SF Weekly (part of the "Toilet Issue") Ah, the bathroom: one of the most important, but least loved rooms in a house. We never stay in it for very long — the toilet website MaP Testing found that most people use the restroom six to eight times each day for a total of...
Cover Story: Hitsville High, the School That Launched A Thousand Stars
The unlikely music factory at Pinole Valley High School SF Weekly (Cover Story) The lunch bell rings at Pinole Valley High School, and hordes of teenagers swarm out of squat, rectangular bungalows. Since the fall of 2013, Pinole Valley's 1,200 students have been...
Guerrilla Public Service Can Make the World a Better Place
Regular people are taking it upon themselves to make fixes and repairs around their cities, from cutting back overgrowth to filling in potholes. OK Whatever The next time you walk through your neighborhood, observe your surroundings. At a glance, everything might...
Cover Story: The Hatching of Dirtybird
The story of how four friends turned a barbecue in Golden Gate Park into a dance music empire. SF Weekly (Cover story) I’m standing in the center of a party bus, clinging to a stripper pole. Deep, molecule-rearranging bass music vomits out of the speakers, drenching...
Cash Rules Every Song Around Me
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers recently sued nine venues around the country for playing members' music without paying. The Grand Nightclub in San Francisco is one of them. SF Weekly We’re living in a golden age for live music. Seemingly...
Cover Story: Doug Hream Blunt’s Funk Revival
Three decades after its release, the 67-year old San Francisco musician's debut album finally enters the limelight. SF Weekly (Cover Story) Doug Hream Blunt was watching TV in his first-floor, Visitacion Valley home when the phone rang. It was the middle of 2015, and...
Cover Story: Beyond The Stage
The history of San Francisco's most iconic music venues SF Weekly (Cover Story) From techno warehouses to indie-rock taverns, San Francisco has no shortage of music venues. We’re especially lucky to have a few that are over a century old, having weathered fires,...
Cover Story: Beats Antique
The groudbreaking Bay Area trio is using music to connect global cultures. SF Weekly (Cover Story) “Welcome home,” says a girl with a back tattoo, snaking her arms in the air. I’m standing in the pit of the Fox Theater in Oakland on a Saturday night in December,...
Cover Story: The Yogi and the DJ
Two brothers' separate paths to music stardom. SF Weekly (Cover Story) On a Sunday evening in April, MC Yogi, a 37-year-old rapper and yoga teacher, bounded across the stage of The Independent, wearing a short-brimmed fedora and his trademark rectangular eyeglasses....
SF CHRONICLE: Booming Business Rooted in Oakland Pride
San Francisco Chronicle Running a business as large and varied as Oaklandish — ranked 33rd on Fortune’s list of the 100 fastest-growing inner-city companies in America last year — isn’t easy. On the eve of the brand’s recent yearly warehouse sale, with a website...
Should California’s state rock be stripped of its title because it contains asbestos?
--Published in The Los Angeles Times science section on July 2, 2010-- Imagine yourself in an Old West film, standing in the middle of a deserted street flanked with saloons, hotels and brothels, the soundtrack from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" wailing strong. At...
The Rise of Black Market Alcoholic Coolers in Oakland
The East Bay Express I'm sitting on the concrete floor of a garage, my back against a pole. To my right, a girl braids auburn weave into another girl's hair. Three teenagers sit on a couch to my left and a lone teddy bear, clutching a red velvet heart inscribed with...