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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
Hitsville High
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...
The Rise of the Cooler
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...
Inwood Stability: City Saves Neglected Apartment Building with New Program and Private Partnership
Last Friday morning, Felix Guzman woke up early, grabbed his fishing pole, and headed over to the East River for some catch and release fun. For 40 years he has lived in the same building on Academy Street in Inwood and in that time he has “seen a lot.” So when he got...
Jennifer LeBarre Makes Sure That Oakland Students Get A Healthy Lunch
The bell rings— a prolonged buzzing signaling the end of class. Attention students: lunch is being served in the cafeteria, announces a female voice over the intercom. Lunch is being served in the cafeteria. There’s chicken wings and fries, pizza and fries, and salad...
After Oakland Hills Fire, Residents Build Off-The-Wall Homes
--Published on OaklandNorth.net on October 19, 2011-- Robert Pennell shifted the gear to neutral and parked the car along the side of the road. “There,” he said, pointing out the open window to a cluster of houses across the street. “That one is modern and the...
Should California’s state rock be stripped of its title because it contains asbestos?
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 first you think you are alone with the tumbleweeds -- but then you see...
Harvesting Hawaii’s Aquarium Fish
Honolulu Weekly (Cover Story) More than 150 years ago, Hawaii had some of the most well-managed fisheries in the Pacific. Portions of each island were divided into separate ahupuaa, which in turn were watched over by the konohiki, who managed natural resources and...