Whatever

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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0
Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

Gavin Newsom never got any traction in the race for governor, in part because he completely alienated the progressive base in his hometown. And when you have unionized city employees holding protests outside your campaign fundraisers — and you’re in a Democratic primary in California — you’ve got serious problems.

And now, oddly enough, the progressives in San Francisco may be his biggest allies in the race for the second-place job of lieutenant governor.

There are some good reasons for that.

For starters, a lot of us thought that Newsom, whatever his positions on issues, wasn’t ready to run California — to deal with all of the massive problems the state faces and to take on the brutal politics of Sacramento. And I think his behavior during his brief gubernatorial campaign demonstrated that we were right.

But the Lite Guv job is a lot different. You don’t have to balance a state budget that’s $20 billion in the red; you don’t have to solve water problems. It’s a place where you can learn about state politics on the job, without really screwing things up.

And if his real goal is to run for U.S. Senate down the road, say, when Dianne Feinstein retires, he’ll be in a good place to launch that campaign.

But let’s face it. A lot of this is practical politics. With either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman in the Governor’s Office, the state will continue to be screwed up and it will be even more important that cities take on their own economic destinies. And Newsom, as a bitter lame duck, simply can’t do that.

The progressive political community isn’t unanimous at all. But a lot of people are thinking that if Newsom’s ascension to Sacramento means that the district supervisors will have a chance to appoint a progressive mayor, it’s worth the trade-off.

A look back at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival (part two)

Sue Vaughan
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0
A look back at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival (part two)

For part one of Jesse’s Sundance report, click here.

Rounding out the mumblecore minions was Cyrus from the genre-defining Duplass Brothers. Even while having name actors (John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, and Jonah Hill) as well as a seven million dollar budget to play around with (by comparison, their first film, 2005’s The Puffy Chair, cost $15,000), the siblings have not lost one iota of their charm or sincere humor. And most importantly, these characters and situations (no matter how complicated things get) are explored with depth and honesty. Jonah Hill is still the Jonah Hill from Judd Apatow films, but here he’s finally been allowed to explore his creepy-sad side, enabling a viewer to truly relate to his character, a son who’s a little too overprotective of his single mom. During what was one of Sundance’s greatest 9 a.m. Q&As, the hung-over directors and cast laughed about how they have no clue how to market this film. My suggestion: don’t miss Cyrus, sure to be one of the funniest, and most unexpectedly poignant, films of 2010. Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine features a John Cassavetes-esque relationship that places a couple in the defining moments of their six-year marriage, including flashbacks to their initial meeting. The near-bipolar fluctuations that occur during fights are perfectly captured in this entirely improvised accomplishment. In a New York Times article about the film, star Ryan Gosling said, “It was really important to [Cianfrance] that we build an archive of home video of actual memories, and that we not really discuss or rehearse the scenes. We had fighting days where we just fought all day, and then we’d have to go have family fun day, and just pretend like we hadn’t been fighting all day, trying to have a good time.” Brooklyn folk-rockers Grizzly Bear provide a pitch-perfect soundtrack to the film. Make all efforts to experience Gosling and co-star Michelle Williams at the top of their games, allowed the freedom to dig down deep. Just be prepared for the experience to pull some serious hurt from your heart.

Debra Granik’s Winter Bone is a jaw-dropping study of backwoods meth-makers in the Ozark Mountains (between Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas). The film has the feel of the Dardenne Brothers (2005’s L’enfant): a young girl attempts to locate her missing father, while her (literally) extended family seem to be hiding something much darker than their meth labs. Genuinely gripping, Winter Bone offered more suspense than I’ve felt in years. I didn’t want this film to end. No wonder it won the Grand Jury Prize and screenwriting award (with co-writer Anne Rosellini), furthering the trend of female filmmakers being recognized for their work (see also: Kathryn Bigelow). The film is an astounding way to kick off a new decade of American independant cinema.

Nothing can prepare you for the ADD insanity of Daddy Longlegs, directed by another team of brothers, fraternal twins Benny and Josh Safdie. This hyper clusterfuck contains an array of randoms, from Abel Ferrara to the children of Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. The film follows a NYC father who’s taking care of his kids for two weeks. Ronnie Bronstein (who directed the equally obsessive and uncomfortable 2007 triumph Frownland) encapsulates everything that our contemporary psychotic and distracted nervous systems are experiencing these days. I can’t think of a more disturbing film that also made me laugh so hard. 

When I heard Juan Carlos Valdivia’s Southern District being compared to the work of Argentinian master Lucretia Martel (2008’s The Headless Woman), I rearranged my entire schedule to see it — most thankfully, as it turned out to be the best film of Sundance 2010. This quiet study of an upper-class Bolivian family and their day-to-day interactions with their butler is captured gorgeously by a hypnotic rotating camera. While making some audience members dizzy (indeed, the film is not for everyone; walkouts ensued), Valdivia and cameraman Paul de Lumen’s brilliance allows the viewer to feel as if they are actually living in the house, feeling the minutes and hours slip by. How they were able to construct such complex camerawork, working within a house filled with so many reflective surfaces, combined with all of the actors improvising, is beyond comprehension. Winner of Sundance’s awards for excellence in world cinema for dramatic directing and screenwriting, Southern District may well be this year’s minimalist cinematic treasure..

And, for good measure, some honorable mentions (and misses):

Spencer Susser’s Hesher was one of the festival’s most-anticipated films. Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivers a performance so memorable that it may kick start a whole new generation of headbangers. His surprisingly crass dialogue sent many older audiences heading for the snowy outdoors, while that only made things all the more intriguing for those who stayed. The film does have some awkward shifts in tone from one scene to the next; at times, Hesher feels like it’s caught in between a pissed-off teenager and the baffled parent who’s trying to teach him a lesson.

Diane Bell’s Obselidia won not only Sundance’s award for best cinematography (for lensman Zak Mulligan), but also the Alfred P. Sloan award, which goes to films that focus on themes of science or technology. Previous awards have gone to Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005) and Shane Carruth’s Primer (2004). The film explores our ever-changing realtionship with “stuff.” As we throw out perfectly good items for whatever the newest model or invention is, what will happen to these old things that not only are still working but may even be better in quality and usefulness, like LPs, rotary phones, VHS videos, pens and paper? Ironically the film is shot using a Red Camera system which brings a level of High Definition so striking that you may have already thrown away your Canon GL-2 miniDV cameras and Sony HDCAMs to get one. This quirk-fest poses wonderful questions on the turn of a new decade, but unfortunately, the film slips into that dreaded, curmudgeony-elitist blabber (“Kids today just don’t understand Robert Bresson!”) that often comes from older generations who cling to ye olden times — as if their “walking uphill both ways” methods are somehow better than anything new.   

Adam Green’s low-budget Frozen hypnotized midnight audiences. The horror film strands three snowboarders on a ski lift and forces the audience to watch them die slowly. The truly screamworthy surprises balance out the awkward mistakes of discontinuity, including some irregular frozen-face ice (and the the lack of seeing the characters’ breath throughout the film). In any case, Green has proven he can freak an audience out. Can’t wait to see what comes next from him.
And lastly, Danny Perez’s hourlong music video for psych-folksters Animal Collective, Oddsac, felt like an amalgamation of images that play behind the band while they play live. As it happens, Perez is the tour manager for Black Dice and has gone on tour as the image designer for Animal Collective’s tours.

Stay tuned for Jesse Hawthorne Ficks’ take on Sundance 2010’s documentaries, coming soon!

Newsom’s getting closer

Zelda Bronstein
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19

There are really only two obstacles to Newsom’s jumping into the Lt. Gov.’s race. One is the possibility that he might lose, but he would be the instant front runner. The other is the supposed fear of leaving the city in the hands of whatever mayor the Board of Supervisors chose.

And according to the Chron’s politics blog, he’s gotten over the second hurdle:

“It’s no surprise I’m looking at running for another office,” he continued. “I’m out of here. I’m termed out anyway…I do take my job seriously, but I’m capable of doing a lot of things at one time. By definition, it’s a skill set I must have.”

He added that if people are so concerned about one of the supervisors becoming mayor for the year before the next scheduled mayoral election, maybe they shouldn’t have elected them to the board in the first place.

“If it’s just concern with me leaving, maybe they should look at who they elected,” he said.

 

 

Crossings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Crossings

superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Let’s quit partying for a minute and listen to some mind-blowing music. Oh, lies! We can do both, Big Ears.

In a year when the best-sounding new dance track (so far) is experiment-laced, bottle-kicking psych-pop ditty “Odessa” by Caribou, and the planet’s most adventurous club continues to be the New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge, with its nights of circuit-bent string quartets, “contemporary classical” is more than ever the connoisseur’s nightlife drug of choice. It needs a better name, but none of our current bangers (let alone Animal Collective) would exist without it.

So when I heard the Bay’s beloved Kronos Quartet was staging four nights of audacious tunes at Z Space showcasing commissioned scores from composers under 30, and that the centerpiece of each performance would feature the four stringers playing giant electrified fences, what, I hopped on the horn with ever-hip Kronos violinist David Harrington.

“Our audience is definitely getting younger,” he told me from Maryland, his group stalled there by the East Coast snowpocalypse. “Although I’ve always said that all you need to get into a Kronos concert is two ears. Heck, one will do. We’re not picky.”

Since 1973, Kronos has taken the unconventional approach. When I first saw them in the early 1990s, they played John Oswald’s jaw-dropping “Spectre,” during which the foursome appeared to sculpt phantasmal drones in the air around their instruments. Harrington told me, “Kronos was originally formed specifically to play Black Angels by George Crumb, a work that galvanized me when I heard it on the radio. Besides the strings in that, we banged gongs, strummed tuned crystal glasses, chanted in several languages …” So bowing juiced barbed wire for John Rose’s Music from 4 Fences is no sweat.

When Kronos premiered Fences in Australia last summer, it was bracketed by works from the quartet’s globalesque Floodplain (Nonesuch, 2009) and other pieces that represented regions recently defined by blood and turmoil: Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan. “The idea that musicians can turn objects of confinement, detainment, and violence into musical instruments has inspired me,” Harrington said at the time. “There might be a way to transform the nature of fences, by bowing them. We will try.”

This go-round, the context has been tweaked. Besides under-30 composers Alexandra du Bois, Felipe Pérez Santiago, Dan Visconti, and Aviya Kopelman, the four performances — different each night — will also include works by rockers Damon Albarn (Gorillaz, Blur) and Bryce Dessner (The National), noise-jazz god John Zorn, Bay minimal legend Terry Riley, and Clint Mansell, who worked with Kronos on the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack. The sonic possibilities of the fence will take on a more rockist feeling.

“For us, it’s always about playing with context,” says Harrington. “We have more than 650 works in our catalog to choose from, so at this stage we have a tremendous opportunity to improvise and do whatever we feel the moment requires. In fact, we still haven’t planned the entire program for our run! But frankly, I can’t wait.”

Lest anyone fear the results will lack political or emotional edge, however, the quartet is dedicating the four nights to the memory of recently passed author and subversive hero Howard Zinn. “Howard was an amazing friend, a guest performer, and someone who supported us completely,’ Harrington said, a quiver seeping into his baritone. “We miss him so much.”

KRONOS QUARTET: MUSIC FROM FOUR FENCES

Feb 24–27, 8 pm, $20–$25

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

www.kronosquartet.org

Approximately infinite, still

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Approximately infinite, still

kimberly@sfbg.com

MUSIC The simplest, most singular words and images have always been Yoko Ono’s most potent artistic tools — depth charges designed for maximum impact, unexpected wit, and subtly change-inducing effect. And though words like “empowerment” feel too tapped-out to draw from the same power source as Ono-connected words like “yes” (the title of the retrospective that opened a new generation’s eyes to the woman too long associated with her late husband John Lennon), it’s outright empowering to see the septuagenarian Ono continuing to harness the same intuitive courage that led her to create 1960s performance art works like Cut Piece (1964).

Exhibit one: A Hole (2009) — a plate of glass pierced with a bullet hole, beneath which are the instructions “A HOLE GO TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLASS AND SEE THROUGH THE HOLE” — on display in December at Gallery 360 in Tokyo. Playing off the image of holes that recurs in her work — and nodding to the title phrase’s femme-y glory and, er, half-assed curse — Ono entreats us to look at gun violence from both the shooter’s and the victim’s perspectives, while clearly harking to Lennon’s shooting death.

It’s a startling window — or portal, much like the tunnel to the Dakota where Lennon was killed — leading back to one of the darkest periods of Ono’s life. “There are so many windows like that in the world now,” Ono says by phone, surprisingly girlish-sounding on the edge of 77 and her Feb. 18 birthday, and off-the-cuff (“We can wing it — come on!” she urges, when I bring up that her people asked to see my questions). “One is the shot, one is the hole that you see when you’re shooting, and the other is the hole that you see when you’re shot!”

Ono’s mind is clearly on her February NYC Plastic Ono Band shows, which will include original members and big-wiggies like Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann, as well as wildly disparate successors such as Scissor Sisters and Kim Gordon. (Plastic Ono Band’s plastic lineup includes son Sean Lennon, Cornelius, and Yuka Honda when it tops Noise Pop on Feb. 23.) But the thought of A Hole is obviously still charged for her.

At first she didn’t recognize it as a piece triggered by Lennon’s killing. “At the time there were four shots — that was for my husband. Then, I think — I don’t know if it was intentional or not — but the idea was to first get John and then get me, too. So when I was going around the door [at the Dakota at the time of Lennon’s shooting], I saw the glass made a hole, and a hole toward me. But luckily, the angle of the bullet didn’t come at me.

“It’s amazing, you know,” she continues with a sigh. “For the longest time I was creating canvases with a hole to see the sky. Then suddenly I didn’t want to do another hole to see the sky. I thought, ‘OK, why don’t I do a glass with a hole-way — and I didn’t connect it with John’s death at all. I was just thinking about all the holes that are made by shooting people in the world now. There are so many wars. Then I realized it might be coming from that experience.”

Few can face their most horrific moments and darkest fears and make art from them — and amid a decade-shift of such uncertainty, the time is now to look to Ono’s bravery under the burn of the spotlight. In response to the sexism, violence, and hatred she’s encountered, she continues to ply her own unique, unabashed voice, influenced by Kabuki and traditional Japanese music. Her page-size ads announcing “War Is Over! / If You Want It” appear even now in weeklies like this one. She still makes music and art in the face of the boos and hisses she’s caught from backward Beatles fans who think of her as the “ugly Jap” who broke up the band of lovable mop-tops.

Exhibit two: Ono’s latest album, Between My Head and the Sky (Chimera, 2009), her first release working with the name Plastic Ono Band since 1975’s Shaved Fish (Apple). Plastic Ono Band is a name Lennon dreamed up when told about an Ono performance utilizing four plastic stands with tape recorders in them. The loose gathering of rock cohorts — encompassing not only Clapton and Voormann but also the Who’s Keith Moon, Billy Preston, Yes’ Alan White, and Phil Spector — is a precursor to that utopian, gang-of-like-minded-friends quality embedded in so many experimental rock ensembles today.

Lennon and Ono’s son — and Ono’s current music director — Sean Lennon suggested resurrecting the project. “Sean said, ‘Mommy, would you mind if we record as Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band? Bring up Plastic Ono Band again!” Ono recalls. “<0x2009>’Why do we do that? You want to do that?’ I said, and I thought about it and thought the reason why I was blocking that name was because John and I used it and, I mean, John thought of it, and for me. And when John passed away, I just blocked it, you know.”

“The thing is, many people are, like, ‘Are you kidding? You don’t do it with your son! You just don’t do it — it’s just the most difficult thing to do,'” Ono continued. “And I got a bit scared. I said, ‘Oh, dear, did I say anything I shouldn’t have?’ But my position was right. I didn’t have any problem about it, and it just worked out very well.” The album does stand out among Ono’s shockingly deep discography. It embraces elegiac acoustic beauty and poetry (“Memory of Footsteps”), playful and still-surprisingly sexy funk (“Ask the Elephant”), and ambient experiments (“CALLING”) that recall her most brilliant avant rock recordings, à la Fly (Apple, 1971), in addition to her call-outs to the dance-floor (“Walking on Thin Ice”).

The key, Ono believes, is that Sean listened to everything by his mother and father, as well as the Beatles. “He knows all of them, but not in the way that most fans just listen to something. Because he’s a musician, he knows the intro, the bars, the what-comes-next kind of thing musically, very well. So if I say, ‘Why don’t we do it something between “Why” and “Mind Train”? He’s, like, ‘OK.’ So it’s very, very good that way. Our creative conversation didn’t start from scratch. It started from all the knowledge that he had of my music, you know.”

Sean’s studies take on an air less of filial obedience than newfound respect when one considers the last time he collaborated with his mother, on Rising (Capital, 1995). “He was 17 and he was a very different animal then,” Ono says chuckling. “Luckily, he’s grown up to be a very unique and talented musician. But in those days … I went with him and his band — and it was a bit difficult. You know, just 17, and they were very cocky. They really felt like they were doing a favor for me! Of course, I just wanted to give Sean a musical experience.”

As gratifying as it is to see Sean and younger generations finally appreciating her work, Ono continues to be propelled by other forces. Despite her well-documented activities, including seeing to the licensing of Lennon’s music for products like last year’s The Beatles: Rock Band game, she still jots down ideas for new artwork and song lyrics. “It’s my security blanket” she explains matter-of-factly. “In a sense, without art or music or being able to express myself that way, I would have died a long time ago, I’m sure.

“You see, I think music is a very important thing for the world, and I just want to cover the world with music and art,” she continued. “I think art — meaning art with a capital A, is the thing that can really bring change in the world,” Ono muses. “Politicians don’t have much respect for art — that’s why they just ignore it — and we can just do whatever we want in a way, through that kind of situation where there’s a big hole. They think we’re not powerful, so they just ignore us — that’s where we can do all sorts of things and change the world.” 

YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND

With Deerhoof

Feb. 23, 8 p.m., $39.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.apeconcerts.com

Labor’s love lost

Andrew Lam
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4
Labor’s love lost

Note: This file has been corrected from an earlier version.

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Two recent events could have major implications for Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — San Francisco’s largest public-sector union and an important ally for progressives — for better or for worse. And this union’s fate seems closely tied to that of the progressive movement in San Francisco.

The first event was likened to a “nuclear bomb in the morning paper” by one observer, and might be interpreted as the kickoff to a fierce budget battle. Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that he is considering a plan to help solve next year’s budget deficit by laying off 10,000 full-time city workers and rehiring them at 37.5 hours, which would amount to a sweeping 6.25 percent pay cut for workers and an estimated $50 million in savings for a fiscally impaired city.

Though it was framed by Newsom spokesperson Tony Winnicker as one preliminary cost-saving option among many, the proposal received prominent front-page coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, even before official discussions were called between the mayor and public sector unions. Since SEIU Local 1021 represents 17,000 members in San Francisco and a majority of the city’s 26,000 total employees, it would likely absorb the greatest impact if such a plan went through.

At the same time the mayor’s startling announcement hit newsstands, SEIU was in the midst of mailing out ballots to its membership for union elections. “I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence, or if the city is taking advantage of the fact that SEIU is absorbed in its elections,” Sin Yee Poon, an SEIU chapter president for Human Services Agency workers, told us while pointing out that the events happened simultaneously.

With three separate slates of candidates vying for control of SEIU Local 1021, grudges between warring internal factions have intensified into bitter sparring matches. The timing is unfortunate — just as SEIU’s internal turmoil is coming to a head, one of its greatest battles is pending over an unprecedented $522 million budget shortfall that looms like a dark cloud over the city. The deficit will surely result in job losses, and the public sector union’s ability to mount resistance even as it wrestles with internal strife is shaping up to be a key question.

This pivotal moment carries wider political implications considering that the progressive organization has in the past helped seal an alliance between San Francisco’s left-leaning leaders and organized labor through the San Francisco Labor Council.

With SEIU besieged by infighting and soon to be hurting from wage slashes and layoffs, more conservative factions of the labor community, such as the San Francisco Firefighters Union and the Building and Construction Trades Council, have recently been butting heads with progressive members of the Board of Supervisors.

At the same time, forces on all sides are beginning to eye the coveted seats up for election in June at the Democratic County Central Committee, a Democratic Party hub that is a cornerstone of local political influence, as well as the seats that will open up on the Board of Supervisors in November. Negotiations between unions and the mayor are ongoing, and mayoral spokesperson Tony Winnicker was quick to note that Newsom is open to options, other than reconfiguring 10,000 city jobs, that organized labor brings to the table. At the same time, the Guardian heard from numerous sources that city workers felt outraged and blindsided by Newsom’s decision to air the plan in the Chronicle instead of bringing stakeholders to the table.

SEIU Local 1021 President Damita Davis-Howard told us she thinks the idea of taking $50 million out of the pockets of working people in a rocky economy is wrong-headed.

“This was devastating,” said Davis-Howard, who is running for a newly created union position called chief elected officer, which is different from the union president, and similar to an executive-director post. “The mayor might as well have raised their taxes, because if you decrease their pay by 6.25 percent, they will still have the same amount of work, they will still have to pay the same mortgage, they will still have to buy the same food, the same PG&E, and they’ll be doing it with a lot less money. If any idea like this were to go through, it would actually remove the very fabric or fiber of San Francisco. It would really cut to the core of the very being of San Francisco. … I don’t see how anybody could believe that we could continue being the city that we love being with this kind of action.”

Winnicker, the mayoral spokesperson, cast it as a plan that could avert hundreds or even thousands of layoffs. “This year the easy decisions are behind us,” he noted in a recent discussion with the Guardian.

Solving last year’s fiscal shortfall was far from easy — budget tussles between frontline city workers and the mayor got ugly, and even then, the city received millions in federal stimulus dollars to cushion the blow. A similar plan of sweeping hourly cuts was floated then too, but it didn’t gain enough traction to move forward.

“The mayor is facing a huge budget deficit, there’s no question about it — but he has not lifted one finger to raise a dime in revenue,” charged SEIU member Ed Kinchley, who works at San Francisco General Hospital. As for how the union might respond if such a proposal went through, he speculated, “I think it’s the kind of thing that could lead to a strike. A big fight.”

While the city charter bars strikes by public employees, Kinchley’s comment indicates the level of frustration among SEIU’s rank-and-file.

 

 

The proposal could present a common enemy and a rallying point for a union in disarray. Internal jockeying for elected positions can be fierce in any organization, but for San Francisco’s service-workers union, the rifts are particularly deep.

The elections, which will be decided Feb. 28, mark the first time since a radical restructuring in 2007 that members will collectively decide who should lead. In 2007, the face of SEIU was changed across California when the international president, Andy Stern, began consolidating dozens of far-flung locals into centralized, beefier entities in a bid to maximize political effectiveness (California comprises roughly one-third of the entire union’s membership).

Local 1021 came into existence when 10 locals were conglomerated into one 54,000-member giant — hence the “10-to-one” label — representing health care and frontline service workers from the Bay Area to the Oregon border. 

In San Francisco, where a large segment of its members are based, the shift was interpreted by some as a power grab, and it triggered a period of ongoing strife between those allied with Stern and the international wing on one side, and those dissatisfied with changes they saw as antithetical to the democratic ideals championed by Local 790, its predecessor, on the other.

In the years following the reorganization, Stern began trying to aggregate members by raiding other unions to consolidate power. But campaigns to bring in members from United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and fend off membership losses to the newly created National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) have consumed money and resources that some members told the Guardian would’ve been better spent bolstering national support for health-care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act. According to one source, SEIU spent $10 million on a Fresno battle against NUHW.*

A fight waged between SEIU Local 1021 and UNITE HERE Local 2, a hotel-workers union that was historically allied with Local 1021’s predecessor, left some members especially stung because it marred a longstanding relationship between two groups of frontline workers.

“Andy Stern has concentrated more and more power into the hands of a group of so-called elite members of the union,” Kinchley told the Guardian. Stern’s top-down leadership style and growth-oriented objectives “run pretty harshly against what many of us believe is in the best interest of our workers locally,” he added.

In recent weeks, divisions have deepened further. A staff person who preferred not to be identified for fear of retribution filed charges with the U.S. Department of Labor against a supervisor, who is aligned with the international faction, for alleged harassment and bullying. Another complaint was filed with union leadership alleging that union bylaws were violated when membership money was authorized, but not spent, to conduct a poll without proper approval.*

“There’s a fiscal rogue-ness about it. [Davis-Howard] does whatever she wants, and she spends our dues money without authorization from anybody,” Kinchley charged.

Stern appointed Davis-Howard, and now she is running for election on a slate aligned with the international wing. When the Guardian tried to reach her to discuss union elections, spokesperson Carlos Rivera told us that Davis-Howard found it inappropriate to publicly discuss internal divisions.

Sin Yee Poon is running as her opponent on a reform slate, formed by members disaffected by the international’s modus operandi. “For the whole reform group, we’re disappointed with the general direction of corporate unionism,” Poon told the Guardian. Stressing that she believes grassroots, democratic ideals have eroded since the restructuring, she said members in her camp are agitated when they see resources siphoned into raids on other unions such as UNITE HERE and UHW. “We want it to be member-driven,” she said. “The raiding of other unions is absolutely not OK.”

 

 

The internal strife could have a wider ripple effect. SEIU Local 1021 has historically been influential in securing an alliance between the city’s labor community and San Francisco’s progressive leadership. During the last round of elections for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Sups. John Avalos and Eric Mar campaigned and ultimately were elected with strong fundraising support from the labor council.

Yet in recent weeks, several skirmishes pitted certain factions of the labor community against progressive members of the Board of Supervisors. Outrage bubbled up from the firefighters — and ultimately the labor council as a whole — against a charter amendment proposed by Sup. John Avalos that would have extended the minimum number of work hours for firefighters.

Billed as a cost-saving measure, the proposal might have ultimately resulted in fewer firefighter jobs, but it was designed to spread the pain of budget cuts more equitably by grazing public safety departments instead of just inflicting blows on frontline and healthcare workers.

After Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson came out strongly against it, Avalos abandoned the idea. A source from within the labor council, who spoke on background only, described it as an opportunity for the labor council to come together and unite on class interests.

The political posturing that came out of that fight shook even Sup. David Campos, who vocally called for equitably sharing the pain during last year’s budget debacle. “This isn’t the way to do it,” Campos said when asked about Avalos’ failed charter amendment. “And I worry about the negative impact on labor and the progressive board. There are larger issues at play here. The entire progressive agenda is at stake. We need to think long-term about the specific issues plus the future of the progressive movement.”

Sup. Sean Elsbernd’s bid to reform the pension system to save money has provoked yet another fight with SEIU Local 1021. Union members argue that if they are asked to contribute to their own retirement funds, which would become mandatory under this proposal, then they should be given the same wage increase that other unions were granted when they agreed to similar terms.

But when Sup. Eric Mar tried to amend Elsbernd’s proposal by inserting language guaranteeing that pay increase, Elsbernd said it would cost the city millions more. If Mar’s amended version goes forward, “you’ll be going to the voters by yourself,” Elsbernd told the progressive-leaning supervisor at a Feb. 9 board meeting.

 

 

Another fight has erupted over 555 Washington, a tower proposed to go up beside the TransAmerica Pyramid, which was debated at a joint hearing Feb. 11 between the Planning Commission and the Recreation and Park Commission. For members of the Building & Construction Trades Council, which represents unionized carpenters, plumbers, and other workers in development-related trades, the project represented jobs — the screaming priority in an economy where funding for new construction has trickled to almost nil.

“There is, in general in San Francisco progressive politicians, a knee-jerk reaction to development projects,” Building & Trades Council Secretary Treasurer Michael Theriault told us. As a council representing people whose livelihoods depend on private sector construction, “We have a particular quandary,” he said. “We need politicians who at the same time are friendly to labor and understand that development is an economic tool that can help the city.”

The arm of labor representing Theriault’s council has been slammed with job losses due to the economic downturn, and he’s publicly expressed frustration when projects of this scale are shot down.

“What the mayor did, what Elsbernd did, and what Avalos did are all the same thing: They all staked out a position, put a provocative idea on the table, and forced unions to have a discussion with a gun to their head in a non-constructive way,” Mike Casey, president of UNITE HERE Local 2 and a member of the labor council’s Executive Committee.

A source familiar with the inner workings of the labor council said the tension between building trades and firefighters versus more left-leaning members of the labor community has been in existence for decades, and it isn’t anything new — particularly in the months preceding election season.

Casey challenged the very notion that there is a subculture of the labor council that isn’t progressive, pointing out that labor came together as whole to support Sups. Avalos, Mar, and David Chiu — “and I personally would do it again in a heartbeat,” he added. Internal catfights and struggles for control come with the territory in a democratic, diverse organization, he said. “As a group of working people, I have great regard for the membership [of SEIU Local 1021],” he said. “Occasionally there’s a dustup. In my experience, after the dust settles, more often that not, unions come out stronger for it.”.

*Corrections made to the original file.

A union that made black history

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The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was a pioneering union that led the battle from the l930s to l950s against racial discrimination that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the l960s. 

Few of the groups that we should honor during Black History Month are more deserving than the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a pioneering union that played a key role in the winning of equal rights by African Americans. The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved as much in political as in economic activity, joining with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s. It led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The need for a porters’ union was distressingly obvious. Porters commonly worked 12 or more hours a day, six or even seven days a week, on the Pullman Company’s luxurious sleeping car coaches for a mere $72.50 a month. And out of that, they had to pay for their meals, uniforms, even the polish they used to shine passengers’ shoes. They got no fringe benefits, although they could ride the trains for half-fare on their days off – providing they were among the very few with the time and money to do so. And providing they didn’t ride a Pullman coach. Pay was so low porters often had to draw on the equally meager earnings of their wives, almost invariably employed as domestics, to pay the rent at month’s end. It was a marginal and humiliating experience.

Porters were rightly proud of their work, a pride that showed in their smiling, dignified bearing. But they knew that no matter how well they performed, they would never be promoted. They could never be conductors. Those jobs were reserved for white men. Porters knew most of all that their white passengers and white employers controlled everything. It was they alone who decided what the porters must do and what they’d get for doing it. No point in arguing. No point in even correcting the many passengers who called all porters “George” — as in George Pullman, their boss — whatever their actual names, just as slaves had been called by their masters’ given names. When a passenger pulled the bell cord, porters were to answer swiftly and cheerfully. Just do what the passengers asked – or demanded. Shine their shoes, fetch them drinks, make their beds, empty their cuspidors. No questions, no complaints, no protests. No rights. Nothing better epitomized the huge distance between black and white in American society. Hundreds of porters who challenged the status quo by daring to engage in union activity or other concerted action were fired.

But finally, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted workers, black and white, the legal right to unionize, and finally, in 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won a union contract from Pullman. The contract was signed precisely 12 years after union founder and president A. Philip Randolph had called the union’s first organizing meeting in New York City. But the long struggle was well worth it. The contract pulled the porters out of poverty. It brought them pay at least equal to that of unionized workers in many other fields, a standard work week, full range of fringe benefits and, most important, the right to continue to bargain collectively with Pullman on those and other vital matters. Union President Randolph and Vice President C.L. Dellums, who succeeded him in 1968, led the drive that pressured President Roosevelt into creating a Fair Employment Practices Commission aimed at combating discrimination in housing as well as employment. FDR agreed to set up the commission — a model for several state commissions – only after Randolph and Dellums threatened to lead a march on Washington by more than 100,000 black workers and others who were demanding federal action against discrimination.

Dellums and Randolph struggled as hard against discrimination inside the labor movement, particularly against the practice of unions setting up segregated locals, one for white members, one for black members. Randolph, elected in 1957 as the AFL-CIO’s first black vice president, long was known as the civil rights conscience of the labor movement, often prodding federation President George Meany and other conservative AFL-CIO leaders to take stands against racial discrimination.

The sleeping car coaches that once were the height of travel luxury have long since disappeared, and there are very few sleeping car porters in this era of less-than-luxurious train travel. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is gone, too. But before the union disappeared, it had reached goals as important as any ever sought by an American union – or any other organization. Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century.)

Here, finally, is that skateboarding parakeet thing the Internet promised us so long ago

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Here, finally, is that skateboarding parakeet thing the Internet promised us so long ago

Our friends at the awesome Pawesome (including former Guardian editor Sarah Han) have rounded up some feathery ollies and beakin’ 180s — sk8 or fly, baby 

The only gift for your Valentine

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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I would make a joke about heterosexuals here, but I just ordered one on rush-delivery for my BF

A gate so golden

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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A gate so golden

Van Dyke Parks — who’ll be perfoming Fri/12 at Swedish American Hall — boasts an outstanding resume as an arranger, producer, lyricist, and studio musician for the likes of the Byrds, the Everly Brothers, Randy Newman, Tim Buckley, Phil Ochs, Rufus Wainwright, Frank Black, the Doobie Brothers, Sonny and Cher, Joanna Newsom, Ringo Starr, Saint Etienne … the list goes on. Under the heading “additional experience,” Parks could include actor: he was a minor child star, appearing in the Grace Kelly vehicle The Swan 1956), and in 1990, he showed up on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. He’s also written film scores.

Considering this array of accomplishments, it’s surprising that Parks is still primarily renowned as a musical whiz within niche circles. Perhaps this is a consequence of his intricate and somewhat inaccessible solo albums, commercial failures to roughly the same the degree that they are creative successes. Whatever the case, he has a keen awareness of his legacy. “I prefer not being celebrated because I think that it brings only dangerous results,” he says, when the topic is broached during a recent phone interview. “It brings a self-importance. The best thing I can say is that I’ve created some works that I think have a shelf-life that is longer than a jar of yogurt.”

Born in Mississippi, Parks gravitated toward music early in life. He was deemed a child prodigy, and his interests led him to Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pennsylvania. But California is his “adopted reality,” the place where he’s lived for more than 40 years. He began to fill up his now extensive resume as a studio musician, arranger and, songwriter in Los Angeles. In 1966, Brian Wilson commissioned him to write lyrics for the now-legendary SMiLE (Nonesuch). In 1968, at the age of 24, Parks released his first solo record, Song Cycle (Warner Bros.).

This year, Parks is finally adding “touring” to the “additional qualifications” section of his resume. For the first time, he’s going on the road with his material, from Song Cycle to Orange Crate Art (Warner Bros.), which was released in 1995.

When I called Parks to interview him, one of the first things we touched on was the similarity between our names. For me, multiple names make for a confusing mouthful. VDP explained that he was named for his paternal grandmother’s “beloved” cousin, who was killed over the English Channel by the Nazis the same week he was born. He also said he’s never sobered up — I think this was a joke — because he can’t take his name to AA meetings. Hearing this, I realized that the complications of having a two-part first name might be more inconvenient than a three-part last name. After VDP initiated questions about our names, he continued as an interviewer and asked me my musical tastes and my age, at which point we established that we have 43 years between us.

“My goal is just to try and create things that will stand the test of time, Parks said. “That’s always been my goal. I have a great work ethic, and I put my heart into everything I do hoping it’ll be my life-defining moment.” At the moment, Parks is finishing a new album that he hopes to put out at the end of the summer. It’s been more than 15 years since he has released any of his own material. “I believe my work is better than it’s ever been,” he asserts. “And in a town [L.A.] that celebrates and worships youth at the expense of any other consideration, I think I’m going to be able to prove that my best work is ahead of me — and that’s what gets me up every day.”

Parks’ manner of speaking has a similarity with the music he creates, nonchalantly integrating influences from far and wide. Explaining himself, he blends in metaphors and proverbs: “I’m a black ant on a watermelon.” “It’s like going from zero to hero.” “There may be snow on the roof, but a fire rages within.” When making music, he moves through and fuses musical genres from every direction, finding new points of entry and exit. In 32 minutes, Song Cycle spans almost every American musical genre, from bluegrass to jazz to show tunes. It’s an idiosyncratic soundtrack of America’s musical history.

Parks’ solo work has the feel of a soundtrack, or even a Disney score, with its oddball yet familiar style of joining orchestration and instrumentation (i.e. strings with banjo and harmonica, or French horn with mandolin). The literate and witty lyrics — “Palm Desert” turns L.A. into Never-Never Land; “San Francisco” is a lovers’ paradise “with a gate so golden” — conjure vivid imagery like a film projected onto the inside of one’s skull.

Perhaps VDP is a culture-sponge. As he says about his musical tastes, “I like it all. I eat everything that’s good.” But his gift is more complex than a talent for simply absorbing sounds and spitting them out again. He has a tendency to find connections in unlikely places and among unusual things. One man’s genius is another man’s idiot, or however it goes. But Parks doesn’t care what either of those guys think — he just wants to make songs.

“A song is the lightest piece of cultural goods,” he says. “You don’t need to pick it up in your hands. You can take it out in your head. It encourages you to do something, hopefully the right thing. It’s why we shall overcome. It’s what gives peace a chance. The song moves people to political or social action like nothing else because it has melody. And melody creates feelings, and the words, of course, address the thoughts. And no kidding, I want to keep writing and being surrounded with song forever. I want to bop till I drop.”

As the saying goes, genius is patience.

VAN DYKE PARKS

Feb. 12, 6:30 p.m., $22/25

With Clare and the Reasons and Josh Mease

Swedish American Hall

2174 Market, SF

www.swedishamericanhall.com

L.A. Times writer takes on PG&E initiative

Zelda Bronstein
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Los Angeles Times writer Michael Hiltzik weighs in again on the PG&E initiative, which is now on the ballot as Prop. 16.


He argues that the deck is stacked in PG&E’s favor here — the utility can spend all the money it wants — $30 million, $40 million, whatever — and the public agencies that will be hurt by the measure have no ability to fight back since they can’t spend taxpayer money that way PG&E can spend ratepayer money.


His conclusion:



Every candidate for governor should be required to state, for the record, whether he or she thinks it’s OK for PG&E to subvert the electoral process by spending $6.5 million (and counting) exclusively for its own corporate benefit. Thus far the GOP candidates, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, have been silent as far as I can tell, as has the putative Democratic nominee, Attorney General Jerry Brown.

And the rest of us should turn out to vote June 8, by the millions, to make a statement about who owns the state of California: the people, or PG&E?


 


 

“Whatever happened to my sanctuary city amendment?”

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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“Whatever happened to my sanctuary city amendment?”

Yesterday, Sup. David Campos called for a status report on steps taken by San Francisco’s Juvenile Probation Department to implement an ordinance that the Board passed last fall to protect the confidentiality of juveniles’ immigration status.

And it already sounds like JPD has done nothing to implement it—and isn’t planning to, either, any time soon.

Campos announced that he met with Juvenile Probation Department (JPD) Chief William Siffermann today, and Siffermann told him that he had no intention of complying with the ordinance, which the Board passed Nov. 10, 2009.


JPD has had three months to figure out how best to implement the ordinance, which Campos helped author last year, and which seeks to give kids their day in court before handing them over tofederal immigration authorities for possible deportation.

Campos said he called the hearing so all the folks who worked to pass the legislation, and those it impacts, “have a public forum to hear about the decision not to implement it.”

Campos also requested a report on the impacts of JPD’s current policy towards suspected undocumented juvenile felons—a policy that Newsom ordered without public review and that JPD implemented on August 2008.

The report, Campos said, will include but is not limited to, the following:

1.    Determinations of cases of undocumented immigrant youth—original changes and final determination by the courts.

This will involve exploring not only what these youth were originally charged with at booking, but also what the local juvenile courts ultimately determined in their cases. So, expect to see a pattern in which the courts throw out or reduce the charges that resulted in these juveniles being reported to the feds at the moment of booking. Only, by the time the courts reach this determination, these kids have already been nabbed by the feds and transferred to detention facilities outside the city and/or state—a practice that has already resulted in the needless ripping apart of immigrant families.

2.    Policies, procedures and training provided to staff regarding inquiry into the immigration status of youth and compliance with the 1989 City of Refuge ordinance.

This exploration will likely lead to some eye-opening revelations as to how juvenile probation officers are expected, under the policy that Newsom ordered in 2008,  to question youth suspected of being undocumented, and how that contrasts/compares with the city’s original sanctuary ordinance which the Board implemented in 1989.
3.    The numbers of undocumented immigrant youth that have been reported to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Newsom ordered his change in sanctuary policy direction in 2008.

Up until now, it’s been almost impossible to discover exactly how many kids the city has handed over to ICE under Newsom’s new policy. Yes, even though the city is now spending local tax payer dollars to hand local immigrants’ kids over to the feds, the city has not told the public how many kids have been handed over or their current whereabouts. This information, coupled with information about the final determinations that local courts made in these kids’ cases, will likely be another mind blower.

4.    Changes in caseload and staffing as a result of implementing Newsom’s new sanctuary policy direction in 2008.
Again, expect to see some interesting patterns emerge. Has the city saved money by referring kids to ICE at the moment of booking? How about time? And just how well trained are juvenile probation officers in the intricacies of immigration law, anyway?

5.    Information about department financial and human resources dedicated to collaboration with ICE.

This is where the proverbial shit may truly start hitting the fan. Are we needlessly alienating the immigrant community?  Are we doing so in counter productive ways?

As chair of the Rules Committee, Campos promised to schedule this hearing as soon as possible, so watch the Board’s committee calendar and expect to see sparks fly.

The “jobs” shell game

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The “jobs” shell game

Written with Nima Maghame

news@sfbg.com

While many San Francisco city officials have been trying to figure out how to close a projected budget deficit of more than $520 million, Mayor Gavin Newsom has spent the last month trying to make that spending gap even larger by aggressively pushing a variety of business tax cuts that economists say will do little to improve the local economy and could actually make it worse.

Newsom first proposed his so-called “local economic stimulus package” a year ago during his ill-fated run for governor, just as President Barack Obama was pushing his own economic stimulus plan. But unlike the federal government’s $787 billion plan, about a third of which involved tax cuts demanded by conservatives, Newsom proposed to cut local business taxes while also deeply slashing local government spending and laying off hundreds of city workers.

Most economists say that’s a terrible idea. In fact, a report issued at the time by Moody’s Investor Services made it clear that every dollar of direct government spending adds about $1.60 into the economy (or $1.73 if it’s on food stamps, the most stimulative spending government can make), whereas business tax cuts add only about $1 to the economy for every dollar spent.

We clashed with the Mayor’s Office at the time on our Politics blog (see “Mayor Newsom doesn’t understand economics,” 2/13/09), with Newsom’s spokesperson telling us the mayor was relying on the input of City Economist Ted Egan. But when we interviewed Egan about the issue, he agreed that it’s a bad idea to slash government spending to pay for tax cuts.

“We were in no way saying you should cut taxes to stimulate the economy, particularly if it means reducing government spending,” Egan told us then. And when we asked directly whether it’s better for San Francisco’s economy for the city to directly spend a dollar on payroll or to give that dollar away in a private sector tax break, he told us, “The consensus among economists is that most of the time government spending stimulates the economy more.”

The Board of Supervisors basically ignored Newsom’s proposal. But he revived it last month, expanding the proposals with even more private sector subsidies and making them the centerpiece of his Jan. 13 State of the City speech, publicly pushing it since then with a series of public events at businesses located in the city.

And this time — with the local economy still slow, projected city budget deficits bigger than ever, and little serious talk about how the city can bring in more money — it appears the proposals will be the subject of a series of hearings before Board of Supervisors’ committees in the coming weeks.

Newsom’s tax cut proposals include a proposal to waive the 1.5 percent payroll tax (the city’s main business tax) for all new hires; extend and expand the payroll tax exemption for biotech companies (see “Biotech’s bonanza,” p. 12); give small businesses tax credits for their spending on health plans; and allow developers to pass one-third of their affordable housing in-lieu fees onto future homeowners.

Newsom and his Press Secretary Tony Winnicker have spoken euphorically about the proposals, saying they’re desperately needed to spur the local economy. “We believe that enacting these tax incentives, particularly the payroll tax credit for new hires, is one of the single biggest things we can do for economic growth,” Winnicker said.

Despite repeated questions about the economists’ concerns over financing tax cuts with government spending cuts, we couldn’t get them to address the tradeoff directly. “The mayor will support critical public services,” was all Winnicker would say about the deep cuts that Newsom is expected to announce in his June 1 budget.

Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee, expressed more skepticism about the mayor’s proposals. “Do tax breaks have the intended effect of stimulating the economy? As we underfund government services, are we getting a net gain or are we getting something taken away? For the very small businesses in my district, it’s going to be trickle-down economics. It’s very unrelated and unmeasurable in benefit,” he told us.

David Noyola, board aide to President David Chiu, said his boss is supporting the biotech tax credit but reserving judgment on the rest. “It’s going to be a cost-benefit analysis,” Noyola said. “When we’re talking about jobs, we’re talking about public and private sector jobs, always.”

While Egan’s economic analysis predicts tax cuts will encourage some economic growth, even he is circumspect about the good it will do, particularly without finding a way to avoid deep cuts in city spending. “The truth of the matter is that our stimulus efforts are small because the city has relatively small power to affect the local economy,” Egan told us.

That’s the consensus economic opinion. Huge federal spending can help a national economy a little bit, but local economies are just different animals that local governments are largely powerless to really alter, particularly through tax cuts.

“I agree with Egan: city government has little power over the local economy,” Mike Potepan, an urban development economist at San Francisco State University, told the Guardian.

Both economists agree that tying tax cuts to job creation or development stimulus is better than general tax cuts, but that neither is good if it means laying off more city workers.

“Research shows that by cutting taxes you have more business activity where studies show it is likely to effect employment,” Potepan said. “On the other side, you have to think about revenue. Cities are going to have to balance their budgets, which could mean a cut in services.”

Author Greg LeRoy expresses a more critical perspective in his book The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation (1995, Berrett-Koehler), amassing evidence from economic studies and CEO surveys that corporate tax breaks, even those tied to new job creation, have almost no effect on private companies’ decisions about where to locate and whether to hire.

“How can companies get away with this? Because the system is rigged. Corporations have it down to a science. They have learned how to chant ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ to win huge corporate tax breaks — and still do whatever they wanted all along,” LeRoy writes. “That’s the Great American Jobs Scam: an intentionally constructed system that enables corporations to exact huge taxpayer subsidies by promising quality jobs — and lets them fail to deliver. The other benefit often promised — higher tax revenues — often proves false as well.”

While proposing to forgo collecting millions of dollars in payroll taxes (the Controller’s Office is still working on a projected total for the tax cut package), the Mayor’s Office also wants to spur development of new housing with a proposal that would delay collection of needed affordable housing money by more than a decade.

After hearing mostly from a large crowd of desperate developers and construction workers during a Jan. 21 hearing on the proposal, the Planning Commission approved the package on a 4-3 vote, with the mayor’s appointees in agreement and the board’s appointees in dissent. It will be considered by the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee sometime after Feb. 12.

The most controversial part of the fee reform package involves reducing the fee developers pay to support affordable housing by 33 percent, then charging a 1 percent transfer tax to subsequent buyers of those homes. Egan estimates developers would save almost $20,000 per housing unit, and that it would take an average of 16 years for the city to recover that money. But for high-rise luxury condos, the city would eventually recover about $27,000 per unit.

“It’s a classic make-an-investment-now-to-get-more-later strategy,” Michael Yarne, who crafted the policy for the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development at Newsom’s direction, told the Guardian.

“If it makes it feasible for projects to be started, then it is worth passing,” Tim Colen, a representative of San Francisco Housing Action, said at the Planning Commission hearing, expressing hope that it will help create desperately needed construction jobs and new market rate housing.

But affordable housing advocates and some progressives criticize the policy as completely backward, saying that affordable housing development is desperately needed now, during these tough economic times, rather than a policy that encourages more market rate housing and bails out bad investments made at the height of the real estate bubble.

“What the city needs to do is directly build affordable housing, for which there is a demand,” affordable housing activist Calvin Welch told us. “The problem is that the banks don’t want to lend these guys money because they know nobody can afford to buy houses at the prices that these guys are demanding.”

Debra Walker, who is running for supervisor from District 6 and voted against the proposal when it came before the Building Inspection Commission (the sole vote on a commission dominated by mayoral appointees), agrees.

“The whole argument is that it stimulates development, but it doesn’t,” Walker said, arguing that the incremental gains (about 25 housing units per year, Egan estimates) will be offset by delayed affordable housing construction. “There would be more economic stimulus by using the fee to build more affordable housing.”

Instead, it simply shifts resources to favored entities: from home owners to developers, in the case of the affordable housing fees, or in the case of the tax credits, from the public to the private sector. But Newsom’s office just doesn’t see it that way.

“The Guardian believes in protecting public sector employees over private sector employees,” was how Winnicker formulated our understanding of what the economists are saying. “Most people don’t work for the city, and if we can support private sector jobs, that adds to sales tax revenues and benefits the economy. Despite a short-term impact of the tax credit, that’s a benefit.”

Adam Lesser contributed to this report

 

Our weekly picks

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WEDNESDAY (10th)

EVENT

Electronic Frontier Foundation: 20 Years

With technology becoming ever more an integral part of our daily lives, important issues surrounding digital rights continue to arise in new forms, be they regarding net neutrality, government wiretapping, or downloading music. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, was founded in 1990 to defend people’s rights in the areas of free speech, innovation, privacy and more. EFF celebrates its 20th anniversary tonight with a party and fundraiser hosted by Mythbusters’ Adam Savage, featuring music, entertainment, and tech luminaries such as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak and Lotus 1-2-3 program designer Mitch Kapor. (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $30

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF.

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com, www.eff.org

THURSDAY (11th)

VISUAL ART

ARTEMIO: “Gersamkunstwerk”; Frankie Martin: “Through the Vortex”

Nothing sounds more disparate than “guns, grenades, bombs, and machetes” assembled into a mandala; and video of a “1,000 mile, California coastal bicycle” voyage. But who knows, juxtapositions create funny things like frisson. What distinguishes Mexico City conceptual artist ARTEMIO from New York “nomadic inter-media artist” Frankie Martin could potentially create a third work where the paradoxical polarities and politics of drug wars infiltrate the narratives of mobile subjectivity this side of the leisure-born border. I’m thinking something like Road Rash, the 1991 Sega Genesis video game where motorcyclists beat each other with chains and baseball bats in a race to the champagne and bikini line. You might see something a bit more sophisticated. (Spencer Young)

7–11 p.m. (through March 13), free

Queen’s Nails Projects

3191 Mission, SF

(415) 314-6785

www.queensnailsprojects.com

FRIDAY (12th)

FILM

“A Valentine’s Tribute Weekend to John Hughes”

When the Oscars’ people-who-died montage rolls around in March, more than one child of the ’80s will raise a fist for John Hughes, the writer-director-producer of many of the era’s most beloved teen films. Midnites for Maniacs programmer and host Jesse Hawthorne Ficks feels your pain — he’s assembled seven of Hughes’ enduring classics for a two-day feast of class- and clique-disrupting romances, multiple Ringwalds, touchy-feely grandmas, homemade prom dresses, Ferraris, the best fucking movie about travel ever (you can bet your John Candy it ain’t Up in the Air), and Bueller … Bueller … Bueller. The marathon begins tonight with Some Kind of Wonderful . Angst ahead! (Cheryl Eddy)

7:30 p.m. (Some Kind of Wonderful), 9:30 p.m. (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and 11:45 p.m. (National Lampoon’s Vacation); through Sat/13, $10 per day

Castro Theater

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.ticketweb.com

MUSIC

San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival

Old-timey — it’s not just for lemonade, hoop skirts, handlebar mustaches, and dial-ups. It’s also for the retro-coolly acronymed SFBOT, raising its analog arms and taking over dozens of the Bay’s venues with that sweet, sweet sound of everyone’s favorite time period: yore. Loudon Wainwright III, Stairwell Sisters, Water Tower Bucket Boys, Asylum Street Spankers, and a strummin’ army of fiddlers, yelpers, crooners, stompers, hoofers, and juggers blow wildly through the roots of this 11th annual harmonic convergence. Oh yes, there shall be banjos. (Marke B.)

Various times, venues, and prices (through Feb. 24)

Tonight: Red Molly, Stairwell Sisters

8 p.m., $19.50

Freight and Salvage

2020 Addison, Berk.

www.sfbluegrass.org

MUSIC

Mahogany Soul Series: Chico DeBarge, Martin Luther

It’s Friday night — time to mellow out to some old school soul sounds. Chico DeBarge is a charismatic and skilled songwriter and producer long known for making the ladies swoon with his sensual singing style. He’s joined by fellow R&B man Martin Luther. Also in the mix is DJ Sake-1. Part of Ineffable Music Group’s Mahogany Soul Series, this event is a trifecta for R&B lovers. (Lilan Kane)

9 p.m. $16–$20

Shattuck Down Low

2284 Shattuck, Berk.

(650) 291-1732

ineffablerecords.inticketing.com

MUSIC

Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime

Badfish, named after a song on Sublime’s 40 Oz. to Freedom (Gasoline Alley/MCA, 1992), has helped keep the Sublime spirit alive. The group formed in 2001 when they met at the University of Rhode Island, where they were computer science majors. They’ve quickly garnered a fanbase in the college music scene and have played to sold out crowds since 2006. The members are also in their own non-tribute band, Scotty Don’t, which usually serves as the opening act for Badfish shows. (Kane)

9 p.m., $65–$84

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

SATURDAY (13th)

EVENT

Alameda Zombie Crawl

Movies (and music videos) have taught us that zombies can run, swim, operate amusement park machinery, and perform synchronized dances. It turns out the undead even enjoy exotic cocktails — ergo, the first annual Alameda Zombie Crawl, which kicks off with drink specials (including, duh, Zombies) at the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge. The brain-chomping masses will then head to Scobies Sports Bar and Grill and Lost Weekend Lounge, before breaking off into smaller groups to terrorize shopping malls and farmhouses in rural Pennsylvania. Come dressed to kill — er, like you’ve already been killed; there’ll be makeup assistance ashore the Island for anyone who doesn’t have Tom Savini-style gore-and-latex skills. (Eddy)

7 p.m. (makeup starting at 5 p.m., $5–$50), free

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

1304 Lincoln, Alameda

alamedazombie@live.com

EVENT/DANCE

Black Choreographers Festival

The Black Choreographers Festival kicks off its three-weekend run in Oakland with workshops, public discussions, $10 master classes, and seminars. New this is year is a free film series presented in partnership with see.think.dance. Starting this Saturday in Oakland, it includes documentaries, feature films, and shorts from Africa and the diaspora. Also this weekend is a Sunday morning youth meet, after which the young dancers invite the public to an afternoon concert. Despite videos and all manner of documentation, dance still gets passed on directly from one body to the next. This is an opportunity to see the next generation. Participating groups include Dimensions Extensions Dance Ensemble, Destiny Arts, Oakland School of the Arts, San Francisco School of the Arts, and On Demand. (Rita Felciano)

1–6 p.m. (also Sun/14, 4 p.m.; festival through Feb 28), free–$10

Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts

1428 Alice, Oakl.

(888) 819-9106

www.bcfhereandnow.com

EVENT

Workshop: “DIY Valentine — Sexy Bedroom”

Extravagant gifts and pricey candlelit dinners for the big V day have, more or less, become a thing of the past. In this economy, many are having to craft new ways of celebrating the day dedicated to all things love. Fortunately Kelly Malone is giving a sultry tutorial on how the ladies, and even gents, can spice up their bedrooms for the big night. At Workshop, you’ll learn how perfect a seductive cocktail, tease your hair like Brigitte Bardot, create alluring smoky eyes, and transform your unadorned room into a lair fit for a sex kitten. (Elise-Marie Brown)

5:30 p.m., $40 (sign-up required)

Workshop

1798 McAllister, SF

(415) 874-9186

www.workshopsf.org

DANCE

Company C Contemporary Ballet

At nine, Company C Contemporary Ballet has found its groove. Two things stood out at last month’s Walnut Creek performances that will be repeated on this side of the Bay this weekend. These are beautifully alert dancers who can shine in a wide range of repertoire. Being in a small company, they switch gears rapidly and admirably. Also, founding Artistic Director Charles Anderson has a gift for programming. He commissioned Amy Seiwert in a hot nightclub number, brought Lar Lubovitch’s flowing Cavalcade to a tough Steve Reich score, introduced Charles Moulton’s ingenious Nine Person Ball Passing to a new generation, and choreographed his own Akimbo. He knows what’s he’s doing. (Felciano)

8 p.m. (also Sun/14, 2 p.m.), $18–$40

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

701 Mission, SF

415 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

SUNDAY (14th)

EVENT/FILM/MUSIC

Marc Huestis Presents “Justin Bond: Close to You” and Whatever Happened to Susan Jane?

“Did he beat you, girl? You got burned if he didn’t beat you, girl.” I can’t think of any better romantic advice than that, gleaned from a scene in Marc Huestis’ San Francisco new wave comedy from 1982, Whatever Happened to Susan Jane? Besides drag queen wisdom, the flick dispenses some great back-in-vogue music, including tunes from Tuxedo Moon and Indoor Life. A DVD release screening of it is just the prelude to a night with SF girl-gone-good Justin Bond, who’ll be singing Carpenters hits with a 10-piece orchestra, and hosting special guests the Thrillpeddlers. Trash the Ipecac and be my bloody, melancholy valentine. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Susan Jane: noon, $8

Justin Bond: 8:15 p.m., $25–$75

Castro Theatre

419 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.ticketweb.com

MUSIC

Girls, Smith Westerns

Girls were last year’s critical darlings, but their tour mates the Smith Westerns have perhaps a more interesting rise to fame. Hailing from Chicago, the four members range from 17 to 19 years old. They play the sort of Nuggets rock that went out of style 20 years before they were born. With songs like “Girl in Love” and “Be My Girl,” these guys wear their hearts on their sleeves — and really, isn’t that what Valentine’s Day is all about? (Peter Galvin)

With Magic Kinds, Hunx and the Punkettes

7 30 p.m., $16, sold out

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

MUSIC

The Damned

Planting its stake in music history as the first U.K. punk band to release a single and tour the U.S., the Damned turned heads with “New Rose” and “Neat Neat Neat.” But since today is Valentine’s Day, perhaps its tune “Love Song” is most appropriate to sing along to: “I’ll be the ticket if you’re my collector/ I’ve got the fare if you’re my inspector/ I’ll be the luggage, if you’ll be the porter/ I’ll be the parcel, if you’ll be my sorter.” Join founding members Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible for a chaotic romp through the old days and slam dance with your sweetheart. (McCourt)

With Hewhocannotbenamed and the Generators

8 p.m. (7 p.m. doors), $30 ($54.95 with dinner)

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

MUSIC

Leela James

Leela James’s debut album A Change Is Gonna Come (Warner Bros., 2005) received rave reviews from critics and comparisons to Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan. After four years and a break from a major label, she’s returned with her self-produced sophomore record, Let’s Do It Again (Shanachie Records). The album was recorded using live takes, much like the original soul recordings created at Stax and Muscle Shoals. James pays homage to her musical influences with covers by Betty Wright, Bobby Womack, and the Staples Singers, to name a few. Attention soul lovers: let loose some raw emotion on V-Day. (Kane)

7 p.m. $30

Yoshi’s SF

1330 Fillmore, SF.

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

TUESDAY (16th)

MUSIC

Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras Party!: Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Zigaboo Modeliste & the New Aahkesstra, DJ Harry D

Oh Mardi Gras, the time of year where beads almost help people avert indecent exposure and jazz bands blare throughout the streets. It’s one of those rare moments that I find myself wanting to be in a city other than San Francisco. But since some of us can’t fly down to New Orleans for the week, the next best thing to the Southern goodness that is Louisiana is the Fat Tuesday party going down at the Independent. Listen to the sounds of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band while downing a glass of bourbon, and be transported to the place of deep, dark bayous and ambrosial gumbo. (Brown)

7:30 p.m., $22

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

theindependentsf.com

EVENT

“Ask a Scientist: Quantum Mechanics”

Although most of us are glad to be done with school and liberated from 10-page papers and final exams, every now and then it’s nice to learn something new. With the “Ask A Scientist” series anyone can unfold the scientific mysteries that make up the world we inhabit, at least on a level that can be taught in two hours. Discover how energy and matter make up quantum mechanics, how an object can be in two places at once, and other science stuff. (Brown)

7:00 p.m., free (excluding food or drinks)

Horatius

350 Kansas, SF

www.askascientistsf.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

 

Psychic Dream Astrology

David Talbot
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With all that pressure to be amorous this week, you need to make sure you don’t overdo it.


Feb. 10-16

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Seriously, Aries, you have so much to be grateful for. This week, when love is for sale in every store you walk by, check in with what you adore. The better you feel about your life, the more resilient you will be.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

It would behoove you, my Bullish friend, to make peace with what you cannot amend. Don’t lament the stuff that is out of your control. You’ll just stress yourself into a manic panic — and that’s just not your color.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Practical concerns are easy to ignore when all is going well, but can drop like an anvil when times are tough. Tone down the "what ifs" and concentrate on sensible solutions to your troubles. Things will only get out of hand if you put them off or take on too much.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

It is hard to be disciplined about what you know you need, no matter how bad ya need it. Right now, you may need to say no to a hottie you know is all wrong for you, or skip buying that thing that you know is all right. Stick to your guns.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Too much of a good thing translates to an awesome time on a good day, and just too much the rest of the week. Love with as much as you’ve got, but not an ounce more, Leo. With all that pressure to be amorous this week, you need to make sure you don’t overdo it. Healthy emotional boundaries = a happy you.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Open yourself to seeing potential and possibility. You have a nasty habit of getting caught in a loop of bad vibe expectations and it’s getting you nowhere in a hurry. Lighten up and force yourself to look on the bright side, no matter how hard you have to search.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Love is a four-letter word and should be used with discretion. If you go blabbing about your feelings before you’re certain of them, you can’t take it back, even if you want to. Allow for due process in matters of the heart.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Truth is a complicated beast. You have to do your very best to be as honest as you can right now. The truth may not set you free, but it will definitely cut through some crap and get you a few steps closer to the kind of intimacy that you are totally ready for.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

You are so ready to make a move on someone or something that you really want, Sag, and if V-Day is your motivator, so be it. Don’t overthink things, just boldly initiate whatever you feel ready for. Whether it’s making the rounds on your crush or finally hitting a yoga class, now is your time to try and improve your circumstances.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You are in no mood to let the masses force you to be romantic, Cappy, but what else is new? Try to allow the love hysteria to inspire you toward loving-kindness to your fellow sentient beings. Let go of your overactive critical faculties and ride the Love Train, even if you get off at Charitable Donations instead of Romantic Interludes.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Don’t confuse desire with need, Aquarius. You are growing in just the right direction (which is awesome), but you’re also getting dependent on the person, place, or thang that is facilitating your growth (which is not so awesome). Don’t confuse a vehicle for growth with the reason for it, no matter how seductive that car may be.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Uncertainty can be such a downer. Strive to channel your inner fish, mascot of your people, and go with the flow. You may not know exactly what you want or how to get what you need, but the best way to figure it out is by chilling out for a while and taking the pressure off. Focus on the good stuff you can trust this week.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a psychic dreamer for 15 years. Check out her Web site at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com.

Recalling Sophie Maxwell

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Written with Adrian Castañeda

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Does it make sense to try and recall termed-out D. 10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell?


A group of District 10 residents has turned in 8,008 signatures in an effort to recall Sup. Sophie Maxwell. Election department staff says that 7,529 signatures must be verified for the recall attempt to go forward.

‘We think it’s going to be a little tight,” said an election department worker, who preferred to remain anonymous.

Department of Elections staff have 30 days to count and verify the submitted signatures, but they predict the process could be completed as early as Thursday afternoon (Feb. 4) or Friday morning (Feb. 5).

Meanwhile, Maxwell is termed-out in January 2011–a mere 11 months away. And 15 candidates have already filed to enter the D. 10 race this fall, with a dozen others variously threatening to throw their hats in the ring.

But if the recall effort gets the green light and is placed on the June 8 ballot, and if Maxwell actually gets recalled as a result of that vote, Mayor Gavin Newsom would then get to appoint his choice of successor to her seat. And if that successor happens to be one of the candidates vying for Maxwell’s seat, wouldn’t that person have an enviable edge come the November election?

Bayview activist Daniel Landry insists the recall effort would be effective. 
“We’re sending a message to anyone who wants to be a supervisor of D-10, you must recognize the will of the voters,” Landry said.

D 10 candidate Ed Donaldson warns that any supervisor that does not understand the complexity of the city’s largest district can expect a similar backlash. He says the recall effort is evidence of District 10’s diversity.
“There is no one homogenous voice in the community,” Donaldson said.
He says that the current grass-roots organizing that brought about the recall effort is a result of changing political structure in the area, but is not yet on par with the other districts in town.
“We still allow our politics to be controlled from downtown,” Donaldson observed.

D 10 candidate Espanola Jackson warns that if Newsom appoints someone, that person had better listen to the wishes of the community, or else they will face a similar fate to Maxwell.

“What the mayor needs to understand is that if we can get the signatures in two weeks to recall Sophie, we can get them on whoever he appoints as well,” Jackson said.

But D 10 candidate Eric Smith worries that the recall effort will backfire. He cites a recent community meeting in the Bayview on the Department of Park and Recreation’s budget, as an example of why folks are turning to this seemingly desperate strategy.

“People were emotional, angry and desperate, because they feel no one listens to them,” Smith said. “That’s part of the problem here; they would rather have a supervisor go down swinging for them, rather than watch one seemingly side with Lennar, PG&E and the Mayor on issues contrary to their interests. At the DCCC [Democratic County Central Committee] last week, everyone except Chris Daly voted against the recall in support of Sophie.”

Smith added that Daly’s vote, “likely had more to do with his belief that this was a waste of time and had no chance of actually succeeding, but you’ll have to ask him.”

Daly, for his part, says he doesn’t believe the recall effort will qualify.

“Jake McGoldrick introduced an item in committee when he was a supervisor that the Board then passed that doubles the numbers of signatures required for a recall to qualify,” Daly said, noting that under the old recall rules the current effort would likely have succeeded in getting onto the ballot.

“And I don’t think the DCCC’s resolution against the recall effort was accurate,” Daly added. “It was long on the fact that Sophie isn’t guilty of malfeasance, but the truth is that a recall is a tool of democracy that is available and can be applied in cases where a representative is not being responsible to the needs of their district. So, while I’m not supportive of recalling Sophie, it would be patronizing for me to say that thousands of D. 10 residents don’t know what they are doing. The Democratic Party (with a capital D) is working against democracy (with a small d) in a patronizing way in a district that has a disproportionately high number of low-income folks and people of color. There is a significant level of disgruntlement, if that is a word, in District 10, and its residents have lodged a pretty real and significant complaint.”

Aaron Peskin, who chairs the DCCC’s executive board and is the former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, also predicts that the effort to recall Maxwell is probably headed nowhere.

“There’s no way they got the numbers,” Peskin said. “You’re lucky if 50 percent of that shit runs.”

Peskin proffers three reasons why recalling Maxwell is against the community’s own interests.
“First, recalls are an instrument to be used when a representative has committed malfeasance, and not because you disagree with the political positions of a person who has been duly elected three times,” Peskin said. “Second, this elected official is in her last eleven months in office. So, it’s a huge waste of time and money. And third, for those not satisfied with their current supervisor, any representative that the mayor might nominate would be far, far worse.”

Smith also worries that the recall effort is akin to the community shooting itself in the foot.

“If Sophie gets recalled, (and that is a very big if), the Mayor will insert someone and we may be right back where we started from, or worse. That’s the terrible irony and one of the biggest problems in District 10. Folks are so mad, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make them feel they have a voice in the outcome, even if it’s potentially worse. The same thing happened with the Navy and the Restoration Advisory Board. Some of the same folks who were frustrated by the process, tried to send a signal to the Navy that they weren’t being heard and for all their well- intentioned efforts, got the RAB dissolved. I truly feel for them, it’s absolutely heartbreaking, but at times, they can be their own worst enemy.”

To Smith’s mind, a recall has the potential for exacerbating the very problems the effort is purported to be about.

“This isn’t about malfeasance, or not showing up for work,” Smith observed. “It’s about being heard, respected and listened to. I don’t think any other Supervisor has ever had the challenges that Sophie has had to face here; the Bayview, the Hunters Point Shipyard’s toxic super-fund site, the homicide rate, unemployment, poor public transportation, dwindling services and community resources have made D10 one of the City’s largest melting pots of discontent. It’s just one of the reasons I’m running. The health, welfare, quality of life issues and the environment are the things I put above everything else out here, particularly above special interests and big money.”

“We will soon know how valid those signatures are; I can tell you that the many of the folks behind it feel very confident about it,” Smith continued. “But Sophie still has a lot friends in D10 who will not vote her out, so even if this makes the ballot, there is no guarantee it will carry. There are many, many folks who still love and support Sophie, so the folks who signed the recall petition will have to overcome the balance of the 37,000 D.10 voters who may not want to see her go and have a vested interest in seeing a fair electoral process in November, untainted by a Mayoral appointee, an appointee that would have implied advantage over any of the candidates in November.”

Smith has asked many folks why they are launching a recall when Maxwell only has 10 months left on the job.

“For them, it’s about making a statement; they want everyone to know that ‘They’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore,’” Smith said. “They also want to send a signal to the D10 candidates that this is what you will face if you don’t listen to them. D10 is not for the squeamish, those easily intimidated or the faint of heart.”

On a side note, Smith observed that “we will need the world to come out to defeat Proposition 16″, the PG&E ballot measure in June. “And, depending on the turn out, many of the folks needed to come out for that, may also play a role as it relates to Sophie’s recall.”

Asked what she thought of the effort to recall her, Maxwell characterized it as “strange” and “destabilizing.”

‘It seems to me that this effort is destabilizing the community,” Maxwell said. “When you undercut the leadership, you destabilize a community in transition. At a time when these folks could have something to say about the future, they are looking at the past. It’s about backward thinking. It’s about not having the best interests of the community. It’s about egos. Because if this is for the community, then why not bring something to the table that’s about bringing some direction to the district?”

One of the last straws, in the minds of some recall signature gatherers, was Maxwell’s 2009 vote against a resolution that would have advised the Navy to restore its community-based Restoration Advisory Board. This board, which was established in 1994, had consistent access to the many technical and environmental documents surrounding the proposed clean-up of the heavily polluted Hunters Point Shipyard.

The RAB, whose primary fucntion was to share information on investigations and clean-ups at the shipyard, was also able to vote on the Navy’s proposed solutions and to request more information and/or speakers and experts so its members could educate themselves on related public health and safety issues. But early last year, the Navy announced that it was dissolving the RAB, citing dysfunctional behavior and off-topic discussions that were getting in the way of the RAB’s intended purpose.

The move to dissolve the RAB came just as the Navy was poised to take a series of important decisions on some of the most polluted and radiologically-impacted parcels on the shipyard. And many in the community saw the timing of the RAB’s dissolution as evidence that the Navy was going to ignore their wish to have these parcels dug out and hauled away, and not capped (a wish shared by the 87 percent of voters who supported Prop. P in 2000.)

But despite the outcry that followed the RAB’s 2009 dissolution, Maxwell voted to tell the Navy to either restore the RAB or find other ways to involve the community–thereby giving the Navy the choice, some felt, to ignore the community’s desire to reinstate the RAB.

And last night, the Navy, along with a flotilla of police and special agents, showed up at the Bayview YMCA to share its plan to reformulate the Navy’s original Community Involvement Plan—a plan that angered many meeting goers ( the majority of which were former RAB members,) since it didn’t appear to aim at reinstating the RAB. But to give the Navy credit, once it became clear that meeting attendees were underwhelmed by its plan, Navy officials scrapped their original agenda and allowed the community to speak instead about their wounds from the past and their hopes for the future. It remains to be seen where the Navy will go next, but those interested in tracking these developments can visit the Navy’s website for updates.

Maxwell for her part defended her vote–and pointed the finger at the Navy.

“The Navy has an obligation to get out its plans to the public,” Maxwell said. “People are getting information in many ways, these days, not just by coming to meetings. The Navy has just got another $92 million towards the shipyard clean up, but does anyone know what this means? It means that instead of taking years to clean up groundwater at the shipyard, we can spend that money on it, now. And if folks knew what capping really means, maybe they wouldn’t be against it. Mission Bay is capped. Schlage Lock will be. And all of them are brown fields.”

Maxwell worries that democracy is not currently being well served within her district, but not by her.
“There are folks who are trying to block real information from getting out, and if only your view can get out, that’s not democracy,” Maxwell said.

But so far, she’s not willing to publicly support anyone in the November D. 10 race.
“I’m waiting for people to have a better understanding of what this community is, what the common thread running through it is, and how to use rank choice voting,” she said.

And despite the current recall effort—and the insults regularly hurled her way with a voracity and meanness not generally seen in other supervisorial districts, Maxwell said she has truly enjoyed serving as D. 10 supervisor.

“When people say that it’s an honor to serve as an elected official, I really know what they mean, because I really feel that. Democracy is challenging, it’s messy and it’s invigorating. I think a lot of what’s going on in my district is about people using people. But what has changed for these folks? Their lives have gotten worse, not better. And they are going after me, because I am not part of their group. I have tried to stay focused on the issues.”

 

Psychic Dream Astrology

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Feb. 3-9: Whatever your fears, if they ever come true you’ll have plenty of time to stress out about them later

By Jessica Lanyadoo

ARIES

March 21-April 19

No matter how chivalrous your motives, all bending of the truth can backfire and create more problems than it solves. There is no way around the stuff you’re dealing with, so take a path straight through it. Just remember to temper your realness with some levity so you don’t come off like a pushy jerk.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

There is no way to go back in time to correct past mistakes, my bully buddy, and creating distractions won’t work either. Rather than obsess on what you can’t control, learn from your troubles by being humble and emotionally checked-in. Pry yourself away from the pity party, pal.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

It’s hard to find your place in these fast-paced and abstract times. Look around and see where your trusted people are. Do you find them virtually, or are they people you can touch and see? You are in need of some tender human contact right now, and that will be rough if you don’t have a good social foundation.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

All things have their ebb and flow, which is a comfort in the tough times, but a total bummer when things are fierce. Endeavor to really enjoy your blessings while they are present. Whatever your fears, if they ever come true you’ll have plenty of time to stress out about them later.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

The thing about relationship troubles is that they always reveal some problem within yourself. Whether it’s your fear of being the “bad guy,” your resistance to confrontation, or a need to manage your temper tantrums, it’s time to figure out what you’re resisting. Look at yourself instead of the other person’s faults.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You have to have faith in yourself, Virgo, because you are on the right track — no matter how winding it may seem. Look directly at your issues without side-stepping the sticky stuff. Your anxieties tend to multiply when you go into avoidance, so clean up your messes and get on with it.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

With Pluto in Capricorn and Saturn in your sign, it’s time to deal with time. Pay attention to how you pace yourself through good times and bad. Your tendency to rush around or skip over things is likely to get you in trouble, so try a little patience. Allow circumstances to reveal themselves to you.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Relationships are so freakin’ complicated. You’ve got to keep hold of yourself while you let another person in, which is hard for a sign that prefers it all-or-nothing style. Practice being available yet grounded. You don’t have to be perfect. The key word here is practice.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Emotional growth is tops, Sag, and you are one for heights. Watch out for taking a good thing and loving it so thoroughly that you wear it (and yourself) out, though. You are burning the good vibes candle at both ends, and you’re likely to get burned. Try taking a tiny time out and recharging. If you don’t, things are about to get really confusing.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

The more present you are emotionally, the more in control you’ll be. Kinda paradoxical, if you think about how unmanageable pesky emotions tend to be, but it’s true. You’ll find your greatest independence by being checked-in with your emotional integrity. It’s where all of your best decisions will come from, Cappy.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Now is not the greatest moment in Aquarian history to start a new enterprise or get a new haircut, because you are a bit of a mess on the inside, honey. Get your worries together and tuck them into bed with a story about a better tomorrow. Strike out firmly and fiercely when you wake up and feel more solid, but not a moment sooner.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Nobody wins when you play the blame game, Pisces — least of all yourself. You need to let go of worrying over what others think about you, and figure out what you think. Now is not the time to follow others’ leads just because you don’t know what’s right. Reflect on what’s brewing in your insides and make some much needed changes.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a psychic dreamer for 15 years. Check out her Web site at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com.

Atlanta beats the pants off SF — again

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Hot guys mostly not in their underwear at Atlanta’s 2009 Pride Parade

In general, San Franciscans deal with an existential crisis in one of two ways: binge drinking or making idle threats to move to New York. Usually, it’s a combination of both. Concerning the latter, we frequently cite the Big Apple’s better nightlife, for which we are prepared to sacrifice amazing food, outrageously mild weather, and overall happiness and sense of well-being.

Our behavior needs to stop. Listen, whatever problems you may have, New York isn’t going to solve them for you. I learned this lesson the hard way. Once upon a time, I turned threat into reality. I packed up all my things, threw myself a teary goodbye party, and got an apartment in Williamsburg. Several months later, I was happily back in San Francisco. It was embarrassing.

Here’s a piece of advice. Next time you hate your life, instead of threatening to move to New York City, why don’t you threaten to move to Atlanta?

 

I’m serious. Last year, a Trojan sex study revealed that Atlantans are “most sexually satisfied” out of 10 cities surveyed. San Francisco ranked dead last. 73% of Atlantans participating in the survey professed to have satisfying sex. That’s pretty good.

I know what you’re thinking. Back then, I was skeptical too. Now, I’m prepared to suspend some of my disbelief. The Advocate just published an article on the 15 gayest cities in America, based on the number, per capita, of gay couples, gay bars, cruising spots, and gay films on Netflix queues, among other criteria. The gayest city, of course, was revealed to be… Atlanta?

What is it with this place?

San Francisco wasn’t even on the list. Mike Albo writes, “This admittedly subjective search reveals spots that are much more pink than you might think. Determined by a completely unscientific but accurate statistical equation, these gayest cities may surprise you. Iowa City, Austin, and Asheville have more gays per capita than the biggies.” On Atlanta, he says, “Atlanta guys are hunky… And who doesn’t love the sweet lilt of a Georgia accent on a knockout guy or gal?”

Admittedly, the Southern accent is cute. Next time you are sexually or otherwise frustrated enough to utter that old “I’m moving to New York” platitude, why not replace “New York” with “Atlanta”? Atlanta has better weather, a lower cost of living, and good-looking people, and the stats show that, whether straight or gay, Atlantans are having a lot of great sex. Repeat after me: “I’m moving to Atlanta!”

Before I get labeled a disgraceful turncoat, I’ll admit I’m arguing Atlanta’s case on the basis of reverse psychology. Those temporarily dissatisfied with the Bay Area might finally have a cure for their existential malaise! Imagine waking up tomorrow to find yourself living in Atlanta. Let that thought marinate for a while. You live in Atlanta. Suddenly, things don’t seem so bad here, do they.

 

“Waiting for Guffman” forever!

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By Louis Peitzman

In honor of SF Sketchfest’s Jan. 31 screening of Waiting for Guffman (1996) with star Fred Willard in person, I tried to interview the entire cast of the film. I failed. I did, however, speak to four cast members — two of Corky’s actors and two Blaine councilpeople — who reflected fondly on their experience and humored my fanboy questions. Where are these characters now? And, of course, is Broadway finally ready for Red, White and Blaine?

Fred Willard (Ron Albertson, travel agent)

On getting involved with director Christopher Guest: “I was in Spinal Tap. I’d worked with Michael McKean and Harry Shearer before, and I knew Rob Reiner. I was doing a show called Fernwood 2 Night at the same time he was doing All in the Family. We would pass in the halls and say hello, how are you. I would say mostly it was because of Harry Shearer, who’s a fairly good friend and who I’ve worked with. So I got in Spinal Tap, and then I was in a movie that Eugene Levy wrote and directed in Toronto called Sodbusters, which is kind of a spoof of Shane. Then next I knew, I got to know Christopher Guest.”

On the improv process: “[Guest] calls you and discusses your character and kind of aims you in the right direction. But there’s nothing, no lines written down. So he films a lot and then cuts out what he doesn’t need, and puts in what moves the plot forward, as he puts it. Which always kind of frustrates me, because some of the funniest stuff that not only I do but that a lot of people do, doesn’t really move the plot forward, but it’s just stuff I’d enjoy seeing. But he likes his movies about 85, 86 minutes. And that way, I think, a lot of people I find tell me they watch them over and over, which you can’t do with a two-and-a-half hour movie.”

On creating Ron: “First, [Guest] kind of gave me everything. He said I was a high school athlete. It was his idea, the penis reduction joke. In fact, he wanted to have a scene where I was running, you know an old film clip of me running the hurdles, and each hurdle being knocked over. That never was filmed or put in the movie, which I’m kind of glad about. He pretty much told me that Catherine [O’Hara] and I were like the Lunt and Fontanne of this little town, that we’d been in every production and when we had to audition, it was just kind of a technicality. We considered ourselves the pros of all the amateurs. I can say we’re about the most annoying couple I’ve seen in film.”

On the Chinese restaurant scene: “[Guest] just said, all right, what we’re going to do is, you’re going to take Eugene Levy and his wife out, because this is their first show and you’re going to try to make them more comfortable, because they’re the newcomers. So my key there is, in making them more comfortable, we would make them as uncomfortable as possible. And I didn’t know that Catherine was going to be drinking and get kind of tipsy during this scene, which added a whole nother dimension. And Eugene is a perfect victim. … [Guest] said the Chinese restaurant scene, we’ll probably film for two hours and then cut it down. And my first thought is, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to think of to say for two hours?’ But the night we did it, it was filmed late at night. We’d finished another scene. We got to the restaurant and we started filming, and went on and on. And finally, he said, cut, that’s it. And I said, ‘Wait a minute, Chris. There’s more! We can still do more!’”

On what Corky sees in the talentless Ron and Sheila: “I would think what Corky sees is a kind of commitment that we have. We probably show up on time, we probably bring baked goods to the cast. We probably have a lot of input and show off a lot of interest. I was going to say we’re probably very good with our lines in the script, but we probably aren’t actually. We probably make up for it by discussing points in the script and pointing out how we could improve our parts.”

On whether or not Ron and Sheila have a happy marriage: “Oh, no. [laughs] You could see that there’s just so much tension, with Sheila’s drinking and Ron kind of domineering her.”

On where Ron and Sheila are now: “If they stayed in Hollywood, they’d probably be running a little acting studio out in North Hollywood where they teach acting, and spend most of the class discussing their near-Broadway adventures, and how they were probably just as glad they never went to Broadway because it would be like prostituting their talents.”

On whether or not Broadway is ready for Red, White and Blaine: “I think it might be wonderful, yes. We were doing some promotion for Chris’s last movie, For Your Consideration, and someone asked, ‘I hear rumors that they want to do Waiting for Guffman on Broadway.’ And Chris was kind of swatting away the idea. He’s not too enthralled with that. And I yelled over to him, ‘Chris, does this mean we’re going to Broadway?’”

On a possible sequel: “I wrote an idea for a Waiting for Guffman, part two, and got it to [Guest]. And he discussed it with me, and said, ‘Well, I have several other ideas.’ That was before we did the next movie. I thought that was going to be the only one, and I said, ‘Chris, come on, this is my opportunity. Let’s do another one.’”

Catherine O’Hara (Sheila Albertson, travel agent)

On getting involved with Christopher Guest: “I worked with [Guest] — it was for HBO years ago, with Fred Willard and him. And we had a great time together. And I hoped to work with him again, and then I got a call about Waiting for Guffman.”

On the improv process: “It’s thrilling and exhilarating and scary. Really scary on the first couple of days, especially the first day, when you first open your mouth. Because there’s no rehearsal and you know, you open your mouth on camera, with the camera rolling, and you hope to God that you made a good choice. You’re locked in from that point on.”

On the outlines: “[Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy’s] outlines are inspiring, because they’re filled with funny ideas about these people. Everything that’s on the page is very well chosen. I think Waiting for Guffman was just a few pages — they’ve gotten longer. Because in Guffman, we all kind of traveled around as a group, so it would say, ‘They have rehearsal.’ Whereas the other stories, we sort of split up into different couples and different groups, so there were more pages.”

On creating Sheila: “They gave us the idea that Ron and Sheila ran a travel agency but had never been anywhere. So right there, you start thinking, ‘Why would I have never been anywhere when I have a travel agency?’ And you can make whatever choices you want, and there’s no discussion. You don’t have to run anything by Chris. You just come out with it on camera, and he can use it or not. But it’s so freeing that way, because everyone’s imaginations can be limited by directors or writers when it’s fully scripted. … You are totally free to create your own world and present their ideas with whatever voice you choose. And you just start rolling.”

On Sheila’s talent, or the lack thereof: “I would like to claim that I show the least talent. I think the others were probably thinking ahead to their careers outside of this movie. [laughs] But I showed no potential in Sheila’s performance.”

On playing a bad actor-singer: “Oh, it’s fun. It’s fun to try to ride the fine line of bad acting and not be too bad. You just want to be sincerely bad. But the best is — I mean, the saddest of the best in life, is when people kid themselves. And we’re all doing it every day, I’m sure. But you know, when someone sincerely believes that they have a right to be performing or doing whatever they’re doing in life and they don’t have talent or what it takes to pull it off. But they love it, and you can’t take that away from them. They love it and they get so much out of it and they believe they’re born to do it. And God bless them.”

On whether or not Ron and Sheila have a happy marriage: “What did Fred say? [laughs] I don’t think they have a healthy marriage. I think their marriage might last, just because, who else is going to be with them? [laughs] I think it’s a sad, codependent kind of relationship. They’re so deeply into their own whatever the hell they’ve got going on, I’m not sure they’d have the wherewithal or nerve or whatever, to leave each other.”

On the Chinese restaurant scene: “I loved that we had that [Chinese restaurant] scene. … I think I maybe did run that by him right before we did that. I asked him if I could be drunk and he said yeah. It was great because, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that Sheila’s burying deep down, in my mind anyway. And some of that got to come out because she was not editing herself and not aware of being on camera.”

On where Ron and Sheila are now: “They probably are together, but then she’d still be drinking if they are. No, maybe she’s gone sober. Sober and he found a true love for her, taking care of her through her rehab. And there are a lot of people in this city and every city who are acting in maybe not big famous ways, but they’re acting and they’ve got their groups of friends who they work with, and I’m sure Ron and Sheila could survive. And Ron, he’s got such nerve, he’d get them in the door.”

On whether or not Broadway is ready for Red, White and Blaine: “Oh, sad. Sad to say. Well, you know, I’ve seen some sad stuff on Broadway. Maybe. Let’s be honest.”

Michael Hitchcock (Steve Stark, councilperson)

On getting involved with Christopher Guest: “I’m a member of the Groundlings theater in Los Angeles, which is a comedy/improv troupe. And one night I was doing an all-improv show over there, and I found out afterwards that [Christopher Guest] had been in the audience. And I was glad I didn’t know ahead of time, because I would have been really nervous. I found out he wanted to interview me regarding Waiting for Guffman. He doesn’t really do auditions, per se — he interviews people he’s interested in. He kind of scours various improv theaters and comedy places.”

On the improv process: “Chris’s movies are so different from anything else that you’d ever imagine, because it’s such a creative experience, I think, for everyone involved. You just don’t get that in a scripted thing, and there’s obviously nothing wrong with scripted material—there’s writers who are usually very good at what they do and have written great things. But on something like this, you get to create your character.”

On creating Steve Stark: “We sat down, for my part, I was a councilman and we talked a little bit about it ahead of time. And he asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I would like to be someone who really wanted to be in the show but didn’t make it. And I’m kind of secretly in love with you.’ And he said, ‘All right, let’s try that.’ I chose for myself the occupation of being a pharmacist, because growing up, I had a job in a pharmacy, so I knew a lot about that. I knew about the pharmacy life. In improv, you obviously want to have specific information, so I could draw on life experience for that.”

On what makes Christopher Guest movies unique: “You never rehearse. So there’s never like a trial run of improv information. The first time anyone talks is when the cameras roll, which I really, really like. I think a lot of people don’t do it that way. Chris is one of the few people who actually do it like that and I love it. You can’t really plan ahead. You have no idea what the next person is going to say. It just makes it so invigorating. Certainly scary but invigorating at the same time. The weird thing about watching any Christopher Guest movie if you’re in it, is thinking, ‘I don’t even remember saying that.’ It’s so weird to look at them and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I really said that?’ You kind of forget, because you obviously film it more than one time.”

On where Steve is now: “In one of the reshoots, Corky and Steve Stark end up together in New York. And that was filmed and not used. So I’ve always thought, well, maybe he did. But in my own mind, I think poor Steve is probably at the pharmacy, hoping against hope that Corky moves back to town.”

On the gay subtext: “I think in that kind of a situation, the small town kind of situation, he was married and had a wife and kids. He probably didn’t even know himself exactly what was happening.”

On the Christopher Guest family: “It’s truly like a family reunion getting together. And Chris, to his credit, in subsequent films you usually get paired up with somebody new, so there’s a new chemistry and a new kind of playing around, which I just love. And plus, what’s great, he usually hires the same crew, too, so the people behind the scenes are familiar faces, which makes a huge difference when you’re flying by the seat of your pants in an improv situation.”

On whether or not Broadway is ready for Red, White and Blaine: “I think if a chandelier fell down. If you could get a chandelier to fly down, then yes, certainly. I think Broadway would certainly be ready for Red, White and Blaine. Some of the other Broadway shows, you kind of wonder how they got up there. If you actually look at Red, White and Blaine, it’s pretty well produced. So that’s what I really liked about Chris’s approach. It’s not like people are stumbling over their lines or falling over each other. Corky was a taskmaster: those people knew their lines and knew their dances and the scenery came in at the right time. In real life, that scenery could never have fit on the stage. So I thought, good for Corky. He had it figured out.”

Deborah Theaker (Gwen Fabin-Blunt, councilperson)

On getting involved with Christopher Guest: “I had met Catherine and Eugene and all of the SCTV people at the Second City, because they’d been there over the years. I was the lead actress on a series that Eugene Levy created for George Lucas called Maniac Mansion … That was my first big job, and then, I performed out here—there was a Second City in Los Angeles back in 1990, and Chris Guest just coincidentally happened to come to one of the shows we did. And he left me a note. There was no real audition. There was never any audition. I think he just called the people he liked.”

On the improv process: “What Chris has created is a two-sided thing, because you never feel the same about a script. You rarely get a script that passes your desk or that you see that you go, ‘Oh my God, this is fantastic.’ Improvising your own material and creating your own character ruins you for the real world. It’s just so inventive and so much more fun to do a movie that way that any scripted material pales in comparison. It’s almost like he’s ruined us for real movies.”

On creating Gwen: “In the outline, I was a city councilwoman — pretty much all we knew. I decided from watching dailies with them, I better come up with something more, because it could be very easy to get cut. I decided to make myself the last surviving descendent of Blaine Fabin, so that was me. But when we were meeting, talking about the character, he said, ‘I see you as the sort of woman who wears open-toed sandals with pantyhose,’ and I went, ‘Oh, I got ya.’ I used my friend’s name — her last name was Blunt — because we could pick our own character names. And I know that Mike Hitchcock, Steve Stark, also used his friend’s name.”

On holding her own against the wackier characters: “I think you only manage to be funny in that situation if you don’t try to be, if you just kind of go so deep or invest so much in your own viewpoint or whatever viewpoint your character has. I’ve never gotten a laugh if I’ve tried to be funny, ever. I don’t know why that is, but it is, so I always find — and to me, the things that are the best material are weird nuances of people’s behavior or their strange idiosyncrasies.”

On the comedic contributions of hair and makeup: “Look at Catherine with her ‘Texas claw,’ what they called the ‘Texas claw,’ where her bangs are so high, because women in Texas would wear their hair that way. To me, that was hilarious. And then there was the inspired bit that our makeup artist Kate Shorter put in of all the performers having those red dots by their eyes when they do the stage show. That just cracked me up.”

On the reality TV connection: “It’s just about — I hate to say it — the audacity of hope, that they all think they could be Broadway stars. It’s the same kind of misguidedness that you see on American Idol with the contestants who are as flat as pancakes and couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but they’re just so convinced that this is their big moment. There’s something borderline tragic but borderline sweet about how hopeful everybody is about having a show business career without having any talent. Now you see, it’s been backed up by all these years of reality television. You see all these competitors who are so earnest and so sincere in their desire to do whatever they cannot possibly do because they just don’t have a shred of talent.”

On how difficult Gwen’s life really is as a Fabin: “I think it’s her delusional creation of a dynasty. In that little place, she’s a big fish in a little pond only by reminding everyone that she’s a Fabin. People don’t honestly care or remember, but to her, that’s all she’s got to go on, so she’s going to milk it for every ounce that she can.”

On where Gwen is now: “I think that she would now be the mayor and she’d be a despot. I think that she’d have been all sweet and congenial all the way through. And then finally, once she got a little bit of power, she’d go completely power-hungry, because she’s a Fabin after all.”

On whether or not Broadway is ready for Red, White and Blaine: “There were rumors that at some point they were trying to make this into a musical. … If they did do it as a musical, it would have to be done with a sense of irony, and I don’t know if they could pull that off. The film was presented as verite, as a documentary. The musical in and of itself wouldn’t work as a musical without the framework of the documentary, so I don’t know. Hard to say.”

SF Sketchfest presents Waiting for Guffman with Fred Willard in person

 

Sun/31, 2 p.m., $15
Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center
1118 Fourth St, San Rafael
www.sfsketchfest.org


 

 

Marijuana goes mainstream

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Marijuana goes mainstream

I’ve smoked marijuana on and off for most of my adult life, usually in the evening to help let go of the anxieties associated with being a progressive wage slave in an increasingly conservative capitalist country.

Buying my pot, which is California’s biggest cash crop, has always been a criminal transaction: in hushed tones or coded language, I arrange to meet a dealer I’ve been set up with through friends. And when I meet him (they’ve always been men), I give him cash in exchange for an eighth- or quarter-ounce of whatever kind of pot he’s selling.

I don’t know what variety I’m buying, who grew it, or how it was grown; whether violence or environmental degradation have occurred along the supply chain; or even whether it is an indica or sativa, the two most basic cannabis families that have differing effects on users.

I’ve been completely in the dark, both in terms of what I was buying and who was benefiting from the transaction, but that changed recently. I obtained a doctor’s recommendation to legally smoke weed — honestly citing anxiety as my affliction — and set out to explore the area’s best cannabis clubs.

It was a little strange and disorienting at first, this new world of expert purveyors of the finest Northern California marijuana and the various concentrates, edibles, drinkables, and other products it goes into. But what eventually struck me is just now normal and mainstream this industry has become, particularly in San Francisco, which has long led the movement to legalize marijuana.

Unlike in cities such as Los Angeles, where the rapid proliferation of unregulated pot clubs has made headlines and raised community concerns, San Francisco years ago made its clubs jump through various bureaucratic hoops to become fully licensed, permitted, and regulated, free to join the mainstream business community, pay their taxes, and compete with one another on the basis of quality, price, customer service, ambiance, and support for the community.

As Californians prepare to decide whether to decriminalize marijuana for even recreational use — on Jan. 28, advocates plan to turn in enough valid signatures to place that initiative on the fall ballot — it’s a good time to explore just what the world of legal weed looks like.

Pretty much everyone involved agrees that San Francisco’s system for distributing marijuana to those with a doctor’s recommendation for it is working well: the patients, growers, dispensary operators, doctors, politicians, police, and regulators with the planning and public health departments.

“It works and it should continue to be replicated,” Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who created the legislation four years ago that led to the current system, told us. “It’s now mainstream.”

Public health officials agree. “In general, we’re very happy about our relationship with the industry and their commitment to the regulations,” said Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s environmental health director. “We did this well and we did it cooperatively with the clubs.”

Bhatia said there are now 22 fully-permitted clubs (and two more under review) in San Francisco, less than half the number operating when the regulations were created. He also said the city no longer receives many complaints from neighbors of clubs.

Misha Breyburg, managing partner of the nonprofit Medithrive, which opened just a few months ago on Mission Street, supports the process too. “The regulations generally are not easy, but I think that’s okay,” he said. “The process was long and cumbersome and stressful, but very fair.”

Martin Olive, director of the Vapor Room, one of the city’s largest and best dispensaries, agrees that the permitting process professionalized the industry: “I’m proud to be here because the city government has been amazing.”

Richard Lee — founder of Oaksterdam University in Oakland, which teaches marijuana cultivation and is the main financial backer behind the initiative to legalize and tax pot — said San Francisco and Oakland have demonstrated that cannabis clubs can function like any other legitimate industry and become a real asset to their neighborhoods and the local economy.

“Once they started legalizing the clubs, they had no more problems,” Lee told us. “It really is boring and really not a big deal. It’s only the prohibition that makes it exciting and a little scary.”

In fact, Lee said that normalizing and legalizing the marijuana industry is the best way to deal with the problems associated with the illegal drug trade, such as violence, creation of a criminal class, respect for law enforcement, wasted public resources, lost tax opportunities, unsafe growing operations, and environmental damage.

“We need to end cannabis prohibition to end the violence,” Lee said.

Bringing marijuana above ground also has created an artisanship that’s similar to the wine industry, elevating cultivation practices to an art form, improving the science behind it, and making users more sophisticated about subtle differences in taste and effect among the dozens of varieties now on the market.

But the growers themselves still exist in a murky gray area. Although they can get some legal cover as registered caregivers to a cooperative’s members, they’re still exposed to thefts, shakedowns, logistical difficulties, and raids by federal agents or even local police, such as the series of raids in the Sunset District last fall that targeted even legitimate growers for the clubs.

“Right now, cultivators have no air cover at all and they’re getting mixed messages,” Mirkarimi said, calling for the city to better protect growers and even consider getting into the business of growing pot for the clubs and patients. “General Hospital should dispense medical cannabis.”

That issue and others related to the city’s relationship with the industry are currently the subject of a working group convened by Sup. David Campos, a byproduct of which is the proposal to create a Medical Cannabis Task Force to advise the Board of Supervisors, an item the board was scheduled to vote on Jan. 26.

Mirkarimi said he’s also concerned about current rules that ban smoking in clubs that are within 1,000 feet of schools or drug treatment facilities, which has served to prohibit smoking in all but a few San Francisco clubs. Oakland bans smoking in all its clubs. “That’s where the laws could be modified, because you don’t want to take away that social vibe,” Mirkarimi said. “San Francisco needs to be a leader in activating the next step.”

Olive, whose club allows smoking and has a great social scene, agrees that something is lost when the clubs are forced to be simply transactional.

“This is a social healing medicine, and we’re here to promote an inviting atmosphere where people can share their stories,” Olive said. “The whole point is not to just come in and get your medicine, but to be a part of a community.”

That community can range from young stoners to dying old patients, who can both benefit from their communion. “It’s the hippies and the yuppies. Everyone comes here,” Breyburg said. Or as Olive told me, “There is something intrinsically rewarding to sharing a joint with someone, as silly as that sounds.”

The voter-approved Proposition 215 and state law are deliberately vague on what ailments qualify for a doctor’s recommendation, spawning a sub-industry of physicians who specialize in pot, like the ones at the clinic I visited, Dr. Hanya Barth’s Compassionate Health Options in SoMa.

The busy clinic charges around $130 for an initial visit and patients walk away with a legal recommendation, which is all state law requires to legally use marijuana (the clinic recommended also buying a $100 state ID card or a $40 card from the Patient ID Center in Oakland, but I didn’t need them to enter any of the clubs I visited).

The long forms patients fill out even suggest anxiety as an affliction that pot can help, but the clinic also asks patients to sign a waiver to obtain detailed medical records supporting the recommendation. When Barth learned that I have a shoulder separation for which I underwent an MRI a few years ago, she requested those records and added “shoulder pain” to my “anxiety” affliction.

“My goal is not just to give people a recommendation. I look at how I can help or support the person beyond just giving them a recommendation,” Barth told me, illustrating her point by showing me two packs of cigarettes from patients whom she said she convinced to quit smoking.

Her vibe combines the healer and the old hippie, someone who sees a plethora of uses for marijuana and generally thinks society would be better off if everyone would just have a puff and chill out. The clubs also don’t draw distinctions based on their customers’ reasons for smoking.

“There is a distinct difference between medical use and recreational use,” Olive said, telling stories about amazing turnarounds he’s seen in patients with AIDS, cancer, and other debilitating diseases, contrasting that with people who just like to get high before watching a funny movie, which he said is also fine.

But Olive said there’s an important and often under-appreciated third category of marijuana use: therapeutic. “They use cannabis to cope, to unwind, to relax, to sleep better, or to think through problems in a different way,” Olive said.

This third category of user, which I officially fall into, seems to be the majority people I encountered in the local clubs. And while it may be easy for cannabis’ critics to dismiss such patients as taking advantage of laws and a system meant to help sick people, Olive says they play an important role.

“They make it easier for the cannabis clubs to give it away to the people who really need it,” Olive said, referring the practice by most clubs of giving away free weed to low-income or very sick patients, which is supported by the profits made on sales.

The Vapor Room is widely regarded as having one of the best compassionate giving programs, and Olive estimated that the operation gives away about a pound per week through local hospice programs and by giving away edibles and bags of cannabis vapor at the club.

Some of the profits are also used to offer free massage, yoga, chiropractic, and other classes to their members, a system being taken to new heights by Harborside Health Center in Oakland, which has fairly high prices but uses that revenue to offer an extensive list of free services and laboratory analysis of the pot it sells, identifying both contaminants (such as molds or pesticides) and the level of THC, the compound that gets you high.

Olive said there’s also a positive psychological impact of legitimizing the use of marijuana: “It no longer feels like you’re doing a bad thing that you have to be sneaky about.”

As I created my list of the clubs I planned to review, I found abundant online resources such as www.sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com and www.weedtracker.com. But an even better indicator of how mainstream this industry has become were the extensive listings and reviews on Yelp.com.

I combined that information with recommendations from a variety of sources I interviewed to develop my list, which is incomplete and entirely subjective, but nonetheless a good overview of the local industry and the differences among the clubs.

Also, like our restaurant reviewers, I didn’t identify myself as a journalist on my visits, preferring to see how the average customer is treated — and frankly, I was amazed at the high level of friendly, knowledgeable customer service at just about every club. To comply with city law, all the clubs are fully accessible by those with disabilities.

So, with that business out of the way, please join me on my tour of local cannabis clubs, in the (random) order that I visited them:

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DIVINITY TREE

While the reviews on Yelp rave about Divinity Tree (958 Geary St.), giving it five stars, I found it a little intimidating and transactional (although it was the first club I visited, so that might be a factor). But if you’re looking to just do your business in a no-frills environment and get out, this could be your place.

The staff and most of the clientele were young men, some a bit thuggish. One worker wore a “Stop Snitching” T-shirt and another had “Free the SF8.” But they behaved professionally and were knowledgeable and easy to talk to. When I asked for a strain that would ease my anxiety but still allow me enough focus to write, my guy (patients wait along a bench until called to the counter) seemed to thoughtfully ponder the question for a moment, then said I wanted a “sativa-dominant hybrid” and recommended Neville’s Haze.

I bought 1/16 for $25 and when I asked for a receipt, it seemed as though they don’t get that question very often. But without missing a beat he said, “Sure, I’ll give you a receipt,” and gave me a hand-written one for “Meds.”

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: three years

Price: Fairly low

Selection: Moderate

Ambiance: A transactional hole in the wall

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Easy. Membership available but not required

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GRASS ROOTS

Located at 1077 Post St. right next to Fire Station #3, Grass Roots has the feel of a busy saloon. Indeed, as a worker named Justin told me, many of the employees are former bartenders who know and value customer service. With music, great lighting, and nice décor, this place feels comfortable and totally legit. Whereas most clubs are cash-only, Grass Roots allows credit card transactions and has an ATM on site.

The steady stream of customers are asked to wait along the back wall, perusing the menus (one for buds and another with pictures for a huge selection of edibles) until called to the bar. When asked, my guy gave me a knowledgeable breakdown of the difference between sativa and indica, but then Justin came over to relieve him for a lunch break with the BBQ they had ordered in and ate in the back.

Justin answered my writing-while-high inquiry by recommending Blue Dream ($17 for a 1.2-gram), and when I asked about edibles, he said he really likes the indica instant hot chocolate ($6), advising me to use milk rather than water because it bonds better with the cannabinoids to improve the high. Then he gave me a free pot brownie because I was a new customer. I was tempted to tip him, but we just said a warm goodbye instead.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: A warm and welcoming weed bar

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

————–

HOPENET

Hopenet (223 Ninth St.) is one of the few places in the city where you can smoke on site, in a comfortable, homey style, as if you’re visiting a friend’s apartment. In addition to the loveseat, two chairs, and large bong, there is a small patio area for smoking cigarettes or playing a guitar, as someone was doing during my visit.

Although the small staff is definitely knowledgeable, they all seemed stoned. And when I asked about the right weed for my writing problem, a gruff older woman impatiently dismissed any indica vs. sativa distinctions and walked away. But I learned a lot about how they made the wide variety of concentrates from the young, slow-talking guy who remained.

He weighed out a heavy gram of White Grapes for $15, the same price for Blue Dream, and $2 cheaper than I had just paid at Grass Roots. That was in the back room, the big middle area was for hanging out, and the front area was check-in and retail, with a case for pipes and wide variety of stoner T-shirts on the walls.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: seven years

Price: Low

Selection: Moderate

Ambiance: Like a converted home with retail up front

Smoke On Site: Yes!

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

————

VAPOR ROOM

Vapor Room (607A Haight, www.vaporroom.com) is San Francisco’s best pot club, at least in terms of feeling like an actual club and having strong connections to its community of patients. It’s a large room where customers can smoke on site, giving this collective a warm, communal vibe that facilitates social interaction and fosters a real sense of inclusiveness.

Each of the four large tables has a high-end Volcano vaporizer on it, there’s a big-screen TV, elegant décor, and large aquarium. There’s a nice mix of young heads and older patients, the latter seeming to know each other well. But, lest members feel a little too at home, a sign on the wall indicates a two-hour time limit for hanging out.

Its early days in the spot next door were a bit grungier, but the new place is bright and elegant. It has a low-key façade and professional feel, and it strongly caters to patients’ needs. Low-income patients are regularly offered free medicine, such as bags full of vapor prepared by staff. Mirkarimi said the Vapor Room is very involved in the Lower Haight community and called it a “model club.”

But they’re still all about the weed, and they have a huge selection that you can easily examine (with a handy magnifying glass) and smell, knowledgeable staff, lots of edibles and concentrates, a tea bar (medicated and regular), and fairly low standardized pot prices: $15 per gram, $25 per 1/16th, $50 per eighth. And once you got your stuff, grab a bong off the shelf and settle into a table — but don’t forget to give them your card at the front desk to check out a bowl for your bong. As the guy told me, “It’s like a library.”

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: six years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Warm, communal hangout

Smoke On Site: Yes!

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy, but membership required

————-

MEDITHRIVE

The newest cannabis club in town, MediThrive (1933 Mission, www.medithrive.com) has a bright, fresh, artsy feel to it, with elegantly frosted windows and a welcoming reception area as you enter. This nonprofit coop takes your photo and requires free membership, and already had almost 3,000 members when I signed up a couple weeks ago. Tiana, the good-looking young receptionist, said the club recently won a reader’s choice Cannabis Cup award and noted that all the art on the walls was a rotating collection by local patients: “We’re all about supporting local art.”

The decorators seemed to have fun with the cannabis concept, with a frosted window with a pot leaf photo separating the reception area from the main room, while the walls alternated wood planks with bright green fake moss that looked like the whole place was bursting with marijuana. There’s a flat-screen TV on the wall, at low volume.

The large staff is very friendly and seemed fairly knowledgeable, and the huge selection of pot strains were arranged on a spectrum with the heaviest indica varieties on the left to the pure sativas on the right. Lots of edibles and drinkables, too. The cheapest bud was a cool steel tin with a gram of Mission Kush for $14 (new members get a free sample), while the high rollers could buy some super-concentrated OG Kush Gold Dust ($50) or Ear Wax ($45) to sprinkle over their bowls.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: three months

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Professional, like an artsy doctor’s office

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Very low

Access/Security: Easy, but membership required

————

KETAMA COLLECTIVE

At 14 Valencia St., Ketama is a testament to how silly it is that clubs within 1,000 feet of schools aren’t permitted to allow smoking on site. This former café has a large, comfortable seating area and full kitchen, both of which have had little use since a school opened way down the street last year, causing city officials to ban smoking at Ketama.

Pity, because it seems like a great place to just hang out. Yet now it just seemed underutilized and slow. The staff is small (one door guy and a woman hired last summer doing sales), and we were the only customers during the 20 minutes I was there (except for the weird old guy drinking beer from a can in a bag who kept popping in and out).

But it still had jars of good green bud, several flavors of weed-laced drinks and edibles, and a pretty good selection of hash and kief at different prices, and the woman spoke knowledgeably about the different processes by which they were created. To counteract the slow business, Ketama has a neon sign out front that explicitly announces its business — another indication the industry has gone legit.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Low

Selection: Limited

Ambiance: Dirty hippie hangout, but with nobody there

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy, but free membership required

————

MR. NICE GUY

Belying its name, Mr. Nice Guy (174 Valencia St.) thrilled and scared me, but not necessarily in a bad way. Located across the street from Zeitgeist, the thug factor here was high and so was the security, allowing no human interaction that wasn’t mediated by thick Plexiglass, presumably bulletproof.

After initially being told by a disembodied voice to come back in five minutes, I submitted my doctor’s recommendation and ID into the slot of a teller’s window, darkened to hide whoever I was dealing with. Quickly approved, I was buzzed into a small, strange room with three doors.

I paused, confused, until the disembodied voice again told me, “Keep going,” and I was buzzed through another door into a hallway that led to a large room, its walls completely covered in brilliant murals, expertly painted in hip-hop style. Along the front walls, a lighted menu broke down the prices of about 20 cannabis varieties.

Then finally, I saw people: two impossibly hot, young female employees, lounging nonchalantly in their weed box, like strippers waiting to start their routines. The only other customer, a young B-boy, chatted them up though the glass, seemingly more interested in these striking women than their products.

I finally decided to go with the special, an ounce of Fever, normally $17, for just $10. I opened a small door in the glass, set down my cash, and watched the tall, milk chocolate-skinned beauty trade my money for Fever, leaving me feeling flushed. It was the best dime-bag I ever bought.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: ???

Price: Moderate, with cheap specials

Selection: High

Ambiance: Hip hop strip club

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: High

Access/Security: High security but low scrutiny

————-

BERNAL HEIGHTS COLLECTIVE

Bernal Collective (33 29th St. at Mission) seemed both more casual and more strict than any of the other clubs in town — and it also turned out to be one of my favorites.

After refusing to buy pot for a guy out front who had just been turned away, I entered the club and faced more scrutiny than I had at any other club. It was the only club to ask for my doctor’s license number and my referral number, and when I tried to check an incoming text message, I was told cell phone use wasn’t allowed for “security reasons.” On the wall, they had a blown-up copy of their 2007 legal notice announcing their opening.

But beyond this by-the-book façade, this club proved warm and welcoming, like a comfortable clubhouse. People can smoke on site, and there’s even a daily happy hour from 4:20–5:20 p.m., with $1 off joints and edibles, both in abundant supply. Normal-sized prerolled joints are $5, but they also offer a massive bomber joint with a full eighth of weed for $50.

The staff of a half-dozen young men were knowledgeable about the 20 varieties they had on hand and offered excellent customer service, even washing down the bong with an alcohol-wipe before letting a customer take a rip from the XXX, a strong, sticky bud that was just $15 for a gram.

Buds weighed at purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Fairly low

Selection: High

Ambiance: A clubhouse for young stoners

Smoke On Site: Yes

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Fairly tight

————-

LOVE SHACK

This longtime club (502 14th St.) has had its ups and downs, the downs coming mostly because of its location on a fairly residential block. After taking complaints from neighbors, the city required Love Shack to cap its membership, although that seems to be changing because the club let me in, albeit with a warning that next time I would need to have a state ID card. It was the only club I visited to have such a requirement.

Once inside this tiny club, I could see why people might have been backed up onto the street at times. But the staff was friendly and seemed to have a great rapport with the regulars, who seemed be everyone except me. The knowledgeable manager walked me through their 20-plus varieties, most costing the standard street price of $50 per eighth, or more for stronger stuff like Romulan.

On the more affordable end of the spectrum was the $10 special for Jack Herrer Hash, named for the longtime legalization advocate who wrote The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a classic book on the history of the movement.

Buds weighed at purchase

Open for: eight years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Small, like a converted apartment

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Tight

————-

COFFEE SHOP BLUE SKY

Blue Sky (377 17th St., Oakland)is based on the Amsterdam model of combining marijuana dispensaries with coffee shops, although it suffers a bit from Oakland’s ban on smoking. Still, it’s a cool concept and one that Richard Lee sees as the future of marijuana-related businesses because of the synergy between smoking and grabbing a bite or some coffee.

Most of Blue Sky is a small coffee shop and smoothie bar, but there’s a little room in back for buying weed. “We’ve got the best prices around,” said the guy who checked my ID, and indeed, $44 eighths and $10 “puppy bags” were pretty cheap. Customers can also sign up to do volunteer political advocacy work for free weed.

The only downside is the limited selection, only four varieties when I was there, although the woman at the counter said the varieties rotate over the course of the day based on the club’s purchases from growers.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: 14 years

Price: Low

Selection: Very limited

Ambiance: A fragrant little room behind a coffee shop

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

————–

HARBORSIDE HEALTH CENTER

I have seen the future of legitimized medical marijuana businesses, and it’s Harborside (1840 Embarcadero, Oakland). With its motto of “Out of the shadows, into the light,” this place is like the Costco of pot — a huge, airy facility with a dizzying number of selections and even a “rewards card” program.

All new members are given a tour, starting with sign-up sheets for daily free services that include yoga, chiropractic, acupuncture, reiki, consultations with herbalists, and classes on growing. Then we moved to a section with the clones of dozens of pot plant varieties available for purchase (limit of 72 plants per visit), along with a potted marijuana plant the size of a tree.

Harborside is also blazing the trail on laboratory services, testing all of its pot for contaminants and THC content, labeling it on the packaging just like the alcohol industry does. Some of the smaller clubs don’t like how over-the-top Harborside is, and they complain that its prices are high. But those profits seem to be poured back into the services at this unique facility.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: three years

Price: High

Selection: Huge

Ambiance: A big, open shopping emporium

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Tight

————-

SANCTUARY

The people who run Sanctuary (669 O’Farrell St.), the first club to fully comply with the new city regulations and get its permanent license, have been active in the political push for normalizing medical marijuana, as a wall full of awards and letters from politicians attests. Owner Michael Welch was commended for his work by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, where Sanctuary employee Tim Durning has been an active longtime member and former elected officer.

Sanctuary has a generous compassionate giving program and caters to lots of poor residents of the Tenderloin neighborhood. While the club is prohibited from allowing smoking, they fudge the restriction with a Volcano vaporizer. “A lot of patients are on fixed income and live in the SROs, where they can’t smoke, so we let them vaporize here whether they buy from us or not,” Durning told us.

Those who do buy from them find a huge selection — including 20 different kinds of hash and 17 varieties of buds — at a wide price range. Staffers know their products well and take their business seriously, giving a regular spiel to new members about responsible use, which includes maintaining neighborhood relations by not smoking near the business.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Low to moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Campaign headquarters for the marijuana movement

Smoke On Site: No, but vaporizing OK

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

————–

GREEN DOOR

If low prices or a huge selection of edibles are what you seek, Green Door (843 Howard St., www.greendoorsf.com) could be the club for you.

Eighths of good green buds start at a ridiculously low $25 and go up to just $50 (the cheapest price for eighths at many clubs and also the standard black market price). If that’s not low enough, super-broke users can buy a quarter-ounce bag of high-grade shake for $40.

If you didn’t already have the munchies going in, you’ll get them perusing the huge menu of edibles: from weed-laced knockoffs of Snickers bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for just $5 to cupcakes, ice cream, or Chex party mix. They have lots of hash and other concentrates as well.

Somehow, the club also manages to have a strong compassionate giving program and contibutes to local civic organizations that include the Black Rock Arts Foundation, Maitri AIDS Hospice, and Friends of the Urban Forest.

The club itself is a little sterile and transactional, with an institutional feel and employees stuck behind teller windows. But even though that and the steady flow of tough-looking young male customers raise its thug factor a bit, the employees all seemed friendly and helpful, giving free edibles to first-time customers.

Prepackage buds

Open for: 8 years (4 here, 4 in Oakland)

Price: Cheap

Selection: High for edibles, moderate for weed

Ambiance: Like a community bank of cheap weed

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Easy access, high security

————–

RE-LEAF HERBAL CENTER

While I had heard good things about Re-Leaf (1284 Mission St.), my first impression was that it’s a little sketchy. As the door guy was checking my recommendation card and ID, I asked whether they allow smoking on site. He looked as if this was a difficult question, paused, and finally told me to ask the people behind the counter.

The small club was blaring gangsta rap when I entered, after a while lowering the volume to compete less with the blaring television set to an ultimate fighting match. It had two small fridges filled with tasty-looking edibles and lots of vaporizers and other merchandise for sale, but only eight varieties of marijuana.

But the service was good, and after knocking $5 off my gram of Jim Jones (a variety I only found here) because I was a first-time customer, he told me it was OK to smoke on site. I sat down on the couch, but there were no bongs, vaporizers, pipes, or even ashtrays to use.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: two years (three years at previous SF location)

Price: Fairly low

Selection: Limited

Ambiance: A loud head shop that also has some weed

Smoke On Site: Yes and no

Thug factor: Moderate to high

Access/Security: Easy

Do make drone

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Do make drone

MUSIC “One, 1,000 … two, 1,000 … three, 1,000 …” I’m counting down the seconds, by phone, between rare Bay Area lightning flash and thunderbolt with dAS, experimental composer and core member of Big City Orchestra. He’s at the 30-year-old noise-collage collective’s studio in Alameda, preparing for the BCO radio show, ubRadio, streamed live every Wednesday afternoon through a Web site in Amsterdam. “Maybe I’ll just put a box of microphones out in the storm today,” dAS says with a chuckle, to catch the air’s anticipatory crackle

Big City Orchestra, an “art/anti-art organism,” is a stunningly prolific entity boasting dozens of members and 130 hour-long releases on more than 100 labels. Its output ranges in diversity from collections of microtones coaxed from coffee beans and popcorn kernels to full-orchestral whirling dervish drones and bursts of nervy circuit-bending. Entrancing sculpted-static epics slither into its catalog next to winking pop cut-ups like now-legendary album Beatlerape (Staalplaat, 1993), which shoves the Fab Four into a blender with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy and pushes “pulverize.”

It’s a deliberately omnivorous — and very Californian — aesthetic, sonically spanning the impish instrumental inventions of East Bay composer Harry Partch and the arcane postmodernisms of entropy-obsessed Hollywood sound conceptualist GX Jupitter-Larsen. (Jupitter-Larsen’s wonderful quote “Imagine flogging a dead horse your whole life” seems to follow Big City Orchestra around the Internet.) The Orchestra came of age during the fertile underground mail art and cassette culture period of music history, where punk aspiration met industrial machination and hallucinogenic exultation. (BCO toured with Legendary Pink Dots in the early 1990s, and some of its more bitingly humorous compositions summon Butthole Surfers and Negativland.)

And did I mention funny hats? They’re often in abundance at BCO performances, as are giant puppets, swirling backdrops, and arty projections. For the orchestra’s 30th anniversary show, Sun/31 at Café Du Nord, all these elements will be in abundance, including a “reenactment” of Beatlerape. “We’re going to squeeze 30 years of music into three hours with more than 20 guest perfomers and the whole works. Everything from building artforms to chainsawing trees,” dAS promises.

The Orchestra began life in Southern California (“Oh, somewhere around Torrance, Hawthorne, Redondo — those kinds of places,” says dAS) in 1979 as the “in-house music supplier” for a network of houses full of students who “weren’t necessarily into prerecorded music.” dAS himself studied at UCLA, and “probably benefited from or was cursed by having a father who was a rocket scientist and a mother who later became a psychiatrist.” Nomadic in nature — dAS and his wife and musical collaborator Ninah Pixie often tour Europe via camper and couch — BCO “somehow found its way to the Bay Area,” where has made a home in its Ubuibi studios (www.ubuibi.com).

But dAS seems averse to discussing the past, or experimental music lineage and theory in general. As befits the restless nature of Big City Orchestra — or Big Seit Ohr_Kastra, or Pig Kitty Porkestra, or an infinity of other names the group has taken — the musical moment is always now, and the sound of now is the one most suitable to the situation at hand. “Look, we’re all monkeys with thumbs, ” dAS says, “and if I don’t keep my thumbs busy, it’s trouble. Yes, I’ve listened to ‘serious’ experimental composers — I know about that stuff — but I also love pop stuff. Seeing Devo at one of their first performances changed my life, and I think XTC is the best band to have ever existed.”

“The Big City Orchestra approach is always project-by-project,” dAS continues. “We take each case on its own merits, improvising on whatever materials are appropriate. It’s more a matter of pulling a zany, hare-brained scheme out of one of our heads — we’re currently doing a pirate record for kids. It’s just circumstantial. Hopefully that derails a lot of theoretical questions.”

OK, then, what are some of the circumstances? “I just got my hands on three harmoniums. Man, you can do a lot of damage with three harmoniums. Or sometimes we like to just confound expectations. At a recent NorCal Noise Festival, after three days of acts blowing out eardrums, we took everyone outside, sat them in a circle, gave them all teacups, and put the kettle on. Our contribution was the sound of water coming to a boil, and then serving tea.”

Or how about this? “We do a TV show in the East Bay where we basically treat the TV as a light source, just playing around with different-colored lights. There’s 2.4 million potential viewers, so you figure there must be at least 1,000 stoners who happen upon it and hopefully love it. Maybe it even means something to someone — who knows?

“Frivolity is important,” dAS concludes. “Sometimes it’s good to have art that just fills a hole in the wall. Or sometimes it’s not.”

BIG CITY ORCHESTRA 30TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW

Sun/31

8 p.m., $10

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF.

www.cafedunord.com

alt.sex.column: The old triangle

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By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.

AltSex_Icon.jpg

 

Dear Andrea:

I seem to find myself being one-third of a long-term, stable threesome. Or is there no such thing?

I was dating “Jill,” who is bi but was only dating me. We decided to try a threesome just for fun and invited her friend “Jen.” It turned out not to be one-time thing. Jen came back, and came back again, and she and Jill started to fall in love, and so did we (Jen and me), and before you knew it, we had this thing that looks weird from the outside but feels very normal and even simple to us. Only a few close friends know, and we are worried about what parents and others would say if they knew. Jill and I were planning on getting married and having a kid, and we still want to, but now Jen would be part of our family too. And we’d like to get a house together, but wouldn’t people know then?

I know “one guy, two girls” sounds like a porno fantasy, but it isn’t like that really. We all have jobs and lives, and it’s not like we hang around the pool having crazy three-way sex all the time. But we do want to stay together. What do you think? Is such a thing possible?

Love,

Equilateral

Dear Equ:

Clearly so, since you are doing it. As for the future, who can tell?

 

An equilateral triangle is about as stable a shape as you can find, but even triangles suffer stresses. You are still in the two-honeysmoon phase and everyone is, I am sure, on his or her best behavior. This is certain not to last. Sooner or later someone will feel neglected or insufficiently supported and will not repress the urge to make that snappish comment, and somebody else will come back with a “Yeah? If you’re so ____ing _____ why don’t you ______instead of ______ing?” and somebody else will roll his or her eyes and somebody will yell at the eye-roller for eye-rolling. It is inevitable. And soothing three egos and salving three sets of hurt feelings is exponentially more complicated.

I would also not discount the lack of societal support for nontraditional unions as a source of yet more stress. I hesitate to draw a direct parallel to gay couples, but not having people beam at you when you announce your intentions and not having all the aunts tear up at the sight of the lovely bride (groom) and not having the chair dance and the “mazel tov and siman tov” can be a real loss. It isn’t all about the health insurance and the tax breaks or even about commitment — marriage is also about societal support and approval, and that support and approval does help solidify a union. As I said, not exactly the same thing, though. Your situation is worse.

What? No. I don’t disapprove. But other people will, so strenuously that you will feel obligated to keep it a secret. And while secrets can be sexy and sharing them can be bonding, living in hiding (or in a situation generally misunderstood or despised) is ultimately pretty destructive. Which is certainly no reason not to do it.

The complications of a multiple marriage (equivalent) go far beyond potential threats to peace on the home front like jealousy, possessiveness, and schedule difficulties. (Have you never watched Big Love? Even if you’re not planning on founding your own splinter sect, you might want to.) Spouses are family, but what are second spouses? What happens if Jen has a family emergency, is ill herself, or otherwise in need of immediate succor? Your boss understands “My wife’s mother died, I’ll be out this week.” She doesn’t give a damn about your wife’s girlfriend’s mother. What if Jen wants to have a baby too? The three of you may fall easily into a family pattern that works for you, with one mommy and one mama, or whatever — children never seem to find unusual arrangements the least bit troublesome, since they have no idea what “usual” is and what’s normal is what’s normal for them. Schools and soccer coaches and other authorities, however, will have Opinions.

In other, fewer words, sure, you can do this. Jill can do it. Jen can do it. But living a life that sounds like somebody else’s dirty joke is not going to be easy. If I’m sick of hearing “You’ve really got your hands full!” when I walk by with my twins — imagine how tired of it you’re going to get. You might want to get in practice now: “How do you figure out which one to do first?” sniggers the office wit when you let slip that you’re finding your home life complicated, “I wish I had your problems.”

“Dude,” you’ll sigh, as you attempt to side-step him to get to the copier, “You have noidea.” And he won’t.

Love,

Andrea

 

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