Video

This charming Animal Charmer

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No I’m not taking about the late Crocodile Hunter, I’m talking about Jim Fetterley of the duo Animal Charm. Along with Rich Bott (and occasionally some other friends), Fetterley has been making confounding, perplexing, vexing, hexing, and comically scathing short videos for almost a decade. On the eve of the SF release party for the Animal Charm DVD Golden Digest — and in conjunction with this week’s cover story — I recently talked with Mr. Fetterley about what happens when animals and boardrooms attack. Check out Golden Digest. You’ll never see family basketball games or Meatballs the same way again.

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Guardian: What other people working with video material do you find inspiring?
Jim Fetterley: There’s so much — recently the saturation level is at a point where the connections between receivers to producers to producers to receivers form one big loop. There’s a general tendency right now to get excited about things that are unknown or anonymous.
Everyone is looking for something that will up the ante, whether it’s left field or straight from the entertainment cultural industry.
I’d have to cite friends. Most closely, TV Sheriff, our friend Davy Force. A year ago in April we finally got to meet in person a collective of people from Paper Rad, and Cory Arcangel – people who are trading and exchanging ideas.
Most recently, I don’t even know the names of some of the things being presented online. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Blazin Hazin tapes — a friend introduced us to them at an Iowa conference in 2002 or 2003. We contacted him and he sent us nine more videos. Notoriety or making more money isn’t as interesting [to me] as exploring some of the other possibilities that can come from this type of practice.

Josh’s going-back-to-jail party at Crash

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On the eve of Josh Wolf going to jail, and on the eve of Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada facing yet another federal decision moving them ever closer to jail, I was honored to be the lead speaker at the fundraiser and going-back-to-jail party for Josh last night at Crash, a club on Mason Street in San Francisco.

I made two major points: first, that this was the only city in the country to my knowledge that had three reporters who were in jail or heading to jail, on orders from Washington, for failing to produce sources and material in federal cases. This was no mistake. This was a direct hit at San Francisco, the country’s leading city for dissent and anti-war movements for decades, and came down directly from the Bush Administration and its PATRIOT Act politics as a way to scare the city and put its dissenters on notice.

My second point was that I was speaking as a member of many journalism organizations (from the Society of Professional Journalists, which has already contributed $30,000 to Josh’s defense, to the California First Amendment Coalition to the California Newspaper Publishers Association to international groups from the InterAmerican Press Association to the World Association of Newspapers to the International Press Institute) and that these professional organizations either are or would be in solidarity on this common ground journalism/public service issue. They could be counted on. But the Josh Wolf case was different because he was a lone freelance video photographer, without a news organization and attorneys behind him, and he looked like easy prey for the local cops and the feds.

That, I noted, was what was so important about the Crash event and the emerging Josh brigade. The event was lively, well attended, lots of fun, and demonstrated that a freelancer who stands tall, as Josh is doing, can build a strong grassroots constituency capable of mobilizing sustained resistance.

The real outrage is that the local cops turned Josh’s case over to the feds and gave them another timely target for Bush in San Francisco. And the cops did so secretly and unilaterally, without going to the mayor, to the supervisors, to the district attorney, to the Police Commission. The cops who are fighting like hell to keep beat patrolmen out of the neighborhoods and were happy to invite the feds to come to town and rough up our press and our public on their behalf. At minimum, that move demands public hearings by the supervisors to determine how this happened and what can be done to see that it never happens again.

Today’s Chronicle blaring front page head said: “SILENCE MEANS PRISON, JUDGE TELLS REPORTERS” No, silence in this case for these three reporters means principle and honor and holding your ground under fire. There is no principle or honor for the people in Washington who are working overtime to put in jail three reporters who were doing their job at this critical moment in the City and County of San Francisco.

Free the Media!

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WHAT: Free the Media!
WHEN: Thursday September 21st, 8pm-midnight
WHERE: Crash (34 Mason Street between Eddy and Turk)

Blogger and video-journalist Josh Wolf has been ordered back to jail for refusing to let a federal grand jury have unedited footage of a July 2005 protest demonstration.

Free the Media! Is a benefit to raise money for the Rise Up Network legal defense fund for freelance journalists.

Speakers at Thursday’s event will include Josh Wolf (on the eve of his return to prison), Bruce Brugmann, editor and publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian; San Francisco Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly; filmmaker Kevin Epps; Sarah Olson, Truthout.org journalist; Jeff Perlstein, executive director of the Media Alliance; Richard Knee, acting Journalism Division chair of the National Writers Union’s Bay Area chapter; and Njeri Sims, filmmaker.

Live music by Magnetism. Chuck Gonzalez to DJ.

Embattled journalist Josh Wolf’s video blog

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Mall of the metaverse

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› culture@sfbg.com
Suzanne Vega is waddling across the screen. Well, not the real Suzanne Vega but the quiet folk singer’s digital avatar on SecondLife.com. On Aug. 3, she — or it — claimed the proud position of being the first digital representation of a major-label pop star to give a concert in cyberspace. After an interview with public radio host John Hockenberry, she sings an a cappella version of her ’80s hit “Tom’s Diner,” then awkwardly straps on a guitar and plays a set for attending Second Lifers, members of the popular online virtual world.
Whoever’s controlling the Vega avatar hasn’t quite got a handle on her yet — unless the ungainly swaying is supposed to indicate that she’s had one too many. And the audience of online gamers, whose avatars you can see bobbing their virtual heads in the bleachers, barely reaches a total of 100. Some of them are also bald and unaccessorized: the avatar-attendees were instructed to remove all extraneous attachments — including hair — to reduce server lag time. But it’s a lovely sounding, intimate event all the same and fitting for Vega. Kids these days might not know her music, but the Grammy winner is renowned as the “mother of the MP3” — “Tom’s Diner” was used by a German engineer to invent the MP3 format.
The Vega concert is just the first in a series that Second Life is launching. Duran Duran, the first artists to use location shooting and Macromedia Flash in a music video, have just announced they’ve purchased an island resort in Second Life and will be the first band to perform live online through their avatars. Just think: the right code could take their hairstyles higher than Aquanet ever did. For more contemporary music fans, rapper Talib Kweli is also slated to make an online appearance. Along with violence, sex, and role playing, live concerts are finally being translated into moving pixels.
Online virtual worlds are nothing new. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have been around since the early ’90s and are rooted in games that have been around since the ’70s (yeah, like the one with the 20-sided die). So when San Francisco–based company Linden Lab created Second Life, a virtual 3-D world (or “multiverse,” coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi smash novel Snow Crash) now inhabited by some 550,000 residents, it had a firm jumping-off point. But while other MMORPGs concentrate on hunting and killing or solving elaborate puzzles, Second Life tries to replicate everyday experiences: shopping, hanging out, scoring a dream job, meeting new people. It’s a Sims-like experience in real time.
And it involves real money. The most staggering aspect of Second Life is its economy. Users are dropping actual ducats in exchange for clothing, real estate, cocktails, and even skateboards for their virtual representations. The currency of Second Life is called a Linden dollar — L$300 equals roughly US$1. During June alone, over US$5.3 million were spent on goods and services within Second Life. The SL digital continent is the size of metropolitan Boston — that’s a lot of virtual strip malls. At the current growth rate, Second Life projects 3.6 million users by the end of next year. Big-name businesses are starting to take note.
American Apparel was among the first “meat space,” or real-life, businesses to set up shop in the virtual world. Its SL flagship store sells clothing for avatars — at around L$300 a pop for T-shirts. And of course, no AA outlet would be complete without virtual billboards of half-naked avatars. The Adidas group just announced that it will begin selling footwear for avatars. W Hotels is opening Aloft, a virtual hotel. “As the population increases, I could see direct revenue, so long as we constructed experiences that mimicked the world that is Second Life, such as a browsable record store, not just banner ads,” says Ethan Kaplan Sr., director of technology at Warner Bros. Records.
And because a captive virtual audience offers a wonderland of name-brand recognition opportunities, celebrities are starting to take note as well. “Every celebrity who presently has a MySpace profile will eventually have an avatar on Second Life. A MySpace profile is an avatar,” says Reuben Steiger of Millions of Us, whose company snagged a contract with Toyota to offer a virtual edition of the Scion xB to SL residents. (A dealership is in the works.) Imagine a world where you can walk up to Paris Hilton in a bar and buy her drinks until she starts dancing on the tables. OK, so maybe that isn’t so hard to imagine, but in Second Life you can get a job as a bouncer and throw her drunk ass out. The future is now.
In an unsurprising development for an interactive game, some users are starting to chafe at the überconsumerist direction Second Life’s taking. Recently, a faction of residents calling themselves the Second Life Liberation Army entered the American Apparel store, pixel guns ablazin’, to prevent other residents from buying goods. The “terrorist attack” wasn’t intended to scare first-world business away though; rather, the SLLA wanted the citizens of Second Life to have a vote in Linden Lab’s business operations. But maybe some good ol’ rock ’n’ roll rebellion has been beamed up along with the live concerts. SFBG

One strike and you’re out

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DVD available from Choices Video.

My introduction to director William Gazecki came with his 1997 debut, the Oscar-nominated doc Waco: The Rules of Engagement. I distinctly remember sitting alone at the Red Vic, my jaw on the floor, watching the damning footage he’d unearthed solve the riddle of who fired first (’twas our government, not the Branch Davidians). In 2002, he released Crop Circles: Quest for Truth, which happened to come out the same year as Signs, marking some kind of crop-circle zeitgeist that may or may not have been informed by occupants of inteplanetary craft. (The doc — which was not nearly as well-received as Waco — doesn’t prove it either way, alas).

Between this pair of films, in 2000, Gazecki released Reckless Indifference, newly available on DVD. The doc recounts the 1995 crime that’s been held as an example of what’s wrong with California’s felony murder rule. (Read CBS News’ take on the case here.) Picture a Larry Clark-directed episode of American Justice, and you’ll get a feel for the cast of very real characters: a teenage drug dealer who operated out of a backyard “fort;” a gaggle of middle-class white kids whose suburban boredom inspired them to drink and commit mean-spirited pranks; and parents who took an interest only when it was far too late.

TUESDAY

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Sept. 19

Dvd/Music

Bad Brains, Live at CBGB 1982

There’s nothing fancy about the new Bad Brains DVD, Live at CBGB 1982 (Music Video Distributors), but then again, there doesn’t need to be. The recently issued concert film captures the band onstage at the peak of their early hardcore era – performing classics such as “Redbone in the City,” “How Low Can a Punk Get,” and “Attitude” – with no annoying camera tricks or other distractions. (Will York)

9 p.m.
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
Free
(415) 970-9777
www.12galaxies.com

Visual Art

“Mexico As Muse: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston”

Intended as an archive for the monumental partnership between two major artistic figures, Tina Modotti and Edward Weston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Mexico as Muse” serves more as a teaser to Modotti’s life and work. While Weston’s images of earthen pots, ancient pyramids, and Mexican skies build a foundation for later works, his portraits of his artistic partner are by far his most interesting contributions to “Mexico as Muse.” Modotti chose her subjects carefully, opting for the limitless possibilities of telephone lines stretching over the rural Mexican landscape and flimsy, partially ajar doors instead of the immobile and established nature of Weston’s content. (K. Tighe)

Through Jan. 2
Fri.-Tues., 11 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 11 a.m.-8:45 p.m.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third St., SF
$12.50, $8 seniors, $7 students, free under 13 and members (free first Tuesday; half price Thurs., 6-8:45 p.m.)
(415) 357-4000
www.sfmoma.org

MONDAY

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Sept. 18

Event

“True Lust Confidential”

Let’s be honest, spoken word and open mic nights are not typically linked to eroticism and sexual candor. This is not the case at the Porchlight’s “True Lust Confidential,” a steamy literary event dedicated to all things sexy that promises to be anything but typical. The night’s lineup boasts an idiosyncratic mix, including comedian Michael Capozzola, hat-obsessed movie critic Jan Wahl, burlesque dancer and erotic poet Lady Monster, and self-proclaimed “smutsmith” Allison Landa. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

8 p.m.
Cafe du Nord
2170 Market, SF
$12
(415) 861-5016
www.cafedunord.com
www.porchlightsf.com

Discussion

Labor and war

Join trade unionists and workers at a discussion on wars in the Middle East with union leaders Monadel Herzallah, Alan Fisher, Professor Mary Ann Ring, and Jack Heyman and members of Transport Workers Solidarity Committee Chair. The event is sponsored by Break the Siege Coalition, Labor Video Project, Labor for Palestine, and Labor Action Coalition. (Deborah Giattina)

7 p.m.
522 Valencia, third floor, SF
$3 donation requested
(415) 282-1908

Fringe on top

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
There’s a crisp fall edge to the heady pee-asma of the Tenderloin as huddled, roaming packs of theater scavengers move hourly among the tolerant local traffic — two unmistakable signs of the SF Fringe Festival. How like Halloween it all seems too, the greedy devouring of tricks and treats at the Fringe, that 12-day carnival of the theater world gleefully unimpeded by judges’ panels, censors’ boards, or the general plague of good taste.
The open-door policy of the Fringe makes for a thoroughly unhinged program of nearly 40 local, national, and international acts, all under an hour and all under 10 bucks. In this situation, word of mouth and capricious fortune serve as the principal guideposts for sporting patrons ricocheting from one show to the next among 10 different venues, including such nontraditional environs as Original Joe’s restaurant-bar and the mobile fiesta known as the Mexican Bus.
Amid opening night’s offerings Sept. 6 came the latest from Fringe superstars Banana Bag and Bodice. Something of a superstar satire itself, The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen explores, exclaims, and explodes the mass-cultural phenomenon (“mass retardo reactions”) surrounding a legendary band, the Rising Fallen, six years defunct since playing just one glorious gig.
Part one of a longer piece, Rising Fallen unfolds as a pretentious and outlandish presentation by a grad student expert (Christopher W. White) writing his thesis on the “post-wave neo-nick nick scene.” His quickly wayward lecture includes testimonials and reenactments featuring former lead guitarist Taylor Taylor (Dave Malloy), number one groupie Janey Jane (Rebecca Noon), and some other dude (a roving protean presence played by Joseph Estlack). Amid a couple of microphones and practice amps, an electric guitar, a handheld light source, a video monitor, and a suitably quirky musical score by Malloy come various ego-refracted takes on the myth and mystique surrounding the band’s long-estranged lover-founders, Jacko and Grandma Mo. They are played remotely if indelibly via some recorded images and a pair of cell phones by BB and B’s New York founders, Jason Craig (who cowrote the piece with Malloy) and Jessica Jelliffe.
Word-struck, wryly antisoulful, but only fitfully inspired (especially by comparison with their previous shows), Rising Fallen never quite finds its legs. Ironically, Craig’s and Jelliffe’s charismatic but elusive personae might have held the piece together more had the actors actually been live onstage.
The following night saw two premieres with strangely similar themes by SF companies. Get It? Got It. Good., an absurdist three-act play by SF playwright-director Dan Wilson (Vagina Dentata), begins as a desperate hunt by two losers (Catz Forsman and Sam Shaw) for an elusive “it” sought by their clients (a frustrated couple played by Kevin Karrick and Stefanie Goldstein) and ends with an inquiry into the nature of good and bad that devolves into a Luigi Pirandello–like unraveling of the play itself. Although the play tends to substitute volume and verbosity for more penetrating writing at points, Wilson and his capable eight-person cast reach several high notes (not least actor Hal Savage’s Catholic sermon).
The ghost of Pirandello haunted the stage once more that evening. This time it was in the back room at Original Joe’s on Taylor, where RIPE Theater unveiled its latest, @six, an amusing set of interconnected scenes written by the company that eventually turns its purported premise — a series of coincidental encounters between two antagonistic couples (Sarah McKereghan and John Andrew Stillions; Mark Rachel and Deborah Wade) and a silent bystander (Noah Kelly) — inside out. Some uneven writing and thematic unraveling aside, great ensemble acting and consistently sharp humor held this one together.
Other promising fare in the SF Fringe Fest couldn’t be sampled in time for this column, including local legend-in-his-own-right Dan Carbone’s new show, Bay Area playwright Ian Walker’s Stone Trilogy, and the anticipated sequel The Thrilling Adventures of Elvis in Space II. For the whole enchilada, including audience reviews, visit the fest’s Web site. SFBG
SF FRINGE FESTIVAL
Through Sun/17
Call or see Web site for showtimes, locations, and prices
www.sffringe.org

Turf’s up

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
First nicknamed the Rolling 20s in the ’70s, then the Twomps in the ’80s, the group of East Oakland avenues below MacArthur and between 19th and Fruitvale avenues received its present designation, the Murder Dubs, in the early ’90s, when a neighborhood hustler named P-Dub began a lethal reign of terror in an effort to control the local drug trade. Naturally, this didn’t endear him to the community, which locked its collective doors to him the night his number came up, leaving him to be gunned down in the street by pursuers circa 1994.
Yet despite this violent legacy, the vibe in the Dubs seems remarkably friendly, at least in the company of its most famous son, 23-year-old MC and producer Beeda Weeda. Head of the sprawling Pushin’ the Beat (PTB) camp — whose roster includes a half-dozen talented producers, as well as rappers like Lil Al the Gamer and veteran crew Under Survalance — Beeda is on familiar terms with most of the neighborhood, though this doesn’t prevent a nearby group of kids from treating him like a star.
“Are you really Beeda Weeda?” one boy asks. “My name’s Beeda Weeda too!” A girl asks for his autograph. “Go get some paper,” the rapper answers, and the kids race home for supplies, allowing us to finish our photo shoot before Beeda poses with his fans and surrenders his signature.
Far from letting it go to his head, Beeda Weeda seems merely amused at his newfound celebrity.
“People see you on TV and they think you rich and famous,” he says with a laugh, referring to his video for “Turf’s Up,” which has been in heavy rotation on VJ-TV (Oakland cable channel 78) for several months, in addition to receiving more than 70,000 plays on YouTube. There’s a vast gulf separating local access from MTV. Still, Beeda has already made inroads into MTV terrain, not the least of which is his contribution to E-40 and Keak Da Sneak’s “Tell Me When to Go” video.
Beeda explains, “40 heard about me and knew I was still in the mix in the town. He didn’t even know I did music when we first hooked up. They wanted to get the elements of the street, the whole sideshow thing, so I helped him do the casting in terms of the cars, the locations, things like that.”
Drawing on their extensive neighborhood network, Beeda Weeda and PTB’s in-house video guru, J-Mo, would end up exerting a considerable influence on the image of hyphy in the national consciousness, due to the video’s success on MTV. The experience also netted PTB some of the unused footage, not to mention high-profile cameos by E-40 and Lil Jon, for its “Turf’s Up” video. More recently, Beeda and West Oakland partner J-Stalin were filmed together in the studio working on their upcoming album, for a segment of an as-yet-untitled MTV reality show following cub reporters for Rolling Stone. (MTV exec Ryan Cunningham confirmed nothing save that the segment was likely to air. Presumably, some sort of Rolling Stone article will run.) At the time of our photo shoot, Beeda’s solo debut, Turfology 101, was about a week away from its Aug. 29 street date and had already been reviewed in the latest issue of Scratch. Released on Souls of Mischief–Hieroglyphics member Tajai’s Clear Label Records and distributed through Hiero/Fontana/Universal, Turfology has just enough major-label clout behind it to get itself noticed even on a NY magazine’s New York–centric radar.
He may not quite be famous yet, but as Beeda Weeda is forced to acknowledge, “My name’s starting to ring bells.”
WHAT’S THAT SOUND?
Some rap names are chosen; others, given. In this case, Beeda Weeda is the rapper’s childhood nickname, derived from his association with Peeda Weeda. “He was like my OG when I was a little kid,” Beeda says. In 1992, at age 15, Peeda was shot by the Oakland Police Department and left paraplegic, one of many victims of the neighborhood’s most violent period.
As the ’90s wore on and Beeda entered his teens, he began making tracks, inspired by neighborhood musicians who would eventually form the core of the PTB production squad. “Most of them are older than me,” he says. “They were into music before me, so I was looking up to them. We got Big Vito, GB, LG, Tre, Miggz, and G-Lite.”
“My partner from the neighborhood, J-Boog, was rapping, and I started making beats,” Beeda continues. “But I didn’t start getting serious until I did a track called ‘Hard Hitters’ for a little group I put together called Dying 2 Live. It came out on an actual CD.”
While “Hard Hitters” didn’t cause much of a ripple in Bay Area hip-hop’s late-’90s commercial doldrums, it was sufficient to establish Beeda Weeda as a neighborhood beatmaker, attracting the attention of up-and-coming rapper Lil Al.
“We hooked up, and I started slanging beats to him,” Beeda says. “He was, like, ‘Man, let’s be a group,’ so that’s when I started really writing. We put out a whole album, all original music, and pushed it in the streets. We pressed it up ourselves. Did all the artwork. I damn near engineered, produced, and mixed the whole thang. It was called Just an Introduction by Lil Al and Beeda Weeda.” Released on their own Young Black Entrepreneurs label in 2002, Just an Introduction would quickly sell out its 500-copy run and make the pair’s reputation in the streets as young rappers.
“At the same time,” Beeda confesses, “we wasn’t really eating off the music, so we had to do other things to make money. Bro got caught up in some bullshit, had to do a little time.” With Lil Al in prison, plans to press a more professionally packaged Introduction were abruptly shelved as Beeda was forced to evolve into a solo act.
“ROLLING MURDER”
“I did a few songs, and I was just pushing it through the Dubs,” Beeda continues. “My music has a lot to do with my environment, certain situations that happen to me or my people. I was basically just making music for me and my niggas.”
Such a local focus, crucial to the Turfology concept, is what gives the album its distinctive flavor. Granted, it mightn’t be to everyone’s taste: Scratch’s generally positive review faults PTB’s use of “the synthesizer,” which makes me wonder how the writer imagines hip-hop is made in the hood. If there’s sense to this remark, it’s in the fact that Beeda and company don’t hide the instrument’s “synthness.” They push big chords composed of the most unearthly sounds right in your face.
As for the suggestion that Turfology at times “sounds like one overlong track,” I can only guess the reviewer is accustomed to the 16-tracks-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-each-other formula of most rap discs. Turfology has a sonic coherence sorely lacking in contemporary hip-hop, the stuff that makes for classic albums. The PTB producers are clearly riffing off each other rather than chasing the hyphy train, yet they don’t sound like they’re in a vacuum. The in-house tracks on Turfology blend seamlessly with beats by young North Oakland producer Jamon Dru of Ticket Face, Charlie O of the Hard Labor camp, and East Oakland’s Mekanix.
“Their music is real current and authentic,” says Clear Label Records head Tajai during a session for the upcoming Souls of Mischief album.
Tajai heard some of Beeda’s demos by chance in a friend’s car and immediately got in touch with PTB. Having dropped several of his own solo albums and collaborations, Tajai was looking to expand his roster with other artists. Along with Baby Jaymes and R&B singer Chris Marisol — both of whom are scheduled to release albums next year — Beeda Weeda and PTB made Clear Label suddenly one of the hottest imprints in the Bay. Tajai dismisses the notion that a hood rapper like Beeda is incongruous with Hiero’s “backpacker image.” “Hiero is from East Oakland. Beeda’s a real serious artist and student of rap in general, and I want Clear Label to be a forum for that kind of artist.”
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
In the months since signing with Clear Label and preparing for Turfology to drop, Beeda has busily maintained his buzz on the mixtape circuit. “Tajai gives us the avenues, but as far as promoting, we do that on our own. Since I’m a new artist, we did The Orientation, had DJ Backside mixing it. That had about 12 songs on there and two originals. The game out here is so saturated. I was, like, ‘Let’s give them away.’ So we started passing ’em out in different cities; next thing you know, my name started ringing.”
At the end of May, Beeda dropped a second mixtape, Homework, mixed by the Demolition Men and consisting of PTB originals. A classic in its own right, Homework, with its organ-driven title track by Jamon Dru, is still banging all over Oakland, unlikely to be silenced even by Turfology’s release.
As we wrap our discussion, the PTB house in the Dubs is virtually empty, prior to being sold. The organization is getting too big to stay in the hood, and the camp is shopping for an industrial space.
“I love this place,” Beeda says. “When our studio was outside the hood for a while, I used to find myself driving out for no reason. I just missed it.” Clearly, the MC is connected to his community, and even if PTB has to relocate, it’s clear that he and his crew have no intention of leaving it behind. SFBG
www.myspace.com/beedaweeda

American lie

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› johnny@sfbg.com
One of the many refreshing aspects of Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not Yet Rated is that it doesn’t focus on an obvious topic. Documentaries have begun reaching more viewers in recent years, but few take on the many-fangled foibles of the Bush era in an imaginative manner. Dick’s new film does, in addition to providing a lesson about the intersection between film history and American history, a convergence that isn’t as petty or easily dismissed as one might think. This is a smartly comedic private-eye movie with a feminist, even lesbian sensibility. It’s just dressed up in doc clothes.
Leaving aside Dick’s last name, in This Film Is Not Yet Rated the real private dick is Becky Altringer, a PI the director hires to spy on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — to reach inside its seemingly impenetrable gated fortress and help reveal its inner workings. Taking a cue from Michael Moore, Dick foregrounds Altringer, a woman normal enough to admit that she gets a thrill (necessary amid the waiting and drudgery that make up most of her day) out of spying on people who don’t know she’s watching them. It also sets her portrait against the entitled eccentricity of the MPAA’s oft Republican and rich members, who discriminate against the likes of Altringer on a daily basis in the name of their own supposed normalcy. Needless to say, they’re a pretty kooky bunch.
Dick’s strongest subtext is female pleasure. Here is a filmmaker who has read his Laura Mulvey yet somehow not wound up with a starchy collar. Considering his past work on subjects such as artist and masochist Bob Flanagan, it isn’t a stretch to say that a Bay Area brand of feminism informs Dick’s latest work, which devotes a lot of time to female (and often queer) filmmakers whose visions of sexuality have made the MPAA uncomfortable. Sitting before a movie poster that spells out her attitude toward recently retired MPAA president Jack Valenti, a Peppermint Patty–rasping Kimberly Peirce tells how the ratings board was much more threatened by a close-up of Chloë Sevigny’s face in orgasmic bliss from lesbian oral sex than it was by, say, Boys Don’t Cry’s protagonist getting a bullet in the head. Mary Harron is even more perceptive in her discussion of the organization and its reaction to her American Psycho. A scene in which the killer literally chomps cannibalistically on a woman’s crotch bothered them less than an orgy scene.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated moves rather quickly through the Hays Code clampdown, a very conservative period in Hollywood. But it does take the necessary time to dig into the ascent of Lyndon B. Johnson underling Lew Wasserman. His influence lingers: for decades under the Wasserman-appointed Valenti’s command, the MPAA has worked in tandem with the major studios to squash individuality and independence. Bearing the IFC and Netflix stamps of approval, Dick’s movie arrives at a time when home video receipts dwarf theatrical box office numbers, and thus the ratings system (outside of Blockbuster country) might not matter as much as it once did. But right now is better than never when it comes to tarnishing a corrupt institution’s legacy.SFBG
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
Opens Fri/15
See film listings for theaters and showtimes
http://www3.ifctv.com/thisfilm/about.php

Death by satire

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› annalee@techsploitation.com
TECHSPLOITATION In honor of George W. Bush’s efforts to stop torture by setting up secret CIA prisons and promote freedom by expanding government surveillance powers, I think we should spend a few days contemputf8g another great thing this administration has done for the world: it has reinvigorated political satire.
What was The Daily Show before the USA PATRIOT Act? And where would international pranksters the Yes Men be today without this administration’s asshattish policies?
Thanks to the Internet, satire can be instant and lethal. Certainly it’s not always pretty, but it’s more effective as social criticism than it was in an era before jesters could respond within hours to current events and broadcast their pranks globally.
I’m still a big fan of the widely condemned fake execution video made by three San Francisco multimedia geeks in 2004. Benjamin Vanderford, who plays experimental music in several bands, decided to make the video in response to the media hysteria around the Nick Berg execution video. He’s said that the video wasn’t a partisan protest of the war itself, but instead a wake-up call to the media, which he criticized on his Web site (videohoax.ctyme.com) for doing “no fact-finding” and being so “centralized” that they’ll reprint anything from Reuters or the Associated Press without verifying it.
With the help of Laurie Kirchner and Robert Martin, Vanderford filmed himself tied up in a dingy room as if he’d been kidnapped in Iraq. He stated his real name and address and urged the United States to get out of Iraq. Islamic chants played in the background, and every few seconds a picture of a grisly execution appeared. “We need to leave this country alone or all of us will die like this,” Vanderford said before the video cut to a grainy image of somebody sawing his head off with a butcher knife.
He and his buddies made the video available on their hard drives to anyone using the P2P networks Kazaa and Soulseek. Because the Berg execution video was all over the news, thousands of people were scouring P2P networks for anything with the word “execution” in the title. The video soon turned up on an Islamic Web site, which is how the US media got wind of it. AP and several papers published stories about the video without ever bothering to look up Vanderford, verify his existence, or check the address he used in the video (which was his real home address).
Sure, the message was ugly and the video is actually quite disturbing to watch. But it was the very best kind of social satire — it proved Vanderford’s point that the media were so eager to lap up any news that could feed the terrorism frenzy that they weren’t bothering to do even the most rudimentary fact-checking. Of course, the news outlets whose shoddy practices had been unmasked by this prank were quick to condemn Vanderford and cover their asses. Fox ran a bogus segment featuring a “legal adviser” who said Vanderford had broken the law (he hadn’t), and AP deputy editor Tom Kent claimed that his organization did eventually check the veracity of the tape by “banging” on Vanderford’s door at 4 a.m. and filming him in his underwear answering questions about the hoax (you can see clips of this seminaked interview online).
Possibly the stupidest responses to the hoax came from people who claimed that it hurt people and therefore Vanderford and pals should be punished. Stanford professor of communications Ted Glasser told the San Jose Mercury News that releasing the video was “like bombing a building to see if security measures are in place.” Despite the foolishness of this comment, it reveals how strongly people are affected by well-aimed satire.
I’d rather watch a dozen fake execution videos if it would make the media more careful about buying into government and corporate propaganda. I live for the day when satire is like bombing a building — because nobody actually bombs anyone anymore.
See, that’s the beauty of satire — it hurts, but only in your conscience. SFBG
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who can’t wait to watch videos of the Yes Men masquerading as HUD officials in New Orleans.

TUESDAY

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Sept. 12

Visual Art

“Prophets of Deceit”

OK, what was I just saying about there not being so many Sept. 11 art events? I kinda like CCA Wattis Institute’s approach, which is opening a show that is openly critical of the delusions that have sprung forth in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. Actually, the dozen-artist “Prophets of Deceit” seems more ambitious than that description – together its varied film- and video-gifted crew of contributors should provide some bizarrely insightful views of messianic and apocalyptic cults and their fear-selling leaders. (Johnny Ray Huston)

7:30-9 p.m. reception; through Nov 11
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Artists
1111 Eighth St, SF
Free
(415) 551-9210
www.wattis.org

Fim/Discussion

The World According to Sesame Street

Watch the film The World According to Sesame Street and find out how the muppets have helped people in troubled areas such as Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa. Human rights advocate Chivy Sok; executive director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation Milton Chen, PhD; and associate director of International Child Resource Institute Lisa Ruth Shulman, JD, give a presentation before the screening. (Deborah Giattina)

5:30 p.m.
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin, Koret Auditorium, SF
Free
(510) 452-7178

Weaponizing data

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› annalee@techsploitation.com
TECHSPLOITATION I was in front of a computer when the Twin Towers went down. The morning light flooded Charlie’s tiny studio apartment kitchen, where she’d parked her computer desk in a spot that another person would have used for a breakfast nook.
“Holy shit,” she said. “Look at the Washington Post!” I stared blearily at the monitor, coffee mug in my hand, and saw pictures of smoke. Charlie continued clicking and clicking on news. It was everywhere: live streams and up-to-the-second photographs of the towers as they burned.
One had fallen. Then the other one did. That morning we consumed hundreds of images and lines of electronic text, at the edge of a future I couldn’t fathom. Shit was going to happen, that’s all I knew.
My phone rang an hour later: it was Ed, whose plane from Japan to San Francisco had been diverted to Vancouver. No planes were entering or leaving US airspace.
What happened in geographical space was just the thin end of the wedge.
Shifts more dramatic than anything I could have imagined occurred on our electronic communication networks. The phone system and the Internet formed a new ground zero, a place where “fighting terrorism” became a force more socially disruptive than terrorism itself.
In the weeks that followed, flags and half-baked, vengeful ideas
spattered the mediascape online. ISPs allowed the government to install “carnivore” devices on network backbones, thus allowing the government to eavesdrop on everybody’s Internet traffic. Passage of the USA-PATRIOT Act allowed law enforcement to send secret subpoenas to online service providers for information about their customers.
Those of us critical of the US policies that led to the attack literally whispered to each other about it. We were afraid to say what we thought of the government crackdowns.
Something changed the Internet forever during the surreal years after the attack on the World Trade Center, when we went to war with a country whose citizens and leaders had nothing to do with what happened on September 11, 2001. Data mining was weaponized.
The ability to track hidden information patterns in vast piles of
unsifted data, once the purview of obscure academic articles and some start-ups with weird names like Inktomi and Google, became the touchstone of government efforts to track down terrorists. If a lack of intel is what allowed the terrorists to get us, then by gum, the spooks were going to get as much intel as they possibly could.
As a result, we got John Poindexter pushing misguided programs like Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA), which would allegedly be a giant computer operation in which all the data in the universe would be crunched and “patterns” would emerge to lead government agents to dens of bomb-making bad guys. It also led to the NSA’s now infamous (and probably illegal) surveillance of all the telephone and Internet data passing through AT&T’s wires — as well as the wires of several other major network providers.
Both of these programs rely on the idea that you can find a terrorist
needle in a haystack of data. And both were made far more dangerous by the rise of consumer products like Gmail, Flickr, and MySpace — giant databases of personal information, often tagged with keywords for easy searching. As many pundits (including myself) have said, we’re creating our own surveillance treasure trove.
But what that analysis leaves out is something near and dear to the
American spirit: the people have weapons too. It isn’t just the
government that can turn data mining into a weapon. The citizens can do it too, often better. And so the years since the Sept. 11 attacks have witnessed a blooming of what Dan Gillmor calls “citizen journalism.”
When the mainstream media wouldn’t report what was going on, people turned to alternative sources of news, including online sources. Bloggers became the new investigative reporters.
The groundwork laid by these subversive data miners continues today. The community of online journalists and researchers revealed that an AP photo of the fires in Beirut had been doctored. Bloggers sounded the alarm when upstart photographer Josh Wolf was arrested for refusing to hand over to police video he’d taken of a G-8 protest in San Francisco.
It’s no accident that the rise of blogging coincides with the rise of
government surveillance online. The people are watching too. SFBG
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who is watching the watchers.

Veto the cable giveaway

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Editor’s note: This editorial has been corrected. An earlier version mischaracterized the effect of the cable bill on municipal finances.

EDITORIAL A terrible bill masquerading as a proconsumer law cleared both houses of the state legislature last week and is now on the governor’s desk. It could cost cities and counties millions of dollars, potentially wipe out local control over cable TV franchises, and give a big boost to AT&T, which is best known these days for cooperating with the Bush administration on illegal wiretaps.
The bill, AB 2987, was introduced by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D–Los Angeles), but its real sponsor is AT&T. The bill would allow big telecommunications companies to apply to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for a statewide franchise to deliver cable and video services to California residents. The idea is to make it easier for these companies to offer telephone, Internet, and cable TV service all in one bundle. AT&T and the bill’s other backers say it will increase competition and lower rates. Lenny Goldberg, who runs the California Tax Reform Association and is one of the smartest analysts of economic policy in the state, says the bill will actually lead to increased rates.
But beyond that, there’s a huge problem with the measure. It would effectively take away from cities and counties the ability to regulate local cable TV providers. It would give AT&T or Verizon (or whoever might come along in the future) the ability to ignore local government, get a permit from the state, and deliver service to cities and counties — without having to negotiate a local franchise fee or accept local terms and conditions. Comcast, for example, pays San Francisco millions of dollars a year for the right to sell cable service under the city streets — and under the franchise agreement is required to provide public-access and government channels. A cable provider with a state franchise would never have to go beyond what an existing franchise pays.
Sen. Carole Migden (D–San Francisco), one of only four senators to oppose the bill, argued passionately against giving any favors to AT&T, which has a proven record of turning information on its customers over to the federal government. That’s another excellent reason to oppose the bill, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should veto it.
Meanwhile, Assemblymember Mark Leno’s industrial hemp bill, AB 1147, is on the governor’s desk and should be signed into law. So should AB 2573, which Leno had to fight the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. for and will help San Francisco expand its solar power production. There’s also Leno’s public records reform bill — and perhaps most important, his bill that would allow San Francisco to impose its own motor-vehicle fee, bringing the city $70 million a year. SFBG

Bailed Wolf worries proposed federal reporter’s shield laws won’t protect independent press

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By Sarah Phelan
Like a mole emerging from a hole, bespectacled freelance journalist Josh Wolf squinted into the September sunlight, as he stood on the steps outside the U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit building on Seventh Street in San Francisco. It was the 24-year-old’s first taste of freedom after a month-long stint inside Dublin Federal Correctional Institute for refusing to give a federal grand jury video outtakes of an anarchist protest turned violent.
During his stretch at Dublin, Wolf was only able to breathe fresh air for an hour each day, and he looked as if was relishing the feeling of the sun on his skin, as he voiced his belief that what should have been a SFPD investigation into an assault on an officer, turned into a federal witch hunt, which so far has involved the FBI, the Joint Taskforce on Terrorism, a grand jury—and the thousands of tax payers’ dollars to prosecute and jail him.
As Wolf, who’d traded prison dudes for black jeans, blue shirt and white sneakers, began to speak, jackhammers went off across the the road, as if some evil mastermind was making a last ditch effort to censor the truth. The crowd of camera wielding, microphone-holding paparazzi pressed closer, as Wolf expressed his hope that the 9th Circuit’s decision to grant him bail was a positive sign. (A month earlier, District Court Judge Alsup denied Wolf bail, calling his case “a slamdunk for the federal government.”)
“The late Senator Paul Wellstone once said that significant social change comes from the bottom up,” said Wolf, who hopes his case will ultimately help cement the rights of the independent, as well as those of the traditional, media. Expressing concern that the federal shield laws that are currently on the table “do not encompass people who meet my criteria,” Wolf critiqued the proposed laws for only protecting those who are employed by or under contract with an established media outlet.
‘There should be a common law to protect journalists,” he said, voicing the belief that anyone who is involved in gathering and disseminating news and information is a journalist, whether they are paid for their activities or not.
“I am a journalist, I have a website, I’ve sold footage, including to MichaelMoore.com,” said Wolf, who worries that proposed federal reporter shield laws will create two classes of journalists, those that report and get paid, and those that do it out of volition. “It will create a corporatocracy in which only corporations are media,” he said. “It goes against the idea of a free and independent press.”
He also critiqued what he saw as an increasing abuse of grand juries, which were established to protect the rights of those accused, but increasingly appear to resemble military tribunals and are used so the feds to secretly coerce and investigate targets.
“There is no means that any extended stay in jail is going to bring about a coercive effect,” said Wolf, who believes the case of former New York Times journalist Judith Miller, as well as those of the two BALCO reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle who still face jail time, helped publicize his plight, as well as the blogosphere.
‘It’s egregious that the feds took up an investigation into an assault in a SFPD office,’ said Wolf, who believes that the alleged arson to a SFPD car was used as a hook, simply because SFPD receives federal funds.
“In my tape you hear someone yell, ‘Officer Down!’ That’s the extent of it,” said Wolf, in reply to the question of what interest the feds could possibly have in his clips on the cutting room floor.”
“I don’t want my case to be a reason why people don’t get involved in grassroots journalism,” he said,a cknowledging that his case shows there are risks, “An individual can decide what’s important and truly change thw world we live in,” he said, comparing that freedom to the restrictions imposed on journalists who work for corporate media.”
To help freelancers, Wolf would like to see more information out there on what independent journalists should do if they are subpoenaed. “Know your rights and how to protect them,” he advised.
By the way, when was the last time that an assault on a SFPD triggered a federal investigation, involving the FBI, the JTTF, a grand jury and a reporter doing jail time?

Bailed Wolf worries federal shield laws won’t protect independent press

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Like a mole emerging from a hole, bespectacled freelance journalist Josh Wolf squinted into the September sunlight, as he stood on the steps outside the U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit building on Seventh Street in San Francisco. It was the 24-year-old’s first taste of freedom after a month-long stint inside Dublin Federal Correctional Institute for refusing to give a federal grand jury video outtakes of an anarchist protest turned violent.
During his stretch at Dublin, Wolf was only able to breathe fresh air for an hour each day, and he looked as if was relishing the feeling of the sun on his skin, as he voiced his belief that what should have been a SFPD investigation into an assault on an officer, turned into federal witch hunt, involveing the FBI, the Joint Taskforce on Terrorism, a grand jury—and the thousands of tax payers’ dollars to prosecute and jail him.
As Wolf, who’d traded prison dudes for black jeans, blue shirt and white sneakers, began to speak, jackhammers went off across the the road, as if some evil mastermind was making a last ditch effort to censor the truth. The crowd of camera wielding, microphone-holding paparazzi pressed closer, as Wolf expressed his hope that the 9th Circuit’s decision to grant him bail was a positive sign. (A month earlier, District Court Judge Alsup denied Wolf bail, calling his case “a slamdunk for the federal government.”)
“The late Senator Paul Wellstone once said that significant social change comes from the bottom up,” said Wolf, who hopes his case will ultimately help cement the rights of the independent, as well as those of the traditional, media. Expressing concern that the federal shield laws that are currently on the table “do not encompass people who meet my criteria,” Wolf critiqued the proposed laws for only protecting those who are employed by or under contract with an established media outlet.
“There should be a common law to protect journalists,” he said, voicing the belief that anyone who is involved in gathering and disseminating news and information is a journalist, whether they are paid for their activities or not.
“I am a journalist, I have a website, I’ve sold footage, including to MichaelMoore.com,” said Wolf, who worries that proposed federal reporter shield laws will create two classes of journalists, those that report and get paid, and those that do it out of volition. “It will create a corporatocracy in which only corporations are media,” he said. “It goes against the idea of a free and independent press.”
Wolf also critiqued what he saw as an increasing abuse of grand juries, which were established to protect the rights of those accused, but increasingly appear to be used by the feds to secretly coerce and investigate targets.
“There is no means that any extended stay in jail is going to bring about a coercive effect,” said Wolf, who believes the case of former New York Times journalist Judith Miller, as well as those of the two BALCO reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle who still face jail time, helped publicize his plight, as did the blogosphere.
‘It’s egregious that the feds took up an investigation into an assault in a SFPD office,’ said Wolf, who believes that the alleged arson to a SFPD car was a hook, allowing the feds in simply because SFPD receives federal funds.
“In my tape you hear someone yell, ‘Officer Down!’ That’s the extent of it,” said Wolf, in reply to the question of what interest the feds could possibly have in his clips on the cutting room floor.
“I don’t want my case to be a reason why people don’t get involved in grassroots journalism,” he said, acknowledging that his case shows there are risks involved. “But an individual can decide what’s important and truly change the world we live in,” he said, comparing that freedom to the restrictions imposed on journalists who work for corporate media.”
To help freelancers, Wolf would like to see more information out there on what independent journalists should do, if they are subpoenaed. “Know your rights and how to protect them,” he advised.

Josh Wolf leaving jail

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By G.W. Schulz

Josh Wolf is finally on his way out of jail. An appeals court ruled that his argument against being required to turn over video he captured from a demonstration last year is in fact not frivolous.

He could still see more jail time, however. Another panel will review the contempt order, which a federal judge previously slapped him with, and if it’s ruled as legit, he could go back to jail until next July. For now, he’s out on bail.

Wolf, of course, was hit with a subpoena commanding that he testify and turn over his video to a grand jury that’s investigating an alleged attack by anarchists on a cop and a patrol car during an anti-G8 protest. Wolf insisted journalist’s privelege protected him from having to do so. The feds and the SFPD, for their part, appear to be on little more than a fishing expedition.

So what will Josh do first? We hear he’ll probably being getting to a computer as fast as he can to circulate a message to his supporters.

By the way, when was the last time law enforcement in the Bay Area put this much energy into solving homicides?

The flaws in the Josh Wolf case

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› sarah@sfbg.com
Last week the California State Assembly and Senate unanimously asked Congress to pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to disclose unpublished material and the identity of a source.
Part of the motivation for the new push for federal legislation is the recent spate of federal attempts to imprison journalists who won’t give up their confidential sources. The latest victim of that crackdown, Josh Wolf, is in federal confinement after refusing to give prosecutors outtakes from a video he shot of a demonstration at which a San Francisco police officer was injured and a taillight was broken on a cop car (see “The SFPD’s Punt,” 8/23/06).
And while Congress is reviewing the case for protecting journalists, the Guardian has taken a hard look at the case against Josh Wolf — and it’s looking more dubious every day.
For starters, the local cops and the federal prosecutors are trying to claim that Wolf isn’t really a reporter.
That’s what sources in the San Francisco Police Department and the US Attorney’s Office tell us, and it’s borne out by the way the feds are pressing their case in court. In legal briefs, the government never refers to Wolf as a journalist, only as a witness. One federal official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified, likened Wolf to a convenience store owner who has a security camera that catches criminal activity on tape.
There are all sorts of problems with this argument — the first being that the courts have never formally contested Wolf’s journalistic credentials. In fact, the local prosecutors admit in legal briefs that they contacted Washington to seek permission to subpoena Wolf — a process that’s required whenever journalists face this sort of legal action.
As Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition points out, “The Justice Department claims it complied with regulations that say you can’t subpoena a journalist for outtakes without getting a special order from the attorney general.”
Scheer also notes that under California law, even bloggers enjoy the reporter’s privilege, as recently established when Apple Computer unsuccessfully tried to obtain the identities of sources who allegedly leaked business secrets to bloggers.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says that a case for Wolf qualifying as a journalist could be made under both the House and Senate versions of the Free Flow of Information Act, simply because Wolf was paid for broadcasting his video of the protest.
“In the Senate version, you have to be involved in journalism for money, make some part of your livelihood from it, while the House version is even broader,” said Dalglish.
Watching the part of Wolf’s video that he’s made public, which is posted online at www.joshwolf.net and was aired without his consent by at least three major TV networks before he was eventually compensated, it’s easy to speculate that the SFPD would not have delighted in the picture it paints of local law enforcement.
The footage of the July 8, 2005, protest begins peacefully with protesters, many of them wearing black ski masks, carrying banners saying “Anarchist Action,” “War is the Symptom, Capitalism is the Disease,” and “Destroy the War Machine.” As night comes on, the mood sparkles, then darkens. Someone lights a firecracker, smoke rises, helmeted police arrive, newspaper boxes are turned over, a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. office is sprayed with paint, and suddenly a police officer is captured holding a protester in what appears to be a choking position, while someone shouts, “Police brutality! Your career is over, fajita boy!” and an officer warns, “Leave or you’re going to get blasted. I’m a fed, motherfucker.”
At the same demonstration, Officer Peter Shields was hit in the head while charging into a crowd of protesters — and nobody knows exactly who hit him. That’s not on the public part of Wolf’s video, and Wolf and his lawyers insist there is no footage of the attack. Wolf fears that the government may be looking for something else — perhaps some video of other protesters — and will ask him to identify them. He refused to turn over the outtakes.
Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, says District Court Judge William Alsup, who ordered Wolf to jail, “made a big deal that Josh did not have agreement with a confidential source, but his argument turns Josh’s video equipment into a de facto government surveillance camera.”
Noting that there is a lot of trust between Wolf and protesters at demonstrations — “People aren’t afraid to go up to the camera and say, ‘Did you check out the pig that’s kicking a guy down the street?’” — Villarreal claims that “independent journalists are harder to see and spot than their corporate counterparts.”
The second, perhaps equally troubling problem is that the Wolf case should never have gone to the federal level in the first place.
Alan Schlosser, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, told us there are a lot of red flags in the Wolf case, “beginning with the question, ‘Is there a legitimate federal law enforcement issue here?’”
The federal agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and the FBI didn’t choose to investigate the case — the San Francisco cops requested assistance. That in itself was odd: why is an assault on an officer a federal affair?
Schlosser asks, “Were the feds called in because they aren’t bound by the state’s reporter’s shield law?”
In theory, the local cops say it’s a federal issue because a cop car was damaged — and the city gets money from the federal government for law enforcement. Schlosser said it’s disturbing that “the SFPD doesn’t have to show the federal funds went towards paying for the allegedly damaged car…. So that statute could be applied to any number of situations. It’s very troubling. It federalizes law enforcement around demonstrations.”
A highly placed source in the SFPD offered a somewhat alarming explanation: the feds were brought in, the source said, not because of shield law issues but because the cops figured the JTTF and the US Attorney’s Office would move faster and more aggressively than San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris, who has not been on the best terms with the local police.
In other words, if this source is correct, the SFPD is choosing who will prosecute crimes — based on politics, not the law.
As of press time, all Harris’s office was saying was that “the DA strongly believes in the First Amendment and the rights of the press. She also believes in justice for members of the SFPD. An officer was gravely injured that evening, and those responsible need to be held accountable.”
Asked why the federal government was involved in the investigation, Luke Macaulay, a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office, said, “This is not an attempt to profile anarchists and dissidents. It’s an attempt to get to the bottom of a crime.”
Macaulay also referred us to federal filings with the US District Court, which conclude that “the issue could not be more straightforward…. The incident is under investigation so that the grand jury can determine what, if any, crimes were committed.”
As far as we can tell, there’s nothing in writing that lays out when a San Francisco cop is allowed to ask for federal intervention in a case. All the SFPD General Orders say is that department members requesting assistance from an outside agency have to obtain the permission of a deputy chief.
According to records from the Investigations Bureau General Work Detail, Inspector Lea Militello filed a request for assistance from the FBI and JTTF to investigate a “serious assault against an SF police officer.” It was approved by Captain Kevin Cashman and Timothy Hettrich, deputy chief of investigations.
As of press time, the SFPD had not returned our calls inquiring why the FBI and JTTF were involved in an assault case, which is usually the domain of the DA’s Office.
David Campos, a member of the San Francisco Police Commission, said he thinks the commission needs to look at the issue “to make sure investigations are federalized when it’s appropriate and not as a way of getting around California’s shield laws.”
Reached Aug. 23 by phone in the Dublin Federal Correctional Institute, where he’s been held since Aug. 1, Wolf suggested that the feds are after more than pictures. “The Un-American Affairs Committee [in the 1950s] called in one person and forced them to make a list of all the people they knew. It was like Communist MySpace. So, I anticipate that they want all my contacts within the civil dissent movement.”
Wolf said he offered to let the judge view his video, which he insists does not capture the arson or assault. “There should not be a federal investigation. I published my video. They can use that to do their investigation.” SFBG
With all briefs filed, a decision on the Josh Wolf case is expected by Sept. 4.

Big Idi, little Idi

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› cheryl@sfbg.com
Most of 2006’s blockbusters (wannabe and otherwise) have already blown by in a sugary cloud of Sour Patch Kids dust. Poseidon’s already on DVD; The Da Vinci Code was totally boring; X-Men: The Last Stand killed off Professor X (or did it?); Superman Returns was stomped on by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; and Snakes on a Plane did only so-so business despite widespread prerelease hyperventilation. Frankly, my teeth hurt and I’m ready for some meatier cinematic fare — especially the 10 picks that follow. As always, release dates are subject to change.
The Black Dahlia Serial homage artist Brian DePalma has been in a rut lately. His recent efforts include the underwhelming Femme Fatale, Mission to Mars, and Snake Eyes. But lest we forget, he’s also the guy who brought us Scarface and The Untouchables — and Phantom of the Paradise, though that may be my own personal bias speaking. His latest noir draws from a James Ellroy novel, itself based on Hollywood’s most famously unsolved murder case (pre-O.J., that is). The Black Dahlia stars Josh Hartnett, Hilary Swank, and Elizabeth Short look-alike Mia Kirshner as the starry-eyed dame headed for sliced-in-half doom. (Sept. 15)
Mutual Appreciation Just because a movie isn’t opening at the Metreon doesn’t mean you can’t count down the minutes until it arrives. Writer-director Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha was the most honest film about postcollege malaise in aeons; his latest, Mutual Appreciation, about a musician adrift in New York City, has earned excellent festival reviews and looks to extend this talented young filmmaker’s winning streak. (Sept. 29, Red Vic)
The Last King of Scotland In a stroke of genius casting, Forest Whitaker stars as the bloodthirsty yet oddly charming Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. James McAvoy (Mr. Tumnus from The Chronicles of Narnia) plays his personal physician. This based-on-true-events drama can’t possibly surpass Barbet Schroeder’s creepy 1974 doc Idi Amin Dada — but it’ll probably best 1977’s made-for-TV Raid on Entebbe (with Yaphet Kotto as Amin). In any case, a new Amin movie is reason enough to fire up the Revolutionary Suicide Mechanized Regiment Band. (Sept. 27)
Jesus Camp Yep, it’s all about a summer camp for right-wing, conservative, evolution-hating, antiabortion, born-again Christian kids. I doubt there will be many Meatballs moments. However, this doc from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka) has earned praise for its unbiased filmmaking — this kind of subject matter speaks for itself, as demonstrated by 2001’s Hell House. (Oct. 6)
The Departed Martin Scorsese shifts Infernal Affairs’ cops ’n’ crooks action from Hong Kong to Boston, with Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as deep-cover operatives working opposite sides of the law. It’s a killer premise based on a proven hit, with a stellar team behind it — plus, Jack Nicholson plays gangster number one. How can The Departed miss? (Oct. 6)
American Hardcore Black Flag, Minor Threat, and other 1980s hardcore punkers have their say in this doc by Paul Rachman (a onetime music video director), based on Steven Blush’s exceedingly detailed 2001 book American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Rachman and Blush conducted 100-plus interviews over five years and strove to keep the filmmaking process as appropriately DIY as they could. Also, the trailer fucking rocks. (Oct. 13)
Marie Antoinette Speaking of rocking trailers, by now we’ve all patted our dainty, Marc Jacobs–clad feet to New Order every time the clip for Sofia Coppola’s latest unspools during the coming attractions. If not, perhaps you’ve hefted the 25-pound Vogue featuring Kirsten Dunst and her period-appropriate Bride of Frankenstein ’do on the cover. No? OK, well, it’s the director’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning Lost in Translation, and even if the French pooh-poohed Marie Antoinette at Cannes, a new Coppola movie is an indisputable must-see for fans and haters alike. (Oct. 20)
Fast Food Nation You can’t accuse Richard Linklater of being in a filmmaking rut. His last three releases? The wildly diverse Before Sunset, Bad News Bears, and A Scanner Darkly. Following Scanner, his second film of 2006 offers a narrative take on Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction best-seller about the dark side of the fast food industry. Helping you never look at Happy Meals the same way again (if Super Size Me didn’t already do the trick) is an ensemble cast that includes Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Bruce Willis. (Nov. 17)
For Your Consideration A new Christopher Guest mock doc (this one’s about Hollywood awards shows and features all the usual suspects) is one more reason to give thanks to the movie gods — especially since it’s getting a Thanksgiving week release. Tofurky leftovers fit so nicely in a Remains of the Day lunch box. (Nov. 22)
The Fountain Six years is too long to wait for a new Darren Aronofsky film (after his 1998 breakthrough, Pi, and 2000’s unforgettable Requiem for a Dream). But wait we have, and The Fountain — starring Hugh Jackman and Aronofsky ladylove Rachel Weisz as trippy, time-spanning sweethearts — has finally arrived. His upcoming slate includes an adaptation of Lone Wolf and Cub due in 2008. Promise? (Nov. 22) SFBG

Yay Area five-oh

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› johnny@sfbg.com
“Before Vanishing: Syrian Short Cinema” A series devoted to films from Syria kicks off with a shorts program that includes work by Oussama Mohammed. (Sept. 7, PFA; see below)
The Mechanical Man The PFA’s vast and expansive series devoted to “The Mechanical Age” includes André Deed’s 1921 science fiction vision of a female crime leader and a robot run amok. The screening features live piano by Juliet Rosenberg. (Sept. 7, PFA)
“Cinemayaat, the Arab Film Festival” This year’s festival opens with the Lebanon-Sweden coproduction Zozo and also includes the US-Palestine documentary Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority, which looks at events before and after Israel’s 1948 occupation of Palestine.
Sept. 8–17. Various venues. (415) 863-1087, www.aff.org
“Global Lens” The traveling fest includes some highly lauded films, such as Stolen Life by Li Shaohong, one of the female directors within China’s Fifth Generation.
Sept. 8–Oct. 4. Various venues. (415) 221-8184, www.globalfilm.org
“MadCat Women’s International Film Festival” MadCat turns 10 this year, and its programming and venues are even more varied. Not to mention deep — literally. 3-D filmmaking by Zoe Beloff and Viewmaster magic courtesy of Greta Snider are just some of the treats in store.
Sept. 12–27. Various venues. (415) 436-9523, www.madcatfilmfestival.org
The Pirate The many forms and facets of piracy comprise another PFA fall series; this entry brings a swashbuckling Gene Kelly and Judy Garland as Manuela, directed by then-husband Vincente Minnelli. (Sept. 13, PFA)
“A Conversation with Ali Kazimi” and Shooting Indians Documentarian Kazimi discusses his work before a screening of his critical look at Edward S. Curtis’s photography. (Sept. 14, PFA)
“The Word and the Image: The Films of Peter Whitehead” The swinging ’60s hit the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as curator Joel Shepard presents the first-ever US retrospective dedicated to the director of Tonight Let’s All Make Love in London. Includes proto–music videos made for Nico, Jimi Hendrix, and others. Smashing! (Sept. 14–28, YBCA; see below)
Edmond Stuart Gordon of Re-Aminator infamy makes a jump from horror into drama — not so surprising, since he’s a friend of David Mamet. Willam H. Macy adds another sad sack to his résumé. (Sept. 15–21, Roxie; see below)
Anxious Animation Other Cinema hosts a celebration for the release of a DVD devoted to local animators Lewis Klahr, Janie Geiser, and others. Expect some work inspired by hellfire prognosticator Jack Chick!
Sept. 16. Other Cinema, 992 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-3890, www.othercinema.com
Kingdom of the Spiders Eight-legged freaks versus two-legged freak William Shatner. I will say no more.
Sept. 17. Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF. (415) 401-7987, www.darkroomsf.com
Landscape Suicide No other living director looks at the American landscape with the direct intent of James Benning; here, he examines two murder cases. (Sept. 19, PFA)
La Promesse and Je Pense à Vous Tracking the brutal coming-of-age of scooter-riding Jérémie Renier, 1997’s La Promesse made the name of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, but Je Pense is a rarely screened earlier work. (Sept. 22, PFA)
Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied Billed as the first authoritative doc about the man who invented electric blues, this plays with Always for Pleasure, a look at New Orleans by the one and only Les Blank. (Sept. 22–26, Roxie)
Rosetta and Falsch The Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta made a splash at Cannes in 1999; Falsch is their surprisingly experimental and nonnaturalistic 1987 debut feature. (Sept. 23, PFA)
loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies A reunion tour movie. (Sept. 29–Oct. 5, Roxie)
American Blackout Ian Inaba’s doc about voter fraud made waves and gathered praise at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival; it gets screened at various houses, followed by a Tosca after-party, in this SF360 citywide event.
Sept. 30. Tosca Café, 242 Columbus, SF. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
Them! “Film in the Fog” turns five, as the SF Film Society unleashes giant mutant ants in the Presidio.
Sept. 30. Main Post Theatre, 99 Moraga, SF. (415) 561-5500, www.sffs.org
“Zombie-Rama” Before Bob Clark made Black Christmas, Porky’s, and A Christmas Story, he made Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things. The ending is as scary as the title is funny.
Oct. 5. Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park, Oakl. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net
“Swinging Scandinavia: How Nordic Sex Cinema Conquered the World” Jack Stevenson presents a “Totally Uncensored” clip show about the scandalous impact of Scandinavian cinema on uptight US mores and also screens some rare cousins of I Am Curious (Yellow). (Oct. 5 and 7, YBCA)
“Mill Valley Film Festival” Why go to Toronto when many of the fall’s biggest Hollywood and international releases come to Mill Valley? The festival turns 29 this year.
Oct. 5–15, 2006. Various venues. (415) 383-5256, www.mvff.org
“Fighting the Walking Dead” Jesse Ficks brings They Live to the Castro Theatre. Thank you, Jesse. (Oct. 6, Castro; see below)
Phantom of the Paradise Forget the buildup for director Brian de Palma’s Black Dahlia and get ready for a Paul Williams weekend. This is screening while Williams is performing at the Plush Room.
Oct. 6. Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore, SF. (415) 346-1124, www.thelatenightpictureshow.com
Calvaire Belgium makes horror movies too. This one is billed as a cross between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance — a crossbreeding combo that’s popular these days. (Oct. 6–12, Roxie)
Black Girl Tragic and so sharp-eyed that its images can cut you, Ousmane Sembene’s 1966 film is the masterpiece the white caps of the French new wave never thought to make. It kicks off a series devoted to the director. (Oct. 7, PFA)
“Animal Charm’s Golden Digest and Brian Boyce” Boyce is the genius behind America’s Biggest Dick, starring Dick Cheney as Scarface. Animal Charm have made some of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.
Oct. 7. Other Cinema, 992 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-3890, www.othercinema.com
Madame X, an Absolute Ruler Feminist director Ulrike Ottinger envisions a Madame X much different from Lana Turner’s — hers is a pirate. (Oct. 11, PFA)
“The Horrifying 1980s … in 3-D” Molly Ringwald (in Spacehunter), a killer shark (in Jaws 3-D), and Jason (in Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D) vie for dominance in this “Midnites for Maniacs” three-dimensional triple bill. (Oct. 13, Castro)
“Dual System 3-D Series” This program leans toward creature features, from Creature from the Black Lagoon to the ape astronaut of Robot Monster to Cat-Women on the Moon. (Oct. 14–19, Castro)
“Early Baillie and the Canyon CinemaNews Years” This program calls attention to great looks at this city by Baillie (whom Apichatpong Weerasethakul cites as a major influence) and also highlights the importance of Canyon Cinema. (Oct. 15, YBCA)
“War and Video Games” NY-based film critic Ed Halter presents a lecture based on From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games, his new book. (Oct. 17, PFA)
Santo Domingo Blues The Red Vic premieres a doc about bachata and the form’s “supreme king of bitterness,” Luis Vargas.
Oct. 18–19. Red Vic, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com
“Monster-Rama” The Devil-ettes, live and in person, and Werewolf vs. the Vampire Women, on the screen, thanks to Will “the Thrill” Viharo.
Oct. 19. Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park, Oakl. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net
“Spinning Up, Slowing Down”: Industry Celebrates the Machine” Local film archivist Rick Prelinger presents six short films that epitomize the United States’ machine mania, including one in which mechanical puppets demonstrate free enterprise. (Oct. 19, PFA)
The Last Movie Hmmm, part two: OK, let’s see here, Dennis Hopper’s 1971 film gets a screening after he personally strikes a new print … (Oct. 20–21, YBCA)
What Is It? and “The Very First Crispin Glover Film Festival in the World” … and on the same weekend, Hopper’s River’s Edge costar Glover gets a freak hero’s welcome at the Castro. Sounds like they might cross paths. (Oct. 20–22, Castro)
I Like Killing Flies And I completely fucking love Matt Mahurin’s documentary about the Greenwich Village restaurant Shopsin’s, possibly the most characterful, funny, and poignant documentary I’ve seen in the last few years. (Oct. 20–26, Roxie)
“Miranda July Live” Want to be part of the process that will produce Miranda July’s next film? If so, you can collaborate with her in this multimedia presentation about love, obsession, and heartbreak.
Oct. 23–24. Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. (415) 552-1990, www.sfcinematheque.org)
The Case of the Grinning Cat This 2004 film by Chris Marker receives a Bay Area premiere, screening with Junkopia, his 1981 look at a public art project in Emeryville. (Oct. 27, PFA)
The Monster Squad The folks (including Peaches Christ) behind the Late Night Picture Show say that this 1987 flick is the most underrated monster movie ever.
Oct. 27–28. Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore, SF. (415) 346-1124, www.thelatenightpictureshow.com
Neighborhood Watch Résumés don’t get any better than Graeme Whifler’s — after all, he helped write the screenplay to Dr. Giggles. His rancid directorial debut brings the grindhouse gag factor to the Pacific Film Archive. (Oct. 29, PFA)
“Grindhouse Double Feature” See The Beyond with an audience of Lucio Fulci maniacs. (Oct. 30, Castro)
“Hara Kazuo” Joel Shepard programs a series devoted to Kazuo, including his 1969 film tracing the protest efforts of Okuzaki Kenzó, who slung marbles at Emperor Hirohito. (November, YBCA)
“International Latino Film Festival” This growing fest reaches a decade and counting — expect some celebrations.
Nov. 3–19. Various venues. (415) 454-4039, www.utf8ofilmfestival.org
Vegas in Space Midnight Mass makes a rare fall appearance as Peaches Christ brings back Philip Ford’s 1991 local drag science fiction gem.
Nov. 11. Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore, SF. (415) 346-1124, www.thelatenightpictureshow.com
“As the Great Earth Rolls On: A Frank O’Hara Birthday Tribute” The birthday of the man who wrote “The Day Lady Died” is celebrated. Includes The Last Clean Shirt, O’Hara’s great collaboration with Alfred Leslie.
Nov. 17. California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. (415) 552-1990, www.sfcinematheque.org
Sites and Silences A shout-out to A.C. Thompson for his work with Trevor Paglen on the well-titled Torture Taxi, which helped generate this multimedia presentation by Paglen. (Nov. 19, YBCA)
“Kihachiro Kawamoto” One of cinema’s ultimate puppet masters receives a retrospective. (December, YBCA)
“Silent Songs: Three Films by Nathaniel Dorsky” The SF-based poet of silent film (and essayist behind the excellent book Devotional Cinema) screens a trio of new works. (Dec. 10, YBCA)
CASTRO THEATRE
429 Castro, SF
(415) 621-6120
www.castrotheatre.com
PFA THEATER
2575 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 642-5249
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
ROXIE FILM CENTER
3317 16th St., SF
(415) 863-1087
www.roxie.com
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS (YBCA)
Screening room, 701 Mission, SF
(415) 978-2787
www.ybca.org\ SFBG

Discs, man

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com SEPT. 5 Criss Angel, Criss Angel: Mindfreak (Koch) Tell us this recording by TV’s erect-nippled goth heat-throb and full-tilt-boogie cheesenheimer is only an illusion. Audioslave, Revelations (Epic) Their politics check out, though an unboring album will be a revelation. Beyoncé, B’Day (Music World Music/Sony Urban Music/Columbia) The result of a two-week break for artistic freedom, but a Clive Davis overseer might have helped — she sounds like a stressed-out laser on the leadoff single. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House (Warp) Inspired sounds with bite by Brooklyn DIYer Edward Droste, whose queerific perspective brings a burly new hue to his moniker. Iron Maiden, A Matter of Life and Death (Columbia) Count on the barbed Bruce Dickinson to come with confrontation on this wartime studio outing. The Rapture, Pieces of the People We Love (Strummer/Universal UK) Danger Mouse coproduces the new piece from dance punk ex–San Franciskies. Tony Joe White, Uncovered (Swamp/Sanctuary) The original blue-eyed soulster gives it another poke, accompanied by Eric Clapton and Michael “Yah Mo B There” McDonald. SEPT. 12 Basement Jaxx, Crazy Itch Radio (XL) Still all they’re jacked up to be? Black Keys, Magic Potion (Nonesuch) The rock duo ain’t dead. Merle Haggard, Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard (Capitol/EMI) Go back to the origins of the Bakersfield sound and travel through “Okie from Muskogee” all the way up to the anti–Iraq War present. Junior Boys, So This Is Goodbye (Domino) Whether you compare them to old New Order or current Booka Shade, their follow-up to 2004’s Last Exit is already garnering raves. Jordan Knight, Love Songs (Trans Continental/Element 1/EMI) Love Handles might be a better title, though at least Brigitte Nielsen isn’t a guest vocalist. Deborah Gibson does have a cameo. Mars Volta, Amputechture (Universal) Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez may bring it live, but can they pull off another concept album? Pigeon John, Pigeon John and the Summertime Pool Party (Quannum Projects) He claims to be dating your sister. Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds (Jive) He and Timbaland use Beastie Boys– or Mark E. Smith–like crackly megaphone vocal effects on the first single; the album title seems both very ’90s and very OutKast wannabe. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope) David Bowie and Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino bake it up for the increasingly dance-pop Brooklynites. Xiu Xiu, The Air Force (5RC) An army of three hones a pop attack, with backup from producer Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (Matador) Fighting words and lengthy psych jams from the indie softniks. SEPT. 19 Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways (RCA) The long wait for the Claymates is over. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (Koch) They were twisting tongues long before Twista. Who’s your favorite: Layzie or Bizzy or Wish or Flesh or Krayzie? Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Then the Letting Go (Drag City) Does this title refer to shaving — or inhibitions? Chingy, Hoodstar (Slot-A-Lot/Capitol) I once saw a bunch of people at 16th and Mission dancing around a boom box blaring “Holiday Inn.” DJ Shadow, The Outsider (Universal) The North Bay’s Josh Davis comes out of the shadows, hepped to the hyph of guests Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk. But ditch that Urb stylist. Fergie, The Dutchess (Will.I.Am/A&M/Interscope) And you thought pop music couldn’t be more heinous than the Black Eyed Peas? The microwaved hollabacks of the atrocious “London Bridge” are here to prove you wrong. Hidden Cameras, Awoo (Arts & Crafts) Peekaboo, I see you. Kasabian, Empire (RCA) The band named after Linda Kasabian testify on their own behalf with a new album. Jesse McCartney, Right Where You Want Me (Hollywood) Past his TRL sell-by date? We shall see. Mos Def, Tru3 Magic (Geffen) Somewhere between his first solo album and his second, Mos Def started to act like he knew he was cute. Here’s hoping he thinks of music as his true love rather than a step on the road to Hollywood. Pere Ubu, Why I Hate Women (Smog Veil) But at least a few women still love Ubu. Misogyny evidently rules for the post-punk belligerents. Bobby Valentino, Special Occasion (Disturbing Tha Peace/Def Jam) Ludacris’s R&B man speeds up enough to record a sophomore album. Zutons, Tired of Hanging Around (Deltasonic) The Liverpool antsy-rockin’ roots trendoids try their luck on this side of the puddle. SEPT. 22 Thermals, The Body, the Blood, the Machine (Sub Pop) PPP (post-pop-punk) protesting a purely protestant panorama. SEPT. 26 Emily Haines, Knives Don’t Have Your Back (Last Gang) Unsheathe ’em? A Metric cutie ventures out alone. Janet Jackson, 20 Y.O. (Virgin) And acting it. Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire (Capitol) Son of John returns with help from Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda. Ludacris, Release Therapy (Disturbing Tha Peace) If the first single, “Money Maker,” is anything to go by, Luda better watch out, because he’s skating dangerously close to Hammer-like lame flossin’. Scissor Sisters, Ta-Dah (Universal) Good news: guest appearance by Bryan Ferry. Bad news: cameo by Elton John. Either way, there’s no justice when they are more popular than the Ark. Sparklehorse, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (Astralwerks) Get a stomachful of Tom Waits alongside sound-alike Mark Linkous. Mario Vazquez, Mario Vazquez (Arista) Question: What is better than a beauty-school dropout? Answer: An American Idol dropout — especially one who has been spotted at la Escuelita. He gets bonus points for having the cutest messed-up teeth. Wolf Eyes, Human Animal (Sub Pop) Bagging some inhuman noise. OCT. 3 Beck, The Information (Interscope) Nigel Godrich does the knob twist and fader jive on this new dispatch from “Loser” man. Tim Buckley, The Best of Tim Buckley (Rhino/Elektra) Further proof that “Song to the Siren” is eternal. Decemberists, The Crane Wife (Capitol) Colin Meloy is still finding inspiration in the most unexpected crannies: here, in a Japanese folk tale. The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant) Someone can’t help waving a flag. Jet, Shine On (Atlantic) Substitute “Music” for “Money” in the title of the first single, “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.” The Killers, Sam’s Town (Island) Bet they don’t bargain-shop at Sam’s Club. Gladys Knight, Before Me (Verve) Still sounding great while some of her contemporaries rasp and squawk, she covers legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone. Lady Sovereign, Public Warning (Def Jam) After “9 to 5” (not a Dolly Parton cover), she drops her debut. Will she hit it big or wind up MIA? Monica, The Makings of Me (J) Add a little bit of Twista, some T.I. for extra heat, a touch of Missy, and Dem Franchize Boys, and you’ve got the makings of a Monica album. Robin Thicke, The Evolution of Robin Thicke (Star Trak/Interscope) Move over, Jon B, and make way for the son of Alan Thicke. OCT. 10 Blood Brothers, Young Machetes (V2) Fugazi player Guy Picciotto and Sleater-Kinney producer John Goodmanson get Bloody. Melvins, A Senile Animal (Ipecac) We didn’t use the s-word first. Robert Pollard, Normal Happiness (Merge) Is there happiness after a decade-plus beer haze? Young Jeezy, The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102 (Def Jam) The Snowman has recorded 62 tracks for this opus. OCT. 17 Badly Drawn Boy, Born in the UK (XL/Astralwerks) Could BDB have a Broooce fixation? Diddy, Press Play (Bad Boy/Warner) If Danity Kane are anything to go by, it’s officially past time to press eject when it comes to Mr. Combs. Jeremy Enigk, World Waits (Lewis Hollow/Reincarnate/Sony BMG) One wonders how God figures in the latest by the Sunny Day Real Estate and Fire Theft chief. Fantasia, TBA (J) Following in the footsteps of greats such as Patty Duke and Joan Rivers, she recently starred in a TV movie about her own life. Fat Joe, Me Myself and I (Terror Squad) He’s big enough to refer to himself at least three different ways. Frankie J, Priceless (Columbia) Having even survived a cover of Extreme’s “More than Words,” the li’l guy returns to sing more sweet-verging-on-extremely-saccharine nothings. JoJo, The High Road (Blackground/Universal) The li’l pop dynamo and Xtina-to-be with Lindsay Lohan–like looks has sung for our current president, which seems more like visiting an inferno than taking the titular route. Nina Simone, Remixed and Reimagined (RCA/Legacy) More modern folks start fussing with Dr. Nina. Snoop Dogg, Blue Carpet Treatment (Doggystyle/Geffen) Stevie Wonder, the Game, and R. Kelly hop a soul plane. Squarepusher, Hello Everything (Warp) More spastic jazz-dappled emanations from Tom Jenkinson. OCT. 24 Brooke Hogan, Undiscovered (SoBe Entertainment/SMC) The daughter of Hulk Hogan puts all those dark-haired and dark-skinned girls in their place in her first video — after all, no one is more soulful than a putf8um blond. A surefire sign of the apocalypse or just another day in Bush-era pop culture? The Jam, Direction Reaction Creation (Polydor UK) Paul Weller and pals get the big box-set treatment they deserve. John Legend, Once Again (C) Ever heard “My Cherie Amour”? Apparently the billion people who bought the clumsy and far-more-prosaic “Ordinary People” haven’t. The Who, Endless Wire (Polydor) And then there were two. The first studio album since 1982 includes Greg Lake, partially filling in for the deceased John Entwistle, and Ringo spawn Zak Starkey, cospotting the late Keith Moon. OCT. 31 The Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury (J) Famlay and friends return, but what will it be like now that the producer who hit it big with them — a certain Pharrell — is so over-overexposed? Barry Manilow, The Greatest Songs of the Sixties (Arista) Will he cover “Gimme Shelter”? The mind boggles. Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (Virgin) Breathe easy — the legal tussle between the Loaf and Jim Steinman over the title phrase is through. Paul Wall, Get Money, Stay True (Atlantic) The Houston metal mouth gabs again. NOV. 7 The Game, The Doctor’s Advocate (Geffen) Not that Dre needs one, even if everyone and their moms wonder what the hell happened to the long-awaited and eventually cancelled Rehab. Lucinda Williams, The Knowing (Lost Highway) Bill Frisell and Dylan sidekick Tony Garnier guest on the latest disc by the proud princess of rasp. NOV. 14 Marques Houston, Veteran (T.U.G./Universal) No longer “Naked,” he returns for 106th and Park duty wearing his stripes. Maroon 5, TBA (Octone/J) You have been warned. Joanne Newsom, Ys (Drag City) The sprite of the harp, produced by pigfucker Steve Albini. DEC. 19 Akon, Konvicted (SRC/Universal) Will we want to shoot up or shoot ourselves when Eminem appears on Senegalese ex-“kon” Aliaune Thiam’s “Smack That”? SFBG

Art

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1. “Prophets of Deceit” As assorted “powers” turn the fear factor up ever higher, you don’t need to be Mel Gibson (phew) to see that an exhibition looking at apocalyptic cults — especially governmentally sanctioned ones — is a timely idea. San Francisco end-times expert Craig Baldwin and others take on messianic ideologies.
Sept. 12–Nov. 11. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Logan Galleries, 1111 Eighth St., SF. 1-800-447-1278, www.wattis.org/exhibitions/2006/prophets
2. “Wallace Berman” and “Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle” A spring event at SF Art Institute whet my appetite for these shows, which gather the projects of artist, filmmaker, and publisher Berman, an undersung figure whose influence has laced the cosmic wonder of many neofolkies, whether or not they know it.
“Wallace Berman”: Sept. 6–Oct. 28. 871 Fine Arts, 49 Geary, suite 235, SF. (415) 543-5155. “Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle”: Oct. 18–Dec. 10. Berkeley Art Museum Galleries, 2626 Bancroft, Berk. (510) 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
3. “Neopopular Demand: Recent Works by Fahamu Pecou” Fahamu Pecou is the shit. Peep his Web site and you will agree.
Sept. 20–Oct. 24. Michael Martin Galleries, 101 Townsend, suite 207, SF. (415) 541-1530, www.fahamupecouart.com
4. “Sensacional! Mexican Street Graphics” Taking pages from Juan Carlos Mena and O Reyes’s book of the same name, the Yerba Buena Center hosts a show devoted to comic book, flyer, poster, and street imagery; a music video sideshow promises work by Assume Vivid Astro Focus, which can be like acid (without brain-frying side effects).
Nov. 18, 2006–March 4, 2007. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org
5. “New Work: Phil Collins” They are music videos, but they aren’t made by the man behind “Sussudio.” Turner Prize finalist Collins taps into the spirit of Morrissey rather than Peter Gabriel’s follically challenged replacement. His video installation dünya dinlemiyor (the world won’t listen) features kids in Istanbul performing karaoke versions of songs from a certain 1987 Smiths compilation.
Sept. 16, 2006–Jan. 21, 2007. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org
6. “Visionary Output: Work by Creative Growth Artists” Recent Guardian Local Artist William Scott is one of a dozen people featured in this show devoted to the great, Oakland-based Creative Growth.
Sept. 7–Oct. 14. Rena Bransten Gallery, 77 Geary, SF. (415) 982-3292, www.renabranstengallery.com
7. “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” California has long been a front line and dropping-off point for visionaries, a place where people have brought new ideas about community to life (and sometimes to death). Taking its name from an essay by Philip K. Dick, this 12-person show scopes the state’s future and the state of the future, mixing work by local artists with real-life attempts at space colonizing and urban agriculture.
Nov. 28, 2006–Feb. 24, 2007. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. 1-800-447-1278, www.wattis.org/exhibitions/2006/universe
8. “Making Sense of Sound” Another wave of sound installations continues to overtake museums and galleries, and the Exploratorium is an ideal site for sonic exploration; this exhibition, featuring 40 new interactive exhibits, promises to be a must-see, I mean must-hear. It’ll all kick off with the arrival and ringing of a cast-iron bell driven cross-country by composer Brenda Hutchinson.
Oct. 21, 2006–Dec. 31, 2007. Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF. (415) EXP-LORE, www.exploratorium.edu
9. “Kala Fellowship Exhibition, Part II” Kala’s first installment included strong work by Liz Hickok and others. The second installment features Miriam Dym, Gary Nakamoto, Sasha Petrenko, and Tracey Snelling.
Sept. 7–Oct. 14. Kala Art Institute Galley, 1060 Heinz, Berk. (510) 549-2977, www.kala.org
10. “Ghosts in the Machine” The new SF Camerawork space — directly above the Cartoon Art Museum — will open with this group show of eight international artists that relates haunting to cultural estrangement. Dinh Q. Lê’s “grass mats” constructed with stills from films such as The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now are one example.
Oct. 5–Nov. 18. 657 Mission, SF. (415) 863-1001, www.sfcamerawork.org SFBG

Fall TV death match

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› lynn@sfbg.com
If you think about it, there’s a certain poetry to the dramatic arc of the fall premiere season. As we all know, after fall comes winter, and by December many of these TV shows will be dead, with just a few dried-up blog entries left behind to mark their passing. This painful thought might provoke a zealous couch fan to get carried away — watching every last debut to hit the networks while staying faithful to old favorites from seasons past. And granted, certain shows, like the well-cast Six Degrees, with Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, and Jay Hernandez (premiering Sept. 21 on ABC), or Showtime’s Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) as a serial killer with the best of intentions (premiering in October), deserve at least a shot at some viewers.
But even the Guinness record (69 hours and 48 minutes) proves there are limits to how much TV one human being can watch — though apparently there are no limits to how many dramas based on the premise of 24 can be developed in one season. Choices must be made — between, say, the NBC comedy about a late-night sketch comedy show starring SNL’s Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin and the NBC drama about a late-night sketch comedy show starring Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, and Bradley Whitford and created and written by Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, The West Wing). What follows are notes from a highly subjective decision-making process. Show info is subject to change.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip vs. 30 Rock Aaron Sorkin’s writing is pretty much why I started watching television again, and I’m still not over Sports Night’s 2000 cancellation. Thus, in the face-off between shows about sketch-comedy shows, his creation, Studio 60, will no doubt reign supreme. Bradley Whitford from The West Wing stars alongside Amanda Peet and Matthew Perry — and while the latter actor certainly wasn’t the least annoying of Friends’ friends, a guest spot on The West Wing proved his Chandler mannerisms haven’t completely devoured him. (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Mon., 10 p.m., NBC; premieres Sept. 18. 30 Rock: Wed., 8:30 p.m., NBC; premieres Oct. 11)
Vanished vs. Veronica Mars Having spent five years watching Gale Harold plug every available male extra in greater Toronto as Queer as Folk’s surly stud Brian Kinney, I’m tempted to get invested in his character’s FBI investigation of a disappeared senator’s daughter. The thing is, even if he does get to play another unapologetic asshole, he will likely have clothes on. So will Kristen Bell in Veronica Mars, but the latter show, about a smart-ass teen private investigator engaged in all kinds of class warfare, was easily the best high school drama since My So-Called Life, while in a vastly different vein. The sleuth is university bound now, and higher education is clearly a death knell for teen dramas, but I’m betting Veronica won’t let her studies get in the way. (Vanished: Mon., 9 p.m., Fox; premiered Aug. 21. Veronica Mars: Tues., 9 p.m., CW; premieres Oct. 3)
The O.C. vs. Dante’s Cove They may seem like an odd couple, but both The O.C. and Dante’s Cove feature melodramatic sexual entanglements, power tripping, drug addiction, and expensive real estate. The O.C. may have a slight advantage in terms of plotlines and thespian talent, but c’mon: Dante’s Cove, part of Here!’s all-queer programming, has real live gay people, a private sex club — and black magic! Also, I get how satisfying it must have been to finally off the waif with suicidal tendencies, but with Marissa in the grave, The O.C. is likely to become so bearable it’s boring. (The O.C.: Thurs., 9 p.m., Fox; premieres Nov. 2. Dante’s Cove: Fri., check for times, Here!; premieres Sept. 1)
One Tree Hill vs. Friday Night Lights The infant love child of UPN and the WB fashioned a glaringly lowest-common-denominator ad campaign whose thought-provoking tagline for One Tree Hill was “Free to be cool.” And yet, I breathed a deep sigh of relief on learning that the show, basically about a small town that loves its basketball and the dramas that ensue, had survived the merger and gained entrance to the freedom-loving land of the CW. Friday Night Lights, based on the movie that’s based on the book, is about a small town that loves its football and the dramas that ensue. A toughie, but I hate football, so for me One Tree has the home court advantage — plus the laser-beam-eyed power-acting of Chad Michael Murray. (One Tree Hill: Wed., 9 p.m., CW; premieres Sept. 27. Friday Night Lights: Tues., 8 p.m., NBC; premieres Oct. 3)
Prison Break vs. Runaway Maybe it all goes back to my deep, abiding love for The Legend of Billie Jean, but dramas about desperate people on the run from the law have a near-endless ability to captivate me. Prison Break has the hot brothers. CW debut Runaway looks to have more of a Running on Empty family dynamic — with New Kids on the Block’s Donnie Wahlberg in the Judd Hirsch role. Both hint vaguely at possible political undertones. Mostly for River Phoenix’s sake, I’m going to go with the latter. (Prison Break: Mon., 8 p.m., Fox; premiered Aug. 21. Runaway: Mon., 9 p.m., CW; premieres Sept. 25)
Jericho vs. Three Moons over Milford Jericho has Skeet Ulrich and a nuclear holocaust on the horizon. Three Moons has, well, three moons — or parts of what used to be one moon — and one or more of them might be heading this way. The end (of the season, that is) will be in sight for the latter sooner, which is good, because how many times a week can a person watch the world teeter on the brink of collapse? (Jericho: Wed., 8 p.m., CBS; premieres Sept. 20. Three Moons over Milford: Sun., 8 p.m., ABC Family; premiered Aug. 6)
Project Runway (reruns) vs. Fashion House The community-minded thing to do, no doubt, would be to support KRON TV’s efforts to add dramatic content to its programming. After all, Fashion House, a six-nights-a-week telenovela-style program about the fashion industry starring Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek, should just about do the trick. And yet, even after Project Runway’s latest season ends later this fall, I’m probably going to find other uses for those six hours — including renting back episodes of the show that makes it work. (Project Runway: Bravo; your local video store. Fashion House: Mon.–Sat., 10 p.m., KRON; premieres Sept. 5) SFBG

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