Photo: Allen Michaan
March 2004 | Dock of the Bay
Don Quixote Michaan: Man with a Marquee
Allen Michaan likes tilting at windmills. Michaan owns the Grand Lake Theater, an art deco gem of a movie house near Lake Merritt. Its marquee is now Michaan’s own personal soapbox, to the delight of most (but not all) patrons and nearby residents. No War for Oil; Peace Is Patriotic; and Honor Our Troops: Bring Them Home have all received top billing. During California’s energy crisis, the marquee read: There Is No Energy Shortage — There Is an Ethics Shortage. And when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, Michaan’s wife came up with one word: Imagine.
It began with the 2000 Florida election debacle. “I was absolutely outraged,” he recalled. “My wife Sandra said, ‘so do something about it.’ She suggested we put something on the high-traffic side of the marquee.” They did: This Is America — Every Vote Should Be Counted. And the public responded. “People went crazy,” he said. “We got tons of mail. People thanked us. We hit a real nerve.” And a recent variant on this theme reads: You Cannot Re-elect a President Who Was Never Elected.
Michaan has a history of battling the odds and corporate opponents. He’s made a career of buying and renovating old theaters. “I had as many as 20 theaters at one time,” said Michaan, who also runs an antique business. In 1995, the operators of the Jack London Square Theater — a large company that owned over 100 screens — tried to put him out of business by depriving him of first-run films. To make a complicated story short, the Jack London operators pressured distributors not to sell to Michaan, threatening not to deal with anyone who did. Michaan sued in 1998. At first, little progress was made, so he added major distributors as defendants. That did the trick. After two years of wrangling, all the distributors except for Paramount caved and let Michaan run their films.
Michaan’s marquee messages are not universally loved. After last December’s Peace on Earth: Goodwill to All, someone posted anti-Michaan rants on Craig’s list. They accused him of “communism” and supporting Osama bin Laden, and they called for protests outside the Grand Lake. Michaan (being Michaan) put up a message: The First Amendment Is Not Lost: True American Patriots Speak Out and Stand Against Corrupt Government. Did any protesters appear? Michaan laughed and said, “Not a one.” — Tim Kingston
Psychic Sting
The client sitting before psychic Georgina Ritchie spoke of a wayward teenager — his girlfriend’s daughter — who posed naked for a website, flashed her Lolita breasts at him, and then slapped her elderly grandmother who walked in during the flashing. Ritchie, a “spiritual healer” and counselor for 23 years who practices at her Sausalito houseboat office, advised the man to come back with his girlfriend’s family. She discounted her $90 fee by half, at his request.
The whole story was bogus. He was a state undercover agent who was sent to secretly tape-record Ritchie in a sting that led to charges she was practicing family and marriage counseling along with social work without a license and failed to report child and elder abuse, a misdemeanor carrying a maximum prison sentence of one year.
Almost a year later just before the February 9, 2004 trial was to start, the Marin County District Attorney’s office changed tactics: the D.A. dropped the criminal charges and opted for a civil suit with all the original alleged violations in place. Now, instead of jail time, Ritchie faces potential penalties of $50,000 or more for violating California’s licensing statutes.
Ritchie’s attorney, Patrick Hallinan, was hardly mollified: “It’s a witch hunt! They still want to prohibit Georgina from doing all the things she does.” He intends to fight on First Amendment grounds, arguing that Ritchie’s past-life therapy and pain-visualization techniques are matters of belief, part of her Buddhist practice, and “no different than if a priest or minister gives family advice.”
Hallinan said the state statutes driving the case are “overly broad” and will fail, and offered his assessment of the opposition: “The pygmies are in retreat. They’re going down.”
But if the D.A. does prevail, Hallinan warned, “the implications for Marin County and California are huge. Even institutions like Esalen and Spirit Rock may be threatened.” — Kate Coleman
Tax the Rich?
With California foundering in red ink, Governor Schwarzenegger has been groping for a solution. He has a bailout plan: “Everyone has to come in and help!” So far, the Governor has been playing Terminator with aid to education, health care, and social services while flogging his “recovery bond” bailout and budget-balancing propositions that are up for voter approval in the March 2 California primary. The former involves a $15 billion bank loan that would buy some time but requires repaying the debt with added interest.
State Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) has a better idea. Chan and John Dutra (D-Santa Clara) have co-authored Assembly Bill 1815. The bill doesn’t have a name yet. Just among ourselves, let’s call it the Tax-the-Rich Bill.
Chan believes that taxing the state’s wealthiest two percent constitutes “a fair and modest way to raise revenues.” Under Chan’s plan, Californians with more than $130,000 in taxable income would pay a 10 percent tax; folks with more than $520,000 taxable would pay 11 percent.
Chan says AB 1815 would generate “approximately $3 billion a year and would be in effect for five years.” Note the math: That’s $15 billion! With AB 1815, California could balance the budget without incurring the cost of bank loan interest payments.
For those who snort that such a plan would be DOA under a Republican governor, Chan has a ready response: “The state has adopted this very solution before. During the fiscal crisis of the early 1990s, Governor Pete Wilson signed legislation to enact this same proposal.” Need another precedent? Governor Ronald Reagan also signed not one but two top-bracket tax increases.
Are the rich being unfairly targeted? “Bullworth!” scoff the bill’s 25 co-sponsors. They note that the proposed increase “will be offset more than five times over in some cases by the reduction in federal tax rates recently adopted by Congress.” — Gar Smith
Tag the Dog
When the San Francisco Public Library announced plans to track books with radio-frequency identification devices (RFIDs), the idea sent chills up the spines of book-lovers and civil libertarians alike. The industry — call it the “tracknology trade”— envisions bugging a range of goods with multiple applications: food, clothing, appliances, electronics, shopper loyalty cards, lipstick, and yes, even household pets. A Florida family has even outfitted itself with chips. Sound Orwellian? The Electronic Frontier Foundation envisions “a world where your every possession — your clothes, your books, your car, your cash — could be tracked with precision.”
There are some bugs in the system. Shoppers wearing previously purchased, RFID-enhanced clothing could trigger alarms on a stock clerk’s radar screen. Hence a proposal for a “mandatory kill” once the RFID leaves the store. Library books, however, are part of a circulating collection, and cash-strapped cities can’t afford mandatory kills when each chip costs between 50 cents and a dollar. Imagine your librarian’s dilemma: To Kill a Markingchip.
You might think that in Berkeley, a First Amendment bastion, librarians would oppose spy chips when readers check out the latest John Le Carré novel. Au contraire. Library Director Jackie Griffin says Berkeley plans to chip in. “My first goal is to see that no one can tell what someone else is reading with an RFID tag,” Griffin vows. Berkeley’s tags will be encrypted so only librarians can read them, and the chips have to be within 18 inches of a scanner to be recognized. Whew!
“The library is paying $400,000 a year in direct and indirect costs for injuries related to checking out books,” Griffin explains. Ironically, in the 1990s, librarians complained that hand-stamping books was causing wrist injuries, so libraries invested in electronic scanners. A decade later, those scanners are causing a new range of injuries, not only to wrists but to shoulders and backs as well. QED, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Who are the biggest boosters for RFIDs? Wal-Mart and the Pentagon. Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know? — GS
How Secret Is Your Ballot?
Party affiliation is great fodder for community gossip. Who knew he was a Republican? Does it strain their marriage that she’s Green and he’s a Libertarian? Unlike more than two dozen U.S. states where voter registration cards don’t ask for party affiliation, in California, when you register to vote your party preference becomes public information, and it’s officially posted three places at the polls during each election. Registering also puts you on the list for party advertising and “get-out-the-vote” or “give-me-money” calls.
There is an alternative. Sign up as a Decline to State, a small but growing category used by political agnostics and privacy fans. After several back-and-forth ballot initiatives and court cases, California now has what is technically called a “modified” closed primary system that basically leaves it up to the individual parties as to whether they will allow nonpartisan voters to participate. For this election, a D-t-S can request a ballot to vote in the Republican, Democratic, or American Independent primary, but the Republican party limits nonpartisan participation to non-presidential races. If D-t-S’s do not specifically request a party primary ballot, they will be given a ballot containing only the names of all candidates for nonpartisan offices and measures to be voted upon at the primary election. For more information, see the League of Women Voters’ site at ca.lwv.org. — Elisa Williams
Mamet + Magic
It’s been four years since David Mamet premiered a new play. Mamet’s hometown is Chicago, he lives in Los Angeles, and New York is the theater Mecca, but he chose San Francisco for the world premiere of his latest play, Dr. Faustus, which opens at the 160-seat Magic Theatre in Fort Mason on February 28. Mamet is also directing the production, which stars sleight-of-hand artists Ricky Jay and David Rasche. Magic’s artistic director Chris Smith spoke about the upcoming production.
CG: This is a huge coup for Magic and the Bay Area. How did you get Mamet?
Chris Smith: I asked him. The script had been making the rounds in New York, but a number of theaters were intimidated by it .... It’s bold, very challenging — all the more reason that Bay Area audiences will like it. It’s not the Mamet that many people expect. He’s introducing a brand new vernacular, with rhetorical flourishes.
CG: How does it compare to Marlowe and Goethe’s versions?
CS: It’s quite different. There’s a much more subtle and complex deal struck with the figure representing the Devil. It’s more modern, but couched in classic language. Faustus is beguiled by his skill, his mind. Faustus is a bright man, ahead of his time, and small, rational steps lead him into the abyss.
CG: Tell me about Ricky Jay’s character, the Magus.
CS: In the classic legend, he represents the Devil but [in Mamet’s version] the role’s been tailored to him. Faustus’ son is having a birthday party, and he comes in as the magician hired for the party. People who come expecting to see Ricky Jay will leave having seen the Magus. He plays a character, but he brings his unique skills to the role.
For more information, contact www.magictheatre.org. — EW
Fair Housing
Shortly after his election, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates honored a campaign pledge by spending a night in a homeless encampment. In January, however, Bates reversed gears with a failed attempt to weaken the city’s “inclusionary housing law.” This pioneering law requires developers to assign 20 percent of the spaces in new buildings to “affordable” and “low- income” tenants. (An “affordable” unit costs no more than 30 percent of one’s income.)
The Bay Area does a good job of providing affordable housing, says Steven D. Lerner, author of a forthcoming book on housing in America. Unfortunately, Lerner adds, existing laws “are more likely to provide a rent subsidy to someone who has a job than someone who does not.”
Berkeley encourages “affordable housing” by subsidizing people who want to buy condos. Applicants must earn no more than $51,200 for a family of four. Bates proposed extending the subsidy to folks earning $64,000. He also wanted to free condo owners to sell to the highest bidder (existing law restricts their sales to people of moderate incomes). Councilmember Kriss Worthington warned this could unleash “a speculation market” favoring the rich.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition notes that Californians earning the minimum wage would have to work 126 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom unit at fair market rent.
In San Francisco, where an income of $124,000 is needed to buy a median-priced home, most city workers are forced to live outside the city. Proposition J on the March 2 ballot could provide some respite by cutting regulatory slack and encouraging developers to build 10,000 downtown units. Only 40 percent of these new homes will be priced at below-market rates, so more action will be required to provide adequate “workforce housing.” Meanwhile, back in Washington, Bush wants to cut federal spending for low-income housing vouchers (presumably to pay for school vouchers). Some 210 members of Congress have a more creative solution — a National Housing Trust Fund. — GS
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