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Feature

Filling the Civic Gap

Meet Donald Fisher, the private billionaire with unprecedented sway over ordinary San Franciscans' lives

By Matt Smith

Published: June 21, 2006

It's three hours into the last day of school at KIPP Bayview Academy, a nonprofit, 160-student, fifth-and-sixth-grade charter school run out of a former Catholic elementary just over the hill from...

The Apologist

Fire Away!

A judge has overturned the ban on handguns passed by S.F. voters last November. Are you worried about firearms flooding our streets? Take this quiz and find out!

By Matt Palmquist

Published: June 21, 2006

Last week, a state judge struck down a ban on handguns in San Francisco passed by city voters, arguing that the measure conflicted with state laws that regulate handguns. Proposition H, which won a...

Sucka Free City

The Honeymooners

By Tamara Palmer

Published: June 21, 2006

People usually celebrate it with paper, yet days before Karen Cusolito and Dan Das Mann rang in their first wedding anniversary, they were busy welding the last of several tons of scrap metal onto...

Sucka Free City

Bosses From Hell

A.C. THOMPSON

Published: June 21, 2006

In the annals of crappy bosses, nobody really compares to the Bonnie and Clyde of small business — Anna Wong and Jimmy Quon — a middle-aged, married San Francisco couple who ran a garment...

Sucka Free City

We're Not Here, We're Queer

By Brock Keeling

Published: June 21, 2006

When an organization like GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) holds its annual awards show in San Francisco — as it did on June 10, when it handed out accolades for a few scant...

News

Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man

The painter, the landlord, and the $80,000 dispute over a life's work

By A.C. THOMPSON

Published: June 21, 2006

About 10 blocks separated the lives of Christopher Lane. In Life v.1, Lane was an oil painter and art teacher who lived and created in an airy, light-flooded 2,200-square-foot studio on Florida...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Published: June 21, 2006

Bridge Toll Yes, that Matt Gonzalez: In "A Bridge Too Costly" (May 31), Matt Smith dismisses safety concerns recently leveled by the contractor of the Fourth Street Bridge retrofit...

Music

All for Love and Love for All

The Ark's campy compassion

By Kurt B. Reighley

Published: June 21, 2006

Ola Salo, flamboyant lead singer for Swedish glam quintet the Ark, does not practice false modesty. Warm and friendly? Yes. But oozing that just-one-of-the-guys phoniness some stars adopt? Far from...

Music

On the Rebound

Built to Spill survives some transitional time out

By Michael Alan Goldberg

Published: June 21, 2006

Who would've imagined that a poke in the eye would have such a profound effect on a music career? Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch didn't think much of it when he first sustained the injury...

Music

Clear Chaos

Zach Hill and Mick Barr break the prog barrier

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: June 21, 2006

Of course the new disc from guitarist Mick Barr of Orthrelm and drummer Zach Hill of Hella — the poster boys for a music that was once tagged "brutal prog" — is generating a serious...

Music

Misc. Reviews

Hurra Torpedo's kitchens of distinction

By Tamara Palmer

Published: June 21, 2006

Search for "fucked up Norwegians" on www.youtube.com , and the name Hurra Torpedo tops the ranks. Eleven years after the trio performed a cover of Bonnie Tyler's multiplatinum hit "Total Eclipse...

Let's Get Killed

A holy trinity: men, metal, and Midori Sours

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: June 21, 2006

"Duuuuuude! Plaaaaaay it! Plaaaaay it!" Sometimes extreme adoration takes the form of imposing monosyllabic commands to total strangers. Other times it comes out in lacy, peach-colored panty floss...

Reviewed

Kalas

S/T

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: June 21, 2006

Kalas is Matt Pike's new outfit, and for the Bay Area quintet's nine-track debut he wields his ax only on a single cut ("Frozen Sun"). That's because Pike's primary role is that of a lead vocalist,...

Reviewed

Various Artists

Hard Truth Soldiers Vol. 1

Published: June 21, 2006

Bay Area political rap icon Paris has always seemed like a one-man movement, a solo crusader waging sonic jihads against heads of state or insisting the "G" in G-Funk stands for guerilla, not...

Reviewed

Lansing-Dreiden

The Dividing Island

By Michael Alan Goldberg

Published: June 21, 2006

Secret society Skull and Bones has nothing on Lansing-Dreiden: The latter, a highly enigmatic New York-based multimedia "company" was founded in 2000 and is responsible for music, video, art...

Reviewed

Kraak & Smaak

Boogie Angst (Quango)

By Toph One

Published: June 21, 2006

You could do a lot worse than to listen to this trio of DJ/producers from Holland all summer. After a string of sought-after 12-inch singles on London's Jalapeno Records, Kraak & Smaak (the name is...

Reviewed

Various Artists

Jamaica to Toronto Soul Funk & Reggae 1967-1974

By Dave Pehling

Published: June 21, 2006

The Great White North may seem an unlikely hotbed for bad-ass breakbeats and soulful grooves, but Seattle-based imprint Light in the Attic offers ample evidence that the capitol of Ontario, Canada,...

Bouncer

Home on the range in the land of philodendron

By Katy St. Clair

Published: June 21, 2006

I am originally from East Central Illinois. Granted, I grew up in a university town, so we ain't talking Skoal Hollow, Mississip', or nothing, but Champaign-Urbana did indeed have its share of...

Hear This

Fathers of invention, from Zappa to Radiohead

By Michael Alan Goldberg, Jennifer Maerz, Dave Pehling, Hiya Swanhuyser

Published: June 21, 2006

In the nearly 10 years (gasp!) since they had their watershed release OK Computer and officially became The Most Important Band in the World, Radiohead has created the requisite "reactionary...

BeatBox

Trading spaces: local promoters' new house of cards

By Tony Ware

Published: June 21, 2006

The latest installment in the House of Om mix series is a double-length effort from Colette and DJ Heather . Friends since forming the SuperJane collective in Chicago in the '90s, each turntable...