Silk and Dcx care deeply about the queer past, especially San Francisco’s. When they met in 2024 their respective research projects dovetailed. Silk’s research on queer nightlife had led her deep into The Stud bar’s archives, while Dcx had come from Marseille to San Francisco seeking out the city’s storied legacies of HI-NRG and disco. Bonding over the collaborations of producer Patrick Cowley and Sylvester, and the defunct queer vistas of The I-Beam and Trocadero Transfer, Silk and Dcx seemed destined to collaborate. After months of discussion they landed a grant, and assembled a team of sound and lighting artists to bring their vision to life.

For four months Silk and Dcx improvised movements and exercises that culminated in the initial slow movement and opening of the piece, which gradually unfolds into a more synchronized sublimation of fast paced euphoric dance. The one complaint Silk heard after that performance was from an acquaintance, “She was so angry that she couldn’t get up and dance on the floor with us.”

Schlossman, one half of San Francisco dark wave outfit Loveshadow, is responsible for On the Floor’s heady musical start and combustive closing act. He had previously collaborated with Silk as a DJ, and the two had long discussed collaborating further. When approached by Silk to craft 30 minutes of music mirroring a specific San Francisco sound, he was game. The score evolves from a slow, steamy interlude fit for a sauna to a full blown HI-NRG-inflected conclusion.

Schlossman told 48 Hills,“It was really cool to work with them on this evolution. I feel like the two of them had a chance to refine their ideas through me.” The lighting by GG Torres successfully met Silk and Dcx’s vision for the piece as a gesture towards being in a disco and in a bathhouse. Having light and sound give space to imagine one’s self back to the past was more important than an exact replication. “We are not LARP-ing the ’80s here,” said Silk. This will surely carry over with this weekend’s performances.

The past devastation of the AIDS crisis has deeply shaped Silk and Dcx’s desire for nightlife history. In our conversation it became apparent that this was a deeply personal project. Last month the New York Times Style Magazine ran an article exploring why Millennial and Gen Z queer artists so heavily focus on AIDS history in their creative work. The potential and the pitfalls with that subject came up in our conversation, as well. For Silk, a self-described formerly abject theater kid, the Jonathan Larsen musical Rent was her introduction to the epidemic’s impact.

When it was revealed to Silk that her mother’s brother died of AIDS complications before she was born, things shifted to a more personal register. Her uncle’s death was not openly discussed in her family. “Stories like that can stoke your anger that it took so long for the government to act, for there to have been appropriate medication, appropriate treatment,” Silk told me. “Just to think if I had this person in my family. Stuff like that does matter when you’re queer and you’re looking around for your lineages.” 

San Francisco has been a vital site of inspiration and fantasy for Dcx and enriched his collaboration with Silk. While growing up in France, Dcx could not recall ever seeing the history of AIDS represented in culture. There was no equivalent to some of the touchstones in US culture like Silk’s ability to access Rent. When he tested HIV-positive at nineteen, he felt great urgency in learning as much as he could about the virus on every level. It has also shaped much of his artistic practice that he has described as a “personal diary” and “resolutely memorial.”

In our conversation, Dcx discussed consternating contemporary phenomena around HIV, such as serophobia (irrational fear of people living with HIV), and how the discourse around undetectability can sometimes risk minimizing the epidemic’s past. Dcx seeks to counter this in his projects. “I talk about undetectability in the way of history that also becomes undetectable at some point.” To be in San Francisco, where the epidemic’s past is more readily engaged with due to the diverse age range of queer cultural enclaves, is a poignant experience.

This has made their shared exploration of the epidemic’s history far from merely symbolic or aesthetic. Dcx found San Francisco’s queer nightlife generational diversity inspiring. Attendees perhaps will be in their early 20s and the DJs their early 30s and late 60s. “Even in Paris we don’t have places like The Stud or Aunt Charlies.”

Intergenerational dialogue has proven to be vital in On the Floor’s evolution. Silk had the idea to bring together three people who had been active in San Francisco nightlife at that time and ask them for feedback on their performance. Those three men were Steve Fabus, Brian Freeman, and Greg Cruikshank. Taking place at the Dark Entries shop on Larkin St., each brought a vinyl record with them to share with Silk and Dcx. They were regaled with stories from Cruikshank about The Angels of Light theater troupe and iconic lost spaces like Club 181—and the infamous story of the dead body hidden in that club’s rafters. 

Dcx and Silk also spent time with Page Hodel, who was a major presence in queer nightlife in the 1980s that they sought to embody. While Hodel still DJs at Oakland’s White Horse Inn, her residency in Napa County prevented her from readily attending On the Floor. Hodel shared her nightlife memories with the duo at her home. “She really had some amazing stories and I remember she was talking about boys she knew in the Castro who would take like sandpaper to grind down the crotch part of their Levi’s so that it would be thinner, so their bulge would be easier to see. That has really stuck with me.”

As they drove away from Sebastopol after having dinner with Hodel, Dcx was euphoric. “I remember how we were feeling so happy in the car on the way back. It was like… I don’t know that was a really, really nice moment with you,” mused Dcx to Silk. These intergenerational encounters energized Silk and Dcx and they were ready to push the piece further. “Meeting with them gave me a sort of groundedness and accountability to do them proud,” said Silk. 

After their conversation with Freeman, Cruikshank, and Habus and spending time with Hodel, Silk and Dcx returned to Schlossman with fresh ideas for another version of the score. At the end of our conversation, the two were readying for their performance dates, when all this fresh energy would premiere. The excitement and confidence between the two was palpable. “All of this has been a precious gift that has super-charged this second round of the performance with meaning for us.” On the Floor is also a gift to the community it honors and for those who are lucky to see it this weekend.

ON THE FLOOR Fri/6 + Sat/7, Joe Goode Annex, SF. Tickets and more info here.

The post With a Hi-NRG burst, ‘On the Floor’ dives again into queer nightlife and the AIDS crisis appeared first on 48 hills.

Certainly, the latter word may be applied to the truckload of awards Mac has taken home, which includes a MacArthur Genius Grant, the International Ibsen Award, the Kennedy Prize, a Guggenheim, and two Obies. The holy honor of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence bestowing sainthood on them also deserves a mention.

Mac’s works include The Lily’s Revenge, a five-hour play with 36 cast members about, among other things, a lily’s fight against nostalgia, and Hir (a family drama that reimagined parts of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child), which were both at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre. The playwrights’s Bark of Millions: A Rock Opera Meditation on Queerness came to Cal Performances in 2024.

Mac grew up in Stockton and came to San Francisco for the first time as a teenager for the 1983 AIDS March. That experience is what inspired A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was presented in its entirety over four performances at the Curran Theatre in 2017.

On Fri/6, Mac is back at the Curran with a new concert, Tender Heart Revolution. The occasion marks the release of their first book—a songbook named Bark of Millions: Queer Songs for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme, with music by Matt Ray and lyrics by Mac.

The artist talked with 48 Hills by phone about maintaining a tender heart during rising fascism, singing to a bully rather than punching them in the face, why we need a queer songbook, and using all of ourselves to prevent atrophy.

48HILLS I read somewhere that Bark of Millions has the fierce elation of a Pride Parade. Is that how you think of it?

TAYLOR MAC I was at this World Pride in 2019, and it was the year that they split into two parades, and one was the anti-capitalist parade. The other was the “go-go boys on Coca-Cola floats” parade. I thought, I want to hang out with the go-go Boys, I want to sell Coca-Cola. I want to be with all the drag queens and the fun, and I don’t want it to just be about activism. But also, fun is activism. I felt like I didn’t belong at either parade that year, and I thought, “Well, why don’t I make my own parade?”

Every song in the show will be its own float in a way. It has 50 songs inspired by 50 different queer people from history, and now we’ve turned it into a songbook.

48HILLS How did you and Matt Ray decide to do that?

TAYLOR MAC I work in the ephemeral arts primarily, and I always long for things to be in the world. And there is some activism in this. It’s the first queer songbook to be published by a major publisher in the history of the world. People can learn a song and then forget about it on their bookshelf, and then a year later go, “Oh, there’s this book,” and then learn another song, and so it’s something that can be part of your life—instead of just an evening at the theater that you remember, and maybe as part of your life via your memories, but not necessarily something that allows you to have a daily practice with it, or a monthly or a yearly practice with it.

48HILLS Did you immediately know what you wanted the book to be?

TAYLOR MAC The form of the book took shape through us working on it. Matt Ray composed the music, I wrote the lyrics, and I also wrote all these essays for the book about queerness. So, it’s kind of a treatise on queerness, or a giant meditation on queerness. One of the things we learned is that some people read sheet music and some people just read lyrics. A lot of singers don’t read music, so they just want the lyrics, and they learn from their ear. So we thought, that’ll be good, to have one book that has all the sheet music in it, and one book that just has all the lyrics and the essays in it. Then people can use both books at the same time. So, it comes in a compendium, and you can invite your friend over who plays the guitar, and you can sing along with them. You can use as you wish, instead of dictating that it all be musical notation. The notation’s gorgeous, but there’s something quite wonderful about being able to read the poetry of the lyrics without a lot of squiggly lines around it.

48HILLS You were part of the October 30 Philip Glass event at Stanford Live Arts. What does Glass mean to you?

TAYLOR MAC He is part of the lineage of Mabou Mines, which is the avant-garde experimental theater pulse of New York. Sonically, he’s such a dream. But this is primarily an Allen Ginsburg evening. We are doing Philip Glass, but it’s about celebrating Allen Ginsberg, who is of course one of the great queers of all time. I’m doing some poems of Allen’s. I wrote one that was inspired by “Wichita Vortex,” one of his poems. Then I’m singing a Bob Dylan song, because Ginsberg did the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s Desire album. I’m going to sing “Isis.”

48HILLS Tell me about Tender Heart Revolution, your concert coming to the Curran Theatre Fri/6.

TAYLOR MAC It’s brand-new. We’re doing a couple songs from A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, this big, long show I made that we did at the Curran many years ago. We’re going to do two songs from that show, and we’re doing a bunch of songs from Bark of Millions, because we’ve got the book that’s just been released, and a couple new things. It’s really me, in concert.

I call it Tender Heart Revolution because in this time of rising fascism, I just feel like the conventional wisdom I got when I was a kid was “punch the bully in the face,” or “you have to fight back, you have to stand up for yourself.” No one ever took me aside and said, “Revolution can happen by maintaining your tender heart.” I don’t want to become a fascist or an authoritarian in order to defeat them. I’m interested in how to maintain a tender heart in this too-tough world. I think you do that by singing songs and gathering people together and sharing art.

48HILLS I heard you being interviewed by Zach Stafford on the podcast “Vibe Check,” and you said something about how curiosity was the way to survive in this time.

TAYLOR MAC It is a form of liberation. Just ask questions about the world and people, and why is our president as horrible as he is? I mean, there are five million reasons, and they can all benefit you. It won’t change him, but it can benefit you to ask the questions and to wonder, it can calm your nervous system down. Our great queer icon Socrates gave us this method, which is just to constantly ask questions. You know, it’s not “I think therefore I am.” It’s “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” There’s no such thing as faith without doubt, and so it’s all about wondering about the world. That’s the thing about writing queer songs all inspired by different queer people from world history. I think it’s not representation. I don’t know how to represent myself on a stage, let alone another person, let alone an entire demographic. But I can wonder about people and their circumstances, and I can ask questions in song about them, and I can try to inspire other people to do the same about themselves and the universe.

48HILLS You have won so many awards, but it seems like you still have to fight to get things made.

TAYLOR MAC I think it’s because I’m not a capitalist. I have this book, but I don’t think of it as something I just want people to buy. I think of it as an offering to try to help make the world better. I didn’t grow up with queer songs in the church or queer songs around the campfire or at school or even on the radio. I think that there’s a lot of pain as a result of that. I didn’t grow up with a queer songbook, and it’s the first time a queer songbook has been published by a major publisher. All of us didn’t grow up with these things, and I see a problem in the world.

I say we’re squashing ourselves. We’re not allowing ourselves to dig deep. Why are there 5,000 stories about songs about Jesus, but the only song about Ra, the sun god—that I know—is the one I wrote? Millions of people worship the genderqueer god called named Ra.

I keep saying on this on this book tour, that straight is a human abstraction. There’s nothing straight in the universe. Everything is curved, everything’s wobbly. Of course, that’s geometry. But you apply it to gender and sexuality, and suddenly everything starts to make sense.

When people say that queerness isn’t natural, what they’re saying is they want to control nature. They’re saying that nature isn’t natural, and they’re trying to make it straight, which is a man-made concept. It’s like we all need to be liberated from the ways that society and churches and governments have oppressed us, or even our parents. Everybody needs that liberation, because there is expansion in all of us. We’re all able to be bigger than we allow ourselves to be.

48HILLS That word, “expansive,” keeps coming up to describe you and your work. Was that a guiding principle for you, or just how things turned out?

TAYLOR MAC I’ve made 30 full-length works in my career, and only three of them have been longer than two hours. But I’ve definitely gotten this reputation for doing durational work—because the durational stuff has gotten more attention. But I love the durational work, and I love the idea of thinking of yourself as part of the universe which is very large, ever-growing, and ever-expanding. If we’re actually part of the universe, aren’t we ever-expanding as well?

I grew up in Stockton, California, where everyone was told to be one thing, and in a country where we’re supposed to root for one team and one god, and there’s a lot of tribalism and shrinking yourself down to something as opposed to opening yourself up to the to the larger world and the larger possibilities. So, I think the expansiveness that you’re talking about is a reaction to a childhood of being squished. I’m just trying to breathe. My friend is a doctor, and she went and studied cadavers, and she got to touch people’s lungs. Most of them were atrophied, because people don’t use the full width and depth of their lung capacity, so that extra space just dies off as we get older. You can apply that metaphor to everything in our lives. It’s important that we use all of us in order to not atrophy.

TAYLOR MAC: TENDER HEART REVOLUTION Fri/6, 7:30pm. Curran Theatre, SF. More info and tickets here.

The post Taylor Mac’s queer songbook is built to last appeared first on 48 hills.

Now he has to address the city’s most pressing issues, with no excuses, without offending his billionaire backers.

That’s not going to be easy. It might not even be possible.

The number one crisis in San Francisco today is housing affordability, and it’s about to get worse. When Lurie’s pals at Anthropic have their IPO, it will help fill empty office space as they hire more staff, and thus enrich the owners of commercial buildings, including Donald Trump, who owns half of the Bank of America building. The IPO will also add 4,000 more millionaires to the city, and all of them will want to buy houses (or maybe pay $10,000 a month for a nice downtown rental).

Then OpenAI will do its own IPO in the spring, and mint another few thousand millionaires, who will be competing in the housing market.

Prices will continue to soar. Greedy landlords will seek to get rid of rent-controlled tenants at almost any cost. Anyone who isn’t rich will be at risk of displacement.

More low-income people will become homeless, and since there’s no place for them to go, they will be on the streets or in the county jail, which is overcrowded and can’t hold them for long anyway.

There’s not a whole lot the mayor can do about it—unless he wants to profoundly change his political agenda.

The mayor could, indeed, follow the mayor of New York and freeze the rent on rent-controlled apartments. The mayor appoints the Rent Board, which sets the annual allowable rental increase. I doubt he’s going to do that.

The affordability crisis is in part the fault of the state Legislature, which has made it impossible for San Francisco to have real rent control or eviction protections. Lurie could rally his billionaires and work to get the Legislature to repeal the Costa-Hawkins and Ellis Acts. The $30 million they spent to get Scott Wiener (who never once tried seriously to repeal those laws) might make a difference in a body that is controlled by Big Real Estate.

He won’t do that.

He’s already tried, as has Wiener, to eliminate any local opposition to luxury housing development. But developers aren’t building anyway; the institutions that finance market-rate housing are good capitalists, and they put their money where the highest return is, and today, you can get more in Treasury bills than you can building housing. You might get a whole lot more from the Anthropic IPO.

That’s not because of red tape, Nimbys, or permit delays. Those are all gone. Most housing is now “ministerial.” It’s the economy, stupid. Lurie can’t change that.

Lurie won Prop. C, which will add more than $100 million a year to the Housing Trust Fund. He helped defeat Prop. I, which would have put another $100 million into social housing. If both had passed, and the Democrats in Congress restore some federal housing money, we might have been looking at 40,000 affordable units over ten years. That would mean 10 percent of local housing would be out of the private market, which might actually bring down private-sector rents. If more than 80,000 people can get an apartment for 25 percent of what private landlords want to charge, the private landlords might have to … compete.

Instead, the mayor’s folks spent millions to kill Prop. I, so Lurie might, maybe, get half of that, and it won’t be around for years to come.

Even if private developers arrived in mass numbers into the city to build more luxury housing, and even if the Yimbys are right and that brings down costs, there’s no way rents will come down before Lurie has to face the voters again.

The voters narrowly are approving Prop. B, which will set in motion the process of creating a public bank. If Lurie were to get on board with that in a big way, the city could start using its own cash to fund affordable housing. So far, he has shown little interest.

So what, exactly, is he going to do? Hire more cops, put more people in an overcrowded jail, help big commercial landlords make more money … and what about everyone else?

Maybe he figures that his billionaires can turn San Francisco into nothing but a playground for the rich. So who is going to make their coffee, and cook their meals, and clean their houses, and drive the buses that keep the city functioning, and staff the hotels that host the conventions that he loves?

Do the math. It doesn’t work.

Good luck, Mr. Mayor.

The post Mayor Lurie has a big problem appeared first on 48 hills.

Traditional ofrendas gradually appeared in public and private spaces reflecting the aesthetic vision and personalities of the creators and honorees. The huge ofrenda in the Zocalo set a world record with a 33+ meter (~108 feet) Catrina—a tribute to Jose Guadalupe Posada, whose artwork inspired what is now one of the most iconic symbols of Mexico. The giant Catrina was surrounded by beds of marigolds peppered with colorfully decorated axolotl figurines. The amphibian from Lake Xochimilco symbolizes regeneration, an apt representation of the cycle of life surrounding Dia de Muertos.

The Giant Alebrijes Parade organized by the Museum of Popular Art on October 17 highlighted the clever, whimsical mixed-species alebrijes, another Mexican folk art tradition. A nod to Halloween, the Zombie March on October 18, was a family affair as people gathered at the Monument to the Revolution for face painting, photos, and food. The zombies were joined by cadres of clowns with chain saws, sinister jokers, traditional Aztec dancers, and so many more costumed folks.

The marigold festival painted the Reforma vibrant oranges and yellows. The city illuminated giant sculptures of Catrinas, calaveras (skulls), and xoloitzcuintles, the Mexican hairless dogs believed to guide souls through the underworld.

The Mega Catrinas Procession on October 25 was indeed a mega event! Thousands of Catrinas danced their way down Paseo de la Reforma: Catrinas in black dresses, Catrinas in colorful garb, Catrinas in corn husk outfits, Catrinas with lucha libre-themed clothes, young Catrinas, a 79-year-old Catrina, pre-Hispanic Catrinas, revolutionary Catrinas, drag Catrinas, dog Catrinas, cartonería Catrinas on tricked out cars, Catrinas with intricate hats that are works of art in their own right. (The Royal Ascot crew could learn from these milliners). Most poignant of all was the Contingent of the Catrinas of Remembrance. Adorned in white with marigold accents, each carried one or more photos of loved ones lost—parents, children, pets, lovers.

The procession was an endurance event. The start time was 6pm, but participants gathered early in the day decorating cars and applying elaborate make-up. Despite hours of prep and waiting, a festive vibe permeated. The car contingent blasted music generating impromptu conga lines. Once the sun set, the millions of lights festooned on cars and clothes erupted, adding to the glow of the nearly full moon as the procession began.

The crowning modern event was the Grand Parade, held on October 31. While the parade started in 2016 (yes, in response to the opening scene of the James Bond movie Spectre), the “floats” employ traditional Mexican papier-mache, cartoneria. Like any great event, preparation is all. Colectivo: Ultima Hora began crafting their design months ago. A visit to their workshop at FARO Oriente on October 24 was a chance to see their project El Panadero con el Pan (an homage to the Tin Tan short) in progress. As the artisans brought the giant figures to life, the dancers rehearsed their parade routine to a cumbia remix of the 1950s song.

On parade day, colored smoke and lively music sparked excitement as spectators lined Paseo de la Reforma, many of whom had been waiting under the sunny skies for hours to secure a prime viewing spot. One of the first groups was the colorful Ajolote: Guardian of Memory contingent. An appropriate beginning as the holiday is about remembering loved ones; the focus of this year’s parade was to honor Mexican cultural icons.

In addition to the Tin Tan offering, other standouts included a float celebrating the film María Candelaria by Emilio Fernandez which was the first Latin American film to win top honors at Cannes. The elaborate float included a sculpted boat with the main characters rowing forward amid a sea of flowers. The back of the float depicted a somber scene as a man shepherds his lover’s body through the canals of Xochmilco.

The Regional Catrinas represented the different Mexican areas through their traditional dresses. A somber Puebla contingent wore massive sombreros with images of The Virgin of Guadalupe on the inside of their brims. The Memories of Childhood floats displayed skeletons on a seesaw, a swing, and a hobby horse acknowledging both departed children and our own past childhoods.

Women in blooming marigold dresses, crowd sing-alongs, cheerleaders with orange pompoms, marching bands, stilt walkers, and folkloric dancers—including the stunning Danza de Tecuanes Azules (“dance of the jaguar”), which originated in the state of Guerrero—rounded out the parade.

When a giant Mexican flag passed, the crowd chanted, ME-XI-CO! And, Mexico, especially the La Secretaría de Cultura de la Ciudad de México, should be proud. The parade was a stunning representation of the rich Mexican culture (and way more organized than the parade in the Bond film).

The season culminated with family cemetery visits. Panteon Xoco hosted a variety of families. Some memorials included modest flower displays, some with intricate floral designs, others with large papier-mache Catrinas or skeletons. One family prepared an elaborate feast for their departed, others feasted themselves, some families hired mariachi bands to honor loved ones.

Someone left a touching message: “Congratulations! You are going to be a great-grandma. We miss you a lot.” Even the telecom company advertising with photos of Catrinas giving out paper marigolds didn’t dampen the evening.

Leaving the cemetery, one vendor had a few poinsettias nestled amongst the marigolds. Life does go on; Dia de Muertos season gives us the time and space to remember those we’ve lost and treasure the time we all have. —Patty Riek

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Thousands of people gathered to watch and participate. But what makes this procession unique is that it’s truly a grassroots, community effort, with the message “Our Dead Are Not for Sale.” “That saying is a slogan all year long in terms of gentrification and changes in the Mission,” said Michelle Cerrato of event organizers El Colectivo del Rescate Cultural (Culture Rescue Collective). “We don’t collect government assistance or external funding for this event. It’s by the community, for the community, and therefore you cannot buy us.”

Watch our live report, and subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram for more:

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Oh, one more thing: We Break News Every Week! Let’s Go!

JIMETTA ROSE, METTASUN (NIGHT DREAMER)

Such a funny thing. In this year, 2026, marking the 100th birth anniversary of both Miles Davis and John Coltrane, which inspired global centennial celebrations, tribute concerts, and reissues, I consumed more Sun Ra music than ever before. Between attending both Sun Ra Arkestra’s two sold-out concerts at The Chapel on February 28 and March 1 as part of the 33rd annual Noise Pop Festival, and taking in the American Masters, Sun Ra: Do The Impossible documentary that originally aired in February on PBS—it was a Sun Ra-heavy year. But actually? Right on time.

Ra, forever the poet, philosopher, and music visionary, probably foresaw the political climate we are inhabiting right now. 

So to have the LA-based vocalist and musician Jimetta Rose reimagine Sun Ra on ‘MettaSun,’ full of the cosmic jazz pioneer’s iconic recordings through Jimetta’s unique lens, delivers clarity, hope, and just a bit of humor, desperately needed in these mostly unfunny times. As always, full of those tones and frequencies, bearing witness, exquisite Black voices performing upliftment in a choir setting, MettaSun speaks to 2026 a bit more directly than Coltrane and Miles ever could, through that avant-garde meets melodic, graceful, conversational way.

This slipped by me at the end of September; don’t let it slip by you. Pick it up here.

MILD UNIVERSE, JOEL ROBINOW, PATEKA AT BOTTOM OF THE HILL, NOVEMBER 18

This is the type of show we call a three-fer… Actually no. It’s a throwback to a time when three incredibly talented Bay Area bands somehow got the luck, the sweat, or pristine timing to share one bill. It used to be more commonplace when there were local venues that could invest, strictly, in local talent.

I digress. Mild Universe continues in that certain historical sonic formula that some Bay Area bands adhere to; it’s the combo amalgam. That smattering of rock, funk, trippy-dippy shit, disco, jazz, and a chef’s kiss of foggy collectivism—a combined calling amongst adverse thinkers in song. San Francisco’s Mild Universe, the six-to-seven-piece combo outfit that formed in 2019, is comprised of musicians who opine with shine.

Joel Robinow, formerly of Once & Future Band—damn, I loved that group—is an accomplished performer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and still has that voice that speaks to anyone inquisitive. Pateka, the Richmond-based fusion quartet, praised by Jazz Times, brings serious chops and auditory unexpectedness, if not downright silliness, to the experimental art-rock milieu.

In total, all three acts hold their own weight and show promoters and venues how you build an impressive night of LOCAL music. Get here early; you don’t want to miss anybody. Grab tickets here.

WENDY EISENBERG

It’s that time of the year when Noise Pop announces the first phase and release dates, and we, SF music writing people, make assumptions about who we think is playing the festival but just have not as of yet been announced. If you notice in the mantra of this column, we’ve added the tagline: “We break music news every week.”

I’ve just recently started listening to Wendy Eisenberg, who describes herself in her Bandcamp profile as “an improviser and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer, and the voice.” Her recent companion album, Wweennddyy Eeiisseennbbeerrgg, takes two previously released songs and stretches them into about 46 minutes of beautiful, lush, ambient folk arrangements, meant for immersive listening.

With a date at our Four Star Theater on Tuesday, February 23, 2027, you can assume she’s performing as part of Noise Pop, and it seems it’s already sold out. So call your buddy Sketchy Jay, who always has an in to the show, because you’re going to need him. But keep your eyes peeled here just in case.

WHITNEY’S PLAYLAND, BOTTLED LIGHTNING (DANDY BOY RECORDS)

Bay Area quartet Whitney’s Playland returns with a 7-song EP that was recorded and mixed by the band across their home studios, packing some self-described “swirly power pop, deconstructed lullabies, and buzzing ballads with a bone to pick.” The lead single “Bottled Lightning” rolls around with garage-fuzz textures and smooth, steady, and effective rhythm. 

The new EP is out November 20 on Dandy Boy Records. Pre-order it here off the sampler, which pays tribute to Little Hill Saloon.

NABIHAH IQBAL, “HEAVEN CAN WAIT” (GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL)

Brit Nabihah Iqbal took a couple of years to follow up on her 2023 album DREAMER, but she’s returning with a new single, label, and country of residence, here in the US. The new single “Heaven Can Wait” continues with the post-punk New Wave textures she’s known for. Her SF debut at Cafe du Nord in the summer of 2023 merged those sonics with indie-rock and house.

About the new work, Iqbal said in a press statement, “It’s a song about the happiness of friendship. It’s about loving life, feeling good, and appreciating all the positive things that this world has to offer. The song is inspired by summers in London and New York City: it’s about having fun with your friends and really, truly feeling alive. I wrote the song in a small, quirky basement studio in the East Village, Manhattan, and I wanted to channel the energy and freedom of this iconic New York neighborhood.”

Iqbal is currently a resident DJ at New York’s Public Records. Pick up the single here.

THUNDERCAT AT FOX THEATER, NOV 17

Thundercat is a consistent live act: If you care about contemporary pop music and have a hankering for the weird and wonderful out-jazz multiverse—Old Thundie is for you. It’s difficult to name a peer or contemporary who can serve up his type of hits but also supply context and access points for a young and budding jazz fan.

Currently out on tour in support of the new album Distracted, which gives this Grammy-winning artist and producer bandwidth to play big-sounding jazz arrangements, making tributes to jazz heavyweights McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Chick Corea alongside crooning ballads about his ‘Dragonball Durag.” That’s range, baby! Grab tickets here.

The post Under the Stars: Sun Ra rises—with a cosmic wink—on Jimetta Rose’s ‘Mettasun’ appeared first on 48 hills.

It’s going to take months to fully analyze the San Francisco returns and figure out why the progressives lost almost everything. But there’s no way to understand this election without looking at the massive, unprecedented, sums of money a handful of very rich people poured into the key races to elect candidates and pass measures that support the Big Tech and Real Estate agenda.

Between his own campaign and the IE money, state Sen. Scott Wiener had $17 million on his side, far, far more than Sup. Connie Chan. Mayor Daniel Lurie had $13 million to pass his ballot measures. The opponents of those measures had a few hundred thousand.

Money alone doesn’t explain political outcomes: Elon Musk spent more than $250 million to keep the Democrats from winning in Texas, and he lost. But that was part of a national rebellion against Donald Trump, and none of the races in San Francisco had anything to do with Trump. Not directly: Everyone involved is a Democrat.

The progressives never had the resources to explain to the voters what, say, Prop. D really meant. I got at least five mailers talking about “cleaning up City Hall.” None of them said that the voters would be in effect giving up the right to place initiatives on the ballot.

We had no serious race for US Senate or governor to get the young, progressive voters excited about taking on Trump. It was hard to run against the mayor, who remains popular although a majority of San Franciscans think the city’s economy is going in the wrong direction.

We also have a daily newspaper that remains among the top sources of information for residents that largely ignored the real issues in the Congressional race, never fully reported on the impacts of the mayor’s measures, has long bought into and promoted the idea that the private market will solve our housing crisis—and offered an entirely reactionary set of endorsements that Wiener and the mayor’s allies freely used as campaign mailers

The demographics of the city have changed in the past decade as more wealthier people move here for tech jobs. Some are millionaires already; some expect that they’ll be millionaires soon. The idea of a billionaire agenda isn’t at all alarming to them.

But that’s not a majority of San Francisco. A majority of San Francisco, including a lot of people who would have voted for Chan, didn’t cast ballots. When all the votes are counted, turnout will be about 60 percent. In some part of town, including D9 and D10, it could be below 50 percent.

Here are some reports from Election Night that give some sense of how people were feeling:

From our correspondent Frida De La O:

A large crowd of San Franciscans in support of Connie Chan gathered at Gray Area on Mission St. Chan merch being sold at the entrance, buttons reading ‘Connie Chan for congress’ and navy blue shirts with “CONNIE” written across the chest. The crowd buzzed with hope and excitement, with boxes of pizza stacked to the left of the room, and a photo background reading phrases “The future is ours to build” and “we are here to change what comes next.”

Attendee Osha Ashworth said “being someone who comes from a working family, and understanding the struggles of working people is really important to bring into congress”

 Videos of Chan greeting community members projected on a main screen and attendees mingled. Many were grabbing a drink at the bar and bustling at tables chatting all things Chan. Attendee Brady Fell said, “I’m hopeful, I think she had a lot of headwinds because of name recognition and because of all the money that Scott Wiener had, but I mean, I’m hopeful” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi endorsed Chan earlier this year.

 Chan’s popularity stems from a working-class background and an inspiring story. Fell continued “It would be great for the city to see someone who’s immigrated to the United States and now could be in the house”

When early results showed Wiener at 57 percent and Chan at 43 percent, the crowd remains hopeful. It’s theoretically possible that as the final votes are counted, Chan could pull ahead, but she would need 56 percent remaining ballots.

Olivia Morris said “we are up against crazy PAC funding, this is a really grass roots movement, no matter what it’s going to be an uphill battle” Matt Richardson added “I’m committed to the end. I want to get the final count”

Rudy Gonzalez took the stage to introduce supporters of Chan. Kim Tavaglioni, the head of the SF Labor Council, said “this is the beginning of our movement…to fight for the working men and women.”

Speakers mentioned countless policies that Chan supports, from housing, something Chan’s campaign didn’t focus on too much, to the support of limitations on AI.

The lead labor representative the California Nurses Association, Dominic Chan, pointed at his shirt with Wiener’s face, with text at the bottom reading ‘There is no anthropic money in this race…’

“He is a liar,” Chan said, reading it out loud the crowd cheered, then began a chant “Yes, we Chan” that roared through the room of the Gray Area.

Connie Chan, introduced by Gonzalez, kept her speech upbeat.  “We all want an answer tonight, but every voter deserves to have their ballots counted. We owe it to them, to be patient, to get this right” she continued “You gave this campaign courage, your time and your belief that working people, all working people, can shape our future” she thanked her canvassers, her family and Pelosi for paving the way of public service in the city and before leaving she thanked the crowd of supporters. Chan left swiftly as the crowd began to chant “Yes we Chan.”

From our correspondent Philippe Bienick:

I entered the Mission Rock Resort a little after 9pm to a raucous atmosphere. By the time I arrived, District 10 Supervisor candidate Theo Ellington had wrapped up a speech in front of a crowd of friends and family. Everybody had a drink in their hand and carried a lighthearted mood, all before any result was even announced. As I made my way through his family and friends, the DJ cut the track as Ellington grabbed the microphone. At this moment, he announced his victory. A chant saying “Theo! Theo!” followed. 

I got a chance to interview Ellington after a decent wait; the candidate took time to celebrate with his closest family, friends, and partners. Finally, he graciously got back to me. I asked him about his plans for his first 30 days in office, as well as concerns about his pro-housing agenda at all income levels. I also questioned him on his support from crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and his support on the moratorium for AI data centers. Finally, I wrapped up with his plans for the Hunter’s Point shipyard cleanup.

His answers consist mainly of his grounded campaign talking points. He emphasized the need to improve the transit corridors and its surrounding infrastructure in the Bayview, and how dense housing needed to accommodate for that. As for how he would gain political and fiscal support for affordable housing, he mentioned how the market and state legislation would force him to “have to get creative.” For improving the transit corridor, he could not give specifics on improving transit times. 

Chris Larsen was not present at the event. Daniel Lurie briefly came by, and left in a matter of minutes. Supervisor Matt Dorsey was present.

From our correspondent Olyvia Manor:

People are hesitant to comment on their position on Proposition G, the Great Highway measure, whose supporters shared a party with Connie Chan. They often mention that it has been on ballot before and in that regard it’s a sign that the people do not feel like their voices are heard.

However, when I was able to have a conversation with Otto Pippinger, the face of the Yes on G campaign, he said that he was not surprised by the outcome, but still though he had succeeded. He shared that it was less about the electoral results, since he knew that he could only offer the proposition a “25-40 percent chance” of passing, but rather that he was able to give voice to the people who had been drowned out the first time around. For him, it was a small defeat in a larger movement of bringing together the people who continue suffering these smaller loses and will eventually grow into a greater power against the mainstream.

From our correspondent Leonardo Lluberes:

As soon as you enter the front door at El Rio,, you have to push through crowds of all sorts of folks. You can see the old and young, people of every race and creed, and of course people on the left. The progressive wing of San Francisco politics is hosting an election watch party. Members of organizations like the Harvey Milk Club, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Working Families Party are all over the bar. Drinks and pizza boxes litter every table and chair, with everyone drinking beers and cheering as they hear another Democratic victory in the Senate.

Friends and families are meeting up with signs and campaign merch, with even some candidates like Bunny McFadden present at the party. McFadden, a candidate for the City College board, talks about progressive organizing in this election for Props I and B. She says, “We’ve shown that we have the infrastructure to push forward things that are way outside of our weight class, and that we’re really good at keeping our values intact when we move through electoral politics.”

With every update on the results, you’d either hear groans or cheers, with everyone openly discussing and debating what those results mean for the total.

It was a Who’s Who in the bar with local progressive leaders like Dean Preston and Sup. Jackie Fielder. Jane Kim, the leader in the race for state insurance commissioner, even made an appearance, giving a rousing speech about the need for organizing a progressive movement across the state, and the importance of coalition building.

I was able to get a hold of her for an interview where we talked about what other progressive candidates can emulate in their campaigns. She said “We showed that you can have an unapologetic populist campaign taking on corporate billionaires and win in the state of California. But you have to win with the message, and we came with a message. A policy platform, about how we were gonna fight for everyday California and working families, and it resonated across the state.”

There is good news for progressives: It looks as if Proposition B, the Public Bank Initiative, could pass. As of the latest results, it’s down by just 300 votes, and the later votes are breaking more progressive. And Kim has a 52-48 percent lead over Ben Allen for insurance commissioner.

To nobody’s surprise, Prop. C, the affordable housing trust fund measure, passed; the mayor and his cronies supported it. They opposed Prop. I, which would have allocated tax money from high-end property sales to social housing; it went down to defeat.

The post Why the billionaires won appeared first on 48 hills.

I write these words on Election Day 2026, and the country’s in such a shitty state of affairs that even the White House (what hasn’t been destroyed to make the Epstein Ballroom) anticipates massive voter backlash. I voted two weeks ago with progressive righteous indignation. I’m far too realistic for that to think everyone voted the same, so here’s what this arts journalist has his eye on, some of which will be still too close to call on November 4.

There’s Berkeley’s Measure Y, which would directly fund the arts communities. The measure’s been most strongly promoted by Shotgun Players, which has been pushing for votes for months now.

Richies are sweating California’s Prop 40 billionaire tax, even the current governor of California. They’re so terrified of this one-time tax that they’ve spent no less than $1million-per-day trying to defeat it. They even wrote three other Props (41-43) to deliberately sabotage Prop 40 if it does win.

Mayor Bluejeans continues his Trump cosplay by attempting a similar power-grab with SF Props D, E, and F. Mind you, he and his acolytes are the same “geniuses” whose last prop may have opened the door for Aaron Peskin to re-run for Supervisor.

Then there’s the fight for Pelosi’s seat. One candidate hates the homeless, loves cops, plays queer whilst erasing queer history, fetishizes gentrification, used racist AI propaganda against his Asian-American opponent (not the first time), and once faked an endorsement from the SF Bay Guardian, to name but a few skullduggeries.

The other candidate is Connie Chan. ‘Nuff said.

Our own Tim Redmond has already pushed back against one potential ending for this story. It’s far too soon to say how it ends. But I echo Tim’s sentiment that it’s not too late to write our happy ending. Besides, an activist’s story never ends on Election Day.

Liberation West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep

With public funding in mind, I nearly missed opening night of this show because of an incident on the BART tracks, forcing me and other passengers to run back-and-forth to the Salesforce Dildo in the hopes of getting a bus across the Bridge. If you wonder what improvements a billionaire tax could improve, there ya go.

Paradoxically, awkwardly walking in five minutes late to Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer-winning Liberation (West Coast premiere through November 29 at the Berkeley Rep) was probably appropriate. After all, when the members of the show’s second-wave-feminist Consciousness Raising Group introduce themselves, one of them lashes out at the idea that a group of women gathered must automatically be a knitting circle.

The kicker is that one of them actually did attend the group thinking it was a knitting circle. (That joke reminded me of the first episode of Vag Magazine, the short-lived web series that introduced the world to Kate McKinnon.)

This particular CRG meeting, set in an Ohio gymnasium in the 1970s, has been arranged by Lizzie (Katie Lowes). Its attendees include the Afrocentric Celeste (Felicia Curry), Jewish radical Susan (Evelyn Spahr), housewife Margie (Mary Gordan Murray), liberated Italian Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio), and office worker “the other Dora” (Britt Faulkner). Through the memories of Lizzie’s daughter (also Lowes), the younger woman strives to find out how complex the Women’s Movement was and whether her journalist mother compromised her own beliefs by adopting the family life.

Wohl’s dramedy script is strongest when emphasizing that not every decision is as clear-cut as a manifesto tenet. One of the best scenes has one of the women reveal she voted for Nixon. Why? Because “McGovern sold us out!” You could swap out those respective names for “Trump” and “Biden” without losing the statement’s impact. Where the script wavers is in trying to balance to comedy and drama (both of which are good) without the two having a head-on collision. The script is also pretty self-congratulatory in its inclusion of Black women, but they’re the kind of Black women white writers always include, so as to not be accused of not including them. 

Director Whitney White gets a surprising amount of mileage from a play that’s just six women in folding chairs. But if Mamet got a Pulitzer for writing six guys in chairs, why not the all-femme equivalent?

It should come as no surprise that the Rep’s Roda Theatre kept a steady flow of air throughout the night. CO² levels on my Aranet4 peaked around 870ppm in the second act, before dropping down to 839ppm by the final bow. (The final mask-required performance will be the November 8^th matinee.)

At times, Liberation seems as confounded as its narrator as to what story it wants to tell. The parts it does tell can be fascinating, but the self-conflict can be frustrating. Oddly enough, that may be the point.

LIBERATION’s West Coast premiere runs through November 29 at the Berkeley Rep. Tickets and further info here.

SF Neo-Futurists present We Bought a Gun world premiere

“I don’t like it.” 

An audience member said that during the opening-day performance of the SF Neo’s latest full-length. It was when writer-performers Jeb and Willie Caldwell used their titular firearm to discuss Shoot, Chris Burden’s infamous 1971 performance art piece in which he was intentionally shot with a live round. One also thinks of the near-shot three years later at Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0. Jeb and Willie similarly put their trust in one another for the sake of performance art. The tool–nay, weapon–they use is no less dangerous now that it was 50-plus years ago.

The difference between We Bought a Gun (world premiere through November 22 at 447 Minna, SF) and the aforementioned pieces is that no live ammo is ever placed in this gun. Nevertheless, it’s treated as an object of affection (it’s placed in a baby’s crib), an avatar of debate (legislation is discussed at length), and an indisputable symbol of power. They detail the hilarious story of purchasing it at gun shop in Pacifica and whether it conflicts with or supports the couple’s left-leaning politics.

In SF Neo fashion, the audience is not there to casually observe. Again: the gun is never loaded, but we’re invited (under supervision) to take active vocal and physical part in the power the weapon represents. It says a lot that almost no one wanted to at that first performance.

It had been a while since last I visited 447 Minna, but I think the HVAC was working better than last time? Granted, the opening-day audience was about half-full, at best. Still, CO² levels peaked around 885ppm by the end of the hourlong show.

We Bought a Gun has no illusions about ending the country’s firearms debate anymore than EM Lewis’ The Gun Show did. Ending it isn’t the point of the show; understanding it is. The US is the most heavily-armed nation in the world. The point is that we’re all affected by guns, even if we never touch them.

WE BOUGHT A GUN’s world premiere runs through November 22 at 447 Minna, SF. Tickets and further info here.

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“I don’t believe in a division between high art and low art,” she told 48 Hills. “Both were my world.”

That world comes into view at the third annual Studio 8 Film Festival. Running Fri/6–Sun/8 at the 4-Star and Roxie theaters, the fest celebrates filmmakers connected to the San Francisco Art Institute. The festival is named for the school’s former film production studio on Chestnut Street, where George Kuchar and generations of students made movies.

The weekend opens at the 4-Star with experimental and personal documentary shorts by this year’s open-call jurors, Ed Jones, Michael LaRocco, and Jacalyn White. Among them is Jones’ Nine Years Behind the Wheel, a visual diary of his late-’70s adventures driving a San Francisco night-shift taxi. A conversation moderated by V. Vale of RE/Search and a reception follow.

The next afternoon, the 4-Star hosts Personal Visions, a selection of 18 shorts featuring work by Susan Weiss, Colette Standish, Kavena Hambira, Irene Carvajal, and the WE DA PEPO collective. 

On Sunday, the festival moves to the Roxie, where Mondini-VanLoo will receive the Legacy Award and present four films on Sun/8. The program ranges from the Sex Pistols’ final concert at Winterland to Arnold Schwarzenegger posing as a living sculpture, with stops for Keith Richards and the European art movement Nouveau Réalisme along the way. A conversation follows with San Francisco curator Tanya Zimbardo.

Outside the festival, Mondini-VanLoo, who earned her MFA in film at the Art Institute, will also screen her recent documentary, Dalai Lama: My Religion Is Kindness, at the Roxie on Nov. 7 and at the Rafael Film Center on Nov. 15. 

Born in the Netherlands, she studied performance and sculpture with Beuys in Düsseldorf before coming to the US. His idea of “social sculpture,” which held that art and life were inseparable, influenced her.

In New York, she met Andy Warhol through Beuys and spent time at the Factory. But she found the city overwhelming. “It was a heavy time,” says Mondini-VanLoo. “I was young, and it seemed like almost every week somebody was dying or overdosing.”

Looking for a place where art and life could meet, she traveled across the country and found the San Francisco Art Institute. There, she met teachers and artists, including Kuchar and filmmaker Gunvor Nelson, as music and cinema fed each other.

“Many students were musicians, and the punk scene was vital,” Mondini-VanLoo says. “You could find me at Mabuhay Gardens almost every evening, documenting what was happening.”

Mondini-VanLoo contributed to the punk publication Search and Destroy. Through that circle, she attended the Sex Pistols’ final concert at Winterland in Jan. 1978. She recalls the room’s energy was “alive.”

Her 1978 film Berlin Wall & Sex Pistols pairs that concert with footage she shot of the wall in Germany. For Mondini-VanLoo, the connection was political: she saw the band’s lyrics and its resistance to the music industry as part of an engaged punk movement.

The meaning emerged in the editing room. Using an optical printer, she made images move from stillness into motion, a gesture she associated with the band’s power to spark change. The film ends with a message calling for the wall to come down.

“Nobody dreamed the Berlin Wall would fall,” says Mondini-VanLoo. “Every time I see that image, I’m happy it happened.”

The Studio 8 program also revisits 1979’s Chance Versus Causality, her two-screen film following artist Daniel Spoerri through San Francisco, Paris, and Cologne. One screen provides art-historical context and conversation; the other moves through associative images and found footage. The film includes Christo’s Running Fence and encounters with artists Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle.

Mondini-VanLoo asked Cabaret Voltaire to create the soundtrack. Because chance was central to the project, the band saw some of the material but did not score a completed film in a conventional way. The group even recorded one version with their eyes closed, she says, and she mixed the recordings together.

Her 1977 short Not Guilty: For Keith Richards, made with friend and visiting Art Institute artist Abel Ferrara, responds to Richards’ 1977 drug bust. Mondini-VanLoo says she and Ferrara were angry at what they saw as the media’s role in portraying the musician as a trafficker.

“That little film was about media manipulation,” she says. 

It also captured a gathering of people from the period, including late German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim in the background. “It’s a short film,” adds Mondini-VanLoo, but I think it shows the energy of the time.”

For Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Art of Bodybuilding, Mondini-VanLoo approached the future actor and politician with a different proposition: Would he pose as a living sculpture?

He liked the idea, so she filmed him around the 1976 Mr. Olympia competition and followed him on tour. Her later film, from 2020, combines that footage with an interview her former husband, Raymond Mondini, conducted.

The experience challenged her assumptions. “I had a preconceived idea that bodybuilders weren’t intellectually developed,” says Mondini-VanLoo. “I was wrong.” 

Schwarzenegger, she recalls, immediately understood her interest in the body as performance and sculpture.

Mondini-VanLoo’s connections at the Art Institute extended beyond filmmaking. She and photographer Pamela Moser, known as Camera Z, organized a performance art series and invited visiting artists. They worked with Tuxedomoon performer Winston Tong; Bruce Geduldig, her former student, later created the band’s stage projections.

She also recalls helping bring Angela Davis to teach at the school, an accomplishment she remains proud of. And she carried work from San Francisco to Europe, traveling with experimental films and programs by gay and lesbian filmmakers. Only later, while teaching in Berlin, did she recognize that exchange as part of an emerging transatlantic network.

The Art Institute’s closure in 2022 still hurts. She hopes its 151-year legacy survives in a place where people can meet and make work together.

“Making art is one of the greatest resources we have as human beings,” says Mondini-VanLoo. “It’s where we can develop and realize our potential.”

That belief also connects her early work to her later exploration of Buddhism. Mondini-VanLoo began making Buddhist films in the late ‘80s and eventually co-founded BOS, a Buddhist television station in the Netherlands, where she served as programming director for 13 years. She also founded the International Buddhist Film Festival Europe.

For her, Beuys’ assertion that everyone is an artist parallels the Buddhist idea that everyone has Buddha potential. She says both offer ways to develop as a person.

Her new Dalai Lama documentary continues that interest in putting ideas into practice. 

“My Religion Is Kindness is also an activist film,” says Mondini-VanLoo. “It offers a medicine against war and hatred.”

STUDIO 8 FILM FESTIVAL Nov. 6-8, 4-Star Theater and Roxie Theater, SF. More info here. 
DALAI LAMA: MY RELIGION IS KINDNESS Nov. 7, Roxie Theater, SF. More info here. The film also screens Nov. 15 at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. More info here.

The post From Schwarzenegger to Sex Pistols, Babeth Mondini-VanLoo has seen—and filmed—it all appeared first on 48 hills.

The national results are a massive rout for the Trump agenda. A Trump-backed candidate who dislodged a more independent candidate in Texas is losing, badly. Abdul El-Sayed, who has run on an economic populist platform, is winning in Michigan. In a stunning move, South Carolina has elected a Democratic Senate candidate.

The voters in conservative areas are clearly sick of the idea of a handful of billionaires, linked to a corrupt and out-of-touch chief executive, are setting policy for the country.

The El-Sayed race is critical: His victory will demonstrate that a platform based not on fear of Trump or a Clinton-style move to the center but on a progressive message that includes taking on the rich and changing US foreign policy in the Middle East works in a swing state.

That could encourage the likes of Reps. Ro Khanna and AOC to look at the White House. It could force the remaining old-guard Democrats who still control the party to recognize that their approach has failed.

Plus: The first openly gay senator. The first Native American and Black woman governors. First Black speaker of the House.

It’s a pretty dramatic outcome on a pretty dramatic night.

And then there’s San Francisco.

No elected leaders in this city support Trump or would want any connection to his agenda. But the mayor has encouraged a small number of very rich people to seek dominance over city policy in a way that favors the very, very rich over everyone else. State Sen. Scott Wiener is supported by Big Tech and Real Estate, and he’s looking to prevent a labor-back candidate, Sup. Connie Chan, from replacing Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in Congress.

Wiener is far ahead in the first round of results, after $17 million in spending. The mayor’s $13 million campaign is clearly winning the day on ballot measures. That’s no surprise: It’s almost impossible for grassroots campaigns that have no money to go up against that kind of blunt force.

Chan’s party is still lively. From our correspondent Frida Ruiz Del la O:

A large crowd of San Franciscans in support of Congressional candidate Connie Chan gathered at Gray Area on Mission Street. Chan merch being sold at the entrance, buttons reading ‘Connie Chan for Congress’ and navy blue shirts with “CONNIE” written across the chest. The crowd buzzed with hope and excitement, with boxes of pizza stacked to the left of the room, and a photo background reading “The future is ours to build” and “we are here to change what comes next” to the right of the room.

Attendee Osha Ashworth said “being someone who comes from a working family, and understanding the struggles of working people is really important to bring into congress”

 Videos of Chan greeting community members projected on a main screen and attendees mingled. Many grabbing a drink at the bar and bustling at tables chatting all things Chan. Attendee Brady Fell said “I’m hopeful, I think she had a lot of headwinds because of name recognition and because of all the money that Scott Wiener had, but I mean, I’m hopeful” Speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi endorsed Chan earlier this year.

 Chan’s popularity amongst the crowd stems from a working class background and an inspiring story. Fell continued, “It would be great for the city to see someones whos immigrated to the united states and now could be in the house”

The crowd at Chan’s event continues to grow. the current lead Wiener at 57% and Chan at 43%, the crowd remains hopeful with only 29% of votes being accounted for.

Olivia Morris said “we are up against crazy pac fund, this is a really grass roots movement, no matter what it’s going to be an uphill battle.” Matt Richardson added “I’m committed to the end. I want to get the
final count”

From our correspondent Sophia Weinberg:

Tim Yankowski, who canvassed for Chan, said that he’s really proud of her “because of her stand not to take corporate money. I think that’s the difference for me in candidate choices from now on.”

Wiener’s celebration, and perhaps his career in the House, starts off with a very bad sign: The campaign rejected a reporter from Mission Local, which has been very fair to both candidates, from covering his election night party, saying the outlet is biased. The campaign also declined to allow 48 Hills access. So our new member of Congress is both arrogant and vindictive.

From our correspondent Julian Myers:

My experience at the Swedish America Hall was very interesting yet short lived. I walked up to entrance and flashed my press pass to the person at the front. No older than 24, the man asked me which outlet I represented. I told him that I report for 48 hills. The man told me to “wait one second, I need to check if we can let you in.” He claimed that the place was at capacity. However, even as I waited for a response, I watched a small cluster of people walk past me and up the stairs. Then, someone came back, seemingly with higher authority than the man at the front, and whispered to him “No 48 Hills.” The man proceeded to turn his head towards me, Not knowing I had heard this, and told me that he was “Sorry. We’re currently at capacity.”

In District 8, Gary McCoy is headed to a clear victory. From our correspondent Audrey Jonas:

The atmosphere of McCoy’s election night party is casual, featuring streamers hanging from the doorways and a balloon arch center stage. The room is brightly lit. Before the room fills up, a band plays while guests eat pizza from a large stack of boxes. Immediate cheers and chants ensue as the projected screen of election results reloads at 8:45 p.m. McCoy stands to give a speech and asks his team to come and stand behind him. He calls out the younger people on his team. He makes the crowd laugh several times. Another chant of “Gary” ensues shortly after he says, “this is not about the moderate/progressive divide, it’s about unity and recovery.” He adds on at the end that anyone in labor should raise their hand, and shouts them out as being an enormous part of his campaign. Two of his youngest looking team members embrace him after his speech with proud smiles on their faces. Twenty minutes or so after McCoy’s speech, his opponents have been eliminated and the room begins to somewhat clear out.

McCoy’s victory will challenge the mayor’s approach to housing and harm reduction. But he’s not a progressive.

Prop. G, the move to reopen the Great Highway, is clearly failing. From our correspondent Olyvia Manor:

Otto Pippenger, the face of the “Yes on G” campaign, said he said that he was not surprised by the outcome, but still feels he has succeeded. He said it was less about the electoral results, since he knew that he could only offer the proposition a “25-40%” of passing, but rather that he was able to give voice to the people who had been drowned out the first time around. For him, it was a small defeat in a larger movement of bringing together the people who continue suffering these smaller losses and will eventually grow into a greater power against the mainstream. He said that he never claimed himself to be a part of the Democratic or Republican parties, he instead sees himself as a radical who serves the mission of his own moral code and beliefs. However, he still recognizes that San Francisco is descending down an unfortunate path after this recent results and claims that while the rest of America is moving forward, we remain stagnant if not regressing. 

So the results from San Francisco are a bitter disappointment to progressives—and a sign that the billionaire money and its agenda are dominating the city. For now.

The post Democrats—and the progressive movement—win big nationally. SF votes with the billionaires appeared first on 48 hills.