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Feature

Double Injustice

A con man squeezed $26 million out of 140 victims. Then a U.S. bankruptcy trustee squeezed them again.

By Peter Byrne

Published: July 12, 2000

The fat man crept across an Orinda lawn in the early hours of March 30, 1999. Lifting the doormat, he slipped a letter under it. Then, turning heavily in the suburban night, Edward A. Mueller, age...

Dog Bites

Dog Bites

You Hate Me! You Really Hate Me!; Harry Potter and the Imaginary Suitcase of Cash; Lite Reading

As told to Laurel Wellman

Published: July 12, 2000

You Hate Me! You Really Hate Me! It is a well-known fact that one's exes have a psychic ability to sense when one has become involved with someone else, and choose that time to call to "talk."...

Night Crawler

Night Crawler

Current Events

By Silke Tudor

Published: July 12, 2000

Current Events There was an era through which 4 o'clock in the morning seemed a perfectly reasonable time to leave the house: Certain parties were ending, others were only just approaching their...

Postscript

Postscript

Mint Conditions

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: July 12, 2000

"The fire department will have little trouble quenching any conflagration that may arise within its walls," wrote the San Francisco Call about the Old Mint, or what was then the rather new Mint,...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Tire Iron vs. Baseball Bat; Trashing SUVs Is Rude? Well Then, We'll Stop Doing It.; Or We Could Just Deport Them to Fresno; Modesto, My Modesto; Say, People Are Still Saying "Meme"?

Published: July 12, 2000

Tire Iron vs. Baseball Bat One abiding question raised by Joel Engardio's article " Mission Implacable " (July 5): Where did the crowbar [Editor's note: The weapon was actually a tire iron] come...

Music

This Rock Scene's Saving Grace

What inspired somebody to start a cover band to play an obscure Fall album? A dislike of cover bands, for starters.

By Lloyd Langworthy

Published: July 12, 2000

Matt Jervis is sitting at the kitchen table of his Noe Valley apartment, explaining how he came to embark on an experiment in musical masochism. The ex-singer for local bands the Clarke Nova and...

Music

For Love and Money

Cali Agents' Rasco and Planet Asia are underground rappers who want to go platinum. You got a problem with that?

By Darren Keast

Published: July 12, 2000

Wally Backpack here for Station 0 Hip Hop Hater News W4D Deuce. ... In today's news Keida Brewer aka Rasco and Jason Green aka Planet Asia, collectively known as the Cali Agents, have been said to...

Riff Raff

Riff Raff

A Punk's Progress; Critic's Corner

By Mark Athitakis

Published: July 12, 2000

A Punk's Progress Pop music and God have never gotten along very well -- think of all the religious leaders who've pilloried Elvis, the Beatles, and Madonna over the years, not to mention all...

Music

Blonde Redhead

Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
(Touch and Go)

By Dave Clifford

Published: July 12, 2000

For a band whose very name implies contradiction, not until the release of the New York City trio's latest album has Blonde Redhead truly embodied the paradoxical spirit of its moniker. The group...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

Kitty City; Carl Sonny Leyland; Mission Creek Festival; Club Inferno; S.F. Drag King Contest; From Bubblegum to Sky

By Silke Tudor

Published: July 12, 2000

Blood and Butter Productions has decided to indulge all the little kinderwhores and Japanese pop culture fetishists who love it with "Kitty City," a night of plastic-coated silliness that...

Hear This

Hear This

Olu Dara

By Sam Prestianni

Published: July 12, 2000

What arguably gives the blues its universal appeal is its premier players' lack of pretense. Born on the back porches of backwater towns in the American South, blues truth is straight storytelling...

Eat

Here's the Pitch

Twenty Four

By Matthew Stafford

Published: July 12, 2000

When I was a kid growing up in the Western Addition we lived two blocks away from big, bashful Willie McCovey, everybody's favorite Giant. (Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time...

Eat

Yin, Yang, and the Other

Xanadu

By Greg Hugunin

Published: July 12, 2000

I've long believed the best things in life -- love, health, freedom, a purpose -- are easily recognizable to those who enjoy them. And, since we're making a list, let's throw in friendship. And...

Side Dish

Side Dish

Upping the Ante; She's a Grand Old Dame; Zao and Then; Howlin' Wolf

By Harry Coverte

Published: July 12, 2000

Upping the Ante There's a new player in the world of online reservations, and it's aiming to revolutionize the way restaurants view themselves. The site's not yet public, but Harry got a sneak...

Social Grace

Social Grace

Are you unsure how to behave? Social Grace answers all your toughest etiquette questions

By Social Grace

Published: July 12, 2000

Dear Social Grace, About a year ago, I began a friendship with a woman from my office. We see each other socially once a week or more. I absolutely enjoy her friendship, and I think she's a...

Film

Zzzzzz-Men

Patrick Stewart stars in X-Men

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: July 12, 2000

In Bryan Singer's last movie, 1998's Apt Pupil , Ian McKellen portrayed a Nazi war criminal hiding out in the suburbs, passing himself off as an ordinary old man crouching behind drawn blinds. In...

Film

Buck Teeth

Mike White stars in Chuck & Buck

By Bill Gallo

Published: July 12, 2000

The bewildering penchant of recent American movies for glorifying the lovable naif, the perpetual adolescent, and the village idiot takes a strange new turn in Miguel Arteta's dark comedy Chuck &...

Reel World

Reel World

Something Wild

By Michael Fox

Published: July 12, 2000

Something Wild "What interests me is the idea of self-repair," Chuck & Buck director Miguel Arteta confides during a San Francisco stopover. "I like movies about damaged goods, about people who...

Zoom Lens

Zoom Lens

Science Is Fiction

By Gregg Rickman

Published: July 12, 2000

Science Is Fiction The plangent wah-wah of vintage Duke Ellington accompanies the gyrations of seahorses in the opening images of Jean Painlevé's The Vampire (1945), giving viewers a...

Night&Day;

When There's a William ...

Woman's Will presents Measure for Measure

By Max Millard

Published: July 12, 2000

Has Shakespeare been done to death? Apparently not yet. But in spite of the continuing mounting and re-mounting of the Bard's plays, there remain precious few juicy acting opportunities in the...