Arts & Culture Archives — Page 71 of 279 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Now, Monsoon

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July 10, 2012

>>LISTEN TO AN EXCLUSIVE KUSH ARORA MIX (AND MORE) HERE

SUPER EGO Hurray, it is not 115 degrees here! I just got a skype from my heatwaved homegirl Googie Santorum in Canton, Ohio, and she said all her wigs had melted into Dynel helmets and that she lost two pairs of kitten heels in the asphalt puddle outside Heggy’s Nut Shop on West Tuskawaras Street. I thought we cured global warming 10 years ago when we sat through that Al Gore movie and quit using Aqua Net? Well, apparently not.

I felt a little guilty reveling in our temperate clime while the rest of America fried — but that all changed when I started instead feeling a little guilty for passing out on the Fourth with two lit sparklers in my hair and a crotchful of spilled PBR. Goddess bless America. And all her bald spots and blackout complications.

In club terms, however, summer’s really steaming up our tails. I especially felt the mercury rising when it was announced that our hometown heroes of “dread bass,” the Surya Dub DJ crew, would be returning to the scene, taking over the second dance floor of the bangin’ Non Stop Bhangra monthly party on Sat/14 (9pm-3am, $10–$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com). Bassheads, get ready for a low pressure system no amount of my overheated metaphors can properly describe.

The mega-affair is being billed as “Indian-Caribbean summer tropical bass madness,” and you get mad amounts of hot tropicalia: a main room headlining slot from Portland’s DJ Anjuli and The Incredible Kid, founders of the longest-running bhangra party on the West Coast; guest spots for our main moombahton man, DJ Theory, and Matt Haze of wicked broken bass collective Slayers Club; bhangra dance lessons from the amazing Dholrhythms dance troupe; live drumming ….

And on top of it, Surya Dub’s ever-evolving, deep-global sound, finally back in the spotlight. SF’s musico-cultural cross-currents certainly haven’t flagged in the three years since the South Asian-flavored crew ruled the local bass scene with an irresistible mix of dub floor-droppers, future-bass bangers, ruff riddims, global breaks, and hip-hop bhangra. But when the crew members went on to various projects (including bringing Surya Dub to India and producing some great records), the scene lacked their singular fire.

“We never really went away,” Maneesh the Twister told me on a conference call with fellow Dubbers Kush Arora and Jimmy Love. “But it seemed like the music was changing in the clubs here. We wanted to evolve, to update the dread bass sound, in response to all the dubstep, electronic bass music, UK funky, and bashment that’s come to the fore.”

“We started feeling a wider variety of both New World and traditional sounds,” Kush told me. “African beats like kuduro — Buraka Som Sistema is great — to more post-dubstep tropical sounds. All of these rhythms that are talking to each other around the world. And of course we work in what’s been going on in bhangra as it develops.”

Jimmy, who also runs the Non Stop Bhangra party itself, was the catalyst for the “reunion.”

“We’re don’t just play traditional-sounding Bollywood or bhangra at the NSB parties,” he said. “I love dub reggae and Afrolicious-like funk, and our die-hard Indian crowd has loved when we play more tropical tracks. We always want to stretch the definition, and walking upstairs to Surya’s room will be a seamless experience of global sounds.

“It’s all about bringing communities together on the dance floor. And then heating everything up.”

COSMETICS

Soigné dark synthpop Canadian duo Cosmetics travel musically from Moroder to Siouxsie, charmingly, icily, and will be joined by Portland’s Soft Metals and our own Breakdown Valentine — two more chamber synth duos whose tunes seem intimately crafted just for you — for a catchy Friday the 13th affair. Justin of the Soft Moon, Rachel of the Conversion, and Omar DJ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPz2bME4Phg

Fri/13, 9pm, $11–$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

CUBCAKE

The whole gay bear thing kinda lost my interest once many of the hot fat country lumberjacks got replaced by entitled circuity gymrats constantly checking their Scruff apps on the dance floor. YOU’RE NOT A BEAR — YOU’RE JUST MIDDLE-AGED, I cried. (Middle age is a new thing for us post-AIDS era gay men; we’re working it out.) But that was, what, 2010? Time to reappraise. I’ve been hitting up this too-cute pan-musical dance party at Lonestar the past two months, brimming with sexy-goofy young hairies on the hoof and a few zesty chubs, too. Bear Trek: the Next Generation looks pretty damn good.

Fri/13, 9pm, free. Lone Star, 1354 Harrison, SF. www.lonestarsf.com

LEMONADE

The once-local (now Brooklynite) trio sanded off some of its esoteric angles in favor of wistful, Fairlight synth era-referencing pop on new album Diver, but it still retains those breezy percussive touches that made it one of the leaders of the nu-tropicalism underground dance movement a few years ago. With killer DJ and DMC champion Kid Fresh from Hong Kong at the always balmy nu-cumbia Tormenta Tropical monthly.

Sat/14, 10pm, $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

The man who made 500 movies

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July 10, 2012

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM In 1969, a lot of silent films unloaded on the Library of Congress by Paramount Pictures was found to include The Canadian, a little-remembered 1926 drama that proved a major rediscovery when shown to new audiences under the American Film Institute’s banner. Its director, William Beaudine, had never seen it — hustling between assignments at different studios, he’d had no time — and would die at age 78 in March of 1970. But the prior month he managed (just out of the hospital, in a wheelchair) to catch a revival screening. Surprised by both the film and his standing ovation afterward, he admitted “Maybe I wasn’t such a bad director after all.”

That wasn’t just false modesty speaking — over the course of six decades in the business, Beaudine no doubt had been called a bottom-rung director, or worse. This wasn’t due so much to the actual quality of his movies (had anyone bothered to evaluate them as a whole) as the assumption that no one so ludicrously, indiscriminately prolific could possibly be good. Upon retiring a couple years earlier, he’d completed some 500 theatrical films (including shorts) and approximately 350 TV programs. No one even knows the precise numbers, as he occasionally worked under pseudonyms. What could you say about a man credited with such titles as Blonde Dynamite (1950), Tuna Clipper (1949), Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966), Voodoo Man (1944), Trick Golf (1934), The Girl from Woolworth’s (1929), and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)? How could a one-man factory be expected to be an artist, too?

The truth was that Beaudine seldom got the chance to be one, and by being so pliant and efficient at directing low-end commercial product he probably helped ensure those chances would be rare. Still relatively unknown, The Canadian was certainly one such exception. It plays Saturday afternoon as part of the 17th San Francisco Silent Film Festival, on a program that will also see an honorary award go to Telluride Film Festival directors Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer, and Julie Huntsinger for their event’s long-standing efforts at preserving and exhibiting silent cinema.

A working-class Manhattan native infatuated with the movies from childhood — Beaudine and his brother actually acted in a 1900 short for Thomas Edison’s company — he began working in the then-NYC-centered early industry while still a teen, performing nearly every job behind (and a few before) the camera. He apprenticed under pioneers D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, graduating to the director’s seat shortly after a second, permanent move to Los Angeles in 1914.

Beaudine quickly acquired a reputation for being fast and funny — comedy was considered his forte, alongside working with child actors. It was the latter talent that won the attention of “America’s Sweetheart,” film industry tycoon Mary Pickford. Grudgingly accepting that the public still only wanted to see her in juvenile roles despite the fact that she was pushing 40, she chose him to direct two “comeback” vehicles after a year’s hiatus. Sentimental 1925 entry Little Annie Rooney was a great hit; the next year’s more Gothic Sparrows is still considered by some her best vehicle.

These prestige assignments and several other box-office successes should have lifted Beaudine to the top tier of Hollywood directors — he was already paid accordingly — yet curiously his self-effacing flexibility and ability to deliver the goods under-budget seemed to work against his acquiring the kind of artistic cred that might have let him choose his projects, or be assigned bigger, A-level ones. Frequently loaned out by whatever studio he was currently contracted to, he invariably did a sound job, even if the material was sub-par.

The Canadian itself was an example of his ability to roll with the punches. Sent east by Paramount to make a football picture, he arrived in New York only to find he was now directing a rural drama instead. Improbably based on a W. Somerset Maugham play, it starred Thomas Meighan as an Alberta farmer who marries his neighbor’s sister — a sort of grudge match, as she (Mona Palma) is a European society snob just recently forced here by dwindling family fortunes, and who proposes marriage herself largely to spite the brother and sister-in-law she’s managed to offend.

Sometimes compared today to Victor Sjöström’s 1928 The Wind with Lillian Gish, The Canadian is much less extreme in its style, melodrama, and emotions. (Its heroine doesn’t nearly go mad, for one thing.) The taming-of the-snoot gist is routine, but played out with charming naturalism and restraint. A somewhat difficult, weather-challenged location shoot near Calgary paid off in admiring reviews and good business, although by then Beaudine was already well into other projects, the most immediate being SF-set Frisco Sally Levy (1927).

Beaudine nimbly transitioned into “talkies,” freelancing rather than tying himself down. Yet perversely his adaptability, and knack for getting the most out of a budget, got him typed as a B-pic director rather than promoted to the front ranks. Wiped out in the 1929 stock market crash, he accepted what turned out to be a very successful stint abroad directing some of the top English comedians (notably Will Hays in 1936’s deliciously titled Windbag the Sailor). But those films weren’t seen in the U.S. When he returned home, Beaudine was — for reasons still murky — shut out at every Hollywood major, despite a long track record and being widely liked by coworkers.

His remaining three decades were a testimony to dogged workaholicism, versatility, and solid craftsmanship under sometimes trying circumstances. He worked for all the low-budget “Poverty Row” studios, as well as companies targeting “Negro-only” cinemas, and Protestant church circuits. He chalked up umpteen bottom-half-of-the-bill features in popular series, including dozens starring those aging adolescent cutups the Bowery Boys. He also directed infamous “sex hygiene” film Mom and Dad (1945), which for years played grindhouses and tent shows while fending off as many legal challenges as Deep Throat (1972) years later. Moving into television, he cranked out episodes of everything from The Mickey Mouse Club and Lassie to The Green Hornet — becoming surely the sole person ever to direct both Mary Pickford and Bruce Lee.

This year’s Silent Film Fest contains many more treasures, from two with the “It Girl” Clara Bow (1926’s Mantrap, 1927’s Wings) to films by Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and Buster Keaton; from China, Russia, and Sweden; and with irrepressible cartoon id Felix the Cat. If you loved The Artist, check out The Mark of Zorro (1920) — its leaping, grinning star Douglas Fairbanks was the unmistakable model for Jean Dujardin’s Oscar-winning turn. *

SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL

Thu/12-Sun/15, free-$42

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.silentfilm.org

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Schedules are for Wed/11-Tue/17 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $10. “Orbit (film): A Program of Short Films About Our Solar System,” Sat, 8. “Collaborations: An Evening of Music and Image,” Tue, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Thief (Mann, 1981), Wed, 7, and Straight Time (Grosbard, 1978), Wed, 9:15. San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Wings (Wellman, 1927), Thu, 7; “Amazing Tales from the Archives: Into the Digital Frontier,” Fri, 10:30am; Little Toys (Sun, 1933), Fri, 1; The Loves of Pharaoh (Lubitsch, 1922), Fri, 4; Mantrap (Fleming, 1926), Fri, 7; The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (Schwarz, 1929), Fri, 9:15; “The Irrepressible Felix the Cat!”, Sat, 10am; The Spanish Dancer (Brenon, 1923), Sat, noon; The Canadian (Beaudine, 1926), Sat, 2:30; South (Hurley, 1919), Sat, 5; Pandora’s Box (Pabst, 1926), Sat, 7; The Overcoat (Kozintsev and Trauberg, 1926), Sat, 10; The Mark of Zorro (Niblo, 1920), Sun, 10am; The Docks of New York (von Sternberg, 1928), Sun, noon; Erotikon (Stiller, 1920), Sun, 2; Stella Dallas (King, 1925), Sun, 4:30; The Cameraman (Sedgwick and Keaton, 1928), Sun, 7:30. More info and advance tickets (free-$42) at www.silentfilm.org. Inforum Presents: “Chuck Palahniuk: The Monsters Within,” Mon, 7 (this event, $20-40); “Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black: Two Slices of American Pie,” Tue, 7 (this event, $25-45).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Bel Ami (Donnellan and Ormerod, 2012), call for dates and times. Bernie (Linklater, 2012), call for dates and times. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (Beresford, 2011), call for dates and times. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Pool, 2011), call for dates and times. Take This Waltz (Polley, 2011), call for dates and times. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012), July 13-19, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Across the Universe (Taymor, 2007), Fri, 8. Union Square, Geary at Powell, SF. The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE First Street at Broadway, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. We Bought a Zoo (Crowe, 2011), Thu, sundown.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Music and Nostalgia:” Amélie (Jeunet, 2001), Fri, 6.

MENLO-ATHERTON PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 555 Middlefield, Atherton; www.windriderbayarea.org. $5-15. Windrider Bay Area Third Annual Independent Film Forum, with films from Africa, Australia, and North America, and stars and filmmakers in person, Thu-Sat.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Bellissima: Leading Ladies of the Italian Screen:” Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1956), Wed, 7; The Leopard (Visconti, 1963), Fri, 7; Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965), Sat, 6. “Cool World:” The Hustler (Rossen, 1961), Thu, 7; Ed Wood (Burton, 1994), Sat, 8:50. “A Theater Near You:” El velador (Almada, 2011), Sun, 5:30. “Always for Pleasure: The Films of Les Blank:” In Heaven There Is No Beer? (Blank and Gosling, 1984). Sun, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. “Au Revoir Béla Tarr:” The Man From London (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2007), Wed, 6:30; The Turin Horse (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2011), Wed, 9:15. “Songs Along a Stony Road: Music Movies by Local Luminaries:” Songs Along a Stony Road (Csicsery and Teerink, 2011) with “Sprout Wings and Fly” (Blank, 1983), Thu, 7 and 9. Filmmakers George Csicsery and Les Blank in person. San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, animation, shorts, and documentaries, Fri-Sat. All-day festival pass, $20; more info at www.frozenfilmfestival.com. Crazy Wisdom (Demetrakas, 2011), July 13-19, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:15, 5).

SF FILM SOCIETY CINEMA 1746 Post, SF. $10-11. The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Part Seven: New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and New American Independents and the Digital Revolution (Cousins, 2011), Sat, noon. British TV series; new episodes weekly through July 21. Ballplayer: Pelotero (Finkel, Martin, and Paley, 2011), Fri-Sat and Tue, 3, 7; Sun-Mon, and July 18, 5, 9; July 19, 1. Bonsái (Jiménez, 2011), Fri-Sat and Tue, 5, 9; Sun-Mon and July 18, 3, 7; July 19, 3. “Family Screening: The Storytellers Show,” Sat, 10am. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (Akers, 2011), Wed-Thu, 2:45, 5, 7:15, 9:30.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.911expertsspeakout.org. $10. 9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out (Gage, 2012), Wed, 7. Filmmaker Richard Gage in person.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Documentaries By Ai Weiwei:” Disturbing the Peace (2009), Sun, 2. *

Psychic Dream Astrology: July 11-17

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Mercury goes retrograde on the Sun/15 until August 7. Communicate directly and with care, people.

ARIES

March 21-April 19

No matter how open-minded you think you are, there are more angles to consider, Aries. Don’t look so hard for answers in any one particular corner this week. If you can, find pleasure in your search. You’re in for a long ride, so you might as well get comfortable with this process of growth.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If a thing is worth having, then it’s worth taking the time to invest care and time into, Taurus. Allow your relationship to your circumstances to grow and change to accommodate where things seem to be headed. You’re a free agent, so use that freedom wisely this week for best results.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

There is no need to project into the future just yet, Twin Star. Things are good: you are gaining better perspective on how to be yourself for reals, and how to get your emotional needs addressed. But don’t get lazy. Let this week be a springboard for future success in matters of the heart.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

You are on-call to change how you relate to and participate in your life. Let go of the old baggage you’ve been lugging around with you, Moonchild. If you could be anyone, doing anything, how would your life be different? Embody as much of your ideals as you can, even if that takes a major overhaul.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

You are getting a crash course in how to have healthy boundaries. Frustrations and obligations must be dealt with directly. Only commit to what you can sustain, and find a healthy outlet for your overwhelmed feelings before they incite you to make things worse.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You don’t need to prove anything, Virgo, so don’t lose energy trying to. This week you would be wise to know your limits before you meet them head-on and get to know them the hard way. "Retreat is not defeat," and sometimes it’s the smartest strategy to success. Don’t let your ego screw things up.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Your impatience will get you in a heap of trouble if you don’t find a way to cultivate greater tolerance for the unknown. Things have a way of working themselves out in their own time, and you won’t have as many problems if you find a way to accept and trust that. Move slowly until you’re certain, Libra.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Deep and meaningful growth is trying to happen inside of you, so don’t be scared of taking risks and trying new things. An innovative approach to your problems is your best course this week. You can’t control the future, but you can handle the present with less fear and more faith. Fake it till you make it, Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Repression leads to defensiveness, and this week it will multiply your frustrations. Just ’cause you are having a hard time doesn’t entitle you to bring your bad vibes to other peoples table, Sag. Find a safe outlet for your feelings before you act out. Play nicely with others for best results.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

A moderate and metered approach will take you where you want to go, Capricorn. This week you need to warn against obsessions and future tripping. It’s true that you need to go through some difficult transitions, but if you stay committed to what is doable for you it’ll all be okay.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

When things become stagnant it’s easy to get stuck in a rut without even realizing it. This week, take it as a challenge to be creative and to innovate new pathways. You may not be able to change much now, but if you have a vision the wait time won’t be in vain. Don’t lament; instead invent.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Its time to look at things in a more nuanced way, Pisces. How and why you got here is only important in how it helps you; too much time spent lamenting on the past can keep you blocked. Move boldly forward this week, and prove the patterns of your past wrong.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com

A Republican feminist

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July 10, 2012

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caitlin@sfbg.com

LIT “Do you consider yourself sex-positive?”

If you have a chance to interview John McCain’s daughter, and she identifies as a feminist, and is demonstrably more comfortable in strip clubs than the “liberal comedian” with whom she has embarked on a tour with in promotion of their book America, You Sexy Bitch! (Da Capo Press, $26, 352pp), you have to seize your moment to ask the big questions.

The pause from the other end of the telephone line tells me Meghan McCain, however, does not know what this term refers to. “Do I consider myself sex-positive? I’m not sure what you mean.” See?

She and Michael Ian Black will be in conversation at the Castro Theatre on Tue/17 at an event sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, by the way.

“It’s a term that we use — keep in mind I’m calling from San Francisco,” I say. “To mean not ashamed of sex. Of the opinion that having sex with people is OK. Different kinds of sexualities?” Apparently I don’t know what sex-positive means either, or else I am awkward in explaining the term to Republicans.

McCain, having been raised in the belly of a well-oiled political machine, is wary of potentially loaded questions from reporters. But she has also built her adult career on being a fiscally conservative woman who delights in bucking the social mores of the Republican Party. As such, she is able to compose a categorical response that is still pretty charming to her commieweirdo interviewer.

“I’m a big supporter of the gay community, if that’s what you’re asking me. And when it comes to my personal life, I am not abstinent, if that’s what you’re asking me as well. I am straight, if that’s what you’re asking me. I only date men. But sex and sexuality, I’m not terribly prudish. I think it’s private in nature but as far as I’m concerned, everybody can do whatever they want as long as it’s legal. In the privacy of their own homes, that’s their business, literally. As long as they’re not hurting anybody, I don’t care. Do your thing.”

Despite the many pages McCain and Black spend casting themselves as a “real” conservative and liberal — McCain as a gun-loving war eagle, Black as a snarky priss — the secret-not-secret point made by America, You Sexy Bitch is: politics don’t make the person. To that end, readers are taken on a RV tour of the country with McCain and Black, a trip that threatens to reveal the real America. We learn that McCain is far more comfortable in strip clubs than Black and is happily single at 27, while the Ed veteran has been married since his early 20s, rarely gets drunk, and lives in the suburbs with the wife and kids.

One of my favorite aspects of McCain (and I have many), is the way she speaks out against the treatment of women in the media. Her fervor should come as no surprise: last year, she wrote a scathing open letter to Glenn Beck when he called her fat on his radio show. (“As a person known for his hot body, you must find it easy to judge the weight fluctuations of others, especially young women.”)

“I would have an entirely different career, an entirely different life if I were a man, which I think is just ridiculous,” she tells me. She laments the fact that women politicians have to deal with the “complete BS” that is appearance-driven mainstream media reportage.

She’s great! We’re best friends! Hang out with me, Meghan! But then, this, meant to be completely free of irony: “I hate this idea that the feminist movement has been caught up in the pro-choice movement and somehow the denial of femininity, which is something I don’t understand. For me being a feminist means giving women the choice to do whatever they want.”

Wa-wahhh. Still, I’ll take her over Beck any day.

MEGHAN MCCAIN AND MICHAEL IAN BLACK

Tue/17, 7pm, $15–$45

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.commonwealthclub.org

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Marat/Sade Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St, SF; (415) 863-0611, www.ticketfly.com. $20-38. Previews Wed/11-Thu/12, 8pm. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (also July 22, 1:30pm). Through July 29. Marc Huestis and Thrillpeddlers present Peter Weiss’ macabre Tony-winner.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 11. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s sexy, sinister musical.

BAY AREA

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta, Oakl; www.lowerbottomplayaz.com. $10-25. Opens Fri/13, 7pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 22. Lower Bottom Playaz perform August Wilson’s music-industry expose.

The Marvelous Wonderettes Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; www.broadwaybythebay.org. $20-48. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also July 21 and 28, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through July 29. Broadway By the Bay performs Roger Bean’s retro musical, featuring classic tunes of the 1950s and ’60s.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Previews Sat/14, 2pm. Opens Sat/14, 7pm. Runs Thu, Sat, and July 25, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 19. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

Upright Grand TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $24-73. Previews Wed/11-Fri/13, 8pm. Opens Sat/14, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 10. TheatreWorks launches its 43rd season with the world premiere of Laura Schellhardt’s play about a musical father and daughter.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the characters of San Francisco.

Duck Lake The Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.duck-lake.com. $17-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 28. By terns gross and engrossing, PianoFight’s Duck Lake — written and produced by associated sketch comedy locals Mission Control — proves a gangling but irresistible flight, a ballet-horror-comedy-musical with fair helpings of each. By the shore of the eponymous watery resort with a mysterious past as an animal testing site, a perennially “up-and-coming” theater director named Barry Canteloupe (poised and sassy Raymond Hobbs) marshals a pair of prosthetic teats and other trust-building paraphernalia in a cultish effort to bring off yet another reimagining of Swan Lake. His cast and crew include a rebounding TV starlet (a sure and winsome Leah Shesky), a lazy leading man (delightfully dude-ish Duncan Wold), a supremely confident and just god-awful tragedian (a duly expansive Alex Boyd), and a gleeful misfit of a tech guy (an innocently inappropriate, very funny Joseph Scheppers). When the thespians come beak-to-beak with a handsome local gang leader (a nicely multifaceted Sean Conroy) and his rowdy band of sun-addled jet-skiers (the awesome posse of Daniel Burke, David Burke, and Meredith Terry), a star-crossed college reunion ensues between the tattooed tough and the hapless production’s white swan. Meanwhile, “scary fucked-up super ducks” go on a killing rampage under tutelage of some cave-bound weirdo (an imposing, web-footed Rob Ready), leading to love, mayhem, and shameless appropriation of timeless musical numbers. It’s all supported by four tutu’d mallards (the po-faced, limber ensemble of Christy Crowley, Caitlin Hafer, Anne Jones, and Emma Rose Shelton) and flocks of murderous fellow fowl (courtesy of Crowley’s fine puppet design). And don’t worry about the convoluted plot, all will be niftily explained by an old codger of a groundskeeper (a hilariously persuasive Evan Winchester). If the action gets attenuated at times across two-plus hours, a beguilingly agile cast and robust concept more than compensate for the loosey-goosey. (Avila)

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through July 21. Tides Theatre performs Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s comedy about five women forced into a bomb shelter during a mid-breakfast nuke attack.

Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (Sun/15, show at 7:30pm). Extended through July 22. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

Jip: His Story Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Thu/12-Fri/13, 7:30pm; Sat/14, 2pm; Sun/15, 3pm. Marsh Youth Theater remounts its 2005 musical production of Katherine Paterson’s historical novel.

Proof NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.proofsf.com. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm. $28. Expression Productions performs David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play about a mathematician and his daughter.

“Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating; $50 donation for five-play reserved seating pass). Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. Cutting Ball’s annual fest of experimental plays features two new works and five new translations in staged readings.

The Scottsboro Boys American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm). Extended through July 22. American Conservatory Theater presents the Kander and Ebb musical about nine African American men falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit in the pre-civil rights movement South.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 21. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

Waiting… Larkspur Hotel Union Square, 525 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $49-75. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 5. Comedy set behind the scenes at a San Francisco restaurant.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through August 4. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson The Stage, 490 S. First St, San Jose; www.thestage.org. $25-$50. Wed-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 29. An overrated president and rock musical at once, the 2010 Broadway hit by Alex Timbers (book) and Michael Friedman (music, lyrics) takes its first Bay Area bow in San Jose Stage’s ho-hum production, directed by Rick Singleton. In this proudly irreverent but rarely very witty take on mob-democracy and the pack of jackals that are our illustrious political forefathers, a vicious and ambitious cornpone Jackson (David Colston Corris, subbing for Jonathan Rhys Williams) takes his Indian-hating ways to the top of the political establishment on a wave of backwoods resentments and Tea Party-style populism. Present-day parallels should run deep here, but the play is so shallow in its humor that it feels one-note for the most part, while its South Park-like insouciance has an unintentional way of making jokes about the Trail of Tears feel “too soon.” This American Idiocy and the 13 accompanying musical numbers are gamely if not always smoothly essayed by cast and band alike (under musical direction by Allison F. Rich), but dumb satire lines up with a generally unappealing score, straining after saucy eloquence while sounding derivative of the emo fare served up by the likes of Spring Awakening and that lot. A tack away from sheer vulgarity and buffoonery toward moralizing history lesson comes late in the hour and its guilty pretention — along with earlier gratuitous, vaguely uncomprehending references to Susan Sontag and Michel Foucault — only makes matters worse. (Avila)

Emotional Creature Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed/11 and Sun/15, 7pm (also Sun/15, 2pm); Thu/12 and Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 2pm). It’s not easy being a girl, and Eve Ensler’s newest play Emotional Creature leaves no scenario unexplored: from high school shaming rituals to ritual clitorectomies. If that sounds like a jarring juxtaposition, you’d be right. It’s difficult theatrically to transition seamlessly from a deeply affecting monologue about being a teenage sex slave in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a cute song about wearing miniskirts, and it’s equally difficult for the audience to change emotional gears rapidly enough to be able to adequately absorb the impact of each individual segment. Instead, the play comes off as an earnest but awkward Girl Scout Jamboree variety show — attempting to address as wide a variety of social ills as possible (from teen suicide to industrial pollution) — despite the strong and savvy acting chops of the six performers. In contrast to Ensler’s most popular work, The Vagina Monologues, which effectively “humanized” a part of the body by giving it something highly personal to say, Emotional Creature weirdly depersonalizes its girls by putting lines in their mouths (“I’m not the life you never lived”) that clearly come from an adult perspective. And as for those girls who don’t particularly identify as “emotional creatures” at all? For them, there are no words. (Gluckstern)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/14-Sun/15, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. SF Mime Troupe launches its annual political musical (this year’s theme: one percenters behaving badly); the show travels around NorCal parks and other venues throughout the summer.

King John Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Sun/15, July 21, 27, 29, Aug 4, 10-12, 8pm; July 22 and Aug 5, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company kicks off its 2012 outdoor summer festival season with this history play.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/14, 8:30pm; Sun/15, 7pm. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Salomania Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 22. The libel trial of a politically opportunistic newspaper publisher (Mark Andrew Phillips) and the private life of a famous dancer of the London stage — San Franciscan Maud Allan (a striking Madeline H.D. Brown) — become the scandalous headline-grabber of the day, as World War I rages on in some forgotten external world. In Aurora’s impressive world premiere by playwright-director Mark Jackson, the real-life story of Allan, celebrated for her risqué interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, soon gets conflated with the infamous trial (20 years earlier) of Wilde himself (a shrewdly understated Kevin Clarke). But is this case just a media-stoked distraction, or is there a deeper connection between the disciplining of “sexual deviance” and the ordered disorder of the nation state? Jackson’s sharp if sprawling ensemble-driven exploration brings up plenty of tantalizing suggestions, while reveling in the complexly intermingling themes of sex, nationalism, militarism, women’s rights, and the webs spun by media and politics. A group of trench-bound soldiers (the admirable ensemble of Clarke, Alex Moggridge, Anthony Nemirovsky, Phillips, Marilee Talkington, and Liam Vincent) provide one comedy-lined avenue into a system whose own excesses are manifest in the insane carnage of war — yet an insanity only possible in a world policed by illusions, distractions and the fear of unsettled and unsettling “deviants” of all kinds. In its cracked-mirror portraiture of an era, the play echoes a social and political turmoil that has never really subsided. (Avila)

Truffaldino Says No Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 22. For centuries, stock characters have insidiously demonstrated to the working classes the futility of striving against type or station with broadly comedic pratfalls, doomed to play out their already-written destinies with no hope for a change in script. Truffaldino (William Thomas Hodges) is one such pitiable character. Longing for his airheaded mistress, Isabella (Ally Johnson), playing second fiddle to his father, the iconic Commedia dell’Arte fool Arlecchino (Stephen Buescher), Truffaldino becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the monotony of the “old world” and strikes out for the new one — eventually washing up in Venice Beach. Despite their dayglo California veneer and sitcom-appropriate shenanigans, the new world characters he meets quickly come to resemble the stock commedia characters Truffaldino has left behind, and he finds himself similarly trapped in their incessantly recurring cycle — pining predictably for valley girl waitress, Debbie (Johnson again). What thankfully cannot be predicted is how Truffaldino manages to rewrite his destiny after all while reconciling his two worlds in a raucous comedy of errors anchored by the solid physical comedy of its stellar cast, particularly that of Stephen Buescher as both Arlecchino and Hal, who bounces, prances, tumbles, and falls down the stairs with the kind of rubber-jointed dexterity that should come with a “kids, don’t try this at home” warning label. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Ballroom With a Twist” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com. $49-79. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 6pm. Through July 29. Dancing With the Stars pros and contestants from American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance perform pumped-up ballroom dance and music.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm, through July 27: “Naked” Theatresports, $17. Sat, 8pm, through July 28: “Spontaneous Broadway,” $20.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“Expiration Date: Still Good” Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.pianofight.com. Thu, 8pm. Through July 19. $20. PianoFight’s female-driven comedy group ForePlays performs fan-fave sketches.

“The Front Row: Live at the Dark Room!” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.thefrontrow4.com. Sat/14, 8:30pm. $8. The all-girl sketch comedy troupe performs.

Keith Lowell Jensen San Francisco Punch Line, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. July 17-18, 8pm. $15. The comedian performs and tapes a new CD for Stand Up! Records.

“Jillarious Tuesdays” Tommy T’s Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.jillarious.com. Tue, 7:30. Ongoing. $20. Weekly comedy show with Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, Justin Lucas, and special guests.

“Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness” Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 12. $25-65. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, performers in Baroque-chic gowns, music, and more.

“Mediate presents Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Human Bionic” Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $12-25. Multimedia and interactive performances by Joe Cantrell, Kadet Kuhne, and Les Struck + Sonsherée Giles.

“Mediate presents Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Sonicplace Exhibition” Intersection for the Arts, SF Chronicle Building, 925 Mission, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Opening night event Fri/16, 6-10pm, free. Exhibit runs Tue-Sat, noon-6pm. Through Sept 28. Innovative sound installations and exhibits presented by UC Santa Cruz’s OpenLab/Mechatronics Group.

“Stripping Down to Story” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. $10-20. Comedian and performance artist Jovelyn Richards performs her solo show.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Babies, Pamela, Love Devotion Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Roem Baur Underground SF, 424 Haight, SF; www.undergroundsf.com. 10pm, $5.

Before the Brave, Branches, Owl Paws Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Billy & Dolly, 21st Century, Morgan Manifacier Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Fidlar, Meat Market, Shrills Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Jeff vs. JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Keith Crossan Showcase with Laura Price Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

One Way Station Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Panic Is Perfect, Swoon Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$8.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Hot Club of San Francisco Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $15.

Kim Nalley Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$40.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Daniel Seidel Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall with weekly guests.

KUSF-in-Exile DJ Night: Full Tilt Boogie Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; www.savekusf.org. 8pm. With DJs Irwin, Cliff, Nathan, and John.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap. Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

Obey the Kitty Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm. $10. With Prince Club, Eric Sharp, Justin Milla.

Recess: Free Lunchtime Dance Party Monarch, 101 Sixth, SF; www.monarchsf.com. Noon, free.

THURSDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alvon Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Codeine, Mark Eitzel Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.

Emily Bonn & the Vivants, Harkenbacks, Junco Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Great White Buffalo, Cosmic Suckerpunch, Soonest Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Gunshy Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

“Pairidaeza Video Premiere” Thee Parkside. 9pm. With live music by Matt Rodriguez & the Story Tellers.

Saint Motel, Dirty Ghosts, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $12-$14.

Simon Joyner, Renderers, Jean Marie Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Sprial Electric Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7pm, $5-$8.

Steel Panther Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Rags Tuttle vs. Jeff Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazz Jam with trumpet master Eddy Ramirez Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Kim Nalley Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Shannon Ceili Band Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Triple Chicken Foot Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ Pleasuremaker spins Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Base Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm. $10. With Pirupa, Oona Dahlman.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and Soul with weekly guests.

Lions, Tigers, and Queers Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. Indie, Electro, and House dance party with resident DJ Becky Knox and special guests.

Mods vs Rockers Make Out Room. 8pm. With Chuckleberries and Secret Secretaries.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with DJ’s Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alma Desnuda, Dgiin, Keznamdi Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Mark Bettencourt & the Aftermath Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Buttercream Gang, Wave Array, Cash Pony Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

James Hunter, Jesse Dee Bimbo’s. 9pm, $25.

Icky Boyfriends, Wounded Lion, Spray Paint Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12. SS2 Fest.

Jeff, Jason Marion, Rome Balestrieri Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Booker T. Jones Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $20.

Nibblers Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Novalima, Afrolicious Independent. 9pm, $20.

Nux Vomica, Tigon, Embers, Young Lions Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Patrice Pike Amnesia. 8pm, $7.

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Strangelove, Reptile House Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Sun Hop Fat, Harry & the Hit Men, On the Spot Trio Slim’s. 9pm, $13-$15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kim Nalley Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$40.

Savanna Jazz Trio Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Sergent Garcia, Bayonics, Bang Data, DJ Stepwise and Julicio Mezzanine. 9pm, $25.

GoldDiggers, Tell River Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Daniella Gordon Red Poppy Art House. 8pm.

Melissa Lyn 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 8pm, free.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

Bardot A Go Go Pre-Bastille Day Dance Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. DJs Brother Grimm and Pink Frankenstein, free ’60s hairstyling.

Bombshell Betty and her Burlesqueteers, Fromagique, Mari the the Moniters Elbo Room. 9pm, $15.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Pandemic 2: The Relapse (Darker Dubstep) Mighty. 9pm, $10. With Kahn, TZR, Specters, Porkchop, Nebakaneza, and more.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Brian Maier.

White Ring, Deathface DNA Lounge. 10pm, $13. With S4nta_Mu3rte, Chauncy_CC.

SATURDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Rome Balestrieri , Jeff, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Lurrie Bell & John Primer Chicago Blues Guitar Shootout Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22-$25.

Blisees B, Western Haunts, City Lights Amnesia. 6-9pm, $7-$10.

4 Inch Studs Grant & Green Saloon. 9pm.

Go Van Gogh Revolution, 3248 22 St, SF; www.govangogh.net. 9pm.

Al Green Masonic Center, 111 California, SF; www.masonicauditorium.com. 7:30pm, $45-$79.50.

Sophie B. Hawkins Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $22; 10pm, $18.

LA Riots Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm. $10-$15.

Lazer Wolf, Breaks Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Monoshock, Lamps, Musk Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12. SS2 Fest.

Moto, Meat Sluts, Coloffs, Custom Kicks Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Neurovolactic Orchestra (NVO), U9lift, Slayers Club DJs Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Phenomenauts, No Alternative, Hooks, Fucking Buckaroos El Rio. 3pm, $8.

Please Do Not Fight, Picture Atlantic, Dogcatcher, Cold Eskimo Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Joe Rut, Low Rollers Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14.

Stomacher, Mister Loveless, Stripmall Architecture, Books on Tape Slim’s. 9pm, $13-$15.

Street Justice, Awesome, Utter Failure Bender’s. 10pm, $5.

Tall Shadows Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Torches in Trees Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $8.

Water District, Insufferables Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm

Zodiac Death Valley, Old Testament, Ocha La Rocha, Big Drag Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10-$13.

Zoo: Complete U2 Experience Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

“Japantown Jazz Festival” Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan Streets, SF; www.japancentersf.com. Noon, free. With Asian American Jazz Orchestra, and more.

“John Cage Festival: Variations VII” ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.sfsound.org. 8pm, $8-$15.

Kim Nalley Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$40.

Suzanna Smith Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Soundwave: The Human Bionic Lab. 8pm, $12-$25. With interactive performances by Joe Cantrell, Kadet Kuhne, and more.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Northern Lights, Jim Parr Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bastille Day: Rebecca & Fiona Ruby Skye. 9pm.

Bootie SF: DJs From Mars DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$20. With electro mashup masters from Italy DJs From Mars, A Plus D, Smash-Up Derby, and more.

Club Gossip Cat Club. 9pm, free before 9:30pm, $5-$8 after. With VJs Shon, Low Life, Damon, and more.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-$10.

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Shortkut, Apollo, Mr. E, Fran Boogie spin Hip-Hop, Dancehall, Funk, Salsa.

Non Stop Bhangra Public Works. 9pm, $15. Indian/Caribbean Summer with Surya Dub.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With Lemonade, Kid Fresh, Shawn Reynaldo, Oro11.

2 Men Will Move You Amnesia. 9pm.

SUNDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Logic and Tayyib Ali Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $12.50-$30.

Modern English, Sid Luscious and the Pants Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

Moncef Genoud Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $20.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Nitin Sawhney, Meshell Ndegeocello Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Young, Uzi Rash, Synthetic ID Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jo Canion Trio Bliss Bar, 4026 24 St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30-7:30pm, $10.

Kim Nalley Rrazz Room. 8pm, $30-$40.

“Outsound New Music Summit: Touch the Gear Expo” Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 7-10pm, free; $45 festival pass.

Savanna Jazz Vocal Jam with Kelly Park Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Jack Gilder, Kevin Bernhagen, Richard Mandel Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Mokai Red Poppy Art House. 7:30pm, $10-$20.

Orequesta La Clave Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.theramprestaurant.com. 5-8pm.

Stompy Jones Castro and Market Street, SF; Facebook: CastroCBD. 1pm, free.

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Blue Diamond Fillups, Rocketship Rocketship.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with Vinnie Esparza, J. Boogie.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aeges, Silver Snakes, Name Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Sharaya Mikael, Dustin Roth, Chris Keeene Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang, Sun Araw, Cash Pony Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-$12.

Shearwater, Husky, Gold Leaves Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

“Tom Carter benefit show” Hemlock Tavern. 6pm. With Common Eider King Eider, John Porras, Meridians, Bill Orcutt.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

“Outsound New Music Summit: Composers Symposium” Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 7-9pm, free; $45 festival pass.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from 1960s-early ’90s with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Family Folk Explosion Amnesia. 9:15pm, free.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Glitter Wizard, Rock Bottom, Vanishing Breed Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Midtown Social, Midnight Raid, Winebirds Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Ooze, Mystery School, Electro Sonic Chamber Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $5-$7.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Trash Talk, SpaceGhostPurrp Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Wooster Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Young Magic, Quilt, Shock Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-$12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Brazilian Wax Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. With resident DJs Carioca and P-Shot.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

Study Hall John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. Hip-hop, dancehall, and Bay slaps with DJ Left Lane.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

Ballplayer: Pelotero With upbeat music, slick editing, and narration by John Leguizamo, Ballplayer: Pelotero is an entertaining, enlightening investigation into exactly why the Dominican Republic produces so many baseball stars. Comparisons to acclaimed sports doc Hoop Dreams (1994) are apt, as filmmakers Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin, and Jonathan Paley travel to the DR to follow a pair of teenage baseball players dreaming of big-league stardom (and big-league paychecks). But the Hoop Dreams kids weren’t being confronted by the shady, sinister, bottom-line-obsessed recruiters working for Major League Baseball, which maintains a pee-wee farm system of sorts in the country to train young prospects — the best of whom are snapped up at the magic age of 16 for bargain-basement (relatively speaking) prices. And in this environment, questions about numbers reign supreme: how much with each kid be signed for? And, more intriguingly, is either kid lying about his true age? (1:12) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

Bonsái Awkward young love blooms in this Chilean import, a hit at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival. (1:35) SF Film Society Cinema.

Crazy Eyes Los Angeles thirtysomething Zach (Lukas Haas, playing a character apparently based on writer-director Adam Sherman — which, if true, yikes) doesn’t do anything but party from the minute he wakes up ’till the moment he passes out. Since he’s conveniently, inexplicably rich, he also has plenty of time to chase tail; occasionally, very occasionally, he’ll make time for his concerned parents and young son, the product of a failed marriage to a woman openly portrayed as a gold digger. Adding to this noxious brew is Rebecca (Madeline Zima), Zach’s vapid drinking buddy; she refuses to have sex with him, so he becomes obsessed with her — see, she’s the one thing the man who has everything can’t have. Deep, man. This is the cinematic equivalent of all that slurring, flailing, late-night drama that goes down outside your local dive bar, amplified to magnificently self-indulgent levels. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Crazy Wisdom Not exactly your average Buddhist leader, Chogyam Trungpa was one part monk to two parts rock star. Recognized as a reincarnated master while still an infant, he left Tibet behind to flee Chinese government forces in 1960, eventually landing in the UK, where he founded its first Buddhist center. A decade later he’d move to the US, founding its first Buddhist university. Amidst all that achievement and enlightenment-spreading, however, he also found time to marry a 16-year-old upper-class Brit, have myriad affairs with students, partially paralyze himself driving a car into a shop front, frequently get drunk in public, and so forth — even though, incongruously, he frowned upon marijuana (and rock music). All this made sense in a tradition of Tibetan Buddhist “crazy wisdom” — or so his supporters would (and still) claim in his defense. Having left this life at age 48, his body exhausted by decades of hedonistic excess, he still has a powerful hold over diverse, multi-faith followers and acquaintances who recall his extraordinary spiritual-personal magnetism. Johanna Demetrakas’ entertaining documentary gathers up testimony from a gamut of them, including Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Thurman, and Anne Waldman. (1:26) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon An annual family gathering sets the stage for revival of the poisonously competitive rivalry between two thirty-something siblings. Mark (Steve Zissis) has a devoted wife (Jennifer Lafleur), a teenage son (Red Williams), a home, and steady job, but he can still be easily goaded into a frustrated rage by brother Jeremy (Mark Kelly), who has none of the above but still gloats over his alleged victory in an adolescent fraternal mini-Olympics two decades earlier. Their uncomfortable reunion provides an opportunity to settle that score once and for all — even if they must (not very successfully) try to hide this epic athletic rematch between nearly middle-aged schlubs from their disapproving relatives. Penned by the Duplass Brothers (2011’s Jeff, Who Lives at Home), and shot several years ago, this feels like a Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly (or whoever) comedy writ small, with the variously normal and silly competitive heats only mildly amusing, and the character drama only slightly more depthed than it would be in a more commercial, slapsticky vehicle. Plus, it’s hard to care much about whether the bros achieve reconciliation, since Jeremy is a little too effectively drawn as an annoying, bullying prick in the early going. There’s a clever idea at Pentathlon‘s center, but this just passably diverting feature doesn’t make all that much of it. (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

“Family Screening: The Storytellers Show” A one-time-only engagement, this cosmopolitan, family-friendly compilation of short films is a mixed bag, both content and quality-wise. Certain selections — the beautifully, imaginatively animated, Storyteller (Kahanikar) of England; the live-action, Aussie Play Lunch — are inhibited by the heavy-handed drive to tell a linear story or push a message, while others (the Tim Burton-ish, Alan Rickman-narrated Boy in the Bubble) put forth compelling narratives, hindered by wishy-washy CGI. Strongest are the visually-driven films (the silent, mixed-media Paper Piano from Venezuela, in which a young girl crosses the “dangerous urban jungle” to get to her music lesson), and those whose stories flow naturally (the live-action, left-field documentary The Vacuum Kid, about a tweenage boy who enthusiastically collects vacuum cleaners). As a whole, “The Storytellers Show” is perfectly viable entertainment — but with competition like A Cat in Paris, it’s not compulsory viewing, either. (1:06) SF Film Society Cinema. (Taylor Kaplan)

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, France, 2012) Opening early on the morning of July 14, 1789, Farewell, My Queen depicts four days at the Palace of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, as witnessed by a young woman named Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who serves as reader to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Sidonie displays a singular and romantic devotion to the queen, while the latter’s loyalties are split between a heedless amour propre and her grand passion for the Duchess de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). These domestic matters and other regal whims loom large in the tiny galaxy of the queen’s retinue, so that while elsewhere in the palace, in shadowy, candle-lit corridors, courtiers and their servants mingle to exchange news, rumor, panicky theories, and evacuation plans, in the queen’s quarters the task of embroidering a dahlia for a projected gown at times overshadows the storming of the Bastille and the much larger catastrophe on the horizon. (1:39) Embarcadero. (Rapoport)

Ice Age: Continental Drift This time with pirates. (1:27) Presidio.

Magic of Belle Isle Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen star in this Rob Reiner-directed drama about an alcoholic writer who gets a new lease on life after befriending the neighbors at his lakeside cabin. (1:49) Opera Plaza.

Patang (The Kite) Loving memories tethered to a place (Ahmedabad, India), moment (the city’s kite festival, the largest of its kind in the country), and season (according to the Hindu calendar, the event coincides with the day that wind direction shifts) beautifully suffuse this first feature film by director and co-writer Prashant Bhargava. Certainly Patang (The Kite) is the story of a family: Delhi businessman Jayesh (Mukund Shukla) has returned with his freewheeling, movie-camera-toting daughter Priya (Sugandha Garg) to his majestically ramshackle family home, where he supports his mother, sister-in-law (Seema Biswas of 1994’s Bandit Queen), and nephew Chakku (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). He’s come to indulge his childhood love of kite flying and to introduce Priya to Ahmedabad’s old-world sights and ways. Entangled among the strands of story are past resentments —harbored by Chakku against his paternalistic uncle — and new hopes, particularly in the form of a budding romance between Priya and Bobby (Aakash Maherya), the son of the kite shop owner. Above all — and as much a presence as any other — is the city, with its fleeting pleasures and memorable faces, captured with vérité verve and sensuous lyricism on small HD cameras by Bhargava and director of photography Shanker Raman. Their imagery imprints on a viewer like an early memory, darting to mind like those many bright kites dancing buoyantly in the city sky. (1:32) Metreon. (Chun)

Red Dog Already a monster hit in Australia, provenance of the Babe movies, this animal-centric charmer comes to the Bay Area as part of the Windrider Bay Area Film Forum in Atherton. It’s based on Louis de Bernières’ collection of tales (and tall tales) about a legendary canine that roamed the country’s Northwestern wilderness in the 1970s. Director Kriv Stenders centers his film in the mining burg that erected a statue to the animal after its death — an event that serves as the movie’s starting point, as the townspeople gather to toast Red Dog’s many contributions to the community (in addition to providing a much-needed source of amusement in a bleak, barren place, he also became a mascot for the local union, match-made multiple couples, prevented a suicide-by-shark attempt, and engaged in epic brawls with his arch-nemesis, Red Cat). It’s a shaggy, sentimental story elevated by some appealing human performances — Josh Lucas is the token American star, though Aussie film fans will recognize Noah Taylor and Keisha Castle-Hughes — and, of course, one very charismatic pooch. If you can’t make the trek down the peninsula for the screening, Red Dog will be available On Demand starting August 14; the DVD will be out September 4. (1:32) Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when “the storm” floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Bridge, California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Neil Young Journeys Interested in going back further with Neil Young, back beyond 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere? With Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006) and Neil Young Trunk Show (2009) under his belt, Jonathan Demme has clearly earned the trust of the singer-songwriter, who occasionally likes to flex his multi-hyphenate creative muscles as a director himself, working under the name Bernard Shakey. The music-loving filmmaker tails Young as he drives through his hometown of Omemee, Ontario, shares glimpses of his school, named after his newspaper-man father, his small-town streets, and his home, and then takes it back to the stage and performs at Toronto’s Massey Hall. The stories and sights will interest mostly Young fans — you definitely get a feel for Young’s roots, but the place and its tales won’t jump out dramatically; they merely visualize factoids one can cull from sources like James McDonough’s bio Shakey — but performance dominates this concert film. Playing solo on guitar, harmonica, and in at least one memorable instance, pipe organ (for a hammered-home “After the Gold Rush”), the songs range from the still-moving, sprawling “Ohio” to “Love and War” off 2010’s Le Noise. It’s all love here for the Young diehard, though for an insightful, passionate tour doc, one might look to Shakey’s own CSNY/ Deja Vu (2008) or, for the performer’s finest cinematic performances, to Rust Never Sleeps (1979) and The Last Waltz (1978). (1:27) SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun) *

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

ONGOING

19th Annual Labor Fest. Various locations, SF. www.laborfest.net. Through July 31. Various venues, free. Established to honor the history and culture of working people, this annual fest kicked off in 1994. The organizing committee of Labor Fest is composed of unionists and unorganized workers both (hard to fault someone for not having a living wage job these days, y’know?) Learn about the Paris Commune of 1871 – an earlier form of 99 percent government! – on Thu/12, learn about the Coit Tower murals Sat/14, and more.

WEDNESDAY 11

“Tastes and Tales of North Beach” Broadway and Columbus, SF. www.sfcityguides.org. 11am, free. Wander through SF’s Little Italy with locals who love North Beach so much they’ve volunteered their time to share it with you. Learn the lore and legends of this place where the salty mist carries smells of wine, coffee, chocolate and cheese.

Recess Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.sunsetpromotions.com. Noon-2pm, free. Celebrate hump day right at this monthly lunchtime dance party, care of SunsetSF. The first installment of Recess takes place today with beats from resident DJ Matt Haze and guest DJ, Professor Bang. To ensure no mid-day dancers go hungry, vegetarian sandwiches will be provided for all.

Food Shift film screening: Food Stamped Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakl. Facebook: Food Shift film screening for food stamped. 6:30pm-9:30pm, free. A documentary that follows Bay Area filmmakers Shira and Yoav Potash as they attempt to eat a healthy diet on $1 per meal. Yikes. In a time when everyone seems to be counting pennies along with calories, it’s no wonder this film won the SF Independent Film Festival’s jury prize. Meet the filmmakers in person at this screening and potluck.

THURSDAY 12

“Sex and the Law”: a discussion with Eric Berkowitz University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft, Berk. www.sexandpunishmentbook.com. 6pm, free. Author and lawyer Eric Berkowitz’s new book, Sex and Punishment: Judging Four Thousand Years of Desire looks at mankind’s attempts throughout history to regulate the sexual appetite. His book illustrates well-documented cases that reveal how certain forms of sexual behavior have been condoned, others punished.

Homefrys game night with giant Jenga Kennedy’s Irish Pub and Curry House, 1040 Columbus, SF. www.kennedyscurry.com. 7pm-10pm, free. More than 75 oversized board games, as well as Super Nintendo games projected on a screen, will take over this local Irish pub tonight. Bring friends, meet new people, win prizes.

Cup o’ Comedy Emma’s Coffee House, 5549 Geary, SF. www.dannydechi.com. 7pm, free. Danny Dechi is a comedian and maybe the world’s only pencil musician. He hosts tonight’s show, which features comedic talent from around the Bay.

Sunset Yoga on the Beach Presidio Sports Basement, 610 Old Mason, SF. www.goldengatesunsetyoga.eventbrite.com. 7:30pm, free with RSVP. Take one deep breath or 20 while you unwind overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Beginners and advanced students are invited to connect body and mind at one of the most scenic locations in the world. Bring your own mat, and wear layers — it can get chilly up there.

FRIDAY 13

SF Silent Film Festival Free Movie Day Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. www.silentfilm.org. 10:30am, free. Kick back and watch rare, restored masterpieces in this historic theater (complete with red plush chairs), to the sounds of pianists and orchestral groups from around the world.

Friday Nights at the de Young Bastille Day Ball Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., SF. www.calacademy.org. 6pm-9pm, free. This after-hours art hub changes every week, but usually involves live music, dance performance, film screenings, and lectures. Tonight, let the melodies of La Guinguette take you overseas to Paris. Later in the evening, imagine you have stepped into the legendary Moulin Rouge as the high-kicking girls clad in corsets from Kitty Kitty Bang Bang heat things up.

East Bay Bike Party Pleasant Hill BART. www.eastbaybikeparty.wordpress.com. 7:30pm, free. Break out the spandex and glowing lights, for this mobile party on two wheels. More than 400 riders of all ages, level, and bicycle type meet up on the second Friday of each month for Bike Party’s East Bay version. This month they will whiz through Pleasant Hill, then whiz through Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, and Concord. In honor of the Tour de France being in full swing, this month’s extravaganza has been dubbed the Tour de France-City of Lights ride.

SATURDAY 14

18th Annual Butterfly Count Randall Museum, 199 Museum, SF. www.sfbutterfly.com. 9am-5pm, $3. Learn about the most beautiful insects in the sky, while collecting valuable environmental data at this intense group inventory count of butterfly species and individuals. The Butterfly Count broke its record last year with 26 species and more than 900 individuals charted in one day. Pack a lunch and meet at the museum, where you’ll break into a counting group, equipped with a copy of Nature in the City’s Butterflies of San Francisco Field Guide for reference. Flutter away.

Coit Tower Mural Walk Coit Tower, 1 Telegraph Hill, SF. www.laborfest.net. 9:45am, free. Crane your neck to see these historic murals that reflect the labor movement in SF 78 years ago today. At the time, media hysteria flared up against the art and the artists, in an effort to repress the movement. Luckily, censorship efforts against the murals failed, and they remain a testament to the labor movement in SF.

Lecture: Afro Latino Presence in Early California Center for History and Community, 2488 Coolidge, Oakl. www.peraltahacienda.org. 6pm-7:30pm, free. History, community, and politics collide this evening, with a Cultural Crossroads lecture series event. The series aims to explore the modern day relevance of California’s past. History professor Damany Fisher of Mt. San Antonio College will dip into his research on mixed ethnicity and cultures of California’s early Spanish settlers in an open-ended discussion.

SUNDAY 15

“Lighthouses of the SF Bay” San Francisco Maritime, 781 Beach, SF. www.nps.gov. 3:15pm-4pm, free. During the latter half of the 19th century, mass numbers of goods and people moved to California, primarily by sea. Lighthouses were the life-saving services that helped ensure the growth of the new Golden State. Join docent Warren Riley for an illustrated talk on the lighthouses of the Bay. You’ll learn about the men and women who lived out on the edge of the bluffs to direct ships to safe passage.

MONDAY 16

1906 Earthquake and Fire walk Market St. Plaza, 525 Market, SF. www.laborfest.net. 10am, free. Imagine awakening before dawn to a massive earthquake that has crumpled chimneys and buildings to the ground, wrecked city water pipes, and ignited an enormous fire. Such was reality for almost all San Franciscans residents on April 18, 1906. Learn about that fateful morning, the people involved, and the controversial military actions that dealt with the fire and evacuations on this morning’s walking tour.

Meanwhile, in Uruguay

Andrew Lam

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July 10, 2012

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caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE Happy Independence Day hangover (yes, still)! I’ll leave aside all discussion regarding the wisdom of the mid-week holiday and head straight into the fact that I spent the evening of the Third of July very, very sadly.

It was for this reason: after work I tore over to my beloved neighborhood dispensary Shambhala Healing Center (www.shambhalasf.com), arriving ten minutes before closing time. It was closed. Peeved, I called in to lightly berate them for shuttering early.

But this was no early start to the staff’s holiday. Just hours after I posted last week’s Herbwise about the Vapor Room going kaput, I found out Shambhala’s brick and mortar location had shut its doors for the last time on June 30.

Now this should not have come as a surprise. I spent time with an indignant Shambhala founder Al Shawa in his dank-smelling dispensary backroom this spring, discussing the letter that US Attorney Melinda Haag sent to his landlord, proclaiming that his storefront was inappropriately close to a playground, and that this landlord faced decades of jail time if he wasn’t evicted (“Shambhala Healing Center next on the federal chopping block,” 3/5/12).

I should have been paying closer attention to Shawa’s predicament, especially since I buy my sativa from him. At least Shambhala will continue to deliver, a move that the last place I used to buy weed from in the Mission, Medithrive, also resorted to when it was forced to close in November. (For the Herbwise column on that mess see “For the kids?” 12/13/11)

For me, the Third of July was a moment when this to-do between the federal government and these local businesses (and more importantly, the patients that depend on cannabis to function) punched me in the gut. My plans for THC consumption over Independence Day had been foiled by the feds, and all at once the sheer idiocy of this whole cannabis crackdown was almost too much to bear. Work on real problems! Go!

(By the way, SF Chronicle columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross have it on good authority that Obama is coming back to town on July 23 for his seventh Bay Area fundraising trip this year, who is down for a protest?)

So this week, I’m giving it up for South America. Big ups to Uruguayan president Jose Mujica for proposing a plan to legalize marijuana so that adults could walk into government-run stores and buy weed. He presented it as an anti-crime measure, suggesting that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on pot by consumers could be better funneled in the government’s pocket than those of illegal drug dealers.

President Mujica is blessed with one of his continent’s most stable countries — plus it’s tiny, at 3.3 million inhabitants — so his plan could prove more manageable to implement than elsewhere in South America. But he’s not the only leader south of Panama to call bullshit on this War on Drugs. This spring at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, that country’s President Juan Manuel Santos called for an “in-depth discussion” on the War on Drugs’ utility, preferably one “without any biases or dogmas.” He suggested, as many have, that Prohibition has never worked before, and might not be working now.

Our president was there too. “Legalization is not the answer,” said Barack Obama to a conference full of Latin American leaders. Of those who remain focused on this issue, President Obama counseled perspective. He said that this kind of debate seemed “caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy, and Yanquis, and the Cold War, and this, and that, and the other. That’s not the world we live in today.”

Anyways, I’m sure that when he gets here — July 23! — he’ll be looking for our opinion on the ways of the world. ¡Hasta pronto!

Black and white and red all over

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July 10, 2012

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cheryl@sfbg.com

LIT “Death at SeaWorld.” The phrase implies a gruesome demise, combining the man vs. beast connotations of Siegfried and Roy’s last show with the amusement-park horrors of Wikipedia’s “incidents at Disneyland” page. Death isn’t supposed to pop up in environments carefully choreographed for family fun. But as David Kirby’s eye-opening Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity (St. Martin’s Press, 469 pp., $26.99) discovers, the marine-themed attraction has hosted its share of tragedies, and not just of the human variety.

Its most high-profile loss was Orlando employee Dawn Brancheau, killed in 2010 by a 12,000-pound orca named Tilikum. Though SeaWorld has long been a target of animal-rights groups, Brancheau’s death set in motion a rigorous Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation into whether or not trainers should be allowed to keep performing the spectacular aquatic stunts that SeaWorld has long been famous for. (As of this writing, the case is still in legal-wrangling mode.)

Kirby, a journalist whose previous books include Evidence of Harm and Animal Factory, found the OSHA inquiry — and the fact that it had been met with strong SeaWorld resistance — instantly compelling. He soon understood there was much more to the story.

“I started out to write a book about corporate malfeasance and obstructing a federal investigation,” he remembers. “[Killer whale] captivity had not ever struck me as an issue. But I realized that even though a lot of people were screaming about how safe it was to be in the water during performances, the much larger question was: do these animals belong in captivity at all?”

As a kid in SoCal, Kirby says, he visited SeaWorld and went on whale-watching trips. But until he started writing Death at SeaWorld, “I didn’t know that killer whales are dolphins, that they don’t kill people in the wild, how highly intelligent they are, or that they are so attached to their families,” he says. “When Dawn Brancheau died, I remember feeling very bad for her and her family, but I don’t remember feeling bad for the whale.”

His research made him rethink his ambivalence toward not just Tilikum, but all killer whales in captivity. Very few “display industry representatives” were willing to speak on the record, but Kirby connected with several “anti-cap” figures — including the Humane Society’s Dr. Naomi Rose, a whale expert who was involved in the campaign to return Keiko, star of 1993’s Free Willy, to his native Iceland.

“When you write narrative nonfiction, you really do need one character who is going to carry the reader through the whole story,” Kirby says. “[Rose] was the best person to do that because she started studying these animals in 1985. She spent years doing field research, and [later became] involved in organizing against the industry, starting anti-captivity campaigns, and trying to protect these whales through federal law. She was also involved with the OSHA investigation and the media.”

In addition, “I was so lucky to have ex-trainers who came forward after Dawn died. [They had] come to the same conclusion through different channels [than Rose]: captivity is bad for the whales. I felt super-fortunate to have first-person accounts of whales in nature and whales in captivity,” Kirby says. “I really wanted to bring readers to two different worlds that most people have never been to: the far Northern reaches of Vancouver Island, where these whales live — and then, backstage in Orlando. I felt that juxtaposing them would really show why captivity is inappropriate. I wanted the readers to get to know the whales in the wild, and to appreciate their life in the wild, in order to understand why captivity for this particular species is so wrong.”

Though Brancheau’s death was the impetus for Death at SeaWorld, it is not the book’s sole focus. The “death” referred to in the title has multiple meanings.

“Two people [Brancheau, plus an after-hours trespasser in 1999] have died in SeaWorld pools,” Kirby says. “Two other people have died because of SeaWorld whales: in British Columbia before Tilikum was bought by SeaWorld, and in the Canary Islands by a whale owned by SeaWorld.”

But while human deaths grab headlines, whale deaths are far more common. According to Rose and other experts, orcas live far fewer years in captivity than they would in the wild.

“Death at SeaWorld also absolutely refers to all of the orcas who have died at SeaWorld, and continue to die at SeaWorld,” Kirby says. “To me, the whales are as important as any of the people in the book — Tilikum becomes a main character that you get to know. I used to tell people when I was writing the book, it’s like Jaws, only it’s non-fiction, more people die, and you actually care about the whale.”

DAVID KIRBY PRESENTATION AND BOOK SIGNING

July 25, 7pm, free

The Hub

901 Mission, Ste 105, SF

www.deathatseaworld.com

Freeing Frank Ocean

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July 10, 2012

0

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC If there was ever a genre that needed a good kick in the ass, it was R&B. For every Aaliyah, there have been ten J. Holidays, content to toe the party line and continue singing those same ol’ songs. Lucky for us, a slew of exciting artists (the Weeknd, Miguel, How to Dress Well) have revitalized the genre by crafting progressive work and bringing new influences and ideas into the mix. None has shone brighter than Frank Ocean.

After moving to Los Angeles in his late teens with only $1,200 in his pocket, the New Orleans native found work ghostwriting tracks for artists like Justin Bieber and John Legend. He didn’t really start making waves until he joined up with controversial, LA-based hip-hop collective, Odd Future, at the end of 2009. After signing with DefJam as a solo artist, Ocean struggled to get his debut LP nostalgia, ultra released, so he decided to do what many artists do: release it himself.

The free album lapped up critical acclaim and downloads, catapulting the 24-year-old to the upper realm of the blogosphere. It only takes one listen of nostalgia, ultra to see he isn’t your older cousin’s R&B singer. Instead of another disc full of tired come-ons and “I’m sorry baby” slow jams, the record is littered with soul searching, introspection, and fascinating storytelling all delivered in Ocean’s warm and effortless tenor.

The album’s lead singles deal with suicidal fantasies (“Swim Good”) and drug use (“Novacane”) with staggering perspective and clarity, something we aren’t used to hearing in R&B. Though he doesn’t shy away from heavy subject matter, he never lets it weigh down his buoyant, hopeful music. For a lot of artists, music is an escape, but Ocean understands that if you can find beauty in the struggle, there’s no need to search for an escape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMfPJT4XjAI

From there, Ocean worked with heavyweights like Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nas, and Beyoncé, while preparing his highly-anticipated proper debut, Channel Orange (due out July 17). Its lovelorn first single, “Thinkin’ ‘Bout You,” was a huge smash, and his first American tour sold out in nanoseconds. So we know the rest of the story right? Star rides his prodigious talent to the top of the charts, and spends the next 30 years counting money, living the dream, and collecting teacup elephants, right? Not so fast.

In the past four weeks, Ocean made two decisions that tell you everything you need to know about what makes him so different. First, on June 8, he released Channel Orange‘s second single, “Pyramids,” the most challenging single a mainstream R&B artist has released in recent memory. It’s an audacious, multi-movement, hook-free epic touching on time-travel, strip clubs, and ancient Egypt. And it is absolutely brilliant, probably the best song of 2012. While I’d imagine that Lyor Cohen and Co. greeted the 10-minute space jam with about as much enthusiasm as a colonic, it shows the scope of Ocean’s vision and his punk rock spirit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqEq28LaNlQ

That’s the magic of Frank Ocean; he is completely unafraid to challenge his listeners, and so far, they’ve stuck with him. But, on July 3, he gave them their biggest test yet.

Taking to his Tumblr, Ocean penned an articulate, heartbreaking post about his first love and subsequent heartbreak. The catch? The pronoun.

Quote from statement:

“4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence … until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiation with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life.”

The manner of the statement is pure Frank Ocean. On the eve of what was sure to be his greatest triumph, he risked everything in the name of truth. If you read the entire statement (which you should), he writes about the anguish and confusion he felt at the time, but also emphasizes the inherent beauty and innocence of first love.

In many ways, the statement reads just like a new Frank Ocean song: honest, beautiful, brave, painful, and incredibly emotive. Ocean has always been a hopeless romantic who has never been afraid to tackle heavy subjects with staggering honesty and clarity without regard for the conventions and conservatism of his chosen medium. And he does that here. That’s what makes him so special, as a man and as a singer.

FRANK OCEAN

Mon/16, 9pm, sold out

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

Faces of feminism

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

7

Is San Francisco still on the cutting edge of women’s issues? I recently spent a sunny Saturday morning buried in the radical archives of Bolerium Books (www.bolerium.com) — which is by the way, an amazing resource for anyone researching labor, African American, First Peoples, and queer history, among other things. Me, I was looking into our city’s rich history of feminist activism, inspiration for our upcoming Guardian “Bay Area Feminism Today” panel discussion. The event will unite amazing females from across the city who have but one thing in common: they’re pushing the envelope when it comes to the definition of what a “women’s issue” is, in a time when very few people claim feminism as their primary crusade. We’ll be talking more about their exciting projects –- but also touching on more universal issues. What is San Francisco’s role in fighting the nationwide attack on reproductive rights? How is our progressive community doing in terms of supporting women and maintaining a feminist perspective on issues?

Women’s work: it’s alive and kicking, and it deserves its moment in the spotlight. Meet our panelists here, in preparation for the real deal.

THE GUARDIAN PRESENTS: “BAY AREA FEMINISM TODAY”

Wed/11 6-8pm, free

City College of San Francisco Mission campus

1125 Valencia, SF

www.sfbg.com/bayareafeminismtoday

STEPHANY ASHLEY

St. James Infirmary programs director, ex-president of Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club

For me, sex worker rights are a feminist issue because they are about body autonomy. As much as reproductive choice is a feminist issue, so too is the right to determine the ways in which we use our bodies, change our bodies, and take care of our bodies. When people are criminalized for their HIV status, denied access to hormones and safe gender transitions, or are afraid to carry condoms because it might lead to police harassment or arrest — these are all feminist issues. At St. James Infirmary (www.stjamesinfirmary.org), we provide healthcare and social services from a peer-based model, so community is really the central aspect of the project. I was excited to chair the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club (www.milkclub.org) last year, because I wanted to keep raising sex workers rights issues as part of the LGBT agenda. At St. James, nearly 70 percent of our community members are LGBTQ, so it’s really critical that sex workers rights are treated as a queer issue, a feminist issue, and a labor issue.

CELESTE CHAN

Artist and founder of Queer Rebels

My partner KB Boyce and I started our production company Queer Rebels (www.queerrebels.com) to honor the feminist and queer of color artists and elders who paved the way. Our main project is “Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance,” a performance extravaganza which took place June 28-30. Such an exciting time! The Harlem Renaissance legacy remains with us to this day. It was an explosion of art, intellect, and sexual liberation led by queer Black artists. I’m also a board member at Community United Against Violence (www.cuav.org). CUAV was formed in the wake of Harvey Milk’s assassination and the White Night riots, and does incredible work to address violence within and against the LGBTQ community. Another way I’m involved with women’s issues is through Femme Conference (www.femme2012.com). In a culture where femininity is both de-valued and the expected norm, Femme Con creates a vital feminist space — this year it takes place in Baltimore, Maryland.

EDAJ

DJ and promoter of queer nightlife

I work in nightlife to provide space for communities that often don’t have spaces to come together. For 15 years, I have been providing music for women as the resident DJ at Mango (every fourth Sunday at El Rio, www.elriosf.com). I also work to support my fellow LGBT veterans by promoting their visibility through my nightlife projects. Ex-Filipino Marine and two-spirit drag king Morningstar Vancil’s story has inspired me to work on creating a space that raises awareness about LGBT veterans, especially women living with disabilities. I also think it’s important to do outreach in the Black LGBT community to help strengthen support for organizations such as the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition (www.bayardrustincoalition.com), a group that is not only fighting for Black LGBT equality, but is focused on social change for all oppressed people. After 10 years of executive producing the Women’s Stage at SF Pride, I was honored as a grand marshal this year at an event hosted by the BRC and Soul of Pride. It was beautiful to see so many Black LGBT people dedicated to moving global equality forward. Although there is a need to reach out to everyone in the Black LGBT community, naturally my goal is to first focus on connecting more women, a group that has always been less visible.

JUANA FLORES

Co-director of Mujeres Unidas y Activas

My organization Mujeres Unidas y Activas (www.mujeresunidas.net) is based on a double mission: personal transformation and community power for social justice. MUA is a place where women arrive through different challenges in their lives. We try to provide emotional support and references so that they don’t feel like they’re alone, so that they have strength to begin the process of healing and making changes. Those can include issues of domestic violence, problems with teenage children, labor or housing issues — when they arrive at MUA they begin the process of developing their self esteem and becoming stronger. They also begin to participate in trainings and making changes in their community and to the system through civic and political participation. At MUA, women find a home. They feel comfortable because they’re always welcome. We’re developing strong leadership, leadership that is at the table when it comes to making decisions about our campaigns, like our letter of labor rights and the help we give to victims of domestic violence through our crisis line. Every day our members are developing their ability to be involved in the organization and community, and making changes in their personal and familial lives.

ALIX ROSENTHAL

Attorney and elected member of the SF Democratic County Central Committee

As an elected member of the SF DCCC (www.sfdemocrats.org), the governing body of the SF Democratic Party, I am working to involve the party in recruiting more women to run for political office locally. In the June 2012 election, I assembled a slate of the female candidates for DCCC — we called ourselves “Elect Women 2012.” It was a controversial effort, because it included both progressives and moderates. In the wake of a highly contentious and factional term on the DCCC, we hoped to prove that moderates and progressives can work together to re-energize Democrats in this important presidential election cycle. Running for office in San Francisco is a high stakes game; it is costly and requires an extensive political network. And so the DCCC is where many future candidates get their start — it is where they build the connections necessary to run for higher office, and where they hone their fundraising abilities. By recruiting and supporting women candidates for the DCCC, I am hoping to build a “farm team” of female candidates within the party. This year, I am proud that the seven women incumbents on the DCCC retained our seats in the June election, and that we achieved parity by electing four new women to the party’s governing board. I look forward to seeing what these women can accomplish together.

LAURA THOMAS

Deputy state director of Drug Policy Alliance

Ending the failed war on drugs is a women’s issue because women are far too often bearing the brunt of that failure, losing their freedom, children, economic independence, safety, health, and sometimes their lives as victims of the war on drugs. Women in prison in California can be shackled during childbirth, lose custody of their children because they use legal medical marijuana. They’re vulnerable to HIV and hepatitis C because they or their partners don’t have access to sterile syringes for injecting drugs. My major project for the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org) is mobilizing San Francisco to show the rest of the world how effective progressive drug policy can be. I want to see San Francisco open the first supervised injection facility in the United States, to end new HIV and hepatitis C infections among people who use drugs. I want us to truly have effective, culturally appropriate substance use treatment for everyone who requests it. I want San Francisco to end the cycle of undercover drug buys-incarceration-recidivism. I want us to address the appalling racial disparities in who gets arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for drug offenses here. I want us to aggressively defend our ground-breaking, well-regulated medical cannabis dispensary system against all federal intervention. San Francisco is leading the way in the United States in addressing the harms of drug use and drug prohibition but we have a lot more we can do.

MIA TU MUTCH

Transgender activist and SF Youth Commission officer

I’ve worked for a plethora of LGBTQ organizations and have been on several national speaking tours. I currently serve as media and public relations officer of the San Francisco Youth Commission, and use my position to promote LGBTQ safety and overall health. I’ve partnered with several city departments in order to create a cultural competency video that will train all service providers on best practices for working with LGBTQ youth. As a vocal advocate against hate crimes and sexual assaults, I’m working with local groups to create a community patrol in the Mission to prevent violence against women and transgender people. I’m also the founder of Fundraising Everywhere for All Transitions: a Health Empowerment Revolution! (FEATHER), a collective aimed at making gender-affirming transitions more affordable for low income transgender people. I work to create avenues of equality for those who benefit the least from patriarchy by creating a culture of safety and support for people of all genders.

Delta delight

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July 3, 2012

1

arts@sfbg.com

FILM In the annual hothouse atmosphere of Sundance, even mediocre or bad new American narrative features are cocooned in an atmosphere of self-congratulation — at least until the reviews come out a few hours later. Movies that are actually pretty good invariably become “great” for the duration of the festival; with everyone searching for something to hyperventilate about, one need only light a birthday candle to set off a roman candle of hyperbole. Most of these movies come out a few months, waving their festival awards, only to look significantly diminished in the sober light of day (and decreased altitude). Suddenly they’re, well, just pretty good.

With the occasional exception, of course. Six months after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting, an imaginative leap of unusual ambition and accomplishment for a first feature.

Ostensibly based on a stage play — co-scenarist Lucy Alibar’s Juicy and Delicious, said to be a bluegrass musical — Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. What might look like an unhygienic, frightening, child-abusive nightmare to any Social Services authority is to Hushpuppy a constant playground, and to her elders a sort of pagan-libertarian utopia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqt5m0OBkjE

Before the story has gotten properly started there’s a community celebration with fireworks, music, guns fired into the air, babies crawling everywhere — a celebration of nothing in particular, at least that we can tell. But as our heroine says, “The Bathtub has more holidays than the rest of the world.” It is clear that, for that and many other reasons, its citizens have no use for the rest of the world.

She lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry) — albeit in separate ramshackle trailers on stilts — a fierce, erratic man with unknown demons who’s seldom outright unkind but acts less like a father than an Outward Bound coach, teaching his charge the tools to survive on her own. (In addition to slopping the livestock and pets, she can already make dinner for herself, lighting the stove with a blowtorch.) But one day he disappears, leaving Hushpuppy without human company beyond the memory of a long-absent mother she nonetheless frequently talks to. When Wink returns, it’s in a hospital gown and bracelet; whatever happened, he doesn’t want to discuss it.

Soon they have bigger things to worry about, anyway, as “the storm” is coming — prompting all but a few stubborn holdouts (well-fortified by alcohol) to evacuate the Bathtub. Wink and child aren’t going anywhere, waiting it out instead in a shack then floating to safety in their boat (a decapitated truck bed).

The area is fully flooded, however, and an illegal breach of a remaining levee drains it but can’t repair the devastation wrought on plants, animals, and homes. The holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate at last, sequestered in a relief shelter-hospital whose sterility and order is as alien to them as the surface of Mars. Worse, this exile hastens the serious illness Wink was able to keep (mostly) at bay in the Bathtub — as the wary say, hospitals are where sick people go to die.

With its elements of magic (or at least the illustration of a child’s belief in such), mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology — Gina Montana’s Amazonian schoolmarm Miss Bathsheeba defines her eat-or-be-eaten perspective with “Everything is part of the buffet of the universe” — Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb. Particularly for a low-budget movie with non-professional actors; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. Its messiness is an organic virtue, with grainy imagery whose hand-held spastic camerawork (by Ben Richardson) is for once much more than a trendy stylistic choice; the instability feels in synch with Hushpuppy’s world, in vibrates with the slightest clue provided by glance, weather, or instinct.

The frenetic yet amorphous atmosphere might on a first viewing make you question whether there’s really much story beneath the busy aesthetic surface, but in fact for all its freely digressive air Beasts is pretty tightly constructed. (Nonetheless, you can imagine the editors scratching their heads initially over how this footage might possibly cut together, unless they were in on the project from the start.) Adding to that spectral, hyperreal effect is a score by Dan Zomer and Zeitlin that combines keening or plucked strings with the ethereal chime of a glockenspiel, at times sounding like a Sufjan Stevens instrumental.

There are moments of real enchantment, like an all-girls’ side trip to a floating bordello whose bosomy ladies surrender to their maternal instincts, or the recurrent glimpses that see Hushpuppy’s hog gradually morph into a thundering pack of tusked, primeval wild boars. (Toward the end especially, this latter effect underlines the notion that the film’s closest recent antecedent is Spike Jonze’s 2009 Where the Wind Things Are, another child’s feral fantasy.)

Through it all the pint-sized Wallis (who was just five when she was chosen from some 4000 auditioning kids) strides with astonishing alertness and confidence, a vulnerable minor one minute, as regally self-possessed as Pam Grier in Coffy (1973) the next.

It would almost be a shame if she did anything else — this performance would be best preserved as a mysterious lone bolt from the blue, just as the movie itself seems to capture unrepeatable lightning in a bottle.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD opens Fri/6 in San Francisco.

Kinda cyborgy

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July 3, 2012

0

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hi, my name is Paris Hilton. I’m a DJ. I have a new song out called “Afrojack” with Rihanna. Want to experience it? Close your eyes. Lay on something soft, like grass, or a lamb, or Perez Hilton’s dumpster bag of excised stomach. Journey with me back in time to 2007. Can’t you feel the tiny fingers embroidering the pockets of your half-bleached jeans, the douche-mousse dripping down your Gucci wraparounds, the gaudy wheeze of MySpace deflating slowly underfoot, the background throb of masked insurgents? Can’t you hear the gentle buzz of Britney’s flaxen hair fall, her greenish umbrella tap-tap-tapping at your car window? Quickly, now, hold my chihuahua Tinkerbell, I’m fading, fading rapidly into the animated gifs, Ed Hardy tramp stamps, hot-pink Hummers, and reality programming challenges of your constantly refreshing mind…. Oh, how ew!

Delete, delete, delete.

Paris’s debut on the decks last month, melting down mostly and dragging up all the celebucrap of history’s tackiest decade (OK, OK the foppish 1670s were pretty bad), was yet another meme-ready sign of well-played Mayan prediction. 2012 Apocalypse! It’s here! And it’s wearing sparkly tuxedo lapels and flubbing the EQ levels!

But Earth’s supposed obliteration countdown can also inspire, and lead to some more, er, sophisticated sonic expressions, especially concerning the intersection of humanity and technology.

“With the Mayan calendar ending this year and all the crackpot end-of-times theories, I thought, ‘this is a perfect time for an inward reflection of who we are and where we’re going. And also an opportunity to renew or hit the reset button on our own humanity.'” That’s Alan So, dreamy executive and artistic director of the glorious Soundwave Festival (Thu/5-September 30, www.projectsoundwave.com/5), explaining to me over email the genesis of its 2012 theme: “Humanities.”

The bi-annual, three-month-long Soundwave takes over the city with a heady onslaught of sonic explorations, many of the electronic, installation-based variety, but also incorporating nifty biophysical elements and experiential live performances. This installment promises some truly cosmic haps.

The fest kicks off at the Cal Academy’s great Nightlife weekly on Thu/5 (6pm-10pm, $12. California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., SF. www.calacademy.org/nightlife), with techno-audial treats like Jay Kreimer’s ‘Born Wireless’ empathic facial responder, Stephen Hurrel’s live sounds of the moving Earth, and The Cellar Ensemble’s sound-light oracle instrument, plus guitarist Danny Paul Grody “playing the skies of the Aurora Borealis in a mini-planetarium” and artist Shannon O’Malley giving out tastes of her satiric-disastrous Apocalypse Cakes.

Footage from last year’s Soundwave:

More Soundwave 5 summer tantalizers: “Tension” at the Battery Townsend military bunker in Marin, which pairs riveting strings compositions with extreme resonance; “The Human Bionic” series at the Lab featuring Joe Cantrell’s Sounding Body, an audience interactive performance that uses brainwaves to conduct sound; and Canadian folk artist Diana Burgoyne’s interactive performances using intense-looking analogue-circuitry masks. The physical body is transcended, too: Andrea Williams and Lee Pembleton’s “SleepWalks” encourages participants to snooze (bring your sleeping bag) while the artists play music for their dreams, and “Revelation Zen,” a collaboration with the Zen Center attempts to breach dimensions both inner and outer.

“The advancements in technology have been astounding in the past 20, more so in the last five,” So told me. “Just think what can do now that we couldn’t do even do two years ago. We create technology to make lives ‘better.’ Machines know when we are awake, which means they also know when we are sleeping. Technology has been integrated in our worlds and our bodies so heavily it is becoming inescapable. I wanted to explore that in the sense of sound, and in the spirit of working towards humanity’s renewal of purpose after what we’ve don to the Earth.

“Also, probably, its my own unconscious self yearning for a simpler life in the midst of all this technology. Is that a possibility?”

RECLOOSE

The oft-heard, not-so-much-seen Michigander now lives in New Zealand, but still transmits the techno-eclectic vibes he learned under Carl Craig’s tutelage, with an open-air accessibility and broad funk wink.

Wed/3, 9pm, $5 before 11pm, $10 after. icon, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.facebook.com/housepitalitysf

RED BARAAT

Amazingly energetic and fun NYC bhangra-meets-brass nine-piece combo, led by dhol drummer Sunny Jain, seriously gets crowds hyped. Punjabi funk: taking over America the crazy right way.

Fri/6, doors 8pm, show 9pm, $18. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www. slimspresents.com

SALEM DJ SET

Whither them witches? Witch house has been completely (and, by my scry, bewitchingly) taken up by a young “Why so serious?” coven of underground musicmakers who make no bones about bubbling the weird underside of the Internet up into a brew of funhouse splatter. But lost, I fear, is the gangsta rap-referencing button-pushing of OG poster children Salem. This DJ set may bring back the danger.

Fri/6, 10pm, $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

WARM LEATHERETTE

The roving minimal wave and dark synth party celebrates three years of “vagabond existence” with guests The KVB (moody electronic shoegaze from the UK) and Deathday (aggressive industrial, filtered through hissing tapes, from LA).

Fri/6, 9:30pm, $5 before 10:30, $7 after. SUB/Mission, 2183 Mission St., SF. www.facebook.com/warmleatherettesf

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

0

Schedules are for Wed/4-Tue/10 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), Thu, 5, 7. Presented sing-along style; this event, $10-15. “Midnites for Maniacs: BFFs Triple Bill:” •Clueless (Heckerling, 1995), Fri, 7:30; Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), Fri, 9:45; Heavenly Creatures (Jackson, 1994), Fri, 11:45. This event, one or all three films for $13. “Scary Cow Short Film Festival,” Sat, 3. More info at www.scarycow.com. •The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979), Sun, noon, 3:15, 7, and Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974), Sun, 5:05, 8:50.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Bel Ami (Donnellan and Ormerod, 2012), call for dates and times. Bernie (Linklater, 2012), call for dates and times. Oslo, August 31st (Trier, 2011), call for dates and times. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (Beresford, 2011), call for dates and times. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Pool, 2011), call for dates and times. Take This Waltz (Polley, 2011), July 6-12, call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Bellissima: Leading Ladies of the Italian Screen:” Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955), Fri, 7; La strada (Fellini, 1954), Sat, 8:30. “A Theater Near You:” Weekend (Godard, 1967), Fri, 9:05; Gerhard Richter Painting (Belz, 2011), Sat, 6:30; This Is Not a Film (Mirtahmasb and Panahi, 2011), Sun, 5:15. “Always for Pleasure: The Films of Les Blank:” Always for Pleasure (Blank, 1978) with “Dry Wood” (Blank and Gosling, 1973) and “Running Around Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off” (Blank, Blank, and Van Deusen, 1960), Sun, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Beyond the Black Rainbow (Cosmatos, 2011), Wed-Thu, 7:15. 9:30. The Connection (Clarke, 1962), Wed-Thu, 7, 9:15. “Kung Fu Double Feature:” •Five Element Ninjas (a.k.a. Chinese Super Ninjas) (Chang, 1982), Fri, 7:30, and The Mystery of Chess Boxing (Kuo, 1979), Fri, 9:30. “Au Revoir Béla Tarr:” The Man From London (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2007), July 7-11, 6:30 (also Sat-Sun, 1); The Turin Horse (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2011), July 7-11, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 3:45).

SF FILM SOCIETY CINEMA 1746 Post, SF. $10-11. The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Part Six: The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream (1970s); Fight the Power: Protest in Films (1980s), (Cousins, 2011), Sat, noon. British TV series; new episodes weekly through July 21. Corpo Celeste (Rohrwacher, 2011), Wed-Thu, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (Akers, 2011), July 6-12, 2:45, 5, 7:15, 9:30.

SF STATE UNIVERSITY Coppola Theatre, 1600 Holloway, SF; www.legacyfilmfestivalonaging.org. $12. “Legacy Film Festival on Aging,” co-presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Fri-Sun.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Documentaries By Ai Weiwei:” Fairytale (2008), Sun, 2.

Psychic Dream Astrology: July 4-10

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Change tends to be hard because the unknown is unsettling, even when you believe things are improving. Something new is entering your life, and in order to make the most of it, you’ll need an open heart and interested state of mind. Focus on the potential in front of you instead of what seems implausible.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

You cannot go on with such a heavy load, Taurus. You are meant to stride forward, but you don’t have to bring all your baggage with you! Let go of the relationships or attachments you have that are draining you, pal. Value love over obligation this week to create the kind of life that you truly want to be living.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Stress and anxiety is just a part of life, Gemini, and learning to cope with it when it comes up is invaluable. This week you may feel your grasp on stability is being tested, so instead of crumbling in the face of your demons, trust that you’ve got the tools to battle them, and the balls to use ’em.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Repressing painful truths has a way of creating rot inside of you, which corrodes other stuff. This week you must consciously deal with the things you’ve been sweeping under the rug, Cancer. You don’t have to fix or understand everything, but accepting the truth of your situations is the right place to start.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Love is so valuable that it deserves all the work and care that it tends to require. This week you should not shy away from improving or strengthening the things and relationships you most love. Balance, patience and joyfulness are meant to be yours, so let them guide you as you put your energy where it’s best deserved.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Your independence is the key to keeping your equilibrium this week, Virgo. Isolating yourself is not independence, BTW. Trusting in your right and ability to connect or separate as you see fit is foundational to being authentically free. Embody your truth and “walk your talk.”

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Having healthy boundaries around others means that while you have compassion for them regarding their hardships, you don’t take them on and make them your own. Make every effort to enjoy all that is wonderful in your world, even if there are difficulties surrounding you. Stay present with your own experience, pal.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

It’s over, so stop repressing or regressing, Scorpio. Embody the potential inherent in your present life, and stop looking backwards. This week you are capable of moving ahead, and to do so you need to be willing to set up a new camp, in a new part of town. Learn from your past, but don’t re-live it.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

There are so many things you can choose to focus your energy on, so you may as well concentrate on the good stuff. Share your successes with others, as it’ll help to bring more warmth to them. You will catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say, so when in doubt this week, choose kindness.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

The very worst move you can make is to try and figure everything out or to foresee the future. This week content yourself with finding value in whatever is in front of you, and bringing your best to it. You will get more from dealing with what is than speculating and driving yourself (and everyone around you) bonkers.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Confidence and strength of conviction will take you where you want to go this week, Aquarius. Your relationships need tending to, and it’s important that you don’t let your insecurities get in the mix of how you want to be with them. Reach forward with love, and trust that things will go exactly as they are meant to.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Having an open heart is wonderful, but you needn’t be open to all people and all things, Pisces. Be careful about who you trust this week, as you are extra sensitive. Self-preservation will go a long way if you use it to stay grounded and aware. Slow down and consider what you’re doing for best results.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

-

July 3, 2012

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Duck Lake The Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.duck-lake.com. $17-35. Opens Fri/6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 28. PianoFight’s resident sketch comedy group, Mission CTRL, performs its new "ballet-horror-comedy."

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Dolores Park, 18th St at Dolores, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Opens Wed/4, 2pm. Runs Sat/7-Sun/8, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. SF Mime Troupe launches its annual political musical (this year’s theme: one percenters behaving badly); the show travels around NorCal parks and other venues throughout the summer.

BAY AREA

King John Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Previews Fri/6-Sun/8, 8pm. Opens July 13, 8pm. Runs July 15, 21, 27, 29, Aug 4, 10-12, 8pm; July 22 and Aug 5, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company kicks off its 2012 outdoor summer festival season with this history play.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/6). Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the characters of San Francisco.

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through July 21. Tides Theatre performs Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s comedy about five women forced into a bomb shelter during a mid-breakfast nuke attack.

Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (July 15, show at 7:30pm). Extended through July 22. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Wed/4-Thu/5, 8pm; Fri/6-Sat/7, 7 and 9:30pm; Sun/8, 5pm. Boxcar Theatre performs John Cameron Mitchell’s musical about a transgendered glam rocker.

Jip: His Story Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Thu-Fri, 7:30pm; Sat, 2pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 15. Marsh Youth Theater remounts its 2005 musical production of Katherine Paterson’s historical novel.

The Magic Flute War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $31-340. Fri/6, 8pm; Sun/8, 2pm. San Francisco Opera adds some unexpected vitality to its new star-studded production of one of the world’s most popular operas, Mozart’s whimsical but philosophical tale of a romance and (Mason-inspired) spiritual evolution. Prince Tamino (poised tenor Alek Shrader) and sidekick Papageno (fine baritone Nathan Gunn in a blithe comedic performance) are on a quest to rescue from sorcerer Sarastro (imposing bass Kristinn Sigmundsson) the lovely Pamina (appealing soprano Heidi Stober), daughter of the Queen of the Night (the rousingly virtuosic Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova). The battle royal between the Queen and Sarastro is one between darkness and light, but the emphasis of this joyful production is rightly on the latter, even as Tamino and Papageno’s journey takes them through the ritual rite of passage in Sarastro’s order, the Temple of Light. Visual artist Jun Kaneko (responsible for the giant ceramic heads on view outside the War Memorial Opera House until November) marshals a brightly extensive color palette and some state-of-the-art 3D software to create a mise-en-scène out of parallel planes of patterned line and color. These enveloping and fascinating geometric flights of fancy — animated by a drawn, human touch and organic trickles and blushes of color throughout — come complimented by wildly playful costumes, including a host of wonderfully oddball brightly painted birds, that make for some pleasantly cackling entrances. David Gockley’s English-language translation of the libretto, meanwhile, adds a zesty colloquial freshness whose tinge of irony contributes to an intellectual roominess that matches the aesthetic one, both together offering some necessary reflective space to the contemporary audience vis-à-vis the certainties of this Enlightenment fairytale. (Avila)

Proof NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.proofsf.com. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 14. $28. Expression Productions performs David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play about a mathematician and his daughter.

"Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival" Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating; $50 donation for five-play reserved seating pass). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 14. Cutting Ball’s annual fest of experimental plays features two new works and five new translations in staged readings.

The Scottsboro Boys American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Wed/4); Sun/8, 7pm. Extended through July 22. American Conservatory Theater presents the Kander and Ebb musical about nine African American men falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit in the pre-civil rights movement South.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 21. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

Waiting… Larkspur Hotel Union Square, 525 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $69-75. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 5. Comedy set behind the scenes at a San Francisco restaurant.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through August 4. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Emotional Creature Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show July 13); Wed, 7pm (no show Wed/4); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 15. It’s not easy being a girl, and Eve Ensler’s newest play Emotional Creature leaves no scenario unexplored: from high school shaming rituals to ritual clitorectomies. If that sounds like a jarring juxtaposition, you’d be right. It’s difficult theatrically to transition seamlessly from a deeply affecting monologue about being a teenage sex slave in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a cute song about wearing miniskirts, and it’s equally difficult for the audience to change emotional gears rapidly enough to be able to adequately absorb the impact of each individual segment. Instead, the play comes off as an earnest but awkward Girl Scout Jamboree variety show — attempting to address as wide a variety of social ills as possible (from teen suicide to industrial pollution) — despite the strong and savvy acting chops of the six performers. In contrast to Ensler’s most popular work, The Vagina Monologues, which effectively "humanized" a part of the body by giving it something highly personal to say, Emotional Creature weirdly depersonalizes its girls by putting lines in their mouths ("I’m not the life you never lived") that clearly come from an adult perspective. And as for those girls who don’t particularly identify as "emotional creatures" at all? For them, there are no words. (Gluckstern)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through July 15. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Salomania Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 22. The libel trial of a politically opportunistic newspaper publisher (Mark Andrew Phillips) and the private life of a famous dancer of the London stage — San Franciscan Maud Allan (a striking Madeline H.D. Brown) — become the scandalous headline-grabber of the day, as World War I rages on in some forgotten external world. In Aurora’s impressive world premiere by playwright-director Mark Jackson, the real-life story of Allan, celebrated for her risqué interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, soon gets conflated with the infamous trial (20 years earlier) of Wilde himself (a shrewdly understated Kevin Clarke). But is this case just a media-stoked distraction, or is there a deeper connection between the disciplining of "sexual deviance" and the ordered disorder of the nation state? Jackson’s sharp if sprawling ensemble-driven exploration brings up plenty of tantalizing suggestions, while reveling in the complexly intermingling themes of sex, nationalism, militarism, women’s rights, and the webs spun by media and politics. A group of trench-bound soldiers (the admirable ensemble of Clarke, Alex Moggridge, Anthony Nemirovsky, Phillips, Marilee Talkington, and Liam Vincent) provide one comedy-lined avenue into a system whose own excesses are manifest in the insane carnage of war — yet an insanity only possible in a world policed by illusions, distractions and the fear of unsettled and unsettling "deviants" of all kinds. In its cracked-mirror portraiture of an era, the play echoes a social and political turmoil that has never really subsided. (Avila)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Channels: An Evening of Cross-Disciplinary Performance" Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/6-Sun/7, 8pm. $10-20. Dancers Daria Kaufman, Bianca Brzezinski, and musician-composer Richard Warp perform Arti Ulate, a dance-theater piece; Brzezinski also performs a solo, Non-self.

"Comedy Bodega" Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu/5, 8pm. Free (one drink minimum). Weekly free stand-up show. This week: Yayne Abeba, David Hawkins, Anna Seregina, Veronica Porras, Baruch P. Hernandez, and George Chen.

"Comedy Returns to El Rio" El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/9, 8pm. $7-20. With Joe Klocek, Josh Healey, Regina Stoops, Johan Miranda, Shanti Charan, and Lisa Geduldig.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

"The Eric Andre Show" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Mon/9, 8pm. $10. Adult Swim-spawned, SF Sketchfest-presented faux-cable access variety show with musical guests and "real and fake celebrity appearances," hosted by actor Eric André.

"The Fag Hag Comedy Show" Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun/8, 8pm. $10. Charlie Ballard hosts this stand-up comedy extravaganza, with headliner Glamis Rory and more.

"A Funny Night for Comedy" Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.natashamuse.com. Sun/8, 7pm. $10. Natasha Muse and Ryan Cronin host stand-up comedians, including headliner Jason Wheeler, at their monthly talk show.

"Jillarious Tuesdays" Tommy T’s Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.jillarious.com. Tue, 7:30. Ongoing. $20. Weekly comedy show with Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, Justin Lucas, and special guests.

Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Café Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/8, 6:15pm. $15-19. Mother-daughter flamenco dance and music company.

"Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness" Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 12. $25-65. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, performers in Baroque-chic gowns, music, and more.

"Schwabacher Summer Concert" Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. Thu/5, 7:30pm. $25-40. The young talent of the Merola Opera Program performs scenes from works by Bizet, Stravinsky, and more.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

-

July 3, 2012

0

Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Big Time Freedom Fest" El Rio. 3:30pm, $8. With Religious Girls, Tartufi, Fin Riggins, Battlehooch, Night Call, Heart & the Hiding.

"Blue Flame" DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. With Rglnd, Willie Joe, Armani Depaul, G. Maly, Nova Boy, Priceless Da Roc, and more.

Bobb Saggeth, Prizhog Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Gypsy Moonlight, Wicked Mercies, Winter Teeth Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Pine Box Boys, Colonel Jimmy & the Blackfish Cafe Du Nord. 6pm, $11-$13.

JC Rocket vs. Greg Zema Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Steve Taylor Ramirez Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Country Jam Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Kevin Casey Coffee Adventures, 1331 Columbus, SF; kevincaseyandfriends.bandcamp.com. 11am.

Cha-Ching Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall with weekly guests.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

Obey the Kitty: DJ Metric, Justin Milla Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm; free with guestlist before 11pm, $10 otherwise.

THURSDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cory Branan, Audra Mae, Travis Hayes, Doncat Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Grady Champion Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Cocktails, Preteen, Tambo Ray Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Giraffage, James & Evander Milk Bar, 1840 Haight, SF; www.milksf.com. 9pm, $6.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Misisipi Mike and the Midnight Gamblers, TV Mike and the Scarecrows Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Chante Moore Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $20.

Valerie Orth Hotel Utah. 8pm, $7.

Picture Me Broken, Out for Blood, Behold the Device, Giving The Devil His Due, Look a Flying Pig DNA Lounge. 6pm, $10.

Smokey Robinson with the San Francisco Symphony Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfsymphony.org. 7:30pm, $15-$115.

Sherik’s Bandalabra, Will Blades Trio Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $12.

Stagger & Fall, Dirty Filthy Mugs, Sore Thumbs Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Terraplane Sun, Ry Cuming, Family Wagon Cafe Du Nord. 7pm, $10.

Greg Zema vs. Rags Tuttle Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Oleta Adams Rrazz Room. 8pm, $49.50.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ned Boynton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Soundwave Nightlife California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. 6-10pm, $10-$12. With Lumerians, Matt Baldwin, Danny Paul Grody, and more.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Better Haves Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

"Salkind International Piano Duo Festival." San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfmf.org. 8pm.

Shannon Ceili Band Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. DJ-host Pleasuremaker, DJ Palner spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Base: Robert Dietz, Rooz Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm; free with guestlist before 11pm, $10 otherwise.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and Soul with weekly guests.

Popscene club night: Miami Horror (DJ set) Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $13.

Supersonic Lookout, 3600 16th St., SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Global beats paired with food from around the world by Tasty. Resident DJs Jaybee, B-Haul, amd Diagnosis.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with DJ’s Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

Vintage Tour 330 Ritch, SF; www.firstdirt.com. 9pm, $10. With Timothy Rhyme , LuckyIAm, DJ Mark Di Vita, Nay the Producer, emcee battles, more.

FRIDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aquamen, Go-Going-Gone Girls, Whoosie Whatsits Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Back Pages Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Birdhouse Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $8-$12.

Blind Pilot Fillmore. 9pm.

Brass Tax Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Grady Champion Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Fast Times Maggie McGarry’s, 1353 Grant, SF; www.maggiemcgarrys.com. 9pm, free.

Kallisto, Cropus Hideous, Adronisaurus, Upholstery Jackson Jackson Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

New Diplomat, Trophy Fire, Rags & Ribbons Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Pine and Battery, Caught in Motion, Guy Fox Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Randy, Rome Balestrieri, Greg Zema Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Red Baraat Slim’s. 9pm, $16-$18.

Spider Heart Rockit Room. 10:30pm, $5.

Kelley Stoltz, Shana Falana, She’s, B and B Not Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12-$15.

Super Rock Trio feat. McFadden, Jay Lane, Ed Ivey, DJ Toph One Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10-$12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Oleta Adams Rrazz Room. 8pm, $49.50.

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm, free.

Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Benjamin Brown Plough and Stars. 9pm.

"Salkind International Piano Duo Festival." San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfmf.org. 8pm.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

Braza! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Sabo, Kento, Elan spin Brazilian, Batucada, Samba, with special guest DJ Nuts.

Danny Daze & Lee Curtiss Public Works. 10pm, $10-$12. With Rich Korach.

Deep Crates Underground SF, 424 Haight, SF; www.undergroundsf.com. 9pm, $4. With DJs Conor, JD, Harley spinning rare disco, Italo, and house.

Duniya Dancehall Bissap, 3372 19th St, SF; (415) 826 9287. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and music by Wontanara Revolution. DJ Juan Data spins bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Brian Maier.

Salem (DJ set) Elbo Room. 10pm, $8. 120 Minutes with resident DJs S4NtA MU3rTE, Nako, and Planet Death.

Strangelove: Military Fashion Show Cat Club. 9:30pm; $3 before 10pm, $7 after. Industrial with Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, goth with Xander and Fact.50.

Swank Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm; $10-$20. With Pheeko Dubfunk, G Stav, David Paul, Lorentzo.

Warm Leatherette: Three-Year Anniversary Sub-Mission. 9:30pm; $5 before 10:30pm, $7 after. With KVB and Deathday.

SATURDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bay Area Heat Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Business End, M Section Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Con Brio, DJ Jonathan Kircher Amnesia. 9pm, $8-$10.

Dead Westerns, My Revolver, Rare Animals Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

"Degotoga Festival" Treasure Island Event Venue, 401 California, SF; Facebook: Degotoga Festival. 1pm, $20. With Miles Schon & West Coast Engine Room Allstars, Shana Morrison & Caledonia, Razteria, Haunted By Heroes, Cruella, and more.

Gigamesh, Punks Jump Up Mezzanine. 10pm, $12.

Jacka & Husalah, Traxamillion Slim’s. 9pm, $18-$23.

Lionel Young Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Lucabrazzi, Meathook & the Vital Organs, Yes Go’s Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Maxines, Mallard Makeout Room. 7:30pm, $10.

Mike Dillon Band Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $10.

Pan Handlers, Gilded Rooks, Coburns Amnesia. 5:30pm, $8-$10.

Tall Shasham Jason Kwan, KS Thant, Elvira Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm; $10-$20.

Greg Zema , Rome Balestrieri, Randy Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Oleta Adams Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $49.50.

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $35; 10pm, $30.

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore Street between Jackson and Eddy, SF; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. With Foxtails Brigade, Kim Nalley, Jai Uttal and the Queen of Hearts Orchestra, King Brothers, and more.

"Fillmore Jazz Festival Celebration" with Tara Priya, Steppin’ Boom Boom Room. 1pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Americana Jukebox Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-$10. With Dull Richards.

Blicks Mix with Kramer Public Works Loft. 9pm; free before 11pm, $5 after.

Grupo Fantasma, Y La Bamba Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

La Gente, Colm O’Riain Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $15-$18.

Orequesta Borinquen Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.theramprestaurant.com. 5-8pm.

"Salkind International Piano Duo Festival." San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfmf.org. 8pm.

Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bearracuda Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $6-$8. With DJ Matt Consola, and Matt Alber (live).

Bootie SF: King of Pants DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$20.

Cockfight Underground SF, 424 Haight, SF; (415) 864-7386. 9pm, $7. Rowdy dance night for gay boys .

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Shortkut, Apollo, Mr. E, Fran Boogie spin Hip-Hop, Dancehall, Funk, Salsa.

Haceteria Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 9pm; free before 10:30pm, $5 after. With C. Faith (live) and Nujack (DJ).

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With DJs Lucky, Paul Paul, and Phengren Oswald.

SUNDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Tommy Castro & the Painkillers Biscuits and Blues. 7 and 9pm, $20.

Cool Ghouls, L.A. Witch, Sister Ruby Band Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Makru, Shake Your Peace, Diana Gameros, Justin Ancheta Amnesia. 9pm, $8-$10.

Paper Dolls, Betsy and Beau, Jared Griffin Amnesia. 5:30pm, $8-$10.

Volbeat, HELLYEAH, Iced Earth, Killinger Regency Ballroom. 6:30pm, $34.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Rachelle Ferrell Yoshi’s SF. 7pm, $30; 9pm, $25.

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore Street between Jackson and Eddy, SF; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. With Kim Nalley, Jai Uttal and the Queen of Hearts Orchestra, Sista Monica, and more.

"Salacious Underground: A Neo-Burlesque Experience" Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $7-$15. With Paranoids, New Eccentrics, Ellastico, Dorian Faust, May Yang.

San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas and SFS Chorus Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Marla Fibish & Friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Lone Star Retrobates.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Roommate, Antiserum.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Mario Di Sandro Osteria, 3277 Sacramento, SF; www.osteriasf.com. 7pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Roem Baur Osteria, 3277 Sacramento, SF; www.osteriasf.com. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-$5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from 1960s-early ’90s with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Electric Shepherd, VARDDJURET, Spyrals, Love Dimension, DJ Neil Martinson Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$8.

Family Folk Explosion Amnesia. 9:15pm, free.

Guy Fox Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Artwork Jamal Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, 15.

Barry O’Connell, Vinnie Cronin & friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Papa Bear and the Easy Love, Tom Hamilton Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Schande, Pataha Hiss, Li Xi Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Mike Stoltzman Quintet feat. Richard Stoltzman Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $18.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

Study Hall John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. Hip-hop, dancehall, and Bay slaps with DJ Left Lane.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

Beasts of the Southern Wild See "Delta Delight." (1:31) Embarcadero.

Katy Perry: Part of Me The candy-colored pop star makes the logical leap to big-screen 3D. (1:57) Metreon.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present Matthew Akers’ sleek and telling doc explores the career and motivations of the legendary Serbian-born, New York-based performance artist on the occasion of 2010’s major retrospective and new work at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Abramovic, self-styled the "grandmother of performance art" at an eye-catching 63, steels herself with rare energy — and a determination to gain equal status for performance in the world of fine art — for an incredibly demanding new piece, The Artist Is Present, a quasi-mystical encounter between herself and individual museum patrons that takes the form of a three-month marathon of silent one-on-one gazing. Meanwhile, 30 young artists re-perform pieces from her influential career. Akers gains intimate access throughout, including Abramovic’s touching reunion with longtime love and artistic collaborator Ulay, while providing a steady pulse of suspense as the half-grueling, half-ecstatic performance gets underway. A natural charmer, Abramovic’s charismatic presence at MoMA is no act but rather a focused state in which audiences are drawn into — and in turn shape — powerful rhythms of consciousness and desire. (1:45) SF Film Society Cinema. (Robert Avila)

Nobody Else But You The Marilyn Monroe pop-culture resurgence continues with director and co-writer Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s appealingly low-key mystery, which pays homage to the iconic blonde while borrowing liberally from a pair of noir Lauras: Vera Caspary’s back-from-the-dead heroine, and Twin Peaks‘ unfortunate Ms. Palmer. Fortunately, Nobody Else But You is original enough to remain both suspenseful and highly entertaining. David (Jean-Paul Rouve), a detective novelist with writer’s block, travels from Paris to a small village where a Monroe-esque local beauty named Candice (Sophie Quinton) has just been found dead in a snowdrift. The official word is suicide, but David suspects something more sinister. With the help of a local cop (Guillaume Gouix), the newly inspired author investigates, urged onward by Candice’s evocative diary entries. Though it tries a little hard at times (drinking game: keep track of how many times the number five appears onscreen), Nobody Else But You is well worth seeking out; it layers European flair (translation: lots of casual nudity) over a plot that wouldn’t be out of place in an American indie — but relocated, memorably, to "the coldest town in France." (1:42) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Savages Weed dudes (Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch) break bad, bro, by taking on a Mexican cartel in Oliver Stone’s latest. (1:57) Four Star, Marina.

Take this Waltz See "Sad Romance." (1:56) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

ONGOING

The Amazing Spider-Man A mere five years after Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man 3 — forgettable on its own, sure, but 2002’s Spider-Man and especially 2004’s Spider-Man 2 still hold up — Marvel’s angsty web-slinger returns to the big screen, hoping to make its box-office mark before The Dark Knight Rises opens in a few weeks. Director Marc Webb (2009’s 500 Days of Summer) and likable stars Andrew Garfield (as the skateboard-toting hero) and Emma Stone (as his high-school squeeze) offer a competent reboot, but there’s no shaking the feeling that we’ve seen this movie before, with its familiar origin story and with-great-power themes. A little creativity, and I don’t mean in the special effects department, might’ve gone a long way to make moviegoers forget this Spidey do-over is, essentially, little more than a soulless cash grab. Not helping matters: the villain (Rhys Ifans as the Lizard) is a snooze. (2:18) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Eddy)

The Connection The first re-release in a project to restore all of quintessential 1960s American independent director Shirley Clarke’s features, this 1961 vérité-style drama was adapted from a controversial off-Broadway play by Jack Gelber. Set exclusively in a dingy Greenwich Village crash pad, it captures a little time in the lives of several junkies there — many off-duty jazz musicians — listlessly waiting for the return of their dealer, Cowboy. To mimic the stage version’s breaking of the fourth wall between actors and spectators, Clarke added the device of two fictive filmmakers who are trying to record this "shocking" junkie scene, yet grow frustrated at their subjects’ levels of cooperation and resistance. With actors often speaking directly to the camera, and all polished stage language and acting preserved, The Connection offers a curious, artificial realm that is nonetheless finally quite effective and striking. A prize-winner at Cannes, it nonetheless had a very hard time getting around the censors and into theaters back home. Hard-won achievement followed by frustration would be a frequent occurrence for the late Clarke, who would only complete one more feature (a documentary about Ornette Coleman) after 1964’s Cool World and 1967’s Portrait of Jason, before her 1997 demise. She was a pioneering female indie director — and her difficulty finding projects unfortunately
also set a mold for many talented women to come. (1:50) Roxie. (Harvey)

Magic Mike Director Steven Soderbergh pays homage to the 1970s with the opening shot of his male stripper opus: the boxy old Warner Bros. logo, which evokes the gritty, sexualized days of Burt Reynolds and Joe Namath posing in pantyhose. Was that really the last time women, en masse, were welcome to ogle to their heart’s content? That might be the case considering the outburst of applause when a nude Channing Tatum rises after a hard night in a threesome in Magic Mike‘s first five minutes. Ever the savvy film historian, Soderbergh toys with the conventions of the era, from the grimy quasi-redneck realism of vintage Reynolds movies to the hidebound framework of the period’s gay porn, almost for his own amusement, though the viewer might be initially confused about exactly what year they’re in. Veteran star stripper Mike (Tatum) is working construction, stripping to the approval of many raucous ladies and their stuffable dollar bills. He decides to take college-dropout blank-slate hottie Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and ropes him into the strip club, owned by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey, whose formidable abs look waxily preserved) and show him the ropes of stripping and having a good time, much to the disapproval of Adam’s more straight-laced sister Brooke (Cody Horn). Really, though, all Mike wants to do is become a furniture designer. Boasting Foreigner’s "Feels like the First Time" as its theme of sorts and spot-on, hot choreography by Alison Faulk (who’s worked with Madonna and Britney Spears), Magic Mike takes off and can’t help but please the crowd when it turns to the stage. Unfortunately the chemistry-free budding romance between Mike and Brooke sucks the air out of the proceedings every time it comes into view, which is way too often. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

Ted Ah, boys and their toys — and the imaginary friends that mirror back a forever-after land of perpetual Peter Pans. That’s the crux of the surprisingly smart, hilarious Ted, aimed at an audience comprising a wide range of classes, races, and cultures with its mix of South Park go-there yuks and rom-commie coming-of-age sentiment. Look at Ted as a pop-culture-obsessed nerd tweak on dream critter-spirit animal buddy efforts from Harvey (1950) to Donnie Darko (2001) to TV’s Wilfred. Of course, we all know that the really untamable creature here wobbles around on two legs, laden with big-time baggage about growing up and moving on from childhood loves. Young John doesn’t have many friends but he is fortunate enough to have his Christmas wish come true: his beloved new teddy bear, Ted (voice by director-writer Seth MacFarlane), begins to talk back and comes to life. With that miracle, too, comes Ted’s marginal existence as a D-list celebrity curiosity — still, he’s the loyal "Thunder Buddy" that’s always there for the now-grown John (Mark Wahlberg), ready with a bong and a broheim-y breed of empathy that involves too much TV, an obsession with bad B-movies, and mock fisticuffs, just the thing when storms move in and mundane reality rolls through. With his tendency to spew whatever profanity-laced thought comes into his head and his talents are a ladies’ bear, Ted is the id of a best friend that enables all of John’s most memorable, un-PC, Hangover-style shenanigans. Alas, John’s cool girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) threatens that tidy fantasy setup with her perfectly reasonable relationship demands. Juggling scary emotions and material that seems so specific that it can’t help but charm — you’ve got to love a shot-by-shot re-creation of a key Flash Gordon scene — MacFarlane sails over any resistance you, Lori, or your superego might harbor about this scenario with the ease of a man fully in touch with his inner Ted. (1:46) California, Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

To Rome with Love Woody Allen’s film legacy is not like anybody else’s. At present, however, he suffers from a sense that he’s been too prolific for too long. It’s been nearly two decades since a new Woody Allen was any kind of "event," and the 19 features since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) have been hit and-miss. Still, there’s the hope that Allen is still capable of really surprising us — or that his audience might, as they did by somewhat inexplicably going nuts for 2011’s Midnight in Paris. It was Allen’s most popular film in eons, if not ever, probably helped by the fact that he wasn’t in it. Unfortunately, he’s up there again in the new To Rome With Love, familiar mannerisms not hiding the fact that Woody Allen the Nebbish has become just another Grumpy Old Man. There’s a doddering quality that isn’t intended, and is no longer within his control. But then To Rome With Love is a doddering picture — a postcard-pretty set of pictures with little more than "Have a nice day" scribbled on the back in script terms. Viewers expecting more of the travelogue pleasantness of Midnight in Paris may be forgiving, especially since it looks like a vacation, with Darius Khondji’s photography laying on the golden Italian light and making all the other colors confectionary as well. But if Paris at least had the kernel of a good idea, Rome has only several inexplicably bad ones; it’s a quartet of interwoven stories that have no substance, point, credibility, or even endearing wackiness. The shiny package can only distract so much from the fact that there’s absolutely nothing inside. (1:52) Albany, Balboa, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

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Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 4

Fourth of July on the Waterfront, Pier 39, Beach and Embarcadero, SF.www.pier39.com. Noon-9pm, free. Fireworks and festivities, live music — in other words fun for the whole, red-white-and-blue family. Make a game of spotting the explosions through the fog, if there’s fog (crossing our fingers for no.)

8 free guided walking tours, Various locations, SF. www.sfcityguides.org. Beginning between 9:30am and 2pm, free. Want something to do before the fireworks light up the sky? Local volunteers from San Francisco City Guides offers these free guided walking tours of their favorite features of the City by the Bay — from the Coit Tower murals to the hidden history of Fisherman’s Wharf.

Fourth of July Dog Parade of Westies and Scotties Park and Highland, Piedmont, Oakl. www.ci.piedmont.ca.us. 11am, free. Celebrate Independence Day with cuddly pups that will prance down the street with their people as part of this 47th annual parade. They’ll sashay their way to Piedmont Park where the parade ends with a community picnic.

July 4th Festival of Family Fun, Jack London Square, Oakl. Bring the kids, young and old to meet goats and sheep at a petting zoo. Work up an appetite in bounce houses, arts and craft booths, and rented kayaks or bicycles. Then, munch on the food and beverages from various local vendors. Stilt walkers, magicians, and circus creatures of all variety will entertain. Here’s hoping you’ll be cool with the face-painting clowns.

SF Zoo free admission day San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo Rd., SF. www.sfzoo.org. First Wednesdays, 10am-5pm, free. Celebrate Fourth of July with the animals at Northern California’s largest zoological park and conservation center.

Fourth of July at the Berkeley Marina Cesar Chavez Park, 201 University, Berk. www.anotherbullwinkleshow.com. Noon-10pm, fireworks at 9:30pm, free. Live entertainment, arts and crafts, fried food, and fireworks abound at this Independence Day celebration. Pick up a "passport to fun" at the event’s headquarters and get it stamped at four sites around the Marina to win prizes like yacht cruises for two and Hilton Hotel overnight stays.

THURSDAY 5

Lower Polk Art Walk Polk and Larkin, SF. www.thelowerpolkartwalk.com. 6pm-10pm, free. Wander through eight galleries featuring local artwork, peruse the neighborhood murals, and feast at designated food trucks along the way.

Art opening: Space Craft CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF. www.spacecraftonline.com. 7pm-11pm, free. This visual arts and experimental music show celebrates emerging and established artists from the Bay and beyond. Participating artists curate and execute the show in proper SF do-it-yourself style.

FRIDAY 6

First Friday Follies burlesque and creepy puppet show Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. Facebook: First Friday Follies at Stork Club. 9pm, free. As Oakland Art Murmur (www.oaklandartmurmur.org) winds down, find your way to this strange after-party. It will feature scantily clad dancing women, a creepy puppet show by the Shadow Circus Theater, and various guest performances.

Wild Child art exhibit Paxton Gate’s Curiosities for Kids, 766 Valencia, SF. www.paxtongate.com. 6pm-8pm, free. Courtney Cerruti has repurposed books, candy wrappers, and toilet paper tubes to create the new art pieces that dot the gallery walls tonight. The depictions of flower petals, wild animals, and children’s faces explore that combination of sweet and wild that is childhood.

SATURDAY 7

Fillmore Street Jazz Festival, Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF. (800) 310-6563, www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. The largest free jazz festival on the Left Coast, this celebration draws enormous crowds for innovative Latin, fusion, and other performers on multiple stages.

Gardening workshop Garden for the Environment, Seventh Ave. at Lawton, SF. www.gardenfortheenvrinoment.org. 10am-noon, free. Get your fingernails dirty and turn your thumbs green at this hands-on summer gardening class. Learn gardening and composting techniques to encourage flowers and veggies to blossom in your yard without adding organic waste to the landfill.

Amazing Spider Pig comedy show 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF. www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 7pm, free. The Bay’s best self-proclaimed "nerd comics" are in the house tonight, spreading laughter and awkwardness to spread.

"Occupy Bay Area" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. www.ybca.org. Through Oct. 14. Opening night: 6pm-10pm, free. Radical protest, from the rest Occupy movement to previous incarnations of civil unrest are immortalized here in poster art. Check out works from the famed Chuck Sperry to the deceased, much-loved Alcatraz occupier "Indian Joe" Morris. Opening night festivities include a performance by Oakland hip-hopper Do D.A.T.

SUNDAY 8

San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove Festival Sigmund Stern Grove Park, 19th Ave. and Sloat, SF. www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free. Voices from SF’s Symphony Chorus will chime over the iconic sounds of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, conducted by musical director Michael Tilson Thomas. Copland’s Billy the Kid Suite will also float over the crowds at the symphony’s annual appearance at the beloved free summer concert series.

Cartoonist-in-Residence: Tyler Cohen Cartoon Art Museum, 665 Mission, SF. www.cartoonart.org. 1pm-3pm, free. Cohen published the first book of her work Primahood in 2011, and another, Primahood: The Second Album, this June. Come in and ask View completed artwork of this Bay Area female cartoonist. Ask her questions as you watch her work on in-progress pieces.

TUESDAY 10

FoodWise farmers’ market tour and tasting Ferry Building, Embarcadero and Ferry Plaza, SF. www.cuesa.org. Noon, free. CUESA’s market chef Elianna Friedman will give you a chef’s eye view of the season’s best food offerings, and share pointers for prepping the spoils of the harvest in your kitchen. The event’s end will bring you dish samples, and a recipe to take home.

San Jose Blues Week Various venues, San Jose. www.sjbluesweek.com. Through July 15. This week celebrates the importance of musicians to the community by featuring some of the best local artists. Join the opening night party, which will feature foot-stomping blues band Tip of the Top.

Cash your bowl

Andrew Lam

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July 3, 2012

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caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE It’s time to get a Discover card. As of July 1, you can no longer use your Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card to buy medical marijuana. And of course, American Express cards have been out of the question since spring 2011. Electronic Merchant Systems, which handles card processing for most of the nation, sent out an announcement last month to its vendors, raising the stakes for dispensaries across the country that seem to be coming under a coordinated federal attack. Cash-only cannabis? That’s pretty bad, maybe just as bad as the next thing I have to tell you about…

MORE BAD NEWS

The Vapor Room is closing. Yes, the perennial Best of the Bay-winning, nine-year old Lower Haight dispensary-lounge (607 Haight, SF. www.vaporroom.com) will be closing its doors as of July 31, according to the nonprofit’s executive director Martin Olive. Olive told the Guardian in a phone interview that the dispensary learned an undisclosed amount of time ago that its landlord had received one of the doom-bearing letters now so familiar to San Francisco dispensaries from US Attorney Melinda Haag declaring that the dispensary was within 1,000 feet of Duboce Park. The city’s permitting laws, Olive told us, are concerned with how far cannabis clubs are from playgrounds, not park grounds. Vapor Room has a long-standing relationship with the Harvey Milk Rec Center that anchors the park — the nonprofit actually sponsors free yoga classes and health counseling that take place in the center itself. Olive wouldn’t confirm rumors that Vapor Room’s stock will continue to be available for delivery, but that’s the word on the street.

PLEASE NO MUNCHIES JOKES

The “bath salts” face-eater didn’t have any bath salts in his system. In fact, the only drug authorities uncovered through post-humous tests was cannabis.

UNDISCLOSED THING

As an events editor, organizations that don’t send us the vital information we need to cover their event are the bane of my existence. It is another thing entirely, however, when an organization requests that vital information be kept out of the newspaper. A sign of the times when it comes to cannabis journalism, I’m afraid. And as such: check out a happy hour benefit at El Rio for “an organization supporting low-income, AIDS-HIV, and cancer patients with free medicine.” Sigh. It’ll be running semi-concurrently with pop-up Mugsy Wine Bar’s hat-tip to Bastille Day (5:30pm-8:30pm). Drown your frustrations with some nice sparkling Blanc de Noir Cremant de Bourgnone, why don’t you.

Fri/13 4pm-6pm, free. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com

AND FINALLY

Search YouTube for “Conan O’Brien and Martha Stewart Get Crafty with Pot.” Discussion question: for all the weirdness that you just read, is marijuana becoming more or less accepted in mainstream culture?

Real swell year

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 3, 2012

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emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC In Jimmie Rodgers’ 1930s-era song “The One Rose,” the country music pioneer wistfully croons “So blue, so lonesome too, but still true/Rosie haunts me, makes me think of you/You’re the one rose that’s left in my heart.”

Midway through Mornin’ Old Sport’s surreptitiously upbeat, plucky country-folk ditty “Katie” — off the contemporary band’s debut self-titled full-length, released July 10 on Misery Loves Co. — singer-guitarist Scott Nanos harmonizes with fiance-bandmate Kate Smeal about their complex love story. “The shadows are calling my number/I know I’m just waiting in line/but I’ll sing my vows as I’m pulled underground/I’m Katie’s and Katie is mine.”

Complicated love, it seems, is universal. While the song is toe-tapping fun, like a candlelit county fair square dance with checkered tablecloths and corked bottles of homemade moonshine at the ready, the message is a bit deeper: I’m in burning love, but eternal commitment could drag me to an untimely death of spirits.

And yet, “It is very loving,” Nanos insists over a pitcher of beer near Embarcadero, mere weeks before the band’s summer tour. “It doesn’t really sound that happy to me,” Smeal laughs after repeating the hook. “Fatalism and love are the same,” Nanos returns.

“It’s just a really sad love song,” Smeal concedes.

Mornin’ Old Sport is not solely based on this core romantic relationship, there are other types of connections in the now-Oakland based band, those of the blood-brother variety. Like the one between Nanos and fellow Berklee College of Music classmate Jeff Price — the band’s drummer who helped produce the album, which Price’s real brother mastered in their parent’s Colorado recording studio. The Price family runs the small Misery Loves Co. record label (the father was a session musician beginning in the 1960s).

Nanos and Price have been making music together since the first day of college in Boston in 2006, and have been living together just as long. There, at the Massachusetts music school, the band began in earnest — but with a twist. While it started with a few more members, the name Wiffle Bat, and a wholly different sound (Smeal describes it as “circus indie rock”), it eventually whittled to the Mornin’ Old Sport trio.

The three say they organically fell into the music they make now, which is reminiscent of pre-war Americana, early country, jazzy standards, the vaudevillian spirit of Tin Pan Alley, and twangy folk, with influences like Gene Autry, June Carter and Johnny Cash, Lefty Frizzell, Doris Day, the aforementioned Jimmie Rodgers, and Hank Williams. But have they wedged themselves into a vintage corner?

“I was thinking about this the other day, because it is something that mentally I’ve confronted within myself,” says Nanos. “But everything that’s coming out right now is derivative; it’s derivative of the ’80s, or chillwave is slightly derivative of the late ’70s psychedelia, and late ’60s. It’s just a matter of what you’re using as a jumping-off point.”

Nanos’ major at Berklee — music therapy — was one factor leading to these earlier eras as jumping points.

“My field work in music therapy stirred up a romance with 1930s, ’40s, and even ’50s music because I was doing a lot of work with older adults, ages 60 to 90. So I’d do Tin Pan Alley songs, and maybe some Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald,” says Nanos. “I really started to fall in love with those styles, of which Kate was already a huge, avid fan.”

Adds Smeal, “My parents always sang to me, and then I started studying jazz in early high school — that lead the way for me because I really enjoy old throwback country music that has jazz elements to it.”

“I think our relationship and also music therapy made me enamored with vintage music,” Nanos concludes.

Now there’s yet another relationship to take into consideration: Mornin’ Old Sports’ new connection with the Bay Area. Nanos, Smeal, and Price moved out West this February and fell in love with Oakland. “We moved for romantic reasons…” Nanos says. Smeal smiles, “and now we’re staying for the same.” They tend to do that, finish each other thoughts. Price often laughs, nodding along.

In playing Oakland and Berkeley co-ops, house parties, and warehouses, they’ve just begun absorbing the local scene, and through the shows recently added two new members to the group — bassist Jack Kodros and guitarist Mike Schlenoff. Currently, the five musicians are out on the road for their first big tour, lugging those brand new vinyl records in the hot van. The debut was officially released this week, while the band makes its way through the Midwest.

Recorded mostly live in Price’s family studio just north of Aspen last year, the record is a promising and pleasurable debut, straddling vintage genres, and mixing up vocal duties. Nanos often leads, but Smeal shines on jazzy torch songs, “Over the Moon” and “My Lips,” along with swooshing if maudlin country track “Clementine.”

Standout track, “When the Bomb” boasts some icky lyrical imagery “when the bomb finally drops/I’ll splatter on the wall/But when that bomb finally drops/It won’t hurt me at all,” yet musically remains sticky-lemonade-sweet and cheery.

There’s a timelessness to all this. “When the Bomb” has such a nostalgic tug, it’s difficult to believe it’s not a cover. But that’s part of the charm in these songs, the reverence to the past and the relative simplicity of those feisty chords.

“If you took a Beach House song or something and wrote out chord changes for it, melody line, someone would [still] have a really tough time recreating it,” says Nanos. “Whereas I feel like the kind of song we’re aiming to write, we can write a chart for someone and be like, ‘here you go, just go play it.’ I like the social values of that.”

As for band hopes of that nature, Smeal has a lofty one: “The ultimate goal of the band is to make art that will stay alive years and years after we’re dead.”

“And that will most likely never happen,” Nanos interjects as Price chuckles, “but that’s the goal.” *

Show trial

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 3, 2012

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER The set (by Beowulf Boritt) is almost unassuming in its simplicity: just a trio of receding frames arching over the stage, each progressively more askew, and beneath them a jumble of aluminum chairs piled to one side. Still, such simplicity also hints at, and soon delivers, rich complexity.

The chairs become many things over the course of the evening but first of all a bus stop, where an African American woman (C. Kelly Wright) in 1950s dress waits and remembers. This mute opening scene then gives way to a reverie and nightmare — a memory and history that take the form of a highly fraught “entertainment” — as a man in a white suit and a black string bow tie (Hal Linden), invariably recalling the Old South if only via the emblem of a certain fast-food chicken franchise, comes onto the stage and pronounces the start of the show.

That would be a minstrel show, a notorious artifact of 19th and 20th century American popular culture, which returns with subversive vengeance in The Scottsboro Boys — the iridescent 2010 Broadway musical by the famed song-making team of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb, in collaboration with equally-no-slouch associates David Thompson (book) and Susan Stroman (director and choreographer). Making an impressive Bay Area debut at American Conservatory Theater, The Scottsboro Boys revisits the trials and the international cause célèbre sparked by the false accusation of rape leveled by two white women at nine freight-train–hopping African American youths (all teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 19) in Depression-era Alabama.

If this seems a heavy subject for a musical, that hardly prevents The Scottsboro Boys from being exquisitely well wrought and enthralling, thanks to an excellent score (channeled wonderfully by Eric Ebbenga’s pit orchestra), Stroman’s devilishly potent staging and choreography, and a strikingly multifaceted, charismatic cast that includes a memorable Clifton Duncan as Haywood Patterson, upon whose memoir, Scottsboro Boy, the narrative partly draws (David Bazemore, Cornelius Bethea, Nile Bullock, Christopher James Culberson, Eric Jackson, Jared Joseph, James T. Lane, JC Montgomery, Clifton Oliver, and Clinton Roane make up the rest of the outstanding ensemble).

At the same time, it’s precisely the mesh-clash of form and content —recalling similar canny deployments of popular theatrical forms Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret and Chicago — that makes Scottsboro a vigorous, if sometimes simplified excavation of the case, as well as this country’s ongoing convolutions over race, sex, ethnicity, and class. A productive tension arises between the show’s exquisite spectacle and the often uncomfortable, even macabre content of the storyline. In just one example, a winning tap number erupts in the young men’s shared jail cell, inspired by the terrifying proximity of the electric chair. So charged a number generates as much thought as emotion, as the audience shifts uneasily in a place where popular entertainment mingles pleasure and complicity, truth and artifice.

The subversive appropriation of minstrelsy is not unique to Scottsboro —there’s the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 1965 production of Minstrel Show, Or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel, Suzan-Lori Parks’ use of minstrel tropes in Topdog/Underdog and The America Play, and Spike Lee’s 2000 film Bamboozled, for instance — but the musical deploys it with its own intent, humanizing the young men whose lives were permanently altered by their arrest and the subsequent trials, which became international news when the Communist-led International Labor Defense got involved, sending in celebrated New York attorney Samuel Liebowitz as the new defense counsel. That the trials were themselves the lesser evil in a white Southern regime of lynching and mob justice (waiting, essentially, just outside the walls of the jailhouse) is never lost on the audience either.

Thompson’s admirable book, meanwhile, in the figure of the woman at the bus stop (an unnamed Rosa Parks) bearing witness to the events of the past, draws a line from the Scottsboro case to the later Civil Rights Movement. But, ironically, the use of Rosa Parks obscures as much as it reveals if we think of her as a lone actor who sparks a revolt against an unjust system. She too was a member of a movement culture, one that had built on the activism of the 1930s that first brought the Scottsboro case to light. *

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS

Extended through July 22, $20-$95

American Conservatory Theater

415 Geary, SF

www.act-sf.org