TV

Ho-ho-horror

Andrew Lam
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Ho-ho-horror

arts@sfbg.com

FILM There is probably nowhere in the Christian-majority world where it’s as OK to wax hum-buggy about Christmas and all it entails as San Francisco. Allergies to carols (admit it, they’re horrible), frantically enabled shopaholicism, and forced contact with those people you moved here to get away from are all tolerated, even encouraged here.

In the rakishly Grinch-like spirit such sentiments allow, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is observing “the season” with “Go to Hell for the Holidays: Horror in December.” This series might just as easily have been titled “Grievous Bodily Harm” since it serves up a six-program lineup of film and video features whose common thread is excess of a highly splattery kind. Included are a few variably antiqued golden oldies, as well as newer titles unlikely to get local commercial runs anytime soon (if ever). Some are fun, some deliberately unpleasant, and a couple manage to be both. All provide a sort of palliative effect for those seeking refuge from the suffocation of wholesome holiday cheer.

Because Jesus probably would, let’s approach “Hell”‘s contents tactfully, in ascending order of assault on any delicate sensibilities. The sole double bill on offer is also hands-down winner in terms of camp value, providing unintentional laughs in bulk for every intended scare. In fact, these two underseen gems of bright and shining awfulness comprise one of the more genius programming matches of 2010.

First up is the barely describable, let alone explicable, 1985’s Night Train to Terror, which alongside They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1968), Al Adamson’s ouevre, and a handful of other oddities personifies that most secret, least natural of genres: the Frankensteinian film. By which we don’t mean anything directly related to Mary Shelley, but rather movies crudely, grotesquely composed of parts harvested from other movies abandoned as dead.

Few are as triumphantly, energetically, and entertainingly arbitrary as Night Train, which stitches together bits of three features variably orphaned by legal trouble, runaway funding, aborted shooting, or all the above. Linking them — or desperately trying to — are scenes in which “Mr. Satan” and a white-bearded God gamble in a private car for the souls of their fellow train passengers. The latter are an ensemble of ultra-perky “New Wave” youth in Flashdance (1983) garb singing and kinda dancing in a neverending MTV video for synthpop non-hit “Dance With Me.”

Familiar B-flick faces like John Phillip Law and Cameron Mitchell surface sporadically in the wildly condensed “case histories” our biblical antagonists debate, drawn from individual films otherwise known as Cataclysm, Carnival of Fools, and Scream Your Head Off. That this bastard 1985 anthology was assembled, let alone actually shown in theaters, restores your faith in predictable mankind’s ability to occasionally touch the truly, inspirationally senseless.

This feeling one could apply to virtually anything by the late Doris Wishman, whose decades of bottom-rung exploitation work left miraculously intact an approach to such basics as continuity, camera coverage, and synch sound so primitive it achieves a sort of abstract impressionism. Her 1983 A Night to Dismember was stab at the slasher genre after almost a quarter century selling softcore sex. She brought to it exactly the same WTF aesthetic and narrative perversity she had to Nude on the Moon (1961) and Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965). If you’re a Wishman newbie, Dismember is a great place to start since its saga of the compulsively homicidal suburban Kent family is awesomely clumsy without being too dull or claustrophobic.

The mayhem she contrives (no doubt most “gore” was thriftily broiled for stew after each day’s shoot) looks even more laughable alongside the too convincing graphic ugh-liness of Thai cinematographer Tiwa Moeithaisong’s directorial debut Meat Grinder (2009). Its protagonist is a Bangkok noodle shop proprietor whose extremely abused history triggers a Texas Chainsaw style attitude toward fresh victuals, and whose threadbare grip on reality provides our brain-scrambling POV. Starting out like just another exercise in “Asian Extreme” excess, this grows both more outre and controlled as it goes along, balancing jet-black comedy with a certain grotesque pathos.

Charting a reverse trajectory is Red White & Blue, the first U.S. feature by Brit writer-director Simon Rumley, whose 2006 The Living and the Dead is one of the most original films (horror or otherwise) in recent memory. For 80 minutes, it’s a chillingly fine portrait of some well-marginalized characters in Austin, Texas, culminating in possibly the most alarming home invasion since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). But the rest degenerates into rote revenge-fantasy torture porn, further weakened by deliberate story mystifications more enervating than enigmatic.

There are excuses for horror fans who’ve missed Living and Dead — it was barely released in the U.S. — but none for those as yet unbathed in the blood of Wolf Creek. Allegedly based on actual events (a fib), Greg Mclean’s 2005 first feature takes exactly half its length to let nothing happen. Nothing, that is, save our getting to know three young people just ordinary and interesting enough to grow concerned about as they drive across Australia at summer holiday’s end, halted in the middle of nowhere by what at first seems routine bad luck. Several long dread-accruing minutes later, it turns out what’s happening to them is something far, far worse, unrelated to either luck or anything routine. Brilliantly atmospheric and visceral, Creek justifies YBCA’s hyperbolic claim as “possibly the best horror film of the decade.”

Also on “Hell”‘s menu are two films I could say more about, but won’t. Regarding Mladen Djordjevic’s Life and Death of a Porno Gang (2009), that’s because this all-outrages-inclusive tragicomedic mock-doc road flick was only available for preview in its original Serbian language. Still, it’s recommendable. Whereas Marc D. Levitz’s U.S. documentary Feast of the Assumption: BTK and The Otero Family Murders (2008), about a serial killer’s capture and impact on victims’ families 30 years later, would merit further discussion if it didn’t wobble between tabloid TV and home movie — all the while raising serious questions it doesn’t address, or perhaps even notice.

“GO TO HELL FOR THE HOLIDAYS”

Dec. 2–18, $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Released, Steve Li urges passage of DREAM Act

Mary Magee
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On a cold and sunny morning in late November, as sharp winds stirred up fallen leaves, and most folks were beginning to slow down in anticipation of Thanksgiving, Shing Ma “Steve” Li, a 20-year-old nursing student from San Francisco who narrowly avoided deportation to Peru, whipped the local media into a energized frenzy by advocating for the passage of the DREAM Act during a press conference at the Asian Law Caucus, whose offices sits close to the Transamerica Pyramid, and a stone’s throw from the lantern-decorated streets of Chinatown and the neon-lit strip clubs of North Beach, in San Francisco.

The purpose of the press conference was to give thanks for Li’s release four days earlier from a federal detention facility in Arizona, outline why a hardworking student who has lived in San Francisco since he was 12, has no criminal record, and speaks Cantonese, English, French and Spanish, was incarcerated for two months and threatened with deportation. And ultimately, the event was aimed to stir up support for the DREAM ((Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, bi-partisan legislation that leading congressional Democrats plan to put to a vote this month.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have promised to move to a vote on the DREAM Act on November 29, during Congress’ lame duck session, a brief window of opportunity to complete action on stalled bills, before Republicans take charge of the House, and Democrats see their majority in the Senate shrink, come January 2011.

Li, his family and his legal counsel Sin Yen Ling, a senior staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, kicked off the press conference by acknowledging the many supporters whose phone-calling, letter writing and protesting outside Sen. Barbara Boxer’s offices in San Francisco, helped secure Li’s Nov. 19 release from a federal detention center in Arizona, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a private bill to delay Li’s deportation.

“I believe his removal would be unjust before the Senate gets to vote on the DREAM Act,” Feinstein said in a Nov. 19 press statement. Feinstein’s bill guarantees Li protection for 75 days after Congress’ lame-duck session end. And Li’s attorney Ling says Feinstein may reintroduce her private bill next year, and that ICE isn’t likely to deport Li in future, now that he is no longer considered a fugitive.

“We don’t feel that Feinstein’s private bill will pass, because of the result of the Nov. 2 election and the reality of partisan politics, but it’s unlikely that Steve will get deported again,” Ling said.

If passed, the DREAM Act would grant undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, if they entered the United States before age 15 and have attended college or served in the military for two years.

Li’s ordeal—and his ensuing conversion to an ardent DREAM Act advocate—is happening against the backdrop of an increasingly anti-immigrant mood in the United States, as witnessed in Arizona, where state legislators passed SB 1070 earlier this year, and now in California, where a Tea Party member from Belmont wants California voters to weigh in on a similar initiative in 2012. And then there’s the sobering reality that come January, congressional Republicans, who are facing challenges from the far right-wing Tea Party,  take control of the House and are unlikely to advocate for immigration reform.

But Li, who is ethnically Chinese, and was born and raised in Peru until he was eleven years old, after his parents left China in the 1980s to escape its one-child policy, remained optimistic, as he drew on his recent experience to illustrate why Congress needs to passes the bi-partisan DREAM Act now.

“I’m still at risk of being deported,” Li said, noting that, each year, about 65,000 U.S.-raised students graduate from high school and would qualify for the DREAM Act, which addresses the fact that federal immigration law has no mechanism to consider the circumstances of youth who were brought here as minors and call the U.S. home, but can’t work legally, face barriers to accessing higher education, and live in constant fear of deportation.

“We have to work to do something to stop these students from being deported,” said Li, who wasn’t aware that a final deportation order had been issued against his family, when he was 14 years old and the U.S. denied his parents’ application for political asylum. “It’s important we push Congress, so no other student has to go through the same thing I did.”

“How many future doctors, engineers and scientists will the US lose,” Li added, questioning whether the US could end up deporting geniuses who might otherwise have discovered a cure for cancer, or invented ground-breaking sustainable energy technologies. “We are America’s future and we want to make a difference,” he said. “I still believe America is a great nation, a moral nation, and that Americans, if given all the information, will do the right thing.”

Li’s legal counsel Ling, recalled how Li and his parents were arrested on Sept. 15 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and detained at ICE’s offices in downtown San Francisco, before being transferred to a jail in Sacramento County. “They were arrested as part of ICE’s fugitive operations program, which targets people who have failed to comply with final deportation orders,” she said.

The family was held there for three weeks, Ling said, before Li’s parents were released back to San Francisco, wearing electronic monitoring anklets. But Li was involuntarily transferred to a federal detention facility in Florence, Arizona, where he remained until mid-November. His transfer also made it impossible for his parents to visit, since, under the terms of their electronically monitored release by ICE, they are not allowed to leave San Francisco.

Ling said ICE blames a lack of bed space in the Bay Area for why they must transfer folks from San Francisco to Arizona, Texas or a facility near Bakersfield, California. But either way, the practice serves to isolate immigrant detainees from family and friends as they await deportation.

“Steve was released from Florence, Arizona, on Friday, Nov. 19, and then took a Greyhound bus, which arrived in San Francisco Saturday afternoon,” Ling said, noting that ICE wasn’t planning to notify her or Li’s family of his release, and that they typically drive folks to Phoenix and drop them off at the bus station.

Li’s mother Maria addressed the media in Cantonese, as she thanked Sen. Feinstein for allowing her son “to return to his mother’s embrace.”

And then Li, who says he is “a huge Giants fan” and “grew up reciting the pledge of allegiance at school, just like everybody else”, described his ordeal
.
“I always viewed myself as an American,” Li said, recalling how that perception was challenged when ICE raided his home and threw him in jail, this fall.
“I was shocked and confused, I felt it must have been a mistake” Li said, recalling that he was in the bathroom getting ready for school when the doorbell rang on Sept. 15.
“I didn’t expect anyone, so I woke up my mother, and she answered the door,” Li said.“Next thing, immigration agents came into the house. I didn’t know what was going on.They said they had to take me somewhere, that I had to be deported. “

Li said he was immediately separated from his mother and not allowed to ask ICE questions.
‘They searched me, threw me in the car, handcuffed me and took me to the immigration center,” Li said, referring to ICE’s office in downtown San Francisco.
“It was intimidating. I was scared of what was going to happen to me,” Li continued, describing how he was held for the rest of the day in a cell that contained 20 other people, some of whom had been transferred from other detention facilities and were already wearing prison clothing.

“I was fingerprinted, my photograph was taken and my situation was explained to me,” Li said, describing his shock at then being transferred in handcuffs and shackles by bus to a jail in Sacramento County with his parents, who were also handcuffed and shackled.
“It was traumatic to see my parents, who are hard-working people, be treated like that,” he said,

In Sacramento County, Li and another detainee were placed in a cell that contained bunk beds, a small table, a toilet and a sink.
“We could only go to the day room and watch TV for one hour a day,” he said. “The immigration authorities didn’t tell me anything, they just threw me from place to place.”

After three weeks, Li thought he was going to be released, when the prison authorities returned his clothes and got him to sign some paperwork. But instead, he was transferred to ICE’s San Francisco office on Sansome Street, put him in a holding cell, and told him he was being sent to Arizona to be processed for deportation,

“My whole world came down,” Li said. “I couldn’t talk to my parents, who had already been released. I thought of never being able to see my family and friends again. It was depressing.”

Things got worse when he was shackled, handcuffed, and loaded onto a bus which took him to Oakland airport, where he was put on a plane with a bunch of other deportation detainees.
“We were handcuffed and shackled to our seats, and I wondered what would happen if the plane went down,” Li said, describing a seemingly interminable journey to Arizona, which involved making landings in Los Angeles and San Diego.
“In San Diego, they took Mexicans off the bus, presumably to drive them to the border,” Li said.

Arriving in Arizona the following morning, Li was driven to an isolated federal detention facility in Florence, which is about 800 miles from San Francisco, where he was only allowed outside his cell for an hour a day.
“We were incarcerated all day and body searched multiple times in a facility, where there were three toilets and four showers between 64 people,” he said.

Locked up with 400 fellow detainees, Li heard a lot of stories that were similar to his: students who’d received a higher education and were very talented, but didn’t have legal status.

In particular, Li remembers one student he met during his Arizona incarceration.
“Like me, he came here with his parents and had no say in that decision, but was picked up as a result of new legislation in Arizona, “ he said.

Li’s arrest means he missed a semester of school, but he vows to continue his studies. And despite his traumatic experience, Li says he is not bitter.
“It went through my mind,” he said, “But I have learned a lot, including the fact that we have a broken immigration system. I urge everyone who qualifies for the DREAM Act to use their voice. They need to find the courage to use it and fight to change the law.”

 
 

 

Good for the Jews vs. the San Franciscan Nazi

Andrew Lam
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Rob Tannenbaum is a man with opinions on holidays. Thanksgiving, transcendent: “if it were up to me, I would be drinking turkey gravy.” Christmas, yawn: “it’s the most boring time of year. There’s not too much to do past stay at home and watch It’s a Wonderful Life on TV. 

And Hanukkah, time to go see his comedy-music duo Good for the Jews (Cafe Du Nord, Dec. 1): “There’s a long and storied tradition of Jews in San Francisco. I hope that we will see evidence of that.” Tickets would make a great present for the first of those eight crazy nights… 

Tannenbaum and partner David Fagin (who respectively moonlight as music editor of Blender and frontman for nice guy-pop band The Rosenbergs) sing well placed mockeries of Jewaphrenalia, my favorite of which being “Rueben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer,” though I’m also partial to the lounge stylings of “Going Down to Boca.” Their work comes as a follow up to Tannenbaum’s previous comedy project: What I Like About Jew, an act performed at New York’s The Knitting Factory that sold out shows six years running. 

Tannenbaum is aware of what his audience wants, mainly because it’s what he himself wants out of Judaic entertainment. “When I was kid and they played Jewish music in our synagogue, it was always so horrible. It was earnest and boring, like a cross between the Indigo girls and the Old Testament.” In Good for the Jews’ creation, he was looking to capitalize on the legacy of mischief and humor inherent in Jewish consciousness, the same legacy from whence he says come Sarah Silverman and Jon Stewart’s riffs. “I wanted to start a show that was traditionally Jewish but didn’t make being Jewish seem like the most boring thing in the world,” he says. 

His tongue-in-cheek celebration of his faith – well hold up, because maybe “faith” is a bad word for how Tannebaum experiences being a Jew. He told me in our recent phone interview that he only darkens temple’s door a few times a year on the high holidays, but that he likes the idea of people getting into a room to celebrate shared heritage. “The same thing is true at our show, but at our show you can drink, which I don’t think you can do at temple,” he quips. His Jewishness, he says, lies in “the things I eat, the things I laugh at, the books I read, the TV shows I watch – they’re not Jewish themed, but my gestalt is Jewish. As is my circumsized penis.”

Okay, so his tongue-in-cheek celebration of his gestalt-penis, then, delights the crowds that go to see it, most of whom have been urban, many secular Jews like himself – but diverse in ways he didn’t expect  they would be when the duo launched a tour that included dates in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico earlier this year. He says at a few gigs Fagin and himself outnumbered the amount of Jews in the audience. “But sometimes those shows are more rewarding,” he says.  

But the duo’s frank irreverence has been known to attract negative attention as well. Which brings us to our next topic: San Franciscan Nazis.

The last time the Good for the Jews duo played SF, they were greeted by a chap goose-stepping to some inner notion of bigot matyrdom: an Aryan Pride guy who’d come to protest their show. Tannenbaum recalls the situation in his standard one liner manner (“He felt that we were representative of the Jewish-owned media. If we’re representing Zionist power, then why am I staying at a Holiday Inn?”) 

But somewhere in his memory of the event lurks the indignation it triggered: the experience of being a musician about to play a show at a respectable venue who runs into the very prejudice that his ironic music implicitly calls passé. Tannenbaum tells me he actually went outside to have a conversation with the fellow, but had to retreat when he felt himself approaching the thought of violence. “When you hear someone insulting your ancestors it tends to rile up the blood a little bit.” 

The incident, in a strange way, speaks to why he’s looking forward to next week’s comedy show. “This sounds like malarky, but I really do love San Francisco. It’s the only city where I think, yeah I could live here.” Nazis and all. “It’s the end result of so much tolerance: if you’re going to tolerate people you have to tolerate Nazis, too.”


Good for the Jews

Wed/1 8 p.m., $12-15

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 292-1233

www.cafedunord.com

 

Bodies and bacon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Bodies and bacon

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS My new friends are young and queer and, most important, bikers, so I get to hang out at Benders where the burgers have whiskey and bits of bacon in them. Many of my new friends are vegetarian, which saves me from the awkwardness of having big fat crushes on them. My crushes are small and skinny and eat veggie burgers.

We’re starting a team in the girls football league. Remember, I wrote about them a few years back? I used to go to games on Sundays, and it was inspiring and scary. So scary that I tried to get on a team, but they never called me.

I can’t wait to play that team! It will be a made-for-TV movie made in heaven.

Probably, because I grew up in Ohio, I will have to start out at one of the so-called “skill positions,” such as running back or wide receiver, where I will bide my time making diving one-hand catches and long, slash-and-burn touchdown runs (yawn). But once I have earned everyone’s respect with my off-the-field poetry and appreciation for opera, maybe then they will move me to the offensive line.

Which is, as anyone who has ever played electric football knows, the most important position on the field.

Our coach, whom we call Coach, is such a consummate athlete that she doesn’t need to eat meat or rice. Fueled by air and eagerness, and maybe sometimes whiskey, she routinely wins bike races! And if anyone else enters, she comes in third. She lives in the Mission and owns at least three bikes that I know of, yet dates a motor vehicle. Coach jokes about never leaving the neighborhood, which is bullshit because I met her in a pond in Sonoma County. Interestingly, we were skinny dipping.

Or, I don’t know, maybe that’s not interesting.

How about if I described all my new friends’ bodies in full detail? This way everyone in the world will want to go skinny-dipping with me from now on! I’m kidding, of course. Respectfulness may not be my strong suit, let alone my swimsuit, but there are some lines I know better than to cross.

I’ll only describe Coach’s body — because our friendship I think can handle it, and anyway she’ll be on a three-week bike ride by the time this comes out, somewhere between here and San Luis Obispo, far far from newsstands.

How she does this shit — without fettuccini, I mean — I will never know. But the other day I ate Chinese food with Coach and Fiver, and I swear that all the rice on the table, and all but maybe one or two of the noodles wound up in me. The meat goes without saying.

The restaurant was Mission Chinese Food, which everyone has been singing about since I moved back to the neighborhood. It’s the restaurant inside the restaurant (Lung Shan) on Mission at 18th Street. You can believe what people are singing. It’s pretty special, despite its name.

I mean, where else can you get “thrice-cooked bacon” or “tingly lamb noodle soup”? And the bacon can be vegan, and still damn good, and the soup comes in a “numbing lamb broth.”

Which … they mean it. It’s a Szechwan spice, or herb, that literally numbs your mouth, and it was in the pickled beans and pickled pickles too. I don’t like that. I loved the flavor of everything I ate, even the fake bacon, but I’m sorry, I just don’t understand the point of numbness, except with respect to dentistry.

Folks, I want to feel what I eat. The not-at-all-fake lamb belly in the sizzling cumin lamb, for example, was a heavenly blend of crispy, tender, salty, peppery, game-flavored meat outside with an interior layer of soft, buttery, clouds of juicy joy.

Now I know what you’re thinking: No! There is no way that she’s that sexy.

I’m just saying. My job is to review restaurants. Your job, if you drive a car in California, is to go slow, watch the road, and see bicycles. Thanks for reading.

MISSION CHINESE FOOD

Mon.–Sat.: 11 a.m.–10:30 p.m.;

Sun.: noon–10 p.m.

(inside Lung Shan Restaurant);

2234 Mission, SF

(415) 826-2800

MC,V

Beer and wine

Investing in the future

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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

The nation’s crumbling infrastructure is in very serious need of rebuilding. There’s absolutely no doubt about that.

Miles and miles of roads, highways and airport runways need to be repaired or replaced, as do miles and miles of railroad track. Many bridges and other public structures need to be fixed. So do many streets and many street lights, many water and flood control systems, many park and recreation and port facilities’ high speed train systems need developing and so does very much more that’s vital to our daily lives.

Look around you. You can’t possibly miss examples of crumbling infrastructure.

The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions have been pointing that out for many years, and noting that the obviously needed repair and replacement work would provide jobs for many thousands, if not millions, of the unemployed, who need work as badly as the infrastructure needs it. Those jobs are good, relatively well-paying jobs – exactly what we need to escape the Great Recession that’s continuing to plague the nation.

It’s pretty much what was done during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt, with the support of Congress, put together the Works Projects Administration, or WPA, to put millions of jobless Americans to work on building and repairing the infrastructure. It worked then, and it would work now.

Last month, President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and the Treasury Department issued a report detailing the benefits of doing the needed infrastructure work, including the “long term economic benefits.” The report also noted that a huge majority of Americans support spending tax money on infrastructure improvement.

President Obama’s labor-endorsed plan for infrastructure improvements over the next six years calls rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, laying and maintaining 4,000 miles of  railroad tracks, and creating a new air traffic control system that would reduce delays.

President Edward Wytkind of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department hailed the president’s plan for its promise of “putting millions of Americans to work in the type of good jobs that transportation investments have supported for more than a century.”

Laborers Union President Terry O’Sullivan noted that “time is running out.” He said, “We need to invest in our country, and we need to create jobs as soon as possible. It’s a no-brainer – let’s build our country, create jobs, keep America competitive in the 21st century and leave behind real assets  for future generations.”

Author Ezra Klein, writing in the Washington Post, put it this way:  “infrastructure investment creates the right jobs, for the right people, doing the right things – and at the right time. Or, to say it more clearly, infrastructure investment creates middle-class jobs for workers in a sector with high unemployment and it puts them to work doing something that we actually need done at a moment when doing it is cheaper than it ever will be again.”

He’s right. Boy, is he right.  Yet there’s a considerable body of naysayers in Congress – most of them Republicans, as you might expect – who threaten to block the bills necessary for implementing Obama’s ambitious infrastructure plans.

We need those bills passed in a hurry. We need the millions of jobs they’ll provide. We need to carry out the long delayed modernization of our crumbling infrastructure.

Are you ready for GWAR??

Sue Vaughan
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1

Apparently, even the massive, all-powerful aliens and scumdogs of the universe known as GWAR have trouble with reception on their iPhones.

While conducting a phone interview before a show in Hollywood, band leader Oderus Urungus’ connection cut out twice, leaving him grumbling, “Maybe I’m clutching my iPhone too tightly!”

Perhaps it was his giant claws proving to be too much for our puny human technology to handle — either way, once the connection was re-established, the intergalactic beast that has led GWAR for more than a quarter century had no shortage of hilarious and outrageous things to say.

Having just finished taping a segment for the Fuel TV show Daily Habit, Oderus was being informed that he had revealed a bit more of himself to the television audience than he had thought. “I just did the show apparently with my balls hanging out the entire time and nobody told me! That’s not like a big thing for Oderus, my balls usually are hanging out — but to try to get on national TV, I’m willing to do the ball tuck, but apparently the ball tuck didn’t work, it was horrible, it looked like a duck-billed platypus coming out of a burrow or something!”

Although someone out there in TV land was undoubtedly offended by this show of alien masculinity, they can just add themselves to the scores of non-believers and critics who have unsuccessfully assailed the musical and cultural force that is GWAR over the past couple of decades. Currently celebrating their 25th anniversary, the heavy metal space gang that brought our planet recorded gems such as Scumdogs of the Universe and This Toilet Earth are back in all their unholy glory with a new album, The Bloody Pit of Horror (Metal Blade).

Propelled by the first sleazy single, “Zombies, March!,” Oderus Urungus and his cohorts have returned in fine beastly form, ready to again spread their love to fans around the globe — which of course means spraying audiences with all manner of fake blood, bodily fluids, and god knows what else.

At a time when many bands their age would be mellowing out and producing so-called “mature” material, GWAR has shown that they are only getting dirtier and heavier with time, as any fan should expect from a group with their background and history.

“With any of the records we’ve made, we didn’t really go into it with a preconceived notion of what it was going to sound like. We just went at it and tried to make the record that was appropriate to what we felt like at the time, and I guess we were feeling particularly ferocious [with this one],” says Oderus. “We just wanted to emphasize how fucking awesome we are, and recall a day not so long ago when bands actually put out an album about once a year — nowadays that just doesn’t happen, bands take forever in between albums, and half the time they’re full of re-mixes, or tracks from other albums that got cut.

We just wanted to have a whole bunch of great music for our fans, and just celebrate the idea of GWAR. One of the things about this album that’s a little different that gives it that ferocious sound is that we tuned down I believe to F#, which is basically the loosest that guitar strings can be and still stay on the neck — it sounds like the guitars are vomiting — in a good way! I think it makes for a very powerful record.”

When asked if his band of rubber aliens, mutants, deviants and demons ever looks back on their history and thinks about the fact that they’ve been  doing what they do successfully for so long, the answer is a firm “No.”

“If we took the time to go back and actually examine what we were doing, we’d be so shocked and appalled that we’d stop doing it. It’s better to just keep mindlessly plugging onward,” laughs Oderus. “[With that being said] we are very well aware of just how awesome it is what we’ve managed to do, and we intend to keep doing it as long as possible — or until we escape the planet Earth, whichever comes first.”

With the release of The Bloody Pit of Horror, GWAR have been hitting the road in support, crossing the United States and making an appearance on national late night television, with a performance last month on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

“We did Springer and Joan Rivers like 20 years ago, and it took them 20 years to let us back on television!”

Oderus himself has been making several more recent appearances on TV, however — in the last year or so he’s been a regular guest on, of all places, a Fox News program, Red Eye. Although it does sound like an awfully strange pairing, the intergalactic barbarian thinks that Fox sees in him a potential for higher ratings, thus justifying having a giant space beast running around their studios.

“It is an odd match that they would put GWAR in a position where I can not only comment on society but do it over and over again, but obviously they’re having a little fun with it. It’s pretty funny to be walking around the Fox studios in New York City and run into Glenn Beck…yeah, Oderus and him are hanging out, backstage buddies!”

Having toured all over the world in the past 25-plus years, Oderus and his bandmates have seen all manner of crazy and twisted things, but the singer says that no place can hold a candle to what’s he’s seen and experienced right here in San Francisco.

“Pretty much every time we’ve been to San Francisco, it’s been insane, since the very first GWAR tour where we showed up in an old school bus, and ended up parked in the Tenderloin for a week straight, that neighborhood was really bad. And then our show at the Warfield where the bums were dropping dead right outside of the venue; the line was going around the block, they were three dead homeless people laying on the sidewalk, and out fans were just very politely stepping over their corpses, that was pretty weird!”

He also mentions a doorman selling crack by the side of the stage within just a few feet of a nearby cop — one that at first the band didn’t even believe was a real officer. “I thought he was a guy that dressed up in a joke cop outfit, because his uniform was so fucked up and dirty, and he was driving this cop car that was all beat to shit, the fenders were even hanging off it!”

With that said, Oderus is eagerly looking forward to playing here in the city on Sunday, and has some words of praise for his local fans.

“San Franciscans — you still have a complete, stone cold lock on the sickest, weirdest, most fucked up town in the United States. New Orleans has nothing on you people!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qusEPwdM7B8&feature=related

GWAR

With the Casualties, Infernaeon, and Mobile Death Camp
Sun/21, 7:30 p.m., $22-$25
Regency Ballroom
1290 Sutter St., SF
(800) 745-3000
www.theregencyballroom.com

Joystick to the world

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Joystick to the world

culture@sfbg.com

You can see it at your local Walgreens: that magical moment, at midnight every Nov. 1, when the Halloween display melts into the ether, replaced by a bevy of festive, possibly toxic, green-and-red confections. Christmas comes similarly early in the game business; unlike holiday movies, year-end software blockbusters have to be sitting on store shelves in time to entice flocks of early-bird shoppers.

This year promises a winter harvest of diverse delights, though there is a clear emphasis on familiar faces and established names. Groundbreaking technology will wheedle its way into American shopping carts alongside intellectual property that dates back to 1928.

 

ROCK HARDWARE

Though its most promising features are spread out over multiple months, Rock Band 3‘s release in the dying embers of October signaled the start of the holiday game glut. On the more casual end of the spectrum, there are many changes designed to improve the title’s performance as a party-powering karaoke machine on steroids. But it’s on the hardcore end that Harmonix’s offering really shines. New “Pro” instrument modes transform the entire idea of the rhythm game, promising exact correspondence between notes heard and notes played, turning an exercise in plastic-instrument frivolity into an actual teaching tool. The retail version ships with a full two-octave keyboard; future bedroom shredders will have to wait until March 1 to get their hands on Squier’s six-string electric guitar-controller hybrid.

 

KINECTRIC SLIDE

Harmonix rolled out another big title this year: Dance Central, a gleefully earnest dancing simulator that aims to do for cutting rugs what Guitar Hero did for ripping solos. Taking advantage of Microsoft’s Wii-killing, Xbox 360-exclusive Kinect technology (available now), which uses a TV-mounted camera to record player movements, the game weans digital dance off Dance Dance Revolution‘s cheesy floor pads, tracking your entire body and translating that motion into animated on-screen boogieing.

A number of other games have been released that are calibrated for use with the Kinect, either focusing on fitness (YourShape: Fitness Evolved, EA Sports Active 2) or cartoonish, arm-waving sports-mime (Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports). Liberated from the tyranny of holding onto a controller, 360 owners will also be able to deploy the Kinect’s voice commands, which be useful for browsing through a number of new software features, which include ESPN and Last.fm, streaming direct to your console.

 

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

Cannibalizing the past is nothing new when there are profits on the line, but no one does it with the kind of capitalist élan that the game industry evinces. Did you enjoy NBA Jam and Goldeneye 007 in the 1990s? Of course you did. And you’ll enjoy them again, now that they’re back, sporting upgraded display resolutions and gameplay adapted to modern, button-coruscated controllers. NBA Jam began as a downloadable adjunct to NBA Elite 2011; now that that game has been pushed back, the two-on-two hoops title is getting a full retail release on all the major consoles Nov. 17. Goldeneye is available now for Wii and Nintendo DS; playing as Oddjob is still totally cheating.

Japanese giants Namco Bandai have dusted off Splatterhouse, their goofily gory 1988 smash. Musclebound protagonist Rick is back, still sporting a hockey mask, still dismembering ghosts and ghouls with a blood-soaked two-by-four. The survival horror-brawler hybrid is due out Nov. 23 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

 

MOUSE HOUSE

It’s been a long time since Disney’s iconic character was featured in his own video game, so Junction Point Studio’s Epic Mickey is sure to be met with high expectations. Helmed, bizarrely, by legendary designer Warren Spector, who is better known for gritty cyberpunk classics System Shock and Deus Ex, the game promises a slightly more adult — even gothic — take on Disney’s least-adult character.

Gameplay will center around a painting mechanic. Using his trusty brush, Mickey will be able to transform his environment, daubing in bridges over otherwise impassable chasms. The judicious application of paint thinner will erase dastardly enemies. Look for Epic Mickey Nov. 30.

 

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD (OF WARCRAFT)

If you were to measure the impact of this year’s holiday releases using total hours invested as your metric, there’s no doubt that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm would come out on top. As the third expansion to Blizzard’s megalithic franchise, the game can count on a built-in player-base of some 12 million subscribers, each about as likely to buy Cataclysm as a heroin addict is to buy more smack.

The attractions this time around include two brand-new races — players will now be able to battle their way around Azeroth as Goblins or Worgen (read: werewolves). The expected litany of new dungeons, new loot, and new gameplay tweaks is also provided. The Cataclysm begins Dec. 7. And if you don’t know what to get that tween WoWer in your life at the last minute? But her some game time at www.blizzard.com.

Jail bait

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Jail bait

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS On a day when I felt really very much like oiling a countertop with my elbows, I oiled a countertop with my elbows! This proves that such a thing as free will exists, I think.

Proving that I’m not a very great thinker, because maybe I was predetermined to want what I wanted, or maybe we all want the same thing: barbecued pork ramen.

Other evidence of my not-greatness, brainwise, includes knocking over the popcorn, letting my bike basket get moldy, and locking myself out of my apartment seven or eight times a day. I’m exaggerating.

The good news is, I have managed to live my life so far entirely in and occasionally locked out of apartments. Or at least vans. I have never been homeless, or, worse, incarcerated against my will. Every time I see a mental institution I think: there, but for the grace of God, go I. Same with jails.

My poor mom, who has been in both of those places, kicking and screaming, is also in me. See? I believe in genetics. I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in “the grace of God,” I guess, because so far I have managed to pass as merely kooky. And in this people tend to humor me and keep spare keys to my apartment.

Still, there’s a certain moodiness with which one walks or bicycles past the Hall of Justice, if one is me. I mean, if I’m driving a car I’m okay, because the sight of all those police just scares me into closing my eyes, thinking about ponies, and stepping on the gas.

Pedically speaking, I stick to the other side of the street, basking in the barrage of bail bondage. It’s San Francisco’s most alliterative block of businesses, you know: Bail Bonds, Bail Bonds, Bail Bonds, Bail Bonds, Sushi, Bail Bonds, Bail Bonds, Bail —

What the? Did I just say sushi?

Yep. Believe it, jurors and judges. Oh, and bad guys, you no longer have to go to jail without first having one last California roll, or meet with your friendly neighborhood bail bondsmanperson over McDonalds. God damn, what a great city this is! What a wonderful and humane criminal justice system we have here, now that Live Sushi is on the block.

Good luck finding the entrance.

I took the trouble because a) they had a counter, although it wasn’t exactly what my elbows had had in mind. On the other hand, there was a cooking show on TV, and b) they had ramen. And soba and udon. For like, $8 or $9 at lunch time. Which it was.

I wished I could afford some sushi too, but, nah. This is not no criminal justice system sushi, pricewise. It’s Potrero Hill, only crammed between a bunch of bail bonds boutiques. So alls I could afford was a bowl of barbecue pork ramen and a glass of ice water.

Gotta say: the water was very very good, and cold, and came with free refills, and the soup was excellent. The pork could have been a bit less cooked, but the broth was delicious, and I loved the little curly pickles and the ginger. And the ramen. Great bowl of soup, new favorite restaurant. And I think I learned something from watching TV, but I forget what it was. Something about chicken bones.

Anyway, I stopped at Trader Joe’s and bought me their cheapest chicken on the way home, because Mr. Wong was coming over for his own private, personal cooking show, his first, and I wanted to show him how to make five meals from one chicken … a trick I learned by listening to Spot 1019 in the old days.

I didn’t want to start cooking dinner without him, although that’s usually what I do as soon as I’m done with lunch. So, to kill time, I decided to clean the mold off of my super cool Toto Too bike basket.

I went upstairs to borrow some bleach off Earl Butter and, of course, locked myself out of my apartment. There’s a couch in the lobby. And a magazine rack. For the rest of the afternoon, I didn’t get anything done.

LIVE SUSHI BISTRO

Mon.–Fri.: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.;

Sat.–Sun.: 4:30 p.m.–10 p.m.

1 Gilbert, SF

(415) 558-8778

D,MC,V

Beer and wine

Rebuilding the labor movement

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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Unions, as you might certainly expect, have been having a rough time during the current recession. How rough? Well, overall union membership declined by a whopping 771,000 over the past year.

The number of workers in unions is still large, around 15 million. But that’s only a little more than 12 percent of the country’s workforce. There is one bright spot: More than one-third of public employees are in unions.

The figures for workers in private employment, however, show that only about 7 percent of them are in unions, That’s the lowest percentage of unionized workers in private employment since 1900. That’s right – the lowest percentage in 110 years.

Unions are fighting hard to reverse the downward trend, and though many outside the labor movement openly doubt – or at least wishfully think – that it can’t be done, I think they’re wrong. The doubters are forgetting that it’s been done before  – and done in the face of obstacles that were at least as great as those confronted by union adherents today.
It began 75 years ago this month, in November of 1935, when eight affiliates of the American Federation of Labor – the AFL – put together what soon became the independent Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO. Their aim was to mobilize the racially and ethnically mixed mass of generally unskilled workers in steel, rubber, auto, meatpacking and other basic industries.

The AFL had largely ignored the industrial workers in favor of skilled and semi-skilled white craftsmen who were organized into separate unions according to their trade – plumbing, printing, carpentry and so forth – rather than by industry.

That kept most workers isolated from each other and enabled the industrial corporations that dominated the economy to unilaterally set pay and working conditions at the lowest possible levels.

The CIO leaders believed that workers could not make a decent living and that the labor movement could not grow and possibly not even survive unless workers were brought together in tight solidarity through industrial as opposed to the craft unionism. of the AFL.

The issues today are different. But the basic need for solidarity remains, as does the need to organize workers whatever their occupation.

That won’t be easy, with only about 12 percent of today’s workforce in unions. But when the CIO began in 1935, less than 10 percent of the country’s workers were in unions, and they faced a Great Depression that was much worse than today’s Great Recession.

The labor movement hit rock bottom during the Depression of the 1930s. But finally unemployment became so widespread and pay and working conditions so bad that large numbers of workers rebelled – most under the banners of the CIO.

 President Franklin Roosevelt, fearing revolution, quickly pushed through Congress bills that in effect put the government behind the workers attempts to organize. They were granted the legal right to organize and to strike – and to choose by majority votes unions to represent them in collective bargaining with their employers.

Millions of workers flocked to unions, CIO and AFL unions alike. Millions engaged in strikes and other militant actions to press their bargaining demands. Pay rose substantially. Workers won unheard of fringe benefits. Working hours were reduced without reductions in pay. Grievance procedures were instituted. Job security was greatly enhanced.

Most important, the living standards of ordinary Americans were raised. And the United States at last had a true middle class.

As the CIO grew, so did the AFL. By the time the competing organizations merged in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO, one of every three U.S. workers belonged to a union.

The vital, demanding and essential task of today’s labor leaders is nothing less than to do what was done by their predecessors when they formed the CIO three-quarters of a century ago . . . nothing less than to bring new life to the American labor movement.


Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. The film intern is Ryan Prendiville. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. 

OPENING

Cool It Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, is a controversial figure in the climate change community. “He’s a massive negative force in this issue,” says a Stanford professor in Cool It, a documentary from Ondi Timoner (2004’s Dig!) Accused of being a climate change denier, Lomborg argues that it is not the case; he accepts the reality global warming, but believes current approaches are misguided. What do you do with $250 billion to fight climate change? Lomborg’s answer: prioritizing solving basically every major social and medical problem facing the world (wouldn’t that be nice) while also funding new technologies. The film gets insulting at parts, comparing Lomborg’s opponents to school children. (When Timoner takes the time to humanize, showing Lomborg calling his aging mother, it’s just insulting to the audience.) Ultimately, taken with films like 2006’s An Inconvenient Truth, there’s a convincing argument for a need to go home from the theater and look the issues up firsthand. (1:28) Bridge. (Prendiville)

*Four Lions If you think terrorism is no laughing matter you might resist English director-cowriter Chris Morris’ first film, which does make it pretty damn funny — it being the fanaticism, doggerel, and dim-bulbdom that can create suicide bombers, not the suicide bombing (or other murderous acts) themselves. Yes, people get hurt here, but within the Three Stooges tradition of folks who can’t stop boinking themselves or one another with mallets, or in this case (somewhat) more sophisticated weaponry. The protagonists here are working-class Sheffield Muslims, two of whom (Kayvan Novak, Riz Ahmed) just spectacularly flunked out of terrorist training camp in Pakistan. The others include a recent convert to Islam (Nigel Lindsay) who seems to be in it solely to lend his all-purpose rage an excusing “cause,” and a guy (Adeel Akhtar) training crows to deliver bombs — well, he’s trying. Their goal: getting blown to smithereens (hopefully taking as many infidels with them as possible) during the London Marathon. So … what’s their jihad? Let’s just say zeal outstrips cogency of moral mission, let alone competency at becoming a public threat, amongst these arbitrarily Koran-misquoting bozos. Four Lions manages to mix the credible and farcical, satirizing holy-terrorism without insulting religion (or culture, or ethnicity) itself. Despite very deft performances, script and direction remain hit ‘n’ miss to a point — but at that point, encompassing the long marathon-centered climax, it all turns freakin’ hilarious. (1:42) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Morning Glory Rachel McAdams plays a morning-show producer; Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton play her battling co-anchors. (1:47) Marina, Shattuck.

127 Hours See “Rock Rolled.” (1:30) Embarcadero.

Skyline Aliens invade LA, sending a cast of C-listers a-scurryin’ from a barrage of special effects. (runtime not available)

*Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields The release of the 1999 collection 69 Love Songs put the Magnetic Fields and Stephin Merritt, the group’s prickly mastermind, into the spotlight for the first time. Since then, the group has willingly slinked back into the arms of its devoted fan base while continuing to write some of the prettiest, cleverest, and most timeless-sounding pop songs around. Typically known as a bit of a recluse, Merritt allowed full access to the filmmakers, who captured over ten years of live footage, recording sessions, and personal interviews. Pulling back the curtain in this case isn’t a bad thing at all, as the group’s overall charm is balanced out with Merritt’s mysterious ambiguity intact. Some of the best moments — Merritt playing with his Chihuahua, casually arguing with his band mates, musing on the differences between Los Angeles and New York gay bars — find beauty in the mundane; just like the songs themselves. (1:22) Roxie. (Landon Moblad)

Unstoppable After a dunderheaded train-yard worker essentially flicks the “hellbent” switch on an unmanned train loaded with hazardous materials, it’s up to odd-couple operators Denzel Washington (old; cranky; in endearing subplot, his daughters work at Hooters) and Chris Pine (young; cocky; in weirdly off-putting subplot, his wife has a restraining order against him) to chase down that loco-motive and prove the movie’s title wrong. The film mostly darts between the interior of a train car, for Washington-Pine bickering; railroad mission control, where a miscast Rosario Dawson literally phones in her performance; TV news reports, lazily illustrating the train’s flight through rural Pennsylvania; and various low angles relative to the speeding train, so sinister it’s bright red and numbered 777 (which is, like, almost 666!) Veteran action director Tony Scott does what he can with the based-on-true-events storyline, but Unstoppable is so deadly serious and predictable it just gets boring after awhile. At least the runaway vehicle in 1994’s similar Speed had a villain to enjoy; here, there’s just an angry choo-choo. Miss you, Dennis Hopper. (1:38) (Eddy)

*Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen Born almost a 1,000 years ago and long regarded a feminist groundbreaker, Hildegard von Bingen was a composer, scientist, healer, writer, visionary, and game-changer in her humanist view of faith. A Benedictine nun who became the noted female spiritual leader when there were none, she built her own convent, and attracted the attention of the Pope with her waking visions, images she would interpret as dispatches from God. The feminist director of such classics of German new wave moviemaking as The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), Marianne and Juliane (1981), and Rosa Luxemburg (1986), Margarethe von Trotta is still focused on revolutionary women, albeit, with Vision, one who finds a way to work nonviolently, within the system. The challenge here is to bring the potentially stolid and static life of a medieval mystic to the screen — there are few concrete historical details about everyday life within a convent. But aided by Barbara Sukowa — the fiery radical center of both Marianne and Juliane and Rosa Luxemburg — von Trotta manages to give Hildegard human dimensions: the abbess is far from modest and retiring when, for instance, she needs to navigate the byzantine politics of the church or when her most devoted acolyte Richardis (Hannah Herzsprung) is wrenched away. Ornamented by Hildregarde’s compelling compositions and careful never to stray into kitsch, Vision only occasionally lapses into the flatness of a standard biopic — Hildegard (and Sukowa) are too fascinating, and von Trotta has been too long absent from moviemaking. (1:51) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

ONGOING

Carlos (5:30) Sundance Kabuki.

Conviction (1:47) Empire, Piedmont, SF Center.

Due Date One delayed appearance for a baby’s birth does not a Hangover (2009) make. After all, even the most commited baby daddy isn’t totally required to be at the blessed event, unlike a wedding ceremony. So even two films into what seems like a trilogy of bromancey men’s coming-of-age terror, director Todd Phillips already seems to working a tired old bone. Slick LA architect Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) has a self-satisfied mean streak that doesn’t seem to be abating with the birth of his first child halfway across the country, or his run-ins with budding thespian Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) — the two collide cute in the airport on their way to the so-called Best Coast. One no-fly list leads to another, and Peter is reluctantly hightailing it by rental car with the uncoolest dude in school. Oh dear: Roadtrip for Schmucks, anyone? Due Date proves that, yes, contrary to what I once believed, there is such a thing as too much Galifianakis, in perpetual shtick mode here. And even though the weathered, well-textured Downey can build character with a single well-placed, black-hearted glare, he’s saddled with such a sorry misanthropic creep here that the audience is hard-pressed to care. (1:35) Empire, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Fair Game (1:46) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki.

For Colored Girls (2:00) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2:28) Clay, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Hereafter (2:09) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Inside Job (2:00) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story (1:51) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*Jackass 3D (1:30) 1000 Van Ness.

*Leaving (1:30) Albany, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael.

*Mademoiselle Chambon (1:41) Opera Plaza.

*Megamind (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki.

*Monsters (1:33) California, Lumiere.

*Nowhere Boy (1:37) Shattuck.

Paranormal Activity 2 (1:45) California, 1000 Van Ness.

Red (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Saw 3D (1:31) 1000 Van Ness.

*Secretariat (1:56) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*The Social Network (2:00) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Stone (1:45) Opera Plaza.

*36 Quai des Orfèvres (1:51) Roxie.

Tibet in Song (1:26) Shattuck.

The Town (2:10) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck.

*Waiting for “Superman” (1:51) Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2:13) Presidio.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (1:38) Albany, Four Star, Opera Plaza.

Prison for killer cop

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Prison for killer cop

rebeccab@sfbg.com

On Nov. 5, former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to two years in state prison for fatally shooting Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African American rider, on the Fruitvale train platform on New Year’s Day 2009.

Mehserle, who is white, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in July in an incident that has become charged with racial undertones. He received credit for 292 days served in jail so far, which will considerably reduce his time in prison. It was the lightest prison sentence he could have received for the crime.

Grant supporters gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland to express anger and sorrow upon hearing news of the sentence. “I’m not shocked,” said Cat Brooks, who helped organize an afternoon rally for the Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant. “But I’m disgusted and distraught. It seems like the justice system didn’t work.”

After the rally came to a close and night fell, protesters spilled into the streets and marched toward the Fruitvale BART Station, the scene of the crime. But after a dozen car windows were smashed along the way, police officers in riot gear corralled the group into a residential neighborhood. Police then placed 152 protesters under mass arrest, mostly on charges of unlawful assembly. Roughly two-thirds of those arrested were Oakland residents, according to the Oakland Police Department, while others were from Berkeley, San Francisco, Hayward, and other local cities.

 

COMMUNITY RESPONDS

A stage outside Oakland City Hall was transformed into a venue for personal expression in the wake of the sentencing. Community members lined up to air their frustrations and resolve to keep fighting. They piled flowers onto a shrine that had been created with a picture of Grant’s face. Some painted pictures, while others gave spoken word or hip-hop performances. Several told stories of loved ones who’d died in police shootings.

Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle, was at the Los Angeles courtroom where Mehserle was sentenced, but shared some thoughts with the Guardian beforehand. Asked what he’d thought when the verdict had been announced, Johnson said, “My first thought was that we’re witnessing the criminal justice system failing to work as it should have worked.” If the sentence fell short of the 14-year maximum, he said, “it will be another slap in the face, signifying that black and brown men are worthless.”

East Bay labor organizer Charles Dubois was among those attending the Nov. 5 rally. “Every black parent, every brown parent, lives with this nightmare of their children being killed by some cops because they thought they had a gun,” Dubois said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s been happening since I was a kid. It’s been happening then and it’s happening now, and it’s going to keep happening until we do something.”

California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) also weighed in during a phone call with the Guardian. “This verdict is outrageous,” he said. “It’s Dan White all over again.”

 

JUDGE DROPS GUN ENHANCEMENT

Judge Robert Perry sided with arguments presented by Mehserle’s defense attorney, Michael Rains, when he levied a reduced punishment. Mehserle could have served up to 14 years prison for involuntary manslaughter committed while wielding a gun, but Perry tossed out the firearm enhancement.

“No reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that Mehserle intentionally fired his gun,” the judge was quoted in media reports as saying. But that appears to be what the jury found, as the prosecution argued in a presentencing memorandum.

“The evidence was presented regarding the use of the gun, and in discussing the use of the gun in the jury room, somehow or another the jury decided he had used the gun illegally,” criminal defense attorney and National Lawyers Guild observer Walter Riley told the Guardian. “One has to believe the jury expected him to have exposure to a greater amount of jail time because of that.”

Perry said he believed Mehserle suffered a “muscle memory accident” that led him to draw and fire his service weapon instead of his Taser, a cornerstone of the defense’s case.

Rains wrote to the court prior to sentencing that jurors should never have been allowed to apply the firearm enhancement to an involuntary manslaughter conviction “because in this case, there is no logical way to square a verdict of involuntary manslaughter and a finding that Mehserle intended to use his gun.”

Prosecutor David Stein of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office countered that the jury’s conviction showed they believed Mehserle intended to shoot, but not to kill, Grant. Yet Perry agreed with the defense, conceding he had mistakenly permitted the jury to enhance Mehserle’s sentence.

Riley said he sympathized with frustrations over the gun enhancement getting dismissed. “The use of guns is too prevalent in circumstances where law enforcement comes in contact with young black people,” he said. “Our society — our civil society, our judicial authority, and our communities — have to hold government and law enforcement officers to a higher level of accountability in their interactions with citizens. When people with guns shoot an inordinate number of people of one group, it’s worth tremendous scrutiny.”

 

ANOTHER NIGHT IN JAIL

Twice before, activists took to the streets in furious protest over this case. In January 2009, things escalated to the point where cars were set ablaze. In July 2010, a street rally gave way to rioting and looting. So on Nov. 5, many downtown Oakland storeowners boarded up and closed business early in anticipation of a third wave of vandalism.

Yet the turnout was smaller than the previous events. And while there were reports of smashed car windshields and other instances of vandalism along the circuitous path of the march, there was far less property destruction.

The community affair outside Oakland City Hall ended around 6 p.m., when the permit expired. Soon after, activists spilled into the intersection of 14th and Broadway streets, then began advancing down 14th Street chanting “No Justice! No Peace!” and “The whole system is guilty!” The march turned right onto Madison Street, then left onto 10th Street.

A police helicopter with a spotlight kept pace overhead while it progressed, and when protesters reached Laney College, police officers in riot gear blocked them in. So protesters cut through a park and wandered in a pack until they reached the intersection of East 18th Street and Sixth Avenue in a residential neighborhood. Once again, police surrounded the protesters. This time, the crowd was trapped.

Rachel Jackson, an activist who was barricaded in, began sounding off. “We were going to Fruitvale,” she explained. “We wanted to go to the scene of the crime. All night the police have been trying to suppress our free speech.” When a nearby TV news reporter asked her about windows that had been busted along the march, she was incensed. “We will not equate glass with Oscar Grant’s life!” she responded. “If we have to come out ourselves and board up windows, we’ll do that. But what we are concerned with right now is murder.”

Reporters were allowed to exit the confined area, but if anyone else had been inclined to leave peacefully, they were unable to. Police issued a call on a megaphone telling activists, “You are all under arrest. Do not resist arrest.” By the time the mass arrest was underway, public information officer Jeff Thomason told a group of reporters that there were more police officers on the scene than protesters.

“When the rocks were being thrown, it was declared an unlawful assembly,” Thomason explained. He said a dispersal order had been issued simultaneously. Yet it would have been impossible for the trapped crowd to comply with such an order.

Meanwhile, a resident of the Oakland neighborhood who had come outside when the commotion began told the Guardian that she sympathized with the protesters. “The only thing I don’t condone is the vandalism,” said Dyshia Harvey, who surveyed the scene from behind a fence with her six-year-old son.

Harvey had been anticipating word of Mehserle’s sentencing. “I was upset. I was frustrated, angry, and hurt” by the outcome, she said. But she wasn’t surprised. “I already knew we weren’t going to get no justice,” she said. “For taking a life, 14 years isn’t enough. It makes you feel like there’s no justice in the justice system.”

 

NOT OVER YET

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley has not stated whether her office will appeal Perry’s ruling. Rains told reporters in L.A. that he would appeal Mehserle’s involuntary manslaughter conviction.

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement indicating that a federal investigation is in the works. “The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California have been closely monitoring the local prosecution of this case,” a USDOJ prepared statement notes. “Now that the state prosecution has concluded and consistent with department policy, we will thoroughly review the prosecution and its underlying investigation to determine whether further action is appropriate.”

BART settled a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Grant’s daughter in January that is likely to total $5.1 million, according to civil rights attorney John Burris’ website. Two other lawsuits, one on behalf of Grant’s mother and one on behalf of five other men on the Fruitvale station platform that night, have been consolidated into a single trial that will begin in May 2011, Burris told the Guardian.

Meanwhile, Grant’s death marked just one of three police shootings that occurred Jan. 1, 2009 — the other two cases also sparked allegations of civil-rights violations, since both victims were African American men. Adolph Grimes, 22, was fatally shot 14 times, including 12 times in the back, by a group of New Orleans police officers, who erroneously believed he was a suspect who’d fled the scene of a shooting.

The same night, Robert Tolan, 23 — the son of a Major League Baseball player — was shot and seriously injured outside his home in an upscale Houston suburb by a police officer who mistakenly believed Tolan had stolen the vehicle he was driving. Sgt. Jeffrey Cotton, the white officer who shot him, was ultimately acquitted.

 

CREATIVE OUTLET

Not everyone in Oakland reacted to Mehserle’s sentence by charging through the streets. The Oscar Grant Foundation, which facilitated live art performances at Frank Ogawa Plaza Nov. 5, is calling for youth groups, Bay Area schools, and adults to participate in an art and poetry showcase inspired by Grant. Information can be found online at IamOscarGrant.org. The foundation is advertising a $1,000 grand prize. Three artists from the Trust Your Struggle Collective didn’t wait to join a contest, however, and spent the afternoon of Nov. 5 adorning plywood covering the Youth Radio building windows at 17th Street and Telegraph Avenue, a few blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza.

The mural displayed a prominent image of Grant holding his daughter, Tatiana, who was four years old when Grant was killed. The pair are flanked by the names and figures of more than 20 people killed by police.

“We asked the youth inside what they wanted to see,” Miguel Perez, an artist with the Trust Your Struggle Collective, told the Guardian as he looked over the mural. “They said they wanted to see the names of people killed by police nationwide, not just in the Bay Area. The list is so huge, it’s hard to pick out specific names.”

Perez said Trust Your Struggle is a group of artists and educators with social-justice backgrounds who create art as activism. “Being a person of color, I’ve had racist stuff said to me by the police,” Perez said. “It seems like it’s slowly been changing for the past hundreds of years, but it’s still not enough — enough being fairness.” *

Our Weekly Picks: November 3-9, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 3

EVENT

“The Neighborhood”

Audyssey, an L.A.-based audio laboratory, must have a thing for San Francisco. First it marketed its iPhone docking station as the South of Market, and now it’s calibrating the music scene by launching a monthly music showcase at 111 Minna: “Multiple genres. Local talent. The Neighborhood.” With live performances by Maus Haus, My First Earthquake, Shortkut, Trackademicks, Ghosts On Tape, DLRN, and Electric Sunset, and DJs King Most, Prince Aries, and A-Ron, the lineup is enough to make you forget the whole synergistic marketing thing (it’s free, yo). That many diverse acts and the promise of local food carts to keep you fed? (Food not free.) Half the fun should be seeing if it all come together under one roof. (Ryan Prendiville)
9 p.m., free
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna, SF
(415) 974-1719
www.audyssey.com/theneighborhood

THURSDAY 4

COMEDY

Michael Ian Black

First gaining widespread fame for his work on Stella, The State, Viva Variety and other TV shows, comedian Michael Ian Black has honed his sarcastic commentary on pop culture to a fine, surgical-quality blade, quite literally stealing the show on every appearance he has made on VH1’s I Love The … series. For those who just can’t get enough of his wit and witticisms from the short, seconds-long snippets that make it on the air, here’s the chance to experience a full-on onslaught of hilarious, side-splitting observations from one of the best funnymen on the circuit today. (Sean McCourt)
Thurs.–Sun., 8 p.m. (also Fri.–Sat., 10:15 p.m.), $22.50–$23.50.
Cobb’s Comedy Club
915 Columbus, SF
(415) 928-4320
www.cobbscomedyclub.com

MUSIC

Marnie Stern

Kill Rock Stars artist Marnie Stern brings her whirlwind brand of finger-tap guitar shredding to Oakland. With influences ranging from math-rock godfathers Don Cabellero to punk and classic-rock staples, Stern and her band create quite the interesting racket. Equally impressive as Stern herself is her drummer, Zach Hill (of Hella), who matches her yelping vocal style and hyperactive arena rock solos with a frenetic creativity all his own. Stern’s new self-titled album brings the “noise for the sake of noise” level down just a tad and offers a more melodic and direct approach to her songwriting. (Landon Moblad)
8 p.m., $12
New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com

FRIDAY 5

VISUAL ART

“I Live Here: SF”

It goes without saying that we live in a pretty diverse city, but since February 2009 photographer Julie Michelle has been capturing the people and stories that make SF great in her “I Live Here: SF” portrait series. The end result includes more than 170 images of SF residents, complete with their personal stories and accounts of their connection to this lovely, crazy, and exciting city of ours. Her subjects cut across races, classes, ages, and neighborhoods; you might just be surprised by the SF microcelebrities who pop up in them. I guarantee you’ll recognize someone photographed for the exhibit — or at least have seen one walking by you on the street. (Ben Hopfer)
6-9 p.m., free
SOMArts
934 Brannan, SF
(415) 552-1770
www.iliveheresf.com

DANCE

“Shared Space 4”

This is the fourth “Shared Space” season for Todd Eckert and Nol Simonse, two dancers who couldn’t be more different from each other. Yet as choreographers they find common ground. At least for this season, they are both diving into the past for their world premieres. The intricate meters of a medieval poetic form and the music of J.S. Bach inspired Eckert’s new Sinfonia. Continuing his interest in Greek mythology, Simonse is reaching even farther back. Demeter, the goddess of harvest and generosity, became the springboard for Greater Than. With Dancer for Hire, however, he hits a painful, up-to-date note: how to keep dancing in these parlous times. (Rita Felciano)
Fri/5-Sat/6, 8 p.m.; Sun/7, 7 p.m., $20
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th St., SF
(415) 273-4633
www.sharedspacesf.org

MUSIC

Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers

A recent project bringing together two luminaries of the 1960s and ’70s California rock ’n’ roll scene, the collaboration between legendary Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and blues guitarist par excellence Roy Rogers has produced an eclectic exploration of musical styles, including reimaginings of Doors classics, along with other blues and jazz tracks. Tonight’s show is being billed as “An Evening of Rock ’n’ Roll Tales and Music” since the duo promise to share stories about their long and fruitful careers between songs — fans won’t want to miss this rare opportunity to hear them straight from the still-rocking source. (McCourt)
8 and 10 p.m., $18–$25
Yoshi’s San Francisco
1330 Fillmore St., SF
(415) 655-5600
www.yoshis.com

DANCE

AXIS Dance Company and inkBoat

Known for its mix of disabled and able-bodied dancers, AXIS Dance Company has joined forces with Shinichi Iova-Koga and his company inkBoat to create ODD, a piece inspired by the work of Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. With cellist Joan Jeanrenaud performing a live original composition, ODD delves into themes found in Nerdrum’s paintings, including loneliness, fear, sexuality, and degradation. Iova-Koga’s choreography is mesmerizing to say the least and exactly how he will fuse two companies, a musician, and an artist’s work into an evening show is the source of much anticipation. (Emmaly Wiederholt)
Fri/5–Sat/6, 8 p.m., Sun/7, 3 p.m., $15–$18
ODC Theater
3153 17th St, SF
Also Nov. 12–14, $10–$22
Malonga Theater
1428 Alice, Oakl.
www.axisdance.org

SATURDAY 6

MUSIC

San Francisco Symphony Día de los Muertos family concert

One hundred years ago as the Mexican Revolution kicked into high gear, could Emiliano Zapatista or Pancho Villa have anticipated the havoc that has their country in a stranglehold today? We hear so much about the Mexican drug wars (and bankroll them on the weekend) that it’s easy to forget our southerly neighbor’s beauty and culture. This makes it a particularly salient year for the symphony’s annual celebration of Chicano heritage, underwritten by an homage to the centennial celebration of the Revolution. Papel picado, sugar skulls, and steaming cups of Mexican chocolate precede the musical program, which itself features kid-friendly works from accomplished Latino composers. (Caitlin Donohue)
2 p.m., $15–$68
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, SF
(415) 864-6000
www.sfsymphony.org

PERFORMANCE

Burning Libraries: Stories from the New Ellis Island
Arts and Literacy in Children’s Education (ALICE) is a grassroots organization composed of artists from multiple genres committed to bringing arts education to economically disadvantaged schools. Born out of a project encouraging children to learn their oral histories is Burning Libraries: Stories from the New Ellis Island, a new piece by ALICE Presents, the professional performing arm of ALICE. Encapsulating 30 stories from people in minority and immigrant communities, this theatrical piece fuses dance, music, video, puppetry, and aerial arts to explore what it truly means to be American. (Wiederholt)
Through Nov. 14
Thurs/4 and Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.;
Sun, 3 p.m., $15–$30
ZSpace at Theater Artaud
450 Florida, SF
Also Dec. 3–-5,
$15–$25
Laney College Theater
900 Fallon, Oakl.
www.alicepresents.com

MONDAY 8

DANCE

WestWave Dance Festival

If you are counting live performances, this is program three of this year’s WestWave Dance Festival. If you like your dance on screen as well as on stage, this is program four, since officially Nov. 7’s “Dance on Film Nite” is program three. Enough bean counting. It’s good to see that Monday night dance has caught on. Audiences apparently appreciate not having to squeeze all their dance fixes into the weekend. Of course, it helps to program stuff people want to see; tonight’s event is a good mix of well-, fairly-well, and little-known choreographers: Lisa Townsend, Brittany Brown Ceres, Erika Tsimbrovsky, Robert Dekkers, and Andrew Skeels. (Felciano)
8 p.m., $25
Cowell Theater
Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF
(415) 345-7575
www.westwavedancefestival.org

TUESDAY 9

MUSIC

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

With a name like the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, you’d be justified in taking these guys for some sappy, Bright Eyes wannabes. Luckily, this isn’t the case. Based out of New York City (who isn’t these days?), the band makes lovely little indie-pop tunes that couple boy-girl harmonies with Jesus and Mary Chain-style distortion. Check out the absolutely infectious track “Young Adult Friction” from the 2009 self-titled album for a taste. (Moblad)
With Weekend and Grave Babies
8 p.m., $15
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421
www.theindependentsf.com

MUSIC

Kurt Vile and the Violators and Soft Pack

If sneering “I hope I die before I get old” epitomized a generation, what’s the significance of Matt Lamkin singing “I know I’m gonna die before I see my prime” on Letterman? Rock ’n’ roll is now collecting Social Security and emerging acts are hoping for a YouTube apotheosis. Musical appreciation amounts to identifying a band’s influences and then immediately writing them off. With the driving beat of Lamkin’s L.A.-based Soft Pack or the writing-from-the-bottom-of-a-well style of Philadelphia’s Kurt Vile and the Violators, this would be a disservice. The sounds familiar, but moves forward, and as Vile reminds, “I’ve got a freeway mind, let go of my head.” (Prendiville)
With Purling Hiss
8 p.m., $14
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com

$100,000 -A-Year Women

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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Unfortunately, as we all know – or should know – working women generally make less than working men, currently 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. But now come new census figures showing that in at least one regard, women are forging ahead of their male counterparts. They’re doing much better than men among higher paid workers.

It turns out that the number of women with six-figure incomes is rising at a much faster pace than is the number of men making six-figure incomes.

Nationwide, it looks like this: About one in 18 women working full time – about 2.5 million women in all – earned $100,000 or more in 2009, a jump of 14 percent from two years earlier. Only one in seven men, a total of about 8 million, made that much, an increase of just four percent.

How did that happen? Why so many higher-paid women? The most important reason seems to be the steady growth over the past three decades of women with the academic credentials to qualify them for higher-paying work. Women, in fact, now outnumber men at just about every level of higher education, with three women attending college and graduate school for every two men doing so.

Women earn more master’s degrees and more PhDs. Most law school students are women. So are almost half of the country’s medical students. Law and medicine are, of course, the academic fields that generally lead to higher paying professional jobs.

The two Washington Post staff writers who reported the Census findings, Carol Morello and Dan Keating, caution, however, that the wage gap between men and women “remains stubbornly persistent”. And despite women’s increased pay generally, women are only sparsely represented at the higher levels of business. For instance, just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

lIene Lang, president of Catalyst, a group that’s working to improve business opportunities for women,  is cautious as well. It’s no surprise to her that as women get more education, they earn more. But, she said, “women have been getting these degrees for a long time. And they’re still hitting a glass ceiling.”

We should take into account the impact of the current recession, which has hit men much harder than women. Median pay and hours worked fell twice as much for men as for women. The share of workers earning annual pay of $50,000 or more has stayed pretty much the same for men throughout the recession, but has risen 5 percent for women.

There’s another matter to consider. The fields with more men than women – manufacturing and construction, for example – have been declining throughout the recession, at the same time that there’s been a steady increase in jobs requiring the higher levels of education that more women have reached. So working women, although still far behind working men in compensation, are steadily gaining.

Women still have got a long, long way to go before reaching wage equality, but they’re on the way. Finally.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. The film intern is Ryan Prendiville. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide at www.sfbg.com. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

The Blue Tower Smita Bhide’s debut film, The Blue Tower, part of the 3rd I South Asian International Film Fest, begins with Mohan (Abhin Galeya) in the sort of loveless marriage that has become a standard cliché. It’s unnecessary to give any reason why the relationship is failing; as a viewer I accept it just as easily as I realize that with the introduction of Judy (Alice O’Connell), a young white nurse working for Mohan’s overbearing Auntie, Mohan will have an affair. However, this predictable fare, like a straight version of My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), takes a dark turn about halfway through, as every character and plot point emerges as more nefarious and twisted than originally imagined, and Mohan finds himself in a situation full of Lynchian perversion and Kafkaesque disorientation. The boldness and speed at which developments occur shifts the deadpan, suburban drama into a black-humored, grotesque ride — the sort you half want to stop, and you half want to see where it’s going. (1:25) Castro. (Prendiville)

*Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers Focusing on Portland-based league Rose City Rollers, Chip Mabry’s Brutal Beauty offers some insights into the recent roller derby revival. The documentary follows the league travel team’s attempt to make it to Nationals over the course of the 2009 season. Ultimately though, the narrative really isn’t all that exciting (spoiler alert: they don’t make it very far). The real heart of the movie lies in the backgrounds and interviews of the tatted-up, foul-mouthed, dyed-haired derby girls from teams like the Break Neck Betties and Guns ‘N’ Rollers. Their personalities and stories of how derby helped shatter their ideas of self-expression and traditional gender norms helps keep the majority of the film’s 80-minute running time interesting, even when the action is not. (1:20) Red Vic. (Landon Moblad)

Butte, America: The Saga of a Hard Rock Mining Town This documentary follows the life and death of a great American mining town, following Butte, Montana’s rise as a mining town through to its inevitable environmental collapse. Once home to one of the world’s largest (and most dangerous) copper mines, Butte saw an influx of immigrants drawn to “the richest hill on earth.” Its story is definitely rich in terms of subject matter, particularly with the town’s role in the labor struggle; it could easily be the background for great early 20th century stories (as is the case with Atlantic City in HBO’s current Boardwalk Empire). But Butte, America is decidedly not cinematic, despite the voice-over narration by Gabriel Byrne, and is better suited to PBS than the big screen. (1:06) Victoria. (Prendiville)

Carlos Carlos, Olivier Assayas’s biopic of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, begins with a warning, that while the film is the subject of historical and journalistic research, “relations with other characters have been fictionalized.” In other words: there be contradictions ahead. But I suppose that’s the least you can expect when you’re watching a 330 minute theatrical miniseries that gives the rock ‘n’ roll biopic treatment to a terrorist who, under an alias, professes “the pleasure of doing one’s duty in silence.” Much of this is intentional, questioning the convictions of extremists. One particularly well-shot scene involves Carlos (Édgar Ramírez) sexually dominating a cell member, only moments after she admits to being a German feminist. After about four hours, though, the intellectual irony begins to feel more like a filmmaker attempting to cover his bases. Carlos is an idealist, but also a sellout. An egalitarian revolutionary, but also a sexist bigot. (And so vain.) Still, the film, full of actors speaking a bevy of languages and propelled by a international punk rock soundtrack, manages to be engaging. Keep in mind, though, that the miniseries was originally aired in three parts, and viewing Carlos in one sitting should be left to the cinemasochists. (5:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Prendiville)

Due Date Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis star in this Todd Phillips-directed road trip movie. (1:35) Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Fair Game Doug Liman’s film effectively dramatizes yet another disgraceful chapter from the last Presidential administration: how CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), who’d headed the Joint Task Force on Iraq investigating whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs, was identified by name in the Washington Post as a covert agent — thus ending her intelligence career and placing many of her subordinates and sources around the world in danger. This info was leaked to the press, it turned out, by highest-level White House officials as “punishment” for the New York Times editorial former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) — Plame’s husband — wrote condemning their insistence on those WMDs to justify the Iraq invasion by then already well in progress. (The CIA task force had also found zero evidence of mass-destruction weapons, but Bush and co. chose to come up with their own bogus “facts” to sway US public opinion.) Purportedly, Karl Rove clucked to CNN’s Chris Matthews that Wilson’s awkwardly-timed dose of sobering truth rendered his spouse “fair game” for exposure. Unfortunately opening here several days after it might theoretically have done some election-day good — not that many Republican voters would likely be queuing up — Fair Game may be a familiar story to many. But its gist and details remain quite enough to make the blood boil. While the political aspects are expertly handled in thriller terms, the personal ones are a tad less successful. That’s partly because we never quite glimpse what brought these two very busy, business-first people together; but largely, alas, because so many of Wilson’s diatribes come off all too much as things that might be said by Sean Penn, Rabble-Rouser and Humanitarian. This is perhaps a case of casting so perfect it becomes a distracting fault. (1:46) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

For Colored Girls Sprinkling many tears and Janet Jackson’s blue steel throughout his high-camp, muy melodramatic adaptation of Ntzoke Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Tyler Perry deserves at least an E for effort in attempting to bring Shange’s choreopoem masterpiece to the screen. The result is a free-floating, somewhat tortured contemporary collection of vignettes centered on a clutch of African American women residing in an Harlem apartment building — a structure that remotely evokes an early Wong Kar-Wai omnibus like Days of Being Wild (1991), sans the narrative ambiguity and sublime cinematography — with its “colored girls,” each representing a hue in Shange’s rainbow, occasionally pouring out the poet’s original verse. Crystal (Kimberly Elise) appears to have it the hardest, burdened with an abusive baby daddy (Michael Ealy), a veteran dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dance teacher Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose) is the beacon of positivity who finds her trust horribly betrayed. Tangie (Thandie Newton) is the saucy slut, baby sister Nyla (Tessa Thompson) is the good girl with a secret, and their mother Alice (Whoopi Goldberg) is the building’s extremely annoying holy roller. Overseeing all is the apartments’ de facto matriarch Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), safe sex activist Juanita (Loretta Devine), and social worker Kelly (Kerry Washington). Oh, yes, and there’s Miss Jackson, who plays the leather-tough, magazine-editing devil wearing Prada, and spends most of her time looking wrecked about possibly ruining her makeup with an actual facial expression. Yes, they will survive, hey, hey, and though Perry may not have been the best moviemaker to adapt Shange’s groundbreaking work, a few of his players, particularly Newton and Elise, rise above the rainbow with wrenching, scene-stealing performances. (2:00) (Chun)

Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer Everyone of a certain age or with morbid curiosities has heard of R. Budd Dwyer, thanks to the very public way he died — by committing suicide at a televised-live press conference. The 1987 footage, of a portly middle-aged man with anguish in his eyes and a finger on the trigger, has been recycled in a number of contexts; thanks to the internet, it’s now freely viewable for shock value more than anything else (the incident created a controversy as to how much should be shown during news replays — when Dwyer takes out the gun? When he sticks it in his mouth?) Along the way, who Dwyer was, and why he shot himself, have kind of been lost by the general public. However, as director James Dirschberger discovers, the Pennsylvania politician’s widow, children, colleagues, and even the man whose testimony lead to a conviction in Dwyer’s corruption trial have never forgotten him. Honest Man suggests that Dwyer was actually innocent, but decided in despair to end his life before he’d been removed from office, thus allowing his family to collect full benefits. The full story will probably never be known, but Honest Man‘s attempts to show the man behind the gruesome film clip are sincere, if couched in the understanding that he’ll always be first associated with his infamous, well-documented death. (1:16) Red Vic. (Eddy)

*Megamind Be careful what you wish for, especially if you’re a blue meanie with a Conehead noggin and a knack for mispronunciation and mayhem. Holding up hilariously against such animated efforts as The Incredibles (2004) and Monsters, Inc. (2001), Megamind uses that nugget of wisdom as its narrative springboard and takes off where most superhero-vs.-supervillain yarns end: the feud between baddie Megamind (voiced by Will Farrell) and goody-two-shoes Metro Man (Brad Pitt) goes waaay back, to the ankle-biter years. They’ve battled so often over intrepid girl reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fay) that she’s beyond bored by every nefarious torture device and disco crocodile the Blue Man throws at her. When Mega finally, unexpectedly vanquishes his foe, he finds himself with a bad case of the blues. With the help of his loyal Minion (David Cross), he decides to change the game and create his own worthy opponent, who just happens to be Roxanne’s schlubby cameraman (Jonah Hill). Chortles ensue, thanks to the sarcastic sass emanating from the Will and Tina show, although the 3-D effects seem beside the point. The resemblance to this year’s Despicable Me is more than a little passing, from the bad guy on the moral turnaround to the adorable underlings, but Megamind‘s smart satire of comic hero conventions, its voice actor’s right-on riffs, and the rock and pop licks on the soundtrack make it the nice and nasty winner. (1:36) Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Monsters After a NASA space pod bearing samples of extraterrestrial life crashes in northern Mexico, a large swath of the now massively walled-off U.S. border area becomes an “Infected Zone,” with frequent unpleasant contact between humans and giant octopus-like creatures. Photographer Andrew (Scoot McNairy) is reluctantly charged with delivering his publisher’s daughter Sam (Whitney Able) to safety. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned. The duo find themselves making a dangerous journey northward straight through the Zone, right at the start of an annual “migration season” that always makes the critters especially ornery. Just as 2009’s District 9 commented obliquely on Apartheid, Gareth Edwards’ feature similarly riffs on our own illegal-alien debate. But there’s no need to look for deep meanings here. Taken as a slow build (sometimes a little too slow) toward the inevitable perils, Monsters is a successfully low-key, lower-budget spin on aspects of The War of the Worlds, Cloverfield (2008), The Mist (2007), etc. Those looking for lots of graphic horror-fantasy content may be frustrated, but on its own terms the film is creepy and credible enough. (1:33) California, Lumiere. (Harvey)

*36 Quai des Orfèvres It’s taken six years for this major French policier to get a proper U.S. release, which is a little strange considering its genre appeal and lack of conflict with an English-language remake (Martin Campbell, director of 2006’s Casino Royal, might make one within the next couple years). Leaving for another post, Paris’ Chief of Police (Andre Dussolier) wants to wrap things up tidily before he goes, and that means nailing the violent gang that’s been robbing armored trucks and killing their guards. Though he’d prefer his post be inherited by the honorable Leo Vrinks (Daniel Auteil) rather than the latter’s ex-friend, shamelessly ambitious and underhanded Denis Klein (Gerard Depardieu), internal politics necessitate he give it to whichever man and his team end this crime spree. When a con (Roschdy Zem) gives Vrinks a tip — albeit under seriously compromising, blackmail-ready circumstances — it seems the murderous gang will be caught under his supervision. Drunk and raging with envy, Klein pulls a stunt that has catastrophic consequences. Yet a chance windfall allows him to turn things to his advantage, and greatly against Vrinks. To a point the story is very loosely inspired by events that actually occurred in the mid-1980s, when director-writer Olivier Marchal was a Parisian cop. His script (penned in collaboration with three others) is intricate and dramatic, with some startling twists of fate; the casting, which includes a number of other leading French actors, is impeccable. 36 has been called a Gallic Heat — though it lacks the visually and thematically epic, larger-than-life qualities Michael Mann provided that film. Which leaves it a very good story competently executed, but not the great movie it could have been. (1:51) Roxie. (Harvey)

Tibet in Song It’s often a bad sign when directors are subjects in their own documentaries. With Tibet in Song, Ngawang Choephel has good cause to disprove this theory. In 1995, he returned to Tibet for the first time since fleeing with his mother as a child. An ethnomusicologist and Fulbright scholar, he wanted to record traditional Tibetan music. Instead he was arrested, lost half his footage, and charged with spying, eventually serving six years in jail. Tibet in Song is the completion of his original project, and although the director does give due attention to the circumstances of his own story, it’s always within the larger context of the music, as a culture is being held captive by Chinese pop and propaganda. As Choephel argues that the traditional Tibetan music has been manipulated to change the country’s identity generation by generation, we don’t just hear the music, but understand what it means. (1:26) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Prendiville)

ONGOING

Cairo Time (1:29) Opera Plaza.

Conviction (1:47) Empire, Piedmont, SF Center.

*Easy A (1:30) Shattuck.

Enter the Void (2:17) Lumiere.

*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest If you enjoyed the first two films in the Millennium trilogy — 2009’sThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire — there’s a good chance you’ll also like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Based on the final book in Stieg Larsson’s series, the film begins shortly after the violent events at the conclusion of the second movie. There are brief flashes of what happened — the cinematic equivalent of TV’s “previously on&ldots;” — but it’s likely an indecipherable jumble to Girl first-timers. Hornet’s Nest presents the trial of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the much-abused, much-misunderstood, entirely kick-ass protagonist of the series. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his sister Annika (Annika Hallin) as her lawyer, Lisbeth finally gets her day in court. The conspiracy that drives the story is somewhat convoluted, and while it all comes together in the end, Hornet’s Nest isn’t an easy film to digest. Still, it’s a well-made and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy — as long as you caught the beginning and middle, too. (2:28) Bridge, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Hereafter (2:09) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Inside Job (2:00) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*Jackass 3D (1:30) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Kids Are All Right (1:47) Red Vic.

*Leaving Few beauties — French, English, French-English, or otherwise — have managed the transformation Kristin Scott Thomas has, in using her considerable beauty to convey unfathomable hunger. In this romantic thriller with a touch of Madame Bovary and more than a dab of noir, Scott Thomas is Suzanne, the efficient if somewhat taken-for-granted wife of a doctor (Yvan Attal, director of 2001’s My Wife Is an Actress and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s partner), whose marriage resembles a business arrangement more than a love match. The couple enlist Catalan ex-con Ivan (Sergi Lopez) to build an office for her budding physical therapy practice, and after a minor car accident, Ivan falls into Suzanne’s care, and as she grows to care more deeply about him, an affair begins. Director Catherine Corsini’s tough-eyed look at what follows — concerning the economics of marriage and the price of one woman’s individuation and passionate choices — calls to mind women’s melodramas of the ’40s and ’50s, though Corsini renders her oft-told tale of awakening with considerably less heavy-handedness and minimal condescension. That approach and Scott Thomas’ performance — the movie almost turns on the motionless, slowly evolving look in Suzanne’s eyes when she realizes what she must do — makes Leaving a departure from your average coming-of-liberation romance. (1:30) Albany, Clay. (Chun)

Let Me In (1:55) Four Star.

Life as We Know It (1:52) 1000 Van Ness.

*Mademoiselle Chambon (1:41) Opera Plaza.

My Dog Tulip (1:22) Smith Rafael.

Never Let Me Go (1:43) Four Star, Lumiere.

*Nowhere Boy (1:37) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Paranormal Activity 2 (1:45) California, 1000 Van Ness.

Red (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Saw 3D (1:31) 1000 Van Ness.

*Secretariat (1:56) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*The Social Network (2:00) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Stone (1:45) Opera Plaza.

The Town (2:10) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck.

*Waiting for “Superman” (1:51) Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2:13) Presidio.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (1:38) Albany, Opera Plaza, Presidio.

GOLDIES 2010: Hunx and his Punx

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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GOLDIES 2010: Hunx and his Punx

It should come as no surprise that a gay 30-year-old male living in the Bay Area who borrows elements of his fashion-forward look from Freddie Mercury is putting out the “gayest music ever.” He’s a Pisces who rocks a switchblade comb and blends leather daddy duds with a 1950s-meets-1980s juvenile delinquent touch.

Seth Bogart, a.k.a. Hunx, has been devoted to rock and trash pop culture for years. He made zines as a teen in Arizona when riot grrrl was happening, and has essentially created a life from his variety of enthusiasms.

“I do it for myself, to have fun. It makes me feel better being constantly creative. As cheesy as it sounds, happiness is doing what you want to do,” says the rather butch-looking Bogart over tortas at a 24th Street restaurant. His eyes are piercing, he’s wearing a torn biker jacket, and he’s sporting a few days more than a five o’clock shadow.

Probably tired from having just gotten back from New York City, where he spent eight days recording the next Hunx and His Punx album for Sub Pop’s subsidiary label Hardly Art, Bogart appears happy to be home. After years living in Oakland, he currently resides in the Bayview District.

Thematically, Bogart describes the first proper Hunx and His Punx album as being similar to this year’s compilation Gay Singles (True Panther) in that it deals with love and teenage heartbreak. “It sounds like a dream,” he exclaims. But the upcoming album delves deeper into a sadness he said he’s never really written about before. His father committed suicide when he was just a teen, and with his mom left “out of it and depressed” in the immediate aftermath, it’s no wonder he grew up fast and was on his own by 17.

Bogart found catharsis in freedom of expression. As the tale goes, after his previous group Gravy Train!!! disbanded, friends such as Nobunny and Christopher McVicker helped pen some of the early Hunx and His Punx songs. On the new album, Bogart more fully takes the reins, writing half the album’s tracks himself, with his bold bassist and bandmate Shannon Shaw also contributing a few numbers. As for Hunx’s flirty and quick-witted onstage candor, Bogart attributes some of his brazen confidence to old pal and former roadie Nobunny, who instilled in him that you only have one chance in life. This attitude has led to a colorful album insert of Hunx in the buff, as well as an awkward moment when his Internet-browsing mom unexpectedly saw his boner in a Girls music video.

If you think Bogart’s skills to pay the bills begin and end with music, guess again. He happens to co-own Down at Lulu’s, a popular Oakland vintage boutique and salon, with Tina Lucchesi (of Trashwomen, Bobbyteens, and now Midnite SnaXXX). The shop has been open four years, and Bogart, a licensed cosmetologist, cuts hair there three days a week. He and his friend Brande Baugh are also developing a TV talk show.

Although owning his own shop and contributing to the local music scene are two obvious ways Bogart serves the Bay Area community, it’s what he stands for on a larger scale as a unique gay personality in the still hetero male-dominated genre of punk — and broader realm of rock — that makes him bold and noteworthy. You can call him bubblegum and outrageous, but the fact remains that Hunx exudes an image of strength and confidence. He fills a void in garage rock that isn’t quite clean enough for the Castro and maybe too queer for some fans of harder sounds. He blurs the lines, breaks down boring boundaries, and stays true to himself all the while. 

www.myspace.com/hunxsolo; www.myspace.com/gayestmusicever

>>MORE GOLDIES 2010

GOLDIES 2010 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Marc Huestis

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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GOLDIES 2010 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Marc Huestis

“What a swimmer is Dracula’s daughter!,” exclaims John “the Cool Ghoul” Zacherle, as “Dinner With Drac” blares from the speakers in Marc Huestis’ Redstone Labor Temple office. ‘Tis the season for Huestis’ tribute to Poltergeist‘s Jobeth Williams, and the activist, filmmaker, and camp impresario is in the final stretches of preparing for the big night.

What hasn’t Marc Huestis done? As a youngster, he arrived in San Francisco from Long Island, New York, unafraid to recite poetry while sporting a pompadour that would make any Elvis impersonator feel size envy. Soon you could see him singing in drag or writhing around on stage in a dirty diaper in Angels of Light productions. But from the very beginning, film was at the heart of Huestis’s life. His father was an editor who worked on the ’60s teen music TV show Hullabaloo, while his mother was a showgirl. “I have a little bit of both in me,” he jokes, and it’s the truth — a Marc Huestis extravaganza involves informed editing and explosive creative freedom.

One of Huestis’ first notable celebrations was the San Francisco Gay Film Festival, now known as the Frameline fest, which he and his non-biological twin-of-sorts Daniel Nicoletta (born just three days apart from him) began with other like minds in 1976. “It was fun, a bunch of kooky hippie kids who wanted to get their movies shown,” he remembers. “There was no pretense, and the group of us were able to get together to do it. It’s great to see what it has evolved into, and feel a bit like a patron saint. Some people will always hate you, but at this age” — Huestis is 55 — “you get to the point where some people respect you. And you respect yourself.”

In 1982, after making some short films, Huestis wrote and directed Whatever Happened to Susan Jane?, his distinctly San Francisco answer to the kinds of antic comedies John Waters was making on the East Coast. In recent years, the movie has found a new audience amongst music lovers devoted to San Francisco’s new wave heyday — one of its strongest aspects is its documentation of wild performances from Tuxedo Moon and other groups of the day. “It was a great combination of gay culture and punk culture,” Huestis says of the era. “There’s a kindness to it, and it was very smart.”

Huestis’s next feature-length movie, 1993’s Sex Is… is very much a film of its time. A direct look at and discussion of the experience of gay sex and intimacy amid the AIDS crisis, it was also a do-it-yourself, many-year labor of love, with DIY aesthetics one common thread throughout Huestis’s creative life. “It’s very heartfelt,” he says of the film. “It was an important film when it came out because no one was talking about sex, and if they were, it was really hypocritically. The high point of my life was to be at the Berlin Film Festival for the world premiere, and then several days later, be at the awards presentation with Billy Wilder sitting nearby. For me, having HIV, and not thinking I was going to live, that moment was a gift.”

One year later, Huestis moved into his office in the Labor Temple, a treasure trove of film memorabilia where the walls are lined with autographed photos, and VHS tapes, DVDs, VCRs and DVD players are stacked on top of each other — in a well-organized fashion. The site is his base for the celebrity events that he puts on at the Castro Theatre, theatrical and cinematic programs that have blazed a trail for another generation of movie mayhem purveyors such as Jesse Hawthorne Ficks and this year’s Goldie winner Joshua Grannell, a.k.a. Peaches Christ.

Old media surrounds us as we talk, but there is little doubt that Huestis, experienced at putting together political and community fundraisers, is always focused on the present and future as well. “I love new media,” he says. “I could not do what I do if I didn’t have knowledge. I design the posters, I do the clip reels, I get the music together, I do the PR. I would sell the popcorn if I could. I love it. I never get tired of movies.”

It’s fitting, then, that Huestis gets to call one of this country’s oldest and most beautiful movie palaces, the Castro Theatre, home. “One of the first shows I put on there was when the Republicans took control of Congress, so everything comes around,” he says. “The best thing is seeing someone go there for the first time. To me it’s like the town barn, but it’s an amazing, beautiful place.”

If star power can me measured in size, some of the players that Huestis has brought to the Castro over the years — Debbie Reynolds, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, Piper Laurie, Patty Duke — rival the size of the fabled venue. He’s also given eccentric talents such as Sylvia Miles and Karen Black the type of spotlight they deserve. In the end, it’s about gratitude, on his part, on behalf of the audience, and hopefully, from the subjects of his tributes. Huestis’ night for Tony Curtis resulted in him being hired by the actor to create a clip retrospective that ultimately wound up being shown at Curtis’s funeral. “I had a great fondness for and connection with him,” he says. “I love it when they’re thankful, because no one shows gratitude, the world is so entitled. After the [Castro] show, he [Curtis] held my hand really hard, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, ‘Thank you.'”

Thank you, Marc Huestis.

www.myspace.com/marchuestispro  www.youtube.com/user/hostesshue

>>MORE GOLDIES 2010

Al Franken’s Oatmeal

Sasha Cuttler
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Al Franken’s Oatmeal

I can’t stand all the fundraising e-mail blasts that fill my In Box during election season, but this one I liked. Former author and Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken has been pretty low-key since taking his U.S. Senate seat earlier this year following a close and bitter race. Now that he’s getting used to the job, hopefully he’ll loosen up and write more missives like this one, whose subject line was simply titled “Oatmeal.”

Dear Friend:

Here are two thought experiments.  Indulge me, won’t you?

It’s the morning after Election Day.  8 a.m.  You stumble out of bed.  Make some oatmeal.  Turn on the TV to find out what happened in that Senate race, the one that was too close to call all night.  But you gave $5 to the DSCC by clicking on this link.  And, lo and behold, your favorite Democrat — maybe Russ Feingold or Patty Murray — pulled it out by a few votes.  Oatmeal never tasted so sweet. 

But there’s another way it could go.  8 a.m.  Oatmeal.  TV.  But in this example, you DIDN’T give to the DSCC.  And, by a few hundred votes, some Tea Party extremist is now a U.S. Senator-elect — and Republicans have captured the majority.  How’s that oatmeal taste now?

You still have time to decide which scenario will become reality.  But when I say “time,” I don’t mean days.  I mean minutes.  Don’t wait for tomorrow.  Don’t even wait to read the rest of this email.  Click here right now and make a contribution of $5 or more — it will be matched two to one, tripling its impact!

You’ve seen the polls — we’re neck and neck in race after race.  Moving the numbers just a little bit could mean the difference between victory and defeat — trust me, I’ve been there.

And nobody moves numbers like the DSCC.  Thanks to people like you clicking on links like this one, we’ve pulled ahead in California and Connecticut and tied it up in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

But with just hours to go until the polls close, every minute counts.  Your contribution won’t be funding some far-off future plan — it’ll be the money that goes out the door first thing tomorrow.  It could be your $5 that makes the difference for Barbara Boxer, keeps Sharron Angle or Rand Paul out of the Senate, or even saves our majority.

So make a contribution of $5 or more to the DSCC right now — it’ll be on the air in a battleground state or in the field as part of a get-out-the-vote program by tomorrow morning.  And, even better, it will be matched two-to-one, tripling its impact.

If you want to know why I’m standing with the DSCC in the final days of this election, here’s why: On November 3, I don’t want my oatmeal to taste like regret.  I want my oatmeal to taste like victory.

How about you?

Thanks,

Al Franken

Hot sexy events: October 27th-November 2nd

Andrew Lam
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So you loved it when the princess in Disney movies was tied up, but aren’t quite sure if you’re ready to make the move to complicated (read: spendy) ropes and harnesses? No fear, my dear! Alluring ropes lady Midori is here to teach you how to hold down your naughty loved one with the aid of but a few handy scarves at her upcoming Good Vibrations class (Mon/1). Can you believe you can make a dildo harness from a kicky accessory? Come to think of it, dildo harnesses might just be the most kicky accessory of them all…

 

Erotic Reading Circle

Because where oh where will all those literary dirty thoughts in your head go, if not out your mouth and onto the printed page? An opportunity for all those venturing into erotica writing to test out their material in front of a welcoming, sex-positive crowd, hosted by Carol Queen and Jen Cross of Writing Ourselves Whole.

Wed/27 7:30-9:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org


Halloween Pansexual Play Party

For all voyeurs, tops, bottoms, switches, here’s the perfect chance to check out Oakland’s relatively new dungeon space. Space mistresses Jezebel and Isabella will be more than happy to aide you in your BDSM hauntings. 

Fri/29 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $20 single-$35 couple

The Looking Glass Dungeon

Jack London Square, Oakl.

 www.myspace.com/thelookingglassdungeon 

mail@thelookingglassarts.com 


Kinky Salon XXX Haunted Funhouse

I’m not really sure how you’ll find time to engage in copulation at this fake blood scare sex session. Between beats by clown-hop Burner DJ http://gooferman.com/ Gooferman, demon summonings, seances, zombie strippers, and ahem, fake spiders on strings (watch that he doesn’t dangle into unwelcoming orifices, will ya) – well, I’m sure you’ll find time. After all, it’s a two-night party.

Fri/29 and Sat/30 10 p.m., $25-$30 members only

Mission Control

2519 Mission, SF

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Wonderland at the Citadel

The Citadel is quick to note that unlike Wonderland, events at the Citadel do not inspire with the mere ingestion of fungi or snack treats – although that’d be awesome if they did. This is why they are having this fundraiser, which will plunge the appreciative perv into the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, various tea party refreshments, burlesque, and a dirty singalong of “My Favorite Things.” Plus an auction will be held where things like corsets, gags, sensual cupping scenes, and rattan canes can be had for a bid. 

Sat/30 3-6 p.m., $10

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


Citadel Cinema: Rob Zombie’s Halloween

How often during the course of your dungeon play party do you look up and think man, I wish there was a big screen TV over there? Well, all you screen-addicted creatures of the 21st century, your time is now! In honor of the scariest time of year besides Fleet Week, the Citadel is playing one of Rob Zombie’s gore fests – with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as a bonus teaser. Invite says bring your own pillows and blankets, uh-oh!

Sun/31 6-10:30 p.m., $5

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


Wrapped for Pleasure: Easy Bondage for Steamy Sex

You need not have a fully-equipped dungeon to have fun with toys. Let an expert teach you the utility of a few well-placed scarves and cushions. Viola! You are now kinky. 

Mon/1 6-8 p.m., $20-$25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

 

 

 

Your first world series is always the best

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Dick Meister. former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeistersf.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Whoopie! Our valiant Giants are in the World Series again, for the fourth time since they moved to the city from New York in 1958. Pretty exciting, the first series for the Giants since the 2002 series that was won, alas, by the New York Yankees.

Pretty exciting stuff coming up in this year’s series too, Giants vs. Texas  Rangers. But it was more than excitement that swept San Francisco during that first SF Giants World Series and the regular season leading up to the series.  It was near-hysteria. As a young reporter for the SF Chronicle in those days, I felt it up close and very personal.
Merchants filled the newspapers with ads that offered goods “the Giants look up to,” promised “big league values,” and, of course, congratulated the Giants and their fans. for every victory leading to the series.

The hype was too much for some of us at the Chronicle, even me, a former ballplayer. I joined 10 others to sign an anti-baseball petition prompted by the airing at the paper — loudly and daily — of the radio broadcasts of Giants’ games.

 “It is not that we have any inherent objection to the Great American Pastime,” the petitioners explained. “Our protest is against the unilateral establishment of an electronic device which broadcasts to a captive city room the trivia associated with the sport. Exhortations like ‘Willie Mays,’ while they obviously provoke a pseudo-religious ecstasy among fans, leave a number of us writhing in embarrassment.”

We gained nothing by our petition. Worse, City Editor Abe Mellinkoff  added insult to injury by sending us out, transistor radios in hand, to capture the mood of the “man on the street” during the World Series’ broadcasts. I was the first to get the assignment. I was supposed to rush up to people in the street after particularly exciting plays, get their excited comments and weave them into one of the fluffy page one feature stories my editors favored – “wiggly rulers,” as they called them, after the wavy lines used to set them off.

But I stuffed the radio into a jacket pocket and wandered aimlessly around Chinatown, where there were few Giants fans in evidence, returning later to explain lamely that I just couldn’t find any men in the street who cared about the World Series.

The next day, the radio was turned over to another reporter, but he had no more interest in the assignment than I. City Editor Mellinkoff, hinting darkly that he might fire the lot of us for insubordination, got his story on the third try – even though the reporter he sent out that day spent the whole time in his favorite drinking establishment down the street.

The reporter returned to the office barely able to walk, much less type a story or give a coherent excuse for not doing so. We propped him up carefully behind a desk in the far reaches of the city room, safely hidden from the nearsighted city editor, then dictated a story to another reporter at the desk directly in front of his, using the names of friends for our men on the street and quotes we had turns making up to go along with the names.

As he completed a page, the reporter who was typing the story would turn and lay it on the desk of the reporter who supposedly was writing the story, one of us would shout, “Boy!,” and a copy boy would grab the page and rush it to the city editor’s desk at the front of the room.

It was a very lively story, quite possibly the best wiggly ruler the Chronicle had run in several months.

Dick Meister. former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeistersf.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Don’t stop this crazy thing

Andrew Lam
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Don’t stop this crazy thing

arts@sfbg.com 

Coldcut used to brag that it was “Ahead of Our Time.” In the late 1980s, they slapped the phrase onto a host of groundbreaking forays into cut-and-past sound mathematics like “Beats + Pieces,” “Doctorin’ the House,” and “Stop This Crazy Thing,” freewheeling tunes that treated the history of sound as an enormous candy shop, copyright laws be damned.

And now? Coldcut’s long-running company Ninja Tune reflects the musical times in all its heterogeneous subgenres and variations on familiar themes. When Matt Black and Jonathan More launched Ninja Tune in 1990, it was to create an outlet for the group’s abiding passion in instrumental beats (which the British press would soon garnish with colorful nicknames like “trip-hop” and “sampledelia”). It was built on Coldcut-related productions like DJ Food’s Jazz Brakes series and Bogus Order’s Zen Brakes. Over time, the label flowered into a major indie with two sublabels (Counter and Big Dada) and dozens of artists passing through its doors, from Amon Tobin and Roots Manuva to Antibalas and Mr. Scruff. Today, it releases iconoclastic statements from the L.A. beat scene (Daedelus), the Baltimore indie/electro scene (Spank Rock and the Death Set), and London’s grime and bass worlds (the Bug).

During a phone interview from London, Coldcut’s Black says, “All the artists on the label have their own character. It’s like a collection of audibles, really. There’s a consistency in the fact that we’re all quite out there.” He adds that Ninja Tune is more “advanced” than it was in its first decade, when most of the roster — including production units like the Herbaliser and Funki Porcini — fit under the “trip-hop” rubric. “I felt that some of the early releases interpreted the Coldcut blueprint too literally, just getting some funky loops and sounds and stringing it out for a bit.” Part of this is due to maturity. The Herbaliser, for example, began making beat “loops” for discerning headz but has since grown into a full-fledged band. Even DJ Food, which now solely consists of producer Strictly Kev, has become a purveyor of soundtrack music inspired as much by David Axelrod as Marley Marl.

The mutating Ninja Tune amoeba is being chronicled through a series of 20th anniversary promotions. The deluxe box set Ninja Tune XX includes a hardcover book, six CDs, and six 7-inch vinyl records. The book, Ninja Tune: 20 Years of Beats & Pieces (Black Dog Publishing, 1992 pages, $29.95), is also available separately as a paperback. “If you look at the arrangements and the musicality on the music on the XX set, it’s a lot more advanced than it was a few years ago,” says Black, pointing to San Francisco’s Brendan “Eskmo” Angelides as an example.

Eskmo isn’t the first Bay Area artist to record for Ninja Tune; that honor belongs to rap experimentalist cLOUDDEAD, which released the U.K. edition of its 2001 self-titled album through Big Dada. However, he gives Ninja Tune a foothold in the thriving bass and organic electronic music scene through the symphonic boom of tracks like “Hypercolor.” Eskmo says that signing with Ninja Tune, which just released his self-titled debut, has been “really inspirational,” adding, “It’s a unique thing in this day and age for an independent to be flourishing and still put out creative stuff.”

According to Stevie Chick’s book 20 Years of Beats & Pieces, Ninja Tune emerged in the wake of the music industry’s brief yet disillusioning courtship of Coldcut, who dazzled with a game-changing remix of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid In Full” (the classic “Seven Minutes of Madness” mix) and U.K. pop hits like Yazz’ “The Only Way Is Up” and Queen Latifah’s “Find a Way.” The label began as Coldcut’s middle finger to demands that they become another group of pop-dance hacks like Stock Aitken Waterman. “We really liked making instrumental hip-hop, fucking around, not having to make another ‘pop’ track,” Black tells author Chick. On albums such as 1997’s Let Us Play, Coldcut found an equilibrium between advocating the wonders of cutting-edge technology and vinyl consumption and promoting anticapitalist themes.

An inevitable byproduct of Ninja Tune’s success (as well as that of its great rival, Warp Records) is that its fashion-forward yet radical communal lifestyle seems more myth than reality. In 2005, the label released Amon Tobin’s soundtrack for the Ubisoft video game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Last year, Speech Debelle won the U.K. Mercury Prize for her Speech Therapy debut. A few months later, the British rapper announced that she wanted off the Big Dada label because it didn’t promote her work enough. Meanwhile, several roster artists have scored popular car commercials, from Mr. Scruff’s “Get a Move On” for the Lincoln Navigator to the Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now?” for KIA Sorento minivans.

“We’ve adapted our game,” Black explains. “We’ve got a company called Sync, Inc. and they specialize in getting sync licenses or getting our music placed in films, TV, video games, and adverts. That’s become an important part of our business.” When asked if that contradicts Coldcut’s earlier independent philosophy, he answers, “We give our artists a lot of freedom. If an artist wants to license a track to Coca-Cola, we wouldn’t necessarily block them. Coldcut has turned down a lot of syncs, particularly car ads, ever since we did one for Ford and realized that was a terrible idea.” Ironically, the song used was “Timber,” an instrumental decrying the eradication of rain forests. Even though Coldcut gave half of the licensing money to Greenpeace, says Black, “We didn’t feel comfortable with it.”

Two decades on, Ninja Tune continues to weather the rapid changes of the music industry while sustaining Coldcut’s dream of an independent haven for progressive artists. But the future ain’t free. “I believe the corporations are the Nazis of our age,” Black says. “But you sometimes have to talk to the Nazis because they’re a reality.”

NINJATUNE XX

With Amon Tobin, Kid Koala, DJ Food and DK, Toddla T and Serocee, Dj Kentaro, Eskmo, Ghostbeard, An-Ten-Nae, Motion Potion

Fri/29, 9 p.m.-4 a.m.; free with rsvp

1015 Folsom

103 Harriet, SF

www.ninjatunexx.xlr8r.com

 

 

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