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Pick-up bball legends tell the tale of the game outside

05.14.13 - 1:18 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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We're talking about basketball, NYC pick-up announcer legend Bobbitio "Kool Bob Love" and I, but our conversation is hardly hinging on the Warriors-Spurs match-up or LeBron James' shot at MVP this year. Rather, we're discussing the power of the men and women ballers on the playground -- a culture that Garcia and French filmmaker Kevin Couliau painstakingly documented for their film Doin' it in the Park, which begins its Bay Area run at the Clay Theatre on Thu/16. 

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noise

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

05.14.13 - 9:39 am | Emily Savage |
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This video has been floating around of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield floating in space, slowly turning inside his vessel, playing the acoustic guitar and singing Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie (“Space Oddity,” naturally). It’s an arresting image, melding science, sound, nerd culture, and pop culture together in the coolest of ways. And it was his goodbye love letter to space, as he returned back down to earth yesterday.

Outside the spaceship, and also back here on earth (and playing San Francisco this week, naturally) there are bands that are grounded by gravity, though little else -- the celestial atmospheric head case of Kisses, larger-than-life Big Boi, otherworldly solo pounder Black Pus (Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt), cosmic soul duo Myron and E, and more invade our shores in the coming days. Maintain your curiosity, and greet them live in the flesh, eyes and ears wide with wonder. Read more »

politics

Racism and homophobia east of the Rockies

05.13.13 - 1:27 pm | Tim Redmond |
(19)

There are assholes everywhere, and there are people in San Francisco who use racist and homophobic slurs. But this interactive map (based on students at Humboldt State analyzing 150,000 nasty tweets (the academic life for you), suggests that the most concentrated jerkfaces are east of the Rocky Mountains. Either that or they use Twitter more.

pixel_vision

Sandra Bernhard thinks I'm groovy (feeling's mutual) [UPDATED]

05.13.13 - 1:21 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
(1)

Raise your hand if performance comedy stylist Sandra Bernhard is an ever-present entity in your cultural firmament. Is she the voice of your internal monolouge when you're feeling powerful? 

Bernhard's mark on popular culture is everywhere. Remember her cameo in Truth or Dare, in which she encourages Madonna to go ahead and meet that young Spanish actor Antonio Banderas? I like to imagine that Bernhard (“Sandra”) and I have it like that -- I can fly her out to my hotel room when I'm just sooo bored of hanging out with the back-up dancers. I want her always sitting on a stool with that wall of '90s hair, gold hoops, knotted silk button-down, a la 1990’s Without You I’m Nothing. May she drawl about tambourines and poppers 4eva. Read more »

politics

Why rent control works

05.13.13 - 1:05 pm | Tim Redmond |
(75)

I shouldn't even bother to talk about this, because all it will do is stir up the trolls, but I'm getting sick of all the talk about rent control being a source of San Francisco's housing problem. The latest is an editorial in the Business Times, which I buy to read J.K. Dineen's stories about commercial real-estate, among other things. I should treat it like the Wall Street Journal; nobody takes the Journal's editorial page seriously.Read more »

politics

Here’s which tech companies won’t turn your emails over to the feds

05.13.13 - 12:12 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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When you write a letter, seal it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail, federal law is clear that it’s a private document. No government agent can legally open it up and read it without a warrant demonstrating probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. But really, when was the last time you sent anybody a letter? Read more »

politics

The Chron discovers the lack of waterfront planning

05.13.13 - 10:40 am | Tim Redmond |
(12)

So the Chronicle's John King (who's generally not a bad architecture critic and really seems to understand city planning) finally discovered something that some of us have been talking about for months: There's no comprehensive planning on the waterfront. Read more »

pixel_vision

The bagpipe squawks for thee: first thoughts on 'Black Watch'

05.12.13 - 10:31 pm | Marke B. |
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If you thought the theatricalized story of a jaunty and imperiled Scottish regiment in Iraq in 2004 would come off as a sort of "Trainspotting meets Black Hawk Down," you wouldn't be too far off the mark -- in a very positive way. I'll leave the nuts and bolts reviewing of full-force National Theatre of Scotland via American Conservatory Theater's spectacular "Black Watch," (through June 16) presented at the huge Mission Armory, to my colleague Robert Avila in next Wednesday's Guardian. But my first thoughts upon emerging from Sunday night's opening performance, after I cleaned the constant stream of expletives from my ears (and a bit of something from my eye) is that yae fookin' coonts moost sae this pish, i.e. the production and performances are well worth the gasp-inducing $100 ticket price.

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sexsf

Hot sexy events: Aliens, etc.

05.10.13 - 3:38 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
(8)

You will have to excuse the few weeks that your sexy events column has taken off -- our Day-Glo phalanges have been so atwitter over tonight's extraterrestial sexuality event that every thing else has just seemed... of this planet, shall we say. Check out my interview in this week's newspaper with Strange Attractors co-editor Suzie Silver, by the way, for talk of sensual delights outside the Earthly realm, including beings comprised mostly of scrotal tissue -- and head over to Center for Sex and Culture to see the video and performance lineup of UFO couplings that Silver has put together. Read more »

noise

Jamaican Queens on major influences, ‘Wormfood,’ and Detroit

05.10.13 - 12:43 pm | Mia Sullivan |
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The Detroit-based trio, Jamaican Queens, makes instantly catchy, hip-hop-influenced, electronic-soaked pop gems and performs them in a dance-inducing glam pop fashion. Although Ryan Spencer, Adam Pressley, and Ryan Clancy have been laying down beats together for less than a year, they have already released a full-length album – Wormfood – hit their hundredth show, and written album number two (which they’ll record once they’ve concluded their lengthy West Coast and summer tours). Read more »

politics

Hey, you! "Tech people" are not the douchebags you think we are

05.10.13 - 9:58 am | Johnny Koch |
(161)

I hear a lot of talk, especially from my own queer community, about how “tech people” are ruining San Francisco. From skyrocketing rent prices and disappearing diversity to economic and cultural ruination, the tech community has become the scapegoat for a lot of the problems we are facing in the city as a whole. As a tech worker, I'm writing this to say: wake up and direct your anger at the real sources of these problems.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. The vast majority of “tech people” in San Francisco don’t make nearly as much money as you think they do. We are not making six-figure salaries, we are not personally driving up rent costs, and we are not killing the cultural community here. Simply put, we are trying to further our careers and make the city we call home a nicer place to live. 

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politics

Supes worry about 8 Wash shit show

05.10.13 - 9:55 am | Tim Redmond |
(47)

The Chronicle seems to have entirely missed the latest installation in the 8 Washington shit show, but the Ex has the story, and, even if it doesn't mean the project is in the toilet, it's given opponents another reason to flush it.

Could I possibly use any worse metaphors?Read more »

pixel_vision

Gatsby who? Check out these cool rep flicks instead! Plus: more new movies.

05.10.13 - 9:37 am | Cheryl Eddy and Guardian Staff Writers |
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This week: two, count 'em two, series dedicated to oft-overlooked films produced outside the mainstream, dedicated to the seamier things in life: "I Wake Up Dreaming 2013" at the Roxie (Dennis Harvey's take here), and "Girls! Guns! Ghosts! The Sensational Films of Shintoho" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (I drool here.)

Short takes on wider releases below, including The Great Gatsby, a film adaptation that finally realizes F. Scott Fitzgerald's deathbed wish: that one day, his most beloved work would be shot in garish 3D. Clearly, only suckers read books anymore. Read more »

pixel_vision

From Lick to Main: Noah Veltman on his amazing interactive SF street name history map

05.09.13 - 5:10 pm | Marke B. |
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When I saw Noah Veltman's interactive SF street (and landmark) name history map pop up on feed last week, I was instantly engrossed. (It was especially refreshing after staring at this depressing interactive map of Ellis evictions.) Of course I looked up my own street immediately, duh.

Many of us have encountered various bits of street name history along our travels, but here was a comprehensive aggregator that was fun to play with, and covered James Lick Freeway to Main Street, all in one handy spot. Did you know that Baker street was named after Edward Dickinson Baker, the lawyer who defended accused US Marshal killer Charles Cora, before Cora was lynched by the Vigilance Commitee in 1856? Or that Moraga was named for José Joaquín Moraga, founder of San Jose? Or how about Germania -- it's actually named after German people!

Read more »

politics

Commission approves soccer project but pushes the city to restore habitat

05.09.13 - 3:49 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(38)

The California Coastal Commission today upheld San Francisco’s plan to replace the Beach Chalet grass soccer fields at the west end of Golden Gate Park with artificial turf and high stadium lights after an emotional five-hour hearing, but not before voicing concerns about the loss of natural terrain and urging the city to do wildlife habitat restoration work on adjacent land.Read more »