Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Nothing ventured

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andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I am straight (?), married 12 years, and have always been faithful to my husband. Before we were together, I had sex with a few boyfriends — nothing crazy. I did used to have fantasies about women, though; like, while trying to have an orgasm, I would think about a woman going down on me instead. Not any particular woman, just a kind of idea of femaleness. But I never did anything about it, or even particularly thought I wanted to.

Now, though, my husband has a lot of business trips, so I’m alone a lot, and lonely. I do have a girlfriend (a friend who’s a girl) who comes over a lot and suddenly I find myself having those kind of fantasies about her in particular. Do you think I could have been a lesbian all along, or could be becoming one now? Or am I just bored? Should I have sex with her if she’s interested?

Love,

Secret Life

Dear Life:

Since you have no idea if she’s interested and she probably isn’t (the majority of random women would not be), it’s probably moot. But let’s say you were having a glass of wine (let’s say it’s the second glass of wine) and all of a sudden she offered you a back rub and then suggested it would be better if you took your shirt off … you know how these things go, at least in fantasy. Let’s say you immediately complied, and things proceeded from there. Let’s say you were compatible and it was great and your husband’s still traveling a lot and you do it again. That’s an affair. It doesn’t matter that the other person is female — she is not your husband! You may be ready to experiment with bisexuality, or with this one friend in particular, but are you ready to cheat on and lie to your husband? They’re not the same thing.

You need to disentangle "bored and lonely" from "interested in women," and "interested in women" from "compelled to explore interest in women." It’s entirely possible, for instance, to be fully bisexual yet completely faithful to the one person you married or partnered. People do it all the time. They relegate one gender to fantasy and go on with their lives, just as other monogamous people do. When you choose one, you lose one. You deal.

Not everyone does deal, of course, or can, or even should. You could be a lesbian who was in deep denial or seduced by the promise of "heterosexual privilege" and now need to get out of there in order to live authentically. You could be a bisexual who can manage ethical non-monogamy and really need a girlfriend and not just a friendgirl, like the one you’ve got. I’m kind of guessing not, though. I’d put money on "bored and lonely." I’m betting, actually, that if that friend who drops by were male, you’d be wondering if he’d like to give you that back rub too.

I’m also wondering if your husband knows you’re feeling this neglected. Maybe he could travel less, or take you along more, or pay more attention to you when he’s home. If none of those do anything, and you ‘re still thinking, "Want woman!" you could always ask him if he’s ever entertained that fantasy, you know the one, and would he maybe like to act it out, or maybe just hear about it after the fact, if you’re not into sharing? These options would be complicated and process-intensive, and require the sort of open communication that everyone plays lip service to but few can really manage in practice, at least not without a lot of sobbing and door-slamming along the way. It can be done, though. People do it, and marriages survive it.

Marriages survive cheating too, actually. More spouses forgive, if not forget, than you’d think. It’s one hell of a blow, though — a marriage needs special, Weeblelike powers to wobble and not fall down. I’m not sure yours has them, what with the frequent separations and, frankly, your willingness to entertain the possibility of cheating without noticing that it’s cheating. I worry.

If I were you, I’d get some girl/girl porn (you can get something funky and homemade — with pubic hair even — if you don’t like the glossy fakey stuff) and a nice vibrator. That should address at least some of the boredom. I’m all for bisexuality and non-monogamy and threesomes and hiring a professional and sex parties and all the other options out there. In theory, anyway, it’s all good. It’s all risky too, and if you’re not up for risking the loss of your nice husband and your nice marriage than you probably want to stick with the nice vibrator. It’s not that it will all blow up in your face the second you try to introduce a new person or element, it’s just that it could. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" is a good adage but it does have a corollary: "nothing ventured, nothing lost!"

And don’t cheat.

Love,

Andrea

See here now

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This is the third year of the Guardian’s photography issue, and fittingly, three themes or commonalities are at the forefront.

First, there is an emphasis on urban landscape or place — while we’ve always only showcased work by Bay Area artists, this year a number of photographs overtly consider specific settings in SF and surrounding areas as part of their subject matter. Or, in the case of John Chiara and Aaron Rosenstreich, their chief subject.

Second, this issue often — though not always — looks like trans or queer spirit. Molly Decoudreaux, Jack Fulton, Katy Grannan and Josh Kirschenbaum all capture moments in the neverending gender play that is San Francisco life. The vast breadth and wildly different shadings of their collective vision is itself quite different from the East Coast trans visions of Diane Arbus and, later, the "Boston School" (David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, and the under-known Mark Morrisroe).

Third, there is a tension between now and then, thanks to a 1968 photo by Fulton, a contribution from archivist Robert Flynn Johnson, and the issue’s more contemporary looks at local faces and places.

To borrow a phrase from SF Camerawork curator Chuck Mobley — who remodeled it from documentary filmmaker Thom Andersen, who in turn took it from porn director Fred Halsted — in the images that follow, San Francisco plays itself. It’s a great performance. (Johnny Ray Huston)

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JAMES CHIANG

TITLE Untitled

BACKGROUND This image is from a recent collaboration with the kind folks of the San Francisco Food Bank.

SHOUT OUTS Josh Kirschenbaum’s work has always been my primary source of photographic inspiration. Special thanks to the Academy of Art Photo Department, and the wonderfully talented students there for allowing the exigency of my work to expand beyond just the printed medium.

WEB www.jameschiang.com

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JOHN CHIARA

TITLE Bowdoin at Harkness, 2008

BACKGROUND I photograph cityscapes in a process that is part photography, part event, and part sculpture — an undertaking in apparatus and patience. Many times this process involves composing pictures from the inside of a large hand-built camera that is mounted on a flatbed trailer and produces large scale, one-of-a-kind, positive exposures.

SHOUT OUTS Artists I have worked with and those who have been inspirational are Jean Graf, P.K. Steffen, Michael Ninnan Hermann, Sue Ciriclio, Linda Flemming, Jim Goldberg, Stephen Goldstein, Larry Sultan, Richard Misrach, Marco Breuer, and Muriel Maffre .

SHOW "An Autobiography of the Bay Area, Parts 1 and 2," Sept. 1 through Oct. 31. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, second floor, SF. (415) 512-2020. www.sfcamerawork.org.

WEB www.lightdark.com

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MOLLY DECOUDREAUX

TITLE Go-Go Outfit, Lamp, and Heels (Mica Phelan), 2008

BACKGROUND This is from "The Creatives: Daytime Portraits From a Queer Nightlife," a series of portraits of San Francisco’s DJs and drag queens in their personal spaces. Mica Phelan, a.k.a. "VivvyAnne ForeverMore," is the creator of Tiara Sensation and Beast clubs and the designer behind House of Horseface, as well as a method go-go dance master.

SHOWS "The Creatives," Sept. 15 through Oct. 15. The Seventh Heart, 1592 Market, SF. (415) 431-1755, www.myspace.com/theseventhheart. Also: Nov. 10-Dec. 18 at the Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com

WEB www.mollydecoudreaux.com

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SERGIO DE LA TORRE

TITLE Waiting for Olafur Eliasson (from "Drivers"), 2009

BACKGROUND The idea is to photograph a series of limousine service drivers at different international airports. In front of the camera, a driver patiently waits with a sign in hand for an artist that will never arrive. The artists include Gabriel Orozco, Olafur Eliasson, and Francis Alÿs, among others. The artists’ names are selected based on their international presence within contemporary art spaces including museums, galleries, publications, and art events over the last nine years.

The process involves hiring a limousine driver to go to the airport and pick up a given artist. Drivers are expected to arrive five minutes before the arrival and wait for 10 minutes. These photos are not staged. The driver is real and he believes the artist he is waiting for will likely arrive, like in Waiting for Godot where two tramps wait by a sickly-looking tree for the arrival of M. Godot. The tramps quarrel, make up, contemplate suicide, try to sleep, eat a carrot, and gnaw on some chicken bones. Between the first and second day, the tree has sprouted a few leaves.

SHOW "An Autobiography of the Bay Area, Parts 1 and 2," Sept. 1 through Oct. 31. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, second floor, SF. (415) 512-2020. www.sfcamerawork.org.

WEB www.maquilopolis.com

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JACK FULTON

TITLE Three on a Cadillac (from the portfolio "Nellie’s (K)night: Black and White Photographs From Halloween 1968, the Tenderloin, San Francisco, CA")

BACKGROUND The prelude to this is Martin Luther King’s death in April, and Mario Savio’s defiance at University of California Berkeley in 1964. It is ALL about freedom of being who you are and being appreciated for that. In 1968, when these photographers were made, the only night a man could "legally" dress as a woman in public places was on Halloween. In the then-Tenderloin, the baths were open and fun was everywhere with the police supporting the whole thing.

SHOUT OUTS Thank you to Brennan and Don Guynes

SHOW "New Works by Togonon Gallery Photographers," Nov. 5 through Dec. 5. Togonon Gallery, 77 Geary, second floor, SF. (415) 398-5572.

WEB www.jackfulton.net; www.togononongallery.com

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ROBERT FLYNN JOHNSON

TITLE "Buddha Pests"

BACKGROUND In this anonymous photograph, Bohemian Club members somewhat irreverently sit in the hands of a 70-foot plaster replica of the Daibutsu of Kamakura, Japan that was made for the "Buddha Jinx" of 1892 in Muir Woods. The next year, the Bohemian Grove was permanently relocated north to Monte Rio.

MONOGRAPHS Anonymous: Enigmatic Images From Unknown Photographers (Thames and Hudson) and The Face in the Lens (University of California, 208 pages, $45).

SHOW "Hunters and Gatherers: Photographs from the Private Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson," through Aug. 29. Modernism Gallery, 685 Market, SF. (415) 541-0425,

www.modernisminc.com

WEB flynnjohnson@gmail.com

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ROCKY MCCORKLE

TITLE Wishing Well (from "You and Me On A Sunny Day," 2007)

BACKGROUND For the past few years, I have been constructing a silent film narrating the internal discourse of an elderly woman in today’s pervasively influential world. Through a sequence of stills, "You and Me On A Sunny Day" explores the impact that film and fictional media has on her way of life.

SHOUT OUTS Special thanks to Gilda Todar for her extraordinary acting and dedication. We’ve taken photographs for this project nearly every Sunday since 2007.

AWARD McCorkle is one of the winners of Flash Forward, the Magenta Foundation’s annual international competition for emerging photographers. A book launch will be held at Lenox Contemporary in Toronto, Canada, in October.

WEB www.rockymccorkle.com

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AARON ROSENSTREICH

TITLE Illinois Street, San Francisco (from Ocular Landscape), 2007

BACKGROUND This is an image taken from my studio window near the Mirant power plant. In that particular moment the sky was extraordinarily apocalyptic. This image is part of a series of constructed landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

SHOUT OUTS Eugene Atget, William Christenberry, vernacular landscape photographs, neighborhood histories, urban planning

SHOW "PastForward: The 25th Anniversary Exhibition," through Aug. 29. The LAB, 2948 16th St., SF. (415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org www.thelab.org

WEB www.aaronrosenstreich.com

Whoop Click!

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PREVIEW Like most superhero tales, actor-comedian James Judd’s story begins with a spider bite. He hopes the incident will give him superpowers (specifically the ability to manipulate ATM machines with his eyes), but it never comes. Instead, the nasty bite gives him an excuse to, well, sit on his butt. And it is in his treacherously hot Palm Springs home that our hero gains a lot of weight.

In his newest show, Judd tells the story of how a poisonous spider bite on his butt leads to a two-week holiday at a decrepit fat camp in Florida. Tricked by his parents, Judd accepts a birthday gift at a luxury spa ("You’ll really love it — it’s like rehab!" says "Judd’s mom) only to arrive at a weight-loss camp in the middle of a swamp in July. To make matters worse, Judd is accompanied by his four Mormon aunts, who were all made famous in his previous show 7 Sins. In his 45-minute set, the San Francisco resident takes on 10 hilarious personalities, from the doctor who is convinced Judd’s spider bite is a brain tumor to an aunt who can’t seem to part with her Bible trivia books. Laugh along at Judd’s pain as he relives how he survives the fat camp while trying to uncover the truth behind a dark family secret. Oh, and he reenacts a scene from a porno called Ass Artist 3 — intrigued yet?

WHOOP CLICK! Through Aug 22. Sat, 8 p.m., $20, Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987, www.darkroomsf.com

“Beyond ESPN: An Offbeat Look at the Sports Film”

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PREVIEW Co-curated by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Joel Shepard and the Guardian‘s Johnny Ray Huston, "Beyond ESPN" also goes beyond cinematic convention, offering up a scorecard of (mostly) uncommon picks cleverly corralled under the banner of sports films. In other words, there’s no Rudy (1993) here. The series kicks off Thursday, Aug. 6 with "Rare Films from the Baseball Hall of Fame" (including commercials featuring a pre-scandal but ever-cheeky Pete Rose) and continues throughout August with takes on professional cycling (1976 doc A Sunday in Hell); tennis (1982’s The French, a behind-the-scenes look at the 1981 French Open); and swimming (2006’s Agua). Plus: Visions of Eight (1973), a study of the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics by eight different directors (including Milos Forman, Arthur Penn, and John Schlesinger); and 1971’s Football as Never Before, an intimate, on-the-pitch portrait of luxuriously-maned soccer great George Best. Also included is Clair Denis’ 2005 Towards Mathilde, about contemporary choreographer Mathilde Monnier, and a trio of good-time flicks dubbed "Winning Isn’t Everything: A Tribute to the 1970s Sports Film" from Midnites for Maniacs programmer Jesse Hawthorne Ficks: Ice Castles (1978), The Bad News Bears (1976), and The Cheerleaders (1973). Go team!

BEYOND ESPN: AN OFFBEAT LOOK AT THE SPORTS FILM. Aug 6–30, $8. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Bootie Six-Year Anniversary Weekender

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EVENT A good mashup is musical proof that sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. ("ABC"? "Paradise City"? Both good songs. "ABC City?" Even better.) And when it comes to the art of mixing parts of two or more songs to make one revelatory new one, Bootie SF’s Adrian and Mysterious D are expert mathematicians. The duo has been solving mashup equations for the masses for six years, and this weekend they’re celebrating their international success with two nights of madness. Friday’s theme is School Night, featuring classic mashups, Blow Up DJs upstairs, special performances by Renttecca and Suppositori Spelling, and plenty of naughty school-girl and -boy go-gos. Saturday’s Pirate Night features last year’s best mashups, DJs Jells Mayhem and Earworm, and performances by Anna Conda and Cookie Dough. And both nights will see A + D on the decks, mashup band Smash-Up Derby on live instruments, and gold-clad Bootie L.A. dance crew Random Acts of Irreverent Dance (R.A.I.D.) on stage. What do you get when you take SF’s favorite dance party and double it? A damn good time.

BOOTIE SIX-YEAR ANNIVERSARY WEEKENDER Fri/7–Sat/8, 9pm. $10–$15. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.bootiesf.com>.

Nosaj Thing

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PREVIEW A delicate secret lies behind electronic producer Jason Chung’s musical alias, Nosaj Thing. I’ll break it down quickly. Invert Jason from front to back so that the sound rolls off the tongue in an ephemeral two-step hop from palate to teeth. Supplement that spacious beginning with a full-bodied surname, and the paradoxical nature of "Nosaj Thing" is complete. Corporeal sensuality whisked away in nebulous lightness. Might there be such an impossible thing? I point the nonbelievers in the direction of Chung’s full length debut, Drift (Alpha Pup), a brilliant soundscape still building in momentum since last month’s release. A lesson in the elegant aerodynamics of heavy objects, Drift reflects the harmonious relations of galactic bodies floating in space and the unbelievable lightness of human-made aircrafts soaring in the air.

The 24-year-old Chung’s committed but decidedly loose affiliation with the versatile Low End Theory collective has fueled his lift-off into ethereal robotics. But Chung has picked up a free range ethic of self-determination from the L.A. underground more than any ideological doctrine. On Drift, Nosaj Thing’s disembodied mind sets off on an odyssey through eerie, oil-spill melodies and cavernous rhythmic voids. Darkly harmonic sounds are submerged under the android lights of an indigo night sky. The result is a soundtrack for an ancient sci-fi film about a genetically engineered Moses drifting along a river between Virgil’s hell and a raver’s ecstatic heaven. Oh, I can keep going.

BLASTHAUS PRESENTS NOSAJ THING’S DRIFT ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

Fri/31, 9 p.m., $12.50. Mighty, 119 Utah Street, SF. (415) 762-0151, www.mighty119.com

Funny People

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INTERVIEW In anticipation of Funny People, about a friendship between a famous comedian (Adam Sandler) who falls ill and a seemingly hopeless rookie (Seth Rogen), I sat down with director Judd Apatow to discuss stand-up, life and death situations, and his early comedic influences.

SFBG This film is a total departure with a terminal illness thrown into the mix. What was your inspiration?

Judd Apatow I just wanted to write something that I cared about. I’ve seen too many people struggle with being seriously ill and a lot of times people get better, and it’s not easy to take the wisdom that you suddenly have when you’re sick and use it when you get a second chance. Funny People is all about how George (Adam Sandler) hits bottom when he gets sick and then he needs to hit bottom again to figure out how he wants to live the rest of his life.

SFBG Funny People centers on the stand-up circuit, your old stomping ground. Who were your comedic influences growing up?

JA There was [Jay] Leno and Jerry Seinfeld and Charles Fleischer. And for filmmakers, I loved all the Hal Ashby movies and Cameron Crowe and James Brooks. I like movies that make me laugh and cry or make me really feel something, and it’s difficult to pull that off. That’s something I’m trying to find more courage [to do] — to put more weight on the story and the emotions and at the same time try really hard to make these movies just as funny as a balls-out comedy.

FUNNY PEOPLE opens Fri/31 in Bay Area theaters.

MORE AT SFBG.COM

Pixel Vision blog: Laura Swanbeck’s complete Judd Apatow interview.

Happy trails

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Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

(Techland, Ubisoft; PC, XBOX360, PS3)

GAMER Though the cowboy is a quintessentially American hero, the Western genre has flourished in the hands of foreigners. Famous for his "Dollars" trilogy, Italian director Sergio Leone was one of the many European filmmakers who reinvented and preserved the form, even as it became unfashionable in the U.S. With this in mind, the efforts of Polish developers Techland in creating Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood are impressive, but less surprising. Replicating the distinctive look and tone of many gun-slinging classics, the team tiptoes the split-rail fence separating homage from imitation, crafting a first-person shooter with enough escapist, six-gun fun to counterbalance its many faults.

The game is a prequel to 2006’s uneven Call of Juarez, providing back-story for the original’s two protagonists — Billy Candle, a kid with a knack for getting trapped in nigh-unplayable Thief (1998) — style stealth levels, and Ray McCall, a Bible-toting psychopath who could harangue his enemies with scripture at the press of a button.

Ray is back, swapping his good book for a brace of Colts, and he’s joined by his brother Thomas, who favors a long rifle, a lasso, and a waistcoat full of throwing knives. Each sibling has a distinct playstyle, and you choose to control one or the other at the beginning of most levels. This is a welcome elaboration on the first game’s alternating setup, in which players would clear each level twice, first as Billy, then as Ray, hot in pursuit. Having the choice in Bound in Blood adds some needed variety, and invests the player in the brothers’ increasingly fierce rivalry.

Their enmity revolves around Marisa, the femme fatale astride a convoluted plot that draws on a number of Western tropes. Buried gold, rogue Confederates, angry Apaches, wisecracking banditos — it’s all there. Ray and Thomas blast their way through reverent, set-piece shootouts, trading gruff jibes as competition for Marisa’s affections heats up. With two playable characters, the lack of split-screen or online co-op is a glaring oversight, as irksome as the aggressive auto-aim or the brain-dead, shooting-gallery AI. Pistol-duel boss fights comprise the game’s best moments, switching the camera to holster-eye third-person and requiring the player to slowly circle their opponent before quick-drawing and firing at the toll of a bell.

Class-based multiplayer will keep some cowpokes coming back, but this seven-hour game is probably better as a rental. Though it’s not bad, and certainly not ugly, "good" would be too kind.

Anywhere Jarvis

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Truth-telling is one of the most woefully undervalued yet powerful cudgels in an artist’s arsenal — so I can appreciate Jarvis Cocker’s artful, chuckle-inducing application of force on, for instance, "Caucasian Blues," off his second solo disc, Further Complications (Rough Trade). And who doesn’t love a rock star who can proudly bray a line like, "I heard it said /That you are hung like a white man!"

Letting it all hang out from England, Cocker complicated it further: "I was interested in how blues music has gone from the music of protest, of the oppressed, to the blandest, safest music for white people to listen to in bars. I felt like that was a very strange journey that music has been on." His son broke in, searching for socks — the two were just about to leave for a holiday — but the languid, chatty Cocker, 45, sounded like he was in absolutely no hurry to depart. "And then there’s that thing about the mid-’40s — that’s when people start playing a few blues songs. I think people like blues music as they get older because they know when the changes are coming. As people get older, they want to know what’s coming next.

"I try to fight against that. And in perverse way, maybe the best way to fight against that was to write a blues song, but to try to make it be about something."

I could talk to Cocker on a plane, I could talk to him on a train, and I could talk to him about blues music being "used to sell a hell of a lot of cars" in the passenger seat of an Audi tearing back to SF from Point Reyes, via iPhone and earplugs, while tapping on the trusty laptop. He’s that good, that much of a closet mensch keeping it as real as a man of style and taste — who happens to have sold 10 million or so discs with Pulp — can.

But that was the past — and the present is all about Complications, a hearty helping of purely impure, cock-eyed and wiseacre, excruciatingly literate and glittery-eyed, glam-disco-cabaret pop pleasure. The recording draws deeply from the worldly wise cabaret of true-faux intimacy practiced by the Bowie and Gainsbourg schools of Euro-rock, yet also bears the smart, impudent imprint of its complicated maker. "I want to love you while we both still have flesh on our bones /Before we become extinct," he warbles with a wink to the Thin White Duke on "Leftovers," before turning around and confessing, "I love your body /Because I’ve lost your mind" on "I Never Said I Was Deep." The music of a man who enjoys speaking the unspoken while amusing both himself and the listener.

And this listener had to bring up Michael Jackson, whose Christ-like 1996 BRIT Awards performance Cocker famously crashed, shaking his cheeks impertinently in the King of Pop’s presence. But the man deferred with zero drama ("My phone went crazy the day after," he said mildly. "I suppose in a lot of people’s minds, in this country at least, my name will forever be linked to that. I don’t wish it to be."). He was willing, though, to touch on the connection critics have made between the new album and his break with wife Camille Bidault-Waddington. "It just kind of puzzled me, with some of the reviews in the U.K. at least, that go on about ‘he’s having a midlife crisis.’ I suppose it’s partly because I disclosed the fact that I split up with my wife, and that led people to say, ‘This is his breakup album.’ But I did conceive of this record as entertainment, rather than the primal scream of middle-aged angst."

Who knew someone willing to sing to the skies about how superficial he is, would be so … deep? Truth now. "We have so many distractions and so much crap around, you end up having an in-depth knowledge of who played the Riddler in the Batman TV series, and who played drums on England’s entry into the Eurovision song contest in 1973," Cocker drawled helpfully about "I Never Said I Was Deep."

"All this trivia, all this crap my mind is littered with — but for some reason I kind of take delight in knowing all this crap," he continued. "Maybe at the expense of things that might matter a bit more, or may be more rewarding. So often when I’m worried about something or neurotic about something, that might be the time to write about it, maybe to neutralize it. But by giving it utterance, it robs its power to own you.

"Maybe I will attain depth — who knows? Maybe. I’m working on it."

JARVIS COCKER

Tues/28, 9 p.m., $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.livenation.com

De La Soul is alive

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CHECK ONE Last night, I played De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy/Warner Bros., 1989) for the first time in years. I couldn’t stop laughing.

It was a surprise, even though I always knew that much of De La Soul’s early appeal rested on its humor. Kelvin “Posdnous” Mercer spelled “soundsop” backwards; Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur loved yogurt. (He’s pictured eating yogurt in the album’s liner notes.) They complained about style biters who dug “Potholes in My Lawn”; and called their loopy, circuitous jams “Plug Tunin’.” There were references to soap, water, and Luden’s cough drops. In the first of several “game show” skits that bookended the album, Trugoy remarked that his favorite film was the 1976 sex-and-torture spectacle Bloodsucking Freaks. Twenty years later, De La Soul’s private language — or, to be accurate, “DA Inner Sound Y’all (D.A.I.S.Y. Age)” — still sounds fresh and crazily absurd.

Mainstream rock critics, suspicious of all that hippity-hop stuff, welcomed 3 Feet with restrained praise at first: Rolling Stone, in one of its historic blunders, only gave the album three stars while acknowledging it as “one of the most original rap albums ever.” The yellow-and-turquoise-daisies album art and MTV hype obscured De La Soul’s sharply intelligent sendups of go-go (“Do As De La Does”) and rap clichés (“Take It Off,” which parodied the then-ubiquitous “Funky Drummer” loop). Today, irony is so entrenched in the Generation X-Y-and-Zero lexicon that we forget how pleasurable it is when it’s done right.

Unfortunately, the good vibes quickly turned sour. Shortly after the album’s release, De La Soul ended an Arsenio Hall appearance with “Ain’t Hip to Be Labeled a Hippie,” a refrain first voiced on “Me, Myself and I.” The 1991 follow-up De La Soul is Dead offered a smashed flowerpot and tales of how the crew nearly got kicked off LL Cool J’s tour for fighting, just to prove that, hey, they ain’t no punks. Goofy odes to weed-smoking jostled uneasily with cautionary tales of child abuse and murder. The playful spirit of hip-hop’s so-called golden age was gone, another casualty in the oncoming storm of street realism and gangster aesthetics. (Mosi Reeves)

CHECK TWO I’d dug “Plug Tunin'” when I chanced across it on a mixtape from somewhere. This flow — this new style of speak — was shrouded in slang, occulted, and backed by a sound collage that seemed conjured from a basement where a rusty Victrola played the memories of an old man nodding off in his Lay-Z-Boy.

My boys hated that song. I loved it, but I didn’t “get it.” Armed with more fashion-sense than any of us knew what to do with, Marlon looked over at me and said, “You really like these Oklahoma muthafuckas?” Yes I did. Brothers was dope. From Strong Island, and dope. Rakim dope.

One Sunday, I was cleaning up my place to 3 Feet High and Rising and ran across a roach in an ashtray. Sprawled out on the couch watching the sun stream through my dirty windows, I “got” De La Soul. Every word was deciphered. It felt as if I’d learned a new language, or remembered an old one.

Things changed after that.

The 20th anniversary of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising is a cause for celebration. Anyone else feeling vindicated?

Kelvin “Posdnous” Mercer, David “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, and Vincent “PA Mase” Mason have chronicled the last 20 years through nine studio albums and countless production credits (Camp Lo, Gorillaz and MF DOOM among them). Prince Paul produced them, and in turn their popularity produced Prince Paul. They introduced a sleeping world to the black gale known as Mos Def.

De La is coming back to San Francisco. Witness genius at work. (D. Scot Miller)

DE LA SOUL

With Kenan Bell

Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $29.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com

Street TV

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Ray Luv came up with a pre-Digital Underground 2pac in their group, Strictly Dope, and wrote "Trapped," Pac’s first single from 2Pacalypse Now (Priority, 1991). Grandson of Cab Calloway, he’s among the few rappers to be close to both Pac and Mac Dre, who brought him to Crestside, Vallejo’s Strictly Business Records for his EP, Who Can Be Trusted? (1992), leading to a deal with Atlantic for his classic LP, Forever Hustlin‘ (1995). He’s done everything from lecturing in Europe to pimping during Bay rap’s early ’00s doldrums. His conversation ranges from ancient Sparta — "They were a great, warlike people, but they died out because they didn’t have culture" — to UpCodes that market music directly to consumers.

The title of Deathwish (PTBTV), Ray’s first solo album since 2002, reflects the darkness of a period when, he says, "I was prepared to die for street shit." As he puts it on the incendiary opener, "Swing Low," he was "running from [his] destiny and calling." That calling is evident on the album and on Pushin’ the Bay TV (pushinthebay.com).

A collaboration with Chinese-American artist Emcee T, PTBTV is among Bay rap’s current onslaught of YouTube-enabled Web TV, a phenomenon so ubiquitous that I’ve been on one or two — stand near Mistah F.A.B. long enough and it’ll happen. Few shows, though, have a host as charismatic as Ray Luv, which might be why the PTBTV site claims millions of visits — not bad for a one-camera, one-mic production. Even Ray seems slightly surprised.

"Most of our hits have been from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America," he says. "Lately, for some reason, there’s been tons from Syria."

PTBTV is a modular affair. Ten-minute interview segments posted on its YouTube channel are interspersed with the occasional video. Bay rappers dominate, and the topics range from concise histories of new talents, such as Eddi Projex, to more topic-driven segments, like Spice 1 discussing being shot in late 2007. But the show also interacts with national artists. Ray’s chance encounter with Chamillionaire, for example, yields a quick interview. In an oversaturated genre, the ability to make the most of such moments distinguishes the successes from the failures.

"In this business, creating content is what you have to do full-time," says Damon Jamal of In Yo Face Films. The technical force behind The Dame Fame Show, Jamal knows what he’s talking about. Dame Fame is actually on TV, broadcast on various Comcast channels throughout the East Bay. Jamal and editor Tiffany J must deliver a 30-minute episode every three to four weeks. The show began when the duo inherited a timeslot on Alameda Comcast from another show that was unable to maintain the pace. A well-respected videomaker for artists such as San Quinn, Jamal easily assembled an episode but wasn’t satisfied with his own attempts to host. Enter Dame Fame.

A behind-the-scenes personality in Bay rap since the mid-1990s, when he provided muscle for the Paraphernalia to the Mob Coalition, Dame Fame once managed ex-3X-member Keak Da Sneak. E-40 confirms that Dame Fame even wrote the hook for 40 and Keak’s massive hit, "Tell Me When to Go" (BME/Warner Bros., 2006). The Dame Fame Show is his first foray into the spotlight, and he’s a natural. The recent 12th episode finds him alongside Dallas’ Dorrough, whose "Ice Cream Paint Job" is one of the hottest rap singles in the country.

"I am the king of street TV," Dame laughs. "I talk to the camera, [and] try to make people feel they’re there with me. And we go where other TV personalities are scared to go." This street sensibility doesn’t preclude coverage of industry events, like the Core DJ Fest in Atlanta, slated for the next episode. Much like that of PTBTV, The Dame Fame Show‘s goal, according to Jamal, is "to showcase Bay talent alongside national talent."

The Dame Fame Show and PTBTV are powered by their creators’ idealism. "We do it for the love!," Dame laughs, and it’s true — he’d be running around the same places with or without a camera rolling.

THE DAME FAME SHOW airs Monday at 9:30 p.m. on Comcast 27 in Oakland. Check listings for other cities. www.vimeo.com/inyofacetv, www.pushinthebay.com

Yoo-hoo, Gertrude Berg!

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Even ginormous pop phenomena disappear from the collective consciousness faster than seemed possible during their heyday. Still, it’s surprising that The Goldbergs doesn’t loom larger in television history or general cultural awareness.

Admittedly, the show’s heyday came in TV’s early years as a mass medium. In 1949, when it commenced as a CBS half-hour, there were about 1 million television sets in use here. By 1954, at its run’s end, nearly three-quarters of U.S. households owned their own boob tube. One reason for that radical expansion was the vast popularity of I Love Lucy — which grabbed The Goldbergs‘ time slot and sitcom supremacy. Everybody still loves Lucy. But who remembers Mrs. Goldberg?

This year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival certainly does. Its 2009 Freedom of Expression Award goes to Aviva Kempner, director of Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, which makes its local premiere at the fest prior to its theatrical release on Aug. 7. In addition to the doc, SFJFF is screening four Goldbergs episodes.

Even more than a largely forgotten popular institution, Yoo-Hoo commemorates the one-woman dynamo who created and sustained it. Known to millions as humble Molly Goldberg, in real life Gertrude Berg (née Tilly Edelstein) developed performing ambitions and organizational chops from an early age, deploying both in her career despite an engineer husband’s ample means (he invented instant coffee) and a father’s harsh disapproval.

She pitched what became The Rise of the Goldbergs — after a first series about shopgirls was yanked for being too protofeminist — in 1929, the 15-minute radio show making its debut just after the Wall Street crash that triggered the Great Depression. Its portrait of a working-class immigrant Jewish family, idealizing Berg’s own, seemed dubious in appeal at first to the higher-ups. Yet soon it trailed only Amos ‘n’ Andy in national popularity, managing that without Amos ‘n’ Andy‘s degrading minority stereotyping. The Goldbergs were humorous, but not clowns — a warm, stable, relatable clan who looked out for each other and their close-knit community.

The center of both, it seemed, was Molly herself, whose homely homebody demeanor (not to mention the ESL malapropisms that embarrassed some assimilationist Jewish listeners) belied the breadth of progressive, non-saccharine wisdoms she doled out to one and all. She had her ditzy moments, but was nevertheless a very modern matriarch — quite unlike Lucy Ricardo, domestic ninny par excellence.

Berg masterminded this long-term success not just as star and head writer, but producer, mogul, and hard-driving perfectionist. She also had a clothing line, penned books, toured the vaudeville circuit and acted on Broadway. At one point she was named "Most Respected Woman in America" — following Eleanor Roosevelt, though in income their positions were reversed.

Despite all this, The Goldbergs died something of a slow, ignoble death. In 1951, actor Philip "Mr. Goldberg" Loeb was named as one among many "Communist influences" in the entertainment field by right-wing ideologues. The network wanted him out — and when Berg balked, a Top Three show was suddenly canceled for lack of commercial sponsorship. It returned later, the role recast — I Love Lucy launching in the interim — but some alchemy was lost. Blackballed and disconsolate, Loeb shot himself in 1955.

Berg soldiered on, driven as ever, until her death in 1966. The Goldbergs disappeared from syndication, then from memory. It would be decades before demonstrably Jewish characters (as opposed to gentile-fied Jewish performers) would again be so prominent on television. It’s worth noting that 60-plus years after Molly G. made her reluctantly-greenlit bow, Seinfeld almost didn’t make it on-air for fear it was likewise "too Jewish."

YOO-HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG

Tues/28, 6:30 p.m., Castro; Aug. 1, noon, Roda;

Aug. 2, 3 p.m., CineArts; Aug. 8, 2 p.m., Smith Rafael

THE GOLDBERGS

Tues/28, 3:30 p.m., Castro; Aug. 2, 12:30, CineArts;

Aug. 4, 2 p.m., Roda

See film listings for complete SFJFF info

www.sfjff.org

Celluloid Nation

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Unsurprisingly, Israeli films have been a big part of each San Francisco Jewish Film Festival program from the beginning. Yet despite that annual local sampling, occasional theatrical exports, and Oscar’s devotion (seven Israeli features have been nominated for Best Foreign Film so far, including 2008’s highway-robbery loser Waltz with Bashir), the general narrative of how that industry got where it is today has remained hazy. It clears up quite a bit after three and a half hours spent with Raphael Nadjari’s A History of Israeli Cinema, the new two-part documentary screening at SFJFF.

Nadjari’s choice of article is apt — this is a history, not any attempt at creating "the" definitive one, and no doubt seasoned viewers will be left scratching their heads over an omission or eight. (The weirdest being M.I.A. Eytan Fox, of 2002’s Yossi and Jagger, 2004’s Walk on Water, and 2006’s The Bubble.) But the myriad clips and commentators he assembles nonetheless piece together a cogent overview that will have you running to check DVD availabilities (usually in vain, alas).

Early features, before and after nationhood was declared in 1948, mostly sold the "Zionist utopia" that would unite millennia of Jewish diaspora, often using filmic language reminiscent of Soviet propagandist cinema. When audiences no longer needed that basic affirmation, more escapist forms emerged, notably the broad "bourekas" comedies and sentimental dramas depicting struggling ethnic groups (mostly Mizrahi Jews). Alongside these in the 1960s there developed a "New Sensitivity" school indebted to European art film that appealed to the intelligentsia if not the wider public. A gradual shift from collective to individual concerns affected everything from the omnipresent military dramas to dissenting political content, plus depictions of hitherto ignored or stereotyped figures whether Arab, gay, Georgian émigré, or simply female.

SFJFF 2009 continues this history with a sizable range of new Israeli screen work. Home-turf hit Lost Islands is a seriocomic family saga played to the big-hair beat of early ’80s New Wave (come back, Flock of Seagulls!). The excellent Zion and His Brother provides darker domestic strife amidst Haifa’s meanest housing-project streets. Coming highly recommended for a good time is A Matter of Size, which is pretty much The Full Monty (1997) of sumo wrestling. (Dennis Harvey)

A HISTORY OF ISRAELI CINEMA

Aug 1, 11:45 a.m., CineArts

Aug 8, 11:30 a.m., JCCSF

Hold the pickle

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superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Enough with the gourmet street food carts, already. What this joint really needs is some gourmet street cocktail carts. I can barely see it now: fixie-powered blenders, home-brewed Fernet shots, "shit coke" smuggled Cuban rum margaritas with powdered-sugar rims and laminated dollar-bill straws, bacon-wrapped hot dog martinis, 5-HTP power boosts … Anyone for an heirloom finger banana and Prather Ranch taurine daquiri? No?

BONER PARTY


DJ Richie Panic promises "cupcakes, piñatas, condoms, fashion tragedies, and those that understand the power of songs like ‘Surfin’ Bird’ recontextualized for these fucked-up times" at this tastelessly amazing Wednesday banger. Trust.

Wednesdays, 10 p.m., free. Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF. www.beautybar.com

RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO


Mashups — in or out? The scene’s still lively, and this SF360 Film + Club night brings together SFs top mashers Adrian and Mysterious D and London’s Eclectic Method, with a screening of mashup doc RiP: A Remix Manifesto.

Thu/23, 7 p.m., $12–$17. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

NICKODEMUS


The leader of the legendary, decade-old Turntables on the Hudson party just dropped the stellar, border-hopping Sun People (Eighteenth Street) disc, full of interesting, upbeat tribal tracks. "Positivity" is no longer a dirty word.

Fri/24, 10 p.m. –4 a.m., $10. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. www.paradisesf.com

GLITCH MOB


The heartthrobs of glitch-hop, now whittled down to a trio, bring their effed-up laser sound to Mezzanine’s tables, with L.A. future bass pioneer Daddy Kev opening up. Gangsta rap meets Burning Man? You better believe it.

Sat/25, 8:30 p.m., $22.50 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

BAY OF PIGS


The night before the raucous and naughty Up Your Alley fair, get your big gay fetish on with this giant man-meet for charity. Am I scared of the kiki party music by DJs Ted Eiel and Luis Cintron? Yes, sir! But scared equals horny here, hello.

Sat/25, 10 p.m. — 4 a.m., $40–$50.181 Eddy, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org

UNITING SOULS


It’s the 12-year reunion of promoters Ramiro Gutierrez and Mikey Tello’s progressive house and chunky techno outfit — get that post-old-school rave feeling back with good ol’ Doc Martin headlining and a roster of other well-knowns.

Sat/25, 9 p.m.- 4 a.m., $15. Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.unitingsouls.com

SUPER HERO STREET FAIR


To the Batmobile (let’s go)! Wonder Woman Underoos are totally go at this huge, charitable outdoor affair. Heroic tunes by Opulent Temple, Afrolicious, Supersonic Salsa Collective, Pacific Sound, Smoove, and more mutant decks X-Men.

Sat/25, 1 p.m.–midnight, $10 with superhero costume, $20 without. Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets, SF. www.superherosf.com

FOR THE FUTURE


This massive gathering of pretty much every Bay techno and house crew benefits NextAid.org, which helps AIDS-affected African kids. Staple, Green Gorilla, Stompy, Dirty Bird, Om … 15 DJs, 14 hours, perhaps a few oxygen tents.

Sun/26, noon–2 a.m., $10–$15. Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.cafecocomo.com

MISS $1.98 PAGEANT


They don’t come any cheaper than drag queens Anna Conda and Monistat — or do they? We’ll find out when they host this koo-koo pageant where all the contestants must put themselves together (and fall apart) for less than the price of an, er, Estonian bride?

Tue/28, 10 p.m., $10. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.endup.com

Am I blue?

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andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com


Dear Andrea:

The woman I just started seeing likes fooling around for hours with all our clothes on and isn’t ready for sex. I like waiting too, except I have a medical condition called varicoceles, which means I have to wear tidy-whities whenever I walk around. After dates, I have to use heat and ice on my crotch because I’m so sore from the underwear, and I can’t achieve an erection the next day (irony: if I did manage to get her home with me, I wouldn’t have been able to get it up). I guess I just need to tell her that we can’t make out for more than a few minutes unless I can find a public bathroom to change into boxers and sweat pants, and then back into jeans when we’re done. It takes all the spontaneity and romance out of it, which I think are very important to her, but what else can I do?

Love,

Pants of Pain

Dear Pants:

You do have kind of a special case. The vericocele (a varicose vein of the testes) added to the heavy-petting-fanatic girlfriend is kind of a one-two kick in the balls. I think you’re being extremely accommodating, which may make you a very good boyfriend, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.

I think you are going to have to have a talk with her about what constitutes "sex," since she says she isn’t ready for any. What you’re doing is surely sexual, it just isn’t (a) intercourse or (b) particularly gratifying. To you. Are you absolutely sure she wouldn’t be on board with something that allowed you to move further along the sexual response cycle? I mean yours, obviously, but why not hers too while we’re at it? There’s nothing wrong with not being ready for intercourse, or with being into spontaneity and romance (although those have been known to cause an awful lot of havoc all on their own). Still, it’s unreasonable of her to expect you to go to this amount of trouble every time just because she likes to kiss. We all like to kiss, but few of us have to ice down our privates every time we get a chance do it.

I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she doesn’t know how much discomfort and inconvenience you’re putting up with for her sake. That means you have to stop martyring and start asserting yourself. Just say no to heavy petting! Say you’d like to add in some manual action, and you’d be happy to return any favors she might chose to bestow. You don’t have to go into gruesome detail about it, but you do get to say that the three-hour make-out sessions are hard on you, pun intended or not, as you wish. Alternatively, you could arrive wearing the sweatpants and the jockeys and use the escape-hatch feature in front to alleviate pressure, but I’m really more in favor of the actually telling her she’s torturing you (but be nice about it).

If that answered your question, I now have four for you: What’s with the changing into appropriate action-wear in a public restroom? Are you Superman? And isn’t it tighty-whities? Shouldn’t it be?

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

Are blue balls real? I mean, can it really hurt you? It keeps happening to me with this one girl, but I don’t know if it’s something I’m supposed to do something about or just suck it up.

Love,

BB

Dear B:

Real in what sense? I don’t believe they actually turn blue, and I know for a fact that even an advanced case is not going to hurt you. It’s just vasocongestion, all the little blood vessels and all that spongey erectile stuff getting filled up with blood that does not then go back where it came from in good time. I use the highly technical term "erectile stuff" rather than, say, "penis," because achy congestion and overwhelming frustration are hardly experiences limited to the penis-bearing population. In women, it feels a lot like the mildest menstrual cramp, or rather, the warm, heavy, vaguely achy feeling that often presages the onset of a period. It’s like being made aware of your internal organs, which are sending out "Over here, pay attention to me!" signals. It is not remotely like a kick in the balls, or ovaries, or whatever. Discomfort and frustration are not pain, and even pain does not necessarily signal damage. Blue balls may be safely ignored. Most often, they are ministered to by their owner, in private. Go to it.

Of course, there is such a thing as dangerous — emergency-level dangerous — vasocongestion. This one is pretty much a boys-only affair. It’s priapism, when an erection refuses to abate after a reasonable amount of time and a good-faith effort. This can blow out your blood vessels and leave you limp for life, but since it never ever happens just from some girl sitting in your lap, we can forget I ever even mentioned it.

Love,

Andrea

Don’t forget to read Andrea at Carnal Nation.com.

Not being boring

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

There are reasons why John Baldessari has always seemed a little like god. For one, the L.A.-based artist resembles popular visions of the man upstairs. He’s a formidably tall fellow — 6 feet, 7 inches — with white hair and beard, and he exudes an unflappably calm, wise demeanor, characteristics that figure in his role as an influential professor for almost three decades at Calarts and UCLA. In Seven Days in the Art World, the dishy 2008 book-length look at the pre-downturn contemporary art scene, author Sarah Thornton describes Baldessari as "a hippie version of Michelangelo’s representation of the grand old man in the Sistine Chapel." It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to suggest that he makes art that you can faith in, if not always completely decipher.

At 78, Baldessari has amassed quite a body of work, even though he pared things down as one of his important early gestures, famously cremating his paintings to start afresh as a conceptualist. "I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art" was the ironic mantra that fueled a 1971 video and his first print, in which he wrote the phrase repeatedly as if a punishment. Since that time, he has well managed to steer clear of boredom, his own and that of his viewers, with works that playfully address mediated culture and the making of art.

Baldessari received a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award at the current Venice Biennale, and he’ll be honored with a retrospective at London’s Tate Modern this fall. In San Francisco, a thorough selection of his prints is on view at the Legion of Honor. While screenprints and lithographs aren’t usually considered primary works, Baldessari’s approach is so connected to mechanical reproduction — he relies on found images, text, and photography — that the exhibition’s 100-plus examples, all from the collection of Jordan Schnitzer, an Oregon-based Baldessari devotee, comprise a very satisfying survey.

Baldessari’s art is seductive, though surprisingly difficult to parse. His works can play like engaging rebuses that are thwarted by his frequent use of bold, primary-colored dots placed over faces and objects, seriously throwing their meaning into question. Just as often, however, a Baldessari can have a succinct visual/conceptual punch line, like his 1973 Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts), which in classic conceptual art fashion, is just what the title describes. That early work also exemplifies the sense of playfulness and pleasure often present in Baldessari’s art. It shouldn’t seem surprising that his prints can evoke Matisse’s buoyantly colorful Jazz cut-outs.

"I’m glad you saw that, he’s a huge influence on me," Baldessari says when I mention the Matisse connection during a recent interview. At the Venice Biennale award ceremony, he acknowledged his indebtedness to Giotto, Goya, Duchamp, and especially Sol LeWitt, the latter two being similarly playful conceptualists who played with systems to rejigger the way we think about life and art. Baldessari’s mode of operation involves breaking down mass-produced images until they take on new meanings. He has long collected 8 x 10 glossies from forgotten films, advertising campaigns, or various other commercial images that he reconfigures, crops, and/or paints over. Like Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills from the postmodern late 1970s, Baldessari’s sources are coded with meaning and narrative, but are emphatically anonymous. "If I know who it is, it’s ruined for me," he says.

Besides movie stills, Baldessari turns his attention to drab landscapes, mundane table lamps — resulting in a jaunty 1994 series of full-size reproductions with bold patches of color painted over the shades and shadows — and body parts, notably noses and ears (don’t miss the vacuum-formed piece mounted on the ceiling at the entrance of the Legion exhibition).

One room at the Legion is devoted to a 2004 series of prints of men playing guitars. The images are broken into layers, goosing the perspective by having some areas on thicker paper and turning the instruments into solid blocks of color. The story of their making offers a window into Baldessari’s process: "I’ve had these 8 by 10’s of rock and roll musicians for years," he begins. "I collect a lot of stuff because I’m repulsed by it, and that whole rock and roll musician thing does not interest me in the least. I just wonder, why are they popular? I had the photos for years and didn’t know what to do with them, and all of a sudden something clicked — the guitar is an element in art from Cubism, it’s always there with the bottle of wine and newspaper and a loaf of bread. So I thought, how does that work in a more contemporary context?"

He goes on to describe his interest in shapes in photographs, making perspective into a flat plane. "What if I just erase all the gradation and make shapes of color? When the guitars are tilted, they’re pretty interesting shapes, especially in context with gaudy costumes, glitter and bling. It’s an interesting collision."

Perhaps not a lightning bolt from above, but like most of Baldessari’s work, the clash creates subtle sparks. The kind you can believe in.

JOHN BALDESSARI: A PRINT RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF JORDAN D. SCHNITZER AND HIS FAMILY FOUNDATION

Through Nov. 8 (Tues.– Sun., 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.)

free–$10

Legion of Honor

Lincoln Park, 34th Ave. and Clement, SF

(415) 750-3600
www.thinker.org

Stoned love

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

PROFILE "It’s a new wave, and a new positive light," says Kid Cudi of rap’s vaunted new generation. "It’s a different time now. [Jay-Z] was raised in the ’80s when shit was bad. And we grew up when times were much better."

Kid Cudi explains this while riding in a car from Manhattan to upstate New York. Earlier that morning, he appeared on MTV’s talk show It’s On with Alexa Chung, and now he’s en route to Camp Bisco, a three-day camping and music festival in Mariaville, N.Y. The next day, he’ll return to the road and "the Great Hangover," a national tour alongside Asher Roth, Pacific Division, B.O.B. and other purveyors of rap’s fresh optimism.

"Day ‘N’ Nite," Kid Cudi’s laconic ode to smoked-out surrealism, pipes out of car radios everywhere. "The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night," he sings with the chopped, slightly off-tune delivery of a rapper on holiday as producer Dot Da Genius’ spacey electronic beat blips and bloops. Harmonizing rappers isn’t a recent trend, of course, but by focusing on his weed-induced daydreams, Kid Cudi blazes uncharted territory. He tickles the intellect with "dat new new." Radio stations usually censor the word "stoner," but it’s the only element that fits within pop radio’s Babylon of hormonal sexploitation and sophomoric debauchery.

Leaked to Websites and blogs in the fall of 2007 and officially issued by Fool’s Gold Records in early 2008, "Day ‘N’ Nite" took over a year to float into the Top 5 of Billboard‘s singles chart. It’s the best proof yet that the "leaders of the new school" phenomenon isn’t a blog-concocted fantasy. For the past year, such superlatives have followed a wave of fresh-faced emcees and producers flooding the Web with unauthorized "remixes" of pop hits, freestyles, hastily-recorded demos, and periodic mixtapes to collect it all. Until now, with the recent success of "Day ‘N’ Nite," Drake’s "Best I Ever Had" and Roth’s "I Love College," it sometimes seemed like meaningless ephemera, just content for blogs and Web sites (and even some traditional magazines) that demonstrate their marketing skills to win ad dollars.

At the center of it is Scott Mescudi, a Cleveland-raised, Brooklyn-based 25-year-old who professes crippling shyness. "I’ve always been a loner. I always felt like I needed to be alone sometimes to think and meditate a lot," he says. "I know a lot of people feel the same thing. It’s important to address these issues on record because you don’t hear other rappers speaking on behalf of people like that."

Sorry, but these revelations aren’t a Guardian "exclusive." Cudi has repeated this in numerous interviews and in posts on his frequently updated blog, Kidcudi.com. It’s part reality, part image-building. His societal alienation dominates the 2008 mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. "Embrace the Martian," he harmonizes." "I come in peace, but I need you rocking with me." His quest for fame and fortune alternates as a path of redemption, a triumph over the haters and ex-girlfriends who doubted him. "I just kill a bitch with success," he crows on "Save My Soul (The Cudi Anthem)." "While she at home stressed out eating ice cream, I’m at the Grammy’s, living out a nice dream."

Cudi says he’s a child of urban pop who grew up with a steady diet of mainstream hip hop and R&B. "I was influenced by my older siblings and what they listened to," says Cudi, who is the youngest of four. "I was able to get into R&B because my sister was into New Edition and Al B. Sure. My oldest brother was into the Pharcyde and a Tribe Called Quest. My middle brother was into UGK, No Limit, Snoop Dogg, and NWA."

Cudi admittedly slept on the indie scene of the late ’90s that paved the trail for today’s alternative up-and-comers. Unlike Mos Def, he didn’t press up 12-inches and sell them to record stores on consignment. Instead he hooked up with a former Def Jam executive (current manager Patrick "Plain" Reynolds) and launched his A Kid Named Cudi mixtape across the Web’s biggest music sites.

Currently slated for Sept. 15 release, Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day (Mtown), probably won’t disprove the notion that he’s a suburban rapper who has experienced little struggle. But maybe that’s the point. By not pretending to be a ghetto Horatio Alger, he’s free to expand our view of blackness, and hip-hop in particular. The harmonizing vocals, the introspective rhymes, and the hormonally driven R&B (rap & blues) add up to someone who explores hip-hop as a state of mind rather than an inconvertible, street-anchored style. "My whole thing is expressing yourself in any way possible."

THE GREAT HANGOVER TOUR: ASHER ROTH AND KID CUDI

With B.O.B., 88 Keys

Fri/24, 8 p.m., $27.50

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.ticketmaster.com

In the Loop

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REVIEW A typically fumbling remark by U.K. Minister of International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) ignites a media firestorm, since it seems to suggest war is imminent even though Brit and U.S. governments are downplaying the likelihood of the Iraq invasion they’re simultaneously preparing for. Suddenly cast as an important arbiter of global affairs — a role he’s perhaps less suited for than playing the Easter Bunny — Simon becomes one chess piece in a cutthroat game whose participants on both sides of the Atlantic include his own subordinates, the prime minister’s rageaholic communications chief, major Pentagon and State Department honchos, crazy constituents, and more. Writer-director Armando Iannucci’s frenetic comedy of behind-the-scenes backstabbing and its direct influence on the highest-level diplomatic and military policies is scabrously funny in the best tradition of English television, which is (naturally) just where its creators hail from.

IN THE LOOP opens Fri/24 in San Francisco.

Big Rich

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PREVIEW Arriving outside Amoeba Music on Haight Street, Fillmore Rich — also known as the MTV2 rap star Big Rich — is stopped by a total stranger. "Yo! Big Rich. Man, I love "SF Anthem," and "That’s The Business," and all your music," the fan/rapper enthuses, quickly turning the chance sidewalk meeting into an impromptu audition. As the aspiring rapper — who shouldn’t be making any immediate plans to quit his day job — rattles into his second verse, large-framed Rich listens intently. Afterward he offers words of encouragement, and even his phone number, to the upstart.

Big Rich’s Heart of the City (3 Story Muzik) is one of Ameoba’s top-selling hip-hop albums. "I feel like it’s a part of my responsibility to give back to my community," Rich says. "That’s why I call myself Fillmore Rich. It’s not to glamorize anything. It’s just that’s how I feel. All the people I grew up with, they ain’t here no more. I feel like it’s my responsibility to stay here and represent and help where I can. I am the only San Francisco rapper that still has a residence in the neighborhood where they grew up."

This Saturday, Rich will be there when the SF youth AIDS education organization Get Live Stay Live puts on an event at the Bayview Opera House. "There’s [been] a lot of friction going on with my area and Hunters Point," he says. "I’m going to show there ain’t no friction." Rich has two other events booked the same day: he’ll be speaking on a panel at the Bay Area Producers Conference and performing at the car-themed Hot Import Nights mega-event at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds. Catch him if you can.

BAY AREA PRODUCERS CONFERENCE Sat/25, 8.a.m–11 p.m. (Big Rich is part of the "Beats and Rhymes" panel at 5 p.m.), $45. Cathedral Hill Hotel. 1101 Van Ness, SF.

www.bayareaproducersconference.com

Clutch

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PREVIEW To survive two decades in the music business, a band must learn to tolerate change. Clutch has prospered by embracing it. Since its beginnings as a shotgun marriage between East Coast hardcore and Southern rock, the Maryland four-piece has constantly retooled its elastic, blues-metal sound. Easily bored and eager to explore their prolific, improvisatory talents, the band members never perform the same set twice — they take turns surprising each other.

This year’s Strange Cousins From the West (Weathermaker Music) abandons the harmonica and keyboard accents that proliferated on 2007’s From Beale Street to Oblivion (DRT Records). Though the band has been on a bluesy, mellow trajectory since 2004’s Blast Tyrant (DRT), the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, back toward the muscular guitar rock that comprised its definitive mid-1990s output.

The stand-out track "Abraham Lincoln" sounds appropriately like a funeral march, and the lyrics showcase singer Neil Fallon’s talent for making American history into motor-mouthed rock and roll genius. The album’s lead single "50,000 Unstoppable Watts" boasts a trademark non sequitur sing-along ("Anthrax/ham radio/and liquor"), underpinned by one of Tim Sult’s inimitable guitar leads. Neither shredding nor chugging, the licks glide along with the assured, unpredictable grace of a hopscotch expert.

On tour, Clutch is supported by Lionize, Sult’s reggae side project — bored, prolific, remember? — along with Baroness, a group that rivals the headlining godfathers in combining distorted guitars with Southern flavor and a vast range of influences. Extemporaneous and explosive in concert, Clutch is only skipped by the unwise.

CLUTCH With Lionize, Baroness. Wed/22, 8 p.m., $23. Regency Ballroom, 1290 Sutter, SF.

(415) 673-5716. www.theregencyballroom.com

Sha Sha Higby

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PREVIEW To achieve inner calm, you could do an hour of yoga, meditate on a seaside cliff, or pamper yourself at a spa retreat. But if you don’t have the time (or lack the funds), you could also attend a Sha Sha Higby performance to leave you feeling reflective, refreshed and inspired. Higby began her artistic career before she was even qualified to attend preschool. At age 3, a drawing of a single bird launched the artist into a new world of expression. Fast-forward to the present, and the internationally acclaimed performance artist insists she doesn’t have another option than to constantly create.

And boy, does this lady create. Using skills she acquired through her studies in Asia, the Marin County resident’s performances combine dance, puppetry, light, and sound to introduce a mysterious and haunting world of child-like wonders. She is perhaps best known for her elaborate structural costumes, which are handmade using old techniques and materials such as silk, gold leaf, wood, and paper. During her shows, Higby fully cocoons herself in these costumes, which she uses as evolving canvasses to animate stories of life, death, and rebirth.

For her latest show In Folds of Tea, Higby does it again. For two evenings, the Noh Space transforms into an enchanted pink forest as Higby takes the stage to work her unique brand of voodoo. See you there.

SHA SHA HIGBY Fri/24–Sat/25, 8 p.m., $10–$22. Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa, SF.

(415) 868-2409, www.shashahigby.com

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