees, and even allegedly framing innocent people for murder.

Three particular cases, which have been the subject of past stories by the Guardian, reveal unacceptable official conduct — yet each was aggressively challenged using the virtually unlimited resources of the City Attorney’s Office. In fact, Herrera’s team pushed these cases to the point of potentially establishing troubling precedents that could apply throughout the country.

Attorney Peter Keane, who teaches ethics at Golden Gate University School of Law and used to evaluate police conduct cases as a member of the Police Commission, said city attorneys sometimes find themselves trapped between their dual obligations to promote the public good and vigorously defend their clients. "Therein lies the problem, and it’s a problem that can’t be easily reconciled," he told us.

"A lawyer’s obligation is to give total loyalty to a client within ethical limits," Keane said, noting his respect for Herrera. But in police misconduct cases, Keane said, "it is desirable public policy to have police engage in ethical conduct and not do anything to abuse citizens."

RODEL RODIS VS. SF

Attorney Rodel Rodis is a prominent Filipino activist, newspaper columnist, and until this year was a longtime elected member of the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees. So it never made much sense that he would knowingly try to pass a counterfeit $100 bill at his neighborhood Walgreens in 2003 (see "Real money, false arrest," 7/9/08).

Nonetheless, the store clerk was unfamiliar with an older bill Rodis used to pay for a purchase and called police, who immediately placed Rodis in handcuffs. When police couldn’t conclusively determine whether the bill was real, they dragged Rodis out of the store, placed him in a patrol car out front, and took him in for questioning while they tested the bill.

There was no need to arrest him, as subsequent San Francisco Police Department orders clarified. They could simply have taken his name and the bill and allowed him to retrieve it later. After all, mere possession of a counterfeit bill doesn’t indicate criminal intent.

The police finally determined that the bill was real and released Rodis from his handcuffs and police custody. Rodis was outraged by his treatment, and sued. He insisted that the case was about the civil rights principle and not the money — indeed, he says he offered to settle with the city for a mere $15,000.

"I told my lawyer that I didn’t want a precedent that would hurt civil liberties," Rodis told the Guardian.

To his surprise, however, the City Attorney’s Office aggressively appealed rulings in Rodis’ favor all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that the officers enjoyed immunity and ordered reconsideration by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last month the Ninth Circuit ruled in the city’s favor, thus expanding protections for police officers.

Rodis can now name cases from around the country, all with egregious police misconduct, that cite his case as support. "Even with that kind of abuse, people can no longer sue because of my case," Rodis said.

Herrera disputes the precedent-setting nature of the case, saying the facts of each case are different. "We’re defending them in accordance with the state of the law as it stands today," Herrera said, arguing that officers in the Rodis case acted reasonably, even if they got it wrong. "We look at each case on its facts and its merits."

Herrera said he agrees with Keane that it’s often a difficult balancing act to promote policies that protect San Francisco citizens from abuse while defending city officials accused of that abuse. But ultimately, he said, "I have the ethical obligation to defend the interests of the City and County of San Francisco."

While it may be easy to criticize those who bring lawsuits seeking public funds, Rodis says it is these very cases that set the limits on police behavior and accountability. As he observed, "The difference between police in a democracy and a dictatorship is not the potential for abuse, but the liability for abuse."

MARY BULL VS. SF

In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were months of antiwar protests resulting in thousands of arrests in San Francisco. Activist Mary Bull was arrested in November 2002. Bull said she was forcibly and illegally strip-searched and left naked in a cold cell for 14 hours.

San Francisco’s policy at the time — which called for strip-searching almost all inmates — was already a shaky legal ground. Years earlier Bull had won a sizable settlement against Sacramento County because she and other activists were strip-searched after being arrested for protesting a logging plan, a legal outcome that led most California counties to change their strip-search policies.

So Bull filed a lawsuit against San Francisco in 2003. The San Francisco Chronicle ran front page story in September 2003 highlighting Bull’s ordeal and another case of a woman arrested on minor charges being strip-searched, prompting all the major mayoral candidates at the time, including Gavin Newsom, to call for reform. Sheriff Michael Hennessey later modified jail policies on strip searches, conforming it to existing case law.

But the City Attorney’s Office has continued to fight Bull’s case, appealing two rulings in favor of Bull, pushing the case to the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (from which a ruling is expected soon) and threatening to appeal an unfavorable ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It’s pretty outrageous and humiliating to strip-search someone brought to jail on minor charges," Bull’s attorney Mark Merin told the Guardian. "If they win, they establish a bad precedent."

Herrera said the case is about inmate safety and that his office must follow case law and pursue reasonable settlements (neither side would say how much money Bull is seeking). "We do it well and we do it with a sense of justice at its core," Herrera said.

Yet Merin said the city’s actions fly in the face of established law: "In the Bull case, he’s trying to get 25 years of precedent reversed."

Merlin noted that "the problem is not with the city, it’s with the U.S. Supreme Court." In other words, by pushing cases to a right-leaning court, the city could be driving legal precedents that directly contradict its own stated policies.

"It would be nice if this city was in a different league, but they look at it like any defense firm: take it to the mat, yield no quarter" he added.

JOHN TENNISON VS. SF

For the Guardian, and for all the attorneys involved, this was a once-in-a-lifetime case. In 1990, Hunters Point residents John J. Tennison and Antoine Goff were convicted of the 1989 gang-related murder of Roderick Shannon and later given sentences of 25 years to life.

Jeff Adachi, Tennison’s attorney and now the city’s elected public defender, was shocked by a verdict that was based almost solely on the constantly mutating testimony of two young girls, ages 12 and 14, who were joyriding in a stolen car, so he continued to gather evidence.

Eventually Adachi discovered that police inspectors Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendrix and prosecutor George Butterworth had withheld key exculpatory evidence in the case, including damaging polygraph tests on the key witnesses, other eyewitness testimony fingering a man named Lovinsky Ricard, and even a taped confession in which Ricard admitted to the murder.

After writer A.C. Thompson and the Guardian published a cover story on the case (see "The Hardest Time," 1/17/01), it was picked up pro bono by attorneys Ethan Balogh and Elliot Peters of the high-powered firm Keker & Van Nest LLP, who unearthed even more evidence that the men had been framed, including a sworn statement by one of the two key prosecution witnesses recanting her testimony and saying city officials had coached her to lie.

In 2003, federal Judge Claudia Wilken agreed to hear Tennison’s case and ruled that the prosecution team had illegally buried five different pieces of exculpatory evidence, any one of which "could have caused the result of Tennison’s new trial motion and of his trial to have been different."

She ordered Tennison immediately freed after 13 years in prison. The district attorney at the time, Terrence Hallinan, not only agreed and decided not to retry Tennison, he proactively sought the release of Goff, who was freed a few weeks later.

"The only case you can make is that this was an intentional suppression of evidence that led to the conviction of any innocent man," Adachi told the Guardian in 2003 (see "Innocent!" 9/3/03). In the article, Hallinan said "I don’t just believe this was an improper conviction; I believe Tennison is an innocent man."

But the pair has had a harder time winning compensation for their lost years. State judges denied their request, relying on the initial jury verdict, so they sued San Francisco in 2003, alleging that the prosecution team intentionally deprived them of their basic rights.

"What happened to these guys was a horrible miscarriage of justice," Balogh said.

The City Attorney’s Office has aggressively fought the case, arguing that the prosecution team enjoys blanket immunity. The courts haven’t agreed with that contention at any level, although the city spent the last two years taking it all the way to the Ninth Circuit, which largely exonerated Butterworth. The case is now set for a full trial in federal district court in September.

"They are unwilling to admit they made a mistake," Elliot said. "They are doing everything not to face up to their responsibility to these two guys."

The lawyers said both Herrera and District Attorney Kamala Harris had an obligation to look into what happened in these cases, to punish official wrongdoing, and to try to bring the actual murderer to justice. Instead the case is still open, and the man who confessed has never been seriously pursued.

Harris spokesperson Erica Derryck said the Ninth Circuit and an internal investigation cleared Butterworth "of any wrongdoing," although she didn’t address Guardian questions about what Harris has done to close the case or address its shortcomings.

In fact, the lawyers say they’re surprised that the city is so aggressively pushing a case that could ultimately go very badly for the city, particularly given the mounting lawyers’ fees.

"When we filed the case, we never thought we’d be here today," Balogh said. "They had a bad hand and instead of folding it and trying to pursue justice in this case, they doubled down."

Herrera doesn’t see it that way, instead making a lawyerly argument about what the prosecution team knew and when. "Our belief is there is no evidence that Sanders and Hendrix had information early on that they suppressed," Herrera said. "Based on the facts, I don’t think they, Hendrix and Sanders, violated the law. But that’s a totally different issue than whether they were innocent…. It’s not our role to retry the innocence or guilt of Tennison and Goff."

Herrera said he’s limited by the specific facts of this case and the relevant laws. "If the Board of Supervisors wants to do a grant of public funds [to Tennison and Goff], someone can legislate that. But that’s not my job," Herrera said.

As far as settling the case in the interests of justice or avoiding a precedent that protects police even when they frame someone for murder, he also said it isn’t that simple. Keane also agreed it wouldn’t be ethical to settle a case to avoid bad precedents.

"I’m always willing to talk settlement," Herrera said. "This is not an office that makes rash decisions about the cases it chooses to try or settle."

Deputy City Attorney Scott Wiener is the point person on most police misconduct cases, including the Rodis and Tennison cases, as well as another current case in which Officer Sean Frost hit a subdued suspect, Chen Ming, in the face with his baton, breaking his jaw and knocking out 10 teeth.

Wiener, who is running for the District 8 seat on the Board of Supervisors and is expected to get backing from the San Francisco Police Officers Association, recently told the Chronicle that Frost "did not do anything wrong." Contacted by the Guardian, Wiener stood by that statement and his record on police cases, but said, "I consider myself to be fair-minded." He also denied having a strong pro-police bias.

Yet those involved with these cases say they go far beyond the zeal of one deputy or the need to safeguard the public treasury. They say that a city like San Francisco needs to put its resources into the service of its values.

"It raises the broader question of what is the city attorney’s mandate? Is it fiscal limitation regardless of the truth?" Balogh said. "Dennis Herrera has had a very aggressive policy in defending police officers."

Herrera says he is proud of his record as the city attorney, and before that, as president of the Police Commission. "I believe in police accountability and have made that a big part of what I’ve done throughout my career."

Tropisueno

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April 8, 2009
0

paulr@sfbg.com

Tropisueño’s resonant name hints at dreams, but you won’t be doing any dreaming there. In the evenings the restaurant — it’s a kind of urban cantina — catches fire like a piece of newsprint and blazes up into a fabulous, if noisy, party. (For purposes of this piece, I assume the existence of a world in which there is still such a thing as newsprint.) If the need to lose consciousness somehow overtakes you, getting blitzed isn’t a problem, since, in line with the current trend, the bar is seemingly omnipresent, and the restaurant offers various deals on cocktails. But even if you end up having to pay for your food or libations or both, you won’t hear the sound of the bank breaking; Tropisueño stresses value and offers it, especially considering the posh location.

That location is on Yerba Buena Lane, a brief pedestrian promenade that runs between Market and Mission streets and grazes the new Jewish Museum, just north of Fourth Street. In the past few years, this area has become as chockablock with shoppers as Union Square. They dart from Nordstrom to Bloomingdale’s to Hickey Freeman to St. John, and while no one’s buying much of anything these days, darters and window-shoppers do work up appetites. Add the museum-goers and the Yerba Buena Center-goers, and you have quite a stew. Stir briefly and serve.

On the spectrum of urban cantina styles, Tropisueño falls somewhere in the neighborhood of Chevy’s and Tres Agaves. It isn’t as vast as the latter, but it does claim a regional Mexican identity (as a Jaliscan beachside seafood joint, hence the "tropi-"). It’s also replete with rustic wood finishings, including those wonderful chairs that are Mexico’s answer to the Mediterranean’s ubiquitous taverna chairs. When you are inside, a certain illusion of Mexicanness does pleasantly flicker, like a tabletop candle. But if you look outside, through plate-glass windows framed with brushed stainless steel, you are back in the cold, hard city. A similar jarringness haunts Roy’s, just a few blocks up Mission: If you hold your gaze inside, you sense a faintly but agreeably Hawaiian aura, but if you look out, you see Muni trolleys plowing through seas of windswept trash.

Tropisueño also borrows from the grander Maya by functioning as a kind of giant street cart during lunchtime. On the menu: tacos, burritos, et cetera. Of course, some of these foodstuffs are of enduring appeal and do carry over into the dinner hour, when the restaurant assumes its restauranty guise, but the offerings broaden considerably beyond what even the most ambitious street-cart cook might attempt.

First, though, you have to take care not to stuff yourself with the bottomless basket of fresh, warm tortilla chips that reach your table soon after you do. Whatever quibbles one might have about Chevy’s, there’s no denying the excellence of their chips, and Tropisueño’s are every bit as good. You can dunk them in either of two salsas, one of avocado and tomatillo, the other tomato-based with plenty of smoke and spice.

Given the wealth of fried corn meal in our basket, I was secretly dismayed by the pair of tortilla disks that accompanied the ceviche de pescado ($7). The intention, apparently, is that you will break off chunks of the disks and spoon the ceviche onto them — a kind of DIY Mexican crostini. But we ended up dispensing with the disks (which were less delicate than their chip cousins in the basket) and eating the ceviche with spoons. The ceviche itself was wonderful: tiny boulders of plump, white fish (I would have guessed cod, but it was tilapia), puckered by plenty of lime juice and intricately punctuated with cucumber and onion dice, minced cilantro, and dabs of avocado.

We could have performed the same sort of triage, or diage, on the empanadas ($8), a merry little band of pastry turnovers stuffed with mushrooms and cheese, but this would have involved actual deconstruction — a kind of meatless butchery — rather than simply a refusal to construct. Plus, the pastry was outstanding and addictive.

The main courses range widely, from a vegetarian pozole — the traditional hominy stew, not traditionally vegetarian — to albóndigas, a.k.a. meatballs. But the house favorites are all from the sea and include the spirited camarones tropisueños ($16), good-sized, chubby, wild-caught shrimp sautéed and sauced with a purée of chile de arbol (a fairly mild red variety), lime juice, cilantro, and a little Mexican crema for softening. Throw in a sizable berm of Spanish rice, a pot of black beans, and a little steamer of fresh flour tortillas and you’re looking at …. well, fullness.

People who love to gorge themselves on chips and salsa while retaining a sense that dinner itself remains to be eaten will be relieved to learn that the menu also offers "old-school" combo plates of trusty favorites, such as chicken tacos ($9.95 for two), stuffed with shredded green cabbage, queso blanco, and cubes of boneless grilled breast. The tacos are quite tasty, with or without an extra dollop of salsa smuggled in from the chips basket. They’re double-wrapped in corn tortillas, which are soft though not as soft as their flour cousins, and this doubling up makes them both starchier and more rubbery. The ideal tortilla is soft enough to form a pliant pouch around its contents. These are not that soft, so ten cuidado or you will be the author of a mess.

Tropisueño

Dinner: nightly, 5:30–10:30 p.m.

Lunch: daily, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

75 Yerba Buena Lane, SF

(415) 243-0299

www.tropisueno.com

Full bar

AE/CB/DC/DS/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

The new razzle dazzle

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April 8, 2009
0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

More on SFBG:

>>Q&A with artist Nick Cave

>>A guide to artists with famous namesakes

Where is the center of the Earth? According to artist Nick Cave, it lies somewhere between a night out at Taboo with Leigh Bowery and a Brazilian Carnaval parade. It can be found in Liberace’s glittering stage getups and Yoruba ceremonial hunting dress. Other possible coordinates include Yinka Shonibare’s Africanized rococo costumes, Cockney pearly suits, the hautest of haute couture, and the fun fur tribes of Black Rock City.

Thankfully, for us, Cave’s crocheted, sequined, bedazzled, embroidered, dyed, and encrusted vision of the heart of the world can be found locally. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ "Meet Me At the Center of the Earth" presents the largest exhibit to date of the Chicago artist’s work, which straddles the realms of sculpture, high fashion, body art, and dance with a visual ferocity and level of workmanship that is alternately stunning and inspiring.

Cave’s art practically dares you to play chicken with your thesaurus. One would have to borrow a page (or several) from the descriptive reveries of Thomas de Quincey or Ronald Firbank to fully convey the cluster fuck of beading, psychedelic hair furs, plastic tchotchkes, yarn, tin toys, buttons, second hand sweaters, and enough sequins to cover a thousand ’80s cocktail dresses that he has quixotically and painstakingly pieced together.

The centerpieces of "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth" are undoubtedly Cave’s Soundsuits — wearable sculptures that take their name from the sounds created by their movement. They fill YBCA’s largest gallery like some other-wordly pantheon of gods and monsters. Arranged in an X-shaped configuration with paths running down the center of each axis, the suits form a giant visual nod to the exhibit’s title. X, of course, marks the spot, and hanging above the room’s center is the Earth itself, swathed in several shades of inky sequins. On the adjacent walls hang two huge and possibly glitzier tondi — the Italian Renaissance term Cave uses for these round hangings — which serve as flattened counterparts to the globe.

The display lets you explore the Soundsuits from every angle. Designed to cover the entire body, the suits hide any individual traces of the wearer by creating a second skin, and then some. The suits with towering, festooned cage structures — which bring to mind both Balinese funeral pyres and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers — still have a vaguely human outline at their core, whereas the suits patterned in all sort of brilliantly colored fur-like human hair could very well be studies from an unrealized Jim Henson project. This lycanthropic aspect of the Soundsuits is explored most humorously in Cave’s more recent pieces, which take the reverse tactic of fashioning knitwear pelts for taxidermy models of bears and beavers.

While much of Cave’s work, to quote New York Times critic Roberta Smith, "fall[s] squarely under the heading of Must Be Seen to Be Believed," it also begs to be heard. It is unfortunate that YBCA wasn’t able to more fully integrate the sounds of the suits into their display. Although there is an adjacent gallery that shows several videos of the Soundsuits in action — including great footage of Cave and a posse of pom-pom covered lion dancer-clown hybrids inciting massive dance parties in public — the suits themselves stand silent. The audio/visual divide enforced by the two-gallery layout seems to point to the larger issue of static mannequins being the curatorial norm for costume and textile-related exhibits. I guess we’ll have to wait until May, when choreographer Ronald K. Brown stages his Soundsuit performances, to see Cave’s creations in action.

Cave writes in an artist’s statement for the show that he hopes "we will dream together" One would have to have a heart of stone not to take up the challenge and the invitation delivered by Cave’s art — and implicit in the exhibit’s title — to create another scene, to go beyond what’s familiar, and to transform oneself. I left YBCA dreaming of raiding craft stores, thrift shops, and fabric outlets. I dreamed of painting the town red, cerulean, silver, magenta, and neon green with sequins and glitter. I dreamed of dancing. I’ll see you at the center of the Earth. I’m halfway there.

NICK CAVE: MEET ME AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Through July 5, $3–$6 (free first Tues.)

Tues.–Wed., Fri.–Sun., noon–5 p.m.; Thurs., noon–8 p.m.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

All photos by Jim Prinz

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