Pixel Vision Archives — Page 122 of 133 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Divas get desperate … for love

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September 26, 2007

Twelve famed drag queens. One pageant. BLOOD!

This Saturday, gather in awe at Most Holy Redeemer in the Castro to witness the unveiling of the 2008 Desperate Diva calendar — all proceeds benefitting the AIDS Housing Alliance — and watch Misses January-December duke it out live on stage over who has the most… er…. dates? I forget what they win, but it’s something.

The one and only Heklina of Trannyshack hosts, and feathers will fly! I love that MAC’s a sponsor …

Desperate Divas 2008 Grand Drag Pageant
Saturday September 29th, 7 – 11 PM, $15 advance/ $20 door
Most Holy Redeemer Ellard Hall
100 Diamond in The Castro
MORE INFO

‘Sup, Sunday

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September 26, 2007

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By Soo Oh

If you have the privilege of living in California — home to a wealth, nay, an embarrassment, of agricultural riches — then eating locally farmed products isn’t only your right, it’s practically a duty. The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) is holding their fifth annual Sunday Supper this weekend at the eminently cool Ferry Building off the Embarcadero, featuring family-style dinners by the Bay’s finest chefs, cooked up from the produce sold at the Ferry Plaza Market. Proceeds go toward funding the market, where California farmers traffic in the perfectly legal trade of fresh, organic produce.

Tickets for the reception and four-course supper are still available, so check it out: www.cuesa.org/events/sunday_supper_2007.php

Showbears in Seattle

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September 25, 2007

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I’m getting a hairy kick this afternoon from this little promo, entitled “Showbears: Auditions,” for the 2007 Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Fest, happening in October. And not just because one of my fabulous exes, Jerrod Littlejohn, is the star. But kind of because of that!

(We remain the best of friends.) PANTS BACK UP!

Your prose is going down

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September 25, 2007

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By Chris DeMento

Opium Magazine out of New York City hosted its third Literary Death Match here in SF last Wednesday night, and barring some ridiculously bad jokes on the part of the MC [an Opium bloke whose name escapes me], it was a pretty good time — and well worth the five-dollar admission.

Regina Louise opened the event with a half-sung, half-spoken childhood reminiscence about growing up in a foster home, giving it entirely from memory. Kelly Beardsley also worked without a text, relaying a funny but over-long oral account of picking up the Rolling Stones from the airport in a bus when she worked as an on-call driver for a pick-up service. Carol Queen read a tale she’d concocted about a babysitter who likes to hump her male employer; Her piece was impressive — brave, even — on account of its anti-pathology, vanquishing any trace of teenage guilt and inviting the audience to explore, as she put it, the “friendship naked” between the adolescent [retrospect] narrator and her adult lover.

Winner! Lovin’ the Big & Tall wordcraft of one Bucky Sinister.

Grr. Argh. Addict.

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September 25, 2007

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It’s official. I have a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” problem.

Sure, I’ve been obsessed with the Joss Whedon television show for years. I’ve been watching it every single night before I go to sleep (bedtime stories?) since I moved to San Francisco in February. I even once admitted during an Eating Disorder recovery meeting that I thought I was replacing my addiction to dieting with an addiction to watching the slayer kick demon ass.

But last weekend I took my Buffylove to a new level. I paid a ridiculous amount of money for two tickets to the live action, Rocky Horror-style screening and singalong of “Once More With Feeling,” the musical-themed (and pretty much everyone’s favorite) episode from Season 6. Not that the tickets themselves were expensive – oh no. At face value, they were $12 each. Perfectly reasonable. Me? I paid $90. Per ticket. Without flinching. Of course, I was too embarrassed to admit it to my partner in crime, Camille, so I paid for her ticket too. Which means I spent $180 to see a movie.

A moment of silence

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September 24, 2007

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(tear)

“Undead fraggle”

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September 24, 2007

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“What the heck do those lazy, pot-smoking, kinky- (possibly gay-) sex-having ‘progressives’ who work at the Bay Guardian do all day?” is a REALLY good question. Allow us to take you behind the scenes, for one lightning-flash moment. A peek through the green curtain, as it were.

Today’s blogtastic, syntagmatic Pixel Vision journey is brought to you by the letter S.

S as in Slayer.

One of our esteemed colleagues (cough-Eddy-cough) was sporting a nifty number in line with her kick-ass metal tastes, that looked akin to this:

Or this:

(The intellectual smoke was flying so fast from her that she couldn’t stay still long enough for me to get a pic.)

It was remarked by another member of our staff (sneeze-Duncan-sneeze) that Slayer’s mascots often resembled “undead fraggles.”

Solo Supper

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September 24, 2007

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By Amber Peckham

Dining out alone is, for me, one of the most socially awkward experiences imaginable. Now, I don’t mean dining out at a fast food joint or anything like that; I’m talking about dining out for real, with tables and menus and cloth napkins. I usually try to avoid dining out alone at all costs. I will go hungry for hours until I have someone to eat with, because in my mind, a meal is an experience you are supposed to share; and if I’m alone while I eat, it’s usually all I can think about.

(I would like to interject here that I don’t have any problem being by myself. In fact, I usually prefer it. That whole “afraid of their own thoughts, has to surround themselves with people” thing does not and never has applied to me. I just hate eating alone. I grew up in a family who ate together.)

On one particular day, though, waiting for company wasn’t an option. I was alone in Japan Town on a crazy quest for dishes, and I needed to refuel. My stomach had been set on udon noodles for about an hour, but before I could get them, I actually had to locate a restaurant, go in, sit down, and order. Alone.

Diamonds are a skull’s best friend? Skulls are in!

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September 23, 2007

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Damien Hirst might have “created” the most notorious and expensive one, but he’s far from alone: skulls are on display everywhere right now, within galleries, on record covers, and spray-painted on the wall next door. Behold this onslaught of skull imagery, collected from current art shows and some recent reissued albums and labels. Dia de los Muertos beckons, yet there’s a serious sinister present-day political element to at least some of this work. Add your skullbitchery, skullduggery and skull contribution suggestions to the comments section below.

For the Love of God by Damien Hirst. This platinum-cast skull, covered with 8601 pave-set diamonds, recently sold for $100,000,000.

At Cheim & Read in New York, “I Am As You Will Be: The Skeleton in Art” includes pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Hirst, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Above is Alice Neel’s Self Portrait, Skull, from 1958.

Tonight on KQED: “Lumo”

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September 18, 2007

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A young woman struggles to heal from the aftereffects of a traumatic rape in Lumo, a moving documentary about a tragically common occurrence in the Congo, “where rape is used as a weapon of war.” In Lumo’s case, she develops a fistula (which makes her incontinent) and may never be able to achieve her dream of being a mother — plus, her family shuns her. Fortunately, she’s welcomed into a hospital for rape survivors, staffed by kindly doctors and counselors, and populated by other women who’ve been through similar traumas. There’s hope in recovery — but as the film points out, the horrors of violence against women in unstable nations is an ongoing, urgent problem.

Lumo airs tonight as part of the P.O.V. series on KQED Channel 9 at 11 p.m. For more information about a local organization working to help women like the film’s subjects, visit the web site for the International Pediatric Outreach Project.

Avatars smoking expensive cigars

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September 17, 2007

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By Lotto Chancellor

My avatar has a 7.5 soft, looks like the late Vonnegut Jr., and speaks French. And he can make all my delusions of grandeur come virtually true.

For those who don’t know: an avatar is a simulated, pixilated, entirely customizable web identity rendered by the programmer gods in the image of man. Websites like SecondLife.com give users the chance to guide their avatars through virtual worlds in search of racy online chatting, or perhaps a pair of those brand name cybersneakers. As real-life simulators, virtual worlds exist as meticulously detailed, fully discoverable environments, and they feature all the benefits of user-to-user interaction. You control every move your avatar makes: setting up an intimate chat with the cute avatar over there in the assless chaps, for example, or taking a stroll across town to the virtual salon, saloon, or bird sanctuary. Yep, it’s just like the real world, but one step removed.

Most controversial among virtual world sites right now is RedLightCenter.com, offering its users oodles of hedonistic cyber-experiences: puffing cheeba, fondling a paramour, or executing Cleveland Steamer…and now making money.

“Remarkable Men” at Jack Hanley

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September 17, 2007

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Monkeying around: Djordje Ozbolt’s Little Ricky.

By Amy Glasenapp

Friday night, Sept. 7, and art was in the air. Among the early evening spatter of exhibitions in the Mission District was “Meetings with Remarkable Men,” a small but salient show of paintings by Serbian artist Djordje Ozbolt. This collection made me want to trash what was left of my tepid, paper-bag-wrapped Budweiser tallboy and get a real beer, something like a Unibroue ale or a nice Belgian Leffe.

The subjects of Ozbolt’s recent work are usually people and animals – mostly zebras, horses, and giraffes – placed in creepy fairy tale settings and depicted in vivid pastel colors. His paintings are playfully sinister, if not outright morbid, and are palpably influenced by storybook illustrations. Here, all the pieces are portraits (of remarkable men, as the title of the exhibition suggests, and Ozbolt displays a sense of humor about who is, in fact, remarkable: a few paintings border on hilarity, showcasing faces marred by gaping nose-pores, dirty-yellow buck teeth, and monkey features. These particular works are decadently surrealist, almost animated – you can easily imagine those figures chortling, rolling their eyes, or noshing on bananas.

Coo-coo catchoo: The Turd Man.

Other pieces are more disturbing, such as the portrait of a face that looks more like the inside of a head. Or maybe a bowl of carefully arranged moose turds. (Later, I found the title online, **The Turd Man,** and was dismayed that my scatological interpretation wasn’t unique or far-reaching.) Ozbolt varies his style in each painting, revealing a familiarity with both classical and contemporary techniques, while every piece is intrinsically fueled by color.

“Meetings” reminded me that the portraits are still capable of provocation and engagement, especially when compared with other forms I glimpsed that night – conceptual, overcompensating work that, in a harried attempt to appear arcane, ended up ultimately banal.

King him: His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God.

“Djordje Ozbolt: Meetings With Remarkable Men” runs through Sept. 29 at Jack Hanley Gallery, 395 Valencia St., SF. (415) 522-1623,

Farewell, fingerpainter

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September 14, 2007

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Intern Amber Peckham remembers outsider artist Jimmy Lee Sudduth.

As a sixth grader on a field trip to Washington DC, I was fortunate enough to see one of Jimmy Lee Sudduth’s works, Fantastic Building, on display at the Smithsonian Institute. It was the only painting that lingered in my mind on the long drive home, simultaneously conjuring up fond memories of sand castles and horrific daydreams of prisons and boarding schools.

Fantastic Building, c.a. 1970’s, Smithsonian Institute

Intrigued, and mildly bored once summer came, I decided to further explore Sudduth’s work and was amazed by the depth of his innovation. To keep his mud paint from crumbling off the plywood he used as canvas, Sudduth mixed it with sugar, honey, and even diet Pepsi, and to color the mud he used herbs and flowers from the woods around his home, where he spent most of his youth in the company of his medicine-woman mother. He painted using only his fingers and claimed to have discovered 36 different kinds of mud in his home state of Alabama.

Throw back the throwback “Brave One”…puleeze!

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September 14, 2007

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Ms. 45 2007? Jodie Foster and her point-n-shoot.

You kind of want to like this film, because you appreciate Foster’s mini-genre of woman-alone-against-a-threatening-world;Terrence Howard’s twinkly, tear-eyed, shiny-jelly-bean cuteness; and the general ’70s-era throwback Ms. 45 tone of the entire outing. Nothing’s sexier than a gal with her gun.

But who knew Foster and director Neil Jordan were so intent on remaking 1976’s Taxi Driver for the ’00s? And how strange is it that so many of the once-grimy-Manhattan-based locales seem to be shot in Brooklyn? Thought-provoking that Foster and co. might re-imagine Iris, the child-prostitute character she so memorably played in Taxi Driver, as a prime-time radio-host cross between Terry Gross and Joe Frank who, after a traumatic encounter with deadly urban violence, finds herself reaching for her revolver again and again and again. But what next, The Warriors reset in Williamsburg? Indie-kid gangs with baseball bats rather than trucker hats?

Face it, NYC ain’t the scumpot – love it or leave it! – it used to be, making it frustrating for all Scorsese-ites who wanna revisit the bad ole days of Bernard Goetz. The Brave One blatantly references its inspiration’s Bernard Herrmann score. The initial bodega shoot-out is a dead-ringer for Travis Bickle’s initiation into gun violence in TD, with an abused-wife twist, and the final firefight cops Bickle’s bloody, uterine-like journey through the deep-red halls of a bordello. Could be intriguing, no? Except that this pro-vigilantism-in-the-guise-of-pro-victim screed really doesn’t find the complexity or lyricism of its gritty forebear. Or even the gore-hungry gutsiness of Death Wish.

P.S.: The most shocking part of seeing The Brave One at a Sundance Kabuki preview screening had to be the bookish yet blood-thirsty audience that cheered every time Jodie blew away bad guys. Shades of that recent Western Addition father-son vigilante shooting-runover nearby.

Rosh Hashanah newbie

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September 12, 2007

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Fabulous intern Amber Peckham takes in the Jewish New Year tradition for the first time.

As a Wiccan, I often get mistaken for a Jew. The percentage of people who are unable to recognize the difference in shape (and the difference in doctrine) between a five pointed star and a six pointed one is a lot larger than any intelligent member of society would like to fathom. Therefore, the opportunity to live with my Jewish relatives in San Rafael when I came to the Bay Area from Indiana was one that both amused and excited me. Here, finally, is a chance to learn firsthand about the religion that I have been being asked about since I started wearing a pentacle at fourteen.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the first holiday I will celebrate with my family during my stay. Since I am completely clueless when it comes to Judaism and its holy days, I decided to do some research into the historical and nutritional relevancy of Rosh Hashanah and its foods.

Apples, honey, and shofar

Tattoo you: David Cronenberg on ultra-violent horror, insect opera, naked knife fights, and more

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September 11, 2007

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David Cronenberg, right, and Viggo Mortensen field questions at the Toronto film festival. Photo courtesy of Yahoo News.

Body horror – that’s the cinematic genre tag that’s often been slapped on filmmaker David Cronenberg, who brushes it off like so much splattered gray matter before confessing, “I’m happy that some people think I invented my own genre or something like that. It’s kind of flattering and it’s OK.”

The engaging Toronto director took some time recently at the Ritz-Carlton to debate the reasons why he took on his latest project, Eastern Promises, discuss the dangers of directing opera, and speculate on the Slavic looks of “No Ego Viggo” Mortensen. For the first part of Cronenberg’s interview, go to “Written on the skin.” (For more on Mortensen, see “You go, I go, we all go for Viggo.”

Bay Guardian: Eastern Promises doesn’t seem like an obvious film for you.

David Cronenberg: After the fact, everything is kind of obvious, but it never is when you’re thinking about it. It had been languishing at BBC Films for some time, and it just got sent to me. I was immediately interested because it was really good writing by Steve Knight who wrote Dirty Pretty Things for Stephen Frears.

I loved the textures in the script and the characters and the sort of betrayals and the enmities – it was all very rich material, and when I read it I thought, well, Viggo would be perfect for this role of Nikolai. I’d actually thought when doing A History of Violence that he had a really Slavic look, a really Russian look, you know. He’s half Danish so maybe that’s where that comes from, I don’t know. A director spends a lot of time looking at his actors’ faces – not just on the set but in the editing room. You’re looking for each nuance, each tone, so you get to know an actor very well in a way that most people don’t relate to other people. It’s an unusual relationship.

BG: It’s the second film you’ve made with Viggo Mortensen – that’s unusual for you.

DC: Totally unusual. The only other time [was Jeremy Irons] and I don’t think it was back to back either. I’ve gotten along very well with all my leading men and women frankly – Christopher Walken, James Woods, James Spader, Ralph Fiennes, and Jeff Goldblum – we’ve all at certain points tried to do things together. But it’s difficult in terms of scheduling and even though you might be friends with an actor he’s got to feel like he can say no to a role that he just doesn’t want to do. You don’t do each other a favor by doing something just for a friendship when in fact you don’t really like the project. Likewise, I wouldn’t do an actor a favor by miscasting him just because he’s a friend.

Stuck inside of Toronto with the movie blues again

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September 11, 2007

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Day Five of the Toronto International Film Festival: I had to make a Bob Dylan pun above because today I saw I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’ tribute to the star (focusing on the young, exciting, pre-Victoria’s Secret sellout years, thankfully). There’s a lot going on here — I’m sure you’ve already heard about the gimmick of having several different actors play Dylan or Dylanesque characters. It makes for a fascinating comment on perceptions of stardom and celebrity — and art, I guess — with stirring music (duh), contrasting visual textures, and some random cameos by an enormous cast (David Cross as Allen Ginsberg — works for me). A few moments felt transcendent (Cate Blanchett was my favorite Dylan); others felt clipped from A Mighty Wind. This was maybe the only movie at the festival where I got that overwhelming, I’m-enveloped-by-this-film feeling … which is not to say I was one hundred percent in love with it. But it was plenty stirring.

Just like a … woman?

Meanwhile, unless something bedazzles me during my half-day tomorrow, I think I’m ready to declare my personal best-of-fest.

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

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September 11, 2007

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I knew there had to be a silver lining to the predictable cavalcade of hate for B_____y S____a’ VMA performance: it’s providing Chris Crocker with his biggest crossover to date.

He brings it, too, seizing the moment to let us all know what the title “Gimme More” is about and to show why Perez Hilton is worse than Paris Hilton. What in tarnation has the 21st century answer to Jonathan Caouette’s boy-self wrought? Video diaries beyond his wildest dreams.

This may make you laugh, but remember, he’s crying for us all.

“It’s meant to be funny!”

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September 10, 2007

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Day four of the Toronto International Film Fest: So, I was wrong. Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha isn’t a documentary. Hell, it doesn’t even have any voice-over. It’s a drama — a docu-drama — that reenacts a real-life Iraq war incident in which a roadside IED led to the death of one American solider — and in turn, many Iraqi civilians (including children) shot to death by the fallen soldier’s weary, emotional, and confused squadmates. Shot in Jordan, the movie goes for a Flight 93-style realism, using mostly non-actors who represent more or less the characters they portray (Al-Qaeda aside, I’m guessing.) After the doc Heavy Metal in Baghdad, Battle for Haditha is the second Iraq-themed movie I’ve seen at the Toronto International Film Festival, and there are others on the bill I won’t have time to see, like Brian DePalma’s Redacted. Iraq is totally trendy … and timely. And in my festival-addled mind, I just realized tomorrow is September 11.

Although Nick Broomfield is best-known for films like Kurt and Courtney and Biggie and Tupac, his latest is a fact-based drama, similar to his 2006 film Ghosts.

Drag queens for dessert

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September 10, 2007

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“Sharlyn melon granita, rose geranium ice cream, and lavender cookies”

— a delicious dessert at Nopa in the Western Addition, or a trio of soon-to-be-famous drag queens? Either way: scrumptious.

Lavender Cookies? Nah, it’s Ethyl Merman …..

The Bay Guardian: all drag queens, all the time.

Britney vs. Petraeus

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September 9, 2007

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Ah, a cozy Sunday night spent toggling between Britney Spears’s expectedly disappointing performance on MTV’s Video Music Awards and early word of Gen. David Petraeus’s expectedly disappointing – to those hoping for a rapid draw down of forces overseas, at least — “report on Iraq” that our dear “Austria, Australia, what’s the dif?” President will pretty much base all of his future expectedly disappointing decisions on.

Both of these media hotspots are shaping up in the mind as almost miraculously opaque; the twin poles of current American culture — celebrity and violent hubris — apexed in such highly anticipated but awkwardly non-eventful performances that the status quo can only feel impelled to continue (dribble, dribble): Ms. Spears giving us tottering, soulless blah-horridness that will provide more WTF grist for her rumor mill$ …

Praying for coverage. Screen grab from mtv.com

….and General Petraeus giving us simply a slight blah torque on Bush’s “stay the course.” (Petraeus’s recommendations before Congress tomorrow, reportedly, will be to withdraw one surge battalion by December and four more by next August – a minutely faster timetable than Bush’s “experts” had been predicting.) Of couse, Britney’s decisions haven’t killed thousands — or have they?

Braaaaaaaaiiiiinnssss!

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September 9, 2007

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i just got out of a screening of George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead. I need to let it sink in before I make some big statement about it.

Tag line is a double entendre…ya think?

But I do have a question, rhetorical or otherwise: has anyone else ever noticed there are two kinds of zombie films? There’s the serious, socio-politial statement-making kind (see: everything else Romero’s done, pretty much) and then there’s the fun-loving, zombies-are-really-pretty-silly type (see: Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead). To be fair, there’s also the zombies-are-gory-as-fuck subgenre (see: Italian-made, circa 1970s-80s. I recommend Nightmare City and Demons for a trash-tastic double feature). Anyway, my point is, I realized tonight that I actually prefer zom-coms to zom-agit-prop. (Yeah, I did like 28 Days Later. It’s not a hard and fast rule.) And Romero obviously knows he’s Making A Statement, because there’s a joke to that effect early in Diary. But what exactly is that statement, and why is he still using zombies to make it? Old-school zombies, while cool as fuck, are pretty undynamic when you think about it. Am I going to go to hell if I say I liked the Dawn of the Dead remake more than Diary of the Dead?

Things that aren’t there anymore

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September 8, 2007

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Day three of the Toronto International Film Festival, and on the heels of Control comes Joy Division, a documentary about the groundbreaking (and heartbreakingly short-lived) post-punk band. While the narrative Control busied itself more with Ian Curtis’ complicated personal life, Joy Division taks a closer look at the band’s music, rise to fame, and also the roots of their dark, moody sound — specifically, the city of Manchester in the late 1970s, where as one interviewee points out, “Nothing looked pretty.” Just about everyone still living who had anything to do with the band chimes in on the doc, which benefits from director Grant Gee’s ability to contextualize Joy Division’s place in landscapes physical, sonic, and artistic. (He also made the 1998 Radiohead doc, Meeting People is Easy.) There’s a great attention to detail — the film visits places that are crucial to Joy Division lore, like the Factory, now shut down and living on only in the collective rock n’ roll memory. Some great Joy Division peformance footage too — seeing the doc so soon after seeing Control made me truly appreciate actor Sam Riley’s portrayal of Curtis. The resemblance is pretty spooky.

Fun fact: the artist who designed this iconic album sleeve did so without ever having heard a note of Joy Division music.

Sleep is for sissies!

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September 7, 2007

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Er, actually, I shouldn’t say shit like that, considering whatever cruddy virus I carted from California to Canada is lingering, probably due to acute lack of shut-eye. I am now officially “that coughing asshole” during quiet moments in movies.

Fortunately, the flicks on my schedule today at the Toronto International Film Festival haven’t been too library-like. I hit up the 9am (ouch) screening of Heavy Metal in Baghdad — a doc about Iraq’s only heavy metal band, although at present it would seem Iraq has zero metal bands, considering the members of the outfit profiled here, Acrassicauda, are currently hiding out in Syria. Produced by VICE films, exec produced by Spike Jonze, and inspired by an MTV trip to Iraq soon after the war broke out, I could easily see this doc finding a home on VH-1 or MTV. It’s got a little too much filmmaker presence for me (voice-over, appearing on-camera, and so on), but it’s hard not to love any film that delivers a political message for the kiddies snugly wrapped in a burrito of heavy-metal appreciation (with some intimate glimpses at post-Saddam Iraq, where the sounds of machine-gun fire are just part of the urban landscape). Metal fans can’t even headbang in Iraq, much less grow their hair long for maximum hair-whip effect … but Acrassicauda (a type of scorpion) learned to speak English by listening to Slayer, Metallica, and Mayhem records. Now if that ain’t the very definition of metal, I don’t know what is.

This is the CD a band member holds up to illustrate “what life here looks like.” Dude ain’t joking, neither.