Volume 42 Number 52 Archives — Page 2 of 2 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

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Drama queen

September 23, 2008

› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS I did think about drinking myself to death, I admit, but it wasn’t a serious thought. I just thought, I can drink and drink and drink … but everyone knows I can’t. I fall asleep after one. Sometimes I don’t even finish it.

Still, you like to pretend, and there’s a certain mystique to drinking oneself to death, like Billie Holliday. Or working oneself to death, like John Henry. Or crying oneself to death, like lots of people.

Mystique is good.

I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t work. My stomach is cast iron, and very well-seasoned at that; my metabolism, miraculous. I have, in fact, a pretty incredible body to live in. If I have an Achilles heel — and the anatomy experts among us are going, "You do!" times two — but if I have an Achilles heel, it’s the roof of my mouth. Or, the insides of my cheeks and lips where I’m constantly cannibalizing myself, by accident, because I eat like a wolf.

I am prone to mouth ulcers. Hmm …

It’s decided! I am going to eat-only-acidic-things to death. Tomatoes. Vinegar. Hot peppers. Grapes. Orange juice. Lemons. Tomatoes. Reckless rebel that I am, I shall henceforth bite the pizza the moment it arrives at the table! I don’t care. Already the sides of my tongue hurt when I chew. The roof of my mouth feels gritty like an inside-out worm. Soon it will shred, then crumble, then fall away and I’ll die, on the floor, an empty jar of peperoncini next to my head.

And everyone will say, "Whoa, she peperoncini’d herself to death. How mysterious, exotic, and, and, mystique-y!"

There will be a rush on my books and albums, so I better get busy. Tell you something about life, real fast: It sucks. Everyone knows this, because it’s wired right in. Life sucks, and rocks. What you may not know is that the split is exactly 50-50. And I don’t need a very big chalkboard to show you the math. One plus one = two things: the miraculous kick-ass fact of your point-of-view, and the sadly inescapable fact of its total cessation.

Now, life happens off of the chalkboard. Thanks to the decimal point, one of our tiniest and most powerful inventions, there are an infinity of possible percentages between none and 100. If you would describe yourself as 51 percent happy, you are 1 percent kidding yourself, or deluded, or lying, or repressed; at 49 percent happy, you are 1 percent whiner. If you’re 100 percent happy, you’re a spiritually enlightened new ager or religious zealot. In which case you may not even eat bacon. End of conversation.

My goal is 50-50, because that’s where you laugh the hardest and cry the most, and therefore where bacon tastes best.

My sister asked if I thought it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved. I said I sided with Alfred Lord, which is, to me, a no-brainer. Since loss is a given, you may as well love your socks and panties off getting there.

On a day when I never even made it out of my pajamas, I also talked for hours and hours with a friend in Bakersfield who is coaching me on dating married men. We knew each other only slightly and for about a year, many years ago. Apparently, we were sleeping with all the same guys at the same time, although I never knew this until she recently e-hunted me down and told me so.

I was, like, cool. A coach! Because, unlike me, she never digressed, and continues to this day to go for the enigma. Me, I digress. I have a problem, I know, and it isn’t depression so much as digression. Probably it isn’t even a problem. It’s just that —

Never mind.

Another person I talked to that day was my brother, who is in Ohio. I asked him if I was a drama queen and he hesitated.

My new favorite restaurant is Happy Garden because I didn’t get sick when I ate there. (I have high standards, huh?) Well, I have heard from neighbors of the place, in Oakland’s Laurel District, that pretty good meals could be had, but I went and got the salt and pepper oysters, and one smelled like shit. But, being me, I ate it anyway. No problem. Great place! *

HAPPY GARDEN

4112 MacArthur, Oakl.

(510) 482-3988

Mon.–Thu., 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.; Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

Beer and wine

MC/V

StringWreck Hits the Streets

September 23, 2008

PREVIEW Have you ever seen a string quartet perform in the air — specifically, a violinist play while hoisted on the shoulders of some dancers? Or have you witnessed a violist getting his hair done while concentrating on an intricate melody? If you missed the delicious collaboration between Janice Garrett and Dancers and the Del Sol String Quartet last April, here’s your chance. StringWreck is perhaps the most original and unlikely piece of collaboration between music and dance to hit the Bay Area. And it’s all homegrown. But more than that, the work is as serious as it is irreverent; it’s imaginatively conceived and realized without an ounce of self-conscious bravado or pretense. These musicians and dancers are excellent at what they do independently, but together they likely have stretched in ways as unexpected to us as to themselves. Garrett and her artistic and life partner Charles Moulton — a man of uncommon wit — handled the choreography. Del Sol String Quartet chose music from 20th-century icons such as Gyorgyi Ligeti, George Antheil, Murray Schaefer, Astor Piazzola, and the old 18th-century man himself, J.S. Bach — no sugary pap here. In April the piece lasted about an hour. These performances, courtesy of Jewels on the Square, are a little shorter than most, but you get the added value of chalk artist Tracy Lee Stum, who will draw the set — and it’s all free.

STRINGWRECK HITS THE STREETS Thurs/25, 12:30, 1:30, and 2:30 p.m., free. Union Square, Geary and Powell, SF. (415) 377-2610, www.unionsquarepark.us

San Francisco Blues Festival

September 23, 2008

PREVIEW Oh baby, baby, baby, have you got them blues? I did, big time, a couple weeks ago after ODing on the metal and all its scenesterness. I nearly wrote off going to shows entirely. This silly sentiment lasted one hot minute, sure, but the blues remained. The blues remained. The blues remained. Which is the point: get rid of any genre-defining accoutrements — country’s twangs, metal’s sweeping arpeggios, jazz’s swanky chords — and you’re left with the 1-4-5 progression made so familiar and beautifully basic by early 20th-century blues masters.

So if you’re feeling especially bummed, love the blues, or are a music junkie in general, this weekend’s 36th annual San Francisco Blues Festival is mandatory. Holding the title of the oldest blues festival in the world, its lineup of legends attests to its status as an institution unto itself. Performers include electric slide virtuoso Johnny Winter, now in his fifth decade of performing, and David Honeyboy Edwards, who at 93 is one of the last Mississippi bluesmen of the Robert Johnson era. Maybe he’ll bring the devil and you can bargain your soul for six-stringed genius at the evil-brewing crossroads of Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard.

Besides dancin’ and groovin’ to more than two dozen artists, you’ll get to hang outside for three days (weather.com forecasts sun, for whatever it’s worth), which also tends to assuage the blues — although instead of a background of railroad trains and Delta mudflats, we get the Golden Gate Bridge and a scintilutf8g Bay. Throw some horns for Robert Johnson’s legacy.

SAN FRANCISCO BLUES FESTIVAL Tribute to John Lee Hooker. Fri/26, noon–1:30 p.m., free. Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market, SF. Sat/27 with Hot Tuna, the Delta Groove All-Star Blues Revue, Barbara Lynn, Michael Burks, Ruthie Foster, Elmore James Jr., and Delta Wires Big Band. Sun/28 with Johnny Winter, Buckwheat Zydeco, Curtis Salgado Big Band, David Honeyboy Edwards, Rick Estrin, and Gospel Hummingbirds. 11 a.m.– 6 p.m., $40 per day. Great Meadow at Fort Mason, Marina at Buchanan, SF. (415) 979-5588, www.sfblues.com

Kim Gordon

September 23, 2008

PREVIEW Say it loud, say it proud: aeons after the year punk broke and Sonic Youth introduced their budding little-bro band Nirvana to their label, DGC, I’m still girl-crushed-out on SY’s Kim Gordon! Especially after finding out we’ve been reading the same book at just about the same time: Sheila Weller’s Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), a possible inspiration for Gordon’s "Phantom Orchard" performance with avant harpist Zeena Parkins, DNA’s no-wave diva Ikue Mori, Boredoms drummer Yoshimi, and ex–Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn.

"Everyone said, ‘Ooh, it’s got to be really trashy,’" says Gordon from Northampton, Mass., where she, Thurston Moore, and their 14-year-old daughter, Coco, reside. "I started reading it and thought, you know, this is actually a pretty good, interesting, sociological overview of these women during that time in the early ’60s. So, I don’t know, maybe a theme might come out of that … I always wondered when [Sonic Youth] was on tour with Neil Young, what’s it like for someone like Joni Mitchell? I got a sense of the boys’ club." She emits a soft, low, self-deprecating chuckle, a recurring bass note in a conversation with Gordon, who often sounds more like a grave, thoughtful teenage girl than an underground rock icon.

A certain Kimly kismet is going down, for sure, and one hopes a similar synthesis will emerge from this week’s improvisations by Gordon, Parkins, Mori, Dunn, and Yoshimi. The latter most recently played on the raw ‘n’ lyrical Inherit (Ecstatic Peace), by the resuscitated Free Kitten, Gordon’s project with ex–Pussy Galore-ist Julie Cafritz. Everyone knows girls rock, but what continues to draw this archetypal post-punk woman, who has seen so many sides of rock’s boyzone, to work with other ladies? "Women communicate differently," she muses. "And, um, women communicate!"

For more of an interview with Kim Gordon, see Noise blog at www.sfbg.com.

KIM GORDON MEETS PHANTOM ORCHARD Fri/26, 8 p.m., $15–<\d>$55. Montalvo Arts Center, Carriage House Theatre, 15400 Montalvo, Saratoga. (408) 961-5858, www.ticketmaster.com

Road trip: Iraq

September 23, 2008

REVIEW Given the subject matter — soldiers returning home from Iraq — it should come as no surprise that the title The Lucky Ones is more than a little ironic. But things here aren’t quite so cut-and-dry. Despite its focus, the film maintains a stubborn refusal to get too bogged down in the melancholy or the politics; it’s a serious drama that’s often very funny and mostly lighthearted. At the movie’s center are three soldiers — Cheever (Tim Robbins), Colee (Rachel McAdams), and TK (Michael Peña). Accidentally thrust together, they embark on an unscheduled road trip, each with a separate mission. Cheever is trying to put his life back together; Colee wants to meet the parents of her late boyfriend; and TK hopes to restore function to his penis, which was wounded by shrapnel. Seriously. Though not the most conventional Iraq war story, the road movie formula is routine and elements of the plot feel somewhat stale. What elevates The Lucky Ones is a trio of memorable performances. Rachel McAdams is particularly impressive as Colee, delivering a complex portrayal of a woman ranting about the "lake of fire" one minute and raving about vibrators the next. She reflects the film’s strongest assets: finding the humor in tragedy and sighting the mundane in the unreal.

THE LUCKY ONES opens Fri/26 in Bay Area theaters.

“Istanbul-Berkeley”

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September 23, 2008
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REVIEW When veteran Istanbulite Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in literature two years ago, the committee complimented his "quest for the melancholic soul of his native city." Melancholic? The world’s third largest city has one big, melancholic soul? I think Pamuk, of all people, would disagree. The 10th International Istanbul Biennial, which was curated by über-busy San Francisco Art Institute faculty member Hou Hanru in 2007, took a more caustic if not realistic theme: "Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War." The organizers of the "Orienting Istanbul" conference at Berkeley this week have produced a truly interdisciplinary (and free to the public) conference that cuts through the jargon and confronts big ideas head-on. Nonetheless, I’m glad they snuck in some actual art, including "Istanbul-Berkeley," Hanru’s selection of video works from the biennial.

Much of Hanru’s curatorial work has focused on urbanization and living, breathing cities. The chosen videos do not disappoint. They address spatiality in radically different ways. Sulukule, the oldest Roma neighborhood in Turkey, has recently been subject to changes alternately referred to as "urban renewal" and "forced gentrification." Wong Hoy-Cheong involved his subjects — Roma children — in the production of Darling Sulukule, Please Sulukule (2007), creating a hyperrealism caught between a flashback to childhood and a dream of the future. Emre Hüner’s textural Panopticon (2007) has a healthy tinge of mysticism, making it a good balance to the disorienting Boumont (2006), also by Hüner. Taking interpretation of urban life beyond Istanbul, Cities of Production (2006), by MAP Office (www.map-office.com), the thrilling collaboration between architect-artists Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix, brings a startling sense of playfulness to factory life in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta.

ISTANBUL-BERKELEY Wed/24–Sun/28. Wurster Hall, first floor foyer, University of California Berkeley campus, Berk. www.ced.berkeley.edu/istanbulconference

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