The Bay Area Hip-Hop Theater Festival kicks off its two-week run of politically-inspired and racially-conscious dramatic and spoken word arts at Berkeley's La Pena Cultural Center at an event featuring the teen poets of Youth Speaks and their Brave New Voices College Tour. $10, 8 p.m., 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (between Ashby and Alcatraz Aves.) more ›

Last week's winner, the Guardian. Tim Redmond says, war, war is stupid. Okay, it's kind of funny that the lead editorial describes PG&E's latest electrical scheme as an extension cord running from Pittsburg to SF. Josh Wolf pens an editorial -- if he wasn't a reporter before, he's certainly a reporter now. Someone who talked to the Guardian about their job on Alcatraz got fired, allegedly in retaliation. More on the anti-war protests (but Matt Gonzalez's name is misspelled.) They're never going to give back the Fillmore to the African-American community. Cheryl Eddy's not a vegetarian anymore, so here's her fave cannibalism movies. Sonic Reducer at SXSW. Cover article: local heavy metal band Hammers of Misfortune. The name Taiga is very hot right now. And if you're a Cancer, "you get the gleaming golden Sucks To Be You trophy." more ›

Speaking of cleaning up the streets, people on Polk Street are trying to have a major rehaul done in an attempt to make it less grimy. Twenty-nine commercial spaces are either vacant or under construction along the Lower Polk corridor and all the businesses and developers are looking to help clean the area up in order to increase their business. For whatever reason, they think that having to climb over transvestite heroin junkies nodding out isn't the kind of thing people want to do if they come to a neighborhood. And also, lots of vacancies equals more crime and the more crime the more vacancies and so on and so forth. more ›

How much do we love early Woody Allen? We went half-way across the world to the Balboa Theater Thursday night for their The Reel San Francisco! festival screening of the Woodman's Take the Money and Run. That's how much. For those not up on their Woody oeuvre, Take the Money and Run, a mockumentary about notorious criminal master mind Virgil Starkwell (he, unfortunately, never made the FBI's Most Wanted List because, as his wife Louise (Janet Margolin- a cross between Neve Campbell and Julia Louise Dreyfuss- put's it "it's who you know") is his first movie he wrote (well, co-wrote with Mickey Rose), directed and starred in. It's so early it's missing the now trademark black background, white type title, and Dixieland jazz title sequence. It's so early it doesn't feature Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton. Yet it's as good as any of his early comedies which means it's about as funny a movie as a movie could possibly be. And then even funnier than that. more ›

The Cali-KC rap war that began started with the murder of local raper Mac Dre in November 2004 escalated with the retaliatory killing of Kansas City rapper Fat Tone this past May. more ›

Victor Willis, the Village People cop, is the gift that keeps giving to the Blotter patrol! (We especially liked the headline, "Willis's destiny is the J-A-I-L" from the San Mateo County Times.) Willis failed to show up for court -- again -- despite the fact that his lawyer's worked out a plea bargain where if he surrenders, he'll serve 16 months. America's Most Wanted had a film crew on site to film what turned out to be the no-show. And hey -- we had no idea Willis had been married to Phylicia Rashad! San Francisco Superior Court judge Newtom Lam's mother died of several heart attacks three days after being struck by a cable car on a blind hill at Filbert and Mason. At the time of the accident, Mrs. Lam seemed okay and was speaking with investigators, but it turns out she fractured her skull and had broken her ribs, collarbone, and hip as well. Walk SF is holding a vigil on Monday at noon and participants should bring bells. ...and you thought you were unenthusiastic about school starting again! San Jose State put out a nationwide APB when a meteorology professor went AWOL for the first week of class. The professor hadn't called in, hadn't been seen since finals last semester, and was reported to have been having "employment and personal issues." He was found when someone at a Comfort Inn in Pennsylvania looked up from browsing Merc News articles online and saw the very guy whose picture was filling up the screen. Turns out the professor had been hiding out there for over a month. more ›

The anti-war protestor hit in the jaw with a wooden dowel that was fired by the Oakland police as "non-lethal crowd control" back in 2003 (and who was our yoga teacher's yoga teacher, for what it's worth) has settled with the City of Oakland for $210,000. One of her co-protestors got a settlement of $500,000. You know, this seems remarkably similar to our new obsession, that new game show Deal or No Deal. Speaking of TV shows... guess who's going to be on America's Most Wanted? The cop from the Village People! As you may recall, Victor Willis from Daly City has a bench warrant out for his arrest after failing to show up in court on his coke possession charges. Remember, folks -- the true Macho Man respects the law. The America's Most Wanted episode will probably air around February. And the Merc News ominously intones, "it's beginning to look a lot NOT like Christmas!!!" in a story about two 18-year-olds in Redwood City who've been on a holiday-accessory crime spree this year. Some of their haul included, among other things, a moose-head Christmas wreath that sings "Here Comes Santa Claus." Dude. We are totally going to get ourselves one of those too! more ›

Those of you living in the Lower Haight might have had some trouble getting your Wal-tussin on Saturday -- an emotionally-disturbed customer tried to set the Walgreens on fire by spraying lighter fluid on the newspapers and teddy bears and lighting a match, after waving a set of reindeer antlers menacingly at the pharmacist and attempting to jump behind the counter. The cops submited the man with beanbags (since guns might have worsened the fire). Meth, man, it messes you up. A settlement in favor of African-American farmers with the Department of Justice, and several criminal defendants' guilty pleas and sentences in Monterey County are in jeopardy after the state bar found out the attorney of record on those cases was not actually licensed to practice law. The "attorney," who was working in Monterey County as a PD, quit her job when she got caught. And in our very own Ocean's Eleven (or Twelve), the FBI has announced a $50,000 reward for the biggest jewel heist in San Francisco history, when about $20 million of jewelry was stolen in broad daylight in Union Square last year. While two of the three suspects have been found, the last one, Devin Smith, has been taunting the authorities since 2003. After being featured on America's Most Wanted, he wrote a note to the producers of the show, saying it was too hard to find an attorney so "I'd rather take my chances with hypertension as a fugitive." Smith, who played football in Europe and used to frequent the SF club scene, is considered armed and dangerous. more ›