SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Hanne, Haight and Ashbury
Tell us about your look: “This is all Urban and shoes by Vagabond.”
sfbg
Dive In: I’m sensing a theme
Bar reviewer Kristen Haney seeks to separate hipster wannabes from real-life dives in this weekly column. Check out her last installment here.
Hold the fancy schmancy mixers. At Butter, strawberry soda is better.
Themed establishments frequently leave a bad taste in my mouth. Images of Disneyland and their exorbitant prices, or that one time I had a drunk waitress at Rainforest Café who checked my I.D. by listening to it, do little to dispel my notion that themed equals over-hyped-waste-of-time. However, introduce alcohol, reduce prices, grime it up a bit, and you’ve got me singing a different tune. There are a few places that keep it kitsch without coming across as hokey, and where you don’t have to pay extra for novelty décor and drinks. And that’s a theme I can jump aboard.
Butter:
Finally, a place where you can celebrate trailer park chic and the white trash within. Quality mixers for cocktails include Tang, Sunny D, and grape and strawberry sodas. If you’re more of a purist, you can sip the ubiquitous award-winning Pabst on draft, or opt for a tall boy, complete with paper bag. The food includes a number of microwaved specialties, like tater tots and Frito pie, or you can go really gourmet and get a deep fried PB & J or Twinkie. Go before 10 p.m. any Thursday through Sunday for happy hour prices and to avoid a cover charge.
354 11th St, SF
(415) 863-5964
http://www.smoothasbutter.com/
Watch hipsters at Double Dutch try to figure out how kids in the ’80s attached their iPods to boom boxes like these.
Double Dutch
Vintage ghetto blasters, ‘80s kicks, and street art adorn the interior of this bar and dance spot. Designed to bring to mind the New York street scene of the same decade that brought us hair metal and acid wash jeans, Double Dutch is a fun take on the traditional nightclub. The dance floor gets packed and sweaty with patrons dancing along to hip hop tracks from a decade they were just old enough to experience the end of, imitating the same break dance moves featured in the pictures of the people plastered to the wall. If you’re nostalgic for house parties where your friend DJing knew how to cut it better than the jokes spinning in the clubs, Double Dutch is more than happy to give you a pleasant case of déjà vu.
3192 16th St, SF
(415) 346-5699
http://www.thedoubledutch.com
High fructose corn syrup ragin’
Text and photo by Caitlin Donohue
Now, I understand that Thanksgiving is upon us with all it’s attendant gluttony. But these lovely billboards have been up all over town since OCTOBER.
50 ounces? If that’s not enough for your meal, we’ve got problems. And even giving Coca-Cola the benefit of the doubt that this is a holiday advertisement (which I strongly resist believing), I’m not sure I buy it that, even on a day of government-sanctioned weight gain, any coke fiend family needs to be encouraged into drinking 50 OUNCES of a liquid that dissolves pennies.
They need to save space for sparkling apple cider. And beer.
Thanks for listening.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Takashi, Haight and Central
Tell us about your look: “This hat is from Japan.”
Sniping into the holidays with the SF Golden Girls
By Caitlin Donohue
Deck your halls with the SF Golden Girls’ very special Xmas performance
“The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.”
“You know what they say, you can lead a herring to water but you’ll have to walk really fast or he’ll die.”
“You’ll have to excuse my mother. She had a stroke a few years ago which rendered her totally annoying.”
Blanche: “My goodness, what would the neighbors think if they saw two men laying in my bed?”
Sophia: “They’d think its Tuesday!”
(Thanks, IMDb for the sassy granny quotes!) You know who people friggin’ love? The Golden Girls. I sort of just got turned on to the show, but the four ladies’ caustic back and forths make me feel like I’m enveloped in a big flowered dress wrinkly bosomed tough love hug. It’s a warm feeling.
And its just what I need to get over my antipathic, do-I-like-them-or-I-uncomfortable feelings regarding the holidays. Especially when some of San Francisco’s fine drag queens, SF’s Golden Girls themselves, will be coming together in a show of love to bring us two back to back, line for line very special Christmas episodes of TV’s Golden Girls. I hear in one of them the girls volunteer at a soup kitchen! Outrageous!
The San Francisco Golden Girls’ “The Christmas Episodes”
starts Thur/5 7 p.m. & 9 p.m. (also every Thurs, Fri & Sat through Sat/26), $20-$25
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
1519 Mission, SF
www.trannyshack.com
www.cookievision.com
Lea Redmond: A girl and her tiny post office
By Caitlin Donohue
Artist Lea Redmond gets all kinds of adorable with her “World’s Smallest Postal Service”
Lea Redmond does not suffer for a lack of ideas. The lady has a degree in making common place objects make us feel new sensations- literally. Her thesis from her days at my favorite crunchy Northwestern school, Whitman College, was inspired by the story of a man who saw his Indonesian hostess placing small leaf-boats of rice around her huts “for the spirits.” The rice always disappeared, so one day the man sat to watch what was becoming of it. He found out a trail of ants taking away the grains, and initially was disappointed- until the “strange juxtaposition” struck him. Maybe the ants were the spirits, after all! Redmond’s art is all about causing us to reconsider the schemas we carry of everyday objects. Her brainchildren range from creative courtship advising to redoing clothing tags so that they say socially equitable messages. Currently, she’s finding major buzz with her World’s Smallest Postal Service, which has her schlepping a tiny desk all over the country to transcribe stranger’s messages onto the most twee notecards you’ve ever done seen. Lea’s based in the Bay Area, so check her site for the next day she’s going postal near you. (Caitlin Donohue)
San Francisco Bay Guardian:Where to start… so, where are you from?
Lea Redmond: The literal answer is that I grew up on the Southern California coast right between the conservatism of Orange County and the wildness of the Pacific Ocean. My family did things, like we’d all play hooky once a year when I was in elementary school and we’d go to the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum. I remember standing in front of oil paintings completely mesmerized and boggled about how tiny dabs of paint could magically turn into pictures. I still don’t understand. One Christmas I got crayons in my stocking in the shape of miniature Coca Cola bottles. My grandmother taught me to knit when I was 8. She also loved to collect small things. I suppose these are my roots.
The view from Alameda
Photo by Sarah Phelan
Last night, they turned on the lights on the buildings along the Embarcadero. This is the view from Alameda Naval Station. The wind was whipping off the Bay. San Francisco looked icy cool.
Following the UC riots
By Rachel Sadon
Students inside Wheeler Hall have started a Twitter account to track moment-to-moment changes.
The Daily Cal site has been crashing as a result of heavy traffic, but they are still updating here.
You can also check out some intense home footage here and here or full coverage on Cal TV.
Eve Batey at SF Appeal has also put together a “Guide to Tracking Today’s UC Berkeley Civil Disobedience”.
UC students are revolting. Literally.
Faced with the 32 percent tuition hike that University of California regents approved yesterday, students have been occupying buildings on campuses in Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz and Davis. And, in a sign of escalating tension, we just got word of tear gas, and police hitting students with batons at UC Berkeley.
UC officials say the tuition increases, which would raise an estimated $505 million, are needed to prevent more cuts being made as a result of the state’s ongoing financial crisis.
Critics say increased tuition costs hurt low-income and middle-class students, but the regents say $175 million (of the $505 million) will go for student financial aid.
In Berkeley, students have reportedly occupied Wheeler Hall’s second floor, and campus police have arrested at least three students, after breaking through a makeshift barricade constructed of office equipment and furniture.
Regents say the first hike, in January, raises undergrad tuition $585 a semester. The second, scheduled for next fall, raises tuition an additional $1,344.
Pinkie’s and Bento 415: Casual food gets a new twist
By Megan Gordon
I already have my favorite neighborhood spots for coffee and the occasional sandwich. Done. Once I find something good, I rarely stray — kind of like driving routes or apartments. Since I’ve been working in Potrero Hill a few days a week, my spots are Farley’s for a darn strong latte and Hazel’s for great breakfast burritos and huge turkey sandwiches.
But driving in this morning, I spotted something new on the horizon: Pinkie’s Bakery.
Pinkie’s isn’t new to San Francisco. Owner Cheryl Burr’s been baking in her wholesale space for years now, supplying delicious bread to local restaurants, and decadent baked goods to farmer’s markets. But what is new is Pinkie’s as a retail space. Burr opened the doors yesterday, November 19, along with close friend Chris Beerman from Bento 415.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Natalie, Powell and Ellis
Tell us about your look: “I like baggy clothes. It’s all about comfort.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance observed
By Marke B.
Horrible murders of LGBT people have been out of control lately — but the number of reported murders of transgender people has doubled over the past year. If you can stomach the statistics and seeing some of the faces (and it really does bring the point home, even without the dramatic music), then here:
While not all of the above people may have been killed because they were transgender, they were all killed and its a tragedy — as well a reason that an inclusive ENDA bill and a stronger push for global transgender rights is so important. Today on Transgender Day of Remembrance, the community gets together to mark the violent passing of its members. Here’s the plan:
San Francisco, California
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
7:00 – 9:00 PM
CIIS California Institute for Integral Studies
1453 MISSION ST
3rd Floor – Namaste Hall
—–
San Francisco, California
Friday, November 20, 2009
6:00 – 8:00 PM
API Wellness Center
730 Polk Street (corner of Ellis)
For more info: Leeza Edwards, Co-chair of SF TEAM
415. 724.1680 or lavendergoddess@mac.com
—–
San Francisco, California
Transgender Day of Remembrance Shabbat
Friday, November 20, 2009
7:30 PM
Congregation Sha’ar Zahav
290 Dolores Street (corner of 16th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94103
For more info: http://www.shaarzahav.org/node/1852
Newsom warns of $522 million deficit
Text and photos by Sarah Phelan
Mayor Gavin Newsom began speaking to reporters today, but not before members of the press were ejected from the plush velvety seats of Herbst Theater when the mayor, who was running half an hour late, arrived at the War Memorial Veterans Building to deliver his latest budget instructions.
Keeping up with the Waters’: Berkeley’s way ahead of SF on the school garden game
By Caitlin Donohue
Look how stoked these Berkeley kids are on their badass school garden program- now where is SF’s?
As San Francisco public schools struggle to keep their salad bars stocked with a few local and organic options, Berkeley kids are benefiting from their town’s legendary reputation for sustainable grubbing.
Alice Waters, doyenne of natural food living and Californian cuisine, adopted Martin Luther King, Jr. middle school all the way back in 1994 and since then has helped to implement a school garden program that I dare say puts a lot of commercial produce growing operations to shame.
The Edible Schoolyard stands on an acre of ground adjacent to King school and plays host to such a variety of organic food that it could supply… well, an Alice Waters’ restaurant for one thing. They’ve got a cavalcade of trees bearing everything from olives to apples, a tea garden, oyster, shiitake and portabello mushrooms, amaranth, quinoa, egg laying fowl, berries and veggies of all stripes. They also have a cider press, a nifty composting system and even a rainwater catchment program set up that saves 200 gallons of water per inch of rain.
Students get the chance to learn all about creating a sustainable food system through a three year schedule of classes that teaches them everything from composting to cooking. The garden also offers community classes on similar subjects (next up: backyard mushroom cultivation!)
Restaurantuer Alice Waters keeps Berkeley’s King middle school kids up on their quinoa fix
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Pat, Vallejo and Stockton
Tell us about your look: “I bought this coat at Bloomingdale’s two years ago on sale.”
Smoking out Russoniello
Text and photos by Sarah Phelan
How much rope has the Obama administration given the US Attorney for Northern California Joe Russoniello (center) when it comes to prosecuting probation officers around the city’s sanctuary policy?
–
The resignation of Gavin Newsom’s criminal justice director Kevin Ryan and his mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard
could give the mayor the chance to revisit his policy towards juvenile immigrants, smoke out US Attorney for Northern California Joe Russoniello over his claims that not referring kids at the moment of arrest is tantamount to “harboring,” and allow Newsom to connect with seriously alienated members of the city’s immigrant community.
I say “could” because the mayor is notorious for his snippy, thumb-in-yer-face attitude towards anyone that questions his policies.
But I also say “could” because records show the mayor reaffirming his commitment to the city’s original sanctuary policy in April 2008—just days before Ryan, Ballard and Russoniello began arguing for a policy shift.
A treasury of Tiësto moments
By Marke B.
The shoe
In this week’s Super Ego clubs column, I talk to pop-trance juggernaut Tiësto — certainly the most branded, if not the most bombastic, “big name” DJ out there. (Funny, though, whenever I told people I was talking to the “Biggest DJ in the World” they all thought I meant Paul Oakenfold.)
Hawking the shoe
I’m not against people making a living as a DJ — or even getting rich off it. Or even being signed to Ultra Records. But there’s a point at which you become a cliche, actually working against the advancement of electronic music, even when you’re at the point of including the most disparate listeners into your polished genre’s fold. That’s why I pricked up my ears when Tiësto so easily shrugged off any attempt to still categorize himself as “underground” and began rebranding himself as a pop artist, a producer, and then finally “just Tiësto” during our brief conversation.
In any case, he’s still a bit of a hoot. After the jump, some of my favorite Tiësto moments. He’ll be at the Cow Palace this Saturday.
Don’t Laos out on upcoming Thanksgiving fundraiser
By Caitlin Donohue
Villagers of war-ravaged Laos bathing on the river Nam Ou. All photos by Ariel Soto
“I was in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, surrounded by incredibly friendly, honest and beautiful people and I found myself wanting to cry almost everyday,” wrote Guardian blog photographer Ariel Soto of her time spent in the small landlocked country of Laos (see her beautiful photo essay of the trip here.
Now, I’m also not saying you’re a bad person. Far from it, in fact. But in all honesty, what have you done for Laos lately? That was the question that a few young Laotian-Americans asked themselves and the result was the Jai Lao (“Lao Heart”) Foundation. The group provides supplies and financial support to both their homeland and Laotians living here in the US. Soto is helping to organize a Jai Lao Thanksgiving party that I promise you will be the most fun you’ve ever had while supporting your Laotian brothers and sisters.
A spread like this at 111 Minna and it’s for a good cause? Total win-win.
War on Funwatch: DNA Lounge to close for January
By Marke B.
It’ll be a cold, cold January without monthly Monday goth spectacular Death Guild
Holy snuffboxes and ankle-baring skirt-ruffling! The ABC’s war on fun in SF continues — this time the victim is the ever-lively club DNA Lounge, host of great parties as Bootie, Death Guild, Hubba Hubba Revue, and so many more.
After a protracted struggle with the ABC — which leveled charges of “lewdness” against the club for some hardly even eyebrow-raising go-go antics — owner Jamie Zawinsky struck a deal to close his club from Monday, January 4th through Thursday, January 28th, 2010, in order to avoid having his liquor license revoked and the club shut down.
We wrote about the DNA woes earlier this year as part of our ongoing Death of Fun coverage. Zawinsky had applied for an all-ages permit, the ABC denied it, he appealed and won. Soon afterward, the ABC sent undercover agents into two parties, witnessed brief flashes of buttocks and such, including a (gasp!) simulated lapdance, and slapped DNA with charges of “running a disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals.” Because this ridiculous charge from the 1700s targeted only the two queer parties at the club, accusations of homophobia on the part of the ABC roiled the gay community.
Zawinsky spent more than $140,000 and a very stressful year fighting the charges. (He could really use your generous, keep-the-party-alive donations here. Join the “Save the DNA Lounge” Facebook group here. Plus: T-shirts!) He has also been a major player in organizing against the insidious War on Fun.
After the jump, Jamie’s exclusive statement to us about his necessary compromise, the ABC’s petty vindictiveness, and what a month’s closure will cost the club:.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Renee, Stockton and Green
Tell us about your look: “My style is very individual. It’s Paris/Boho.”
Trash Lit: ‘Nine Dragons’ is trustworthy
Editors note: Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond has a bad 30-year addiction to mystery/crime/thriller books. He’s decided that he might as well put this terrible habit to productive use by writing about these sometimes awful, sometimes entertaining and — on rare occasion — significant works of mass-market literature. Read his last installment here.
Nine Dragons
Michael Connelly
Little, Brow;, 374 pages, $27.99)
By Tim Redmond
Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly‘s fictional detective, is the best continuing-series character in the genre (well, there’s Spenser, but he’s a special case). Bosch lives in L.A., where he’s a cop. He’s a little bit tortured — what can you say about a guy named Bosch whose dad thought it would be funny to name him Hieronymous? — but not so bent that it takes over the storyline.
And there’s always a good storyline. Connelly, a former newspaper reporter, knows how to work the real world into top-fight fiction, and his books give you a great feel both for the seedy side of Los Angeles and the world of a police detective. He doesn’t glorify cops — they come with plenty of warts, and some of them are sleazebags and some are thugs and some are crooks. And he doesn’t make violence seem anything but ugly, pathetic and painful.
Nine Dragons takes on a scene that Connelly doesn’t know that well — Chinese gangs and the Hong Kong underworld — but instead of pretending to be an expert, he works his learning curve into his hero’s head. Bosch, after all these years, has never quite recovered from his time as a tunnel rat in Vietnam, and is painfully nervous that his attitude toward Asians remains colored by that experience. From the first chapter, he’s having trouble with his partner, Detective Chu, someone he desperately needs but can’t entirely trust.
alt.sex.column: MILFbone
By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.
Dear Andrea:
Since you were so good as to weigh in on "cougar" ["Cougar Den," 10/22/08], perhaps you could settle the evident controversy around the correct usage of "MILF?" I think a MILF (Mother I’d Like to Fuck) is the mother of someone in your peer group. If your mom seems as sexual as burnt toast but Jimmy’s mom looks surprisingly hot at the ninth grade bake sale, it makes you reevaluate the sexiness of mothers or, generally, adults over 35. Jimmy’s mother is a MILF, and deserves the special category, only from the intergenerational perspective of a 14-year-old or whatever. It seems, though, that it’s being used to mean any woman who has a kid, which totally gets my back up. I’m 26 with an infant — I’d like to think I’m sexy in my own right and MILF is uncalled for, unless my kid’s friends at play-date start using the term way early. What do you think? Is MILF only referring to women of your parent’s age and above, or does it mean any woman who has (gasp!) had a child?
Love,
Still Hot?
Dear Hot:
I think I’ve weighed in on "cougar" a bunch of times, and fascinated as I am by the way the sexually-not-dead-yet moderately older woman has become the Hottentot Venus of our time — sexualized yet grotesque-ified, exoticized, gawped at, and lampooned — I think I need to leave it alone now. As for "MiLF" and MILFs, we have discussed it and them here, but only once, in passing, when some bozo wrote in about his hot former ex niece-in-law, or something, whom he described as "the very personification of the MILF." And indeed, he did want to F her.
Need a “Twilight” burger to go with your “Twilight” car?
By Cheryl Eddy
Twilight perfume: smells like money.
OF COURSE YOU DO!
There are plenty of logical forces at work here (Nordstrom, where many teenage girls happen to shop, is unleashing an entire New Moon-inspired clothing line.) But this vampire business is too hugely profitable to obey the laws of logic. Without further ado, I present the top three most inane tie-ins for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. (Know more? Do tell in the comments!!)
1) Burger King’s New Moon campaign offers up such delights as the “Fan Pack,” which, with the purchase of a “six-pack BK Burger Shots Value Meal” offers “collectible cards featuring stunning imagery from the film.” They’ll also be putting out a limited-edition New Moon version of their (famous?) cardboard crown. So what if vampires don’t…eat?
2) The Volvo commercial. So cringeworthy. Please enjoy at your own risk.
3) Twilight Barbies. (With realistic vacant-face Bella and sparkly-skin Edward!)
The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens Fri/20, like, everywhere.
Shock and style roll out at the SF Bike Expo
By Caitlin Donohue
I make it a point to spend quality time with my bike- you know, the daily commute/traffic battles, satisfying slogs up to Alamo Square Park, maybe an ill-advised wobble back from happy hour every now and then. But no matter how much qt they get with their parents, kids still need social time with their peer group.
Andrew Taylor, host of the SF BIke Expo’s dirt jump competition, gets high on the prettest darn bike I’ve ever seen
So because I love her, I’m making a play date for my bike with the San Francisco Bike Expo. The day-long event will be jam packed with kids that ride their bikes even more than I do- there’s a BMX stunt competition and a mountain bike dirt jump contest that seeks to replicate the pants-wetting good times of Evil Knievel’s Cow Palace appearance nearly 40 years ago. Plus, there will be a track stand show down, which is awesome if you’ve never seen a guy on a fixed gear stop for a traffic light (possible).