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Feature

Divided Loyalties

Forced to choose between native ties and the American Dream, Filipinos like S.F. court clerk Rene Pascual are fighting for dual citizenship

By Bernice Yeung

Published: February 20, 2002

Rene Pascual stands expectantly against the wall of a darkened hotel banquet hall, sipping a glass of whiskey in nervous anticipation. The lengthy four-hour program of the glitzy Northern...

Mecklin

Eye on the Prize

SF Weekly writer Lisa Davis wins a Polk Award for exposing the history of nuclear waste at Hunters Point Shipyard

By John Mecklin

Published: February 20, 2002

It is an understatement, even a cliché, to suggest that journalism is a profession prone to self-congratulation. Indeed, journalists give themselves awards arranged along almost every...

Matt Smith

Bound and Gagged

As a family waits for answers, S.F. police refuse to talk about how a controversial restraint was used on a suspect who died in custody

By Matt Smith

Published: February 20, 2002

Gloretha Caldwell, 63, an employee of the California State Disability Insurance Office who lives not far from the Mervyn's on Geary Boulevard, doesn't get out much these days. She tried going back...

Dog Bites

Taxi Driver

Filmmaker/cab driver Peter Kirby has an unusual marketing plan for his movies --he advertises in laundromats

Mark Athitakis

Published: February 20, 2002

When Peter Kirby, the independent filmmaker, sat down at a Tenderloin coffee shop recently to talk about his oeuvre , we expected him to cop an attitude about mainstream movies. "I like a lot of...

Bay View

A Taxing Problem

Why are two candidates for assessor trying to take credit for a computer system that has been an abysmal failure?

By Peter Byrne

Published: February 20, 2002

John Farrell so fervently believes he has a chance of winning the election for city assessor on March 5 that he has put $50,000 of his own money into the campaign. Assistant Assessor Farrell -- who...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

The Plane Facts; Review Redo; Winner or Loser? You Make the Call.; Grousing About Housing; Speechless

Published: February 20, 2002

Runways in the bay: Matt Smith got it right: "[Filling] in a mile of the bay to protect regional economic growth would involve a careful evaluation of benefits and costs; this is how all sound...

Music

Fantasy Land

Blectum From Blechdom's fractured electronic universe comes back together -- with a little help from the Olsen twins

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: February 20, 2002

While Kristin Erickson and Bevin Kelley may live in Oakland, the pair's musical personas exist far from the reaches of the BART tracks. For the past four years, Erickson (Kevin Blechdom) and Kelley...

Reviewed

Desaparecidos

Read Music/Speak Spanish (Saddle Creek)

Chris Baty

Published: February 20, 2002

Emma Goldman never actually uttered the line, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." The now-famous abridgment of Goldman's sentiment was actually crafted by a New York...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

The cyber space-age anniversary of "Synth," and the habit-forming trip hop of Loquat

By Silke Tudor

Published: February 20, 2002

As an artist, Phoenix Perry somehow savors the damage inflicted on the human body even while she suffers from a repetitive-strain injury severe enough to prohibit her from brushing her once-long...

Hear This

Hear This

DJ Cash Money shows off the "transformer scratch" and other turntablist tricks

By Darren Keast

Published: February 20, 2002

Philadelphia's Cash Money hails from an earlier age of turntablists, when spontaneity, versatility, and showmanship were as crucial as raw dexterity. Incorporating his microphone and body into his...

Eat

That Zincing Feeling

Le Zinc

By Greg Hugunin

Published: February 20, 2002

My earliest memories of classic French cuisine go back to when I was about 6. My father, quite the gourmet, used to spend hours in the kitchen making coq au vin, fish in white wine sauce, chicken...

Side Dish

Chow for Champions

A local chef cooks for the U.S. snowboard Olympic team. The team wins gold, silver, and bronze. Any connection?

By Harry Coverte

Published: February 20, 2002

Going for Gold Jianna chef Marc Valiani proved his Olympian cooking capabilities when an old friend, responsible for the catering at Utah's Olympic Village, asked our boy to cook for the U.S....

Film

Ordinary People

The swingers in Sex With Strangers are just looking for somebody -- anybody -- to love

By Mark Athitakis

Published: February 20, 2002

On film, group sex tends to be the stuff of Russ Meyer flicks: A straight-laced fella runs into a harem of pneumatic women, the hot-tub jets fire up, some bad psychedelic music kicks in, and away...

Reel World

Grand Illusion

Bay Area filmmakers respond to a call for short works about the events of Sept. 11

By Michael Fox

Published: February 20, 2002

Grand Illusion In early October, local filmmakers Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi put out a call to 100 peers for short pieces inspired by the events of Sept. 11 (Reel World, Oct. 24, 2001). "At...

Night&Day;

The King and I

The Viva Ann-Margret! Film Festival

By Karen Macklin

Published: February 20, 2002

Swedish-born turnip Ann-Margret's pouty mouth, strawberry-blond mane, and kick-ass cleavage may have put her in line with the Marilyn Monroe types of her heyday -- as did that wild affair with the...

Night&Day;

The Pen Is Mightier

Two plays from outspoken African-American playwright August Wilson

By Lisa Hom

Published: February 20, 2002

Though some people are more comfortable pretending that racial tensions don't exist, outspoken African-American playwright August Wilson refuses to let us forget it. The prolific dramatist and...

Stage

Politically Incorrect

Culture Clash makes fun of everyone equally -- and well

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: February 20, 2002

Racial humor is thriving in Berkeley, and Culture Clash has committed the unpardonable sin of making it funny. "The way you tell a Latino apart from another Latino is by the way they salsa," one of...

Stage

Five Flights

A new comedy in five parts from Adam Bock is alternately brilliant and thin

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: February 20, 2002

Adam Bock's funny new play is broken into five parts, or "flights," like a Russian ballet -- Narrative, Vision, Mad Scene, Conclusion, and A Little Dance -- but most of the action takes place...

Stage

Rhinoceros

An innovative and complex revival of Ionesco's absurdist classic

By Karen Macklin

Published: February 20, 2002

In Ionesco's absurdist classic, giant rhinoceroses invade a small French town, disrupting the petty philosophizing of a coffee klatch at a local cafe. Dismayed at first by the takeover, the...

Stuff

Flunk You

If Fox expels Undeclared, blame everyone but Judd Apatow

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: February 20, 2002

"Pray for us." So ends a note Judd Apatow sent out last week to television critics who have been supportive of his series Undeclared , among the few half-hour comedies to debut last fall with any...