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Image Problem

Why have SFPD Chief Heather Fong and Mayor Gavin Newsom pursued an overblown pseudo-scandal when there’s so much else on the department’s plate?

By A.C. THOMPSON

Published: January 3, 2007

If Andrew Cohen were to direct a drama based on his life, it would probably go something like this: In Act 1 we get to know Cohen, a hardworking cop who helps the San Francisco Police...

Matt Smith

Porkmistress Pelosi

Madam Speaker says she wants to tame pork-barrel spenders. Takes one to know one.

By Matt Smith

Published: January 3, 2007

Though Nancy Pelosi only emerged from the starting gate Tuesday as American history's most powerful woman, she's been hinting for weeks at what's to come. On Nov. 13, for instance, a USA Today...

The Apologist

A Very Good Year

We look back on the big news stories of 2006 and ask the tough question: Are you an apologist for the year that was?

By Matt Palmquist

Published: January 3, 2007

Another year has come and gone, and as San Francisco bids adieu to 2006, we take stock of the stories that shaped our lives during the past 12 months. As usual, the Bay Area found itself in plenty...

Sucka Free City

Santa's Exotic Helpers

By Mary Spicuzza

Published: January 3, 2007

Debbie Licious and other exotic dancers took some heat during the holidays over their body-baring fundraising tactics for the San Francisco Firefighters Toy Program. Between Thanksgiving and...

Sucka Free City

Picket Up

By PHIL HAYWORTH

Published: January 3, 2007

It seems nothing short of an ass-kicking will keep tourists from crossing the picket line in front of Hornblower's tour operations at Pier 31. Since the nonunion Hornblower was awarded the...

Sucka Free City

Song Cycle

By Matt Smith

Published: January 3, 2007

On Oct. 27, 32-year-old composer Flip Baber was driving through downtown San Francisco to see a movie when he got stuck in traffic. The movie start time came and went, so he and his girlfriend...

Music

Sweet Somethings

Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.'s pop valentines

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: January 3, 2007

The disaffected, downtown-mod persona of the Strokes rests heavily on frontman Julian Casablancas. The band's chief songwriter comes off equal parts aloof introvert and sly trickster. Watching him...

Music

Oddballers

BLVD: the only live band at the rave

By Jonathan Zwickel

Published: January 3, 2007

It's almost 2 a.m. on a recent Wednesday night and the crowd at Mighty has distilled down to the hardcores. A holiday party for a local culture Web site has drawn a schizo smattering of dress...

Music

Senses Burning Overtime

Indian Jewelry's smoke and terrors

By Dave Segal

Published: January 3, 2007

Seemingly more of a cult with ever-morphing lineups than a rock band proper, Indian Jewelry taps into psychedelia's darker, more tribalistic veins with often equilibrium-upsetting results. Starting...

Music

Misc. Reviews

Hyphy Hitz: dumb and dumber

By Tamara Palmer

Published: January 3, 2007

Hyphy Hitz purports to contain the essential songs of the Bay Area's contemporary strain of hip hop. Only just released, it is already one of the best hyphy compilations on the market, a clear...

Music

Take Me Out

Franz Ferdinand: international chowhound

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: January 3, 2007

Access to behind-the-scenes band life has become increasingly banal. Between "reality" television and coverage of performers hoping to lower the bar on self destruction (dudes, anything you'd dream...

Music

Goodbye to the Godfather

RIP James Brown

By John Nova Lomax

Published: January 3, 2007

Spike Lee, in his 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing , managed to examine the whole of black thought on the race question. You had the stuttering savant Smiley, Sweet Dick Willie and his...

Reviewed

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Live at the Fillmore East 1970 (Reprise)

Brian Barr

Published: January 3, 2007

For at least a dozen years, Neil Young fans heard rumors of this album's release. Originally intended to be an addendum to a never-released, 10-disc boxed set, Live at the Fillmore East 1970 is...

Reviewed

Vinyl

Fogshack Music Vol. 1 (In the Pocket Records)

Jonathan Zwickel

Published: January 3, 2007

As products of San Francisco's mid-'90s acid jazz heyday, Vinyl has both succeeded and suffered thanks to its pedigree. The six-piece ensemble enjoys huge popularity within the cadre of holdouts...

Reviewed

Sonic Youth

The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities (Geffen)

Jonah Flicker

Published: January 3, 2007

The elephant in the room is a very calm one — Sonic Youth is older, wiser, and not as prone to youthful outbursts of feedback squalor as it once was. Deal with it. But the one thing the band...

Hear This

Stephen Malkmus hits the pavement

By Jason Budjinski, Michael Goldberg, Mark Keresman, Tamara Palmer

Published: January 3, 2007

Reggae music isn't always known for its subtlety in the sex department, particularly when it comes to the younger artists coming out of Jamaica. But throughout a 30-plus-year career, singer Beres...

BeatBox

Matthew Dear’s subversive dancefloor antics

Tamara Palmer, Tony Ware

Published: January 3, 2007

Sure, Germans can be some meticulous, industrious motherfuckers. But too many people don't grasp that Germans also have a sense of humor, or the fact that they like to get high and fly just like...

Eat

Presents and Future

The food is as important as the wine list at the excellent Cav Wine Bar & Kitchen

By Meredith Brody

Published: January 3, 2007

In Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's , Holly Golightly says, "I simply trained myself to like older men, and it was the smartest thing I ever did." I don't think I trained myself to like the...

Fresh Eats

A weekly listing of new restaurants around town

Published: January 3, 2007

A weekly listing of new restaurants around town. To recommend a spot, e-mail fresheats . Biondivino: 1415 Green (at Polk), 673-2320, www.biondivino.com . Russian Hill . Italian wine,...

Film

Scents and Sensibility

Filming what was long deemed unfilmable, Tom Tykwer attempts to turn smell into cinema

By ED HALTER

Published: January 3, 2007

A multimillion-euro adaptation of a best-selling German novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer relates the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), born in 18th-century Paris with a...