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Feature

Toxic Acres

The fill below Treasure Island is filled with dangerous toxins left by the Navy

By Ron Russell

Published: May 24, 2006

The sun is disappearing behind the Golden Gate Bridge, the lights of San Francisco's skyline are shimmering in the early-evening twilight, and Chris Grasteit, who has come home to his rented...

Matt Smith

Back to the Future

When will logic trump nostalgia in San Francisco? When supervisors dump the moratorium and allow apartments for the homeless to be built.

By Matt Smith

Published: May 24, 2006

In a future San Francisco, workers disembark at Downtown factories at space-age, rooftop zeppelin moorings, then assemble high-tech clipper-ship masts. Or there's the alternative view, where...

The Apologist

Grabbing for the Ring

City officials are trying to lure the Summer Olympic Games to San Francisco for 2016. Do you think it's a good idea? Find out where you stand!

By Matt Palmquist

Published: May 24, 2006

Last week, San Francisco officials welcomed a visit from members of the U.S. Olympic Committee, in town to explore the city's interest in a bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Mayor Gavin Newsom...

Sucka Free City

Invasive Species

By Frances Reade

Published: May 24, 2006

Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A goat will eat most anything, but not California broom grass, a tough, woody plant that grows in scruffy clumps on the rolling hills of...

Sucka Free City

Chuck and the Chocolate Factory

By Tamara Palmer

Published: May 24, 2006

Last year was a dark one for chocolate lovers. In July 2005 the Hershey Co. acquired Berkeley's Scharffen Berger; in August, it gobbled up San Francisco's Joseph Schmidt. Sweet-toothed locals were...

Sucka Free City

Beer: 1, Dufty: 0

By Eliza Strickland

Published: May 24, 2006

Clouds darkened the sky on Saturday afternoon, and perhaps, somewhere in District 8, Supervisor Bevan Dufty shivered with an ominous premonition. For they were out there, armed with fistfuls of...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Published: May 24, 2006

District Champions Balboa on the ropes: The article "A Study in Size" [May 3] gave an inaccurate picture of the situation regarding small schools in the San Francisco Unified School...

Music

Under the Influence

Mogwai gives new meaning to the term buzz band

By Michael Roberts

Published: May 24, 2006

Barry Burns, a keyboardist and guitarist for Scotland's Mogwai, is downright jubilant. "We've been in Rotterdam, so people have been bringing me joints all day," he announces in a brogue thickened...

Music

Unquiet Riot

Youngblood Brass Band marches out the jams

By Tamara Palmer

Published: May 24, 2006

Youngblood Brass Band rocks without guitars, backspins without turntables, and features a world-wise palette of adventurous rhythms (from Cajun zydeco to Cockney drum 'n' bass) branching off its...

Music

Misanthropes United

Country Teasers' agent provocateur allure

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: May 24, 2006

For sarcastic bastards who wallow in the Country Teasers' muddy outlook on life, there's much to marvel in humanity's ugly underbelly. The Teasers flick flippant lines, hitting racism, sexism,...

Music

Wack Attack

Resipiscent brings the noise

By Mike Rowell

Published: May 24, 2006

When Chicago-based performance group the Ritualistic School of Errors made its West Coast debut at Edinburgh Castle recently, it was quite the spectacle. Fronted by artist Gregory Jacobsen, the...

Let's Get Killed

Flying Vs and fake cocaine at the U.S. Air Guitar Championships

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: May 24, 2006

For a certain type of rock show, it's most vital that a guitarist bring to the stage the one thing no road tech can tune: a boss facial expression. You know the one I'm talking about — the...

Reviewed

The Raconteurs

Broken Boy Soldiers

By David Mittleman

Published: May 24, 2006

Nothing personal, Meg, but working with new playmates has set Jack White free. "I'm through ripping myself off," he screeches on the title track. If you didn't catch that, he repeats, "I'm done...

Reviewed

Ministry

Rio Grande Blood

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: May 24, 2006

Leather-clad Al Jourgensen, the man who invented the faux-human-skull-lined-microphone-stand-on-wheels, is fuckin' pissed at our warmonger president. So much so that Ministry's new disc, Rio...

Reviewed

Gnarls Barkley

St. Elsewhere

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: May 24, 2006

Maybe it's the seizure that opens the mega-hit "Crazy" — four solid punches of bass drum marking the track's unyielding tempo — that hints at the precarious character of Gnarls Barkley....

Reviewed

Vetiver

To Find Me Gone

By Mark Keresman

Published: May 24, 2006

Some consider local ensemble Vetiver part of the "new folk underground" that includes Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Faun Fables. Yes and no — while most of Vetiver's sound is a modern,...

Reviewed

Thee More Shallows

Monkey vs. Shark

By Eric Davidson

Published: May 24, 2006

Perhaps it's time to revive the ol' "Home Taping Is Killing Music" slogan, but with a twist. The plethora of sad boys sitting in their Garden State poster-lined suburban bedrooms clicking away at...

Bouncer

Getting misty for the cranky old barkeep

By Katy St. Clair

Published: May 24, 2006

When last we spoke, I no doubt left you on the edge of your seat wondering whether or not I made it home in my unregistered car before the fuzz changed his mind and impounded it. Then there was the...

Hear This

Stealing riffs and loser beats

By Michael Alan Goldberg, Scott Goodwin, Maya Kroth

Published: May 24, 2006

Why can British bands get away with doing Americana, but when U.S. bands cop accents and attempt Brit-pop, it's just pretentious? Double standard notwithstanding, the U.K.'s Gomez has been...

BeatBox

Thug life with Mobb Deep

By Tamara Palmer

Published: May 24, 2006

Two of Southern California's most talented hip-hop groups ( Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples ), its top DJ crew ( Beat Junkies ), and the area's most astonishingly versatile MC ( Supernatural )...