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Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

In the grand scheme of things — the $400 million budget deficit, the pending selection of a new mayor, that sort of thing — the eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center doesn’t sound like an earthshaking issue. The San Francisco Chronicle’s C.W. Nevius (who is pretty much on the wrong side of everything these days) proclaimed last week that it was just a little neighborhood tiff, nothing to do with the soul of the city.

But it annoys me as much as anything that’s happened this fall — and it says a lot about the way Gavin Newsom governs San Francisco and explains why so many of us will be so happy when he leaves town.

Let me come right out and say it: the HANC eviction is class warfare. It’s not about the appropriate use of park land or the need for a community garden. It’s about the fact that the mayor doesn’t like poor people trundling through an upscale part of town with shopping carts full of recycling.

Let me quote what Rebecca Bowe wrote in a blog post at sfbg.com:

“In its current function, the HANC Recycling Center is empowering to many different kinds of people. Most aren’t homeless. Tough-as-nails Asian grandmas show up with bags full of cans that they can exchange for some extra spending money. Urban gardeners purchase native plants in hopes of pleasing native insects and birds. People on fixed incomes get a small financial boost by turning in recyclables.

“A small number of HANC Recycling Center patrons do sleep outside. In order to earn small amounts of cash for things like food, many of them have to go digging around in garbage cans, which is gross and humiliating. Why would someone paw through the garbage for hours, battling bees and germs, and then haul smelly bottles uphill in a shopping cart just to make a few bucks? My guess is that it’s to ward off desperation. They make their own work and they get to eat.”

Let me focus on that last sentence for a second. As my friend Tiny at Poor Magazine likes to point out, being poor or homeless is a lot of work. Collecting cans, cashing them in, finding a way to survive on that minuscule income … it’s not easy. It takes as much effort and as many hours as most traditional full-time occupations.

But Newsom doesn’t want poor people in his city. He doesn’t want anyone bothering the wealthy. And he doesn’t care about facts or the public sentiment.

City residents — those folks Nevius and Newsom love to celebrate — showed up in large numbers at the Recreation and Park Commission to oppose the closure. There’s no logic to it at all; the center pays rent and creates jobs. The community gardens will cost money — and in the shade (where the center is located), it will be hard to grow much produce.

But never mind: Newsom got what he wanted. A city that will spend millions in public money on yacht races while making life on the streets that much meaner. Good riddance, Gav.

Miss SaiGon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Miss SaiGon

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE There really is a Miss Saigon inside of Miss SaiGon, but she seems to be made of plastic, if — to quote Groucho Marx — I’m any judge of horseflesh. With her motionless good cheer, the big doll looks like salvage from some airline’s marketing campaign, circa 1968. Next to her stands a kind of aqueous sculpture, with sheets of water rippling down a long glass panel.

Such kitschy drama, and we’re barely inside this Vietnamese restaurant (not to be confused with the musical of the same name). The semi-cavernous dining room — weirdly reminiscent of a dance floor in some mid-list gay bar — is screened from the street by a barricade of translucent draperies that hang from floor to ceiling with lacey, lingerie-like suggestiveness. It feels like an after-hours, members-only sale at a Victoria’s Secret warehouse.

Yet behind the bar, the wall is painted a nervy lime green — a hue that will be powerfully reminiscent (to the restaurant-minded) of Mangosteen. Mangosteen is part of the new wave of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian restaurants that have opened along Larkin Street, on the north side of Market, in recent years, while Miss SaiGon stands just steps away from old-guarder Tu Lan, which Julia Child is said to have admired. One evening, on my way to Miss Saigon, I peeked inside Tu Lan and wondered how Child even fit inside, let alone enjoyed herself, and whether the oft-told tale of her admiration might be apocryphal.

Miss SaiGon, slightly more two years old, belongs to the post-Child era, but I would guess the old doyenne would find the newer place eminently acceptable. The interior is attractive without being overbearing, the social tone is comfortable, with lots of younger people among the clientele (laptops glowing on tabletops in front of them — but aren’t laptops quaint now?), and the extensive menu is mostly excellent.

If brevity is the soul of wit as well as menu-writing, then a vast menu like Miss SaiGon’s, with so many items that they have to be numbered (including No. 4, kimchee, a ringer from Korea), is generally best approached with caution. The more dishes a kitchen has to master, the more likely it is the chefs’ attention will be diluted or that ingredients for the less-loved dishes will sit around too long — that something will go awry, in other words.

But the execution at Miss SaiGon is sharp and assured, the flavors properly balanced and amplified, like rich sound. The only exception, to my mind, was an unlikely one: slices of pork stir-fried with lemon sauce and vegetables ($9.50). The vegetables were ordinary — celery and carrots, mainly — and the lemon sauce was MIA. Instead, the dish was dominated by an unannounced walk-on: pineapple, in chunks. Pineapple is fine in piña coladas and as a supplement to lubricious activity, but as an accompaniment to pork here it was too sweet, too overwhelming, and too obvious.

Neither too sweet nor too obvious was the papaya salad ($6.50), which resembled a nest of glass shards and was fortified with shrimp and ground pork. Ground peanuts added texture, leaves of fresh mint brought their bewitching breath, and — best of all — the salad was dressed with some version of nuoc mam, the salty-tangy-sweet blend of fish sauce and vinegar that is one of Vietnamese cuisine’s signature condiments.

The prospect of cold noodles — sesame ($3.95) — on a cold night caused some consternation around the table, but there turned out to be something sufficiently warming, or at least sustaining, in the fatness of the noodles to muffle the disquiet. Sesame can have a sharpness that verges on the unpleasant, but the potentially harsh edge was blunted by the plush saltiness of fish sauce.

Even better were garlic noodles ($8.95), stir-fried with bits of boneless chicken, basil, and lemongrass — a lovely little symphony of melody and harmony, and hot to boot. Bun cha gio ($7.50) — a huge bowl filled with vermicelli noodles, egg rolls, and lettuce, with a side of nuoc mam sauce laced with carrot threads and crushed peanut — was a duet of hot (the egg rolls) and cold (everything else). And that was just fine. When it’s chilly out, you don’t quibble about whatever form warmth chooses to take, even if it’s the eternal smile on the face of a life-sized plastic doll, waving hello and goodbye to all and sundry.

MISS SAIGON

Mon.–Sat., 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

100 Sixth St., SF

(415) 522-0332

www.misssaigonsf.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Somewhat noisy

Wheelchair accessible

 

Is your food fair?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Is your food fair?

caitlin@sfbg.com

FAIR FOOD We’ve all worked in a restaurant, haven’t we? I know I have — many — and gosh if they aren’t tricky little employment situations. Overtime, what? Breaks, really? And health care — well who the hell gets health care at a restaurant?

But this being San Francisco, restaurant workers are entitled to all these things courtesy of our hard-won labor laws. Which of course doesn’t mean that workers get them all the time, but that they should. And the bars and eateries that provide these benies — along with job safety, respect, and other luxuries — should be the ones that get the business of the conscientious diner.

Until recently the identity of these decent restaurants was only obtainable by sneaking back into the kitchen to chat. But the advocacy group Young Workers United (www.youngworkersunited.org) is changing that. Its guide to SF restaurants, Dining With Justice, is now in its second year of publication, teaching those who want to know where they can get a nice meal served by someone who is happy and secure in their job.

“It’s kind of a counter to Zagat and Yelp,” YWU organizer Edwin Escobar tells me. Escobar just got done talking about his group’s campaign to a room full of City College of San Francisco students at the school’s “Turn the Tables” teach-in last week. The event was sponsored by CCSF’s labor and community studies program and featured presentations from community groups and SF’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.

To research the guide, YWU members interviewed 250 employees at 32 restaurants. The 58-question survey ranked businesses in five fields: compliance with wage and working hours laws, job mobility, job satisfaction, health and safety, and job security. Only nine businesses received stars in three or more the categories; none received five out of five.

“People think, oh, it’s San Francisco, all the workers get treated well. But that’s not the case. Restaurants and retail businesses get away with murder,” Escobar says. His organization provides labor law education and advocacy for low-wage workers around the city in an attempt to stem workplace violations.

Recently, YWU shed some light on some of the troubles faced by workers in a struggle with one of the city’s most beloved type of snack stop: the taqueria. The group helped the Latino staff of the Taqueria Azteca chain (which has locations in the Castro and Noe Valley) recoup more than $2 million in back pay from owners who had cheated them of overtime compensation and even minimal control over their schedules. Escobar says one mother involved in the legal proceedings had been given a choice by management: return to work one week after giving birth or lose her job.

“The workers who get cheated the most in San Francisco are Asian immigrants,” says Shaw San Liu, another speaker at “Turn the Tables.” Liu is a lead organizer with the Chinese Progressive Association (www.cpasf.org), which since 1970 has worked to empower the Chinatown community to deal head on with social inequities. Earlier this year, the association released a report on the state of employment in Chinatown restaurants based on one-on-one interviews with 435 workers. The results were disheartening: 50 percent had worked under-minimum wage jobs; 80 percent had been cheated out of overtime; 64 percent had received no on-the-job training; a majority had been injured on the job; and more than half were paying all medical costs out of pocket.

That’s just not cool in a town that nominally protects workers against all these things by law. Liu says CPA would like to publish a guide similar to Dining With Justice to reward responsible restaurants but has run into cultural stumbling blocks. Law-abiding businesses didn’t want to be singled out as such because, owners said, it would make their neighbors look bad. “Everyone knows minimum wage in Chinatown is $1,000 a month,” says Liu. “They didn’t want to be known as the goody two-shoes.”

There are clear challenges to improving the lot of the person serving you your brunch, burritos, and dim sum. But everyone has a part to play in making it happen. “At this point, we’re just asking consumers to be aware,” Liu says.

Efforts like Dining With Justice are a real step in the right direction. YWU plans to expand its scope next year into other city neighborhoods. “Surely there are more than just nine restaurants treating their workers right in this city. We want to know about them,” YWU organizer Tiffany Crain tells the room of students assembled before her. Crain added that if anyone in attendance works for a good employer, they should call her — just as they should call her if they are getting cheated out of wages or a healthy working environment.

“You want to make money?” Liu asked SF restaurant owners. “You’re going to make money if people think you’re a good employer.” In San Francisco, diners like to think they’re eating sustainably: organic, local, and fair to workers. Also, a chef who is happy in his or her job makes for a better dining experience.

Here are restaurants that scored four stars in Dining With Justice.

Arizmendi Bakery

1331 Ninth Ave.; (415) 566-3117, www.arizmendibakery.com

Arlequin

384 Hayes; (415) 626-1211

The Corner

2199 Mission; (415) 875-9258, www.thecornersf.com

Frjtz

590 Valencia; (415) 863-8272 and 581 Hayes; (415) 864-7654, www.frjtzfries.com

Mission Pie

2901 Mission; (415) 282-1500, www.missionpie.com

Poesia

4072 18th St.; (415) 252-9325, www.poesiasf.com

Zazie

941 Cole; (415) 564-5332, www.zaziesf.com

Ducking the cold

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Ducking the cold

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I know I’m not the only one. December rubs a lot of people the wrong way. This year, to combat my usual seasonal depression, I am moving to Norway. Oh, I’m sure I’ll be back to the Bay Area to visit, now and agin, but just in case I’m underestimating the inherent cheerfulness of Oslo and wind up coming back to live, I will of course continue to write Cheap Eats from abroad, no worries.

Then when I have finished unlocking the secrets of Norwegian cuisine, in general, and of Oslo’s burgeoning restaurant scene, in particular, I will write letters to Earl Butter again, or Cheap-Eats-length poems about how happy I am, whaling, playing Scrabble on the beach, eating lutefisk until the wee hours, and running with the moose, or whatever it is that people in Norway do for happiness.

I’m kidding of course. I would never in a million years go whaling! Didn’t you ever read Moby Dick? I did! There’s a guy in it named Queemquack, or something like that, and in the end they all get eaten to death by a whale.

Oy, my poor father, a Melville scholar, would be rolling over in his grave right now if he were 1) still reading my column and 2) dead, but he is neither, that I know of. Why, I just talked to him on the phone a little bit ago and he didn’t mention anything at all about Cheap Eats or having died.

Man, I love my dad! Happy birthday to him. When I was eight, I helped him write his dissertation. No lie, he had underlined all the participial phrases in Melville’s major works, and it was my job to tally them up — my first quantitative analysis of a major literary figure, give or take Dr. Seuss.

It’s uncanny. First I became a writer like my dad, then I became a musician like my dad, and don’t look now but I believe a couple paragraphs ago I may have established myself as a Melville scholar in my own right. Anyway, I read Moby Dick twice. Twice! (Technically I read it once as a literate adult, and leafed through it the other time, as a literary scholar who also pretty much knew how to count.)

From my mother I inherited my athleticism (which is no less dear to me than all-of-the above) and my peculiar knack for migrating north in winter and living in the woods, literally and figuratively.

You have to have good, strong legs, like mine and mom’s, to run with moose, don’t you know. And you have to be at least a little bit crazy, as I understand it, to eat lutefisk. Especially when you can just stay here and have burritos.

Or, actually, I’m kind of stuck on duck noodle soup now. Again. It being cold season. And I was house- and dog-sitting for Crawdad for a while in Berkeley, where there are a lot more duck soups to be had than here in the Mission. Not to mention Oslo.

All kidding aside, although I did briefly consider going home for the holidays this year, I’ve decided to weather them here where my turntable is. I don’t have any records anymore, but I do have my kitten, Stoplight. And if I turn my turntable on, with Stoplight on top of it, the result is more entertaining than Merle Haggard or anything.

It should be enough to get me through the darkest time of year.

But I wonder if old Merle ever had duck noodle soup with three scoops of hot sauce in it, or hung around with lesbians. For the former, my current recommendation is Your Place on University Avenue.

It’s on the lunch menu, for like $7, but probably they’ll give it to you any time of day. And it’s a big bowl, with rice noodles, no-bone roast duck, celery, green onions, cilantro, and maybe even a few spinach leaves.

Very very very good. Nice place, friendly service.

Then you can always go to last week’s new favorite restaurant, Lao Thai, for a bowl of sweet duck soup for dessert. In this very way, I will hop, skip, and waddle my way to March, and warmth, and happiness, and hopefully I hope a li’l love.

If we make it through December …

YOUR PLACE THAI CUISINE

Daily 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m.

1267–71 University, Berk.

(510) 548-9781

MC,V

Beer and wine

 

alt.sex.column: Bay watch

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
alt.sex.column: Bay watch

Dear Andrea:

Our children are grown and it’s just us now, so my wife and I started to indulge in a nude lifestyle here in South Florida. We go to a secluded beach and our sexual adventures increase each time, to the point we are being viewed by others occasionally, mainly by men. All are attracted to my wife.

My fantasy started with me thinking how hot it would be to have one lick her while were making out on the beach. She openly talks about my fantasy to excite me but when someone walks by and I say “Would that work?” she generally offers some reason for why it wouldn’t. Last week I saw a guy walking our way, so I covered her eyes with her bikini top then began saying out loud I need a pussy licker. He smiled but continued walking. After he passed I rolled her over to do her doggy style then noticed he was walking back and had removed his Speedo. She went flat on her tummy on the blanket till he passed. So my question is, is my fantasy a possibility? Would a blindfold be the key for her to enjoy the experience? And is having one man lick her to orgasm while making out with another something a woman might enjoy?

We have been together almost five years and married 11 months.

Love,

Beach Bum

Dear Bum:

Right, and now your children are grown and you are old enough to have problem getting it up, and … oh, never mind. We all know this is fantasy. Let’s not spilt fantasy hairs.

Here is what your fantasy wife is trying to tell you, both in your fantasy and in whatever may have happened in real life to spur you to write this: she is turned on by the casual interest of other men. She is turned on by your being turned on by her being so hot that random passing guys are turned on by her. She did not “go flat on her tummy” by accident (or wouldn’t if this really happened). She does not want those guys to go down on her while you two make out. If she did, she would say so.

I don’t believe that this (if it happened) is one of those cases where a little shedding of inhibition is all she needs. This is not 1970s porn flick starring Georgina Spelvin. This is real life (unless it isn’t) and she is an uninhibited woman (if she exists) and it has been discussed and she doesn’t want to do it.

Even my kids, who are four, eventually believe me when I say such and such a thing isn’t going to happen. Grown men shouldn’t take longer than a four-year-old to believe a person who’s saying, “No, dear. I know you want it and I understand that this is frustrating for you, but I said no.”

And that is that. Unless, of course, it was the Speedo that turned her off. It has been known to happen.

Love,

Andrea

Got a question? Email Andrea at andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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12
Going to a club — or boarding an airplane?

news@sfbg.com

The War on Fun — a term coined by the Guardian in 2006 to describe the crackdowns on nightclubs, special events, and urban culture by police, NIMBY neighbors, and moderate politicians — continues to grind on in San Francisco.

The latest attack was launched by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Police Department, which has proposed a series of measures to monitor and regulate individuals who visit bars or entertainment venues, proposals that the embattled Entertainment Commission will consider at its Dec. 14 meeting.

Perhaps most controversial among the dozens of new conditions that the SFPD would require of nightclubs is an Orwellian proposal to require all clubs with an occupancy of 100 persons or more to electronically scan every patron’s identification card and retain that information for 15 days. Civil libertarians and many club owners call this a blatantly unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

Driving the latest calls for a crackdown is a stated concern over isolated incidents of violence outside a few nightclubs in recent years, something Newsom and police blame on the clubs and that they say warrants greater scrutiny by police and city regulators.

But the proposals also come in the wake of overzealous policing of nightclubs and parties — including improper personal property destruction and seizures, wrongful arrests and violence by police, harassment of disfavored club operators, and even dumping booze down the drain — mostly led by SFPD Officer Larry Bertrand and his former partner, Michelle Ott, an agent with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Those actions were documented in back-to-back cover stories by the Guardian (“The New War on Fun,” March 24) and SF Weekly (“Turning the Tables,” March 17), and they are the subject of multiple ongoing lawsuits by nightclub owners, patrons, and employees, including a racketeering lawsuit alleging that officials are criminally conspiring against lawful activities.

Yet rather than atoning for that enforcement overreach, Newsom and SFPD officials seem to be doubling down on their bets that San Franciscans will tolerate a more heavily policed nightlife scene in the hopes of eliminating the possibility of random violence.

A series of nighttime shootings this year has grabbed headlines and prompted calls to action by the Mayor’s Office and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, whose District 3 includes North Beach. In February, there were shootings at Blue Macaw in the Mission and Club Suede at Fisherman’s Wharf, followed by a shooting at the Pink Saturday fair in June, one outside Jelly’s in SoMa in July, and the high-profile murder of a German tourist near Union Square in August.

Chiu responded with legislation to give the Entertainment Commission greater authority to close down problem nightclubs and, more recently, with legislation to require party promoters to register with the city so that officials can take actions against those who act irresponsibly.

In September, Newsom asked the SFPD for its recommendations and he received a laundry list of proposals now before the Entertainment Commission. That body held a closed session hearing Nov. 30 to discuss a confidential legal opinion by the City Attorney’s Office on whether the identification scan would pass constitutional muster, an opinion that has so far been denied to the Guardian and the public, although officials say it may be discussed in open session during the Dec. 14 hearing.

“Everything is being considered,” Jocelyn Kane, acting executive director of the Entertainment Commission, told the Guardian. Her office already has looked at the different types of scanners that clubs could use and has discussed the idea with several technology companies.

SFPD Inspector Dave Falzon, the department’s liaison to the nightclubs and ABC, told the Guardian that he believes the data gathered from nightclub patrons would allow police to more easily find witnesses and suspects to solve any crimes committed at or near the nightclubs.

“It’s not intended to be exploited,” Falzon said, stressing that the recommendations are a work in progress and part of an ongoing dialogue with the Entertainment Commission — an agency Newsom, SFPD officials, and some media voices have been highly critical of over the last two years.

Along with the proposal for the ID scanners, SFPD proposed many other measures such as increased security personnel (including requiring clubs to hire more so-called 10-B officers, or SFPD officials on overtime wages), metal detectors at club entrances, surveillance cameras at the entrances and exits, and extra lighting on the exterior of the night clubs.

Though this may sound to many like heading down the dystopian rabbit hole with Big Brother potentially watching your every move, Falzon thinks it’s the opposite. “It isn’t that police department is acting as a militant state,” Falzon said. “All we’re trying to do is to make these clubs safer so they can be more fun.”

Yet critics of the proposals don’t think they sound like much fun at all, and fear that employing such overzealous policing tools will hurt one of San Francisco’s most vital economic sectors while doing little to make anyone safer.

Jamie Zawinski is the owner of the DNA Lounge, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. He has been a leading voice in pushing back against the War of Fun, including running a blog that chronicles SFPD excesses. He said the proposed regulations go way too far.

“It’s gang violence happening on the street. The nightclubs are being scapegoated. You don’t solve the problem by increased security in the clubs,” Zawinski told us, adding that the lack of proper policing on the streets should be addressed before putting the financial strain on the entertainment industry.

“It’s ridiculously insulting. I will not do that to my customers. It’s not a way to solve any problems,” Zawinski said. “It sets the tone for the evening when you start demanding papers.”

It’s also a gross violation of people’s rights, says Nicole Ozer, the director of Technology and Civil Liberties Policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. She said that recording people’s personal information when they enter a public venue raises troubling legal issues.

“There are some real implications of tracking and monitoring personal data. The details of what you visit reveal things about your sexuality and political views,” Ozer said, adding that the ACLU would also have issues with how that information is used and safeguarded.

In response to police crackdowns on nightlife, club owners and advocates earlier this year formed the California Music and Culture Association (CMAC) to advocate for nightlife and offer advice and legal assistance to members. CMAC officials say they are concerned about the latest proposals.

“The rise in violence has to be looked at from a societal point of view,” said Sean Manchester, president of CMAC and owner of the nightclub Mighty. He noted that most of the violence that has been associated with nightclubs took place in alleys and parking lots away from the bars and involved underage perpetrators. “In many instances [the increased security measures] wouldn’t have done anything to stop it,” he said.

While there are plenty of ideas to combat crime at nightclubs, nightlife advocates say the city is going to have to look beyond club venues to address what can be done to combat crime without infringing on any civil liberties or damaging the vibrant nightlife. Or officials can just listens to the cops, act on their fears, and make the experience of seeing live music in San Francisco more like boarding an airplane.

The Entertainment Commission meets Dec. 14 at 6:30 p.m., Room 400, City Hall.

Appetite: Hungry for Change

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Hungry for Change

“Change the world with everything you buy”. This is the tag line behind the inspiring Trade as One, a Northern California-based organization that promotes sustainable businesses in poor, marginalized communities. Whether you look at it as a way of giving during the holidays or as a new year’s resolution, it’s an ideal time to try a new program that could be habit-forming.

Trade as One recently launched a monthly subscription called Hungry for Change. Delivered to your door every month is a box including 4-5 foods, a recipe, and additional surprise items. The month I tried the box, it included Canaan sun-dried Palestinian couscous, Glorybee comapi honey, Canaan Palestinian za’atar herbs, and Kopali dark chocolate-covered espresso beans. The additional “surprise” gifts? A Divine chocolate candy bar, a greeting card featuring an artistic photo of a fair trade farmer, and a handy little book, The Better World Shopping Guide. The book is full of incredibly helpful lists and company ratings for best and worst offenders in purchasing everyday items from hair care to paper, alongside supermarket or airline choices.

A subscription is $33 a month or $99 for three months. Add on Coffee Club – http://tradeasone.com/get_involved/hungry_for_change/details (choose regular or decaf) and 1-3 bags of fair trade coffee are included with your monthly shipment. A card detailing the story behind one of the producers in the package brings it home, making it personal. Trade as One’s holistic approach urges changing buying habits. As they say on the back of their greeting cards, we can “fix problems instead of perpetuate them” by using our consumer power to positively affect change. I can think of few better food gifts to a friend, yourself and the world.

www.tradeasone.com

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot: www.theperfectspotsf.com

Appetite: Delicious giving

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Delicious giving

FOR THE WINO Secrets of the Sommeliers by Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay — Secrets of the Sommeliers, a new book from local SF treasures (sommelier extraordinaire Rajat Parr and drink writer Jordan Mackay is the best wine book to come across my desk in awhile. Stories from a range of the world’s best somms and winemakers stand alongside insights on tasting, purchasing, storing, pairing, ordering and serving wine. Sections “Thinking Like A Sommelier” and “The Wine List” deliver a true insider’s perspective and expertise. This intelligent, understated book is a must for any wine lover, budding or educated.

FOR THE TIKI FANATIC Beachbum Berry Remixed by Jeff Berry — Whether a retro tiki fanatic or one who prefers drinks reminiscent of an island getaway, this book from modern-day master of tropical cocktails, Jeff Berry (aka Beachbum Berry), satiates. Colorful vintage photos and graphics illumine mid-century history and tiki culture. I’ve tried out a number of the recipes on friends, some from top bartenders, many classic, never-before-published or “lost” exotic drink recipes. I have not run across one yet that is less than crowd-pleasing. Remixed combines Berry’s first two books, Grog Log and Intoxica!, adding 107 recipes for one comprehensive collection.

FOR THE CONSCIENTIOUS COOK Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights: Recipes for Every Season, Mood, and Appetite by Sophie Dahl — A cookbook by a famous model is among the last places I’d look to as a cooking inspiration (I’m skeptical enough of ultra-skinny cooks like Giada). But Dahl is no typical model, having written three books and as a self-professed, avid eater. She’s the daughter of brilliant writer Roald Dahl and actress Patricia Neal. Her oft-discussed weight, modeling at real world sizes (like 10), convinces me she understands “voluptuous”. Her recipes may not be the most challenging on the shelf, rather they are approachable as the book’s layout is charming. Dahl she does not eat red meat: there’s plenty here for a vegetarian. Whether you’re making brown rice risotto with pumpkin or something as simple as flapjacks, Dahl’s personable approach draws you in while her seasonal recipes comfort.

FOR THE DRINK AFICIONADO Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits by Jason Wilson — Though Boozehound by Washington Post’s spirits columnist Jason Wilson contains over 50 drink recipes, it is more a study on a range of spirits, history mixed with personal experience. His journeys to distilleries around the globe play as engaging travelogue, with breakthrough moments sipping an unusual liqueur or uncovering hype around others. It’s like reading a food memoir but with drink as the backdrop and instigator. The chapter “Bitter is Bella” made me miss Italy’s fabulously bitter palate; I began craving aquavit and bacalao reading Water of Life. His stories of researching tequila in Jalisco, Mexico, or chatting with Borje Karlsson (Karlsson’s Gold Vodka) rekindle my own memories. He explores sips as far-ranging as bianco vermouth, sloe gin, Barolo Chinato and pisco. There is education here, certainly, but via a pleasurable, relaxing read. Like a fine drink, at its finish, I found myself thirsty for more.

FOR THE COCKTAILIAN Speakeasy: The Employees Only Guide to Classic Cocktails Re-Imagined by Jason Kosmas & Dushan Zaric – An elegant book from bartenders behind Employees Only (http://www.employeesonlynyc.com/) in NYC’s West Village, this book lists a range of recipes from classics (e.g. the Martinez) to new drinks that play like classics, such as the Provencal. We have seen compendiums of classic recipes before, but this one ups the game with thoughtful directions and NY flair. Four sections cover categories like aperitifs, punches, cordials and homemade syrups. Inspired by Prohibition-era speakeasies, these two were doing “speakeasy” long before it became a trend. As they state in the section Mastering the Perfect Cocktail: “Every Cocktail Has A Story.” Speakeasy helps you tell stories through the preparation of a drink.

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

Appetite: Coffee’s new shining star? It’s Ma’velous

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Coffee’s new shining star? It’s Ma’velous

Cheesy puns aside, Ma’velous is truly that. Kudos to Phillip Ma and his new coffee and wine bar, which I’d be ecstatic to have in my own neighborhood. This coffee haven on Market Street (near Civic Center) is worth heading out of your way for. No, there is nothing else like it, even in a city of fabulous coffee.

The space is blessedly unique with graffiti artwork, pressed tin ceilings, retro-modern reclaimed furniture, textured floors, nooks with chairs, a couch, tables. The setting inspires but the coffee elevates.

Bean choices included beloveds like Intelligentsia and Ecco but also rare Tim Wendelboe from Norway. Wendelboe’s coffee is huge in Norway and this is the about the only place to get it in the States.

The preparation options are where it gets truly exciting for any coffee geek or the curious. You might want a Kyoto iced coffee or to have it prepared via siphon, V60, Beehouse pour over, French press, or Chemex. Then there’s their custom-made La Marzocco espresso machine. The staff is well-trained to create coffee in all forms.

A favorite already is an exquisite espresso made with Tim Wendelboe beans. I’m delighted by a “palette tasting bar” where you can sample coffees prepared three ways or three different brews. Their hot chocolate, made with local TCHO chocolate, is initially airily dark, becoming more rich and silky as you near the bottom of the cup.

Ma’velous is a shining new star in the coffee firmament, thankfully doing it differently than other greats in town. I love it so much I want to be a regular.

Ma’velous
1408 Market, SF
www.maveloussf.com

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

alt.sex.column: The fandango

Andrew Lam
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alt.sex.column: The fandango

Dear Andrea:

I am a 38-year-old man who doesn’t have regular sexual partners (basically my whole life) and as a result am a chronic masturbator. Unfortunately, it seems lately when I am in a sexual situation I turn into a minute-man and come within seconds after sexual contact. Never mind intercourse, I’m talking about getting a blow job and shooting my load before my partner even has a chance to gag on my shaft.

What can one do to increase stamina after training one’s self to ejaculate so quickly (meaning I stopped doing 30-minute jack-off sessions in favor of watching a five- or 10 minute porn scene)?

Love,

Minute Man

Dear Man:

I am trying to answer your question, I really am. First, though, I have to stop hating you. This may prove difficult (OK, “hate” may be a bit heavy). Do you think it may have something to do with your phrase “shooting my load before my partner even has a chance to gag on my shaft?” I do! Even the phrases “squeezing one out” and “shooting my load” are vaguely nauseating, but “gag on my shaft” can trigger my gag reflex from here, at what I hope is a considerable distance.

I feel better now. You, I imagine, feel worse, but that cannot be helped. Now, what’s going on with you, and what can we do about it? You probably put your own finger on it when you referred to “training yourself.” It is indeed common, for men (boys, usually) to train themselves to achieve orgasms efficiently, as opposed to pleasurably, and certainly as opposed to pleasurably for any other person who might happen to find her (or him-) self involved. This usually proves regrettable — even solo artists might find themselves wishing for a little more endurance eventually — but is handy if you’re still living at home or had better finish before the roommate gets back.

Are the effects of such a training regimen reversible? Sure. It’s not easy, but you could get a book (the gold standard is still Bernie Zilbergeld’s The New Male Sexuality) or some DVDs, or pull some “how to last longer” videos off the Web.

These are multistep processes, often meant for couples but adaptable to one-on-one practices. “Couples” in this context means people who know each other, so you probably won’t be able to do it with whatever women those are who are consenting to gag on your shaft now and then.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with you. I think that, yes, you have trained yourself, and yes, the absence of a long-term partner doesn’t help. I do need to ask if you’re doing anything with or to your partners besides receiving their attentions. Attending to a lady’s needs is one of the best strategies for delaying your own gratification I can think of. Everybody wins. If, however, you are paying these gaggers, I feel moved to point out that to them, at least, premature ejaculation (especially during blow jobs, which are hard work) is no sin.

Love,

Andrea

 

Got a question? Email Andrea at andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

The face of Cher

Andrew Lam
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The face of Cher

(In the style of Roland Barthes’ The Face of Garbo.) Cher’s face belongs to our current moment in cinema when the female visage represents a kind of absolute non-state of the flesh, which can be reached through a variety of (as-yet-not-entirely-confirmed) nips, tucks, filler injections, makeup and post-production airbrushing.

Cher’s is indeed a formidable face-object. In Burlesque, her makeup is thicker than her costars’ because the paint has been applied atop an increasingly contoured plaster surface. What was once a Byzantine icon — heavy lidded eyes and elongated nose framed by an oval countenance — has become a Noh mask. Her famed mile-long cheekbones are no longer defined by their underlying hollowness, but by the gibbous moon-like protuberances of her cheeks. So too does the plumpness of her lips, the lower line always under-drawn, exhaust the descriptive powers of “bee-stung.” Amid the snow of her foundation, her eyes remain her most expressive feature, narrowing slightly whenever she offers a bemused smile and wetting at the edges (glycerin?) to indicate sadness. This face, with the dark vegetation of its eyes and totem-like countenance, comes to resemble Louise in Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) or Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns.

Yet how many actresses have consented to let the crowd see the ominous maturing of their beauty? Not many, unless it’s Oscar season. Their essence is not to be degraded, their faces are not to have any reality except that of their perfection. The face of Cher — whose character Tess, also a showbiz vet, has probably been around the block as many times and could claim as many comebacks as the actress playing her — openly testifies to the existence of this unspoken entertainment industry mandate, “forever young,” and burlesques it into a form of extreme beauty.

Viewed as a transition the face of Cher reconciles two iconographic ages, it assures the passage from actual plasticity to a molded mask. As is well known, we are today at the other pole of this evolution: the face of Heidi Montag, for instance, is homogenized, not only because of its peculiar thematics (woman as child, “real girl” as reality star) but also because her face, which has nothing of an essence left in it, is constituted by an infinite complexity of cosmetic enhancements. Cher’s enhancements only further enhance her “Cher-ness,” whereas Montag’s sundry “improvements” ultimately render her (or say, Madonna) less distinguishable. The face of Cher is an Idea, that of Montag an Afterthought. 

 

More than child’s play

Andrew Lam
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More than child’s play

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Enticing adults with a children’s story shouldn’t be too hard these days, with trails long since blazed by comic-book blockbusters, primetime cartoons, and the like. Still more to the point, the theater has a long tradition of adapting folk and fairy tales to sophisticated, not to say macabre purposes. Witness ACT’s hit run of The Black Rider or — in New York City — the current blood-splattered take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes by Cornwall’s Kneehigh Theater, which last year offered its Brief Encounter to Bay Area audiences.

So what’s the matter with Coraline?

The stage adaptation of creepster fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman’s 2002 children’s story (also a 3-D animated film in 2009) proves a generally drab musical in SF Playhouse and director Bill English’s West Coast premiere, despite sporting an impressive ensemble of collaborators that includes playwright David Greenspan (book) and the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt (music and lyrics). It’s all the more surprising given the inherent attraction of the material, which comes shot through with quirky staging possibilities and rich, dark veins of psychology and existentialism.

The title character is a sharp, gutsy little girl and only child (played by the confident and tuneful if somewhat too flinty Maya Donato, alternating nights with Julia Belanoff) born to a pair of middle class English parents (Jackson Davis and Stacy Ross). Their eccentric neighbors include a pair of aging actresses (Susi Damilano and Maureen McVerry) and a Russian showman (Brian Degan Scott) who carries around a mouse-circus tent.

Coraline and her parents live in one half of a converted old house (a spectral pop-out figure looming in the back of English and Matt Vuolo’s slightly Seuss-ian scenic design). The other half remains empty, supposedly, separated from the inquisitive Coraline by an intriguing door leading immediately onto a brick wall. Naturally, this proves no impasse, soon offering the little girl entrance into a parallel universe where the neighborhood cat (Brian Yates Sharber) suddenly commands the power of speech and her “other” parents (Davis and Ross again) — with black buttons sewn into their eye sockets — eagerly await her arrival.

Coraline at first appreciates this Other World where, for one thing, people seem to get her name right, instead of insisting on calling her Caroline all the time. But the place, which she herself notes is more like “an idea” than a physical reality, also comes to threaten her profoundly. Meeting a group of lost children who’ve become forgetful ghosts, she comes to understand that her Other Mother is in fact a wicked pursuer bent on snatching her soul, and who has meanwhile abducted her real parents. With the help of the independent-minded but sympathetic cat, Coraline will summon the wherewithal to beat back this threat, but the experience — corresponding to a child’s first confrontation with the fact of her own mortality — leaves her changed, more knowing, in touch with her “authentic” self.

Musing on the latent, vaguely Heideggerian content of this “children’s story,” however, turns out to be just one way of passing the time over the course of 90 otherwise-uneventful minutes. Musically, the play begins with a tinkly little overture on toy pianos by the ensemble, before transitioning to off-stage (and somewhat muted) piano accompaniment by music director Robert Moreno. Merritt’s lightly humorous songs seesaw between naïve surface gestures and intimations of roiling depths. But the shrewd charm of the songs themselves can’t carry a show preoccupied with balancing the story’s cuteness and its potential shock value, and leaning too heavily toward the former. (It may have been a shrewd move of the original New York production to have cast an adult, namely actress Jayne Houdyshell, in the title role, thereby holding out the potential for greater subtlety and irony at the center of the story.)

The material and music notwithstanding, the production’s too timid approach to the violence and dread in the story tends to fracture the action into a series of adorable bits and self-consciously “playful” wickedness. The Brothers Grimm or even Hans Christian Andersen it ain’t, though you can’t help feeling it should have been.

CORALINE

Through Jan. 15; $30-50

SF Playhouse

533 Sutter, SF

(415) 677-9596

www.sfplayhouse.org

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/1–Tues/7 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “Radical Lights: San Francisco Lines of Sight,” Wed, 7:30. Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, Pacific Film Archive, and Prelinger Archives. “Other Cinema:” •D Tour (Granato, 2008) and Sleeping Nights Awake (Albright, 2010), Sat, 8. Calvin and Sweetpea (Fletcher, 2007), Sun, 8.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. Free ($4 suggested donation). “Cowboy Bebop Appreciation Society and Landmark’s Bridge Theatre present Bebop Nights: Everybody Dies Edition” Fri, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $10-15. The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), Wed-Sun, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 1). Presented sing-a-long style.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Leaving (Corsini, 2009), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. Vision: From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen (von Trotta, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” Lucia de Lammermoor, Thurs, 7; Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Dec 2-9. These shows, $12.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. “Bay Area Culture and Performance Art,” presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. “CinemaLit:” Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Winterbottom, 2005), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area:” Tribulation 99 (Baldwin, 1999) with ‘Disaster” (Millner, 1975-76), Wed, 7:30. “Carl Theodor Dreyer:” The President (1918), Fri, 7; Vampyr (1931), Fri, 8:40. “Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:” The Crimson Pirate (Siodmak, 1952), Sat, 6:30; Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 1957), Sat, 8:40; Elmer Gantry (Brooks, 1960), Sun, 4:45. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Voyage in Italy (Rossellini, 1953), Sun, 3.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $25. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928), Thurs, 7:30. An oratorio with silent film featuring Mark Sumner’s Voices of Light libretto, performed by UC Berkeley’s Perfect Fifth and conducted by Mark Sumner.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Animal Kingdom (Michod, 2010), Wed, 2, 7, 9:25. Polack (Kenney, 2010), Thurs, 8. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Dec 3-9, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4; Wed, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Prince of Broadway (Baker, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. California Tango (Togliatti, 2010), Fri, 8. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Dec 3-9, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. Free with museum admission ($9-18). Rara (film) (Bussotti), Thurs, 7. Presented with live piano accompaniment by Sylvano Bussotti. “Bussotti: Concert-Restrospective,” post-screening concert with Bussotti and sfSoundGroup, Thurs, 9.

SHATTUCK 2230 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 843-3699. Free. “Mathematics, Love, and Death:” “Rite of Love and Death” (Mishima, 1965) and “Rites of Love and Math” (Graves and Frenkel, 2010), Wed, 7.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Kamu Gaidan (Sai, 2009), Wed, 4:45. “8x8x8 Film Fest,” eight short films presented by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Thurs, 8. For info on this event, visit www.jccsf.org. “China Underground,” seven new films from China, Fri-Sun. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” Red White & Blue (Rumley, 2010), Thurs, 7:30; Feast of the Assumption: BTK and the Otero Family Murders (Levitz, 2008), Sat, 7:30; Wolf Creek (Maclean, 2005), Sun, 2.

Psychic Dream Astrology

Andrew Lam
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Dec.1-7

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Being in control is a terrible goal. Point your sails towards being free instead! As you practice cutting through your own crap and being more authentic, you’ll find choices you never knew you had.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

You can love yourself out of the pickle you’re in or you can turn on the pressure and be a big bully. You may have to make difficult choices — but if you choose with your heart, you’ll know what’s right for you.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

If you don’t open your mind to new possibilities, you’ll find yourself in a bad vibes hole. Stop searching for blame and whys and adjust to the problems around you. Then you’ll be able to cope with grace and clarity.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Watch out for defensive feelings that scream “I deserve!” this week. We all deserve goodness, so do what’s right, even if it requires generosity when you feel lacking. High self-esteem trumps egoism.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

It’s hard to have limitations in the very areas that you want unrestrained growth and fun. Consciously deal with restrictions so that they don’t actually limit you. Prioritize so you focus on your favorite things.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Trusting in your gut instincts requires that you can clear your internal chatter enough to hear them. Even if your life is chaotic, seek out security that you believe in to help you get grounded.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Rushing toward or away from things will yield the same crappy results, Libra. There is opportunity for growth in how you deal with things this week, so slow down and look for it in all you do.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

This is an excellent time to start new things. The trick is to invest only as much energy and time as you can sustain, instead of investing all of it. Regulate so you don’t have to backtrack this week.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

This is not a week for naps, Sag! Pull on your Action Slacks and hit the town, because you can make things happen with a bit of effort and luck. Enlist the aid of others and go for gold! What you plant will grow.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Your heart or your self esteem may be hurting, but don’t give up. Work on your insides so you can learn more about yourself through your struggles. If you’re gonna have problems, make sure they help you be a better you.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Take a proactive approach to creating peace in your life, Aquarius. As 2010 draws to its close, you should start early on your resolutions. What are you ready to let go of, and what’s your strategy? Set goals that make you happy.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

You may have to make peace with a sad reality so you can move beyond it. Accepting that crappy things are true doesn’t make you the victim of le crap if you resolve to do something about it! Get to work. 

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 16 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.

 

Playlist

Andrew Lam
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Playlist

JANE BIRKIN

Di Doo Dah

(Light in the Attic)

Arriving in the wake of Light in the Attic’s reissue of the masterful L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, this, Birkin’s first proper — if such a word can be applied to anything involving Serge Gainsbourg — solo album, is a series of light delights. Jean-Claude Vannier trades his characteristic dark orchestration for a string sound that is agile and brighter. On the title track, Birkin revels — in a melancholy way — in her tomboyish characteristics, setting the stage for more pun-filled escapades in androgynous amorousness. Elsewhere, she’s a hitchhiker, a sidewalk cruiser, a hotel trick, a girl on a motorcycle, and other fantasy figurines. The most audacious song is “Les capotes anglaises,” which begins with her blowing up condoms and letting them float off a balcony. The special treat is “Le décadanse,” not so much a failed attempt at creating a dance craze as a successful erotic mockery of dance crazes. There, Gainsbourg appears for another classic duet.

 

DÂM-FUNK

Adolescent Funk

(Stones Throw)

The album’s name is apt, as these tracks, recorded between 1988 and 1992, capture Dâm-Funk’s sound and outlook in a teenage stage of sonic bumptiousness and lyrical lustiness. The content is spelled out in the titles: songs like “I Like Your Big Azz (Girl),” “Sexy Lady,” and “When I’m With U I Think of Her,” are a world away from the mystic leanings of more recent Dâm-Funk tracks like “Mirrors.” Equally direct are the album’s musings on existence, such as “I Love My Life.” The sound owes a debt to — or is a youthful outgrowth of — the early 1980s electro funk of Prince, Mandre, and others. Dâm-Funk has been honing his use of analog keyboards for a long time — when it comes to Korgs and Casios, he’s no new kid on the block, though he was back when these songs were captured on tape. The homecoming-dance cover art, selected by Peanut Butter Wolf from Dâm’s photo albums, captures the vintage feel perfectly.

 

THE FLYING LIZARDS

The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards

(Staubgold)

Flying Lizards are best known for creating possibly the cheapest British chart-topper in history, a pots-and-pans 1979 cover of “Money (That’s What I Want),” distinguished by Deborah Evans’ hilarious deadpan vocal. As the title hints, Evans isn’t present on The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards, nor are any other traditional vocalists — instead, main Lizard David Cunningham remixes 1978 source material by Jah Lloyd. The catch was that Cunningham only had a mono master tape to work with, rather than the plethora of tracks usually associated with dub. A lost gem from the early days of reggae-punk fusions and collisions, this album — with loops built from tape-splicing — reveals the dub underpinnings of Cunningham’s brash and innovative work on “Money.” An irreverent vanguard producer, he uses ping-pong balls to create ricochet effects on one track, just as “Money” seems to throw everything but the kitchen sink at listeners.

 

GIRLS

Broken Dreams Club EP

(True Panther Sounds)

One of the things that makes Girls so special is Christopher Owens’ ability to write so directly about the unavoidable aspects of life without falling into cliché. So it is on “Heartbreaker,” which begins with the observation, “When I look in the mirror/ I’m not as young as I used to be/ I’m not quite as beautiful as when you were next to me.” A newer addition to Girls’ nascent greatness, as displayed on this six-song collection, is their facility at traversing various genres while always sounding like themselves. The reggae and early rock ‘n’ roll fusion “Oh So Fortunate One,” the bossa nova touches of “Heartbreaker,” and the country lament of the superb title track (complete with pedal steel) sound like … Girls. While the sonic palette shifts from song to song — and sometimes within them — more than one composition evokes the anthemic balladry of their 2009 debut album’s “Hellhole Ratrace.” That’s no small achievement. The outlook, though, is less hopeful and more disillusioned. Who knows what the future holds.

 

GOLD PANDA

Lucky Shiner

(Ghostly International)

There should probably be a moratorium placed on the use of the word panda in group names, but the man known as Gold Panda can be forgiven, based on the sheer zinging energy of this album, which has nothing in common with any Beach Boys-flavored Animal Collective endeavors. One of Gold Panda’s trademarks is a sharply-edited, sped-up approach to vocal samples that makes Kanye West’s sound like screw. Instrumental tracks such as “Vanilla Minus,” “Snow & Taxis,” and the incandescent “Marriage” call the crackling warmth of the Field to mind, but their energy is more hyper, their outlook much more colorful. “Same Dream China” takes the glassy percussion of Pantha Du Prince’s “Stick to My Side” into out there realms — it’s one of a few tracks that maneuvers across a high wire just above exotica and Orientalism. A late contender for techno album of the year.

 

THE MANTLES

Pink Information

(Mexican Summer)

San Francisco’s the Mantles deliver great straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. Dressed in a cover by local artist Michelle Blade, this EP picks up where their debut album left off, as guitarist-singer Michael Olivares leads the charge with vocals that somehow manage to sneer and snarl and seem amiable at the same time. “Situations” is actually kind of harsh, taking a scenester or gold-digger to task for his or her shallow and failure-fated state of being. “Lily Never Married” is more reflective, a portrait of a spinster that opens into thoughts about family within a changing world. “Waiting Out the Storm” finds the group trying on its epic journey boots, and they fit just fine.

 

BRIAN MCBRIDE

The Effective Disconnect

(Kranky)

A disturbing subject yields mournful tone poems on this album by Stars of the Lid’s McBride, which collects elements of his soundtrack for Vanishing of the Bees, a 2009 documentary on colony collapse disorder. (Mercifully, voice over by Ellen Page is left off the album.) There’s no flight-of-the-bumblebee whimsy in McBride’s musical testimony to the spirit of the beehive. In the liner notes, he writes that filmmakers George Langworthy and Maryam Henein suggested he focus on “the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides, and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture.” These elements aren’t always clearly distinguished, but they are present in a manner that avoids cliché.

 

ARTHUR RUSSELL AND THE FLYING HEARTS FEATURING ALLEN GINSBERG

Ballad of the Lights

(Presspop Music)

“Ballad of the Lights” was performed by a friend at the late Arthur Russell’s funeral, which is as strong a proof as any that it is an important entry within his vast and diverse songbook. This two-song 10-inch vinyl release couples it with another recording from Russell’s many studio collaborations with Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg’s recitals within “Ballad of the Lights” almost come off superfluous, except that they set the glory of the song’s resurrection-like structure in greater relief. The B-side, “Pacific High Studio Mantras,” is a Buddhist chant accompanied by instrumentation, and perhaps not intended for commercial release. (Ginsberg himself hinged back and forth about whether it should presented in this fashion.) Bob Dylan even figured briefly within Ginsberg’s and Russell’s endeavors, but with so few of them available, it’s hard to discern whether “Ballad of the Lights” is their best work. That it’s pretty great is clear, even if coupled with portraits by Archer Prewitt that play into the more cloying aspects of viewing artists as icons.

 

THE SOFT MOON

The Soft Moon

(Captured Tracks)

It’s no surprise that the debut album by Bay Area musician Luis Vasquez is dark and densely claustrophobic — nor is it a surprise that it’s excellent. It kicks off with one highlight from his earlier EPs, “Breathe the Fire,” where his whispered vocal — dancing over doom-laden bass and guitar worthy of Pornography-era Cure — manifests maximum sinuous menace. The death dance of “Circles” is more Sister of Mercy-like, but really, Vasquez transcends well-known goth and more obscure dark wave poses and influences through sheer intensity of focus. “Sewer Sickness” might be the album’s darkest and most compelling black pit, as Vasquez’s susurrant vocals take on the quality of a malevolent primal incantation.

 

SOLAR BEARS

She Was Coloured In

(Planet Mu)

Like Gold Panda, Solar Bears counter a dodgy name by delivering solid tunes. She Was Coloured In is more melodic than most recordings on Planet Mu. “Children of the Times” mixes Johnny Marr-caliber guitar shimmer with a Vocoder chorus that is sure to evoke comparisons to Air. Likewise, the title composition places Air-y elements up against Aphex Twin-like ambience. Enjoyably ham-fisted prog keyboard flourishes dive in and out of techno terrain on the title track. The chord changes and underpinnings of “Head Supernova” evoke Angelo Badalamenti’s scores for David Lynch. The riddle of Solar Bears is whether all these touchstones or influences add up to an act with its own identity or — perhaps no less an achievement in 2010 — a generically beautiful album.

 

JIM SULLIVAN

UFO

(Light in the Attic)

When an excellent songwriter disappears, his or her voice remains. There is proof of this in the recent issuing of Connie Converse’s priceless previously-private recordings, and now in this reissue of the 1969 debut album by Jim Sullivan, a ten-song collection that fuses orchestral ornamentation and plainspoken brevity. Sullivan vanished into the New Mexico desert one day in 1975, but his musical legacy is being revived, and rightfully so, as the best moments here are reminiscent of better-known contemporaries such as Fred Neil and Tim Hardin. All the doomed young men: there’s something eerie about the funereal string intro of the opening track “Jerome,” yet Sullivan’s music also possesses vitality and good cheer. Best of all is “UFO,” a graceful piece of baroque pop (and quintessential example of a California paranormal mindset), adorned with echo-laden effects that Malibu kinfolk and relative survivor Linda Perhacs might appreciate.

 

WILD NOTHING

Golden Haze EP

(Captured Tracks)

Captured Tracks is home to some of the most beautiful guitar sounds being made today, thanks to Beach Fossils and this group, who see no shame in sheer ’80s-ness. Wild Nothing hail from California, but England meets Australia (and gets along with it better than usual) on “Your Rabbit Feet,” as Slowdive-gone-fast guitar radiates around a vocal that’s equal parts Morrissey and Robert Forster in its offhand debonair delivery. “Take Me In” has another immediate, whirligig guitar melody, and a chorus as big as 100,000 violins. Gorgeous stuff.

Welcome to the Asylum

Andrew Lam
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0
Welcome to the Asylum

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Just one glance at the title of Sic Alps’ forthcoming full-length, Napa Asylum (Drag City), triggers memories of what might have been one of the most infamous (a.k.a. perfect) moments in punk history: the sight of the Cramps’ Lux Interior lurching among the patients at Napa State Hospital in 1978, as captured in The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital, by SF’s Target Video. How does a humble assemblage of SF noisemakers live up to those memories and dare to go there?

“I know, right?” says the affable Mike Donovan by phone, on the brink of this year’s turkey gorge. “We didn’t even think of it, though people-in-the-know think of that.” A sketch of the old institution, ages before the Cramps roared through it, actually gave Donovan, Matt Hartman, and newest member Noel Von Harmonson the idea of attempting a concept album about the lost spirits roaming the ultimate wine country getaway. But once the band got into recording, the notion ultimately died and only the title and a song or two about the institution’s spaces and characters survived, among a whopping 22 tracks.

Before the January release of its fifth long-player, and first since U.S. EZ (Siltbreeze, 2008), Sic Alps are revving into action, playing a Dec. 4 benefit to pay the hospital bills of artist Akassia Mann, who is battling ovarian cancer. Mann is also the mother of Big Eagle’s Robyn Miller — Hartman and Harmonson’s housemate. Count on the downbeat new songs to wash up that night, riddled with pop references yet mangled and unique in a way that, say, Ariel Pink would appreciate.

The darkness on the edges of this batch of numbers was something Donovan considered. “I guess that’s one of the first things one of my friends said, ‘There’s a bunch of bummer tunes on this,'” recalls Donovan, whose good-naturedness seems to run counter to the album’s tone. “It peeked through. We didn’t say, ‘Let’s make things that are really down. Let’s temper these snappy numbers and noise tracks with bummers.’ But with 22 songs, there’s more room for it to do its thing.”

Likewise, when it came down to editing and sequencing the recording, and deciding if it would be a single or double album, Sic Alps went with the flow — namely, Hartman’s sequence. “It was a ‘killer and no filler thing’ and then Matt put together that sequence and sent it out with an e-mail header — ‘A fuck-yes double album,'” offers Donovan. Gone were the fights of old over sequencing: “It was done.”

In went the songs roughly concerning reincarnation (“Nathan Livingston Maddox,” based on Donovan’s dream about the late Gang Gang Dance member) and magic ( which is “meant to brush by you — it’s nothing you can describe or talk about”). Simmering in the free-floating, far-flung Exile on Main Street-meets-crushed-metal-Royal Trux stew, witchy connects are made between the so-called discovery of the Golden State and the mortgage crisis (“The First White Man to Touch California”), as well as mythic rock ‘n’ roll departures and Midwestern innocents leaving home (“Zeppo Epp”).

It all sounds like nothing other than Sic Alps. The group had been taking it easy, with Ty Segall in its ranks, until Harmonson joined late last year. Now the group’s pillar-like P.A.-slash-power station — a product of the need to control its dramatically, drastically dense brand of echo and reverb — has been doubled in the form of a second tower.

Further, the band is currently honing that bristling, dense thicket of echo with simpatico sound maestro Eric Bauer, once Donovan’s bandmate in Big Techno Werewolves. Just in time for a new growth spurt, Sic Alps recently bunked down in Bauer’s basement-based Chinatown analog studio, where Segall recorded his last album, the Oh Sees tracked its next full-length, and the Mantles jotted down a 7-inch. “When the iron was hot, we were like, ‘Fuck it,’ ” says Donovan. After doing the 9-to-5, the band is ready for something more, though Donovan amiably confesses, “I want the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle without getting paid for doing rock ‘n’ roll. I only work two days a week, but I have a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle — without the money.”

SIC ALPS

With the Mumlers, Big Eagle, Bart Davenport, and the Moore Brothers

Sat/4, 8 p.m., $10–$15 sliding scale

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Babes in Arms Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $24-44. Previews Wed/1, 7pm; Thurs/2-Fri/3, 8pm. Opens Sat/4, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. 42nd Street Moon presents John Guare’s adaptation of the musical by Rodgers and Hart.

Christmas in Hell: The Real and True Story About the Guys Who Saved Christmas Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. An original holiday play, written and directed by Jim Fourniadis.

Cinderella African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Opens Fri/3, 8pm.Runs Fri/8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. African-American Shakespeare Company presents the classic fairytale, starring Velina Brown.

Cora Values’ Christmas Corral Exit Cafe, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Opens Fri/3, 8:30pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8:30pm. Through Dec 11. The holiday hostess leaves the I-19 Gas ‘N’ Gulp to share her take on Dickens.

Dirty Little Showtunes! A Parody Musical Revue New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Previews Fri/3-Sat, 4, 8pm; Sun/5, 2pm; Fi/10, 8pm. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Tom Orr’s adults-only holiday show returns, with direction by F. Allen Sawyer and musical direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn.

Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.ticketfly.com. $25. Opens Thurs/2, 7pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 7 and 9pm. Through Dec 23. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar return with their stage tribute to the sitcom.

The Oddman Family Christwanzaakuh Spectactular! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Thurs/2, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Guerrilla Rep and Beards Beards Beards present a new twisted musical farce.

Ruth and the Sea Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.ruthandthesea.com. $18-24. Opens Thurs/2, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18.Wily West Productions presents Gwyneth Richards in a kooky holiday show, directed by Stuart Bousel.

Shrek The Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market; (888) SHN-1799, wwwshnsf.com. $30-99. Opens Wed/1, 2pm. Runs Tues, 8pm, Wed, 2 and 8pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performances Dec 24, Dec 25, and Dec 31). Through Jan 2.Eric Peterswn stars in the stage version of the animated blockbuster.

BAY AREA

Becoming Julia Morgan Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 984-3864, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24-30. Opens Fri/3, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 9. Janis Stevens stars in Belinda Taylor’s play about the trailblazing architect.

A Christmas Memory TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Previews Wed/1-Fri/3, 8pm. Opens Sat/4, 8pm. Runs Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 26. TheatreWorks presents the holiday tale by Truman Capote.

Of the Earth – The Salt Plays: Part 2 Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Previews Thurs/2-Fri/3, 8pm. Opens Sat/4, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (also Wed/7pm beginning Dec 15). Through Jan 30. Shotgun Players present the second half of writer and director Jon Tracy’s Odyssey-inspired tale, with music by Brendan West.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Phoenix Theater Annex, 414 Mason, 4th floor; 433-1235, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $28. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Karen Hirst’s one-person musical about lost love.

Caligari Studio 385, 385A Eighth St; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 10. HurLyBurLy performs an original adaptation of the 1920 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Horse and Man White Big Top, adjacent to AT&T Park; www.cavalia.net. $39.50-239.50. Check website for shows and times. Through Dec 12. Over 100 performers, including 50 horses, take the stage in this circus-like show from Montreal.

Christian Cagigal’s Obscura: A Magic Show EXIT Cafe, 156 Eddy; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Magician Christian Cagigal presents a mix of magic, fairy tales, and dark fables.

It’s All the Rage The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/5. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor—including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships its left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complaisant mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. (Avila)

The Lion in Winter Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Actors Theatre of SF presents James Goldman’s play of palace intrigue.

Match Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.matchonstage.com. $12-28. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Expression Productions presents Stephen Belber’s new suspense drama.

Or, Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm; Tues, 7pm. Through Sun/5. The latest from New York playwright Liz Duffy Adams (Dog Act, One Big Lie) is a neo-Restoration romp with contemporary political overtones, sexual and otherwise, and a lot of winking, verse-bound, hit-and-miss humor. The play imagines Aphra Behn (Natacha Roi) in her modest mid-17th-century London living quarters (a spare, elegantly worn arrangement beautifully conceived by set designer Michael Locher) as she negotiates a notable professional transition from spy for the Crown to the country’s first female playwright (best known today for The Rover). But visits by secret and amorous patron King Charles II (Ben Huber), equally smitten leading lady Nell Gwynne (Maggie Mason), on-the-lam fellow spy William Scott (Huber), and several other major and minor people and personages (all played in quick-change style by Huber and Mason), presents Aphra with severe challenges as well as, of course, creative opportunities as a writer. Despite, however, generally sharp and energetic performances under Magic Theater artistic director Loretta Greco’s fluid staging, the farce itself feels too forced and thinly layered to really continue mounting as giddily as it should. The play’s self-conscious nod to contemporary American politics, meanwhile, unintentionally mimics an all-too-familiar course from enthusiasm for change to stagnant anti-climax.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 19. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

A Perfect Ganesh New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 19. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the Terrence McNally play, directed by Arturo Catricala.

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sat/4 (resuming in Jan 2011). Dan Hoyle’s acclaimed one-man show, directed by Charlie Varon, continues its extended run.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm; additional shows Dec 20-23). Through Dec 23. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical in the style of Charles Dickens.

The Tempest Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 19. In Cutting Ball’s latest foray into Shakespearean realms, three entangled subplots and eleven characters are enacted by just three actors, in order to explore the relationships between the principle characters by representing their internal characteristics through the actions of the more minor roles. Set on an enchanted island (or, in Cutting Ball’s interpretation, at the bottom of a swimming pool) The Tempest begins with stormy weather, but quickly grows into a full-blown hurricane of shipwrecked nobles, nymphs, and drunks, plus the turbulent awakenings of a teenage daughter’s libido, and the rumblings of her over-protective papa. The most effective dual-character is Caitlyn Louchard’s Miranda-Ariel, as both characters are quite under the stern control of Prospero (David Sinaiko) and equally deserving of release. Less affecting yet somehow equally congruous is Sinaiko’s comic turn as the buffoonish Stephano, who stumbles through the forest in his boxer shorts, yet somehow maintains an air of mock dignity that does parallel Prospero’s. Donell Hill’s Caliban-Ferdinand endures his lust-love for Miranda and servitude to Prospero alternating between raw physicality and social ineptness. But since “The Tempest” is littered with characters even more minor, the game cast is stretched too thinly to fully inhabit each, and the entire subplot involving King Alonzo, Gonzalo, and Antonio in particular suffers from this ambitious over-extension. (Gluckstern)

The Tender King Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr; www.secondwindtheatre.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 11. Second Wind Productions presents Ian Walker’s noir-tinged World War II drama.

The Velveteen Rabbit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 12. ODC/Dance presents Margery Williams’ holiday favorite.

 

BAY AREA

A Christmas Carol: The Musical Novato Theater Company Playhouse, 484 Ignacio, Novato; 863-4498, www.novatotheatercompany.org. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 17. Novato Theater Company presents a new adaptation of the holiday classic.

Cinderella, Enchanted Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 665-5565, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-33. Call for run times. Through Sun/5. Frenchie Davis plays the Fairy Godmother in this production of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Call for times. Through Dec 19. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Happy Now? Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $32-53. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/5. Marin Theatre Company performs Lucinda Coxon’s stinging comedy about contemporary marriage.

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 15, 2011. Berkeley Rep premieres the new musical, written by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey.

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 11. Ann Randolph’s hit one-woman comic show continues its extended run.

Palomino Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through Sun/5. David Cale brings his new solo play about a gigolo to Aurora Theatre for its Bay Area premiere.

*The Play About the Naked Guy La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 11. Impact Theatre presents an off-Broadway hit, written by David Bell and directed by Evren Odcikin.

 

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Balls to Balzac: A Journey From Testicles to Women in the Bourbon Restoration” cellSPACE, 2050 Bryant; 323-0246, www.cellspace.org. Sun/5, 8pm. $10. Choreogrpaher Amy Lewis presents a performance art dance lecture.

“Booze, Boys, and Brownies: A Musical Journey” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006. $9-12. Fri/3-Sat/4, 8pm (through Dec 11). A one-woman show about an actress who traveled from SF to Tinseltown.

The False and True Are One Z Space, Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; www.lissfaindance.org. $12.50-25. Fri/3-Sat/4, 8pm. Liss Fain Dance presents a performance installation featuring Jeri Lynn Cohen.

“Holiday Humbug Clown Cabaret” TJT – The Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 522-0786, www.tjt-sf.org. $15. Mon/6, 7 and 9pm. The Clown Cabaret of the Climate Theatre presents a holiday show.

Human Creature and Jessica Damon The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.975howard.com. $10-20, Fri/3-Sat/4, 8pm. Human Creature and Jessica Damon and Dancers present works as part of RAW.

“Kinetic Reality” Studio Theater, USF Lone Mountain Campus, 2800 Turk; 422-3888, PASJtickets@esfca.edu. $5-10. Thurs/2-Sat/4, 8pm. USF’s fall dance show, with work by Laura Arrington, Jo Kreiter, and others.

“Left Coast Leaning Festival” YBCA Forum, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $10-20. Thurs/2-Sat/4, 8pm. YBCA and Youth Speaks presents the second fest, with performances by Jogja Hip-Hop Foundation, the 605 Collective, and others.

“Lipstick and Kisses 2010: A Flaming Lotus Girls Extravaganza” SOMArts, 934 Brannan; www.flaminglotus.com. Free. Fri/3, 7pm-2am. The fire art mavens present an evening of art, music, and fun.

The Other Woman The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Tues/7, 8pm. $10-15. Marsh Rising presents a performance by Victoria Zackheim.

“Pilot Light” ODC Theater, 3153 17th; www.odcdance.org. $12. Sat/4-Sun/5, 8pm. An evening of new work by six emerging choreographers.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Con Brio, Astral Force Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

“Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa” Warfield. 8pm, $44.50-89.50.

Fancy Dan Band, Erin Brazill and the Brazillionaires, Sioux City Kid Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Keith Crossan Big Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

New Up, Bernadette, Crackerjack Highway, M80 Mailbox, DJ Jack Frost Independent. 8pm, $14. Benefit for Blue Bear School of Music.

Phantom Kicks, Actors, Sunbeam Rd Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

“Silicon Valley Rocks: A Benefit For Music in Schools Today” Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $45-75.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Good for the Jews Café Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Neighborhood 111 Minna. 9pm, free. With Hot Tub, Man/Miracle, Spirit Spout, King Most, Dnae Beats, Shlohmo, and more.

Red Wine Social Triple Crown. 5:30-9:30pm, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Brothers Comatose, Jugtown Pirates, Human Condition Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Burial, Vaccuum, No Statik, Torture Unit Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.

Big Bad Daddy Cade Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16. BB King tribute.

French Miami, Horns of Happiness, Teenage Sweater Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Mister Heavenly Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Moccretro, Havarti Party, Tarantula Tango, Rival Parties, Family Matters Stud. 7pm, free.

Elliot Randall and the Deadmen, Victoria George, Tiny Television Independent. 8pm, $14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Hellkats Holiday Bash” DNA Lounge. 7pm, $13. With Jazz Mafia All-Stars and Hubba Hubba Revue. Benefit for Jennifer “Jersey” Mitti.

Mighty Diamonds Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $22.

Alex Pinto Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Al Stewart Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Annie Bacon’s Folk Opera, Audiafauna, Seedy Naturalists Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $15. Benefit for the Liberation Institute.

Bryan Byrnes Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Chelle and Friends Coda. 9pm, $10.

Knuckle Knockers Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

My Peoples, B Foundation, La Muñueca y Los Muertos Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, with guest Nickodemus, spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.fringesf.com. 9pm, $2. Indie music video dance party with subOctave and Blondie K.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Holy Thursday Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Bay Area electronic hip hop producers showcase their cutting edge styles monthly.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and Sergio.

FRIDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alabama Mike Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Audio Dub, Last Ambassadors Elbo Room. 10pm, $13.

Black Witchery, Blasphemophager, Diocletian, Obeisance Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12-15.

Boney M. Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California, SF; www.discosf.com. 7pm, $45-135.

Congress Coda. 10pm, $10.

Diego’s Umbrella, Triple Cobra, Loyd Family Players Independent. 9pm, $12.

IRB Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

K-Holes, Wax Idols, Stickers Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Midnight Chaser, Bastard, Vanishing Breed Kimo’s. 10pm, $7.

Eddie Money Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $45-50.

“Popscene Presents Chicago vs. San Francisco” Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. With Hey Champ, Butterfly Bones, and Moneypenny, plus DJ sets by Team Bayside High and Aaron Axelsen.

“Secret House Party with People Under the Stairs” Slim’s. 9pm, $19. With DJ Day.

Sistas in the Pit, Cleve-Land, MILF, Ani DiFranco’s Dick 111 Minna. 9:30pm. Benefit for Todd “Spor Virus” Smith.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Mike Stern Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $18-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cuban Cowboys, Dead Westerns, DJ Santero Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Left Coast Special Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Braza! Som.10pm, $10. With DJs Vanka, Elan, and Caasi.

Deeper 222 Hyde, 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 345-8222. 9pm, $10. With rotating DJs spinning dubstep and techno.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Germany Calling Cat Club. 9:30pm, $6. German goth and industrial with DJs Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Xander, and Unit 77.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Mighty’s 7-Year Anniversary Mighty. 9pm, $7. With DJ Shortkut, Derek Hena, Motion Potion, Syd Gris, DJ Platurn, and more.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Strangelove Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF; (415) 703-8965. 9:30pm, $6. With DJs Tomas Diablo, Melting Girl, Sage, and Daniel Skellington spinning goth and industrial.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Chris Cain Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

John Enghauser, Fat Opie, Beautiful Losers Hotel Utah. 10pm, $10.

I-80s Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Marco Benevento Trio Independent. 9pm, $20.

Maus Haus, Fol Chen, Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, Exrays, Epicsauce DJs Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Eddie Money Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $45-50.

Mumlers, Sic Alps, Big Eagle, Bart Davenport Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-15. Benefit for Akassia Mann, mother of Big Eagle’s Robyn Miller.

Tropical Sleep, Midnite Snaxxx, Bitter Honeys Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Walken, Huntress, Dark Black Bender’s, 806 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 9:30pm, $5.

“We’re Number Fun! Bay Area Derby Girls Prom and Awards Ceremony” Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.

Yung Mars, Elevaters Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bad Plus Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfperformances.org. 8pm, $20-50.

Lori Carsillo Coda. 7pm, $5.

Nancy Coleman Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Mike Stern Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Abjeez: Live in San Francisco” Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $40.

Jean Marie Paxton Gate, 824 Valencia, SF; (415) 824-1872. 7pm, free.

Rock Soup Ramblers Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Debaser Knockout. 11pm, $5. Wear your flannel and get in free before 11pm to this party, where DJ Jamie Jams and Emdee play alternative hits from the 1990s.

Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics. Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests. Foundation Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm.

Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love and Nicky B. spinning deep disco.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Kontrol Endup. 10pm, $20. With resident DJs Alland Byallo, Craig Kuna, Sammy D, and Nikola Baytala spinning minimal techno and avant house.

New Wave City: Depeche Mode Tribute DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. Eighties with DJs Skip, Shindog, and Melting Girl.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul spinning 60s soul.

Souf Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Jeanine Da Feen, Motive, and Bozak spinning southern crunk, bounce, hip hop, and reggaeton.

Soundscape Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. With DJs C3PLOS, Brighton Russ, and Nick Waterhouse spinning Soul jazz, boogaloo, hammond grooves, and more.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Donkeys, Ian Fayes Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Tommy Castro Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Epica, Scar Symmetry, Agonist, Blackguard DNA Lounge. 6:30pm, $23.

Courtney James Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Posies, Brendan Benson, Aqueduct Independent. 8pm, $20.

Radiators, Battlehooch Slim’s. 8pm, $25.

Desirea Rodgers Rrazz Room. 3pm, $25.

Jonathan Richman, Tommy Larkins, Gail Davies Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kay Kostopoulos Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

Mike Stern Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5pm, $5-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Grooming the Crow, Everheart Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afterglow Nickies, 466 Haight, SF; (415) 255-0300. An evening of mellow electronics with resident DJs Matt Wilder, Mike Perry, Greg Bird, and guests.

DJ Anthony Atlas Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, free.

Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and guest B-Love.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Pachanga! Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa with Jesus Diaz y su QBA.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Abyssinians, Native Elements, Revival Sound System Independent. 9pm, $20.

Chris Duarte Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Mrt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, Globes Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Western States Motel, Maren Parusel, Ash Reiter Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

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

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bedouin Soundclash, Moneybrother, Los Hot Boxers Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Conspiracy of Beards, Ruby Howl, Gilded Hooks Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Delta Spirit, Fling, Darker My Love Fillmore. 8pm, $18.50.

Chris Duarte Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Gay Blades, Girls With Guns, Go-Going-Gone Girls Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Gracious Few, Danielle Barbe, Reckless in Vegas Independent. 8pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Brazilian Party Night Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Brazilian dance hits, samba, funk, and more with DJ Dion and DJ Kwala.

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

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Cash and Carrey

Andrew Lam
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0
Cash and Carrey

arts@sfbg.com

FILM You had to forgive most of the gay press for getting a little too excited over Brokeback Mountain (2005). Oh, no doubt it’s a great movie, or that the Oscar going to the fraudulent Crash (2004) said less about that film’s virtues than a skittishness that other movie stirred. But its excellence and commercial success induced widespread bouts of wishful thinking in the form of announcing new trends that never came to pass.

Five years later, there hasn’t been another mainstream American film in which a gay relationship is taken seriously and granted central importance. (You could argue for The Kids Are All Right, but that’s mostly a comedy, a big arthouse hit rather than even a modest mainstream one — and the fact remains that lesbians played by attractive actresses aren’t nearly as threatening to the sanity, morality, masculinity, and private parts of many Americans as gay men.) Nor has a single major movie star come out as gay or bi, despite the hilarity induced by excuses for such police-intervention activities as “offering a ride” to transgender sex workers at 4 a.m. or getting mugged while “walking the dog” in a well-known cruising park (also at 4 a.m.). In all these regards, television has leapt well ahead of the big screen.

Given typically imitation-crazed Hollywood’s failure to built on Brokeback‘s success — or see it as anything more than a fluke — the case of I Love You Phillip Morris is interesting for what it is and isn’t. It is, somewhat by default, the biggest onscreen gay romance (not including foreign and indie productions, which are always ahead of the curve) since that earlier film, even if it is (again) primarily a comedy, and one whose true-story basis provides the leavening element of stranger-than-fiction curiosity. (Nobody’s bothered by the gayness of movies like 2005’s Capote because we accept the otherness of real people too famous and/or peculiar to be relatable.)

What Phillip Morris is not, however, is a Hollywood or even American film, all appearances to the contrary. Its financing was primarily French — presumably because there wasn’t enough willing coin on this side of the Atlantic. Yes, not even for a comedy starring Jim Carrey. And for a while it didn’t even look like Phillip Morris would be an American release, even after it had played (and done pretty well) virtually everywhere else, from Europe to Latin America to Southeast Asia to frikkin’ Kazakhstan. The reasons (some legal) are unclear, but it seems pretty certain the aforementioned squeamishness around guys kissing and cuddling and diddling factored in — never mind that those guys are Carrey and Ewan McGregor.

Free at last, albeit without much fanfare, Phillip Morris proves to have a whole lot more in common with Steven Soderburgh’s The Informant! (2009) — true tale turned farcical caper, to diverting if mixed results — than to tragic Brokeback, even if love runs a rather sad, thwarted course here, too. We meet Steven Jay Russell as an uber-perky all-American lad — a nascent Jim Carrey — perhaps permanently warped at age eight by the discovery that he’s adopted. Nonetheless he proceeds along the road of dead-center normality, getting married (Leslie Mann manages to be both very droll and very Christian as Debbie), having kids, being a loveable Mr. Policeman, and fucking guys only on the QT.

A near-fatal accident, however, induces him to merrily chuck it all — he’s so nice the family can’t help wishing him well — and live life to the fullest by moving from Georgia to South Beach and becoming a “big fag.” He soon discovers that “being gay is really expensive,” or at least his chosen A-lister lifestyle is. Having been schooled by his adoption trauma, Steve figures if everything you think you know can so easily turn out to be a lie, why not becoming a fibbing superstar? He begins diverting funds from his corporate employer, amazed at what a chief financial officer position and a golf-playing, polo-shirt-wearing front can get away with. At least to a point — the point that commences several ensuing revolving-door years of cons, captures, prison stints, and ingenious escapes.

It is during one hoosegow stay that he meets the non-tobacco-related Phillip Morris (McGregor), a sweet Southern sissy who got there by sheer haplessness rather than criminal guile. Steven is an ardent, protective lover — if he’s also slippery as an eel, that’s at least partly because he thinks his lies protect those he loves — and Phillip is a slavishly adoring 1950s housewife who just happens to have been born with a penis.

Like The Informant!, Phillip Morris fudges the facts a bit for narrative convenience and strains at times for an antic tone that makes life itself a sort of genre parody. In his genius-IQ mind, does Russell see himself as the hero of a perfect if artificial sitcom-type world? Or does casting Carrey require the same sort of hyperreal gloss routinely applied to gimmick-driven vehicles like Yes Man (2008), Bruce Almighty (2003), and Liar Liar (1997), because he bends any context like a funhouse mirror? (Only once, in 1998’s The Truman Show, did that context meaningfully amplify his cartoonishness; and only once, in 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has he calmed down to ordinary human proportions.) Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, making their directorial debut after team-writing a bewildering trio of mainstream comedies (2001’s Cats and Dogs, 2003’s Bad Santa, and 2005’s The Bad News Bears), approach their fascinating material with brashness and some skill, but without the control to balance its steep tonal shifts.

Surprisingly, it’s in the “love” part that they often succeed best. While their comic aspects sometimes tip into shrill, destabilizing caricature — the excess that brilliant but barely-manageable Carrey will always drift toward unless tightly leashed — this movie’s link to Brokeback is that it never makes the love between two men look inherently ridiculous, as nearly all mainstream comedies now do to get a cheap throwaway laugh or three.

Russell’s scenes with AIDS-fallen first boyfriend Jimmy (Rodrigo Santoro) are very poignant. And the many more with McGregor, who plays white-trash nelly with an uncondescending delicacy that’s both amusing and wistful, are quite lovely. There’s one scene of them chatting in their prison cell — viewed overhead in bed, Phillip’s head in the crook of Steven’s arm — that’s so affectionately intimate you can see exactly why the movie took two years to get a U.S. release. Even the prior scene of Carrey riding a different man’s ass like a bucking bronco isn’t as half so threatening as this, an utterly unguarded moment with two famous faces that both happen to be male conveying a perfectly synched love.

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS opens Fri/3 in San Francisco.

 

Dance fever

Andrew Lam
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0
Dance fever

arts@sfbg.com

FILM “Lose yourself,” ballet company head Thomas (Vincent Cassel) whispers to his leading lady, Nina (Natalie Portman), moments before she takes the stage. But Nina is already consumed with trying to find herself. Rarely has a journey of self-discovery been so unsettling.

Set in New York City’s catty, competitive ballet world, Black Swan samples from earlier dance films (notably 1948’s The Red Shoes, but also 1977’s Suspiria, with a smidgen of 1995’s Showgirls), though director Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not his own visionary. Black Swan resembles his 2008 The Wrestler somewhat thematically, with its focus on the anguish of an athlete under ten tons of pressure, but it’s a stylistic 180. Gone is the gritty, stripped-down aesthetic used to depict a sad-sack strongman. Like Dario Argento’s 1977 horror fantasy, the elegantly choreographed Black Swan is set in a hyper-constructed world, with stabbingly obvious color palettes (literally, white = good; black = evil) and dozens of mirrors emphasizing (over and over again) the film’s doppelgänger obsession.

Of course, none of this is out of line: the ballet at the center of Black Swan is, obviously, Swan Lake, in which a single dancer portrays both the White (good) and Black (evil) Swans. And in dance, mirrors are necessarily everywhere. Nina constantly stares at herself, and not just while practicing her steps. “I just want to be perfect,” she blurts out to Thomas, nervously lobbying for the Swan Queen role — made suddenly available due to the reluctant retirement of the company’s prima ballerina (Winona Ryder, feral and fierce in her few scenes).

See, Nina’s been with the company for four years, and though her talent is apparent, she’s made no waves (or friends, it would seem). All she cares about is dance, and she’s tunnel vision-enabled by her mother (a spooky Barbara Hershey), who babies Nina even as she blames her for monkeywrenching her own ballet career. Portman is 29 years old, and though she’s presumably playing younger here, Black Swan doesn’t pretend she’s a teenager. Thomas’ “visceral and real” (ahem) take on Swan Lake is Nina’s last chance to be a star before she’s too old to be in the running.

If you’ve seen Black Swan‘s poster or provocative trailer, you know that Nina gets the part — and it’s no spoiler to say that her already-fragile mental state gets just as much a workout as her muscles. Although: rarely has any film about ballet (an exquisite, graceful art form) so emphasized its day-to-day tortures, or exaggerated them, as Nina’s deterioration takes some unexpectedly gory detours.

Exacerbating Nina’s frustration is Lily (Mila Kunis), a brand-new addition to the company who resembles Nina in passing, but is otherwise everything the rigid, frigid Nina is not: a sexy, rebellious free spirit whose mere presence jams Nina’s brainwaves. (Not rocket science: Lily symbolizes the Black Swan; Nina, the White.) Naturally, they become frenemies. Lily is “imprecise and effortless,” according to Thomas; meanwhile, his loosen-up advice to the prim Nina is “go home and touch yourself.” The emphasis on masturbation is probably Black Swan‘s corniest conceit, though it does fold into the theme of Nina’s long-overdue awakening of her true self, sexual and otherwise.

As Nina, Portman gives her most dynamic performance to date. In addition to the thespian fireworks required while playing a goin’-batshit character, she also nails the role’s considerable athletic demands. (No need to play spot-the-dance-double, a game most thrillingly deployed during 1983’s Flashdance.) Portman’s intelligence and intense beauty can make it hard for her to seem like a real person onscreen, but as Black Swan‘s dread-filled bird, it all fits. It’s a career-elevating turn (and I suppose she’s finally off the hook for participating in those Star Wars prequels). Nina strives for perfection; Portman owns it.

BLACK SWAN opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

 

Cho tunes

Andrew Lam
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0
Cho tunes

superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO “You know me, I’m always doing something,” Margaret Cho practically purred over the phone en route to another smash show on the East Coast. Um, understatement of the year much? While the Cho-stess with the Mostest is lately giving off the chill vibes of an edgy comedian and right-on scenester in her prime (she’s not shy about being on the golden side of 40), she’s been more active than ever. “I totally have symbolic flames on the side of my tour bus,” she quipped. “It’s so retro ’90s.”

The San Francisco-born, Korean American, queer-lovin’ smart-mouth may have a fulltime TV job on Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva, but she’s also just released an actually damn good album of “comedy music,” Cho Dependent, with guest helpers like Tegan and Sara, Fiona Apple, Ben Lee, and Ani DiFranco. (Her DIY dancing turd outfit for the “Eat Shit and Die” video is pretty priceless.) Her current “Cho Dependent” tour, however, focuses less on the tunes and more on the stand-up topics she’s polished to raucous perfection. “I talk about immigration, my mother, maybe my new bellydance workout. Also gay rights — I hear they’re really in right now,” she deadpans. High on her agenda when she hits the city? Some more ink at Everlasting Tattoo on Divisadero, “the best tattoo shop in the world.”

“It’s just so awesome to be coming back to SF on this tour,” she continues. “It’s always like coming home to family. A family with a lot of little dogs.”

MARGARET CHO: CHO DEPENDENT Sat/4, 8 p.m., $29.50–$49.50. Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California, SF. www.livenation.com, www.margaretcho.com

 

PHONIC

Thursday night workout time. The weekly Phonic party at Endup is one of my favorite scene treats, and the lineup this time around is too SF techno-tasty to pass up. Dabecy of Electronic Music Bears joins Honey Soundsystem’s Jason Kendig and Pee Play for some distinguished beats in a deeper vein.

Thu/2, 10 p.m.–4 a.m., free before midnight, $10 after. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.theendup.com

 

BETTER

This party on Maiden Lane promises to be a fun crush of styles, with wide-ranging dancefloor selections from DJ Deevice (Pirate Cat Radio), Jason Kendig (again!), Sleazemore (Lights Down Low), and Solar (Sunset). “We’re really hoping to save downtown from douchebags and the women who love them,” Deevice told me. “The place is nice, but not chi-chi. I mean, it can’t obviously double as a strip joint like other downtown clubs. Just come and have some fun.”

Check out DJ Deevice’s absolutely lovely “Better” mix:

“Dec 2010 Mix” by DJ Deevice

 

Fri/3, 9:30 p.m.–3 a.m., $5 before 11 p.m./ $10 after. 45 Maiden Lane, SF

 

LAZER SWORD

Finally! Bay natives Lazer Sword, the fab duo who basically broke the future bass scene wide open, are releasing their debut album and it’ll be bonkers. Lazer’s Low Limit and Lando Kal beam in for brain melt, with support from spooktastic up-and-comer OoOoOO, OG atmospheric electro-hopper Machinedrum, and DJ Dials, who always has great hats. It’s all part of Hacksaw Entertainment’s second anniversary blowout.

Sat/4, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $14.50 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.hacksawent.com

 

SMALLTOWN DJS

One of the highlights of my recent trip up north — this rad-cute duo from Alberta, Canada, pops four turntables and manages to do in Girl Talk types when it comes to mixing electro banger flair with underground house beats, hip-hop and Bmore swagger, and sly pop winks. Somehow it doesn’t come off as Vegas-y mashup as one might supect — maybe it’s vinyl Canadian party magic.

Sat/4, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $5 before 11 p.m., $10 after. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

TIARA SENSATION PAGEANT

Get ready for glamour and outrage — of a fantastic, ethereal bent, of course. The kids from the Friday weekly Some Thing party blow up with this must-see drag runway fundraiser for the Off Center theater. Contestants: Alotta Boutte, Elijah Minelli, Honey Mahogany, Lil Miss Hot Mess, Mercedez Munro, Monistat, and Turleen. DJs: Stanley Frank and Hoku Mama Swamp. Plus: Juanita More and Miss Rahni. Names!

Sun/5, 8 p.m.–midnight, $35. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com 

 

Pica Pica Maize Kitchen

Andrew Lam
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0
Pica Pica Maize Kitchen

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE Corn is the theme at Pica Pica, a “maize kitchen,” to drive the point home. Corn is perhaps the greatest of the Americas’ food offerings to the rest of the world, with the potato, tomato, and cocoa bean not too far off the pace. And it’s full of ancient subtlety, a point too easily obscured by the mountainous heaps of American monoculture that helped make the movie King Corn so visually arresting. Corn is to the Americas’ more southerly peoples what wine grapes are to the French.

Pica Pica isn’t that grandiose, of course. It recently moved into a space at the corner of 15th and Valencia streets that, through years of restaurant iterations, reminded me of nothing so much as those sheds ice fishermen huddle in. It is narrow and it is modest. But the lighting has been freshened and clarified, the tabletops are made of a handsome composite, and the interior signage, which explains the menu’s various terms, is bright with primary colors.

That menu is basically Venezuelan, which makes Pica Pica a successor of sorts to Yunza, a lovely little place that had a too-short run over on Fillmore Street about five years ago. (And let’s not forget Mr. Pollo, on Mission, though the name makes me think of Mister Ed, TV’s talking horse.) One difference is that Yunza offered full table service, whereas at Pica Pica you order at the counter and post a number at your table so they can find you when the food is ready.

Another, more important but less obvious, difference is that Pica Pica’s cooking is (apologies in advance for this tiresome cliché) ingredient-driven, even beyond the dexterous use of maize. And I don’t mean “ingredient-driven” merely in the sense of going to the farmers market and fussing about seasonality but of using the wide panoply of possibilities available to kitchens from mighty to modest in this blessed part of the world, and of being aware not merely of flavor but of color and texture too.

A nice example of the kitchen’s attentiveness to the full spectrum of sensual appeal is the bululú salad ($3.99), a jumble of roasted corn kernels, julienne red bell peppers, chunks of jicama and pineapple, quinoa, and daikon sprouts, with a syrupy passion-fruit vinaigrette on the side. The vinaigrette was a bit sweet, but the salad as a whole, in addition to looking like a slightly loopy still-life painting with abstract tendencies, offered more snap, crackle, and pop than even the most antic breakfast cereal.

The chupe soup ($3.99/small) was no match for the visual splendor of the salad — it looked like many another chunky chicken soup — but the chunks, which included chicken shreds, a segment of corn cob, and white rice, were weighty enough to give the soup a low center of gravity.

At the heart of the menu are the corn flatbreads: arepas ($7.99, puffy, savory, made with white corn); cachapas ($8.99, flatter and more crepe-like, yellower, noticeably sweet); and the maize’wiches ($7.99), which combine elements of the first two. These breads can be fitted out as you please, from a broad range of fillings that range from meatless to meaty, with scrambled eggs in between.

Some random tasting notes: la vegetariana, a compendium of tofu slats, avocado slices, plantains, and black beans, was difficult to eat because of the toughness of the tofu. Catira, shreds of chicken sautéed in a sofrito then put to bed under a blanket of melted cheddar cheese, was tasty, but not tasty enough to overcome the sweet interference of encircling cachapa. (There is a reason high-fructose corn syrup comes from corn. You could make a nice crèpe suzette from a cachapa.) Pulled pork, on the other hand, or pernil, was about as good as it gets — and made that much better by the little tub of aioli served on the side. The spicy sauce served with la vegetariana (we guessed some version of chipotle or other hot-chile aioli) was better yet, and a pretty peach color on top of it all.

Like the three tenors, Pica Pica’s three corn flatbreads share obvious similarities and have distinctive virtues, but if I could only choose one, I would choose the arepa, which seemed to me the best balanced and most disciplined of the three: redolent of corn but not cloying, thick and firm enough to hold its contents without becoming competitive. None of the three, though, are finger or ballpark foods, suitable to eat by hand; they’re all too big and unwieldy, and you’ll need a knife and fork so as not to disgrace yourself. Don’t ask how I know.

PICA PICA MAIZE KITCHEN

Daily: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

401 Valencia, SF

(415) 400-5453

www.picapicakitchen.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Not too noisy

Wheelchair accessible

 

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