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Local censored 2012

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BEHIND THE MIRKARIMI CASE

In early January, details from the police investigation of then-Sheriff-elect Ross Mirkarimi bruising his wife’s arm during an argument were leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle and other news outlets. The key piece of evidence was a 45-second video that Mirkarimi’s wife, Eliana Lopez, made with her neighbor, Ivory Madison, displaying the bruise and saying she wanted to document the incident in case of a child custody battle. That video convinced many of Mirkarimi’s guilt, and a majority of Ethics Commissioners say they found it to be the main evidence on which Mirkarimi should be removed from office on official misconduct charges (the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on Mirkarimi’s removal on Oct. 9, after Guardian press time).

But that video was only a small part of the overwhelming and expensive case that Mayor Ed Lee brought against Mirkarimi, including the more serious charges of abuse of power, witness dissuasion, and impeding a police investigation, all of which go more directly to a sheriff’s official duties. All of those charges got lots of media coverage and they helped cement the view of many San Franciscans that Mirkarimi engaged in a pattern of inappropriate behavior, rather than making a big momentary mistake. Yet most of the media coverage during the six months of Ethics Commission proceedings ignored the fact that none of the evidence that was being gathered supported those charges. Indeed, all those charges were unanimously rejected by the commission on Aug. 16, a startling rebuke of Lee’s case but one that was not highlighted in many media reports, which focused on the one charge the commission did uphold: the initial arm grab.

 

 

THE NEXT DOT-BOMB

In the late 1990s, San Francisco was in a very similar place to where it is now. The first dot-com boom was full bloom, driving the local economy and creating countless young millionaires — but also rapidly gentrifying the city and driving commercial and residential rents through the roof (great for the landlords, bad for everyone else). And then, the bubble popped, instantly erasing billions of dollars in speculative paper wealth and leaving this a changed city. The city’s working and creative classes suffered, but the political backlash gave rise to a decade with a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors.

The era ended in 2010 when Ed Lee was appointed mayor, and he began ambitious agenda of pumping up a new dot-com bubble using tax breaks, public subsidies, and relentless official boosterism to lure more tech companies to San Francisco. Lee has been successful in his approach, in the process driving up commercial rents and housing prices. By some estimates, about 30 percent of the city’s economy is now driven by technology companies.

Yet there have been few voices in the local media raising questions about this risky, costly, and self-serving economic development strategy. The Bay Citizen did a story about Conway’s self interested advice, the New York Times did a front page story raising these issues, and San Francisco Magazine just last month did a long cover story questioning how much tech is enough. But most local media voices have been silent on the issue, and much of the damage has already been done.

 

OLD POWERBROKERS RETURN TO CITY HALL

More than a decade ago, then-Mayor Willie Brown and Chinatown power broker Rose Pak worked together to empower big business, corrupt local politics, and clear the path for rampant development — an approach that progressives on the Board of Supervisors repudiated and slowed from 2000-2010. But Brown, Pak, and a new generation of their allies have returned in power in City Hall, and it’s as bad as it ever was.

Many San Franciscans know of their high-profile role appointing Lee to office in early 2011. But their influence and tentacles have extended far beyond what we read in the papers and watch on television, starting in 2010 when their main political operatives David Ho and Enrique Pearce ran Jane Kim’s supervisorial campaign, beating Debra Walker, a veteran of the fights against Brown’s remaking of the city.

Now, this crew has the run of City Hall, meeting regularly with Mayor Lee and twisting the arms of supervisors on key votes. Pearce and Ho persuaded longtime progressive Christina Olague to co-chair the scandal-plagued Run Ed Run campaign last year, she was rewarded this year with Lee appointing her to the Board of Supervisors. Pearce has been her close adviser, and most of her campaign cash has been raised by Brown and Pak. Even progressive Sup. Eric Mar admits that Pak in raising money for him, a troubling sign of things to come.

 

THE REAL OCCUPY STORY

The Occupy San Francisco camp that was cleared by police last week may have been mostly homeless people. And major news media outlets from the start reported that Occupy was dangerous, filthy, and a civic eyesore.

But last fall, the camps were comprised of a huge variety of people that chose to live part or full time on the streets. Students, people with 9-5 jobs, people with service jobs, and the unemployed were all represented. Wealthy people who lived in the financial districts where camps popped up mixed with working-class people who came from suburbs and small towns. Families came out, welcomed in the “child spaces” set up in many Occupy camps throughout the country. Most camps also boasted libraries, free classes, kitchens, food distribution, and medical tents.

As news media focused on gross-out stories of pee on the streets and graphic descriptions of drunk occupiers, they managed to ignore the complex systems that were built in the camps. Nor did anyone mention that homeless people have the right to protest, too.

Weird homophobic attack ad from the Association of Realtors

Zelda Bronstein
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Weird homophobic attack ad from the Association of Realtors

Gee, this ad that’s up on You Tube, apparently paid for the the San Francisco Association of Realtors, is creepy, strange and a bit homophobic.

It starts with a bunch of kids chanting about sending “Eric Mar back to Mars” — huh? — where, presumably, there are still happy meals with toys in them, because I can’t figure out why else all these children would be doing a political attack ad. Creepy element number one.

Then there’s a fake news announcer saying that “thousands of kids” are angry at Mar, when I saw maybe a dozen in the video — and they’re mad because they “are being bused long distances to schools they don’t want to attend.” (Creepy element number two — busing is a racial code word, even these days — and Mar, as a member of the Board of Supervisors, has nothing at all to do with the city’s school assigment policy.

Then we go to clips from the Daily Show making fun of Mar’s happy meal ban (including a superimposed legend “embattled Supervisor Eric Mar.”) Creepy element number three — why is he “embattled?” Only because the realtors don’t want a pro-tenant vote on the board.

After that it gets truly odd: The voice-over announces that Mar is famous “for suggesting that his meetings be held in the the hot tub of a local YMCA” — while a photo shows three apparently naked men cozying up around a big flume of steam. Ah — Mar is linked to a steamy male bath scene! Eeew.

“Our kids are right,” the ad says at the end. But does anyone think those (very) young children spontaneously took to the streets to complain about a member of the Board of Supervisors? Seriously — some parents clearly rounded up their kids and gave them pots and pans to bang on and created a totally false an pretty outrageous political hit piece.

Oh, and at the end, the ad hypes David Lee — and again claims that “neighborhood schools” are a part of his platform. Fine, be ignorant: David Lee isn’t running for School Board.

I can’t believe the Association of Realtors really endorses this stuff. I’ve called over there to ask about it, but haven’t heard back.

Check it out. Am I crazy, or is this some ugly shit?

 

 

Presenting the Nebraska Wave

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Presenting the Nebraska Wave

And so here’s the famous Nebraska Wave, slow and fast, at the Nebraska Stadium on a football Saturday in Lincoln, Nebraska. There is no place like Nebraska. Especially in San Francisco. Watch the video after the jump. b3

Party Radar: Kafana Balkan, Maurice Fulton, Never Knows, Body and Soul, Glamamore and more

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Party Radar: Kafana Balkan, Maurice Fulton, Never Knows, Body and Soul, Glamamore and more

I finally made it to Tradition, the new bar from the Bourbon and Branch guys that mashes up classic bar types — English pub, dive bar, Mad Men cocktail hour, classic drawing room, tiki lounge, etc. — in a gorgeous Tenderloin (oh, sorry, er “Union Square”) space with awesome vintage liquor ads plastered on the walls and really cuuute staff.

Well, not quite mashes up: there are no great drunk Irish-whiskey brawlers breaking through the walls of a girl-drink-drunk gaggle of video-bar gays to form some kind of mutant queer neon St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Or, you know, the Catholic Church. (Laugh track.)

But there are some great-sounding “blends” — liquor aged in barrels cured with various wines and coffees. I’d like to go back and drink my way through them. last night, however, Hunky Beau opted for a winning sazerac, I tried a yummy “surfer on acid” (various rums ‘n things, including housemade coconut marmalade), and we both reveled in the attentions of the fine bartenders. The labor-intensive cocktails are somewhat deservedly priced around $10, so save Tradition for something special, but it’s totally worth it.

And now we dance. Click on the names of the fun events below to view the FB invites, if applicable.

 

>> GLAMAMORE’S BIRTHDAY

Mr. David, aka Glamamore, is, in my opinion, SF’s best drag performer (and couturier, too). Often with little by way of prop, his trademark cigarette angled toward his pouted, dark-painted lips, his regal forehead topped by a tangle of wig, silent movie eyes ablaze, he draws you hypnotically into the worlds of the classic showtunes and diva numbers he knows and loves so well. It’s truly a mystical transformation, no reality required. His weekly Friday club Some Thing is essential: three drag shows featuring more than a dozen queens will pay him tribute, plus late-night dancing with DJ Josh Cheon.

Fri/5, 10pm-late, $8. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF. www.studsf.com

 

 

>> MAURICE FULTON

When it comes down to gorgeous and multi-faceted talent, it’s very hard to beat this Sheffield house (and occasional arty techno) producer. As a DJ, he’s most respected for glittering, balanced beat constructions that don’t stint on great soul classics and otherworldly vibes. (I absolutely adored what he did with British-Zanzibari singer Mim Suleiman in 2010 and the remix above is one of my favorites.) Oh, and did we mention he had a hand in Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman”? Oh yes he did.

Fri/5, 10pm, $10-$20. 222 Hyde, SF.

 

 

>> KAFANA BALKAN

One of the city’s absolute best parties — a Romany romp through the great styles of the Balkans, complete with whooping brass, big drums, and lots of stomping and twirling. It only comes around once every two months or so, so don’t miss it. especially since the Brass Menazeri ensemble, Jill Parker & The Foxglove Sweethearts, and Kafana mastermind DJ Zeljko (where does he find all this great music?) are gonna be there.

Sat/6, 9pm-2am, $13. Rickshaw Stop, 155 fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

 

 

>> NEVER KNOWS

Dark and delicious local lord of sensual technoise and Untitled & After label head (“wants to be the 4AD of techno), Never Knows will help is step into the future — live — at the wonderfully advenuturous monthly Haceteria party. Should be a neat trip into razor-edged, goth-tinged, liquid moods, plus propulsive rhythms. With DJs Nihar, Tristes Tropiques, Jason P., and SMAC.

Sat/6, 9pm-3am, free before 10:30, $5 after. Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF.

 

 

>> BODY AND SOUL

I’ve waxed rapturous about actually legendary NYC party Body and Soul several times before — for me, it’s what helped saved Clubland from some mighty phony times in the late 90s and early 2000s. Many people I know on the West Coast would save up to fly in just for the weekly bash, which boasted one of the most eclectic crowds I’ve seen outside of early rave-times (and sadly ended regular installments a few years back in favor of yearly reunions) . There were also incredible tunes, of course, from mind-blowing Carribean singalongs to 15-minute deep-house rave-ups, diva croons to electro gems. Afro-Latin jams were always on the menu and, considering one fo the DJs was incredibly influential producer Francois K (along with Danny Krivit and Joe Clausell), a ton of disco rareties as well. Come to Mighty and see what the fuss is about.

Sat/6, 10pm-5am, $20-$30. Mighty, 119 Utah, www.mighty119.com

 

>>CMAC SFDJ SHOWCASE

Underground star-studded fundraiser time! The California Music and Culture Association fights for our right to party in many ways — not it is actually throwing a party, at Mighty, with DJs Syd Gris, Sleazemore, Maneesh the Twister, Ryury, and many more. It’ll be a blast.

Mon/8, 8pm-1am, $5 CMAC members /$10 non members /Free entrance with $25 purchase of CMAC membership. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.cmacsf.org

 

Gruesome discovery

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Gruesome discovery

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM In the summer of 1999, horror fans hungered for something, anything, that wasn’t a Scream-inspired self-aware slasher.

Though it had no stars, a microscopic budget, and was filmed in nausea-inducing shaky-cam, The Blair Witch Project burst into cinemas with a novel set-up — filmmakers lost in the woods record supernatural goings-on before falling victim to evil themselves — and scares galore. Towering box-office receipts, a Time magazine cover, and legions of rip-offs ensued.

“We just wanted to scare people,” Blair Witch co-director Daniel Myrick told me when I interviewed him for the Guardian back in 1999. He couldn’t have known that Blair Witch‘s influence would still be felt over a decade later, in movies like the blockbuster Paranormal Activity series — and even outside the horror genre, where stories constructed from characters filming themselves have become commonplace.

Now there’s V/H/S, an energetically exploitative take on the trend that reaches past Blair Witch to high-five the granddaddy of them all, 1980’s legendarily nasty Cannibal Holocaust. V/H/S also nods to vintage horror’s fondness for the anthology format, setting up the action with a frame story, Tape 56: hooligans film themselves behaving badly, then prowl a house in search of a mysterious VHS tape.

The apparently abandoned dwelling is creepy enough, with a dead body just hangin’ out in the TV room. But each tape they watch contains material so shocking (a woman turns flesh-tearingly monstrous after a drunken hookup; a student Skyping with her boyfriend suspects her apartment is haunted; and a road trip, a camping trip, and a Halloween party all go very, very wrong) it unsettles even tough guys who, earlier in the day, were grabbing women on the street in service of their budding “reality porn” business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv6S3RGMGw8

Each “tape” is directed by a different filmmaker or filmmaking team, all of whom were directed to use the found-footage format. So yes, V/H/S is a movie about people filming themselves watching other people who are also filming themselves.

“With a found-footage anthology, you could make a found-footage movie about people finding footage, and that seemed like such an obvious idea,” explains Simon Barrett, who worked on both the wraparound and haunted-apartment tale The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger. “A lot of found-footage [features] become ludicrous; after two hours, you run into all the clichés of characters screaming at each other to turn the camera off. But you can believe that someone would leave the camera on for, say, 14 minutes of something scary happening to them.”

Adds Adam Wingard, whose multiple V/H/S credits include directing Tape 56, “Found footage is the most modern, new way to tell stories that we’ve seen before. We’ve seen vampires and ghosts. It puts it in a whole new context and framework for modern audiences — it basically spices up the genre.”

The biggest name on V/H/S‘s roster is probably Ti West, who made cult hit The House of the Devil (2009) and last year’s The Innkeepers.

“Some of my favorite movies are documentaries, so documentary-style filmmaking isn’t something that I have a problem with,” West says. “It’s that mostly [these kinds of films are] really derivative of the ones that came before them, which is frustrating.”

West, whose V/H/S segment is styled like a vacation video, prefers to shoot his films traditionally, though “I don’t think found footage is going to go away,” he says. “All of us in our daily lives [consume] found footage. We’re so accustomed to recording videos like it’s no big deal, and seeing videos recorded by amateurs. We’re so conditioned by the news and reality TV. It’s now just part of us, and part of our media.”

He’s right, of course. And when the found-footage aspect is no longer the film’s biggest novelty, like it was in the Blair Witch era, there’s room for other themes to emerge. V/H/S is — to use a word that doesn’t exist — “bro-y.” There are multiple scenes of male characters pointing the camera at clothed women, naked women, naked women who don’t know they’re being filmed, women the men are trying to have sex with, etc. (All of the filmmakers were male, though some female producers did work behind the scenes.)

V/H/S played multiple festivals, including Sundance, ahead of its theatrical debut this week. “I’m very curious about how mainstream audiences are going to respond,” Barrett says. “I feel like in the festival world, audiences come at these films ready to find some kind of political subtext to them, which I think our film overall kind of lacks at times. And when they’re trying to find out what it might be, that’s when segments get accused of being misogynistic.

He adds, “I think it’s an instinctive reaction to a horror film that touches on these subjects but doesn’t stop to tell the audience that these things are wrong, which — by the way, I think that actually is sexist, feeling you have to stop and tell the audience that women are empowered. That’s actually pretty condescending. I would rather just make a movie that does those things and hope that people get it. Which, you know, happens about half the time.”

The theme of voyeurism that runs through the film was a coincidence, though Barrett thinks that once the other filmmakers saw the frame story — inspired, he says, by Romain-Gavra’s “Stress” video for the band Justice, Harmony Korine’s 2009 Trash Humpers, and “sharking” videos — they might have been inspired in that direction.

“It is interesting that four of the six shorts could be interpreted as having some kind of failed sex tape element to them,” he says. “But I think that also just kind of organically came up, because we realized that we had total creative freedom to address the things that most found footage movies normally have to avoid. I think this was an opportunity for us to touch on these serious subjects in a goofy way. Ultimately, we just wanted to make a fun horror movie.”

West, who had a tight window to make Second Honeymoon, was the first to finish his short, turning it in before Tape 56 was completed.

“[V/H/S] turned out to have this really intense, misogynistic theme that kind of just came out of nowhere. It wasn’t planned,” he says. “Since I was first, I wonder: if I had gone last, would I have made something different? It sounds really stupid to say we didn’t know [the theme] was going on, but really everyone was very removed from each other.”

Also, West points out, “The filmmakers are not like the people they depict. In a way, the movie is presenting these awful dudes and they’re getting their comeuppance. So it may seem misogynistic, but actually it’s kind of this feminist revenge thing. I don’t know why it happened. I didn’t realize it until Sundance, when I was watching it and going, ‘There are some weird threads going on in this movie.'”

 

V/H/S opens Fri/5 in Bay Area theaters.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 3

Humpday Happy Hour! Good Vibrations Lakeshore Store, 3219 Lakeshore, Oakl. (510) 788-2389, www.goodvibes.com. 6:30-7:30pm, free. We’ve all faced the post-work dilemma: gym or happy hour? Stress no more because the good folks at Good Vibrations would like to invite you to come and work out those PC muscles by doing Kegel exercises. Remember, strong PC muscles are very beneficial regardless of age, gender and, sexuality.

Venus and Mars reading J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 121, 1600 Holloway, SF. (415) 338-2408, www.library.sfsu.edu. 4pm, free. SFSU professor of cinema Jan Millsapps reads from her new novel Venus and Mars, a story about the discoveries of a 20th century astronomer.

THURSDAY 4

“The Art of Conservation” The Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-5252, www.boneroom.com. 7-9pm, free. Artist Jane Kim’s passion for the environment is her raison d’etre. Her environmental consciousness will be on display at this upcoming event hosted by Berkeley’s Bone Room. Featured will be life size murals of the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, meant by Kim as a reminder of our own fragile ecosystem.

Hendrix on Hendrix Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 649-1320, www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. Jimi Hendrix historian and author Steven Roby will be a giving an audiovisual presentation on the storied and tragic career of one of rock’s most talented guitarists. This unique presentation will feature interviews with reporters in which Hendrix discusses his fraught childhood and his legacy. A cannot-miss for Hendrix enthusiasts.

“Circular Motion: Subverting Circumscription” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF. (415) 398-7229, www.merdiangallery.org. Through Nov.24. Opening reception: 5:30-8:30pm, free. Seven video installations from contemporary Cuban female artists will be display at the Meridian Gallery. The pieces of art each with its own distinct circular aspects form together to symbolize the much-troubled relationship between Cuba and United States.

FRIDAY 5

Pancakes and Booze Pop-Up Art Show Gallery 4n5, 863 Mission, SF. (415) 522-2440, www.galiara.com. Also Sat/6. 8pm-1am, free. If the name of this art show doesn’t convince you to show up then nothing will. But then again, don’t be that person and show up just for the food and beer — in addition to art from over 75 local and emerging artists, there will be a zombie fashion show, live music, and body painting.

SATURDAY 6

Frank Moore; Risk For Deep Love Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St., Oakl. (510) 526-7858, www.temescalartcenter.org. 8pm, free. Lauded and controversial shaman performance artist Frank Moore’s event at the Temescal Art Center will be sure to baffle your mind. Moore will attempt to reimagine human emotion through the use of musicians, actors, dancers, and members of the audience. It’s experimental performance art at its most experimental.

Garden Party White Walls, 835 Larkin, SF. (415) 931-1500, www.whitewallssf.com. Through Nov.5. Opening reception: 7-11pm, free. Artist Casey Gray will debut new works in his third exhibition with White Walls. This time around, the focus will be on paintings of 17th century Flemish life.

Cheeses of France Pop-Up Café Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 10am-5pm, free. Calling all cheeseheads! Famed chef Jason Fox of Commonwealth will be putting on a cheese dish clinic courtesy of the SOMA Pop-up Café. Five different French cheese producers will also be on hand to let you sample their delectable goods. Oh and there’ll be cheese art too.

SUNDAY 7

Japan Center Anime Fair: Sailor Moon’s 20th Anniversary Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan, SF. www.japancentersf.com. 12:30-4:30pm, free. Bust out that Sailor Mercury ‘fit and head on over to Japantown to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sailor Moon anime classic series. There will be a performance that consists of a battle between Super Sentai and Kamen Rider and singing and dancing by Mari Watanabe, Yukie Dong, Ti@Mi, and Angel Hearts.

UCSF Taste for the Cure: A Taste of Science Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF. (415) 353-7672, www.jccsf.org. 11am-4pm, free. It’s nutrition meets education in UCSF’s popular event on how diet can have a significant effect on breast health. Breast cancer doctors from the university will be conducting presentations numerous breast cancer-related topics. Unique to this year’s event will be a demonstration of DNA extraction — after the strands have been extricated you’ll be able to view them via microscope on the spot.

MONDAY 8

Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off IDES Grounds, 735 Main, Half Moon Bay. www.miramarevents.com/weighoff. 7-11am, free. Cartoonishly fat pumpkins will be battling it out for the heavyweight title (no pun intended) at this year’s Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Defending champion Leonardo Urena of Napa will have to bring his A game if he’s going to break the state record that he set at last year’s competition. For the first time in the history of outlandish contest there will be a mega-prize of $25,000 offered to the pumpkin grower that can grow the world’s first one-ton pumpkin.

Stealing the American dream back from Chuck Norris

Andrew Lam
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Why’d we let him do it, United States of America? All of a sudden (maybe this happened awhile ago), the face of “America” was no longer the face of the people who’d been there for millenia, but rather a gun-toting, karate-chopping, Christian blogging white guy (there may have been steps in between the two.)

Reminder brought to you by Gerardo de Sepulveda, the painter behind the comically-rendered “Chuck Norris and the Theft of the American Spirit” and one of the Bay Area Native Americans featured in Galeria de la Raza and the Indigenous Arts Coalition‘s group exhibition “Native Diaspora Now.”

 

Richard Castaneda’s “Sacred Pipe”

The show is an at-times wry look at Native American life in America today. In another corner of the gallery hangs a multimedia piece by Richard Castaneda. It’s deals in American spirit, too — the kind you smoke. Baby blue and yellow headdress-adorned cigarrette boxes, arranged in the shape of a cross, adorned with feathers hanging from Pepsi bottlecaps. It’s instantly recognizable as coming from a Native tradition, but will cause cognitive woe to anyone whose concept of Native art borrows from the “ethnic print” section of Urban Outfitters.

The same can be said of the rest of the show, which ranges from leather vests hanging in space to video clips that expose deep, wailing wells of hurt, to the bright, witty work of Spencer Keeton Cunningham (who uses those working class-iconic ramen noodles to represent a figure’s heart in one memorable work, aptly titled “Chief Ramen Heart”.) It’s totally — oh dang, am I going to say this? — American in a way that any dude who campaigned for Mike Huckabee could only dream of encapsulating. 

Formed in 2008 as a San Francisco Art Institute student group, the Indigenous Arts Coalition is focused on promoting First Peoples art in the Bay Area. The work deserves to be lauded, and the show marks the ascedence of the group, insofar as its website debuted at the interactive computer that is set up by Galeria de la Raza’s front door if by no other metric. Let’s hope “Native Diaspora Now” is a sign of more insightful projects to come.  

You can drop by to see the show any time Galeria de la Raza is open, but for a more interactive look, we recommend attending Sat/6 when artists from the Indigenous Artists Coalition will speak on a panel moderated by publisher-poet Mica Valdez. Stick around afterwards for readings from Turtle Island to Abya Yala, music from The Genie and Daniel Rodriguez on the acoustic guitar, and snacks from Rocky’s Frybread. 

“Native Diaspora Now” 

Through Oct. 13


Indigenous Artists Coalition artist talk

Sat/6, 6-10pm, free

Galeria de la Raza

2857 24th St., SF

www.galeriadelaraza.org

This year, Banned Books Week matters more than ever

Andrew Lam
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Have you ever listened to KPFA’s “Flashpoints”? A friend described it to me, as we listened to an episode featuring San Francisco’s newest poet laureate – our first Latino laureate – Alejandro Murgía, as a “very pointed” radio show. The host, poet Dennis Bernstein, asked a very pointed question about Obama and Romney’s reactions to the anti-Muslim video that’s causing uproar in the Middle East. 

But Murgía changed the subject. What about the racism of the Tucson Unified School District, he asked? Why doesn’t its removal of the Mexican American studies program, and with it books like The Tempest and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and other books that “emphasize students’ ethnicity rather than their individuality” get talked about more? The more he talked, the more I became convinced that yes, this was a very big deal. 

Luckily, the country has an opportunity to talk about the issue of free speech repression via next week’s 30th annual national celebration of Banned Books Week, Sun/30-Oct. 6.

Ethnic studies isn’t the only literature with targets on its back. The national Banned Books Week site has a handy list of the top 10 titles banned in 2011. People get riled up about Hunger Games? Whoa, we’re still incensed by To Kill A Mockingbird and Brave New World?

Free speech suppression is real! Here’s where you can go to break the ban next week. You’ll also want to keep your eyes on the City Lights blog, where you’ll see talks by famous authors on their fave banned books – we’re waiting eagerly for them to post the John Waters’ reading of Lady Chatterly. On a national level, check the Banned Books Week website for information on joining the country-wide “virtual read-out” that the group is organizing.

“Cracking the News with Project Censored”

Every year, the Guardian publishes Project Censored’s list of the top most suppressed stories in the news. (Because sometimes banning starts before publishing does.) On Monday, get a sneak peek with Mickey Huff from PC, who will break down the big events of the year that you didn’t get to hear about. 

Mon/1, 7:30pm, free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

www.booksmith.com

“Let’s Talk 50 Shades of Grey”

Perhaps, given the issues we’ve already discussed, the fact that the soccer mom version of a BDSM novel getting restricted in libraries across the country doesn’t seem quite so dire. But sexuality, of course, is still very much a part of us. The library’s conscripted Emily Morse, star of Bravo’s Miss Advised reality show and local self-styled sexpert, to lead a discussion of this bestselling, racy tale of a CEO and his virginal submissive. 

Tue/2, 6pm, free

San Francisco Main Library

100 Larkin, SF

www.sfpl.org

“Out of Print” art reception

The students at City College respond to free speech issues with their art at this Banned Books Week group show.

Tue/2-Wed/5, opening reception Tue/2, 5-8pm, free

Cesar Chavez Student Center gallery, City College of San Francisco 

1650 Holloway, SF

www.ccsf.edu

“Read Banned Books Naked”: Naked Girls Reading 

Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Carol Queen, and members of the Twilight Vixen Revue strip down and start turning pages for you from their favorite piece of restricted literature at the SF edition of this national network of nudie-bookworm readings. 

Tue/2, 8pm, $20-25/$35 for two

Stagewerx Theater

446 Valencia, SF

www.nakedgirlsreading.com

Party Radar: I Heart Cochina Tonga’s, Tyree Cooper in a church, Beat Junkies 20th, 3-D dance fest, more

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Party Radar: I Heart Cochina Tonga’s, Tyree Cooper in a church, Beat Junkies 20th, 3-D dance fest, more

O my goddess, there’s gonna be a yoga rave. Why, Govinda, why??? 

Actually I’m kind of intrigued. But full intriguement will have to wait until I’m hungover from the onslaught of this weekend’s parties. And here I thought I could recover from Folsom. Nah, brah. Not only are there all these parties I listed in my Super Ego clubs column this week, or our rooftop shindig at SFMOMA tonight, there are also all the below, equally worthy.

And before we launch — can I put in just one more plug for the STEREO: 3-D Arts and Music Fest on Saturday? There are going to be giant classic video games there! Plus a DJ set by Ladytron (and a ’80s video arcade set by DJ Omar), 3-D visual projections, and all kinds of cool effects. Go, Govinda, go!

In other news, can a porn star be a gay circuit DJ? The question has burnt a hole through the local gay internet this week, it really has. I never listen to that circuit, er, stuff — so it’s like a 9-inch tree falling in a forest of meth to me, honey. Good luck, though! Here are some real parties: 

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I HEART COCHINA TONGA’S

Ay-ay-ay, it’s the first anniversary of this hilariously fun monthly, mashing up budget Mexican fiesta with drag queens on cheap drinks. Ambrosia Salad hosts (and DJs now!), along with DJs Taco Tuesday and Stanley Frank. Lots of maracas shaking, and I’ll be the pinata colada. Disfrutas! 

Thu/27, 9pm, free. LookOut, 3600 16th St., SF. 

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MUSIC IS FREEDOM

Raising awareness of and money to eradicate leukemia, this third annual shindig boasts the always-fresh Mark Farina, Scott Diaz, Chris Lum, and really tons more local funk-house alums. Greeve for a good cause ok!

Thu/27, 9pm, $10 donation to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

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DIXON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-160hf7leA

Berlin’s sophisticated tech-house favorite returns to Public Works with a trademark impeccably calculated set to blow minds, pack floors. 

Thu/27, 9pm-3am, $10-$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com 

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TRUNCATE

Just some really great, kind of heady, deep and dark machine-generated dance music from this LA guy, in a 4-hour set.

Fri/28, 10pm, $15-$20. 222 Hyde, SF. 

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PETER VAN HOESEN

I randomly saw this deep-dub Berliner last time he was here, and he blew me away with his techno technique. He’s here this time around as part of the Bunker A/V series at Monarch, courtesy of the great underground techno club Bunker in NYC — and with Detroit-NYC heartthrob Derek Plaslaiko in tow.

Fri/28, 9pm-4am, $10-$20. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

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BEAT JUNKIES 20TH ANNIVERSARY

The stellar local turntablist crew has helped keep that native sound alive in the city for more than two decades — whaaaaa??? Craziness. J.Rocc, Rhettmatic, Babu, D Styles, Melo D, Shortkut, Mr.Choc, DJ Curse – long may they reign — and slay Mighty’s mighty soundsystem. 

Sat/29, 10pm-late, $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

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OCTAVE ONE (lIve) + CARL CRAIG

Old school Detroit techno wizzes will go beyond the dance. Duo Octave One was excellent last last time they were here, playing a driving set that left us breathless. As a DJ, Craig is kind of the Prince of techno — you never know what his live sets will be like, but there will definitely be a soulful eccentricity (and he has one of the unmatched back catalogues in dance music to draw from). 

Sat/29, 9:30-4am, $20-$25. Public Wrks, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

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REVIVAL 001 with TYREE COOPER

Chicago acid hip-house legend is back on the scene – and headlining this amazing-sounding party at St. Johns church, his only US appearance on a grand tour. (Flashback to the wonderful Episcodisco parties at Grace Cathedral!) Also included: 5kinandbone5, DJ Dedan, Castle Hands, and light artist Donovan Drummond. Get spiritual now.

Sun/30, 5:30-10pm, $10-$15. Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, 1661 15th St., SF. 

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SWAGGER LIKE US

This monthly queer hip-hop patio party brought out the sunshine last time around, with stellar live performances and great tunes ranging across the whole hip-hopiverse. It wasn’t just ironic white hipster kids either! Nice vibes and a good time. plus Salt-N-Pepa. Okrrrr?

Sun/30, 3pm-8pm, $8. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com

Localized Appreesh: Kacey Johansing

Tony Robles
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Localized Appreesh is our thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

I first learned of Oakland’s Kacey Johansing through another post here at Noise headquarters. The singer-songwriter – who also has played with Geographer and Yesway – played a private mini concert for SFBG videographer Ariel Soto-Suver’s occasional feature, Telegenic Band Check.

Johansing’s sweet, jazz-inflected vocals are what drew me in, they give the folk-pop singer an edge that makes you picture her in a dark nightclub, sidled up next to glossy baby grand, one arm dangling carelessly over the edge of the piano, while a crowd full of admirers sets down dry martinis on cocktail napkins to clap after each dazzling performance. But back to reality; in the Telegenic Band Check video she’s merely strumming quietly in sunny Douglass Park, accompanied by actual chirping birdies, and still manages to make an impact.

Now that she’s about to release her second LP – the moving, piano-tickled Grand Ghosts – it seemed like the perfect time to give her the Localized Appreesh quiz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQDXaAFyiKQ

Year and location of origin: 1984 Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Personal motto: You don’t need to take those drugs to enjoy the concert.

Description of sound in 10 words or less: Underwater Dance Party.

Instrumentation: Kacey Johansing-Guitar/Voice, Jeremy Harris-Guitar, Rob Shelton/Keys, Ezra Lipp/Drums, Jamie Riotto/Bass, Andrew Maguire/Vibraphone.

Most recent release: Grand Ghosts LP

Best part about life as a Bay Area musician: Three Guitar Centers! No, just kidding, I love it here so much and am incredibly grateful to be a part of such insanely talented, creative and supportive musical community.

Worst part about life as a Bay Area musician: It’s easy to feel stuck inside of the “bubble”..not that it is a bad thing to feel content where you are, but I think it is difficult for great local bands to think outside of The Bay and venture outward.
 
First album ever purchased: Queen, Best Of.

Most recent album purchased/downloaded: Moody Blues To our Children’s Children’s Childrens on cassette. My dad’s favorite band of all time..listened to this tape more than just about anything growing up.  

Favorite local eatery and dish: Pizzaiolo in the East Bay, best best best housemade gin and tonics.

Kacey Johansing
With Bart Davenport, Anna Ash
Fri/28, 9pm, $9-$12
Brick and Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Smells like team spirit

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Smells like team spirit

MUSIC “This is our biggest song by far,” Clyde Carson says wearily at his hotel room in San Jose. The song, “Slow Down,” features Clyde alongside his newly reconstituted group, the Team, and we’re waiting for Kaz Kyzah and Mayne Mannish to show. Mayne turns up, along with “Slow Down” producer Sho Nuff, but Kaz remains MIA, and the difficulty of keeping three rappers on the same page probably explains why the song is credited to “Clyde Carson featuring the Team,” though it appears on the crew’s reunion EP, Hell of a Night (Moedoe, 2012). In heavy rotation on KMEL, and branching out to other markets like LA and Chicago thanks to its Youtube-driven dance-craze, “Slow Down” has been bubblin’ for much of the year, as Clyde has doggedly pursued the hit with solo shows and Team dates.

Bay rap fans might experience a little déjà vu here. Back in 2004, when they burst out of Oakland with their regional smash “It’s Gettin’ Hot”— produced by a then-teenaged Sho Nuff — the Team helped launch what became known as the hyphy movement, following up with a memorable onslaught of local hits like “Just Go” and “Patron.” But what should have been the culmination, their sophomore album, World Premiere (Rex/Koch, 2006), was instead interminably delayed, blunting its impact. When Carson moved to LA in 2006 to sign a solo deal with Capitol through The Game’s Black Wall Street, the Team seemed prematurely finished due to business rather than personal or creative reasons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l9DJvESFlk

Like several Bay artists signed by the majors during the hyphy era, including Mistah F.A.B., Clyde never got to drop an album; Capitol only released a pair of singles, “2 Step” and the Sean Kingston-featuring “Doin’ That,” in 2007, but didn’t release Clyde until 2009.

“You never know what’s gonna happen so you can never blame a label,” he says. “At the time Capitol was merging with Virgin. [Capitol Executive VP] Ronnie Johnson took over my project once the companies merged. We was getting ready to shoot the ‘Doin’ That’ video and — he died in his sleep. And I didn’t have enough of a foundation where I could move without a label.”

Instead of succumbing to this blow, Carson got back on the grind, and the success of “Slow Down” has resulted from a perfect storm of factors, beginning with an October 2011 call from now-adult Sho Nuff, whose youth had limited his earlier participation in Team activities.

By November, Clyde says, “we were in the studio recording. I put the hook on ‘Slow Down.’ I wanted a feature so I reached out to Keak da Sneak, but it didn’t work out so I reached out to Kaz and he put that verse on. Then I sent Kaz five or six songs and he did them all in one day. So we were like, shit, let’s do a Team album and put Mayne on these songs.”

Mayne himself is a key element of what we might call the Team 2.0.

“There was a time where I fell back from rappin’ and started learning the game by managing Carson,” he admits. “I wasn’t as confident a rapper as Clyde and Kaz, really goin’ in there destroying shit.”

But “destroying shit” is exactly what Mayne does on the third verse of “Slow Down,” and all over the EP, his rapid staccato bark providing a perfect contrast to the low-register growls of Kaz and Clyde.

“Some rapper blood just came out of me,” Mayne laughs, “and when we started back working with Sho Nuff, he helped bring my whole character and style out.”

The final ingredient was unpredictable: when “Slow Down” first dropped early this year, an SF high school student under the handle J12 posted a Youtube video of a dance he invented to the song. “The J12” has gone ghetto viral, racking up 700,000 hits, spawning numerous homage vids, and fueling demand for Team appearances in previously unheard of areas like Chicago. Inevitably J12 converged with the group, dropping the dance in the official video and becoming Carson’s DJ.

“He put that shit on for real,” Clyde says. “I never imagined havin’ a dance to one of our songs. When I was a teen, niggas wasn’t dancin’. But it lets me know the music we makin’ is resonating with that generation.”

“I ain’t gonna start dancin’,” Carson laughs, though I submit he’s doing the J12 at 1:05 of the official video. “But I definitely appreciate it.”

 

We were here

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We were here

FILM “I feel like I was maybe here, a while back. Or I’m older than I really am, and I just have this young body and spirit and mind — but I have a memory of this place when it was bangin’,” says video blogger Crystal Starr in new doc Detropia, gazing at the Detroit skyline from an abandoned building somewhere on the West Side, puffing a little joint.

Most people who grew up in the Rust Belt, kicking around the ghostly landscape of industrial decay, know this feeling intimately. But for those of us from Detroit, once-glamorous capital of American manufacturing and symbol of the triumph of capitalism, the sentiment is especially keen. We feel like we were born with the history of the city in our bones.

Another common feeling is that of dread upon hearing that yet another arty documentary (or brow-furrowing article, or glossy photo book) about the Motor City’s current economic state is coming down the pipe. The narrative arc of such things is usually this: remember Motown? Cars were amazing. Then there were scary riots, probably out of thin air. Then the jobs left. Isn’t Detroit sad now? Look how spooky this abandoned train station from the 1930s is! America is over. Wait! Some hipsters are starting a farm downtown! There may be hope after all. But who knows?

Detropia, directed by Heidi Ewing, who grew up near Detroit, and Rachel Grady, doesn’t exactly deconstruct that crusty storyline (non-spoiler alert: the hipster-farmers become performance artists). But this important and beautiful film shows how much more of the Detroit tale takes on meaning and shape when told through the voices of people who actually live there, with a cinematic eye that doesn’t shy away from reality, even as it bends it to narrative ends. (In Detropia, even a plastic-wrapped head of iceberg lettuce is a metaphor.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRce1KFsH-g

Those voices include Starr and several others, including George MacGregor, president of the United Auto Workers Local 22, who is filmed during the painful closure of an American Axle plant; Tommy Stephens, slight-but-wise owner of an old school bar-restaurant; and a jaunty band of scrap-metal salvagers who should become the subject of a documentary in their own right.

Yes, the film has a somber tone and melancholy style. Grim statistics — “in the last 10 years, Michigan has lost 50 percent of its manufacturing jobs;” “six million workers lost their jobs” — are dutifully displayed. Current Detroit industries, like casino gambling or techno and hip-hop music, and their effect on the economy are left unexamined. And yes, the ruins of Detroit look gorgeous. (One thing Detropia gets spot-on is how the pervasively humid, green-gray light of the coastal city echoes off peeled paint and crumbling yellow-red brick.)

But when you hear MacGregor at his desk gently telling an elderly retiree on speakerphone that she has no vision insurance — it was one of the union compromises of the auto industry bailout — right before he launches into a mesmerizing rhapsody on the middle class, the camera lingering on his greased hair and patchwork sweater, you realize the utopia of Detropia isn’t the hoped-for return of the old days. It’s the insistence of humanity to persevere and form a community, no matter how crazy things get.

DETROPIA opens Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.

Purple-tratin’

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Purple-tratin’

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO First off, a woozy-recovery shoutout to the heroes of Folsom Street Fair, beyond the organizers themselves, who continue to bring a solid electro music festival vibe to the, er, packed fistful of proceedings. I think drag artist VivvyAnne Forevermore outdid all the torture enthusiasts by staying in full face for three whole days of performing, the mysterious entity known as Luther proved at its party that 400 shirtless, sex-reeking men on a dancefloor doesn’t mean “circuit party,” and DJ Carnita of Hard French valiantly kicked off the amazing Deviants party fresh from the hospital, his ankle broken in a tragic gay basketball accident. What we won’t do for love!

Now, looking ahead (after all those behinds): is trap music a trap? The burgeoning microgenre has seized the Internet this summer after bubbling under for 10 years, begun as a low-budget, dirty-sounding Atlanta rap beats style meant to reflect the dark and paranoid feel of the drug game — the “trap” in question. What it’s become is both a savvy marketing onslaught by hype-happy music producers, some of them of the douche variety (boo) and also a way for dubstep-weary general partiers to get deeper and sexier, by combining hip-hop’s crunked 808 bass-snare swag with EDM’s keyboard-driven energy and some classic booty-bass trimming (nice).

I’m digging it, even though I’m no fan of pop-EDM’s LCD aspirations or contemporary hip-pop’s zombie materialism and worn-out masculinity-crisis tropes — although all that’s recently been changing a bit, and luckily the sophisticated techno and alternative hip-hop scenes have been thriving in reaction. SF finally has a regular club night devoted to the sound, Trap City (Sat/29 and last Saturdays, 9pm-4am, $7–$10. Icon, 1192 Folsom, SF.). And of course we’re giving it some goofy irony and some serious underground connections.

The irony comes via witchy-Tumblr graphics, cartoonish “gold chainz swangin'” hype, and Net-savvy entities (producer Trill Murray and rapper Chippy Nonstop perform this month). The underground connects come from notorious DJ Ultraviolet, queen of the early, grimy dubstep and bass scenes here, who runs the Trap with partner Napsty.

“I think a lot of DJs are getting into this style of music because it is a lot less intense and ‘ravetastic’ then most of the brostep coming out these days, and that sort of vibe is easier for more people to grasp right now than electro and dubstep bangers — although I enjoy those, too,” Ultraviolet told me over email.

“I’ve always injected a bit of hip-hop flavor into my sets and so a lot of the trap music coming out recently appealed to me: it sounds good on the big soundsystems and girls aren’t afraid to dance to it. I really like the diverseness of the scene. At Trap City we get all types of people. You just see everyone going nuts and loving it so much, I kinda ask myself, as a bass music DJ how could I not get into this? LOL.”

Together with other local DJs — some of them hailing from the burner, glitch, or street bass scenes — like Taso, Stylust Beats, Bogl, and AnTennae, and following in the footsteps of bigtimers like Diplo and Flosstradamus, the Trap City kids are pushing the sound forward. Even if it all ends up being more marketing mirage than actual sonic imprint (ahem, moombahton), it’s got a great beat and we can dance to it.

“SF has always loved its hip hop and dirty bass, so the combination of the two seems to fit perfectly with SF’s style,” Ultraviolet tells me. (Peep her productions and trap mixes at www.soundcloud.com/djultraviolet.) “We’re a cool town, this is cool music. I see SF and trap music having a long romantic relationship.”

 

AFROLICIOUS

Last time our favorite Latin funk-global jams collective took over Mighty, it was dancing room only — this installment looks to be just as groovy-bonkers, with a three-hour set from awesome Afrolicious brothers Pleasuremaker and Senor Oz (including live percussion), and special guests J-Boogie and Izzy*Wise.

Fri/28, 10pm-late, $8 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

ANDY STOTT

The renowned Manchester technoist blew minds last year with the release of two EPs, Passed Me By and We Saty Together, that embraced an almost terrifying sludgy slowness, mesmerizing with an ur-tribal vibe. He’ll be joined by psychotomimetic occultists Demdike Stare, glitch-blissed Balam Acab, SF’s ghostly oOoOO, sound artist Holly Herndon, and Dark Entries’ darkwaver Josh Cheon for an eclectic night of sounds of now at the Public Access party.

Fri/28, 10pm, $12–$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

CATZ ‘N DOGZ

A Polish house duo so close to my heart I can feel it beating them right now. They live in Berlin now, and combine polished Wolf + Lamb-like R&Bish vibes with that trademark Germanic techno attention to every detail. Most important, they have a sense of humor, great ears for new releases, and are a lot of fun to dance to.

Sat/29, 9pm-4am, $10–$20. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

SWEATER FUNK FOUR-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

The 100 percent vinyl soul party jets out of the toddler stage, with all the origonal crew in tact, including one of my favorite people, DJ Mama Bear. Laidback, deep boogie, slow jams loveliness — and yes, you will sweat.

Sat/29, 9pm, $5 advance, Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

 

STEREO

This sounds cool: A party in a huge space (Space 550, in fact) with 3-D visuals mixed live (first 500 in get glasses), a DJ set by Ladytron, and a 1990s house room with old school and 3-D video games, and a giant projected Pong tournament. Double double win win.

Sat/29, 9pm-late, $25 advance. Space 550, 550 Barneveld, SF. www.tinyurl.com/stereo550

 

TIARA SENSATION PAGEANT

Who will win this year’s drag tiara of insanity and wonder? All the underground gender clown cognoscenti will gather to determine the new princess-unicorn of the scene, brought to you by the Tiara Sensation crew (they do the fantastic Some Thing drag night at the Stud on Fridays). Judges Pink Lightning, Gina LaDivina, and HRH Princess Diandra of NYC will choose from a glittering bevy of hopefuls; current titleholder Lil Miss Hot Mess will step down (and down) in a surely unforgettable number.

Sat/29, 9pm, $15–$20. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

 

Fly, on the wall

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Fly, on the wall

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Suspended by a single rope, Jennifer Chien’s bare feet gently push against the white wall of Zaccho Dance Theatre’s studio. The move propels her into space; perhaps she is swimming, perhaps flying, or just floating on Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi’s finely detailed score.

Chien is rehearsing the finale for Niagara Falling, Flyaway Productions artistic director Jo Kreiter’s latest site-specific outdoor work. It will be performed against the west wall of the Renoir Hotel on Market Street. The dance in the air feels quiet and ever so poetic, particularly for a work that originated in Kreiter’s sense of having been “stung and caught by that whole American economics story.”

Niagara is another of Kreiter’s socially conscious choreographies, in which she examines vital issues through art making. She has called herself a “citizen artist,” a person she describes as someone whose work is “essentially concerned about how we live in the world.” (Poet Adrienne Rich and musician-activist Pete Seeger have been guiding lights.)

“Actually,” Kreiter adds, “any artist does that — except that some of us are more able or willing to talk about the issues.” She has called Niagara Falling “an artistic response to the economic degradation of our current recession.”

As a citizen artist, Kreiter’s choreographies are most frequently performed in public places, free of charge. They are accessible to casual passersby, neighborhood folks, and dancegoers. This is art at the heart of the democratic ideal.

Her works also subtly alter the urban landscape and the way we perceive it. After Singing Praises: Centennial Dances for the Women’s Building, the owners of the Women’s Building confessed that before the piece, they had not even known their Mission District neighbors. Mission Wall Dances honored the old Garland Hotel, an SRO that housed disadvantaged people until it burned and was rebuilt as lodging for tourists. (Painter Josef Norris was inspired to add some of Kreiter’s dancers to the building’s existing mural.) With one of her earliest works, Sparrow’s End, Kreiter created an “urban fantasy” for one of the most drug-infested alleys in the Mission. I still remember its beauty and also the odor that pervaded that sad location.

Niagara happened because Kreiter had admired David and Hi-Jin Hodge’s video setting for Brenda Way’s 2009 In the Memory of the Forest. Talking with the artists, Kreiter realized that the three of them had much in common — particularly when she learned that the Hodges had documented the poverty and decay of David’s hometown, Niagara Falls, NY, by talking with its citizens. Some of what he said sounded all too familiar with what is happening to many people in San Francisco.

Both cities are also surrounded by beautiful but sometimes terrifying bodies of water. The imagery is as ancient as Noah’s bobbing ark and as recent as the videos of Japan’s 2011 tsunami. So it seems appropriate that the first two pieces of equipment Kreiter ordered were a lifeboat and life jackets. The boat is a commissioned steel structure; the vests came off the rack.

Hanging from the wall at the Zaccho studio for the last rehearsal there — the equipment would be moved downtown later that day — three dancers are buffeted by the video’s raging waters and a howling storm on the soundtrack. The women look ever so vulnerable as they try to catch and don the slippery life jackets. Yet gradually in all that chaos they find a common rhythm and can link arms in relative safety.

While Niagara is a piece that gives voice to the reality of the urban poor, it’s also a beacon of hope. The work happened because, Kreiter acknowledges, people — like the Renoir Hotel’s owners and Urban Solutions, the SOMA-based economic development nonprofit — have been supportive of the project. Pointing out that she started working on the piece before the advent of Occupy Wall Street, she observes that “everything is collapsing, and yet in some places there are people who try to pull things forward.” *

“NIAGARA FALLING”

Wed/26-Sat/29, 8:30 and 9:30pm, free

West wall of the Renoir Hotel

Seventh St at Market, SF

www.flyawayproductions.com

“Z is for Zest”: A kids book of alphabet affirmations

Andrew Lam
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Perhaps you have run aground of late, or know someone who has. Maybe you’ve forgotten your alphabet (or know somebody who has.) At any rate, a Bay Area couple would like to help. Rebecca Kovan and Daniel MacIntyre have put together a lovely, illustrated ABCs book perfect for remembering your values. Its name is Alphabet Living, and we challenge you to click through the above slideshow and not dissolve in a puddle of love. Or a stain of irritation, depending at what point in your Folsom Street Fair comedown you are.

The duo (“Hobo Dan” and “Dr. Bee” as they are calling themselves for the sake of the printing) found it necessary to craft their own A-to-Z exploration when they got pregnant with their babe Julien, who now figures in the book’s promotional video. Hobo Dan and Dr. Bee wanted to make a book talking about life they way they want to live it, which as you can tell from these images include acting zestfully and questioningly, and being . Each letter’s accompanied by a poem, which reinforces said letter’s lesson.

And lest you think that the project is just a bunch of hippies with paintbrushes, consider this: the book’s already gone through its Kickstarter process and been funded completely, which makes Hobo D. and Dr. Bee the first authors in awhile to send their press release out after the funded creation of their book. 

So congratulations Alphabet Livers! And congratulations to us, because gosh darn we’re worth it. 

 

Our Weekly Picks: September 26-October 2

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 26

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

Massachusetts singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer has had a busy year. Well, actually she’s had a busy career. Palmer is a previous high school thespian, street performer, co-founder of the Dresden Dolls, subject of a coffee table book, half of musical duo Evelyn Evelyn, and a prolific blogger — and she’s just getting started. This year alone she’s written a song and produced a music video in defense of pubic hair, starred in a Flaming Lips video, released a new solo album, and now she’s back on the road. When Palmer decided to fund her second solo album Theater is Evil on Kickstarter earlier this year, few would have guessed over $1 million would pour in, shattering the site’s record with more than 24,000 individual donations. It looks like she won’t be slowing down any time soon. (Haley Zaremba)

With The Simple Pleasure, Jherek Bischoff, Ronald Reagan

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

 

Ghost Parade

Over the past six months, San Francisco-based progressive rock band Ghost Parade has steadily revealed its inaugural tracks, including the particularly catchy “Reach,” whose chorus features the group’s tagline: “we are fast and real.” Intense at times and always poetic, Ghost Parade encourages you to get lost in its hard and fast wall of sound while, simultaneously, inviting you into its stories. These musicians are no strangers to Bottom of the Hill, but this time around they’re headlining. Come for the energy, come for the nascent artistic merriment and, if that’s not enough, come for vocalist-guitarist Justin Bonifacio’s hair. It ranks among the best in San Francisco. Hands down. (Mia Sullivan)

With Stomacher, Soonest

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Obituary

It may be hard to believe, but pioneering death metal titan Obituary has been grinding out tracks such as “Chopped In Half” and “Turned Inside Out” for more than 25 years now. The Florida based quartet just wrapped up a series of festival shows in Europe, and is now back for its first tour of the US in several years, part of the epic Carnival of Death tour, slaying stages alongside Broken Hope, Decrepit Birth, Jungle Rot, Encrust, and Feast. The band is promising a fan-favorite set, comprised largely of songs off of its first three classic albums, Slowly We Rot, Cause of Death, and The End Complete. (Sean McCourt)

With DJ Rob Metal

6:30pm, $14–$18

DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF.

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com


THURSDAY 27

“Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death”

The Thrillpeddlers have been killing it lately, with endlessly extended runs of Cockettes revivals and a recent hit production of Marat/Sade. Now the company is poised to kill it again — live! Onstage! With gruesome gore! — in its annual “Shocktoberfest” production. This year’s lucky 13th incarnation includes a classic Grand Guignol one-act (Coals of Fire by Fredrick Whitney, which caused a scandal in 1922 Britain); two contemporary world premieres about mad scientists (The Bride of Death by Michael Phillis and The Twisted Pair by Rob Keefe); and Scrumbly Koldewyn’s “musical spectacle” Those Beautiful Ghouls. And if you think you’re safe just sitting in the audience, wait until the uniquely terrifying spook-show finale — if you’re not afraid of the dark, you will be! (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Nov. 17

Opens Thu/27, 8pm; runs Thu-Sat, 8pm, $25-35

Hypnodrome

575 10th St., SF

www.thrillpeddlers.com


FRIDAY 28

“Animate Your Night: Where It’s AT-AT”

As part of the Walt Disney Family Museum’s new “Animate Your Night” series of after-hours events, tonight’s “Where It’s AT-AT” party celebrates the opening of a new exhibit, Between Frames: The Magic Behind Stop Motion Animation, which looks at the innovative ideas and technical wizardry of the art form that has brought life to a host of magical characters and creations. Among the items party-goers will be able to get a first look at is a classic Gumby figure, the armature of the “Robot Chicken” mascot, and a model of the awesome AT-AT Imperial Walker made by Phil Tippett, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back. (McCourt)

7-10pm, $5–$10

Walt Disney Family Museum

104 Montgomery, SF

(415) 345-6800

www.waltdisney.org

 

Vir

While “on” Vir, I can’t decide if I’d rather take mass quantities of psychedelics and, well, gaze at my shoes, or embark on an epic, intergalactic quest with a few of my closest tribesmen. Luckily, these options aren’t mutually exclusive. This Oakland-based experimental noise pop trio originally hails from New Zealand and cites Kiwi post-punk groups Gordons, Bailter Space, and HDU as chief influences. Characterized by driving, tribal beats, sardonic, echoing lyrics, and ample fuzz pedal, Vir’s music is, at times, like marching through a lush jungle-like space field and, at other times, like My Bloody Valentine. Could it get much better? (Sullivan)

With Here Come the Saviours, Erik Blood

9:30pm, $7

Hemlock

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com


SATURDAY 29

Balboa Skatepark opening ceremony

Shredding (on a skateboard) and shredding (with a guitar) go together like pizza and hot dogs — which, incidentally, there will be a whole lot of at the Balboa skateboard park opening this week. While skaters grind their newly opened park behind, local thrasher act Haunted By Heroes — a.k.a. the world’s youngest rock band — along with the Nerv, and Big Shadows will perform out front. Plus, the free event includes the aforementioned ultimate snack foods, skateboard accessory giveaways, and the Youth DJ Collective with DJ/MC Ace, of Reality Check TV. Make like the ramp locals of Thrashin’ (1986) and bring your board, check out frenetic live music, munch cheesy pizza, and relive youth, glorious youth. (Emily Savage)

Noon-5pm, free

Balboa Skatepark

San Jose Avenue and Ocean Avenue, SF

Facebook: BalboaSkateparkOpening2012

 

Vintage Couture Ball

Let’s hear it for the grown and sexy. While the rest of us drink beer and chug from flasks in the bathroom, they drink Manhattans (up) and sip from nicer flasks, out in the open because unlike some, the motion only serves to make their surroundings more G&S. Class it up and join their ranks for this weekend’s openair fashion gala in the Fillmore — the Vintage Couture Ball (once called the Black Couture Ball) brings Chicago step dancing, a vintage car show, burlesque and swing dancing to SF’s jazz district. Most importantly, heed the dress code — everyone’s fancy black gowns and suits should make the evening pop. (Caitlin Donohue)

7pm-1am, $20

Fillmore between Eddy and Geary, SF

(800) 352-4315

www.vintagecoutureball.com


SUNDAY 30

Hot Water Music

It’s been an exciting year for post-hardcore. It marks the release of industry pioneer Hot Water Music’s first album in nearly a decade and the 19th anniversary since the band’s foundation in 1993. In these two decades, the band has broken up and reunited three different times, taking years off to explore side projects and family life. Though it has been touring sporadically since 2008, the Gainseville band’s eighth album Exister truly marks its triumphant return to the rock scene. The first single off the album, “State of Grace,” tackles the issue of the additives that we ingest every day in our over-processed foods. Whether you care about GMOs or not, you’ll want to catch this tour before Hot Water Music disbands again. (Zaremba)

With Dead To Me, Heartsounds

8pm, $21

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

Bebel Gilberto

New York City and Rio de Janeiro are a potent combination. As proof, we offer you Bebel Gilberto, daughter of famed bossanova boss João Gilberto and international star in her own right. Bebel’s 2009 release All in One relies less heavily on the electronic bends and flourishes of her past, its mainly acoustic, gentle guitar strums and chimes behind Brazilian coos. In other words, go to this concert to lower your blood pressure, it will smooth you out. In fact, we’d be hard pressed a better soundtrack to your weekend comedown, or swayfest with that new boo you picked up on last night’s dancefloor. (Donohue)

7pm, $35-70

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

Maria Minerva

Like a ’90s TRL countdown as envisioned by Peaking Lights, Maria Minerva’s fuzzed-out hypnagogia is the stuff of bygone pop anthems, filtered experimentally and relentlessly through Macbooks, cheap software, and a boatload of filters and effects. Commended by The Wire for her contribution to the blossoming meta-pop movement, the elusive Estonian producer strikes a captivating balance between high art and radio trash, traditional top-40 conventions and anarchic nonconformity. Minerva’s newly released Will Happiness Find Me? might be her most accessibly structured statement yet, but that doesn’t stop her dubby sonic fog from enshrouding everything in its path. Fans of electronic hooliganism everywhere: meet your new pop diva. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Father Finger, Bobby Browser, EpicSauce DJs

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


MONDAY 1

Garbage

When it first arrived on the alternative rock scene back in the mid ’90s, Garbage could have been some sort of pre-fabricated hit machine, considering its members consisted of some of the biggest producers of the time — Butch Vig, Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson — with ex-Angelfish singer Shirley Manson joining the fold. As fans know, however, it quickly became evident that they were much more than that, a band that coalesced as one and produced some of the most memorable tunes of the era. After a series of hiatuses, the quartet is back with an excellent new album, Not Your Kind of People, and a welcome return to the live stage. (McCourt)

With Screaming Females

8pm, $38–$48

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheater.com

 

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Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29 and Oct 5, 8pm. Opens Oct 6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Wed/26, 7 and 9pm. Rns Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Opens Thu/27, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

"The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz" Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Oct 7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/26-Thu/27 and Oct 3-4, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. Opens Oct 5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Previews Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. Opens Tue/2, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 6 and 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

ONGOING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Interstellar comedy "based very, very loosely on the arcade game."

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

Fuck My Life (FML)/Homo File CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. $20-30. Thu/27-Sun/30, 8pm. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a bottle of Tapatío salsa is just a bottle of Tapatío salsa. But definitely not this time. This time it’s a fornicating phallus of foodie fetishism with a Latina edge — and a Latina target, which writer-performer Xandra Ibarra (a.k.a. La Chica Boom) sets about to both embody and deconstruct, and somehow rescue. On a smart-looking bathroom set, with its loving altar to Mexican movie star Lupe Vélez (designed by Richie Israel) rising ominously and significantly over the commode, Ibarra’s sharp and raunchy political burlesque channels rage and despair, dejection and defiance, from within concentric circles of representation, both social and aesthetic. With astute direction by Evan Johnson, Fuck My Life (FML), the culmination of Ibarra’s CounterPULSE residency, unfolds some lovely set pieces and magic moments, made highly persuasive by Ibarra’s sure and formidable skill and presence as a performer. A scene in which she shovels earth into a bathtub, for instance, proves an evocative, eerily beautiful and potent image. But there’s a lot here to unpack, thematically and politically, and in truth the short arc of the show only goes so far, and in ways that remain solidly within established traditions of Latino/a performance from Culture Clash to Guillermo Gomez-Peña. The exceptional charisma of La Chica Boom herself, however, remains a force and focus in its own right, and from there it’s easy to imagine much more to come. On the bill with FML is a work-in-progress performance of Homo File, writer-designer-director Seth Eisen’s multi-media and cross-disciplinary show. It already sports a formidable narrative arc and aesthetic vision as it explores the life of Samuel Steward (1909–1993), an amazingly well, um, connected English professor, writer of homoerotic fiction, famous tattoo artist, and sexual rebel. The 30-odd minutes of material on display delivers a strong sense of this fascinating figure (played by Ned Brauer, with occasional and evocative recourse to some aerial straps), who kept elaborate record of his astounding range of sexual conquests and liaisons in what he called his "stud files," a concatenation that forms a backbone to the story of a life told from the vantage of final days. Meanwhile, Eisen and his winning cast place Steward in a mise-en-scène equally as promiscuous, ranging over dramatic scenes, aerial acrobatics, shadow puppetry, and even a hilariously lewd application of the old teacher’s standby, the overhead projector. (Avila)

Invasion! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com. $20-35. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Crowded Fire mounts the West Coast premiere of Swedish-born playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s postmodern dark comedy, a deconstruction of language and power in an American culture of perpetual war, which made a well-received New York debut last year. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and directed by Evren Odcikin, the play immediately subverts the usual multi-culti narrative of otherness and tolerance with a po-faced feint (featuring ensemble members Lawrence Radecker and Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt) that ends with a boisterous disruption of the proceedings from unexpected quarters (courtesy of ensemble members George Psarras and Wiley Naman Strasser). From there, we get a series of interrelated largely comical scenes, wherein — in shades of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life — a certain figure by the name of Abulkasem dissolves into the ultimate cipher, tied to everything from terror to pick-up lines in bars, and meaning absolutely anything and nothing. Nevertheless, in the interstices of language lurks real power — as the play implies most overly in a scene of intentional mistranslation, which twists a hapless and bemused immigrant’s tale into line with the war-on-terror mythos. In the end, the complexity the play adds does not completely dissolve that liberal narrative skewered at the outset, and its efforts remain only half-convincing. The problem may lie partly in the production’s inconsistent, often sluggish pace, as well as a tendency toward didacticism in director Odcikin’s staging. The material of this sardonic play doesn’t support too literal or even empathetic a reading, but rather seems best translated as a raucous premonition, dream, or intimation of our own guilty seduction by the sadistic, totalizing power of such stories. (Avila)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

Lorraine Olsen Is Figuratively Speaking SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.theatrevalentine.com. $25. Thu-27-Sat/29, 8pm. The artist model speaks in writer-performer Lorraine Olsen’s new solo show, in which the Bay Area actress recounts her experience as a longtime dues-paying member of the Bay Area Model’s Guild, founded in 1946 by model par excellence, as well as civil rights and labor activist and columnist, Flo Allen (who appears as a character and inspiration here throughout). Audience members are invited to pick up a drawing book and a pencil before taking their seats, as Olsen, her exposed back to the audience, poses pre-show on a tall stool. The narrative opens with a peep inside the thoughts of the model before the classroom (banal ruminations, perhaps unsurprisingly, from the work-a-day world of the professional muse), before moving more substantively into Olsen’s own careening career through art, family trauma, and alcoholism — not all as grim as it sounds, but charged with real emotion just the same. All the while, Olsen, a frank and sympathetic presence, moves in and out of her robe and various poses as she describes a sometimes-chaotic life in which her career as a model provides an unexpected anchor and education. The show, directed by Val Hendrickson, could use further shaping. Several possible framing devices — including one in which the audience comprises a room full of new models — compete here in a way that undermines the coherence of the piece, although the subject in general offers an undeniably interesting perspective on the artistic process. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 3pm). SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sun, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 7. Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking 1985 drama about the AIDS epidemic — winner of a 2011 Tony for Best Revival of a Play — has a limited run at ACT.

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 3, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30 (Oct 7 show at 7pm instead). Through Oct 7. Sharr White’s plot-twisty thriller has its West Coast premiere at Magic Theatre.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 8:30pm. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

Rigoletto War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $10-340. Sun/30, 2pm. "Fidelity is for weaklings!" Despite this rousing cry from its philandering villain, SF Opera opens its 90th season with a faithful and winsome double-cast production of Giuseppe Verdi’s immortal Rigoletto. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the story concerns the titular court jester and hunchback (played opening night by the imposing Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic, who alternates nights with Italian Marco Vratogna) whose attempt to revenge himself on the goatish Duke of Mantua (Sardinian tenor Francesco Demuro, alternating with Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz) for seducing his beautiful daughter, Gilda (the thoroughly enchanting Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, alternating with Russian coloratura soprano Albina Shagimuratova), backfires with tragic consequences. The production includes free simulcast presentations at AT&T Ballpark on consecutive weekends for those more inclined to recline, especially in the fresh free air, but either way the show’s a little staid but charming and the music, under SF Opera’s Nicola Luisotti, utterly transporting. (Avila)

Strange Travel Suggestions MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/29, 8:30pm. Author and Ethical Traveler founder Jeff Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas, Snake Lake) has done his solo show Strange Travel Suggestions dozens if not hundreds of times and still has no idea where it’s going. No wonder he and his audience keep coming back for more. The unknown, an aphrodisiac to the traveler, also makes great catnip for the storyteller. Still, there are consistent elements. There is no need to reinvent the wheel — or the impressive Wheel of Fortune that sits just off center stage, painted with a map of the globe and ringed with symbols abstract and evocative enough to conjure up myriad adventures, peak experiences, and humbling encounters from the vivid grab-bag memory of an accomplished travel writer and inveterate globetrotter. There’s also a real grab bag, just in case, and an oversize tarot card, a sort of visual aid cum talisman sporting a classic image of the Fool, patron saint of the traveler’s heedless leaps of faith. Greenwald’s stories possess a fine sense of humor and a knack for the shrewd detail and telling observation. They also contain a Zen-inflected homespun wisdom no doubt born of leaving home on a regular basis. If slightly self-conscious at times, these tales are always genuine and appealing. In the end, Greenwald’s show, as reliable as it is unpredictable, mimics a genie-from-a-bottle experience: What you get is three spins, three stories, and a lot of unexpected truth. Note: capsule condensed from 2008 feature review of this production. (Avila)

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; no performances Sun/29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, "scaled-back" still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 5pm. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; additional 2pm show Oct 4; no show Oct 5); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a "wrestling 101" primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio "The Mace" Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as "The Fundamentalist," but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman "EKO" and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. California Shakespeare Theater performs a modernized version of the Bard’s classic drama.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Thu/27 and Sun/30, 7pm; Fri/28, 8pm. $30-125. With ¡Fiesta Jerez! Flamenco All-Stars (Thu/27); José Mercé (Fri/28); and Farruco Family (Sun/30). Visit website for information on workshops and related flamenco events.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $15-25. The company performs Turbulence (a dance about the economy).

"Naked Girls Reading: Banned Books!" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.nakedgirlsreading.com. Tue/2, 8pm. $20. The name doesn’t lie: this is a reading series featuring naked ladies (Kristine Wilson, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Carol Queen, and Twilight Vixen Revue performers).

"Niagara Falling" West wall of the Renoir Hotel, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.flyawayproductions.com. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8:30 and 9:30pm. Free. Flyaway Productions and Dancers’ Group/Onsite present the world premiere of choreographer Jo Kreiter and video artists David and Hi-Jin Hodge’s aerial dance, set on the outside of the Renoir Hotel.

"Picklewater Clown Cabaret Benefit for Paoli Lacy" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; picklewaterclowncabaret.bpt.me. Mon/1, 7 and 9pm. $15. Circus extravaganza to help performer and cancer patient Paoli Lacy with her medical bills.

Sandy Perez y Su Lade Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/29, 8pm. $20. Afro-Cuban music and dance.

"Squeeze Box" Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Sun/30, 5pm. $50-500. Benefit performance of Ann Randolph’s solo Off-Broadway hit.

"Theatecture on UN Plaza" Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the "24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival."

"Tiara Sensation Pageant" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Sat/29, 9pm. $20. The Club Something Team (Vivvyanne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-e) present "SF’s only non-gender-specific drag performance."

Zhukov Dance Theatre Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zhukovdance.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $30-50. The company performs its fifth annual season, "Product 05," with a preogram that includes the world premiere of Yuri Zhukov’s Coin/C/Dance.

BAY AREA

"Access to Oddities" Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave. A-1, Richmond; www.brianscottproductions.com. Sat/29, 2 and 7:30pm. $12-20. Magic and comedy show presented in a family-friendly matinee and a later show not recommended for children under 8.

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakl; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Wed/26, 8pm. $30. Gypsy flamenco guitar with Diego Del Morao.

"Empower: Master of the Three Rings" Chabot College Theater, 25555 Hesperian, Hayward; www.soulciety.org. Sat/29, 1 and 6pm. $20. Also Oct 27, 6pm, Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF. Soulciety performs a theatrical production that combines spoken word, urban acrobatics, and more.

"Fall Free for All" Various locations, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Sun/30, 11am. Free. Cal Performances’ annual free open house features performances across campus from Kronos Quartet, Shogun Players, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and many more.

"Flamenco Passion!" Bankhead Theater, 2400 First St, Livermore; ww.mylvpac.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $15-48. Caminos Flamencos Dance Company performs.

Rhinocéros Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 2pm. $30-90. Théâtre de la Ville of Paris performs Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece.

The Aoki files

Andrew Lam
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1

Editors note: Steve Woo and Alex T. Tom argued in a Guardian oped last week that a new book unfairly paints Richard Aoki as an FBI snitch. The book’s author asked for space to respond.

OPINION I write to correct serious misstatements about my new book — and particularly about my revelation that the late radical leader Richard Aoki was an FBI informant — in the editorial by Steve Woo and Alex T. Tom.

My book, Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), examines the FBI’s covert activities concerning the University of California during the Cold War. It focuses on the FBI’s secret involvement with three iconic figures: Clark Kerr, the UC president; Mario Savio, leader of the Free Speech Movement; and Ronald Reagan, California Governor.

Subversives is based on more than 300,000 pages of FBI records released to me as a result of five lawsuits I brought under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI frequently claimed redacted information had to be withheld by law, but as a result of my challenges, seven federal judges ordered the FBI to release more information. One court order specifically recognized my expertise, stating, “Plaintiff has persuasively demonstrated in his affidavit that his research requires meticulous examination of records that may not on their face indicate much to an untrained observer.”

In Subversives I also profile many other figures, including Aoki, a revered activist in the San Francisco Bay Area who I revealed was a paid FBI informant at the time he gave the Black Panthers some of their first guns and firearms training in late 1966 and early 1967. I also disclosed this in an article and video produced with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), which were published contemporaneously with my book last month.

Woo and Tom are incorrect when they claim my findings about Aoki are “baseless and false.” Although reporting on intelligence activities is notoriously difficult and often relies on off-the-record sources, I relied only upon on-the-record sources such as:

— A detailed interview with retired FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr., who was Aoki’s initial handler;

— A 2007 interview with Aoki in which he denied being an informant but when pressed added, “People change. It is complex. Layer upon layer.”

— FBI records concerning Aoki released in response to my Freedom of Information Act request, including a November 16, 1967 report on the Black Panthers that identified him as informant T-2.

— Consultation with former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, who had helped vacate the murder conviction of Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt on the ground that the FBI and Los Angeles police failed to disclose that a key witness against him was an FBI informant.

My conclusion that Aoki was an informant was thus based on the totality of my research — not merely on a “scrap of evidence.” The detailed notes to my book make this clear. As I also have noted, available evidence does not show whether the FBI was involved in Aoki’s arming the Panthers, or that bureau officials even knew about it.

My initial disclosures about Aoki have been confirmed by the FBI’s release of 221 pages of Aoki’s FBI informant file. I reported this in a September 7 article, posted with his entire informant file as released to me at the CIR website.

Although I strongly disagree that my revelations about Aoki “damage the movement” and reinforce stereotypes of Asian Americans, they surely shed new light on him. For while he may well have been a dedicated activist, substantial evidence shows he also was an FBI informant. Although his full role and motives are not yet known, Richard Aoki was undoubtedly more complex than his fellow activists knew.

Seth Rosenfeld is a San Francisco writer.

 

The case for reinstating Mirkarimi

Andrew Lam
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113

EDITORIAL We know for a fact that on New Year’s Eve, 2011, Ross Mirkarimi, the elected but unsworn sheriff of San Francisco, had a physical altercation with his wife that left her with a bruised arm. We know she later complained about that bruise on a video lasting less than a minute. Beyond that, nobody except Mirkarimi and Eliana Lopez knows exactly what happened; there were no witnesses except the couple’s three-year-old son, no video taken during the fight, no audio recordings — nothing.

We know that Mirkarimi agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment — although we also know there was never any evidence that he actually imprisoned anyone.

That’s all we really know about the incident that has set off an expensive, drawn-out, political and legal battle that could change the city’s politics for years to come. If the whole thing seems a little overblown, that’s because it is.

There is nothing in the record that justifies Mayor Ed Lee’s move to suspend Mirkarimi, and nothing that would justify the supervisors voting to remove him from office. In fact, a removal vote would set a dangerous precedent for future mayors in a city that already gives its chief executive far too much power.

Let us examine the three main reasons why the board needs to vote to restore the elected sheriff.

1. If you believe Eliana Lopez, there’s no case.

The only person other than Mirkarimi who can honestly and accurately testify about the events of New Year’s eve is Lopez — and she has been clear, consistent, and convincing in her account.

Lopez acknowledges that she and her husband have had marital issues, that Mirkarimi wasn’t as supportive or her and their young son as he should have been, that he was away from home and working when she should have been sharing domestic duties. She was considering divorce — but was worried that Mirkarimi might gain custody of their boy.

She testified under oath before the Ethics Commission that Mirkarimi was never someone who “beats his wife” (to use Lee’s utterly inappropriate terminology). He had no history of domestic violence with her.

What he did was grab her arm during an argument, leaving a bruise. Inexcusable, but hardly a sign of serious assault. In fact, Lopez testified that she bruises so easily that just playing around with three-year-old Theo can leave marks on her.

Lopez testified that she made the video to use as a tool — a bargaining chip, so to speak — if Mirkarimi ever sought to gain custody of their son. She said she believed that her neighbor, Ivory Madison, who made the video, was a lawyer and that the video would be protected by attorney-client confidentiality. She said she never wanted to go to the police and never felt physically threatened by her husband.

The mayor charged Mirkarimi with attempting to dissuade witnesses and interfere with a police investigation, but those charges were based almost entirely on the testimony of Madison, whose rambling 22-page statement was so full of hearsay that the Ethics Commission tossed almost all of it. There was absolutely no evidence of witness tampering, and those claims were dismissed.

In fact, the only reason the commission recommended removal is the fact that Mirkarimi bruised his wife and pled to a misdemeanor — one that everyone knows he didn’t really commit. Remember: It’s legal, and common, in misdemeanor cases to plead to something you never did to avoid facing trial on more serious charges.

There’s no principled way to accept as credible the testimony of Lopez and still vote to remove the sheriff. If she’s telling the truth — and we believe her — the case should end right there.

2. Mirkarimi was chosen by the voters, and the voters can freely remove him.

Ross Mirkarimi was elected in November, 2011, with a clear majority in a contested race. The state Constitution provides an excellent remedy for replacing an elected official who has lost the confidence of the voting public; it’s called the recall. With a fraction of the effort that’s been spent on this case, people who feel Mirkarimi should no longer serve as sheriff could have collected signatures and forced an election.

The City Charter gives the mayor extraordinary authority — we would say too much authority — to unilaterally suspend an elected official and seek removal. That’s a power that should be wielded only in the most extreme cases, with great deference to the will of the voters.

Lee did no investigation before filing official misconduct charges. He based those charges on unsubstantiated claims, most of which were proven false. There’s a dangerous precedent here: If Mayor Ed Lee can suspend without pay Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi on such limited evidence, the ability of future mayors to misuse this power could be alarming. And remember: There is nothing in the Charter that allows anyone to suspend or seek removal of the mayor.

3. This case mangles “official misconduct.”

There’s another dangerous element to this case, and it’s not just a legal technicality. The New Year’s Eve incident occurred before Mirkarimi took the oath of office; on that day, he wasn’t the sheriff of San Francisco. He was a supervisor.

It’s hard to claim he was guilty of “official misconduct” on a day when he had no official duties. A fascinating, but unsigned analysis by somebody who clearly has a strong legal background is posted on the web (rjemirkarimi.blogspot.com). It notes:

“If the Supervisors approve what the Ethics Commission did on August 16, they will be handing a powerful new political weapon to all mayors, present and future. Good mayors may never misuse it, but other mayors might. No longer will such a mayor be limited to examining an opponent’s conduct while in office. He will have carte blanche and a strong motive to look farther back in time for personal misconduct that occurred before his opponent took office, and to use what he finds to suspend his opponent without pay and remove him from office — all while claiming (as undoubtedly he will) to be engaged in a noble pursuit of truth and justice.”

Let’s be serious: There have been San Francisco mayors with a long record of vindictive politics, or seeking any method possible to punish their enemies. There may well be again. Do we really want to have this case — this weak case driven more by politics than reason and evidence — set the precedent for the grave step of overriding the voters and removing an elected official?

Any of these three reasons ought to be grounds to vote against the mayor’s charges. Together, they make a sound enough case that it’s hard to imagine how the supervisors, sitting as a fair and impartial jury, could come to any conclusion other than returning Mirkarimi to office. We recognize that there are political implications, that Mirkarimi’s foes will target anyone who votes to support him. And just as it’s hard for some politicians to appear “soft on crime,” it’s nearly impossible to survive in San Francisco if you’re considered “soft on domestic violence.” But anyone who doesn’t want tough choices shouldn’t run for public office. It will take courage to do the right thing here — and in the end, that’s what should matter.

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