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Can't stop fashion: Style, as always, at Oakland's First Friday

03.28.13 - 5:09 pm | Jessica Wolfrom and Cortney Clift |
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Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom
Oakland First Friday. Guardian photos by Cortney Clift and Jessica Wolfrom

We're stoked on next week's Oakland First Fridays, where the style is weird, wild, and exactly what you would expect to see any time Bay Area folks, art, and mingling collide. In March, despite the previous month’s tragedy, looks were lively as ever. Attendees and vendors alike seemed to have all received the same memo: throw on some sort of headwear and layer up in as many different patterns as possible.

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Airbnb's tax and tenant law violations headed for hearings

03.28.13 - 4:24 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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As Airbnb continues to avoid making any public comment on the $1.8 million annual Transient Occupancy Tax obligation to the city that it appears to be dodging, with the complicity of the Mayor's Office, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu is getting closer to introducing legislation to regulate so-called “shared housing” and holding public hearings on the issues it raises.Read more »

The right wing and same-sex marriage

03.28.13 - 1:55 pm | Tim Redmond |
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I had lunch with my old friend Johnny Angel Wendell, a musician, actor, and radio personality in LA, who was up here on vacation (and to hype his new vinyl, "My Lesbian Friend,") and we got to talking about the Supreme Court and same-sex marraige, and Johnny and I have agreed for years that this debate is essentially over. When 80 percent of people under 30 think same-sex marriage is fine, then it's really only a matter of time before it's legal and encouraged in every single state.Read more »

NanosauR remixes Backstreet Boys, Antwon, and Chelsea Wolfe

03.28.13 - 11:12 am | Emily Savage |
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Earlier today, Bay Area dream pop producer NanosauR posted to his Facebook page, “This is a collection of 20 remixes I have made over time, I hope you like it. Download it for free here.” 

OK, NanosauR, a.k.a. Michael Solorzano, (thanks for the tip) I did download it and it’s nutso mixtape perfection. So, yes, I liked what I heard. Read more »

Reagan's legacy: Homeless death

03.28.13 - 10:25 am | Tim Redmond |
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The headline on sfgate is about as brutal as you can get: "The coming homeless die-off." But the brief story points to an alarming set of statistics: The median age of homeless people on the streets of US cities is now 53. The life expectancy for homeless people is 64. You get the point.

But here's the key political element:Read more »

Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstrom on breaking writer's block with travel

03.28.13 - 9:05 am | Mia Sullivan |
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It seems like the Austin-based Heartless Bastards have made some drastic changes since the release of their debut album, Stairs and Elevators, shedding their punkish irreverence in favor of more candid Americana as illustrated in Arrow, their 2012 Jim Eno-produced release.

I caught up with frontperson Erika Wennerstrom before the band’s Great American Music Hall show this weekend, amid a van ride from Tucson to California to chat about her quartet’s ever-changing sound, her favorite SF food, Neil Young, and Arrow’s traveling backstory: Read more »

Hot sexy events: Nerd boobs, Bill Gates' condom quest, and the Sheagle = landed

03.27.13 - 4:39 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Hey, dudes who don't like condoms, has Bill Gates got your back or what? During the same month that the Pope Emeritus reincarnates as a wall of condoms, the tech bajillionaire has donated the change he found in his couch ($100,000) to the Global Health research foundation Bill and wife Melinda founded through their foundation to developing a rubber that feels better on penises. Read more »

Sutter/CPMC agrees to a contract with its nurses in SF, clearing the path for its hospital deal

03.27.13 - 3:18 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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Ending a long and contentious labor impasse and setting the stage for the city to approve the pair of new hospitals that Sutter Health and its California Pacific Medical Center affiliate want to build in San Francisco, the California Nurses Association today announced that it has reached a tentative contract agreement with the hospital corporations.Read more »

Mayor Lee’s mysterious breakfast companions [UPDATED]

03.27.13 - 3:07 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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See an update to this story below. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has been having breakfast with CEOs to seek millions in funding for the America’s Cup, but the identities of those CEOs remain a mystery.Read more »

I survived the "Real World: San Francisco" marathon

03.27.13 - 1:54 pm | Laura Kerry |
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 The 28th season of The Real World premieres tonight, and the trailer features some crying bros and a lot of slapping in Portland, Ore. To remind us of the show's less … well, shitty origins, MTV ran a “retro marathon” of its first three seasons last weekend.

Before the Teen Mom franchise, before Jersey Shore (and its ever-multiplying spin-offs), and before something called Buckwild that I don’t feel like researching, there were true stories of seven strangers picked to live in houses in New York and Los Angeles. And then in 1994, some strangers came to the wonderful city of San Francisco. The third season, last weekend’s grand finale, often gets credited with sparking the show’s popularity and indirectly launching the reality TV craze. It almost lives up to its reputation.

Usually, watching a reality television show after it's finished airing presents a predicament; the knowledge that the cast has returned to the world outside the screen takes away the precept -- flimsy as it is to begin with -- that we are seeing reality unfold. Watching the San Francisco season is a different experience. The 19 years of distance, a huge cultural gap (OMG, no smartphones!), makes the show a historical document.

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SCOTUS talks same sex marriage: San Francisco responds

03.27.13 - 11:18 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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LGBT rights activists held a vigil outside the California Supreme Court building in San Francisco March 26 as part of several events launched in response to yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8. Today, the court is considering the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that restricts federal marriage benefits for same-sex couples.Read more »

No golden years for LGBT seniors

03.27.13 - 10:55 am | Tommi Avicolli Mecca |
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According to studies, queer seniors are poorer than their straight counterparts. They’re half as likely to have health insurance, and two-thirds as likely to live alone. Not to mention facing discrimination in medical and social services, retirement homes, and nursing care facilities. So much for the “golden years.”
Here in San Francisco, LGBT seniors face another grave threat: evictions. Many of our elderly live in rent-controlled apartments that are targeted by real-estate speculators and investors out to make big bucks turning them into tenancies-in-common.

With median rents close to $3,000 a month and vacancy rates low, the odds are pretty good that an evicted senior won’t find an affordable place in the city. For a senior with AIDS, an eviction is especially threatening since our city offers the best treatment and services. Studies show that people with AIDS who lose their apartments tend to die sooner, especially if they become homeless. 

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Reality rap: Q&A with Saafir, the Saucee Nomad

03.27.13 - 10:43 am | Garrett Caples |
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Ed. note – this week's music feature is all about emcee-producer Saafir, the Saucee Nomad. The wheelchair-bound associate of Hobo Junction and Digital Underground (and actor in 'Menace II Society') opened up to Guardian music writer Garrett Caples about his recent health struggles, making music, and what's keeping him in check. Here's the extended interview we couldn't fit in the print edition:

San Francisco Bay Guardian Did you have any idea [Digital Underground leader] Shock-G was going to post about you on Davey-D’s blog?

Saafir Actually I had no idea that he was going to put that out. Shock had came and saw me one time and I didn’t really tell nobody that I was in a wheelchair as far as the DU crew. I wasn’t really in contact with anybody. Nobody really stayed in contact with me. If you ain’t really hollerin’ at me, I’m not just gonna call you and be like, “Hey bruh, what’s up? I’m in a wheelchair.” Read more »

LGBT youth law, ignored

03.27.13 - 10:24 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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Thirteen years ago, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors enacted an ordinance designed to make city services more accessible to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. Under Chapter 12N of the San Francisco Administrative Code, city departments must provide LGBT sensitivity training "to any employee or volunteer who has direct contact with youth." It also applies to any collaborative youth service providers who receive $50,000 or more in city funding.Read more »

Calvin Trillin: On Dennis Rodman and his pal Kim Jong-un in North Korea

03.26.13 - 9:15 pm |
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Kim Jong-un, dictator of North
Korea and BFF of Dennis Rodman,
threatens to use nuclear weapons
against the United States
Now Kim, who's the strangest of big bomb possessors,
Says he'd use his nukes against Yankee aggressors.
Should we build some shelters? No, Kim is no menace,
Since he knows a nuke strike could take out his Dennis.

Calvin Trillin: Deadline Poet: The Nation 4/1/2013