'How Could You Be Against Joy?': Bay Area Artists Are Turning on the Civic Joy Fund:

Crypto billionaire Larsen -- who is currently spending tens of millions of dollars to prop up moderate candidates in California, fight labor unions, defeat the state billionaires tax and San Francisco's own overpaid CEO tax -- is still one of the Civic Joy Fund's biggest benefactors. This is reflected on the organization's own "funders" page, which lists cute categories for these very wealthy people, like "Disco Queens," "Street Sparklers," and "Joy Makers." [...]

In February, at the "Music Industry Summit" -- the conclusion to San Francisco Music Week, another Lurie project -- I watched as the mayor strode to the stage at the Swedish American Music Hall. There, before an audience of struggling artists, engineers, and small venue staff, he triumphantly reported that the last summer of concerts in Golden Gate Park resulted in "$150 million worth of economic impact," and that, according to new data, "our independent music venues generate $1.4 billion in economic impact annually."

Lurie paused for applause. "That's because of all of you in this room."

We clapped dutifully, but the people in that room did not need to be reassured that they had contributed to $1.4 billion in "economic impact." They would have preferred to hear that any of their favorite clubs might exist next year. The people in that room could use health insurance -- and they might be able to afford it if Lurie's billionaire buddies were taxed appropriately; say, with a one-time 5% excise tax on net worth exceeding $1 billion to save Medi-Cal.

But hey, that sentiment doesn't make for great social media content.

Indeed, the dissonance between Lurie's spirit-squad act around cultural events and the material struggles of the people actually making the culture is, at times, ear-splitting. One gets the sense he is physically unable to hear it.

"Those of us on the ground who work in [music] know that it has never been more difficult to be here, and try and provide the city with the core thing it is known for historically, which is free-thinking progressive ideologies and good art," says Austin Waz, frontman of the band Analog Dog and a booker at Kilowatt. "We see the incredible amount of venues going out of business, people losing their jobs left and right. We have an absolute crisis."

It's frustrating, he says, to see the large-scale parties into which the Civic Joy Fund pours resources. "It's one day, and they put $100,000, $200,000 into these things, and it's like -- you could have saved an entire community with that. You could have created the conditions that would allow a venue to flourish for years," says Waz. "You're not thinking about how to develop or support artists who come from the city ... it's a slap in the face to put up some [barricades] in the street and say, 'Look how wonderful this all is.'" [...]

"I'm hearing artists rightfully starting to question, like, 'Ultimately, who is this for?'" says Guest of the block parties. "Is it for the public, or is it to set up this area as being worthy of real estate investment? Because if the point of it is to cater towards visitors ... it's really not about supporting art or artists at all."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.