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Feature

KRON's Last Gasp

How a once-proud San Francisco television station became ground zero in the nation's most controversial experiment in local TV news.

By Ron Russell

Published: April 12, 2006

Time was when KRON (Channel 4) was at the top of the television news heap. Its newscasts were among the most watched in the Bay Area. Its anchors were stars. Its owners, San Francisco's...

Matt Smith

Olive Woo Murphy 1/08/03 – 3/29/06

By Matt Smith

Published: April 12, 2006

Despite the depth of the tragedy, there was a sense of relief associated with the aftermath to the recent asphyxiation death of three-year-old Olive Woo Murphy at the hands of her mother in a...

The Apologist

Rain, Rain, Go Away

No matter where you go, you can't escape the dreariest spring in memory. Have you embraced it, or are you just bummed out? Find out where you stand!

By Matt Palmquist

Published: April 12, 2006

It was the rainiest March in memory for San Francisco, and meteorologists say the Bay Area's unceasing wetness will continue for the next couple of weeks. Downtown San Francisco saw 25 days of rain...

Sucka Free City

Fire Fighting

By Garrett Kamps

Published: April 12, 2006

On May 1, 2006, policy will be put into effect banning our most beloved beach fires on Ocean Beach. Unless it isn't. "There is nothing specific that's driving that May 1 deadline," says Rudy...

Sucka Free City

I Was an Online Mother

By Chris Dahlen

Published: April 12, 2006

Editor's Note: On March 27 Chris Dahlen became pregnant. In this three-part series, we follow his story. Incidentally, Dahlen's story takes place within the "multiverse" Second Life , a massively...

Sucka Free City

Irrational Exubera

Ryan Blitstein

Published: April 12, 2006

Just when you start to think that San Francisco's local TV news (other than KRON of course) isn't half bad, you find out that good old KPIX CBS 5 recently aired a news segment full of canned...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Published: April 12, 2006

Holland of Milk and Honey Jolie good show: Nate Cavalieri's take on Jolie Holland ["Song Bird," April 5] was singular and dead-on. It is a beautifully done piece and captures exactly what...

Music

Weapons of Mass Construction

Oakland's Coup takes political rap to the next level

By Dan Strachota

Published: April 12, 2006

In the five years since the release of the last Coup album, Party Music , there's been enough high-octane political scandals to power a space shuttle. The poorly reasoned Iraq War, illegal spying...

Music

Funk, Revisited

Luv 'n' Haight's 50th release adds to local music lore

By Eric K. Arnold

Published: April 12, 2006

"This is the shit. This is what it's all about," says a scruffy-faced "Cool" Chris Veltri. The fabled crate-digger and proprietor of SF's legendary vinyl emporium Groove Merchant is referring to...

Music

Here's the Good Noise

Musician summit challenges the borders between sound and music

By ERIC SMILLIE

Published: April 12, 2006

Although it's an intimidating, incomprehensible format to some, the electronic noise genre has seen growing exposure in exhibition and performance spaces in recent years. At a symposium and in...

Let's Get Killed

Rolling dough with Genghis Khan

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: April 12, 2006

There's something about pizza joints that makes the cheap snack shacks regular pit stops for rock types. Austin has its infamous death metal storefront on Sixth Avenue (at which you can inhale...

Reviewed

The Flaming Lips

At War With the Mystics

By EVERETT TRUE

Published: April 12, 2006

The danger with drawing influences from the gentle psychedelia of '50s Disney is that sooner or later the world will turn dark. The old animators had the specter of The Bomb to deal with. Flaming...

Reviewed

SFJAZZ Collective

SFJAZZ Collective 2

By Sam Prestianni

Published: April 12, 2006

Saxophonist Joshua Redman hopes to build his legacy by mainstreaming the music of the jazz adventurers of the '50s and '60s. For his sophomore recording with the SFJAZZ Collective, a repertory...

Reviewed

V/A

Lagos Chop Up|Lagos All Routes

By Andy Beta

Published: April 12, 2006

Cementing his role as a David Byrne-style sonic curator for the 21st century, Damon Albarn's love for African music gets translated in these two sets of Nigerian Afropop on his Honest Jon's...

Bouncer

Stealing bases and talking balls at Thieves Tavern

By Katy St. Clair

Published: April 12, 2006

Here is where feminism screwed up: It went from the right to go braless and demand equal pay to becoming a mode of study in higher education. This means that every year academics must come up with...

Hear This

Let's get Sic; Riding the Gravy Train!!!

By Jennifer Maerz, Frances Reade, Tony Ware

Published: April 12, 2006

Pretty Girls Make Graves takes your basic melodic indie rock template and bathes it in a wash of moody textures. On its latest disc, Élan Vital , the Seattle act releases some of the...

BeatBox

Letting your A.D.D. run rampant

By Brock Keeling, Tamara Palmer

Published: April 12, 2006

Melbourne's Luke Chable and Phil K are best known as the de facto Down Under ambassadors to the global nightclub scene. But the veteran DJ duo's relatively nascent production partnership as Lostep...

Eat

Crazy Cheap, Crazy Good

First-rate Cantonese food and cut-rate prices at Best Panda

By Robert Lauriston

Published: April 12, 2006

Every food-loving bargain hunter learns tricks for finding great meals in unfamiliar places. Strike up a conversation with a well-fed grandmotherly type on the street and ask her for...

Film

Being Bettie

The Notorious Bettie Page never quite pins down the pinup

By Jim Ridley

Published: April 12, 2006

If you can tell a society by its smut, America in the 1950s couldn't have been just a Frigidaire of repressive hysteria. Hidden somewhere in the closets of Pleasantville and Peyton Place, after...

Film

Charlie & the Shoe Factory

Kinky Boots is a bit of a drag, but its star keeps on shining

By Luke Y. Thompson

Published: April 12, 2006

If you're a regular moviegoer with a gift for remembering unusual names, chances are you've started paying attention to Chiwetel Ejiofor, the black English actor with a chameleon's talent for...