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Feature

A Million Here, a Million There ...

By Peter Byrne

Published: December 9, 1998

The Municipal Railway is paying the Italian firm of Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie S.p.A. nearly half a billion dollars for streetcars that are, to say the least, problematic. But Muni hasn't just...

Feature

Rewarding Failure

Streetcars that are too wide, long, and heavy (136 @ $3.5 million per). Bus engines that don't fit and are scrapped (20 @ $116,000 a pop). Manhole covers that take 10 engineers and three months to design (cost: $243,000). Muni's management has produced su

By Peter Byrne

Published: December 9, 1998

In August, Muni's subway had the transit equivalent of a brain hemorrhage. Muni's computerized controls went haywire, and its trains lurched about the Market Street tunnel like stroke victims. Muni...

News

Reversing Course

A broad repudiation of Prop. 209 surfaces at Berkeley

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: December 9, 1998

When a group of UC Berkeley students and professors walked out of their classes for two days in late October to protest Proposition 209, they formed a checkerboard of sit-ins on Berkeley's Sproul...

News

The Gig of Death?

Henny Youngman's gone. Is Freddie Roman next?

By Matt Smith

Published: December 9, 1998

In the world of stand-up comedy, the specter of death hangs over every show. A particularly clever or energetic comedian may kill hundreds of audiences. But on other nights, a bad sound system,...

News

Dog Bites

By Laurel Wellman

Published: December 9, 1998

The Real Y2K Problem Nobody -- or at least nobody of whom we're aware -- has explored one of the most profound ramifications of the turn of the millennium. Which is: What do you do if the name...

Letters

Letters

Published: December 9, 1998

Well, Shucks, You're Welcome. Hip, hip, hooray! Bravo to SF Weekly for having the cojones to cover the Muni problem ("Rewarding Failure," Dec. 2). You are now my heroes. Because rent is so...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: December 9, 1998

Over the last few years, Blixa Bargeld has passed through town with the Bad Seeds, lending his sadistically seductive guitar to Nick Cave's Southern Gothic romanticism. Sinister noise-metal...

Music

Reviews

By Sam Prestianni, Martin Johnson, Dave Clifford, Michael Ullman

Published: December 9, 1998

Cecil Taylor Quartet Qu'a: Live at the Iridium Vol. 1 (Cadence Jazz) Veteran pianist Cecil Taylor has a reputation for playing with the kind of relentless power and energy that can at...

Music

Re-Kronikled

By Denise Sullivan

Published: December 9, 1998

The Kinks A Soap Opera Schoolboys in Disgrace Sleepwalker Misfits (Velvel) "I'm fucking sick of the whole thing. I'm sick up to here with it," announced the Kinks' Ray Davies...

Music

Riff Raff

By Robert Arriaga, Mark Athitakis, Johnny DiPaola, Silke Tudor, Heather Wisner

Published: December 9, 1998

Bent, But Not Broken Beanbender's, the esteemed Berkeley jazz and experimental music space, has had something of an identity crisis in recent months. Changes in ownership and rising rents at the...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: December 9, 1998

Mudhoney I last saw proto-grunge doomsayers Mudhoney about six years back at the old Kennel Club (now the Justice League). On the street as I was heading for the show, I met a fresh-faced young...

Music

Selling His Soul

The traveling salesman is the symbolic star of Vic Chesnutt's sixth and sexiest album

By Mark Athitakis

Published: December 9, 1998

The Salesman and Bernadette, the sixth album Vic Chesnutt has put his name on, is as sexy as folk-pop gets. Far from the scratchy, aching, desperate tunes that characterized Chesnutt's first...

Eat

Third Base

By Naomi Wise

Published: December 9, 1998

MoMo's 760 Second St. (at King), 227-8660. Open Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday through Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., weekends to 11 p.m., bar menu weekends to 1 a.m., weekend...

Eat

Side Dish

By Harry Coverte

Published: December 9, 1998

Square Pegs The Seattle-based Entros has opened its doors on Brannan Street, but all I hear is the sound of one hand clapping. Another overpriced fusion mutation -- Southwestern and Asian --...

Film

Second Time Around

By Gregg Rickman

Published: December 9, 1998

Free Tibet Sarah Pirozek's rockumentary record of a 1996 benefit concert in Golden Gate Park is half musical event, half argument against the Chinese suppression of Tibet as made by monks,...

Film

Zoom Lens

By Michael Sragow

Published: December 9, 1998

The Shop Around the Corner The classic romantic comedies of director Ernst Lubitsch and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson contrast the thrill of instant gratification and the pleasure of the...

Film

Life Is Semisweet

By Jean Oppenheimer

Published: December 9, 1998

Little Voice Written and directed by Mark Herman. Based on a play by Jim Cartwright. Starring Jane Horrocks, Michael Caine, Brenda Blethyn, and Ewan McGregor. At the Embarcadero Center....

Film

The Greatest Story Never Told

By Michael Sragow

Published: December 9, 1998

The Prince of Egypt Directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells. With the voices of Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra Bullock, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Steve Martin, Helen...

Night&Day;

Local Rites for Universal Rights

By Heather Wisner

Published: December 9, 1998

Miya Masaoka's performance piece Dark Passages should serve as a kind of prelude to the local celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The historic United...

Night&Day;

Making the Cut

By Marcy Freedman

Published: December 9, 1998

With all the politicking, incestuousness, and abundance of artists looking for a way to get their feet in the door, it sure is tough getting noticed in the art world. So each fall, Southern...