San Francisco Bay Guardian

The Chron says "Ed, Don't Run"

07.18.11 - 6:06 pm | Tim Redmond |

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Interesting, the politics of the media and the mayor's race. While the Chron is typically the downtown/conservative paper, and some of those same folks are pushing Mayor Ed Lee to run for another term, the Chron's big editorial July 17th made the case against Run Ed Run. Why? Well, mostly because the mayor promised:Read more »

Waste Management sues SF over garbage contract

07.18.11 - 5:40 pm | Sarah Phelan |

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The already intense fight between Recology (formerly NorCal Waste) and Waste Management over SF’s next landfill contract just got more intense: today Waste Management of Alameda County announced that it is filing a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court to prevent the final award of a new long-term solid waste transportation agreement and landfill disposal contract to Recology on the grounds that awarding the contract would violate SF’s “competitive bidding ordinances.”

Now, Recology boosters will likely seek to frame this legal challenge as sour grapes over the city's $11 mil Read more »

Will politicians get veto power over the voters?

07.18.11 - 4:43 pm | Steven T. Jones |

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Political interest groups of all stripes generally hold the “will of the voters” to be sacrosanct and not something that should be arbitrarily trifled with by mere politicians. Right or wrong, it's commonly accepted that if voters do something, only they should be able to undo or modify it. And certainly, if that standard is going to be changed, someone ought to put forward a pretty damn good reason for doing so.Read more »

Chiu blocks health-care bill (for now)

07.18.11 - 2:47 pm | Tim Redmond |

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Sup. David Chiu has blocked a health-care reform bill from advancing to the full Board of Supervisors. And it's particularly ironic since he's a cosponsor of the measure.Read more »

noise

Tribute: A force of nature and Force of Habit

07.18.11 - 2:33 pm | Michelle Devereaux |

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Force of Habit Records' closing day was also a tribute to Devereaux.

Punk legend Jello Biafra (and cheeky friend) at Force of Habit Records' closing day.

David Devereaux and his girlfriend, Erin Suderman-Talco. Courtesy Erin Suderman-Talco.

When my big brother, David Devereaux, owner of Mission haunt Force of Habit Records, passed away suddenly at the untimely age of 41 this past July 4, it left a hole in the city’s punk and vinyl scene almost the equivalent of the hole it left in my heart.

I eventually became a movie journalist, but David’s musical tastes had a profound influence on my own — he cut his teeth on AC/DC at 12, and I followed suit at the same age; he discovered the Ramones at 14, and I attended my first Ramones show at 16. It would have been hard for them not to. Except for a brief stint playing alto sax in junior band, my brother was never a musician. But that certainly didn’t stop him from devoting his life to music.

Republicans raise taxes

07.18.11 - 11:08 am | Tim Redmond |

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Nice piece in the Chron pointing out what a lot of us have been saying for years: The Republicans who hate taxes (on the rich) have actually forced state and local government to raise taxes (on the poor). How? By Calling those taxes "fees."Read more »

Lit review: "Ambient Parking Lot"

07.15.11 - 1:21 pm | Cooper Berkmoyer |

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Ambient Parking Lot (Kenning Editions, $14.95) is a 187-page book about one band’s quest to capture the world’s most perfect ambient noise in a parking lot. Wait, don’t go away! It's great ... I swear. Author Pamela Lu’s novel follows the Ambient Parkers, a fictional collective of musicians and artists, as they rise to heights of fame or alternately cower under the weight of their shortcomings.

Their peaks and valleys shape a familiar refrain if you’ve ever been in a band; Lu uses the Ambient Parkers (they are otherwise anonymous) as a foil by which she is able to draw the whole business of the so-called underground art establishment under her perceptive and witty lens. The performance artist who joins the Ambient Parkers for a night of experimental dance, the respected radio DJ who rebukes their creative advances, and perhaps most impressively of all, us, the fickle and demanding public: these are just a handful of the cogs in a not-at-all-well-oiled (and certainly well worn) machine.

Post:Ballet aims to refresh dance at the Herbst

07.15.11 - 11:37 am | Ariel Soto-Suver |

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Post:Ballet, "Seconds." Photo by Ariel Soto-Suver

Like "okra" or "golf," the word "ballet" can elicit a very strong reaction. Either its two syllables make you giddy, the same way a perfectly sauteed pan of okra can make you salivate, or make you instantly nod off, like the thought of 18 holes of golf. (No offense to golf lovers … I personally just don't really get it). Fortunately for everyone on both sides of the ballet divide, there's Post:Ballet, a relatively young dance company that is breathing new life into the dance form -- and which brings something that almost anyone will find quite likable indeed.

Chris Cunnie running for sheriff?

07.15.11 - 11:35 am | Tim Redmond |

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It appears that the race for San Francisco sheriff is about to get more competitive: Chris Cunnie, the former Police Officers Association president, the former undersheriff and chief district attorney investigator is getting close to deciding to run, numerous sources tell me.

I haven't been able to reach Cunnie directly, but he's been calling around to local political types and talking about the race, and several people close to him say he's about ready to make the jump.Read more »

Buggin' out

Michael Rapaport goes searching for A Tribe Called Quest

07.15.11 - 6:52 am | Max Goldberg |

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Actor Michael Rapaport probably didn't set out to make a hip-hop Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004), but that's pretty much where his portrait of A Tribe Called Quest ends up. The first half of Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest is predictably worshipful, slathering on low angles and slow motion to cover mediocre live shows. More effectively, Rapaport traces the Queens group's brief incubation period and subsequent breakthroughs in what would later be called alternative or, more obnoxiously, conscious hip-hop. Read more »

Tech blogger takes on Silicon Valley

07.14.11 - 5:24 pm | Caitlin Donohue |

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Critiquing the tech industry has to be one of San Francisco's favorite events in the armchair Olympics – but usually the harangues are coming from my friend that can't seem to hold onto his personal chef gigs. Incisive commentary about the social merits of Silicon Valley from within the tech community are hard to come by (maybe because they are all fully employed).

Perhaps that's why a critical blog post that tech news site The Next Web ran this week by normally ebullient reporter Hermione Way (who covers the start-up entrepreneur beat) set off so many alarms among her techie cohorts. Way, who I kind of think is a genius at being immersed in, and taking the piss from the tech industry, moved to Bay six months ago from the UK to interview start-up masterminds (we caught her before she'd even hopped the pond to learn about the life of a pro social networker), called out Silicon Valley on being motivated for all the wrong reasons: Read more »

The Perfomant: The future's so bright

07.14.11 - 4:25 pm |

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Lizzie Cuevas at Pulsewave. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

Matt Payne at Pulsewave. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

Crash Faster at Pulsewave. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

Bit Shifter, with Gameboy, at Pulsewave. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

Bit Shifter, engrossed, at Pulsewave. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

From "Rare Earth." Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

Rejecting planned obsolescence with chiptunes and Front Line Theatre

This week, The Performant turns one, so please excuse me a moment while I stick a candle in my Molotov cocktail, tie it to this big red balloon, and send it soaring. In the oft-imagined dystopian future, this may well be how all our landmark dates will be celebrated, not with a whimper but a bang. We’ll all get drunk on a rare flask of artesian well water, and play pin the tail to the Womprat. As for the party music, it’s tough to predict what we’ll be listening to in the 22nd century, but it’s a good bet that electronics are going to figure heavily into the equation—if only as a way to use up all the obsolete 21st century e-waste sure to be still piled around.

Take chip music, for example.

The Performant

Repulsed by Recology's tactics, Kopp strikes name from Adachi initiative

07.14.11 - 3:53 pm | Sarah Phelan |

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Who knew that a bunch of garbage could get a taxpayer watchdog like former supe/state senator/judge Quentin Kopp threatening not to endorse Public Defender Jeff Adachi's pension reform initiative? But that's what happened according to Kopp, who adds that he was “personally insulted’ by a signature gatherer outside the West Portal post office last week, after he struck his name from a petition he had signed in support of Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s pension reform measure. Read more »

sexsf

Opening up the [SSEX BBOX]

07.14.11 - 3:30 pm | Amber Schadewald |

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What turns you on? Why do you use a condom? How do you define your gender? From Spain to Germany, Brazil and the US, the documentary series [SSEX BBOX] poses honest questions about sex and sexuality and asks for blunt, no-fuss answers in return. The culmination of these stories is a refreshing challenge to the pre-disposed definitions around sexuality. [SSEX BBOX]'s short videos and new magazine are tearing open binary-ridden boxes and letting real life spill out. Read more »

Eco-funny: Kristina Wong goes green

07.14.11 - 1:51 pm | Nicole Gluckstern |

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When things go wrong for performance artist Kristina Wong, you know it’s going to be a spectacular mess. A person with that much verve just wouldn’t be able to fail only halfway. So when she decided to “go green” the universe thanked her by almost blowing her up on the LA freeway in her bright pink, bio-fueled Mercedes. Now car-free in a city widely thought to be completely non-navigable without a motorized vehicle, this San Francisco-born “patronmartyr of carbon-free living,” is taking her new show on the road, to preach the good earth word with her signature madcap style.

Kristina’s multimedia productions, such as the nationally-recognized Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, are high-energy pastiches of autobiographical material, research stats, contrarian wisdom, and fearless deviations from any pigeonhole you might try to stuff her into. During Going Green the Wong Way, her fifth solo show, she’ll take you through the intricacies of the LA Public transportation system, appoint herself a “missionary of recycling,” mourn with “mother earth,” who is frankly getting a little fed up with our mess, and engage in a good old-fashioned plastic bag fight, during this limited homecoming run of five shows only, starting tonight (Thurs/14).